Chapter 27

Realizing that he hadn’t checked his stats for a while, Eli pulled them up.

Name

Elias Mathews

Health

142/142

Age

15

Mana

152/152

Species

Human

Stamina

136/136

Class

Scholar

Strength

12

Level

8

Dexterity

13

Titles

Runekeeper

Agility

12

Party

Unnamed Party (Leader)

Endurance

14

Guild

None

Constitution

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14

Allegiance

None

Magic Power

16

He’d reached level eight, which he thought was rather decent considering that the party hadn’t been actively killing foes. Most of his experience, meaning virtually all of it, had come from the bonus of clearing the floors. Gabri had said that was normal, and he was still trusting that the little faerie had the party’s best interest at heart.

His maximum mana was increasing further, and he felt more confident about keeping some of his unique enchantments active on himself, his mother, and the other person in the car with them, Erik Estabon, Eli’s science teacher.

The synergy between the enchantments on his leather jacket and his machete and the clothes of his companions and their own weapons was pretty high, and it was relatively easy to maintain the effects across all three of them.

He mentioned to them that their weapons were magically enhanced and to be careful of the blade, of course. They had tested it out before getting in the car and found that the magically enhanced blades could cut through wood like hot butter and saw through metal like it was wood.

After a bit of consideration, they had decided to carry his baseball bat with them as well. The others weren’t carrying blunt weapons, but he was confident that if they were disarmed and found improvisational weapons like rebar or two-by-fours he’d be able to enchant those weapons for them using the one on his bat.

Regardless, he was pleased with the increase to his stats, although he didn’t really feel any stronger than he had on the surface. He needed time to sit down and study, he thought, and he wasn’t certain when he’d be able to get it. His class was literally called ‘Scholar,’ so he was fairly certain that he needed to learn in order to grow stronger and not simply kill a thousand zombies or so.

During the discussion on how to proceed, the decision had been made to go to the radio’s broadcast station. The reporter’s voice was the first human voice they’d heard since entering the dungeon, so they were hopeful to find others. Whether those others were more challengers to the dungeon like themselves or … survivors? It didn’t matter.

They were able to listen to the reporter’s ongoing traffic report en route, but they still came across a group of zombies. Fortunately it was a small group of less than fifty. As planned, the maintenance vehicle charged straight through them, literally plowing the group apart while the rest of the party stopped and got out.

Luke followed up on the initial charge attack with a fireball, the same spell which had injured Maia. It landed in the center of the zombie pile and exploded, taking out half of the group. The heat from the spell was intense, but aside from the zombies in the center of the blast the rest were minimally affected.

But the ones that were in the middle were literally blown apart.

There were sixteen zombies that staggered to their feet after the spell and the truck had done their damage, and two more that didn’t crawl to their feet because they didn’t have feet, but did crawl towards the oncoming party.

The fighting was over swiftly, with the warriors of the party, the knight, and the trickster moving through the surviving zombies like a scythe through wheat. It wasn’t that the zombies were weak or slow, Eli realized even as he pushed himself to enchant Maia and Peter’s swords, causing him to briefly dip down to ninety maximum mana.

Rather, the zombies were just as strong and fast as a normal person might be. Before the system arrived, at least. In comparison, however, the party members were moving at speeds and coordination which made them look like they were engaging in a Hollywood choreographed film scene. All while the combat was punctuated with a steady Bang! Bang! Bang! Elaine’s service pistol continued to server her well, and each bullet resulted in the exploded head of one of the zombies.

The crossbows also continued to fire from the Campos family, which had pulled the maintenance vehicle along broadside to the melee. Susan was proving to be just as skilled with a crossbow as her Tinkerer husband and son.

Luke was having the worst time of the combat, as he kept beginning to chant a spell, only to stop as someone got in range of it. Or he thought they did. He hadn’t practiced all of his spells yet and wasn’t certain how large the area effect some of them had. He knew that he could control that to some degree, but aside from pumping so much mana into the fireball that he’d cast off the bat that the spell had almost destabilized on him, he didn’t know how to take advantage of it.

So he too continued to snipe from a distance using a simple Fire Dart spell.

After some consideration, Eli stepped into the melee as well, trusting his enchanted jacket to keep him safe and his enchanted weapon to make him dangerous. He was right on the second account, as he found that the machete could easily cut through the necks of the foes he was facing.

He only had a chance to slay one before his mother was beside him, however, and she ruthlessly kill-stole everything that came near them after that.

When the fighting was over, they were surrounded with gore. They quickly cleaned their weapons and returned to their vehicles.

“A group of survivors have just taken down the group of zombies that was plaguing 42nd and Dakota. Unfortunately it seems that the noise of their battle has upset the nearby groups. From Washington street in the west, a group of ninety zombies is charging in their direction. From the north, one hundred twenty streets are coming from thirty second street. I hope that these brave souls can hear this,” the radio was saying. “To everyone else, if you’re in the path of the oncoming zombies, get out! Either flee or seek shelter, because you don’t stand a chance against groups this large!”

“What do you think?” John Sr. asked Eli.

Eli considered for a moment. “We keep going to the radio tower,” he decided.

“That path takes us north,” John pointed out.

“We’ve just proven we can handle these zombies,” Eli said. “If it comes to another fight, then we fight. It might be easier to clear this floor by killing zombies than solving the puzzle this time.”

“Right,” the Tinkerer agreed, and none of the other party members had anything to say. They just got in their cars and followed the maintenance truck as it drove north.

They managed to bypass the enemies coming from the north, more or less. The maintenance truck ran straight over a small group of six zombies and Luke finished off the surviving two with his magic before the convoy had even stopped.

Aside from the zombies and the occasional misplaced car, the streets were empty. No sign at all of survivors. They continued their journey until they came to the broadcast station, then parked and got out.

“The group of survivors I mentioned earlier have apparently decided to clear the zombies out of the radio station,” the reporter said. “Or at least that’s what I’m choosing to hope. To the heroes who are fighting back, if you can clear the refueling station on the roof, then I’ll be able to extend my coverage by refueling my helicopter. I only have about two hours of fuel left. I’ll land before bingo. Until then, I’m going to keep on reporting the traffic.”

They turned their vehicles off and gathered outside the entrance.

“So, a dungeon inside a dungeon?” Luke asked.

“Sounds like it,” Eli said, patting his machete. “And we have a time limit.”