Lilith Fairchild

Age: 16

Species: Human

Str: 8 | Con:9

Agi: 11 | Dex: 10

End: 6 | Mag: 7

Int: 10

Lily rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating, but low and behold the floating words were still there! Some kids on the other side of the court had discovered the so-called Status Screen. At first, people thought the dude was crazy, shouting like a mad man random words and phrases, doing weird gestures and motions. They quickly changed their tunes when some of the weird random action proved effective.

It was he who discovered how to view our stats, and it was also him who convinced the others to share them so that we could figure out what they meant relative to what we understood, rather than some arbitrary numbers.

It seems that 10 was the average of humans, and each stat was pretty self-explanatory except for magic and intelligence. The popular theory so far was that the Magic stat represented our "mana pool" or something and intelligence wasn't actually how "smart" we were, but how well we remembered stuff and how fast our calculation speed. Constitution was related to Hp and defense and Endurance our stamina.

Really, there was no better way for the sadistic assholes running this dig to tell us that our lives were literally a game to them than this.

However, it seemed that they might actually stand a good chance at surviving this trial. She had lucked out it seem as there was very few people panicking after the initial outbursts, and a lot of young people and former veterans within the crowd stood stepped up to the task. Already former Drill Sergeant Anderson had quickly gotten the men into file and rank, everyone carefully choosing their weapons and being allocated to the proper place. On the other end of the spacious courtyard where the large gate was located, a spinning circle full of glowing symbols was spinning silently. The timer above it slowly counted down as everybody prepared themselves for the incoming zombies.

A neat row of men with short swords and shield stood in a line, spearmen stood behind them to offer support and make the first contact with their superior reach. We even had a few archers! Granted, four were amateurs who only did it as a hobby, three whose experience with it could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare, and two who were in an archery club, but still having fire support was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

A lot of the younger kids or women were tasked with defending the archers. Surprisingly chivalry wasn't entirely dead. Who would've thought?

She didn't accept of course. She spent her entire life dealing with people telling her what to do, and she had no intention to let anyone else do so now that she had somehow broken free. Time to kick ass and bash some skulls in.

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They were naive. It had seemed simple enough, they were given weapons and told to fight zombies which would spawn at a designated location. Sure, there were only around 100 of them, but they only needed to kill 300. 3 each didn't sound too difficult. Heck, some of them might be able to even kill more than their share to make up the slack if they had too.

And at first, everything went well, actually, they were doing downright amazing. The few minutes everyone had getting used to their weapon was enough. The zombies were so weak that even a child could probably handle one if they kept their calm. It was annoyingly difficult to actually kill one, but they weren't a threat if they took their time.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Which was exactly what they did. The first of many fatal mistakes.

After ten minutes they had barely managed to kill a dozen of the thing, their undead physiology proved troublesomely resistant to anything besides critical damage to their head. Rather than swords, shields, or arrows, blunt force weapons such as maces and clubs like Lily's proved far more effective. It wasn't Hollywood afterall, severing a human neck was a very difficult and tiring task. 

Don't even mention shooting an arrow into people's eyes. Spear wielders faced a different set of problems in which it was psychologically difficult to not only face an undead but to aim and stab them in their eye socket, so they mostly just used their weapons to physically hold back the undead forces.

These people weren't battle-hardened warriors, the mere fact that they didn't run away screaming at the sight of the walking dead was already commendable, but it simply wasn't enough.

From the circle pour more and more undead, and within the limited space of the courtyard they were slowly but surely pushed back. 

Lily was one of those who were tasked with helping the flank. She had a lot more mobility considering she didn't need to worry about being part of the formation, but that just meant her risk of being isolated was all the higher. She kept an eye on her surroundings as she ran towards one of the nearby walking dead, adding her running momentum to her swing as she firmly slammed her metal club onto the side of the creature's head. She didn't check to see if it was dead or not before going for her next target. She had to keep moving and making sure to stick next to the others or else she would get trap behind enemy lines.

Her arms burned and legs were sore, but she never slowed down. In fact, her eyes were wide and alive. Forward swings were a lot easier for cracking skulls she had learned, but they also made her slower. A lesson she paid for by the gash on her side. The things not only bite but also had some pretty wicked claws.

There was just something incredibly cathartic about releasing your pent up rage and anger issues on someone, and she had years of stress or unwind.

As she turned to head to the right, a sudden grip on her ankle made her trip. She scraped her knees on the fall, but that was the least of her concern as she watched the corpse she had thought she had killed open its mouth impossibly wide next to her calf. Its cheeks tore itself apart as the thing tried to unhinge its jaw as far as it could. She desperately kicked at its face while trying to crawl away, eyes staring at her cluster of comrades slowly getting farther away with every second.

Blue eyes glassed over as she looked at her last hope disappearing. How pathetic, she had finally managed to get away from the Fairchild family, only to end up dying without being able to do anything. She had promised herself not to cry a long time ago, and she wouldn't start now.

Perhaps she would have better luck next time?

She wasn't a coward, so she would make sure to keep her eye open the entire time, even as the beast's fanged maw closed in on her. However, it never reached. A dull gray spear imbedded itself into the creature's spine before it had the chance to have a taste of the young heiress. She blinked in complete incomprehension as to what had just occurred.

"What the fuck are you dazing around for, get the hell out of here!"

A young boy with short brown hair shouted at her as he all but yanked her off her feet, his own stomping on the zombie's neck so hard that she could hear its neck snap even in the loud chaos of the battlefield. She quickly snapped out of it and tightened her grip on the club. The boy had a large gash on his brow, blood dripped down the right side of his face and his breathing was ragged.

They needed to get out of here quick and regroup.

"Thank you, my name is-"

He cut her off with a pointed look before violently ripping his spear out of the corpse, uncaring of the blood that splattered onto himself before he jabbed it towards another zombie's knee. He didn't bother to finish it off.

"Tell me after, if we survive this!"

Lily understood and quickly followed by his side as they attempted to get back with the others. They stopped bothering trying to kill the zombies and focused on saving their strength, weaving through the creatures, and only pushing them away or knocking them down.

They didn't know that soon, the main group wouldn't be any better off than them.