Level 2! That was a message I had dearly wished to see. If I was going to survive this crisis, I would have to level up fast. Unfortunately though, the goblin didn’t drop any loot this time. Excitement rushed over me as I realized just how powerful my skeleton warriors were. As long as I didn’t try to tackle anything too dangerous, my summoned fighters could dispatch foes for me while I kept a safe distance.

Another cackling sound came from a different direction, and then another. Before I could respond to what was happening, there were at least twenty or thirty different enemies coming towards me. They weren’t just goblins either.

I saw what looked like zombies and undead, more goblins, and even just regular but dangerous animals of the kind you could have found before this happened. Particularly scary though, were alien creatures I’d never seen before, something like giant lobsters, but thinner and faster moving. My instincts told me these antennae-waving creatures were really bad news. I had to run.

My feet were taking me away before my brain could even give the command. I started to sprint towards my truck, the two summoned warriors following behind me as quickly as they could with their missing bones. These numerous enemies wanted blood, and they chased me with madness.

The army of monsters quickly caught my summoned skeletonsand piled into them. A barrage of blows and bites smashed the skeletons to bits and shattered their bones. A connection I hadn’t previously realized had been there broke, and I felt a sudden emptiness. Fortunately, this feeling was no more harmful than a loss of the connection. I took no damage when they died.

My left hand holding my spear, my right fumbled for my car keys. Running faster than I had ever managed before, it became clear that my increased STR had probably affected my endurance and speed: both from the pace of my sprint and how long I could keep it up.

A spear flew directly over my shoulder and smashed into the side of my vehicle, leaving a massive dent. My heart was in my throat: a few inches lower and the spear would have pierced through my shoulder and brought me down.

I reached for the car door handle and jerked it open, then leapt inside. For a moment I was looking directly at that charging body of enemies. There wasn’t even time to close the door as I started the engine and reversed at speed. Miraculously I managed to avoid crashing into anything and went backwards fast enough to make some distance from the monsters. Only then did I dare to turn the vehicle around, my momentum bringing the door slamming shut.

My thumping heartbeat was all I could hear on the drive back to home base. My heart was beating out of my chest, not with fear, but with excitement. I hadn’t felt so alive in… forever. That chase had been the most intense experience of my entire life.

This feeling was scary. It was an adrenaline rush that was absolutely addictive. This must be what daredevils felt, or crazy thrill seekers. My eyes continuously scanned the rear-view mirror for signs that any of the monsters were chasing me. There was nothing. I was long gone.

I’d never have thought that the gas station would be such a welcoming sight. What wasn’t welcoming was the person smashing a rock against the metal grating inside the glass doorway. From the back it was hard to say, but their long hair made me think it was a woman.

The sound of my car pulling up spooked her and she immediately ran around the side of the building and out of sight. I parked, then walked over, spear in hand, to take a better look. Sure enough, the front door glass had been smashed by a relatively large rock.

There were marks on the metal gate that suggested she had been slamming into it for a good while. “Come out!” I yelled. “I won’t hurt you! I can unlock the front door.” There was no response.

I pulled out my keys and unlocked the now broken glass door, and then fiddled with the metal grate. The sliding of metal was a loud screech: surely she heard it? My feet crushed the glass below as I stepped inside.

I grasped the metal gate and began to slide it closed, “Wait! Wait please, let me in!” A woman’s voice came from outside as I heard her scurrying towards me.

A moment later I saw her standing in the doorway. She was average height with shoulder-length brunette hair. Attractive too, to say the least. Judging by her youthful appearance, she must have been around my age or slightly younger: in her early-to-mid-twenties.

She paused for a moment.

“Come on. It’s dangerous to be outside,” I said and made to close the fence again. The hesitation on her face disappeared and she rushed past me and into the shop. I closed the fence and then locked it.

Before I could even finish securing the door I heard a gasp behind me, “Stay back!” she suddenly said. I turned in curiosity then glanced from her to the two corpses on the floor.

“That wasn’t me. It was one of those small monsters. I managed to kill it and now I have the spear to protect myself.” My words eased some of her suspicion, but not all of it. I took a step forward and she jerked in fright. “Here, look,” I said.

It wasn’t a smart use of MP, but I didn’t plan to leave the station again today. I cast Summon Skeletons and the corpse of Rick and then the man despawned. My two,armed skeletons took their place.

For a split second I realized I had made a grave mistake, as I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t just blindly attack her. Fortunately, they did not. It was probable that I needed to concentrate on a command to attack or perhaps my considering her an enemy would be enough.

“What in the world are those? What did you just do?” The young woman seemed even more shocked at seeing the two skeleton figures appear in front of her than when she had seen the bodies.

“They are my summonings—like in video games. It’s now possible to obtain skills and level up… by killing monsters. You must have seen the monsters? Our planet has completely changed and we need to learn the system that has appeared here and get on top of it.”

The woman looked as if she wanted to scoff at my statement, but the animated skeletons in front of her were proof of my words.“Can’t we just hide and try to survive? There must be others. We should try to find them and stay away from the monsters.”

“First, why don’t we at least introduce ourselves,” I said. “I’m Michael, you can call me Mike though.”

“Jessica,” she responded.

“Hi Jessica. Good to meet you. I intend to use this gas station as my base as long as I’m able, and you’re welcome to join me,” I said. I couldn’t exactly force her to leave, not peacefully at least. Also, I’d never let someone go out there and into danger. Furthermore, I was glad of the company of another person; she could potentially be a strong ally and even just having someone to talk to was a big improvement compared to figuring this all out on my own. “I don’t think running will save us. We should work together to survive, level up, and grow more powerful.”

Her expression showed unease at the idea. “So, you’re saying you level up from killing those things? And that’s how you got control of those skeletons?”

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“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I’m not exactly keen on the idea of fighting monsters…” she confessed.

“Eventually we’ll run out of food and water, and then we’ll be forced to leave. If we aren’t strong enough when that time comes then we will die. We have no idea how the world will evolve and change over time. We need to take advantage of the relatively low-level monsters around us and become stronger, now. Think about it.”

“I can’t think about anything but food right now.” Her stomach grumbled, “I’m starving.” Jessica went down the aisle grabbing whatever snacks caught her fancy before plopping down on the floor and violently tearing open packets. What I saw was anything but lady-like. A burp topped off the entire scene, “What? I was hungry. Sue me.” She must have seen something in my expression.

The day was still young, and I could still use Summon Skeleton one more time if need be. I wanted to go out and hunt monsters, but it was best to minimize the risks I faced until I had a better understanding of what was happening. There was also the issue of my stats, too.

I had gained another level and had three points to allocate. My priorities had changed though, as I was now able to summon minions to fight for me. STR and AGI were still useful, but no longer were my first preference.

I pulled up my stat page and noted that my HP had a potential maximum now of 70 and my MP of 20. From the looks of it, leveling up had granted me 15 HP and 5 MP. I could cast Summon Skeleton twice more today instead of just once, a happy surprise. My best bet now was to focus on surviving while they did the fighting, which meant VIT was a good choice for my new attribute allocation. WIS also looked enticing as well, to boost my MP and allow for my skill to be used more often.

What I had also take into consideration, though, was how long I would be depending on summoning skeletons to survive. Level Ten seemed quite a ways away, but if I started efficiently killing monsters, perhaps it would turn out to be fairly easy to get to. Especially with how many enemies were now available to fight in the city. And a new skill might open up new possibilities that needed high attributes in scores I’d neglected. I just didn’t have enough information for a min-max strategy: to go all in on any particular stat.

In the end, I deemed VIT the most useful stat in my current circumstances. I started off by putting one point in to see how it faired. One point in VIT gave me the same HP increase as my recent level up, which was better than I had hoped for. After that encouraging result, I decided to put all three new points in VIT.

I had a long look at my character sheet:

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: None Level: 2 EXP: 5%

HP: 115/115 MP: 10/20

STR: 3

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 4

WIS: 1

Available: 0

Skills: [A] Summon Skeleton LV. 2

My HP maximum was now double what it had been at Level 1. As long as I didn’t take some kind of critical hit then I should be able to recover from injury… I hoped. There was no way to know exactly how rare an item like Bandage was.

I got myself an early dinner from the fruit and other perishable foods and looked to Jessica, “Tomorrow I’ll be heading out to practice my skills and to try to level up, you should come with me and we can progress together.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. Besides that, she didn’t really have much else to say. It seemed neither of us wanted to talk about our family, or our lives. We sat there mostly in the silence of our own thoughts till the night came. I sorted out some jackets and car mats for us to lie on and sleep took us.

The following morning, I woke with a sticky sweat lining every crevice of my body. There was no power, and with that no air conditioning. It was hot, and worse, humid. Every bit of clothing stuck to me as if glued on.

“We should eat the perishable foods now, and drink the drinks that will go bad.” Breakfast ended up being milk and two sandwiches. Fortunately, they hadn’t gone bad yet as the coolers were still maintaining a bit of chill. Today was definitely the last day there would be any refrigeration.

“I’m heading back to the city and I’d like you to come with me. I have an idea that can possibly make leveling easier for you.”

Jessica stared at me in silence for a few moments, “I’ll come with you, but there’s no promise I leave the car…” I appreciated her honesty, and the fact that she would come at all was promising.

“Fair enough. You can see how you feel about fighting monsters when we get there.” Once again I brought a bag with water and food: depending on how well things went we could be there for many hours.

Jessica sat in the passenger side so I ended up placing the spear and bag in the backseat. The blood on it was now fully dried and the weapon wouldn’t stain the truck’s interior, not that it mattered. “I’m gonna lock up, if you need anything say so now.” Pulling the gate open and closed and padlocking it was not light work.

“I’m good,” she said while getting in the passenger seat and looking at me impatiently. Well, at least the hesitation from last night seemed to be gone. That alone was good progress. We took off towards the city after I finished locking up.

The smoke from smoldering buildings had completely disappeared, but a new stench had taken its place completely. A smell of death and decay wafted over the entire city. I would have rolled up my window, but I knew that in a few moments I would be outside with the stench anyway.

I parked a ways out this time, just in case the noise of the truck would attract attention. “We go on foot from here. Will you be joining me?” I asked.

Jessica thought on this question for a moment, “I doubt I’d be much safer in the car if something came around.” She wasn’t wrong. At least I had the spear and my skeleton warriors to fight for us. Although I was going looking for battle, she probably would be safer with me.

I felt melancholy looking at the city and wondering how my family was doing. They didn’t live here, but I doubted that any other town nearby had fared much better than this. The possibility my family had died where they lived was very real. I put one foot in front of the other and tried to get rid of that thought.

We surveyed the city entrance for several minutes and saw nothing, not a single enemy to fight. This was our cue to move in and start making progress. This was a chance to gain EXP and also potentially find more allies. I refused to believe the entire city had been wiped out. Other humans must have adapted and be leveling up.

We moved steadily but cautiously, carefully clearing every corner and alley we passed. Stores that were unlocked were worth checking for goods and in case there were any survivors. Eventually, we came across our first enemy.

Half way down the road was a monster that was clearly a zombie by the looks of it. Presumably, it was slow, but it had powerful muscles that had caused its clothing to rip. “Would you like to give it a shot? I asked, “Try to kill that zombie and get your first level.” Up until now I hadn’t tried to form a party with her: I had no intention of carrying someone if they were going to be dead weight.

If she showed initiative, she deserved a fair share of experience and loot but otherwise I would help her survive as much as I could, while focusing on my own progress.

“I just have to stab that thing, right?” she asked with an expression of determination. I nodded and passed her the bloodied spear.

She took the weapon in both her hands and then stabbed the air a few times, then looked at me for approval, as if asking ‘like this?’ I silently nodded and we moved forward. The zombie noticed us when we were about ten feet away. Possibly by hearing us but since we had been pretty quiet, more likely by our scent.

The entire bottom jaw of the zombie was missing and splotches of hanging dead skin covered the decaying body. A hoarse gurgling sound escaped its throat as it moved at us. I was expecting something slow moving, but instead it was quite quick.

Although not as fast as a living person, the zombie had some speed in those dead legs, and after just a second it was already close enough for Jessica to stab. “Mike… Mike, Mike, Mike!” Jessica said frantically as it closed.

“It’s okay, just stab at its face,” I said from beside her. I wanted to stay out of the battle so she got the experience. This was probably one of the safest foes to fight solo. It had no ranged abilities, could be outrun on foot, and probably could be knocked over with any object quite easily.

Jessica steadied herself and to my surprise stopped backing away. She turned her body sideways slightly and then stabbed out with all the strength she could muster. I was pleasantly surprised when the spear tip went through the lower jaw and up into the head of the zombie. It fell to the ground and nearly dragged the spear tip with it. The monster collapsed, quite dead.

“Did you level up?” I asked.

“Yes!” She said while exhaling, it seemed her heart was beating quite fast despite the calmer appearance she was maintaining. “I reached level One!” she said proudly.

“How did the spear feel?” I asked.

“I don’t like it. When I stabbed that zombie, I could feel the impact of my actions clearly. I don’t like it at all.” There was some truth to what she said. It was much easier to hit a button and watch something die than use the tool yourself to kill it.

“We don’t have any other weapons at the moment, and you don’t have a skill. The spear will have to do for now. Should we continue or do you want to head back to the truck?” I wouldn’t try and stop her if she decided to go to the truck. Forcing her against her will was not an option, but I definitely would continue to hunt for experience gain and drops.

“I’ll continue,” Jessica said with firm determination.