Hunting zombies

"You can choose one of the following abilities as an advancement reward:

Summon Skeletons

Bone Blade

Communication with the Dead

*Description*

Summon Skeletons: The user can summon skeletons from a sub-plane to fight alongside them at the cost of 20 mana points.

Bone Blade: The user can shape any bone into a sharp, powerful blade at a cost of 10 mana.

Communication with the Dead: The user can spiritually speak with the souls of the recently deceased, who have died within the last 2 minutes, at a cost of 100 points per minute.

(Note: The number of skeletons that can be summoned depends on the user's class level.)

*+5 free attribute points*

Ethan carefully read the description of each ability and the free attribute points, but didn't allocate those points yet.

'Bone Blade and Communication with the Dead would certainly be very useful, but they don't compare to being able to have two skeletons to help me in battles against zombies. It will be much better for leveling up,' Ethan thought to himself. After some reflection, he chose to learn the ability to summon skeletons.

*Congratulations, you have successfully learned the Summon Skeletons ability.*

0/2

No skeletons summoned yet.

Ethan smiled and immediately summoned his skeletons.

"Summon Skeletons," he extended his hand forward, and a ritualistic circle with various patterns appeared in front of him as two skeletons emerged as if rising from beneath the floor of his house.

*Skeletons Summoned*

Ethan looked at those skeletons, and it was a strange sight to see, something that only happened in RPGs was now right in front of him. Setting aside his thoughts, the statistics of the skeletons appeared before him.

Normal Skeleton:

HP: 50

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 4

Resistance: 4

Ability: Until the Bones Break: Your skeletons can rise again as long as their bones remain intact.

The information was the same for both skeletons, with no changes, and Ethan thought they had very good attributes for skeletons.

After examining them for a bit, Ethan decided that he should level up more, as with his skeletons, the battles would be much easier.

Ethan then walked to the door and looked through the peephole, realizing that there were no more zombies in front of his door.

"I guess I'll have to leave the house. I'll take a bag with me. Any supplies I find, I can bring back home. But first, I need to get rid of these bodies," Ethan thought, and he ordered his skeletons to collect the zombie corpses and place them outside.

The skeletons received the order and walked towards the corpses, picking them up with some difficulty but carrying them slowly outside to his yard.

Soon, there were six zombie bodies in his yard. Ethan felt a sense of accomplishment, but he quickly put that feeling aside and ordered the skeletons to clean up the blood that was everywhere in the room.

"These skeletons are really useful. I just need to tell them what to do, and they'll follow my orders to the letter," Ethan smiled as he watched them diligently clean up the stains.

...

After cleaning up his house, Ethan ventured outside in search of zombies to kill and level up, with his skeletons by his side, ready to react to any command their master gave.

The streets were all destroyed, with many broken cars and dead people everywhere. Ethan was walking cautiously.

At that moment, Ethan saw movement up ahead, a male zombie was walking near a destroyed house.

Ethan looked around and didn't see any other zombies. He ordered his skeletons to attack.

His skeletons advanced towards the zombie, who, upon noticing the movement, also advanced towards them.

The zombie was much slower than the skeletons, who quickly surrounded it and began to attack. Despite their blows, the most the skeletons could do was disorient the zombie, which was desperately trying to bite the skeletons' bones.

Watching this scene, Ethan understood that neither side would win in this way, as the zombies couldn't even damage the skeletons' bones, and the skeletons couldn't break the zombie's head as they were unarmed.

"Well, I can make them hold the zombies, and I can deliver the final blow. Maybe I should look for some weapons and give them to the skeletons to see if they can use them," Ethan ordered the skeletons to pin the zombie to the ground.

The skeletons quickly followed his orders, with one holding the zombie's legs and the other skeleton delivering a strong punch to the zombie's face, causing it to fall to the ground.

Ethan approached the zombie and struck its head with great force, crushing the zombie's skull.

"You killed a zombie +10."

Ethan smiled as he ordered his skeletons to release the zombie.

"Let's see how many more zombies I need to defeat to level up."

*20/70 to the next level*

"I need to kill five more zombies for the next level, which should be easy now," Ethan thought as he walked towards the next street.

But his heart quickly sank as he saw a large horde of zombies in that street, too many to count.

Ethan retreated quietly.

"That's why there was only one zombie in this street. They must all be concentrated in that direction, probably attracted by some loud noise. It would be suicidal to stay on this street," Ethan concluded.

He began walking to other streets in search of more zombies.

After walking for a few minutes, Ethan arrived in front of the supermarket in his neighborhood.

"I should search for supplies before others have the same idea," he thought.

He walked towards the supermarket, but just as he approached, he heard muffled screams and zombie growls.

Ethan hid behind the door and observed through the supermarket's glass window.

Five zombies were banging on a half-broken door at the end of the aisle, and it was evident that there were people inside the room.

"The more noise they make, the more zombies they'll attract. They don't seem to realize that," Ethan thought, hesitating about whether to help or not. But he quickly made up his mind.

"The more zombies I kill, the better. I also need to find out if the system has appeared for someone else, and there's not much risk with my skeletons," Ethan said to himself.

Ethan opened the door, and the sound of it echoed through the supermarket, drawing the zombies' attention to the door. They stopped attacking the door and ran toward the skeletons that had entered.

The skeletons advanced toward the zombies and tried to hold them off, but there were too many zombies. The skeletons fell to the ground, but this was enough to draw the attention of all the zombies, who were desperately trying to bite the skeletons' bones.

Ethan took advantage of the opportunity and opened his interface.

Name: Ethan

Age: 20

Race: Human

Class: Necromancer

HP: 100

Mana: 200

Strength: 6

Agility: 7

Resistance: 5

Vitality: 5

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Luck: 6

Free Attribute Points: 5

Ethan decided to allocate all his free attribute points to strength, increasing his strength to 11.

After allocating his points to strength, his muscles bulged with strength. He felt as if his muscles were about to tear, but he could sense great power in his muscles.

Taking advantage of this newfound strength, Ethan attacked the zombie with all his might, causing the zombie's head to explode. He continued to strike a few more times before the other zombies had a chance to react.

Three zombies died in an instant, and the other zombies tried to attack Ethan, but the skeletons hugged the zombies, blocking their arms, making it impossible for them to move, leaving them exposed to Ethan's attacks.

The zombies' heads were crushed with more quick strikes.

"You killed 6 zombies +60 exp."

"Congratulations, you've leveled up."

"Choose your reward for leveling up:

Abilities:

Larvae infestation

A terrifying gaze

Bone Strengthening

+5 free attribute points

+1 skill point"

Ethan briefly glanced at his rewards but decided to choose carefully later.

At that moment, his skeletons were still lying under a pile of zombies. Ethan began to pull some bodies off, creating enough space for his skeletons to get out.

After resolving that, Ethan walked toward the door where the zombies had gathered before.

At that very moment, a head emerged from the door—it was the face of a woman.

Clearly, you could see an expression of astonishment and surprise on her face, but when she looked at the skeletons walking, a touch of fear also appeared on her face.

"Hello, are you okay? I won't harm you, but you can come out now—all the zombies have been killed," Ethan spoke as he approached slowly.

After Ethan said this, another face appeared in the door's opening, this time it was a boy's face.

Ethan could hear the boy speaking softly from inside the room.

"Sister, sister, are they gone? I was so scared, I couldn't stop crying," his voice was still muffled and sobbing.

"Yes, they're all gone. You don't need to cry anymore," his sister comforted him.

After consoling her brother, the woman turned to Ethan.

"Please, we need help. We're trapped in this room, but thanks to that, those monsters couldn't get in."

"Alright, I'll help you, but you need to stay calm and as quiet as possible. Noise can attract more of those zombies. By the way, my name is Ethan," Ethan spoke to the woman.

"My name is Evelyn. I'm here with my brother and my father, but my father has been unconscious since the earthquakes happened," the woman briefly explained the situation.

Ethan looked at the door and saw some debris in front of it, preventing it from being opened. He then ordered his skeletons to clear the door.

The woman was a bit scared as she watched the skeletons removing the debris.

After a few minutes, all the debris was cleared, and the door was opened. In the room, there were indeed the woman, her brother, and the unconscious man.

"Thank you for helping us, really, thank you," the woman seemed like she wanted to kneel down while expressing her gratitude, but her brother was calm, looking at the skeletons.

"Uncle, your skeletons look like the ones I played with in a game yesterday. How cool! Can I touch them?"

Ethan was surprised; the boy had been crying before, and now he was so excited to see the skeletons.

"Yes, you can. They really do look like they came from a game, don't they?"

"Yes!" the boy's eyes lit up.

His sister was a bit surprised to see how her brother's mood had changed but was glad that he wasn't crying anymore.

While the boy was touching the skeleton bones, Ethan was looking at the unconscious man. The man's head seemed to be quite injured, but now it was bandaged and free of blood, probably cleaned up by his daughter.

"I think he'll wake up soon; he must still be unconscious due to blood loss," Ethan said after observing, though he had no medical knowledge, just his own experience waking up faster after a similar situation.

"Yeah, I hope so. Everything's a mess, and I'm scared," the woman spoke, trembling.

"It will be okay," Ethan tried to comfort the woman, who noticed his attempt and smiled while holding back tears.

The two fell silent as they watched the boy still having fun with the skeletons.

"Do you remember if anything strange happened after the flash and earthquakes? Besides these zombies, of course," Ethan broke the silence and asked the question that had been bothering him for a while.

The woman thought for a moment, put her hand on her chin, and tried to recall the events that had occurred. After thinking, she began to explain, and she got to the point Ethan was waiting for.

"After the flash and the earthquakes, an interface appeared in front of me. It looked a lot like a game panel, and you, how are you controlling all those bones out there?"

"Well, at least I know everyone must have some kind of system," Ethan sighed.

Ethan explained to her how he could control and told her that by killing zombies, they could get stronger, describing how everything felt like a game now.

At that moment, the man woke up, and the woman rushed to hug him.

"Dad, I'm so glad you woke up. I didn't know what to do."

"Easy, what's going on?" The man asked, struggling to get up.

The woman detailed everything to her father, including how Ethan had defeated all the zombies earlier and how he controlled his skeletons.

The man sighed deeply.

"Thank you for helping us in this difficult time, young man. My name is Joseph," he thanked Ethan.

"My name is Ethan, and it was nothing. You were in danger, and it wasn't too risky. But sorry to ask, did anything strange happen to you when you woke up?"

After Ethan asked that, the man quickly explained how a screen with physical information appeared as soon as he opened his eyes. He thought it was some kind of hallucination, but his daughter's explanation made him understand a bit, even though he still found it hard to believe.

"Alright, you should be careful now and make as little noise as possible. If you can, gather as many supplies as you can and find a safe place to stay until you're fully recovered," Ethan explained how things worked now. The man thanked Ethan again.

"Now, I'll get some supplies and leave. I need to kill more of those monsters. You should gather supplies and find a safe place for yourselves until you're fully recovered."

"We'll do this. Thank you for everything," the man thanked one last time as he struggled to get up and searched for provisions with his daughter. Meanwhile, Ethan walked toward some shelves to grab some supplies, with his two skeletons following him. The boy felt sad about the departure of the skeletons but quickly ran to hug his father.