8 Distinction

Michael started to notice the transport pipes full of the green liquid on the ground as he got closer to his destination. The zombies that were on his way were getting stronger and stronger, but none of them were truly dangerous to Michael.

What was dangerous to him however was the fact that he had no idea how to successfully swing his weapon. He first realized this when he tried to cut a zombie in half, only to underestimate the length of his weapon, which was bigger than himself, and therefore lack the necessary power to go through the relatively squishy body of the monster in front of him.

While the katana was sharp enough, it didn't matter since Michael couldn't use it. It nearly cost him his arm the first time he used it. The zombies were better opponents than what he used to fight and he didn't manage to take it out with his first strike. Resulting in the katana being stuck in the flesh of the zombie.

Naively, he tried to unlock the sword that he paid a fortune for but was grabbed before he could do so. Now, the only result of his failure was the flesh wound his left arm sported. It was the sign that he had been bitten and he had to use part of the small clothing he had around his waist to stop it from bleeding out too much.

His system helped him heal the wound as he was nowhere near dying from it. Still, he was thankful there wasn't some sort of infection due to the zombie's bite, as it seemed that the kind of zombie he was fighting didn't increase their numbers with the help of a single scratch.

Still, it was the harshest pain he had felt ever since he arrived at this world. The toxic air of Trash Valley that made him nearly vomit blood was not as painful as a part of his arm being bitten off.

Nonetheless, Michael marched forwards. The pipes on the ground were going towards the same place circularly so he deduced that there was a center to the dungeon he was in. He didn't know if the dungeon had multiple floors or not, he just hoped that when he left it, the cold night would be over on the other side.

Suddenly, Michael heard a projectile coming straight towards him. While his hearing managed to pick it up, his body wasn't fast enough to dodge. He still managed to not take a lethal wound as the arrow was stuck in his shoulder.

Crying in pain, Michael moved away from the open area he was in and hid behind a house. Considering from which direction the arrow came, the house was supposed to protect him from the archer that just tried to kill him.

The problem was that even with him concentrating his hearing to the full capacity, he was unable to hear any sound other than the eerie whisper of the wind going through the streets of the abandoned city.

Also, the closer he got to the center, the rougher and more dangerous the surface of the ground became. It was as if the construction work of this city started from the outer area and gradually went towards the middle. Unfortunately for Michael, as the building project was not done in this dungeon, the terrain was now hazardous for him, both puddles of corrosive green liquid and spikes of metal appearing from time to time. Otherwise, it was just an uneven and uncomfortable surface that welcomed Michael's feet.

Plucking out with great difficulty the arrow in his shoulder, Michael realized that it was a mistake as blood started to seep through his wound fairly easily. He decided to take yet another part of his ruined rag around his waist and bandage it, shortening once again his only clothing.

Breathing heavily, Michael this time was alert when another arrow flew through the air for his head. He ducked quickly and ran away from his position when he understood that the archer had moved in front of him during the time he was hiding.

Closing his eyes as he was much more confident in his hearing, Micheal quickly made a 3d map of his surroundings in his head. Turning right once he was blocked by a metal wall, he sprinted towards an armored zombie that was waiting for him.

Michael wondered if the archer trying to kill him and this new leather armored zombie worked together and were trying to corner him. Still, decently handled, his big katana cut through the leather padding of the zombie in front of him easily. Happy by the performance of his sword, Michael didn't have time to stop and rejoice as another arrow came to him.

He tried to parry the arrow with his sword like he was told anime characters easily did, but that was a mistake. He didn't completely miss the arrow but it was slightly deflected towards his tight instead of his heart.

Biting his lower lips in an attempt to not scream due to the hot pain that now coursed his body, Michael tried to localize the archer as running now was becoming painful to him. The injured leg rebelled each time he stepped with it to advance.

As it goes, the archer had to be exposed to shoot that last shot. The street was covered from the top, therefore the now revealed zombie archer had to put himself on the roof of the nearest building to properly aim.

Michael knew that this archer had to be incredibly fast and silent to go in and out of his hearing range so easily and with so little time. He tried to break into one of the buildings making up for the walls of the narrow street and was surprised when he successfully entered the house. Covered from the archer that he had no way of taking out considering he took the close-range class, he breathed out in pain once he stepped into the building.

As he looked around, he only saw a relatively normal house. The interior was colored a dark red due to the light inside not functioning correctly, so that made things a bit hard to see. Michael loudly clicked his tongue to make himself an idea of the things in there.

He was somehow suspicious as he noticed corpses in one of the bedrooms upstairs. He climbed up the rotating staircase and entered through the broken door of the bedroom he had his ears on. No light was present in the room, but his hearing made up for it. The groans of a zombie in the big bedroom reflexively forced him to try to cut it in half. As he had little practice with the bigger-than-himself weapon, he failed to take it out in one try. But the zombie was as slow as the zombies at the beginning of the dungeon, so Michael readied himself once more and with a clean strike, cut the zombie in half from top to bottom.

Sighing, Michael opened his eyes once more. With the coincidence of the shining moon being placed perfectly for a couple of seconds, the moonlight went through the windows of the bedroom where our hero was.

Michael had to stop himself from puking when he saw the relatively untouched face of a young girl, younger than himself being split in half in front of him. The unfocused eyes of the girl were fixing straight into his, and the blood and organs were cascading down towards the floor.

Her face was looking nearly exactly like the face of a human, with no signs of the greenish flesh or the contorted expressions. She looked like she had been killed in her sleep. Michael's shocked eyes then wandered around the bedroom that was now lightened up thanks to the moon. The pain-filled expressions of the rest of the residents of this house, bitten at multiple places and dead on the ground were a bit too much for Michael to handle.

He puked on the ground and felt extremely cold for a moment. His heart started to beat faster and faster as his feet refused to move and his gaze was fixated on the expressions of the dead people around him.

He started to hyperventilate at the sight of the little girl he just killed. His brain caught up to the fact that the zombies he killed up to this point might have been people before. He was stuck in the fact that he had a game-like system and was in a dungeon that he didn't realize that he was in reality.

His breathing was becoming heavier and heavier and his head started to spin. He tried to retreat from the bedroom but his feet hit the broken door on the ground, making him fall over. When his head touched something squishy instead of the hard ground he thought would be there, he turned around in fright to look at what he hit.

He realized that he squashed the eyeball of yet another dead person and that the other was meeting his gaze head-on. Michael felt like he had to immediately leave the room for his mental health.

He rushed downstairs and puked once again. Funnily enough, he was in front of a mirror that was reflecting his face thanks to the light of the moon.

It was a face that he didn't recognize. After all, he never had a face that he recognized. All of the wondering how he was able to know what object he was looking at hitting him at the worst time. He realized that something was tempering with his brain. Having been blind all of his life, he shouldn't have been able to recognize any object by sight alone. He also realized that he knew things he never heard about from his brother.

All of his knowledge was rudimentary education, not even in coordination with his age, and knowledge about anime and books. He shouldn't have been able to know about half of the things he knew right now. The hyperventilation continued. The sight of the dead girl staring straight at him was forged in his mind, never leaving him alone.

He looked once again in the mirror. He had short and dirty blonde hair, tanned skin that made no sense to someone that never left his hospital bed. His body that was upgraded thanks to his increase in stats felt foreign to him. Body dysphoria struck him hard the moment he looked at himself. The blood-red eyes staring back at him made him scared.

He didn't know what he looked like before, but he was sure it wasn't this. Despite all the grime and disgusting substances on him, he still managed to exude a certain charisma, even as distraught as he was right now. He instinctively knew that he was much taller than he was supposed to be.

With trembling limbs, Michael slowly took himself out of the house he was in. He needed a distraction. He needed to fight. He felt like he would fall into deeper problems if he didn't separate himself from these thoughts. He had a hard time walking, feeling like he was a soul controlling a meat-puppet that wasn't his.

The archer that was outside had left the vicinity, but Michael had a grudge to resolve.