What Next?

"I finally have my very own skill! And I can even talk." Victor said while listening to himself. He liked his voice. It wasn't anything special, in fact, it sounded a little raspy, but at least, he could talk now.

He came out of his confinement and wasted no time in testing his new body. The only sadness he felt was that he would be unable to measure his growth. He couldn't exactly run before, so he doesn't know how fast he was with 10 points in agility, compared to now that he had 18.

"No need to cry about the past, let's just be happy that I can walk, don't you think?"

"..." Silence.

Victor usually spoke like this, as if there was an imaginary friend beside him listening. He didn't exactly have many friends, and when he finally did, he always felt like the third wheel in the group. So talking to himself at times made the feeling of being lonely less apparent.

He now needed to find some zombies to test his new skill on. He walked around for a while until he ran into a group of zombies. He checked his status window one more time to see his skill, but then realized that he did not know how to use the skill he had.

"How does this work?" Victor asked while standing in the zombies' path. They just slouched their way forward, and since the pathway was small, their path was predetermined.

"Do I just will it with my mind? Or do I call it out loud?" Victor thought.

It was useless to just think about it, Victor thought, so he did the only thing that felt natural to him.

"Corpse Manipulation." He said while stretching his hand forward.

After about a second, one of the zombies stopped moving as he said those words. He instantly felt a connection between himself and the zombie, like a mental link.

[Number of corpses under control – 1]

"Wow," Victor muttered.

He then tried the second method he thought would be possible to use when activating a skill, or was it a spell? Anyone works.

Just like Victor speculated, the second method also worked. All he did was will the skill to activate, and it did. He had thought that since the system could read his thoughts, maybe he would also be able to activate the skill with his mind. Unless he didn't have to say it in his mind, he could just activate the skill with a thought.

He controlled the zombie for a while, giving it simple commands, and also some more complex ones. He quickly saw the skill's limitations. Only simple commands like attack, move, and similar were available, anything more than that and the zombie would either remain unresponsive or do something at random.

After a bit more of experimenting, he activated his skill on another zombie, and with a simple string of commands, sent them on their way to an eternal free fall. Moments later, he received the notifications.

+5 exp

+5 exp

"Success!" This has opened up a whole new market for Victor. He could now remotely gain exp.

Victor praised himself a little after his small discovery and achievement, but it only lasted a while.

He had now gained his freedom, but what next? Where did he have to go? What was the next step now that he could do all he wanted? Maybe if he tried now, he would be able to exit the entrance he had found earlier? The last time he went there it proved impossible to leave, though.

"Alright, I'll do that next."

As Victor traced his steps to the place he had found the entrance previously, there was another thing he noticed. Unlike before, he no longer seemed like he had now become a full zombie. His eyesight was unnaturally good in the dark, even in places where there was no light entering. He did not tire, no matter how much he ran, and his body was now way tougher than it was when adventurers would just crack it like an eggshell.

It didn't take him long, as he had masterfully studied the routes in the dungeon. He got to the entrance, but there was nothing he could do. It was still impossible to exit. This had dampened Victor's mood a bit.

"Now what? What am I to do next?" He asked as he stared emptily at the entrance that seemed to have some kind of barrier preventing him from going out.

Just as he was trying to figure out a possibility, an idea entered his head. Victor was somewhat of an occasional gamer, though, if he was to play against the pros, he would probably bury them. He figured that he registered the appearance of adventurers entering the dungeon and that this was really a dungeon. 'If so, doesn't that mean there would be a dungeon boss that when defeated the dungeon would close?' He thought.

But what if he were the one to defeat it? Would the dungeon still close? Or will he be able to escape the dungeon before it does? He could find a way to disable the barrier before the boss died if the boss had control. His luck would be totally fucked ten times over if the world he was in was some kind of world where the dungeons were managed by the gods or some stupid cliché of the sort.

"That's also a possibility. That is also the only way for now. What I need now, though, is information." Victor thought as he rubbed his cold chin.

Just then, he heard several voices approaching the dungeon entrance, it was the chattering of adventurers.

'I have a plan. It should work quite well too.' Victor said as he disappeared back into the dungeon.

...

After the adventurers entered the cave, he began tailing them, without the group of five even realizing it.

'These guys must be quite stupid if I do say so myself, and low level too. How can you be so oblivious to your surrounding? I'm not even camouflaging.' Victor said in his mind, as he thought back to his gaming days.

Even when he was playing a first-person game, he would still turn around often to make sure his surrounding was clear. These guys had to be total beginners not to know such basic things.

'Is there a way I can check their strength?' Victor questioned.

Once again, as though his thoughts were being read, the system responded, and a few boxes showed above the adventurer's heads, individually. From what Victor saw, he totally felt like the fool for even tailing these total noobs.

[Level 2]

[Level 3]

[Level 3]

[Level 3]

[Level 5]

'What the fuck am I looking at exactly? These guys are total beginners, and they dare enter a dungeon?'

Victor had planned to take information from them, but now his gamer side was heated up. He needed to teach these guys some lessons as their predecessor.

'Is what I would have loved to do, but I can't let them leave this cave alive. The single information that I exist, a low-level monster with intelligence would make plenty of people's attention drawn here. I can't risk that.'

Victor made up his mind, which only took seconds. The fact that he was about to kill humans didn't seem to faze him too much. Maybe it was because of the countless humanlike zombies he had killed, or because he was now an undead, it was unclear. Either way, the adventurers weren't going to leave with their lives.

"Guys!"