Chapter 4: Unsettling Night

The moonlight was covered by the dark clouds, and it was especially dark outside, as there were no lights provided by the street lights and from inside the buildings.

It started raining, at first it was light, but then the weather appeared to be getting worse with each passing minute.

Rumble! Rumble!

Oakley woke up abruptly due to the sound of thunder, he looked out the window and saw that it was raining heavily outside.

He couldn't see too well outside, as it was very dark, and eerily so because the area was void of any humans. But, the sunflowers actually appeared to emit light, which was enough for him to see the plants that appeared to be doing fine.

In fact, it was probably like that throughout the once busy and bright city.

He checked on the pea shooters and sunflowers, and they seemed perfectly fine. The pea shooters were even scanning the area constantly, they were always alert.

The plants outside should also be fine, the rain should actually be beneficial for them, though Oakley couldn't really be sure of that.

Thoom! Thoom!

He was suddenly alerted by the sound of the pea shooters, the sound was coming from the backyard.

He looked through the window, and saw several silhouettes that looked like humans crawling with their hands and feet quickly towards the house, they didn't move too fast but they were very silent.

If he didn't set up the plants, by the time he noticed that they were too close, he would've been dead. Maybe, they even had a way to go inside the house silently, but that was besides the point

Their target was clear, but why would they seek him out in this deserted place? What about the packed stadium where he heard all the yelling and gunshots earlier?

'What the f*ck are those things?' Oakley was shocked at the grotesque sight of the creatures, that appeared to be human-like and hunched over, crawling on all fours. One of them died within the light emitted by the sunflower, and the thing that died had an eerie smile on it's face. He could even make out teeth that were bloodied, as well as several wounds on the body.

The creepiest part wasn't even that, he could see the eyes of the former human, looking straight at him even though the creature was dead.

He ducked down immediately and closed all the blinds, they knew where he was.

He had could feel his back drenched in cold sweat.

Thoom! Thoom!

He heard sounds coming from the front yard, there were definitely more of them.

Creak!

'The door!' Oakley heard the sound of the door downstairs being opened, he had forgotten to lock it earlier because he thought the pea shooters were enough and that nobody was around here, it was a huge blunder on his part.

He chastised himself, but how was he supposed to know that zombies could open doors as well? He could only learn from such mistakes, not to mention that these zombies were unexpectedly stealthy as well.

Tap… Tap…

He barely hear the light tapping amid the noises of the pea shooters still shooting, it appears that the zombies ignored the plants, only focused on him. In the game he played, the plants would be eaten first because they were blocking the zombies' way into the house, but it wasn't the same here.

Tap… tap…

The sounds were getting closer. Oakley's heart was thumping rapidly, and his eyes were glued to the door of his room, ignoring the sweat drenching his body. This might be the closest he has come to death, and he didn't like this situation one bit.

He made sure that the pea shooters were all aimed at the door of the room.

Creeaak…

The doorknob was being turned slowly, but before the door could even open the pea shooters started firing rapidly.

Thoom! Thoom!

The familiar sound calmed Oakley down, he could only count on these plants.

Whatever approached the door was shot down by the pea shooters.

…

"Hah… hah…" Oakley was breathing roughly even though he did practically nothing, 'That was too close!'

Luckily, the creatures, whatever they were, moved slowly on all fours. And most importantly, they seemed to ignore the plants, having set their target on him.

He laid down on the cold floor, and rested a little.

He had been awoken abruptly in the middle of the night and was subjected to such a stressful situation, anyone would be strained mentally and physically.

He recovered shortly after, once again attributing it to the 'Power' that he assumed was the same thing as 'Levels.' It was just that the former seemed to simplify everything, he thought that familiar stats like STR, INT, and AGI among others was shown as 'Power,' which probably just condensed and made everything simpler.

Though, he would have preferred a more detailed description, there was really nothing he could do about it.

[Out of combat, experience gained.]

There it was again, the prompt that felt he had waited years for popped up.

He checked his interface.

=============

[Interface]

Name: Oakley

Class: Lifeweaver 5★

Power: 10 {Select Skill}

Abilities: Pea Shooter 1★, Sunflower 1★

=============

Oakley felt that he was supposed to gain much more Power ups, which he named just now, from that fight.

He had a theory for that though, which was experience stopped coming in when he had a skill to select. The first time he gained a skill, his power was exactly 5, and that was so despite the amount of zombies he killed in his apartment.

There were piles of corpses that littered the floor from what he could recall, not to mention that he killed 3 humans as well, which he thought should give more because they were stronger than the normal zombies that he had encountered so far.

The more he thought about it, the more upset he became because that was a lot of wasted experience that could've brought him closer and closer to his new skill, which would increase his chances of survival.

From this, he deducted some rules in this regard;

1. Power ups can only happen after combat, probably so that someone couldn't suddenly gain a skill or turn a fight around due to that.

2. More experience can not be gained when a skill isn't selected.

There were probably more, but Oakley thought these two points were the most important. All of this was really strange, why even have such rules?

He thought about it for a while, but couldn't figure it out, 'Whatever it's pointless thinking about it, I can only learn and adapt.'

He interacted with the {Select Skill} option by thinking about it again and received a prompt.

[Select Skill.]

{Venus Fly Trap 2★}

{Small Flower Pot 1★}

{Sun Shroom 1★}

Oakley crossed out Sun Shroom in his head, it was probably similar to the Sunflower skill only that it would be brighter at night and could absorb the moonlight, which it would use to keep the plants around it alive. The sunflowers would work for now.

As for the Venus Fly Trap skill, it probably consumes zombies, and that was useful but it would take time to digest and many things could happen during that time.

Left only with {Small Flower Pot}, he chose it happily knowing what it would do. It was actually what he needed most, in a city where most of the dirt was either below hard concrete or in positions he didn't want to put his plants in.

He activated {Small Flower Pot}, feeling the slight drain on his mana, which now felt quite negligible due to his high power.

And in mere moments, there was a small sized flower pot in front of him with soil in it. The size was enough to fit a single pea shooter or sunflower, and plants of similar size.

For the bigger plants, he would need a bigger pot or a large patch of dirt on the ground.

Seeing the pot on the ground, he remembered that it's specific use was on the soil-free roof where zombies tried to get into the house using another way, but he realized that it wasn't limited to that anymore.

The proof was right before him.

By now he knew that he couldn't entirely rely on that knowledge he had of the game he played, and that he could only draw inferences and some information from it, but that was more than enough for him.

He activated {Small Flower Pot} a couple more times, moving the plants that were in dirt mounds into it.

Then, he went to sleep again, ignoring the putrid scent permeating in the house. He didn't like it, but he was slowly growing used to it, not to mention how exhausted he was mentally.

He had come very close to death, and it was only thanks to his arrangements in the front and back of the house that kept him alive.

He gave himself a pat on the back mentally, before drifting off to sleep.