[Tutorial Phase: Compression and Navigation: Complete.]
[Stat Enhancement Awarded: Constitution +1 | Agility +1 | Perception +1]
[Next Module: Adaptation and Terrain Response.]
"Great," he rasped. "What's that one, don't trip over debris and–Oh god!" Kayn hunched over in pain, it felt as though a thousand tiny needles were jabbing him in the eyes; like every muscle in his body was being stretched taut, and to add insult to injury, he retched onto the ground, struggling to keep himself from collapsing into his own sick.
He stumbled backwards a few paces before falling on his ass and pawing at his body, no concept of what he should do to alleviate this agony. In what could have easily been a fleeting moment or an eternity, Kayn started to open his eyes and stretch his aching body. As he prepared for an onslaught of expletives, he was cut off by the growing intensity of his goal marker.
The orange beacon pulsed brighter, now flickering in intervals like it was warning him, beckoning him. Ahead, the street sloped downward toward the collapsed overpass, where the concrete had crumbled into a steep descent of broken slabs and tangled rebar.
A new message flickered to life in his vision.
[Objective: Descend and cross the trench.]
[Environmental Hazard: Instability.]
[Recommended: Cautious Movement and Timed Progression.]
He coughed and sputtered, still trying to regain his composure. "That's all you have to say? You just, you, did you attack me? How is that incentive?"
[It is recommended that you rest prior to any advancement. Present stat boosts were minimal and deemed non-threatening in conjunction with potential enemies in the local area. You were never in any danger.]
"Maybe let me decide what's best for me going forward?" he rubbed his temples and stood to his feet to look toward the orange glow in the distance. "So, the plan is to not fall to my death, yeah?"
There was no response, but rather the slope glistened faintly, not just slick from the morning dew but glowing in a nearly incandescent light. Rubble gave way beneath his first testing step, sending small rocks tumbling into the shadowed trench below. As the rocks shattered onto the earth below, he thought he heard something shift, but even if the undead were congregated down there, he was way up here and had a job to do.
He drew in a breath and muttered, "Compression, navigation, adaptation... You sure you aren't just hazing me? Do AI have fun like that? Are you even AI?. So many questions… But alright, let's get started.
He crouched, tested his balance, and began his descent, each motion slow and delicate as he tried to avoid slipping into the void. He was painfully aware of how dangerous this next, and hopefully last, task would be.
Kayn stared down the slope, gazing at it like he was going to descend into the maw of hell itself.
Forty-five degrees of broken concrete, twisted rebar, and loose gravel that shifted under the slightest breath. At the bottom there was that ominous trench. A dried-up canal or subway line, twenty-five, thirty feet deep, and something told Kayn it was full. Not "full of rubble." Full of people, or what used to be people. The clattering of movement still sent a shiver down his spine as he contemplated his next move.
Horrors raced through his mind, thoughts of hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Packed so tight their limbs overlapped like sardines in a crushed tin. He envisioned them sitting upright, heads tilted sickeningly to the side, others laying flat, crushed under the others, arms flung out as they tried to stand but couldn't.
[Objective: Cross 60 m of unstable terrain without alerting the dormant horde.]
[Stealth tutorial engaged. Noise threshold: 38 dB. Current ambient: 12 dB.]
[Good luck, User.]
Kayn's laugh came out a broken wheeze. "This is a joke, it has to be. I need to parkour across this thing, without triggering whatever is down there? And wait, you said horde, so there actually are a shit ton of undead down there, it isn't just my imagination?"
[Affirmative.]
He looked for another route. To the left were collapsed buildings, no way around. To the right was the same story. The overpass had funneled him here like a cattle chute, no different from that ridiculous stacked car speluncing nonsense.
"Great level design, asshole." he said as he eased one foot over the edge.
The first slab shifted immediately, a low grinding sound that echoed down the trench like a dinner bell. Kayn froze, counted to ten, and when nothing moved below he continued. He lowered his weight, inch by inch. The concrete held, but barely.
Second step, third step... He was maybe four meters down the slope, hugging the left wall where the slabs were bigger, more stable. Every breath tasted like death and it only worsened the further he descended. His new mismatched shoes, one running sneaker and one dress shoe two sizes too big, scraped softly with each shift of weight.
Ten meters in, the wind changed and funneled up the trench, carrying the smell of sickly sweet-rot, chemicals, and something coppery he didn't want to think about at this time. Kayn gagged, pressed his sleeve over his nose. The shirt he'd found two cars ago was already stiff with sweat and the blood of its previous owner.
[Warning: Heart rate elevated. Oxygen efficiency dropping.]
"No fucking shit."
He kept moving. The slope got steeper. He had to turn sideways, crab-walking, fingers hooked into rusted rebar that flaked orange dust onto his palms. Every time he shifted his grip, tiny avalanches of gravel trickled down. Each pebble sounded like a goddamn gunshot.
At the fifteen-meter mark, the slab under his left foot cracked clean in half.
He windmilled, caught a girder with his right hand, and hung there for a second, toes scrabbling for purchase. The broken slab slid down in slow motion and then dropped. It hit the trench floor with a sound like a cinder block dropped on tile. In response, his fears were realized, and the bodies woke up.
It wasn't nearly as dramatic as he expected. No screeching monsters, no shoving one another aside as they tried to reach him, just a twitch here, a head turning there. Then a ripple that tore through the crowd, waking them up one by one.
[Noise threshold exceeded. Stealth tutorial: FAILED.]
[Combat tutorial forcibly engaged.]
The first one sat up with inhuman speed, it was a man in the shredded remains of a business suit, tie still knotted perfectly. His head rotated 180 degrees with a wet pop, locking onto Kayn. Once that happened, the rest followed.
The sound they made wasn't like the typical undead moan he heard in the movies. It was worse. A dry, clicking exhale, like air forced through a broken bagpipe. Each set of broken lungs, hundreds of them, clicked at once.
With stealth no longer an issue, Kayn ran. He just ran as fast as his feet would take him, throwing caution to the wind.
The course took him downward, but he wasn't about to play by the rules now. Instead he made his way up and sideways, scrabbling along the slope like a spider fleeing a can of raid. The first wave was already climbing, fingers finding purchase on sheer concrete, bodies moving in that awful jerky stop-motion like some B-Movie. He wasn't sure if they were making their way out of pure luck, or if they could actually function in ways that would allow them to climb. None of that mattered, all that mattered was Kayn making it to the top before they made it to him.
He reached a wider shelf, maybe three meters wide, and spun to face them with his knife out, and wishing he had his rebar, though how he would hold it while climbing, he wasn't sure.
"Come on then!" he bellowed, immediately regretting his choice.
The most capable of the climbers sprung forward, enough life in their limbs to launch them up, if not terribly accurately, it still sent them on a course toward him.
Kayn jabbed the dagger at the enemy, the first skull gently accepted the blade like a rotten pumpkin. The second took another stab in the mouth and kept coming until Kayn stabbed the knife through its eye and kicked it backward. It bowled over three more, but ten replaced them.
He was screaming now in pure panic. It was raw and continuous, a sign that shit had hit the fan and that stealth was no longer an option.
A woman in a nurse's scrubs latched onto his leg and he jabbed the blade down between her eyes. Another grabbed his shirt, tore a huge chunk out of his makeshift outfit. He head-butted it, felt his forehead squelch under the force before climbing further.
Blood was everywhere now, down his body, near his feet, basically everything below where his hands gripped the damaged concrete. His shoes slipped and he went down to one knee and something bit his shoulder, teeth scraping bone. He roared, elbowed it in the temple until it let go.
[Hostiles: 47… 62… 89…]
The shelf was too small. They were pouring onto the edge now, a tide of gray hands and snapping jaws.
Kayn retreated until his back hit the wall and he had no more room.
He was going to die here, wearing some absurd mismatched outfit, and forgotten before he could make his mark on this world.
A golden notification blinked in the corner of his vision, serene and cheerful.
[Level 2 to Level 3]
[5 additional stat points available for immediate allocation. 15 in total.]
He laughed. Actually laughed, high and hysterical, while a corpse tried to chew through his shoe.
"You still haven't told me how to do this shit? You just threw some points at me and let me suffer!" he shouted back in a mix of hysterics and rage.
A hand closed around his throat. Another pinned his free arm. He kneed something soft, felt it give, kept laughing.
His free hand clawed at the air, found the knife again. He swung blindly, felt it connect, kept swinging until the grip on his throat loosened.
He was crying now, actually crying like a little baby. He didn't have time to think about his manliness, but if he could, he would figure a mass of the undead would warrant a few fearful tears. Well, that was, if they were even tears. He couldn't tell if it was blood or tears running down his face.
Kayn's fingers found a rusted girder jutting from the wall like a mercy. He hauled himself upward, shoes skidding, lungs on fire. The horde was right behind him, close enough that he could smell the rot on their breath.
Nearly ten meters to the lip. Eight. Six.
A hand clamped his ankle. He screamed and kicked backward; the dress shoe finally came off and took three fingers with it. He didn't stop to look.
Four meters.
He threw himself over the edge and rolled, concrete shredding the skin off his elbows and knees. The first ghoul crested the rim right after him, crawling on broken arms, ignoring all semblance of humanity as it came at him like some spider monster.
Kayn's eyes locked on salvation, one of the stacked, rusted cars, perched right on the broken edge of the overpass. It had been teetering there the whole time, held by nothing more than thoughts and prayers.
Without any hesitation, he maneuvered himself around the car and charged forward. His shoulder slammed into the car's rear bumper. The metal groaned as the whole stack shifted, hesitated, then tipped. In a brief moment, the car went over like a boulder.
It hit the slope, bounced once, and plowed straight into the climbing horde. Bodies burst apart under two tons of genuine American steel, or fiberglass, he wasn't sure if America still used actual steel in their vehicles. The ones behind were dragged down with it, a domino avalanche of limbs and screaming metal. A second car, locked to the first by its own crushed frame, followed a heartbeat later.
The noise was almost as apocalyptic as his surroundings. When the dust finally settled, the slope was gone. Just a raw, smoking scar of concrete and twisted wrecks blocking the trench like a dam made of corpses and chassis.
Kayn collapsed on his back ten feet from the new edge, chest heaving, every inch of him shaking. Blood ran from a dozen cuts. His shorts were more red than fabric now. The sky above was the same dull gray, but for the first time since waking up it looked… peaceful.
He laughed until he cried, or maybe cried until he laughed… He couldn't tell anymore.
[Combat tutorial: Complete... Sort of.]
[Level 3 to Level 4]
[5 new stat points available. Previous unspent: 15 to 20]
[Adaptation and Terrain Response module: Passed.]
"Yeah, yeah," he wheezed, staring at the sky. "Gold star for the meat puppet."
But his relief was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. They were slow and deliberate, nothing like the frantic shuffle of the horde. Kayn rolled onto his side, knife raised with a trembling hand.
A single figure limped out of the dust cloud on the far side of the new wreckage. It's a woman, or was a woman. She made her way toward him, clothing nearly worn away, white bone gleaming under strips of dried skin. One eye socket empty, the other fixed on him with intense focus
It stopped five meters away and tilted its head, like a curious puppy, but with more capacity for murder.
Kayn's arm dropped. The knife clattered to the concrete.
"Oh… you have got to be shitting me."
The zombie didn't move to attack. It just… looked. Curious.
Kayn's vision swam. His legs wouldn't hold him if he tried to stand. The adrenaline was gone, leaving only a hollow, shaking shell.
He stared at the notification still glowing in the corner of his eye.
[20 points.]
Twenty… Points…
He wanted to live. More than that, he wanted to never feel this helpless again. He wanted to be the hero of this world, or at least the hero of his own story.
"System," he croaked, voice cracking. "Please allocate my stats. Ten into Constitution. Ten into Strength. Make me a beast that can fend off these monsters. Please."
[Confirm allocation: Constitution +10 | Strength +10?]
[Warning: Simultaneous high-volume restructuring may cause immediate loss of consciousness, possible cardiac—]
"Do it!"
The world turned inside out as Kayn's response activated the skills he was given. It felt like his skeleton was being dipped in molten steel and yanked to twice its size. His ribs cracked outward, muscles ballooned, skin stretched until it split and resealed in the space between heartbeats. Blood roared in his ears like a jet engine.
The last thing he saw was the tall zombie taking one hesitant step closer, head cocked, the remaining eye wide with something that might have been awe.
Then everything went black.