Chapter 4: The Village

The house, like all the others, was one floor. The ground was dirt and there were three rooms, which meant that, despite its small size, it had enough space for a family of four to fit comfortably.

But it was now so deteriorated that no one could live in it. The few remaining pieces of furniture were almost destroyed, the wooden ceiling had holes all over it, and of the interior walls, only a few pillars remained to keep the house from collapsing.

In the main room, a skeleton dressed in a few pieces of poorly maintained armor was sitting and waving his arms while looking at a dusty human skull. If anyone else saw this scene, it would look like they were having some sort of conversation.

'You know Willson... in fantasy stories when someone reincarnates or is summoned to another world they usually receive cheat abilities, are born the heir to a rich family, and then make a harem with pretty girls. But instead, I received a useless system and also lost all chances of getting a girlfriend!'

"..."

'I know it sounds like a bad joke. The goal was supposed to be not to die a virgin, not to live eternally a virgin!!'

"..."

'HEY!.... It's not all about sex. You know sometimes one just wants a little company. But ever since I came into this world it seems like I'm trapped in a B horror movie!'

"..."

'Pff, hahaha... Let me tell you Willson that despite my looks I'm quite the romantic!'

****

It had been almost a month since Marcus transmigrated from the Earth.

After getting the title [Undead Killer], Marcus continued to roam the cave and kill skeletons. Although he wasn't sure what the logic behind the system was, the effect of the title had proven to have some efficiency.

Sometime later, Marcus had found a passageway with a sort of ramp that spiraled downward. This was connected to a tunnel about 40 meters(137ft) long which led to the entrance of a village.

Marcus was very surprised by this.

The more time passed, the stranger it all became. How big was the place where he was? Who built this town? Why did everyone become undead? Did his arrival in this world have any relation to this?

All these questions were just piling up and since Marcus couldn't find an answer, he decided to put these thoughts aside to go deeper into the town.

At first, the place seemed to be abandoned, the streets were empty, the houses had holes in them and there were even some that were missing walls or had long since collapsed, and the makeshift log wall that surrounded the town was also destroyed.

As Marcus walked through this ghost town, more and more questions were forming in his non-existent brain. How did the town collapse? Was it because of a war or a monster attack? How long had this place been abandoned?

But strangest of all was that even though the town was so dilapidated, none of the wooden structures showed any signs of putrefaction.

If the wood was so old, it would normally have some fungus on it, it would have been degraded by the passage of time, or it would have been fossilized. But this one seemed to be in a strange state of preservation and decay that could not be explained.

But something brought Marcus out of his thoughts.

When Marcus reached the main square, something tripped him up. At that moment multiple houses started to collapse one after another, followed by a "rain" of rocks. And as if that wasn't enough, multiple zombies started to come out of the ground! It looked like I was in the middle of an end of the world scenario.

Marcus got up and started running in the direction of the tunnel. But when he got there, it was blocked by a pile of rocks. Then he finally understood what was happening.

It wasn't that the town was abandoned, it just turned out that all its inhabitants had died and turned into zombies, but were "asleep" underground. Until a few moments ago, when they were awakened by an earthquake.

Unable to escape from there, Marcus chose to hide in a house that, compared to the others, was still in good condition.

****

Since then, Marcus had been "living" in the village without any possibility of escaping. Nor was he able to make any progress in finding a way out or leveling up.

The skeletons were beings very similar to a video game mob that only moved in a certain area and did not attack unless Marcus attacked them first. He could even walk next to them and they didn't even react. But zombies were very different.

Unlike skeletons, zombies attacked anything that moved (except other zombies). They also almost always moved in groups, which made it more difficult to hunt them down.

Occasionally, Marcus would come out of hiding to try to kill some lone zombie that was unsuspecting, but he was never successful because the noise always attracted others.

So, after two weeks of hiding and running, the skill [Primary Sense] was raised to level 8 reaching a range of 640 meters(0.39 miles) radius. In addition, Marcus gained his second title.

{Light-footed coward: When running away from a fight, agility is tripled until the enemy loses sight of you}

Although it seemed more of an insult than a title, it was thanks to this title that Marcus was able to survive for all that time.

"....."

'You're right, I can't stay here forever. But there's no way I can hunt a zombie without attracting the attention of the rest!'

Except for the few times he ventured into the streets of the town, Marcus spent most of his time in his hideout. To keep himself from getting bored, he had found an old human skull and kept having conversations with himself. If anyone else saw him, they would probably think he was crazy, but to him, it was like role-playing, and, in a way, it distracted him from the problems.

"...."

'Wait... Actually that... Sounds like a good plan.OK, let's try it!'

****

In an alleyway in town, a zombie shuffled its feet lazily as it walked aimlessly. Since there were no other beings to hunt besides his kind, he had no choice but to follow his instinct and continue wandering around the area.

*Clank!*

"Grrrrr?"

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Something had hit his helmet, he turned around only to find a skeleton with some worn pieces of armor.

"Raaaag!"

Wasting no time, he began to chase after the skeleton. They made several twists and turns through the alleys of the village until they finally entered one of the houses.

*Bam!*

As the zombie entered the house he received a heavy blow that ended up shattering his rotting face and he fell backward to the ground. The armored skeleton didn't waste the opportunity and continued punching the zombie until its skull turned to mush.

...

{You gained 35 xp}

...

'OH, this one gave me more experience than all the other undead I've killed so far!... Could it be because its level was higher?'

Marcus was very satisfied with the result. After two weeks of being trapped in the village, he finally managed to make some progress.

The plan he had devised consisted of attracting the zombies roaming the alleys. These were the width of two people, so not many could enter at once. He would then lure them to a house and kill them by making as little noise as possible.

Marcus' biggest problem so far was that the " villagers" always went in groups, but the second problem was that, for some unknown reason, all the zombies in the village had armor.

This only made things more problematic. Since the zombies had armor they were more resistant to Marcus' blows, causing his attacks to miss and the sound would attract others.

But if he set up an ambush he would have a better chance of success and the walls of the house would muffle the sound of the blows.

Or that was the idea...

As Marcus was about to inspect the corpse to see if he could find anything useful, a rotting hand came through the outer wall. Then multiple hands and heads started tearing the house apart trying to get inside.

'I screwed up...!!!'

Marcus left the corpse and started to run. More and more zombies began to fill the alleys blocking any possible escape route. Finally, he had no choice but to take to the main streets of the town.

Thanks to the effect of [Light-footed Coward] Marcus was able to keep a safe distance, but soon he was being chased by hundreds or maybe thousands of undead.

But when he reached the central square of the town, Marcus spotted a house that was larger than the rest and unlike the other houses in the town seemed to be made of stone. It was probably the mayor's house or the town hall.

Without thinking Marcus began to climb the town hall using the holes in the wall until he reached the roof.

The situation didn't look good, the building had three floors and they were all made of rock, but the doors and windows were made of wood. At the rate things were going it wouldn't take long for the zombies to shatter them and get to the roof.

'I never thought my second death would be this way... But if I'm going to die again, this time I'm going to do it in the most epic way possible!'

In just a few minutes the zombies broke down the door and started to enter the town hall. Marcus pulled out his battle mace and was ready to fight, when suddenly...

"Groooowl!"

*BAM!*

'HOLY SH*T!'

The front door, along with almost the entire second-floor wall collapsed and a giant worm came out of the building.

The worm's body appeared to be 2 meters(6ft) wide and over 10 meters(38.8ft) long! Then, nine other smaller worms 'but as big as an average grown man' came out and all rushed at the zombie horde.

****

Marcus was dumbfounded. Even all the battles he had read about in books or watched in movies and TV series on earth could not compare to the scene that had taken place just moments before.

The battle had lasted almost an hour. Both sides were virtually evenly matched, the worms were superior in terms of individual strength, but outnumbered by a ratio of 1:100.

The larger worm was furious and every time it moved its gigantic body dozens of zombies were crushed and turned into chunks of meat. On the other hand, the zombies could only bite and claw at the worm's body, but could not do much damage to it.

The smaller worms swooped down and closed their mouths filled with circular rows of sharp teeth on the heads of the undead, crushing them as if they were a rotten watermelon.

Half an hour later, the zombies had lost almost 60% of their "soldiers", but of the smaller worms, only four remained. As for the larger worm, it was full of wounds and cuts all over its body.

Something that surprised Marcus was the fact that in the zombie army there were some capable of using weapons and, even if they were not the best, they could penetrate and cut the worm's flesh.

The battle continued for another thirty minutes. The larger worm had thrown blows with its huge tail and had chewed through a large number of enemies, but finally died from the large number of cuts caused by the "elites" of the undead.

Of the zombies, only a few remained, but they no longer posed a threat because they all had broken legs or arms. As for the lesser worms, only one remained and he was on the verge of death.

Marcus was "watching" this incredible battle the whole time from the roof where he was. Surprisingly, even after the confrontation between these two "armies" of monsters, the town hall had not collapsed yet.

Marcus was very relieved. Regardless of who would win the confrontation, he could be next and he didn't have the strength to survive. To his luck, the confrontation had resulted in victory for the dead, but they no longer posed a threat.

But even though Marcus was alive, instead of being happy about the outcome, he only felt weak and powerless. Even after almost a month of coming to this world, he had not made much progress.

After all this time, he was still useless.

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