<h3>Chapter 1: "A World of Undead"</h3>
Jean, 18 years old, was a gamer. He specialized himself in zombie survival game. His mastery range was from Counter Strike Source's Zombie Escape mode until World War Z game. Whether it was a solo game or a coop one, or even the pvp one, he always excel both as a lone player or as a team player.
One day, a new game was released. He registered his account. He didn't see the download button on the game's website and it wasn't available on Steam so he had to buy the physical copy in the nearest GameStop.
However, the day wasn't his lucky day. He was too excited with the game he brought. He can't took his eyes of it. The excitement was at its peak when suddenly a truck appeared.
He was still in the sidewalk. He was waiting for the traffic light to go red when the truck's tires suddenly blow out making the truck uncontrollable.
The truck turned to where Jean was standing and crushed him. While a girl in front of him who was crossing the road and didn't even pay attention to the traffic light left unscathed.
He died. Or that's how it was supposed to be.
[[Reincarnated<-Next]]
Slowly, he opened his eyes. A new dark scenery unfold before his eyes. It was a middle age, he was sure of it. The style of those wall made from stones and wood convinced him enough that he was looking at middle ages house.
"Holy shit, is this one of those moment from Light Novels where I got reincarnated? Good thing I didn't get reincarnated into something weird like a vending machine. Tho, I might consider being a prostitute if I didn't get money at all. Wait, is my gender changed?"
Upon realizing that, he stood up. He felt small. He takes a look at his body and see that this body is definitely younger. He touched his crotch and felt something bulging there.
"I'm still a male. I'm probably a kid now though. Being a prostitute is out of the picture now."
He wonder if he has any house or if he was a bum. His clothes were in a bad shape. It was an ubiquitous tunic. The tunic was made of wool, a coarse one, and was undyed. At least he wears a clothes even if it was maybe never washed.
He looked around. It was a narrow and dark alleyway he stood in and it is even darker on the left of him. On the right of him he can heard people's chatter and there is definitely some activity there. He looked up to the sky. It was clear. But the sun was definitely slipped a bit so the alley was covered in shadow.
He thought of what's he going to do. [[Exploring the alley]] sounds tempting. [[Going out to the street]] might gave him a better perspective of the world he woken up to.Jean chose to venture deeper to the alley. It was darker here but was still visible. He strode deeper accompanied by the sounds of rodents. He saw some rats running past him. Sometimes, he encountered a dead end. It's very hard to navigate here. There is a big chance someone can stuck into a dead end. However, Jean keep trying to venture the alley by choosing many different route.
After walking for a while, he saw a group of people laying on the ground covered with nothing. Some people were talking to each other wearing worse tunic than the one he used. He passed them slowly. They were a bum
"'ullo, kid! Whatcha doin' down 'ere?" asked one of the bum.
"I'm just passing by," answered Jean hesitately
"Ye ain't one o' those government rats aren't ye?" he asked again but now while drawing a knife pointing it at Jean.
Jean gulped down. "No, I am not."
"Good then, I believe ye. Next time, be careful walkin' down the road."
[[why there are so many bums here<-next]]He chose to look at the society. He walked out and see, not a lot of people but, quite lively town. There are some merchant and peasants interacting. While peasants, in his mind, was a bit too degrading since they didn't look so bad and actually has a decent clothes, there are some people with fancy clothes roaming around. He can definitely saw a big difference in their status. One fancy man, guarded by two knights, were yelling on behalf of the government.
"For we have provide you lodgings and protection against the undead, shall you pay the taxes. Failing to do this, the cruel wilderness will be your home."
<i>Undead, huh?</i>
Upon hearing the word, his interest piqued. However, he was not sure if he would be revived when he died or become an undead. He loves zombie killing game but that doesn't mean he want to be a zombie.
While wondering, suddenly a he was snapped back to reality by a yelling.
"A bum! Get him and throw him out of this town!" yell the fancy man while pointing his finger at Jean. The two knights, followed the order of the man, approached him.
He was thinking of [[Running away from the knights<-Running away]] or [[Trying to reason with the knights]]Jean tried to run from the knights. However, before he could turn back, the Knights were able to catch him. He tried to shake off the knights grip but their grip was soo hard his effort was in vain.
The fancy man walked up to Jean, smiling.
"Well, well, look at what we have here. Little kid, from your clothes, we can be very sure that you are a bum and didn't have any family. What do you have to say?" he look at Jean's eyes trying to intimidate.
"I can pay." Jean tried to not be intimidated.
"Ha! how can a bum like you pay the taxes? You don't even have money!"
The fancy man laughing in front of his face. Getting more irritated by the man, Jean was thinking of [[kicking the fancy man in the nuts]]. But he tried to [[Jean tried to keep calm<-keep himself calm]] and not complicating his problem further.Jean didn't flinch. "Wait!"
Ignoring what Jean said, they still capture him nonetheless. The fancy man walked up to Jean, smiling.
"Well, well, look at what we have here. Little kid, from your clothes, we can be very sure that you are a bum and didn't have any family. What do you have to say?" he look at Jean's eyes trying to intimidate.
"I can pay." Jean tried to not be intimidated.
"Ha! how can a bum like you pay the taxes? You don't even have money!"
The fancy man laughing in front of his face. Getting more irritated by the man, Jean was thinking of [[kicking the fancy man in the nuts]]. But he tried to [[Jean tried to keep calm<-keep himself calm]] and not complicating his problem further.Jean couldn't stand his annoying laugh. So, he swing his feet vertically and kicking the fancy man right on his nut. The laugh changed drastically to a painfull cry. He was cowering in pain on the ground.
"You insolent child!" The fancy man tried to hide his pain. "Throw him out... NO! Execute him, right now!"
Without waiting, one of the knights pulled out his sword. He was standing beside him while the other knight hold Jean from behind and forced him to bow. Suddenly an explosion was heard from behind and a big flying debris flew at the knight. Everything happened so suddenly that nobody can't even react. The debris crushed him to pieces.
Everyone's attention was turned to the [[source of explosion]]Jean didn't want to complicate things so he just stay silent. The man kept laughing in front of him. However, his laugh stop when a girl around Jean's age shows up and yelled stop.
"He was my brother and we paid for taxes."
Upon hearing that, the fancy man frowned. "Alright, release him."
The knight released their grip and started to walk away from Jean. The girl walks up to Jean's side. "Are you okay, brother?"
Jean didn't know his family yet. He didn't even know if she was his sister. But out of politeness, he nodded.
"Give him a better clothes, next time! We have no tolerance to anyone who looks like didn't pay taxes!" yell the fancy man.
"Alright, let's go hom-"
Suddenly an explosion was heard from behind and a big flying debris flew at the girl. Everything happened so suddenly that nobody can't even react. The debris crushed her to pieces.
Everyone's attention was turned to the [[source of explosion]]People were running away from the source of explosion. Jean saw a smoke soaring to the sky. People were running throught the street. Jean's curiosity made him walk in the opposite direction to where people run from.
After bumped with other people for a few times, he finally saw them. The undead he really wanted to see. However, contrary to his expectation. The undead wasn't walking. They were running. Some of them are even exploding.
"A freaking running and explosive undead? You gotta be kidding me!"
He saw two option, he can [[run along with the crowd]] or [[go into the alley]]knowing how scary the undead is, as he never likes playing against running zombie in video game, he ran along with the crowd. The crowd was running in unison. Turns out, they have been taught where to run if case like undead invasion happened.
However, it doesn't mean the escape was easy. The escape route was a tiny passage. The traffic of people were too much. The route was jammed.
By a little chance, you see a long black haired woman slipped through the crowd into an alley.
[[follow the mysterious girl<-Following the woman]] is another option other than [[waiting for the jammed escape route<-waiting in the crowd]].Jean chose to run into the alley. As he was panicked since he didnt have any weapon and experience, plus his body was still young and not built for fighting undead.
He stumbled into dead end time to time. He didn't know how much the time passes. He stumbled into another dead end but this time there was a growl from behind. An undead was looking at him. It can lunge anytime at him.
He didn't know whether he had to [[run past the undead]] and trying to outmaneuver him or [[to fight the undead]] hoping he outpower the undead."why all of you are here?" asked Jean.
"We are 'iding don't ye see? We bums ain't accepted by the government."
Jean and the bum talked for a while. The bum was explaining how they will be thrown from the city. At the worst case, they might be hung or beheaded if they were disobey the government.
"Y'know, there are people 'ere who came from outside the town and their experience ain't pleasant." The bum took a few breath. "Those undead are scary as to their witness. But, they didn't want to describe those monsters."
The bum then told a few stories of survivor in the alley. How they were chased by undead and how they create a little camp in the wilderness where they can get attacked at anytime.
"Not to say that town are definitely safe from those undead, but wilderness ain't something to wander."
After a while talking, the bum showed Jean the way out. Right before he exited the alley, the bum said goodbye and comeback to the deep side of the alley. Also, not long after that, there was an explosion. [[source of explosion<-Jean immediately go to the street and look at the explosion source]] With a little hesitation, Jean started to run. The undead was also run towards him. After they closed enough and the undead was ready to jump at him, he jumped to his right.
One thing he doesn't know was that the undead had good reflexes. While trying to evade the undead, it stretched its arm and grab Jean by the shoulder. Jean was pulled down.
[[Dead by lone zombie<-next]]The undead started running towards him. He tried to recall self defense move from his old life. He tried to fix his stance even though it was not perfect.
The undead was close enough with him and then jumped. He tried to do some movie-like things where the protagonist evaded his enemy and throw them behind.
However, it wasn't a movie and he was, instead, dragged down by the undead.
[[Dead by lone zombie<-Next]] The undead bit his neck. Blood spurted out as the bite ripped his artery on the neck. Slowly, he lose his consciousness as the undead kept biting him.
He didn't know whether the undead ate him completely or not. But one thing for sure...
He died.
[[Main Menu<-restart]]
[[source of explosion<-checkpoint]] Jean successfully slipped out of the crowd and go into the alley. However, he lost the track of her. From outsid the commotion of the crowd breaking can be heard. The growl of the undead was so loud that made Jean sure the undead reached the crowd. Several person coming to Jean's way and pushed him down.
And then there's several undead coming. They jumped right at Jean. At first one undead bit his shoulder. Then, others bit his leg and then his arm. His stomach ripped apart. Jean can only screamed for help which attracts more undead to devour him faster.
[[Main Menu<-restart]]
[[source of explosion<-checkpoint]] Jean keep staying in the line of hundreds of people trying to escape. However, even if they can move, it's only for an inch. It was very jammed. People were crying for help, they pushed each other, some were even fall and got stepped on. They were screaming to people in front of them to move faster.
However, those cry and scream was silenced as soon as growl was heard from behind. Those undead were running so fast at them. The crowd became more uncontrollable. They are panicking.
More people got stepped on. People were pushed. Fear ..., terror was drawn on their face. The crowd became more condensed. Jean was on the outer side of the crowd so he didn't get pushed.
But those monster behind him. They were coming closer. The crowd can no longer move. Their hope of escaping was no more as the government closed the passage. However, only people in front of the crowd knows it as people behind only knows that the passage is jammed and the undead behind them was too close.
Those monster dived into the crowd, scattering them. Some were able to escape to alley just to find themselves trapped in there.
Some were not lucky enough as they got bitten by the undead or take a brunt damage of an explosion from explosive undead.
[[Saved by the Undead Slayer Corps<-continue]]An undead jumped at Jean. His reflex wasn't good enough to evade the undead's attack. The undead dropped Jean. It falls on top of him. Jean was struggling but he was not strong enough. Slowly, the undead's teeth were getting closer to his face. In his peripheral vision, there was another undead coming for him.
"Ah shit, I'm gonna die."
At that thought, the undead's head were cut in half revealing something like a stone in its head. The body dropped on him like how a corpse should be. He looked at the other undead that was in his peripheral vision. It also dropped dead with his head split into two.
He saw a new figure in front of him. It wasn't an undead. It was a human, a woman. She was the mysterious slender woman that slipped out of the crowd earlier. She wore somekind of uniform. There was a writing on her back.
<i>Undead Slayer Corps</i>
"Are you okay?"
Her voice was serene. She looked around to check of any other approaching undead. The grip in her sword became tighter as the growl can still be heard around them.
"Yes," Jean answered with stutter in his voice.
"Please hold on a second. Reinforcement should arrive soon."
As she spoke that, another undead was coming. Her move was calm. It was flowing naturally like it was supposed to flow like that. He can see the movement of her sword but it was as if nothing and everything happened at the same time. His mind couldn't process that moves. Like the ocean. A calm ocean may looks fine on the surfaces. But beneath it a raging water flow could've blown diver away.
"Remove that undead's body please." She took a glance to Jean. There was no single trace of irritation in her tone but he can feel it.
So, he just [[remove the undead from his body<-obey her]].Jean removed the undead from his body. He then stood up while still trembling after almost died to an undead. That was a very traumatizing experience for him as he experienced it first hand ...
and not from a screen of a computer.
"Ready yourself. It seems you are a lucky one to be able to survive this. Most of the people here has died. Only those who managed to cross the passage are still alive." She was looking out at her surrounding. "And you of course."
"What do we do now?" Jean asked.
"We move. We can get easily surrounded if we were to stay here."
As she explaining things to Jean, there was three undead running from the front. After counting to three, she focused and move swiftly and calmly. In almost a blink of an eye all the three undead's head were cut in half.
Suddenly, an undead was already on side. Caught by surprise, her movement seems to fail. Its mouth were opened and ready to chew her flesh.
If it wasn't for an arrow flying to the undead's head, she would've been bitten. From the rooftop, there was someone holding a bow. After Jean looked at him closely, he was sure.
It was an elf.
The elf kept shooting his arrow. Killing more undead surrounding them. Still, there was too many of them.
"Follow me," she motioned him.
"Thanks ... err, Undead slayer?" said he as he following her
"Call me Lily, but we can talk later." She was slaying every undead that comes too close to them. Thanks to the Elf's support, the amount of undead near them was not too much.
[[Ask about explosive undead]]
[[Ask about Undead Slayer Corps]]"I saw some explosive undead at the attack. Why I haven't seen them now?" asked Jean out of curiosity.
"That's because I kill them before they can explode." answered Lily.
"Where are we going?" Jean asked.
"We are going out of here." she kept looking around as if searching for a way out.
"[[How do we escape]]?" Jean still curious."What's an Undead Slayer Corps?"
"As the name implies, our job was to slay undead. We aren't bound to any government. We are basically an independent group of mercenary specializing in killing undead. More to explain later," she kept searching for a way out.
"Where are we going?" Jean asked.
"We are going out of here." she kept looking around as if searching for a way out.
"[[How do we escape]]?" Jean still curious.
She didn't answer but started running instead. He instinctively followed her running. After a while, they finally rendezvouz with the elf archer in an alley dead end.
"Alright, I will start the teleportation magic ritual. You two cover me."
The elf tossed his short sword to Jean. He catched it even though it was almost fell of his hand. The sword was nothing out of the ordinary. However, it suddenly a yellowish glow started to appear.
"Here they comes. Undead approaching."
Lily, with her techniques, starts to mow down the undeads one by one. Her natural flow of the sword is captivating. However, she couldn't kill all of them. As after every certain number of zombie killed, the flow stopped abruptly. Her reflex only helped her to evade before she started to swing her sword again.
"One coming at you!" said her while keep killing undead.
So, Jean started to swing the sword. It hit the head of the undead but it also stuck.
[[Teleportation successful<-next]]Another undead was coming. Jean tried to pull the sword from the killed undead. It stuck so hard he had to pull it with all his strenght. He managed to pull it out but he was getting off balance and fell to his back.
The undead jumped at him. He raised the sword in front of him. The undead fly right to the sword and its head were stabbed by it.
It was pure luck for him.
"Time to go!" yell the elf.
Without waiting any longer, Jean ran into the teleportation circle. But not Lily. She was still keeping the undead away from the circle.
"Ten seconds!" yell the elf.
Knowing she had no time, she run to the circle. But before stepping in, she turned to the undead and focused on her sword. The undead was running and jumped at her.
She slashed the ground in front of her and suddenly wall made of swift water erected. The undead couldn't move past it as they were thrown to air when walking into it.
"Now or never!"
Lily jumped into the teleportation circle and then blinding light covered them.
Slowly the blinding light faded. Jean uncovered his eyes to find himself at somekind of a tavern.
"Welcome, to the Undead Slayer Corps."
[[End of Chapter 1]]Author's Note:
Thanks for playing! A few notes from me the author. I am really looking forward to continue this. There are some subtle things I put in this first chap. Can't wait to show you how things will unfold.
I will start to publish this every once a week. Probably around 10.00 A.M. in monday (GMT +7). I'm not an native english speaker so you can point out any mistake via my email. (should I create a discord server for this? XD)
The main character here is Jean and several character are going to accompany him. Lily and Elf Archer isn't just going to be a passer-by character so expect more from them in the future.
Maybe that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed the story and see you in the next chap! ^^)/.
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<a link="">Chapter 2</a>