"Hey!" I yelled, banging my fists aggressively on the door. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Just go with the plan." I heard the door lock click as she spoke. "You came up with the whole thing, didn't you?" She asked. "Since you're such a genius, I trust you'd figure out something."
Figuring out something used to be an option until she took my sword from me. That was probably to convince the monster that I was intentional about being its lunch, but regardless, it was still a reckless move. My reckless move, technically. Which made it worse.
HISS! The zombie boss hissed behind me, as if trying to warn me to behave when on its turf. It was looking at me directly now, and I could see it clearly up close. Humanoid shaped, but with bulgy eyes and reptilian skin that explained a lot about what had started the whole zombification of the school in the first place. Patient zero, right here.
The look on its face was bland. Not exactly matching the hunger it clearly felt. It just stood looking bored, like something that had just come out of a two-hour long black and white movie. Its mouth was open in a way that made it hard to tell whether it was open or not. However it was positioned, the monster was definitely hungry. I could tell from the drool situation happening at the corners of its jaw.
"Yeah, this is not good."
"B...B...brain?" The monster spoke, something like a question. Then it pointed at me. More precisely, at my head. "B...brain?"
"Ah, no. Not my brain." I held my hands out, the universal signal for calm down that has never once worked on anything. "I'm too dumb. My brain definitely can't be tasty."
Maybe the word tasty was the wrong choice, because the zombie boss charged at me immediately— the precise energy of an athlete with years of experience and exactly one thing on its agenda.
"Brain!!"
It swatted at me, hands going straight for my head. I ducked and went down, crossing over its arms and behind it. It came at me again with speed I hadn't believed a zombie boss could manage. On the bright side, it was all speed and no strategy. I could keep up with it as long as—
WHACK!
The kick hit harder than anything I'd expected. Which, to be fair, was partly because I hadn't expected zombies to kick at all. The moment I crashed against the railings, I felt it in my back, alongside something that sounded suspiciously like a crack somewhere in the spine region.
The zombie boss came toward me, eyes set on me with the same blank expression it had been wearing since the beginning. It kept muttering the only words it knew, then took me up by the collar, lifting me just enough so we were at eye level in what I can only describe as the worst close-up I'd ever experienced.
I almost barfed.
"Brain. Brain." It opened its mouth, and what earlier looked like an unbalanced jaw was now something else entirely. Something as wide as the entrance of a tunnel. "Brain. Brain. Brain."
"Hey, Paula!" I yelled, gripping the monster's arm with everything I had. "If you're gonna be useful, now is literally the perfect time."
Paula didn't answer. The monster brought my head closer to its mouth.
"Paula!"
SLICE! Sword against flesh. The monster growled immediately in pain, dropped me, and staggered backwards, turning around to figure out what exactly had just attacked it. And there she was. Paula. Standing in the exact manner of someone who had already accepted they'd lost this fight before it started.
The monster towered over her, huffing cold air from both nostrils. Then it grabbed her with an unregistered speed, full anger mode written all over its bulgy eyes.
"I think I get it now, Ren." She said with a slow, distressed huff. "It's not a revival. It's a repetition. I understand now why I could never beat the monster." She grunted against the grip. "That's probably never going to change for me."
I looked at her, pure confusion written all over my face.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"The answer to your question." She said. "I only had one chance. We all did. And somehow, we all failed that chance and ended up as part of this damned system."
"We?" I tried to keep my eyes open through the blinding cold. "What do you mean, we?"
She didn't immediately answer. She raised her sword and mine in the air, in the manner of someone about to land an epic strike. Probably her last. Then she replied:
"The bureau has the answers. The hunters, specifically. Everyone thought I was stupid. They still think I am." She glanced at me one last time. "You have to survive, Ren. Find the answers. About the system. About all of this. You have no idea what depends on what you discover."
I wasn't sure whether her speech was all part of the node setup. But it was making literal sense, which actually ended up making no sense at all. How could an NPC know about the Bureau Hunters? The system?
And the fact that she said this wasn't a revival but a repetition. She sounded exactly like a normal person would. Not a replication. Not a programme running a script.
STAB! Paula's sword impaled through the zombie's left chest. With mine, she sliced its right arm clean off. The arm dropping was brutal. Green blood dripped from the monster's wound, but surprisingly it was still standing. Still growling in pain instead of just dying like it was supposed to.
"Finish it, Ren—"
Before Paula could finish, the monster flung her off like some forbidden item it had decided to return. Her body went right past me and over the railing. Six floors down. The drop echoed.
"Paula!!"
I rushed to the railing, peering down to a barely conscious Paula, swords clattered right beside her, eyes barely open as her blood moved down the tiles. My breathing became constricted, my chest doing that weird, uncoordinated thumping thing. The same one it had done when I'd watched Rowan being electrocuted.
Paula was looking back up at me, her mouth moving slowly. I couldn't hear her from six floors away. But I read her lips.
I'm...fine.
And even while the zombies on the field approached her, she kept repeating those words. The zombies cooped over her like a swarm of pests. The only thing I heard afterwards was munching and slurping.
The thumping stopped. Everything pretty much stopped.
And rage came online instead.
I pulled myself away from the railing, eyes on the zombie boss. I equipped my sword— a cleaner, less blood-stained one appeared in my grip, fresh from inventory.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Kill!
Kill!
I walked toward the monster, then raised my arms and yelled with complete aggression as I drew a brutal slice down its torso. Blood gushed out— green and sticky— before it gave its final groan and dropped to the floor.
[Timer: 00:00:00]
[Task Complete!]
[Rewards]
[Mastery Distribution]
[Skill: Overdrive]
The domain began its replacement. But this time, I was on the rooftop instead of the library, where the domain had originally dropped me.
The cold dissolved into a fair amount of warmth. The sun was brighter— the kind that reminded you of a brutal afternoon on the track field. The world didn't look as interesting as it had a few hours before the tournament started. Funny how that works.
Paula. She was a player like me. That was all I understood at that moment. Which meant if she was a player, then I was definitely not the main player.
What was I, then?
RINNG! RINNG! The phone sounded from my pocket, interrupting the sudden moment. I pulled it out intending to turn it off. There were already too many things to process after all. I checked the screen, then I stopped.
Doctor Emma.
I'd given her my number the day before so she could update me on Rowan's recovery process. It was the least I could do — stay reachable, hope he pulled through fast. Except that this was way too early a timeline for a recovery from something critical. It wasn't even twenty-four hours yet.
What's this about?
I clicked accept and placed the phone to my ear. "Hello, Doctor."
"Ren. It's Rowan." The doctor's tone had something in it. Like controlled panic. "I'm sorry... But we lost him."