Becoming a Monster

Now that he got the other items out the way, he was finally able to turn his attention to the glowing orange orb.

'I guess it would be too much to ask for legendary equipment, but it has to be special if it glows right?'

Thankfully no one could hear his thoughts, but he probably wouldn't care as his attention was all on the orb. He clutched the orb in his palm and brought it up to his face. The orb was neither cold nor hot, when he inspected closer he realized he couldn't detect a temperature at all, but just holding the orb gave him the illusion of his body becoming more tough.

"Don't tell me…." He squeezed the orb since there weren't any notifications telling him what to do. Not only was he right in doing so but his worries turned out to be true as well.

[Constitution +2]

"Motherfucking Johnathon!" Noah burst out in agitation, anyone who would be given to live in this type of situation would like to be the cool type doing fancy moves and unbelievable kills and yet here he is seemingly being driven towards the tank route. He had no one else to blame but Johnathan who gave him the staple shield skill meant for tanks.

'Well I'll at least be hard to kill and besides…' He looked towards his shoulder and attempted to rotate it, he was still experiencing pain but after the received constitution, he felt that he would now be able to swing his hammer, although painful, it was better than not being able to use it. 'I wonder if I can get different orbs if I kill more zombies..'

He then turned to the small pile of gold at the bottom of the chest. Seeing the amount caused his eye to twitch since it seemed to be too much to have to carry around especially when he doesn't know what it's used for.

Thinking about the gold made him reach into his pockets where he stashed the other three but as he maneuvered around in his pants, he came to realize the money wasn't there?

'Did I get robbed by the zombies? No that shouldn't be right…but where could it have gone?

Noah felt that the gold would be really important in the future so he had to find out. He started grabbing a handful of coins to try to decipher where they were going. As this was going on, another scene was taking place on the floor above.

...…..

"Mark we can't hold on if we stay here, we have to leave the building now. There's only so much we can do alone."

Said a slightly overweight male who just like everyone else was in their sleeping attire. He wielded a short one handed mace which still had fresh blood dripping from its tip. You can tell from his exhausted face and the still flowing blood from the bodies before that they had just finished a hard fought battle in their dorm room.

With him were three others that looked just as exhausted, two of the others still haven't recovered from their fear of what just transpired. So he turned to the only one he could rely on at this moment and was also his roommate, Mark. He had a boorish face but he was a young prodigy when it came to sports which was a big reason he was accepted into the school. Standing about 6 feet tall, he had a commanding feel about him. Jet black curly hair that was neatly trimmed and brown eyes that were full of alertness. His most noticeable aspect was his broad shoulders and muscular arms that wielded a two handed sword. The other two just happened to be roommates that they saved.

"I know you're right and more importantly I can't stay here when my big sister is so close to me and I'm not there to help her. Let's get out of here first and group up with people on the way. These things don't run so if we rush out together and take them out as we go then I doubt the rest of them could catch up to us.

The two made their way towards the door before a voice spoke up behind them.

"Wh-what are you d-doing? We should stay here and wa-wait till help comes." The most nervous one of the two almost screamed before he caught himself and covered his mouth.

The boy who stood next to the one that just spoke created distance from him and made his way to the door.

"I'm not with him, but if we can make it out of here safely and I can reach my parents then I'll be sure to heavily reward you, I'm Charlie by the way." The boy spoke directly to Mark with a tinge of nervousness in his voice but also you can detect a sense of pride in his voice at the mention of his family. The boy was short, a little below 5ft which was extremely short when compared to mark. He wore a pair of big circular glasses with a bowl cut. His weapon was surprisingly a staff which was perfect for him because of his short stature.

"Mark looked towards the two people he and his roommate saved and shook his head. Charlie noticed this and thought he was turning him down because of what the person before him said but then he heard him speak.

"I'm not waiting here any longer, I don't regret saving you but my sister means more to me than you. If you still want to stay then be my guess but I'm going with or without you. Let's go Jack, we have a lot of ground to cover.

"Wait"

They were about to leave when Jack stopped them. Mark was getting a little annoyed since he was desperate to save his sister but he couldn't say it since he couldn't do it on his own.

Jack pointed towards his clothes which were battered and bloodied. "How about we change into better clothes before we leave? Plus we could try giving your sister a call before we blindly go and look for her."

Everyone stopped and stared at Jack like he was a wild animal. Their anxiety and adrenaline was at an all time high that they forgot about something so important like their cell phone.

Being fat in this situation benefited Jack since he was more self conscious about his appearance which made him start to think about the necessities.

Having agreed to his suggestion, they ransacked the room for anything useful. Even the boy who was against them at first who they found out was named Tom also helped since he was afraid to be alone.

While that was going on, Not only Mark but also Jack tried reaching out to family on their phone only to meet static. This caused Mark to panic even more as he rushed the group to leave.

As soon as they rushed out the door, they were met with a small group of zombies in the hall leading to the stairs. Unlike Noah whose screams led them all to his dorm, the zombies here were more spread out and you could often see them clawing at random doors trying to get in.

Mark led the way as he mowed the zombies in front down one by one. Even though he was panicked for his sister, he enjoyed the looks of awe being directed towards him as he led the group.

Everything seemed to be going to plan for them until they reached the next floor.

They were about to keep going till they heard a voice.

"Motherfucking Johnathan!" They heard the voice agitatedly scream out which caused them to stop. Just the voice alone caused them to want to know what was going on. Especially when they heard nothing after that, almost as if those things didn't care about him yelling out.

"Should we go check? Jack asked timidly, he was afraid to go but at the same time he had a soft heart.

"No, why would we go after he just yelled like that? He'll bring those things towards him." Of course it was no one else but Tom who spoke this remark.

Jack only looked towards Mark for his thoughts since it would mostly be him doing all the work if they had to fight more of those zombie-like things.

Mark stayed silent for a few moments, not only was he thinking but he was also listening. The people who all turned into the 'zombies' could not help but growl and make noise so he paid close attention to gleam if he could hear anything similar.

The longer he didn't hear anything else the more curious he became. Not just because that meant there was someone else that could fight toe to toe as he could but it also meant that it would be that much easier to save his sister.

"I think we should go check, but at the first sign of danger we leave."

They moved towards the hallway only to see the entire hall emptied. They were confused when they compared it to the scene from the floor they were on but that's when they saw it. In the middle of the hall there was a door, well at first they thought it was a door, at least a broken door till they finally realized it was just a wall of bodies.

An audible gulp was heard from within the group.

At this point they were unsure if they should continue but they still marched on when they noticed Mark was still moving.

​ Unlike before, Mark was more than curious about the person who could kill so many zombies. He had to know who did it and if they survived. Part of him was jealous that someone could do this by themselves when he was unsure if he could, especially when he was also rewarded for gaining the achievement for killing a zombie in the allotted time. Just the thought of someone else being more special than him when he thought he was special hit him hard. And so he walked towards the room, not bothering if his group were behind him or not.

The closer they neared, the more the smell of blood became prevalent and soon they were able to hear someone rummaging through coins and a small chuckle here and there.

They were already cautious from seeing the bodies at the door but when they arrived at the door to see, the contents in the room almost traumatized them.

There were too many bodies to count and blood everywhere. The horrifying scene didn't stop there when they spotted the person who caused all of this sitting on the floor 'playing' with coins from the chest they too were now familiar with. The freakish part of it all was that he was covered in blood but had a smile plastered on his face.

It wasn't until the smell started to get to them more and Charlie saw the brain matter slip out of a dead zombie causing him to gag that made Noah finally notice that he was being watched.

"Coughs! Sooo…can I help you with something?"