by Naosu N R
"Wow, how'd you get so good at head slamming them?" she asked.
"..."
I didn't tell her, it was actually the enchants on my weapon, which greatly increased my hit and damage possibilities.
"Do you have anything useful I can use? Health potions? Spell scrolls? Anything?" I asked.
"Hang on..." she paused to spit bullets into three more zombies. They died, but she used five bullets.
"This is so weird. I'm supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around," I heard her muttering softly while trying to get me tools to use from the trunk.
This...is also scary, because I don't know if their bites will be a one shot game over like in movies and TV, or just cause tons of damage.
Either way...
Damn.
We are so screwed.
The number of zombies just increased.
...
But somehow I hung on, managing to speed cast stun, faster than they can engage and then eliminating them with head shots while stunned.
Remarkably the stun skill works very well on zombies. In fact, I think they even have a weakness to it.
We still ended up pulling back a few paces.
Duh! What the hell am I scared for?! I just need to use my skills!
I quickly jumped into activating my umbrella shield with the damage absorption shield enchant! Yes, it worked! My mana plummets by 10. But then I can direct the umbrella shield to absorb the zombie bites, pointing it ahead of me.
"Oh wow. That's an odd twist. Quite useful equipment you have there," Mandy said.
"Get behind me!" I cried.
"Eh?"
"Do it! You have no shielding device," I said quickly.
"This is weird. I'm supposed to be the tank," she said.
"Without a healer magic job, is it even possible for you to tank zombies?" I asked while keeping my shield up.
"No. One bite and its over. Don't get bit," she said while blasting two more zombies. She reluctantly followed my commands.
I managed to further enhance my combat form! With the stun skill, I can more easily steer the other zombies into my umbrella shield, without getting bit!
Still, it is scary however!
My umbrella shield enchant, plummeted by -24 energy points after a series of blocks and charge renewals on the enchant shielding and stun uses!
I stunned another zombie, losing about 3 mana.
Then while Mandy just took a slow shot to head shot a zombie, I re-energized the energy field into the umbrella shield's enchant!
Yes! It worked!
I'd been wondering how I was going to do this part! The part of reloading the shield while losing mana wasn't easy, as I had to do it with 3 zombies trying to get me, with another one stunned nearby.
The other stunned zombie came out of the stun!
Ping!
I hurriedly hit him in the head twice with my enchanted crowbar, right where it'd hurt the most! The damage with my crowbar is quite nice.
"Good one. I'm getting low on mana!" Mandy told me.
"Hang in there," I told her.
"This is so screwy. I'm supposed to tank for you as your bodyguard, not the other way around," she frowned.
"Your guns are loud. We can't stay here long," I warned.
We slew 8 more zombies, which costed me 16 mana total.
"Whew! That was good," Mandy said as we managed to get back to the car.
Then we hurriedly peeled out leaving about 11 zombies still alive behind us.
We moved forward fast until she slammed on the brakes when there's like thirty zombies ahead of us, after we'd driven a whole mile.
"What are you doing?! You stopped!" I said.
"Your parents will totally kill me if I damage one of the company vehicles!" she said upset back.
"So you want to kite them?" I asked.
"Why not? If we kite them we can get XP also. If this is a dungeon bubble, then it has to have rules and rewards. That's how they work!" she said.
"Dungeon bubble?"
"You know, human created dungeons?" she acted like I was an idiot.
"Is that what this is? And how is that different from a normal dungeon? Maybe its not a bubble dungeon, but a larger type?" I asked.
"Think of it like a big trap. It doesn't matter which type it is, but just that we survive it. But whether the dungeon is created by a mage or a person, it still has to offer rewards even if it hates the people inside it. This was created by your family's enemy. But it still has to follow physics," she said while driving back.
We ended up in a second engagement with the zombies.
I gave her the spare crowbar I'd retrieved. But that one isn't enhanced, so its damage is lower.
Then we shot up 7 more zombies while I tanked for the tank using my umbrella enchant shielding device.
But at that point, I heard her gun going, click click click click click, before she announced she was out of bullets.
I've now lost an additional 21 mana, but then head shot a stunned zombie.
The stun move with the mana shield are awesome.
"Oh wow, you are so bad ass," she said impressed.
She hit one of the zombies, wounding it.
Then I stunned it.
She hit it again, followed by mine.
"What's your strength stat?" I asked.
"Screw that. I'm not telling," she said.
"But I'm doing more damage than you?" I asked curious.
We managed to kill a few more zombies. But then neither of us wanted to be there when the next horde arrived.
We began cruising around the dungeon town.
"We need to find shelter," she said.
"Don't you mean find an exit?" I asked.
She shook her head. "This dungeon is many square miles. It may be about as big as Los Angeles County itself, or about half that I expect. I figured out we're not in instant dungeon. So we must be in 'THE dungeon', the Tower of Babel dungeon, though I'm not sure which floor we're on. It could take months to find the exit. Instead we need to go find a place to shelter in place. Then we'll figure out how to call for help."
Months?! And is the dungeon really that big?!
My family had told me the dungeon floors were big the further down you went. But they didn't tell me they were THAT big!
What will happen to my mind control enchants on Simone and Melanie during that time also?
And which dungeon floor are we even on?
And being transported by that guy to an undead floor means he really did intend to have us killed. Nobody normal would survive this floor even if they are leveled up, or involved in a murim underground world.
I can't wait that long.
And above all else, 'do NOT get bit', I thought.
Chapter 22
It didn't take long until we found out other things while driving around in the brand new Audi about this new place. If it weren't for the fact that we were in a city dungeon full of zombies, I might have even enjoyed being in the new car. Its not easy to do that when being chased by zombies, or watching out for them when we're not.
But I also didn't want zombie damage on the new car either. It was just so pretty in its coloring that, that would be a terrible crime.
Technically this is a family car, but its under my control. So as long as I don't piss off my parents, its as if this is my own car! And its nice to have a new spiffy shiny toy.
First, we could manage driving around if we tried to keep the RPMs of the car engine below a certain level and maintained a speed of over 35 miles per hour. This can help us conserve gas also, and keep noise down if we don't go too fast. And zombies 'seem' to not be able to go above about 20 miles an hour.
However, due to the fact that humans can get to about 30 miles per hour, we don't take changes going near that speed, since its possible that not all zombies may be slow (unknown).
But also, going around corners we have to be especially careful also, since we can't see how many zombies are on
a street that we turn onto until its too late. And with so many buildings around, its easy for them to be out on the street, at least in smaller dispersed numbers.
Yet, if we don't stay moving they tend to get into clumps more. And when they clump together that's especially bad since it leads to more problems with being able to pass through the road, or damage the car by hitting them. When they aren't clumped together Mandy can use her good driving skills to avoid this.
Block after block we drive through, with her being able to manage them well.
Although there were a few close calls. Her grip on the steering wheel is very white knuckled also, I can see.
Dang.
IF this is the dungeon, the big one that everyone goes to, as in the Tower of Babel dungeon, then it will be quite a mess for us to find other people. And also it will be hard for us to find our way out also.
I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I also doubt many people would go to an undead dungeon that can kill you in one shot also. So finding others to work with worries me.
Another hour passed. Then two.
We'd also discovered that the zombies usually were slow, but about 10 percent of them could run at speeds up to 30 miles an hour. This wasn't too unheard of since they came from human bodies, which run at that speed.
We also don't know how wide a variety of types of undead there are.
"Don't most dungeons also have bosses on every level?" I asked Mandy.
She flinched and wouldn't answer me. But I finally got an "I don't know," out of her. And right after that came, "let's not find out. We should take it slow and be careful."
"That's probably true. Thanks. If you think of anything else helpful let me know," I told her.
And with a car we had a big escape advantage, provided that we didn't box ourselves in, and get trapped. We could also get a good look at the 'city dungeon' zone map.
"We need to hurry and find some place safe to go into. It will be sun down in about 2 hours. Some place inside with locked doors and with very few windows if possible," Mandy told me finally.
Damn.
The sun is going down.
"Yeah, I agree. But I'm not sure how we can lose most of the zombies without drawing them in a building after us when we try to leave the car," I said.
"I'll try to take care of that," she said firmly.
"You can do that?"
"I can try."
"So we need to find out if when you try to go into one of the buildings, if it will let you lock the doors after you," she said. "If we can do that, we might have a chance. But if the doors don't lock we're better off not stopping and moving on," she added.
This might work, I thought...
"But preferably something with multiple floors, or a way of channeling them away from following us," I said.
"A house maybe?" she asked while turning around a corner.
"No. A house would get overwhelmed quite easy in the night," I said.
"So, you're thinking an apartment building then?" she asked.
"Yeah, something like that. But not a ground level. Some of them have door and fence gates outside also," I mentioned.
"Yeah like a gated community building! That's a good idea," she said happy that we'd figured out something good.
"Its amazing that this guy could create a map this big. This place is huge!" she exclaimed.
"Actually I don't think he created it. He just brought us here," I countered.
We turned a few more times on a few roads.
But then we were surprised when passing one street and a set of alleys we see a huge tumult of mobbing forces of zombies against...
"What's that?" I asked.
"What?! How can that be?! There are orcs here! Wow!" she exclaimed.
So orcs are real too?
That's weird.
Why would they...
I stopped trying to process the weirdness of it all.
The other dungeons I'd done didn't have orcs, though I had run into goblins. It seems like every day there's something new to discover.
The orcs were unmistakable in their great size and height being higher than a human. There was a whole party of them battling a zombie swarm that had surrounded and engulfed them!
"Oh! So they don't get along with the zombies! Interesting," I commented.
"That makes sense. I think only other undead types and necromancers would be able to co-exist with zombies," she said.
(Necromancers are real too huh?)
The orcs war cries also were extremely loud! (And not smart in my opinion. But it may be because in other places they could use it as some kind of skill?)
Their ranks were formidable and solid. Against zombies, it was surprising that such a group could have such a great defense against them and stay standing. And for awhile it seemed like they might be holding the horde of zombies back. But then every once in awhile one or two of them would turn undead after taking several bites. But they also didn't seem to learn that their bold war cries and loud skills, were just attracting endless amounts of undead that were coming at them ruthlessly.
One of the orcs has spotted us! He cried to the others! But none of them can do anything about us, though they want to. (Mandy is actually a pretty good target also, and a good looking woman.)
But they can't even get to us. There's too many zombies. Endless numbers of zombies were coming at the small tumult that looked like ants nests fighting!
"Get us out of here! Its not safe!" I said.
Mandy peeled out, as she floored the gas pedal to get us out of there. We took off, with dozens and dozens of zombies trying to go after us next, in small groups breaking away from the orcs.
What an unusual experience!
Still most of the zombies and orcs remained dead locked with not many going after us. But even so, it took awhile to even lose them.
"We can't let the orcs see where we hide out, or where the car is parked," I said carefully, as we're retreating.
"Gotcha," Mandy said.
"How many bullets do you have left?" I asked.
"Not many. I have half a clip left. That's all," she said.
"And no spare clips?" I asked.
"Are you kidding? I wasn't planning to go to war. I was only taking you to and from your places of business and school for my job description," she snorted, annoyed.
"Bullets are overrated anyway," she then added.
But both of us actually are puzzled why it even let her use bullets here. Maybe the settings on this dungeon were different than others?
My enchant fix probably gave her a temporary override. But we were lucky to get even that.
And once we both realized where we were, we also realized it shouldn't have even have let me give her gun a temporary 'works in the dungeon' enchant.
Guns just don't usually work in dungeons, period!
"So all the other clips were used?" I asked.
We were fortunate that she had the extra long clips that can hold a lot of bullets. However, it was actually less than a third of a clip left; which meant we actually had 9 bullets when I checked it.
"9 is better than nothing," she said.
"And the areas around us, might not have real gas stations," I said.
"Really? But it mirrors the city," she argued.
Her tone of voice told me she was afraid it was true.
Plus, even if we could or couldn't fill up the car, it also meant that trying to find a window where there were no zombies at all on the street was near impossible also while filling up the car.
"Okay, we're going to have to stop somewhere and find a place to hide out," I said.
"OK. Let's at least try to find some place good," she said.
We spent quite a bit of time scouting places out.
Inevitably we managed to avoid bumper car games with most of the zombies but not all. It began to even be hard to find streets that didn't have them out in the street, the closer it got to sun down.