by Naosu N R
"A few weeks? That's so long," Simone frowned.
"Actually its pretty amazing. Think about it. With a dungeon class, you are stretching your limits of how high you can reach as a human. If that's the case then, a few weeks is nothing. Most people would give up years for that," Mandy explained.
"OK, I guess if you put it like that its not bad," Simone said.
Melanie confirmed it also. She'd considered this type of move as an amplifier, because her job doesn't give her much to go on with combat skills.
We drove around in silence.
We tried to go to the outer edges of town, knowing that we'd need to find a house or a building to lay low in. Plus, we had to hide this Audi sedan.
Already the car has zombie puss and filth caked on it, but at least its not getting inside the car.
Brainstorming with the others, the first priority is to find safety, food, and water, while we travel and evade.
12:37 PM
We went into a residential area on the edge of town after driving around quite a while. We lost a lot of time also trying to pick neighborhoods that looked empty; which weren't many also.
We picked out houses with high fences and pulled in one's driveway.
"Look out!" Melanie called out.
I feel energy whooshed into me as Melanie gave me her amplifier buff. Then she started doing the others.
Several trampling feet sounds alert us to undead trying to rush us as we're stuck with a gate to open to get into this yard.
"I got it!" Shelly called out.
I felt a weird light energy blast hit the first undead and it drops dead.
Two more are rushing us.
I hit the first with a stun, to buy time for Mandy and the others to get out of the car and put up a formation. Still, I also don't trust these guys to be strong enough for zombies yet, especially Melanie and Simone!
And Mandy has to drive the car.
"Simone, you and Melanie open the gate! One of you has to also be a spotter!" I ordered.
"OK!" Simone is trying to get the driveway gate latch. Melanie is spotting her and the rest of us.
Rapidly mayhem is already starting.
Zombies from all over the nearby yards are suddenly looking towards us and moving.
"Oh shit," Shelly said in horror and fear.
I'm scared also.
Zombies are a lot harder than you'd guess at combat. And most of these aren't level 1 zombies either, but the level of their previous life, plus a few bonus levels of being turned to team zombie.
I hadn't thought about it much before, but the undead technically do have levels here!
It makes them hard to kill, ruthless, and exceptionally dangerous!
I put up my umbrella damage shield with its charge.
Mandy had to put the car into park, while the others are still struggling with the gate. She then bashes the zombie hard with her weapon.
Shelly zapped another one, using whatever that anti-undead skill is. It falls over dead.
I hit the one Mandy is on twice and its dead.
But then there's more of them.
"We have to clean up the whole neighborhood, or they'll just swarm the yard while we're not looking," Shelly ordered.
"So you've been to this dungeon level?" I asked.
"Once," she said worriedly.
"How'd it go?" Mandy asked.
"Only me and one other survived," Shelly said.
Shit...
That's the last thing I want my team to hear also.
Mandy and I finally killed another zombie. By then Shelly has zapped two more.
"Guys, it uses tons of mana to use my 'undead zap' on them. I can't do it after this," she added.
I'm also worried because my mana is low.
But we got a break when Mandy is able to use a shield bash skill. She also has a trip tactic that she can use.
2 more zombies are executed with team up combos.
I also registered a status screen notification in my window. In the process of the battle I glanced at it, while using my umbrella on the zombies.
[Status screen notification; you have achieved sufficient [synergy] to form a [formation combo] with the following team members; Mandy. Damage bonus when double teaming a monster of +10%, when you and this person are fighting together!]
Wow, a team member specific bonus! Nice!
Then after that I got the same thing from Melanie and Simone, even though they are just working on the gate, which is stuck.
Weird...
So you can get some free skill junk just for being in the same time with your lovers? (Although Mandy technically isn't a lover yet.)
It was only after killing off 17 zombies that we finally got the gate open.
Still, there were a few good things that happened.
Simone has reached level 5. It didn't give me any skill notifications or job information notifications with her yet, however.
Melanie received the [parry], [block], and [evade] skills. (She already had [defend]. And its too bad she had to risk her neck so far to get those skills. Some people just get them by training, but she has to really push herself for some reason to get anything.)
Finally we got the car into the yard. Then we shut the gate.
One of the reasons why we picked this house was the high brick masonry fence. It was also why we had to drive around so much.
"Guys, zombies in the house," Shelly said.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"As a heal class I can detect them," she replied.
It took a few minutes to clear out the house. We also baited and trapped them by setting up trip lines using wires tied to stakes in the front yard near the entrance and then after that. Plus, the dungeon detection skill that I'd just acquired let us whittle them down easier by approaching from the least risk possible first.
This let me reduce mana cost by using the umbrella damage shield skill only, but not other skills because of mana constraints.
"Matt, you need to have Simone be the forager as much as possible in the house," Mandy told me.
"Why is that?" Simone asked before I could.
"In the 'murim' player guides, that's one way of trying to coerce creating your own ranger class," Mandy said.
"What? Ranger? I can't be a mage?" Simone frowned.
Somehow Simone had gotten into this pretty hard core. I think she'd also thought about the job class Mandy is doing, because Mandy is handling herself well.
Mandy shook her head 'no'. "You don't have enough mana to even begin to quality to get the job title, let alone grow it."
Simone frowned, until Melanie explained that rangers were kind of bad ass and elite scouts.
We ended up going with it.
But then Mandy told us we should be having Simone also build the traps, while learning how to make and set them, as that's a secondary ranger skill.
(OK. So she means if we want her to become a ranger dungeon class job, then we have to have her doing those kinds of things.)
I shrugged and handed her the hammer Melanie had brought with the stakes and wire.
It became sort of painful to watch a clumsy un-leveled up Simone struggle to build tripwires.
Some might not like trip wires as a worthy trap because they don't do any damage really. But just tripping and preventing an attack with zombies is worth it.
We waited it out while Simone had to use blood, sweat, and tears to set up four tripwires in the yard. Two of these were supporting the two that I had setup. Then we set two more in the yard near the fences.
"That's good. We just have to get you to level 10 now," Mandy told us thoughtfully.
"Level 10? For what?" I asked.
"You haven't read the guides?" she asked.
"My family doesn't tell me shit," I frowned.
"To get a normal human to get a job class, we essentially have to level up someone like Simone to level 10 as a villager. At that point she'd experience something similar to a 'player reset
', and start all over at level 1 with her new job," Mandy said.
"Starting all over sounds like it would suck," Simone said.
"It would. But its necessary. Also the forage and hunt skills are life savers. We can't even survive here longer than about 3 days without food. That whole time all of us will be suffering until we get you to be a real ranger job," Mandy told her.
"So we could starve if she fails?" Melanie frowned.
The whole team darkened and frowned at Simone.
No pressure.
Except, I don't think its so bad having a hot blonde ranger like her, if that's what we can turn her into in the near future.
Actually, Miguel is still asleep in the car drugged. I can't blame him. The pain on his hand must feel like its on fire.
But what did he give himself? I thought we only gave him a bit of booze? But he's clearly passed out.
We had Simone do the searching and scouting, hoping it would help her more.
Then we had to search this huge house and its rooms for zombies, and dispatch them.
3 zombies found in the living room.
2 in the backyard pool. (The pool is ruined with black sludge like water in it; if you can even call it that anymore.)
But the plus, is that the backyard has 3 fruit trees. One of them has ripe perfect looking apples, found also by Simone. The other two aren't in season and are partly rotted already from nobody picking the fruit in time and much of it on the ground.
The others collected the fruit as much as they could. I noticed Melanie and Simone were just using their own shirts to bundle it up, which exposed much of their midriff.
...
"Huh?! What the hell?!" Simone is shocked when she gets her first status screen notification.
We had her read it to us.
"It says... 'congratulations level 5 villager class. You have acquired the [Agriculture] skill," she said.
"Good," Mandy said satisfied.
"Good? Why does it think I'm a villager?" Simone frowned.
"Its not that bad to be a villager. It means the dungeon is already letting your body absorb latent mana around us also," Shelly told her.
"All starting default classes are pretty much a villager class. Its not a bad thing," Mandy told her.
Simone seemed doubtful of her words, despite our encouragement.
"A level up this fast is good," Shelly told her.
Shelly and Melanie were smirking and covering up smiles, until Mandy glared at both of them.
"Is agriculture any good?" I asked Mandy.
"It is. But it takes time and we don't have that luxury. Agriculture as a status screen skill, plus with mana or using the system will give food amount bonuses to food and food production. That takes immense time to work out and achieve though, so we can't do it in a day or a few hours. And it takes huge amounts of tools and resources. But the bonus works; but its only small amounts. Some think this stacks with forage. But that only works if we have the forage skill to begin with," she explained.
"So we have to trick Simone into somehow registering a [Forage] skill on her status screen before our inventory slots run out of food, or else we all die," Melanie smiled big.
"Damn. I wish you wouldn't say it like that," Simone frowned at me.
2 cans of food found in the kitchen, after slaying 3 zombies there.
"I think these guys were doing some kind of house party when this thing turned them," Shelly told us.
We set a schedule.
Once an hour we have to do perimeter fence checks.
We found hockey sticks and other equipment in the garage to make spears with. Mandy is the one who is crafting the spears but it takes time, carving them up with her blades. But we stashed them rather than use them now. The hockey sticks aren't as solid as the bats and crowbars also.
Melanie had an idea we could make a Y neck jointed spear to capture zombies in the house and hold them at bay without letting them get into bite range. This would work by using the joint of the Y neck spear to hold their necks. In theory, if it was the right size and with some skill, you could also keep them from trying to get free or bypass the spear by going around or under it also.
Its actually a really interesting idea.
The others agreed to it.
By 4:47 PM, we now have 2 of these cool devices.
They helped prevent bites while clearing the rest of the house.
But one problem is that the whole back of that house is glass windows and glass doors. You can literally see everything in the kitchen from the back deck that has the entire wall made of glass windows.
Mandy is a bit upset that we picked this house now. But it was the only one with a huge tall brick fence around it.
Its chancy...
The house still smells a bit.
We put Miguel in a room after checking everything thoroughly.
By 7 PM, we have gotten Simone to level 6.
She's still scratching her head to figure out if that's good or not.
Among the tricks we tried;
Lowering a scout (Simone) through a skylight roof to check rooms for zombies. (And other 'scouting' type activities, such as she would do as a ranger class adventurer.)
Using shovels through stair case railings as tripping devices.
Sound decoys
Bucket of baseballs (to trip; but noisy)
Using bed sheets to blind charging zombies by throwing them over their heads.
Also using wet blankets on zombies to prevent them from being able to lock on with bites.
Another trick is to rig up nooses secured to bags of rocks with wire leads and when a zombie charges by to pull the noose shut on their legs, to give them a 'slow' effect. (Doesn't stop them, but its enough to tip combat in our favor substantially with dog fights.)
All we can do to avoid dog fights, but win them once they happen.
The salvage and items found in the house helped secure and make all our tactics. And since it was a party house, that meant extra sporting goods there including fishing line and baseball equipment.
...
We're inside the mansion. Currently in the kitchen.
"You know there's too many windows to all cover them up," Mandy told me. She's currently rigging up putting bed sheets over the windows.
"That won't stop them," Simone told her watching from the side on break.
"Its not supposed to. We just need to slow them and make it in our favor," Mandy replied.
"Right..." Simone frowned.
"Hey didn't you get a status notification just now?" Melanie asked Simone.
Simone shook her head. "It just said bonus XP, creativity bonus."
"I didn't know that was possible to get," Mandy frowned.
"It is, I guess," Simone shrugged.
...
7:41 PM
Simone is making dinner in the kitchen.
We found a lot of wood in the garage. She's making a fire pit, even though it will put smoke damage in the house. We used a broken skylight for the chimney vent.
Melanie is making extra spears. Shelly is helping her, with both using knives and anything sharp.
At this time I went to the bathroom.
While in there, I was surprised when Simone came to see me.
"Hey there," she said after coming in and glancing at the door nervously.
"Hey..." I managed.
She stood there a second acting unsure.
"What's up? Everything OK?" I asked.
"No. Hey, I need this," she moaned and then began french kissing me while throwing off her shirt.
Wife intimacy ensues.
She tells me she knew I used mind control on her. She doesn't mind now and likes being with me.
But it got weird when she asked me to strengthen the mind control over her to try to make her have more powerful orgasms.