Prisoner Zombies

"Hi, newcomer! This dungeon doesn't seem to be so simple. Oh, and remember to avoid the Bone Ball as it comes rumbling by. There seem to be some secrets hidden in this Hidden Map. Maybe I should leave behind some clues and a little help.

"Red, white, and black!

"Don't be afraid of zombies. They're just sluggish old lumps of rotting flesh that are afraid of fire!

"Oh, there's also a pair of leather boots on the table. I found them when I got here. Take them if you can use them!

"Adventurer: Robert"

"Mr. Robert really is a good person," Xiao Yang exclaimed.

After resting for a short while in the Safe House, it was time to continue exploring. Xiao Yang opened the door. A short distance down the corridor outside, a small hole had appeared in the wall. That was his target.

The Safe House was certainly a place one could grow attached to, but he couldn't stay trapped inside it. For one thing, he was running short on food and water, so he decided not to dawdle.

Seizing the gap between the Bone Ball's thunderous passes, Xiao Yang suddenly dashed out of the Safe House. The whirring roar and tremors came again from behind him. Clearly, the Bone Ball had its eye on him.

Xiao Yang didn't panic too much as he sprinted away. He had already estimated the timing before he set off. With nine points of Agility, he should be able to reach his destination before the Bone Ball crushed him.

Of course, making an estimate was one thing, but being chased from behind by that ridiculously huge Bone Ball was still enough to make anyone nervous and afraid.

There! Xiao Yang threw himself forward and plunged into the dark little hole. Luckily, it wasn't just a hollow in the wall; it connected to a dim cell.

The Bone Ball roared past him. As it swept by, the skeletons piled onto its surface seemed to notice Xiao Yang. They frantically waved their arms, trying to grab him, but they couldn't.

Xiao Yang got up from the floor. The Dark Dispelling Lantern at his waist lit the gloomy room. He looked around and realized that he seemed to be in a cell.

The small room contained a pile of straw, a rotten wooden door, and an indescribable stench of decay.

Suddenly, a sound came from inside the room. Xiao Yang was still breathing hard and hadn't recovered from his mad dash, but his enemy wasn't going to wait for him to get ready.

A new battle was beginning. A half-rotted corpse swayed as it climbed to its feet.

Prisoner Zombie

Race: Undead

Rank: Common

Level: 10

Life: 80

Attack: 6

Defense: 2

Agility: 2

Traits: Undead Body, Undead Toxin.

Description: An ordinary prisoner who became a mindless zombie in an accident.

After using Probe Skill, Xiao Yang was relieved to find that the gap between him and the Prisoner Zombie before him wasn't impossibly large this time. He'd learned a lot about it, but how could he put it...

Just looking at these stats made him wince!

It didn't have any other special traits. It was not only sluggish, its Defense was no higher than those skeletons'. Its main strength was its huge health pool. With eighty points of Life, how long would it take Xiao Yang to hack it down using nothing but his Wilderness Hatchet, which had an Attack of only six?!

The difficulty had jumped as soon as he entered this Hidden Map. Even the ordinary monsters in this hidden area were a pain to deal with!

Xiao Yang struck the Prisoner Zombie in front of him with his hatchet. Its flesh was easy to cut; there was none of the snagging sensation he'd felt when chopping at skeletons. But the damage it took was low.

His Attack was only six, and the zombie's two points of Defense canceled out two of them. A pitiful four points of damage appeared above the Prisoner Zombie's head, leaving it with seventy-six Life.

Even though Xiao Yang's blow had sent flesh flying, it had only done that much damage. If he didn't have such an overwhelming advantage in Agility and move with such incredible nimbleness, he couldn't imagine how much trouble this Prisoner Zombie would give him.

It had a huge health pool, a decent Attack, and Undead Toxin. It might be a little slow to react, but it could take a beating.

An enemy like this was hard to handle unless you had a huge Agility advantage like Xiao Yang. Now, the Heavy Strike he'd gotten from the skeletons could finally come in handy. He nimbly dodged the Prisoner Zombie's bite. In the cramped cell, his evasive movements made him look like a giant flea.

He brought down a Heavy Strike, hacking viciously into the zombie's head. The blow sliced off nearly half its head, but even then, no critical hit appeared.

All that popped up was an unremarkable number: ten.

"These undead are such a pain!"

The skeletons had at least had joints he could target, but zombies didn't have any obvious weak points at all. They were vulnerable to fire, but Xiao Yang didn't have any kind of flame weapon.

Blow after blow, it took Xiao Yang quite a while to knock the zombie down. Once its last point of Life was gone, he killed it.

The Level 10 zombie dropped nothing. Xiao Yang, panting heavily, grimaced. It felt as though the effort of chopping up these zombies wasn't worth the reward—until a crisp chime rang out.

He'd leveled up.

Well, maybe it wasn't so bad after all. As a player, what could be more delightful than leveling up?

Still panting, he approached the door of the empty cell and peered through the small window in its rotten wooden door. Just as he'd expected, this really was a prison.

Outside the cell, row after row of identical rooms stretched into view. Perhaps the noise of Xiao Yang's battle had been too loud, because low growls kept coming from the cells. Many of them held zombies.

These zombies really were troublesome monsters, difficult to deal with. But Xiao Yang was determined not to waste anything, so he would make good use of them. There was some risk, but he might be able to grind levels and get a boost.

He put the Attribute Point from leveling up into Agility, bringing it to ten. That was the key to grinding levels. Ten Agility would do for now, though. For his next Attribute Points, Xiao Yang wanted to raise his Life. Ten points of Life really was too little.

As he thought this over, the Bone Ball roared through the corridor behind the small hole again. Though he couldn't eat well or stay warm in this Skeleton Dungeon, he had to admit it was pretty interesting.

Of course, Xiao Yang didn't think he was a weirdo or a masochist. He just really liked the feeling of gradually improving himself. After all, what he was experiencing now was a genuine Real Life Online, a God Game. If you died, you stayed dead, but apart from that, it was incredible.

Who said this game was no good? This game was amazing!