Kio wanted to place Miyu somewhere safe for the moment, but with all the zombies inside the village, he didn't want to risk something happening to her while she's unconscious.
He was debating on running out of the village on foot, but before he could decide on which way to run, he noticed Eldun walking out of the house and looking at his direction.
"Oh shit. Did it just make eye contact with me…?"
To his horror, Kio hit the mark as he saw the mutated zombie dashing towards them. This time, he could still see the mutated zombie while it was sprinting at an insanely fast speed.
Previously, when it disappeared from his vision, Kio surmised that it was caused by a combination of the darkness, narrow space, as well as the short distance between them.
Kio knew calling out its name in the room earlier was a big mistake, but it instinctively slipped his tongue when he panicked. He had felt an overwhelming amount of bloodlust, which caused his senses to become muddled for a moment.
As the mutated zombie was a few seconds away from reaching Kio, he quickly took out a few knives and threw it towards its head.
However, due to the distance and speed at which the mutated zombie was running, Kio had missed the mark by a few centimeters. One knife grazed by its cheek while the other one only managed to shave a few pieces of hair off its head.
"Shit. The projectile mastery skill can only do so much when this zombie is moving so fast."
Kio quickly turned around and started running in the opposite direction. While he was fleeing, he was also observing the mutated zombie behind him, to see how fast he was compared to it.
To his dismay, he was slightly slower than the zombie. The distance between the two was roughly 50 meters, and it was quickly shrinking with every passing second.
If he wasn't carrying Miyu on his back, he was confident that he could outrun it. However, the thought of doing such a thing quickly vanished from his mind as he would never resort to tossing her away. He would rather die than to escape on his own.
As the distance closed from 50 meters to 10 meters, the mutated zombie suddenly jumped at him. Even though Kio was shocked at its incredible leg strength, he took out his gun and shot a bullet at its head.
He knew his accuracy wouldn't be a problem at this distance, but he decided to also step into the shadow as a precaution.
'4 charges left…'
Kio thought to himself, as a way to keep track of how many times he can still use his skill. He had a feeling that the mutated zombie wouldn't die so easily.
His hunch was correct. As he observed from within the shadows, he could see half of the bullet was stuck outside of its forehead.
The mutated zombie stopped moving as soon as it landed since Kio suddenly disappeared from the spot.
Kio took another shot while he was inside the shadows, and it perfectly hit the previous bullet. However, the embedded bullet was only pushed forward by an extra centimeter.
"Fuck! How thick is its skin?!"
As Kio left the shadows, the mutated zombie instantly turned around and lunged at him. Kio wasn't in a position to run, since his lower body was still inside the shadow, so he quickly sank back inside.
'3 charges left…'
Kio already knew about the weakness of this skill from his previous fight with the zombie wolves, but he hadn't figured out a solution to it yet.
However, he did come up with a temporary measure to the skill's weakness. Instead of exiting at a location that was on the ground level, he chose to exit at the spiral staircase above him.
The shadow he aimed for was only about 20 meters above him, but the moment he exited the shadows, he had to grab hold of the ledge above him, otherwise he would just drop to the ground.
The mutated zombie made a big jump the moment Kio fell out of the shadows, but he quickly vaulted onto the staircase, causing the zombie to miss and fall due to gravity.
With three charges of [Shadow Step] and 10 bullets left, Kio needed to come up with something to get out of this mess.
While the zombie was falling, Kio used [Steal] on it, to see if he would get anything that would help him in this situation.
Sadly, his luck wasn't as good as the time he took the Teleportation Crystal from Ren. This time, he only managed to take a letter from his target. Even though it wasn't the time for it, Kio subconsciously looked at the letter and discovered that it was addressed to Fae.
"Shit. Why couldn't I get something more useful?!"
As Kio cursed his luck, the zombie landed on the ground and jumped again.
"Huh? Looks like it doesn't know how to use the stairs…"
The moment the zombie jumped, Kio had already started climbing the staircase.
This time, the zombie managed to jump higher and its head smashed onto the stairs, causing Kio to lose his footing for a brief moment. Due to the vibration, he fell sideways towards the tree and bashed his shoulder on it. Miyu's arm was also slightly bruised as she was on his back, but this slight shock caused her to awaken.
"Ouch… Huh? What's going on…?"
"Miyu! Are you okay?"
"My head kinda hurts and my arm is a bit numb…"
"Sorry, Miyu. I should've protected you better."
"It's not your fault. At least we're both still alive, right?"
"Yea…"
"Anyways, what's going on right now?"
"That mutated zombie is chasing us. I think I saw it climb onto the stairs behind us."
"What?! Is there anything I can do to help? What if I help you shoot it with my bow?"
"I don't think that will work. Even my gun couldn't kill it after I shot it in the head."
"You're kidding…"
"Miyu, I don't think you have the luxury of waiting any longer to pick your class. I'm gonna need the help of your class skills."
"Eh? Which one should I pick?"
"I'll leave that decision to you. It shouldn't be too hard to pick one, since you only have three choices; Archer, Plant Manipulator, and Earth Magician."
"Uhh…"
"Anyways, I don't recommend the Archer class. Even with my [Projectile Mastery] skill, my gun couldn't kill it. I highly doubt any archer skills would help us in this situation."
"Okay. So that leaves me with two options…"
"Although we don't know what skills you will get, based on the class name, I think either of them will be fine in our situation. Just go with whichever one sounds more appealing to you."
"Okay."
Miyu took a few seconds to think before she made up her mind and took out a Class Orb from her inventory. As soon as she used it, the orb shined brightly for a brief moment before it disappeared.
"Okay. I chose the Plant Manipulator class."
"Great. What skills did you get?"
"One second, let me check… I got [Plant Expertise], [Plant Affinity], [Summon Dryad], and [Overgrowth]."
Miyu quickly read the details of her skills and summarized it for him.
[Plant Expertise] - Provides the user with knowledge about all common plants in the world. Details of rarer plants will be unlocked at higher levels.
[Plant Affinity] - Low leveled plant creatures will not be hostile towards the user. The user is also able to sense the existence of rare plants within a 5 meter radius.
[Summon Dryad] - Summons a newborn dryad to aid the user. Limited to 1 Dryad maximum.
[Overgrowth] - Instantly uses up the life of the targeted plants to grow beyond their limits for 1 minute.
***
"Those are some interesting skills you received. Level up your [Summon Dryad] and [Overgrowth] skill to 5 for now, and save the rest of your points."
"Okay!"
By using 8 points, Miyu had 6 points remaining. The [Summon Dryad] now summons a young dryad instead of a newborn, while the [Overgrowth] skill allows the plants to sustain their forms for an hour.
"Good choice in choosing your class. Now we might have some hope in beating this mutated zombie."
"Hehe. Thanks."
"Miyu, summon your dryad for now and ask what it can do."
"Alright!"
As Miyu used her skill, the nearby trees and plants extended their branches and leaves towards a spot in front of her. After a brief moment, the branches retracted themselves and the figure of a young girl appeared in its place.
The girl had pale skin, with an ample amount of leaves and flowers covering all over her body. Her wavy green hair extended towards her shoulder, and it was a dazzling sight to behold due to its light color reflecting the sunlight. Her clear emerald eyes showed what kind of pure creature she was.
Although she was only 4 foot tall, her innocence would definitely cause a few men to turn into pedophiles upon seeing her. Her proportions were relatively balanced, as her chest was even smaller than any of his girls, while her limbs were relatively thin.
If Kio had to guess, he would assume she was a 10-12 year old girl based on her appearance.
Surprisingly, the leaves and flowers around her body managed to cover all her important parts, forming a unique set of clothing, if it can even be considered as such.
The dryad opened her bright emerald eyes and observed both of them, before focusing her gaze onto Miyu.
"Hi, Master! Can you please give me a name?"