Marcus put the battle mace on the ground, took out a rock from his inventory, and aimed at the skeleton's head.
*Whoosh... Crack!*
The rock traced a curved arc in the air for 8 meters(26ft) and then ended up embedded in the forehead of the target. The skeleton staggered and Marcus didn't miss the opportunity. He grabbed the mace and ran straight at the skeleton.
He was ready to hit it in the ribcage, but the skeleton was faster and blocked the attack with his rusty sword.
*CLANG!!! Crack!*
Both weapons clashed, but only a moment later the skeleton's old rusty sword broke in two caused by the impact. Instantly Marcus swung the mace in an upward swing aimed at the skeleton's mandible.
*Crack!*
The blow shattered the skeleton's jaw causing it to stagger, just long enough for Marcus to deliver another left blow to the skeleton's head.
*Crack Crash*
The mace hit the skeleton's skull destroying it into pieces. Consequently, the skeleton's body, now headless, collapsed, scattering bones all over the floor.
...
{You gained 5 xp}
...
{Skill [Throwing] leveled up}
...
'Seems like it was a little easier this time than the last one. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it, but…'
Marcus opened his status.
================================
Name: Marcus Edevane.
Race: Undead
Species: Common skeleton
Rank: 0.5
Level: 4 (145/280 XP)
================================
HP: 22/30
MP: 0/0
Strength: 9 Stamina: max
Defense: 7(+10) Intelligence: 0
Vitality: 3 Wisdom: 27
Agility: 10 (-1)
Stats points: 29
================================
Skills:
{[Poison Immunity][NecroticImmunity]
[Disease Immunity][Cold Immunity]
[Dark Resistance lv:1] [Evil Resistance lv:2]
[Primary Sense lv:2] [Inventory lv:1]
[Melee combat lv:1] [Throwing lv:2]}
Weaknesses:
{[Blunt damage lv:8][Solar/light damage lv:10]
[Magic damage lv:4][Aura damage lv:4]
[Spiritual Damage lv:10][Fire Damage lv:9]
[Sacred Damage lv: Max]}
================================
'Sigh... I still have a long way to go. It seemed so much easier in the novels.'.
It had been 10 days since Marcus' reincarnation in this new world and since then he had faced over 70 undead.
At first, Marcus simply wanted to give up. After all, if he couldn't increase his physical stats and couldn't recover his HP, there was no chance he would make it out of the cave alive.
From Marcus' point of view, it looked like he had started a game on hard mode and suddenly the difficulty went to hell mode and he was barely at the tutorial stage!!
But it wasn't like he could just sit there and do nothing. If he did that it would be like despising the second chance he had been given. Besides, he still wasn't sure what the ''upgrade'' Edward gave him was, so maybe he still had a chance of surviving.
So after a while, he started to think about what other alternatives he had to survive and get stronger.
Marcus wasn't exactly the smartest person in the world, but he was someone capable of learning from his own mistakes and finding a solution to problems.
The first thing he had to do was to find out why his surprise attack with the first skeleton didn't work. He thought about it for quite a while until he finally came up with the answer.
What had happened was that, like him, the skeletons lacked the cognitive senses that living beings normally have and instead had the ability [Primary Sense]. But because he was so anxious to find a way out of the cave, it had never crossed his mind that the skeleton had that ability.
[Primary Sense] was different from vision or any other sense, the ability allowed the user to detect anything within a certain range (in Marcus' case only a radius of 5 meters) which meant that as long as his opponent had this ability it would be impossible to attack without being noticed.
The only solution Marcus could think of was to take advantage of the skeletons' weakness to blunt damage by throwing rocks at them to hurt or confuse his opponents and then finish them off with a blunt blow.
As for how to get stronger there were only two options. Get more combat-related skills or find the equipment he could use.
So, Marcus spent the next 10 days using the same hunting strategy. Weaken the enemy by attacking from a distance and then close in to deliver the final blow with the battle mace.
This strategy had proven to be incredibly effective and after several days he gained the skill [Throwing], which improved his aim and it seemed that the objects he threw reached a higher velocity with less force.
Also, his [Primary Sense] skill went up a level and he could now detect things within a 10-meter radius, which gave him a greater advantage when attacking from a distance.
As for equipment, he had only been able to get a somewhat rusty steel breastplate, and an old slightly dented helmet that covered the top of his skull.
Thanks to this, Marcus' defense went up to a total of 17 points, but he lost a bit of agility. He had found more pieces of armor and weapons, but they were all in such bad shape that they were not worth using.
With this, he was able to adapt much better and avoid sustaining fatal injuries.
As for the broken arm, Marcus took one of the bones from a skeleton, along with some worn-out cloth that it wore, and tied it to his arm as a support.
After checking its condition, Marcus bent down to pick up something the sword-wielding skeleton had on its arm.
'A metal glove in good condition! With this, I can finally solve the problem of my bony hands.'
Another problem Marcus had been having was his hands. As a skeleton, he no longer had flesh on the palms of his hands and this meant that he couldn't grip his weapon properly when fighting.
He had been able to solve this problem by tying up some cloth around his palms to improve his grip, although it only partially worked. But now that he had a glove, the problem was solved.
Marcus took the glove, shook it a bit to get out the bones that remained inside, and put it on. Immediately his defense went up another two points, bringing his total to 19.
****
Marcus continued walking through the cave for a couple of hours until he finally stumbled upon a small, very dilapidated hut.
'Humm... This is already the fourth hut I've found. Does this mean there was some kind of subway town or city in the past?'
When Marcus found the first hut a week ago he thought he had finally made it out of the cave he was in. But then he was surprised to realize that he still hadn't surfaced.
Although [Primary Sense] was useful, it was still inferior to sight or other senses, as it lacked range and also could not distinguish colors or textures. Using it was practically like trying to see through the fog. For this reason, Marcus had not realized the true size of the cave he was in.
The size of the cave was colossal and the large number of tunnels made the whole place look like a huge subterranean maze.
Marcus went on high alert. The three previous times the huts he had encountered were empty, but he couldn't afford to let his guard down. One mistake and he could be severely injured or killed.
In his right hand, he held his weapon, prepared for whatever might come out of it. Then he grabbed the door handle and slowly pulled it open.
*Creack*
"Grrrr?"
"Aaarrr"
"Rroo"
'This, I seem to have the wrong house... Sorry for the inconvenience...'
Marcus closed the door as fast as he could and started to run. Behind him, the walls of the hut collapsed as a horde of humanoid creatures rammed them intending to chase him.
'SH*T, SH*T, SH*T! WHY WERE THERE SO MANY ZOMBIES?!'
In the first few days of Marcus' aimless wandering he had only encountered skeletons, but that didn't mean they were the only undead in the area.
He had already crossed paths with a zombie once and learned two things that (besides having rotting flesh on their bodies) set them apart from skeletons.
Zombies instead of having the [Primary Sense] like skeletons, had the five senses of when they were alive although more impaired. The other major difference was, zombies were a little slower than skeletons but had greater vitality and defenses.
When Marcus encountered one the first time, he tried to use the tactic of attacking from a distance. Not only had the rocks not worked, but the zombie had detected him. He then tried a melee battle, but the mace didn't seem to do much damage.
After that Marcus ran away, planned how to defeat the zombie, and came up with the idea of trying a sneak attack. Later, when he met the zombie again, he hit it hard in the head killing it instantly.
Marcus was sure he could beat a zombie in a 1vs1 as long as he was careful of the attacks and aimed for the head. But this time there were too many of them and it was more than he could chew.
Fortunately, Marcus was a bit faster and was able to keep a good distance from his pursuers. The problem was that the zombies didn't seem to give up and probably, with their unlimited stamina, wouldn't do so until they lost sight of their prey. Therefore, the only option left was to run until they were out of sight.
But after running for quite some time, [Primary Sense] spotted a huge crack ahead on the path that seemed to be more than 5 meters wide. Without much thought, Marcus ran towards the crack and jumped as far as he could...
Although he crashed into the edge on the other side of the crevice, he managed to cross it and used all his strength to avoid falling into the abyss, he was finally able to climb up to the other side.
A few seconds later his pursuers caught up with him, Marcus was ready to run again, but then the zombies, who hadn't slowed down, fell to the bottom of the cliff.
"GRRRrrrrr...!"
"AAARRRrrrrr...!"
*THUD! SPLAT! THUD! SPLAT!*
As they fell, the sound produced by the screams of the zombies, which spread throughout the cave, slowly faded to nothing, followed by the sound of something crashing as it mashed itself to mush. Of course, Marcus couldn't hear any of this.
Finally, when all the zombies fell, Marcus lay down on the ground to get some rest. But at that moment the system flooded him with notifications.
...
{You gained 150 XP}
...
{You leveled up}
...
{You gained 12 stat points}
...
{Skill [Primary Sense] leveled up}
...
'Did that count as killing them?! But those guys did commit suicide...literally!'
Even though Marcus hadn't killed them directly, he still received a huge amount of experience, but even if it seemed a bit strange, he wasn't going to complain about this. After all, he almost died, but the risk was worth it and he managed to go up a level and his skill had improved a lot.
But just when Marcus thought it was all over, the system gave him a few last notifications.
...
{User has killed a large number of undead monsters in a short time}
...
{The Conditions have been met}
...
{You have obtained the title [Undead Killer]}
...
{Undead Killer: Attacks against undead enemies are increased by 10%}
....
'Did I get a title too?!'