Dark clouds hung overhead the city that was brimming with life no less than a week ago. Now, there was little signs of life in this bright metropolis. Buildings were lit up with giant lights, abandoned cars littered the city streets, and rotting or cold corpses could be seen at every street. Down an alleyway, a strange girl could be seen running from a small group of people. They ran with their hands outstretched forward and at impressive speeds that were slowly gaining on the girl.
She was forced to climb up a fire escape to get away from the 4 creatures. The girl took the bow from off of her back and drew the bowstring with an arrow to fire at the ones climbing up after her. It sunk into the face of the rotting body and knocked into the others under it. Giving her plenty of time to make her way to the roof of the building and finally take a breather.
This was Mileena. A human that just survived an encounter with some of the zombies from the Spawner. Zombies were previously just creatures of fiction a week ago. Until that day when the sky turned bright blue and places that reached deep underground began spawning monsters that flowed to the streets of the world. The world went under a cataclysmic change as that blue light didn't only bring monsters that didn't exist. It also gave humanity something to defend themselves against these dangerous threats.
[Name Mileena Taylor]
[Level: 3]
[Title: None]
[Strength: 5]
[Speed: 9]
[Stamina: 7]
[Magic: 0]
[Skills: Archery I, Snake Master I]
'This is a good vantage point to raise my Archery skill but my arrows are limited.' Mileena thought, looking down on all the wandering zombies.
Her eyes spotted the source of where all the zombies were coming from. It was a large tombstone that led deep underground. Over the past week of surviving, killing zombies, and watching civilization collapse, Mileena realized that the only way to safely survive was to get stronger and level up. Leveling up was only possible by killing the monsters that came from the Spawners. Spawners wasn't an official term for where the monsters came from, it was just something she made up herself.
"Hisssss...." A small garter snake that was smaller than her hand, revealed itself from the opening in her sweater and licked at the air. Mileena gave a gentle rub on its scales as she felt its body going through changes from the inside.
With her skill Snake Master, Mileena was basically the queen of all snakes. Snakes bowed to her will. It was also possible for her to share her senses with the snakes under her control and force mutations within them. At first, Mileena couldn't believe that she could really change the DNA and genes of these reptiles but it really was possible with the game screen. Somehow, she was able to choose what kind of traits and mutations to develop in a snake.
The more complicated the mutation, the longer and more energy the snake would need to finish it. For her garter snake, she could focus on [Venom], [Physical], or [Mental]. [Magic] was locked because she didn't know how to use magic. [Size] was locked because Snake Master wasn't leveled high enough. To unlock other ways of mutating snakes, she needed to improve herself and the skill.
Mileena chose venom to improve for her snake. It being smarter wouldn't help her and it becoming bigger or having sharper teeth or harder scales wouldn't either. While she didn't believe its venom would have major effects on the zombies, but there was more than one type of venom. For this snake in particular, she had it develop a more vicious neurotoxin type of venom. Upon being bitten, the creature's central nervous system will be disrupted. This could cause a multitude of effects such as paralysis and weakness of the limbs, vision loss, loss of memory and cognitive functions, loss of circulation, etc.
Mileena looked back over the edge into the alleyway with the zombies from before stumbling around, lost and dazed. It looks like they completely forgot about her somehow. This was good for her. Escaping from the roof will be easier now. All she has to do is aim and kill every single one of those zombies. Sadly, Mileena's experience with the bow only came about a week ago. Hitting all those zombies with accurate lethal shots was impossible from this distance. There was no way she was going inside the building to make her way all the way down either.
The bow wasn't a good weapon inside buildings. At least, right now it wasn't when she was still basically a beginner. Maybe later when she improves the skill, she could perform some Hawkeye type stuff. So, to make things easier on herself, she sent Slinky down the fire escape. Slinky had black-colored scales running up and down his back while his side and belly was light green in color. Making him kind of look like he has a black hood if you were imaginative enough.
As Slinky carefully slithered down the fire escape, Mileena was fully capable of controlling him and sharing her senses with him at a distance. In doing this, it was basically being in two places at once. She was still on the rooftop and could hear, see, taste, feel, and smell but at the same time she could do the same with Slinky. Except, she had a choice in whether she wanted to share every sense with Slinky or just a certain few.
Mileena specifically didn't share any senses with him. She just made sure he focused on biting the zombies to make things easier on her. With his venom, the zombies won't be able to move at all as she lined up her shots. 10 minutes at most, 5 minutes at least is how long she think the venom will take effect. So, Slinky, the almost brainless serpent, did as he was commanded and bit a zombie before ejecting his venom into him. The zombie screeched as Slinky was flung onto the lap of a resting zombie, who he promptly bit as well before slithering away.
The resting zombie was crashed into by the first zombie Slinky bit and both of them began fighting. Slinky made his way to the third zombie watching the other two fighting to the death. Punching, kicking, biting, and clawing each other. Neither of them held back to cause the most damage to the other. Slinky bit into the observing zombie's leg and ran away as it screamed and charged towards the two fighting. Mileena had to take a guess that the zombies weren't really smart at all... So, for the final zombie banging its head against the wall, she had Slinky bit him in a position that would make it seem like it was the fighting zombies' fault.
After doing that, now she had to wait for them to kill each other or for the venom to take effect. It looks like the zombies didn't have a sense of comradeship. Mileena could use this to her advantage... Distracting one zombie to fight another and then killing the winner or killing them both. This would be safer than using herself as a distraction if she ever had to. Mostly Mileena got around by sneaking and hiding.
These types of zombies weren't all that threatening with how brainless they were. Only thing they had going for them was their strength and good eyesight. The truly fearsome zombies that arrived on the first day that this all started were the scary ones. They could take being run down by an out-of-control truck and survive the massive explosion afterward. Upon seeing that scene, a few weeks ago, Mileena knew that she needed to level up far more if she wanted to take down a monster like that.
Maybe even a hundred venomous snakes wouldn't be enough to take it down. But then again, where would she get a hundred snakes in the first place? Mileena couldn't create snakes. She found Slinky in a bush near the university. Maybe if she went to a pet store she could find some snakes but she was more likely to find vicious zombie dogs and cats rather than snakes. Right now, she could barely aim at a zombie. So, if there were any zombie dogs, she was pretty much going to be eaten alive without a doubt.
It would be safer for her to let the snakes come to her rather than chase after them. For now anyway...
'It's time.' 10 minutes have passed and none of the zombies were able to move.
Mileena took aim with her bow and carefully aimed at the head of the injured zombies. Her first arrow missed and pierced the shoulder of a zombie. Second arrow penetrated the back of the skull of the zombie she shot at earlier through the face. The third arrow missed and sunk into the zombie's stomach. It took around 15 arrows before Mileena was confident that she killed the four zombies. Then she made her way down the fire escape, collected the non-broken arrows, and picked up Slinky before making her way out the alleyway.
'I need to find some food...'