Lucas had been walking for several minutes, yet there was still no sign of life-- nor death, for that matter; Lucas couldn't forget, if he was an undead, then there were probably other undead here, too. What kind of undead they were, that was a mystery to Lucas. Still, no matter what Lucas encountered, he committed himself to a fight. He saw the information for level when he checked his status. He knew that if he wanted to live a good life in this new world he found himself in, a strong power was likely necessary.
To get that power, he would need to level. He read enough fantasy to know that.
Not encountering any creatures to fight, Lucas opted to stop his movement. If he wouldn't get anywhere hunting down a fight, then he would wait. Focusing his senses, Lucas closed his eyes. Not having to be distracted by his breathing was a plus for Lucas.
Not even 10 seconds had passed before Lucas heard the shuffling of dirt. Focusing closer, the dragging of a foot through dirt sounded through his left ear.
[Ding!]
Snapping his eyes open, and ignoring the notification that had sounded, Lucas turned to his left and began to move towards the location of the disturbance he had heard.
Slowly breaking into a run, and then into a sprint, Lucas quickly made his way to whatever creature he had heard.
'This speed... It's just a little slower than I was back on Earth. If 5 is average, then 7 must be a state champion? Maybe a little slower. I suppose a 10 would be Olympic level speed, or maybe even faster.'
Thinking this, Lucas quickly arrived at the source of the noise he had heard.
In front of his eyes was a humanoid creature slowly limping in his direction. While the creature looked much like a human would, the distinction ended once Lucas noticed the creatures skin.
Unlike himself, who was nearly entirely skinless, the creature in front of him was covered in the stuff. However, this skin was not healthy in any matter. Rather, the skin of the creature seemed to be rotting in several places, with boils and pus festering in several places.
The color of the skin was just as unhealthy, being a grayish blue. The only red that could be seen on the creature was in its eyes, replacing the white of its eyes completely, as well as the several long cuts littered around its body.
Looking at the slow moving creature, a dinging noise sounded once again. Followed by the ding, a surge of information flew into Lucas' head.
[Zombie][Level 1][Evolution Level 0]
A slow moving undead-type creature.
'A zombie, huh? As much as I could have made the guess, I can never be too sure. Back on Earth there were all kinds of Zombie types. Runners, Walkers, the blind ones, etc. I'm sure it would be faster at a higher level, but this seems like easy pickings, right now.'
After receiving the information, and gauging the strength of the Zombie creature in front of him, Lucas prepared to sprint at the slow thing. Even if it had a higher strength, or physique, Lucas knew that it would be slower than him. After all, even his speed was a bit higher than it should be for ghouls at his level. Not to mention the fact that as a low-level undead its intelligence should be at the bottom of the barrel. That was yet another aspect in which Lucas could stand out.
From the intelligence that he had received by the status, undead classifications only received intelligence after the 1st evolution. Even then, it was a rudimentary intelligence at best.
Taking his first step, Lucas immediately paused as he watched 6 more pairs of hands pierce the ground around the Zombie. Going from lunging to braking caused Lucas to stumble onto the floor, just a few feet away from the Zombie that was already out of the ground.
It took all he had to roll as far away as he could once the Zombie, that was now next to him, began to swing down its clawed hand.
As Lucas began to stand and back away from the standing Zombie and field of Zombie hands, the standing Zombie that had taken a swing landed its strike on the loose soil. While the strength was not nearly enough to cause a shockwave, Lucas could feel a small tremble from the loose soil despite being several meters away.
'A-ahem. Good thinking, Lucas. Always a good idea to collect information first, so keep it up. Anyway, now we know how to fight these guys. What they lack in speed and sentience, they make up for in strength and numbers, I suppose. Still, as long as I play around the outskirts, I should be fine. Just don't let them surround you.'
Thinking this far, Lucas began to shuffle around the outskirts of the Zombie hand field, waiting for the rest of them to surface. The last thing he wanted to happen, was to go after the standing zombie and be grabbed by one of the hands and caught off guard.
It took several minutes until the last of the zombies had surfaced, and now, standing in front of Lucas, were 7 rotting walking corpses. It was not the most pleasant sight, yet when he remembered what he himself looked like, he got over it quickly.
While preparing to attack the Zombie that was furthest away from the rest of them Lucas looked at his hands and thought that they were, perhaps, one of the better benefits of his newly found race. They didn't look much different than the hands of that of a human, after all, the ghoul he now was had, at one point in time, been a human themselves. Still, unlike a human, the bones of the fingers had become significantly sharper at the ends.
To Lucas, who had only ever known human hands, his new pair looked like an arsenal of knives ready to slice at anything.
Taking a real step forward this time, looking out for any unwanted obstacles, Lucas began to sprint at the Zombie that had separated from the group.
It took all but four steps to reach the Zombie as Lucas readied his claw like hand, readying himself to rip out the throat of the undead in front of him.
Lucas didn't slow down as he approached the side of the Zombie, simply letting his bladed fingers dig into the throat of the creature as he ran past.
Lucas didn't feel much resistance as his fingers came through the other side of the Zombie's throat. Continuing his steps, Lucas got out of range from the group of Zombies before he spun around, facing the creature he had failed to kill.
His fingers had connected with the target. They had connected well enough, in fact, that had the opponent been human, the fight would have been done and over. Had it been a human, the scene would have made the cave a brighter red than it had ever been.
Yet, that is where Lucas made his first mistake.
'Right. Undead. All I did was loosen it's throat a little. Think about how Zombies are dealt with, Lucas. Cut off the head, crush the skull. It's simple, really.'
Hyping himself up, Lucas readied himself to run back in before the outlying zombie made its way back into the group.
Lunging forward, Lucas made it to the zombie even quicker this time, only taking 3 steps.
Understanding his first mistake, Lucas thrust his clawed hand into the already open throat of his opponent. Feeling the resistance of the spine, Lucas made sure to wrap his claws around the spinal cord found inside the zombie's neck. With his front left planted into the ground, Lucas used the force that came from twisting his hips and pivoting his feet to rip the spine of the creature downwards.
Following through with the ripping action, Lucas again lunged forward, launching himself out of the range of remaining zombies.
After taking several steps forward, Lucas looked back. Standing tall were 6 zombies. The 7th was on the floor, it's head severed from the body, and bouncing further and further away from the group of undead.
With that, Lucas had taken his first life as a ghoul.
'Shit. Did I take it's life? Or would you say I took it's death? I don't even fucking know.'