The best word to describe the situation I'm in is, fucked.
By that I mean. My Mutation score, it's risen into the upper thirties.
I think I'm starting to be able to tell the difference between the claws that rend me limb from limb.
I'm also starting to go crazy with boredom.
See, I'm a zombie. Not one of the scary zombies that can run and scream really loud, or do crazy gymnastics, no, I'm one of those slow ass, boring zombies, the canon fodder type zombie, the kind that works best in large groups, but still get destroyed by the protagonist.
Which means, I'm really easy to kill. And it's hard to kill the bastards that love killing me.
And as much as I would be aghast morally, at the idea of murder, about, twenty or so lives ago, but, not only have I experienced the same god damned death over and over, each time, pierce my torso with claws, rip me in twane and then eat my face off. Or burn me to a crisp then eat my face off…
Also, my mind and malice scores have gone down and up respectfully by about twenty percent each.
So that might also be evidence of my declining interest in dying.
And if that means having to kill, as I have been killed? Then yeah I'm gonna do it.
Or atleast, I would do it. If I could. But again. I'm a weak ass zombie. Can't really do anything about getting killed if I can't even get ten feet away from the enemy before I get killed again. And my punches, kicks, and claw attacks tend to do more damage to me than anyone else.
Meaning the only actual death I can cause, is with the objects around me. There's a pit of lave in the center of this place for some reason.
Eventually, I did get there, after enough diyong and reviving, leading the easiest path to avoid most of them. But this body is so goddamned weak, that I can't even pull in anything with me as I fall in. Let alone hope to be fast enough to dodge out of the way of an attack.
So yeah, I'm fucked. And bored.
For some reason, whenever I come back to life, the pain I experience each subsequent death lessens a bit, not really enough to be noticeable unless your paying attention, but still, it's there.
The problem with that is, I have no idea what state pain is tied to if any, if I manage to somehow regain my Mind, will I also regain pain? Or if I lose malice, will my brain finally start registering how excruciating it is to die over and over?
I just don't know. And it's really starting to bother me.
So, Just in need of something to do, I open my stat screen.
- - -
[Mission: Find the Slayer.]
[Mind: - 45.7% ]
[Map: - 32% ]
[Mutation: - 3.6% ]
[Magic: - False ]
[Malice: - False - 68.55% ]
- - -
That's not what that was like the last time I looked at it…
Though, that was in my last life, I just didn't expect it to have effected me that much…
I'm shaken out of my pondering as I hear the piercing screech of one of those fire flinging assholes.
It's seemed to have noticed me.
Don't know why, but these things tend to hate me more than the other zombies.
Maybe it's because I'm not quivering and stumbling over myself?
But I'm not given more time to think as the fast bastard is already in the air, lunging at me.
I try to duck, but more so collapse into a heap, but the effect is still the same, I managed not to get killed in one attack.
Though, this only seems to make it angrier as it turns back towards me, growling even more. As I'm down on the ground, I try to grab a rock. But the stupid claws get in the way of my getting any kind of grip.
As it lunges again, I turn myself around, arms open, ready for death.
I'm already so… tired. Of this cycle. Of death and rebirth.
I've read a lot of light novels with the concept, so I was expecting, to a last a bit longer before I started to go crazy.
But see, I don't have eye lids.
And I'm fairly certain I can't actually sleep.
But what I'm seeing before me, must certainly be a hallucination.
The picture is simple. The shelled asshole, lunging at me, accidentally impaled it's own neck on my outstretched claw.
But before my eyes, the hallucination continued. And the thing started struggling.
It ripped my claws off and dashed backwards, already with one of those sulfureous smelling fire balls glowing red in it's mouth.
I tried to dodge again. Well, I actually rolled to the side.
But even if I got lucky by dodging the last one, I did not get nearly so lucky as to come out of it unscathed again.
Though, twenty deaths ago, I would have been too paralyzed by my fear and pain to even realize what was happening, let alone even dodge once.
The splash damage still seared into my flesh. Even though I did manage to get out of the way of the initial blast.
Seems that all of my luck was used up when I managed to dodge both times. Since I'm unlucky enough to still be alive.
The splash of the flame, is weaker then the flame blast itself, neat.
I roll on the ground, and pat myself out.
But before I can start to stand, I hear the roar of the beast as it realizes I'm still alive.
Ten deaths ago, I would have been complaining about my being in this situation.
Which I'm still doing, but now…
As I hear it get closer, I grasp a rock in between my claws, and flip around to face it.
By the time I finish with the motion, it's once again upon me.
This time lunging at me, with flame spewing from it's lipless mouth.
I shove the rock into it's mouth, and down it's throat.
It tilts it's head in some mockery of confusion, before it's upper torso explodes in a firey blast, as the fire ball ignites inside the fucker's throat. Taking my arm with it in the process.
…now I refuse to rely on luck. Any more.
…
Im not a violent person. But as I stand above the corpse of a creature that's killed me more than fifteen times, looking slightly downward at a burning red feild, I see that the shell covered assholes have all stopped with their own infighting, and have decided to look directly at me, while growling in indignation, as if I broke some kind of twisted status quo.
I'm starting to get why this game is called, 'Rip and Tear.'
And with my thinking that, I turn around and run away.
Not that I get far, or even live, very far after they catch me.
But as I take one last look over of my stats. I notice a few things.
One, my Mind and Malice, barely moved, because of that death.
But my Mutation, it went from 3.6, to 3.8.
As if I had died twice in one life…
The only thing I can think I did differently is, kill that thing.