LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 3: Moon
Jon stood in shock, staring in disbelief at the floating message.
A zombie—something he thought existed only in movies and novels had just been in front of him, and he killed it.
His heart raced, not just from the shock but from the gravity of what he'd just done. It totally felt like an achievement than anything.
Looking down at the zombie again, there, on the spot where he had struck the zombie's head, a faint light glimmered.
Not as bright as the eerie, floating message, but enough to catch his eye.
He hesitated for a moment before reaching out his hand. And he pulled out a little orb, just as he had seen from a distance, it wasn't too bright.
"What...is this?"
As soon as he said it, a strange sensation washed over him.
It was like knowledge on how to use the orb was being transferred directly to his brain. And without hesitation, he used the orb.
Something flowed out of him, covered the orb and shattered it, tuning it into shimmering light.
His eyes widened in awe as the light coalesced into an old, worn-out scroll, the kind one might expect to see in a medieval fantasy.
And more knowledge flooded his brain, guiding him on what to do next. And there was one thing that caught his attention, "Use mana?"
He then focused the same energy on the scroll, and it began to glow. It unfolded, then burst into countless pieces of light that shot into his chest.
He staggered, momentarily overwhelmed by the rush of power surging through him. Then it appeared before him again,
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED QUALIFICATION TO USE A MAIN SKILL]
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED MAIN SKILL: MOON, SUN, STAR]
The message floated before him, and Jon barely registered it when distant cries and screams forced him back to reality.
He turned his head toward the source. And to his shock, it was him they were trying to distance away from. Their faces were contorted with fear and disbelief at the situation.
Jon looked away and glanced down at the zombie's lifeless body he just killed, and strangely he didn't feel anything, rather it felt like something was suppressing that guilt he was trying to feel.
"H-How, can you kill a person? A-Are you also one of them?" The student representative for the stepped forward, his legs trembling. "No, why did—why did you do that?"
"Haa…" Exhaling sharply, he said in a steady voice. "You all saw what happened. That thing—it wasn't a person anymore. Should we just wait for them to kill us instead?"
"No, w-we could've found a way to bring them back!" the student representative argued, his voice cracking under the weight of fear and uncertainty.
"How?" he asked the student representative. He would rather not be one to argue this point, everything was happening to fast.
"..." Of course the student representative didn't have the answer to that. All the students there knew it, if he hadn't acted, they'd all be dead.
"Sometimes," Jon said quietly, his voice rough with emotion, "There is no way back."
And turned his attention away from the arguing crowd, his mind still spinning from the rush of information the orb had given him.
A new message hovered before his eyes.
[MOON, SUN, STAR SERIES FORCE: IT IS A SERIES THAT USES THE WORLD AROUND YOU AT YOUR DISPOSAL. YOU HAVE OBTAINED THE QUALIFICATION OF THE SERIES 'MOON'. THE MOON IS KNOWN TO BE BEAUTIFUL AND IT BRIGHTENS THE WORLD AND BLOCKS THE SUN AT NIGHT. BUT THAT IS NOT ALL.]
[THE MOON REPRESENTS MYSTERY, DREAMS, THE UNCONSCIOUS]
['MOON' (FIRST REALM) LEVEL 1: YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS TO SOME LEVEL. YOU ARE WITHIN THE SCOPE OF YOUR UNDERSTANDING.]
'Moon, as in the moon?' Honestly, he didn't understand what he was seeing at the moment, so he didn't put much thoughts on it. 'Wait, so if I kill more of these zombies, I can get more of this skill.'
And if these orbs could help him survive, he would find more of it.
BANG...
A loud sound suddenly snapped him from his thoughts. Immediately locating the source.
The two female who turned into zombies were mindlessly slamming themselves against the gate to the platform area, their grotesque bodies jerking with unnatural force as they kept trying to force their way through.
And looking into the distance, there were more zombies approaching.
"We need to leave here, now." Jon said
Then the student representative from earlier, Tunde said with a deep frown, "Shouldn't we wait for the security team? They'll know what to do."
"Do you really think this isn't happening to them, too?" then a girl with the grey hair interjected and stepped forward. She was beautiful and light-skinned, standing about 5'8 and also dressed like a sprinter.
"Exactly," Jon agreed. "We can't just sit here and hope someone else will save us. We need to get out of here and meet them while we still can."
Tunde reluctantly nodded, turning to the others. "Fine. But-," they then all turned their heads towards the surviving students. Of the 12 currently with them, 6 had fainted and the rest looked like they had seen a ghost, it will take a while for them to regain their senses.
"Haa...let me deal with this first." Jon then began walking towards the gate, however upon getting there, he turned to the grey-haired girl, surprised to see her walking toward him. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I'm going to help," she said firmly, though her voice wavered slightly. "You're going to need backup, right?"
Jon blinked, taken aback by her boldness, but then he realized almost immediately, like him, she must've gotten some kind of power from this nightmare. 'I can't have been the only one.'
"What's your name?" Jon asked.
"Jenny. Jenny Stalwart," she replied.
"Jon Whyte," he said, offering a brief nod.
"Then, let's do this."
…
The gate that stood between them and the zombies wasn't particularly tall, only about waist height. And Jon wasn't exactly the tallest, as he was only at 5'10", but it was enough to give him some advantage.
His mind raced as he tried to think of the best way to approach the situation. "I'll distract the one on the left," he said, glancing at Jenny. "You take out the other one, just don't let it touch you."
Jenny swallowed hard, her breath coming quicker as the tension rose. She was clearly scared, but Jon could see her resolve building. He gave her a reassuring nod before stepping forward.
Jon ran forward and with a swift kick, Jon sent the gate flying open, knocking one of the zombies back. Immediately, he stretched out his hand, feeling the now-familiar rush of mana leaving his body.
And a bluish fog left his body, swirling forward and latched onto the zombie.
The sensation was strange, it was like he could feel the creature's movements from within. With a surge of concentration, he froze its limbs, buying just enough time.
"Now!" Jon shouted.
Jenny moved quickly, despite the terror written on her face. She darted forward and swung her weapon, a sturdy stick she found on the floor, toward the immobilized zombie.
The impact was brutal, sending its head snapping to the side with a sickening crack.
For a moment, the creature seemed to falter, but then it began twitching again. "What?" Jenny panicked a bit, but like Jon, she regained herself and struck again and again until the zombie crumpled to the ground.
Breathing heavily, she stood over the lifeless body, her hands trembling.
A soft light suddenly emerged from the zombie, shooting into Jenny's chest. Her eyes widened as the same notification appeared before her, though she was too stunned to react.
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED LEVEL 2 ZOMBIE REMAINS]
[YOUR LEVEL HAS INCREASED]
After watching Jenny attack the zombie, he also stretched out his hand and the fog latched unto the zombie that had regained its bearing.
He then froze its arm movements and swung his pumper at it.
BANG...
Straightening himself up after the kill, and like before, a notification appeared before him as well.
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED LEVEL 3 ZOMBIE REMAINS]
Jon glanced away from the screen to Jenny as she stumbled upon her own shining scroll and absorbed its power.
She then began to glow silver.
The color matched her hair color as it whipped around wildly. Now looking at her glowing, he realized, maybe they were turning into something that wasn't human again.
And whether it was a good or bad thing was still yet to be decided.