O, Your Holiness!

Chapter 4: Chaught off-guard

Imagine that you were fast asleep in your comfortable and tightly closed room. It was already late at night and the only lighting was your fluorescent sleep lamp, adding more comfort to your sleep. Then, you wake up because someone's voice was heard from another room. You were curious and carefully opened the bedroom door; peek through the gap in the door in expectation that the source of the sound was from your lover. But when the door was half open, you just remembered that you had been single for years and you lived alone in that house. Then that thing that made noise in your house noticed you, who were peeking from the bedroom. And it lunged at you ... 

Would you be scared? Of course, or at least you will be hysterical. That's how O felt as the silhouette at the end of the hall came running towards him with a voice that clearly neither came from humans nor animals. 

"Aaaaah!" O screamed at the top of his lungs (he didn't even has one) as the silhouette was two steps away from him in just a few seconds. Under the dim light of the candle that was placed in the perforated wall near the door, the silhouette's appearance became clear.

It's an undead! A zombie! In contrast to the undead which was synonymous with slow motion, this one zombie moved very fast. 

O had taken martial arts classes in his previous life, but he had never had any real combat experience. As the undead swiftly leapt at him, O could only rely on his reflexes. Duck? Shout? Flee? Usually it's a reflex that occurs when he's scared or shocked, but the reflex that concured was not all those three. 

O's body moved by itself. His left foot took a step forward, forming an attacking stance, while both hands moved to swing the staff he had found moments ago. The right hand moved backwards and the left hand moved forward, while the waist rotated along with the movement of the two hands and generated a huge centrifugal force. The combination of body movements that O made in a short time managed to create a heavy smack to the undead's face. 

BAMM! CRACK!! 

The sound of a dull impact followed by a snap echoed through the hall. The zombie then laid on the ground with its head rotated 180 degrees.  

"Eh?" O did not think he could move like that. "Eeeeh?" 

"Ha! I'm really great, huh!" His disbelief immediately turned into a sense of pride. O jumped and danced, just like the skeletons dancing in a bone-strengthening formula ads he had seen on television.  

But the fun didn't last long. A warning appeared in his field of view. ""Danger alert! The enemy hasn't been defeated yet!" 

O turned backwards, towards the undead figure he thought had fallen. However, it was too late. When O responded to the warning, the zombie had risen again to attack him. The zombie crashed at O with all its weight and pinned him against the wall. It only took one strike for the zombie to split O's body into two parts: top and bottom. O’s hip to foot fell beneath the undead, while his belly to head was flung to a good distance across the hall. 

"EH?!" O screamed in disbelief as his upper body flew into the air. With its head tilted back, the zombie could still carry out such a vicious attack? 

BANG! 

His upper body landed on the hard and cold stone floor. O was repeating the manner of his death in his previous life. Only this time, he didn't die. Not yet ... 

"What the hell!!" O sweared. "Unfair! How can the monsters in the beginner area be this powerful?! 

""Valandria is a dangerous world. Creatures like these can roam anywhere." The Narrator responded to O. 

O flinched and pondered over the Narrator's words. He was completely off guard. Until just a moment ago, he had still treated this second's life as a mere game. O innocently assumed that things couldn’t get any more dangerous out there. 

“Hey, of course he's not the only living corpse in this catacombs, right?” O couldn't believe (and couldn't accept) that he was attacked by fellow undead. “Hey, but that's the reality, right?” 

"What rotten luck!" O swore again, but this time in a whisper. He didn't want to attract the zombie who seemed to be busy looking for something. "Then what can I do now?" 

“"As long as your core crystal is intact, you can still restore your body to its original state. It's just that this process will reduce the level of assimilation, which means lowering your level of development."" 

O listened carefully to the Narrator's explanation. From that explanation, O concluded that he still had a great chance of survival.

"Narrator, what happens if the assimilation rate is at zero?" O whisper again. 

""Death."" 

Badum! O's heartbeat stopped, even though he had no heart. He didn't want to die anymore. No, he should not. He never achieved anything meaningful in his life. Not yet.

"If I restore my body back, how much percentage of assimilation will be lost?" 

""Depends on the damage rate. This kind of damage is likely to reduce the assimilation rate by 0.02%.""

O was relieved. He only had to wait for the undead to leave by himself, then he would restore his body to its original state. 

However, O's plan soon fell apart. The zombie, who seemed to be busy looking for something, had now found what it was looking for: O's lower body.

The undead were gnawing at O's lower body, starting from the feet. If this continued, of course the damage would be more severe and the lost of assimilation percentegae would be greater. 

"Hey! Stupid zombie! Stop it!" O screamed. 

The zombie tried to turn but its head barely moved. O's hit broke the undead's neck in such a way that it turned its head backwards permanently. However, this did not stop the undead from searching and gnawing at O's bones. 

O realized the zombie’s behaviour. He stopped screaming so that the undead wouldn't move towards his upper body, which was where the core crystal was located.

In the end, O came up with a new plan. He moved silently by dragging his remaining body slowly by utilizing his elbows. O moved towards his weapon which was also thrown during the ambush.  

“A little more…” 

O and his weapon were only inches away, but then he suddenly stopped. His gaze caught another figure emerging from the darkness at the end of the hall ... 

"Shit!"  

O cursed while watching a legless zombie creeping towards him...  

~To be continued~