Becoming a Monster

Noah was once on his way to the rear parking lot in the women's area, but playing it safe, he began to backtrack towards their dorms. He could clean up whatever was there, and at the same time he could implement his broken privilege as a monster tamer, especially when he now had a creature that didn't need to rest.

During his travels, he thought about his recent gains. He couldn't wait to eat all of the cores he's obtained. If he didn't want to waste more time he would've eaten them as he collected them, but beating the darkness was more important. In addition, he thought back to his recent looting, he obtained a mace that he didn't bother to keep, a helmet that seemed like it came from the spartan era that he didn't keep either. But he was more than happy to obtain a potion he has yet to receive before. It came in a small tube and was a light blue thin liquid that held a subtle glow.

Noah didn't have the analysis skill, but any gamer and avid fantasy reader could tell what the potion was. He knew it had to be a potion to restore mana, that and the gold alone was enough to consider the chest contents satisfactory.

Mana has been a huge issue for him. He thought that having high magic would also reflect his mana recovery, but that doesn't seem to be the case. He remembered from his books that sometimes sleeping would increase the amount of mana gained, a monster wouldn't give him time to rest to rebuild his mana. The value of the potion was worth a lot more to a loner like him.

Minutes went by before he finally could make out the dorm. A smile of relief appeared on his face at the thought of being able to relax for a moment. Having stamina that could regenerate didn't help him carry around a heavy sword as much as he thought it would. At this thought, he looked towards Fenrir in regret.

'If I didn't need you to fight then I could've rode you here instead.'

"Sigh…." He then proceeded to massage his temples from the recent headaches he's had on the way here. Because the sword was causing him distress, he thought of abusing his skill to exchange his states with Fenrir, receiving some of his strength to make the journey easier since it didn't cost mana or stamina. But that plan didn't go as well as he intended.

The skill stayed in effect as long as he kept up his concentration on its usage, but he found out quickly why the skill wasn't as broken as he believed it to be. The pain in his head came subtly, he didn't think anything of it at first. It was until he had to drop his sword and hold his head when he noticed that something was truly wrong. The lapse of concentration caused the skill to cancel and the pain began to recede, that's when he began to realize the consequences of his actions.

Noah soon began to walk towards the dorm with a gaze that appeared as if he had a score to settle.

"I've been doing nothing but being carried lately, at least I can take out my frustrations out on these guys. Noah was happy to see that there were quite a bit of zombies left in the vicinity. From the front of the dorm alone were about thirty zombies. He hoped that there would be a lot more when he went to the middle of the courtyard, considering the fact that when he had to jump out from his dorm window, there were still a lot of zombies trapped on the base floor.

He was preparing himself to start the fight first but the current scene left him confused, before he realized it, he was rushing the current zombies in anger.

"Those are mine!" He screamed with a hint of possessiveness. The zombies in the vicinity were eating the corpses scattered on the ground, but what triggered him was when he noticed the zombies aiming for the hearts specifically.

He quickly used his skill to exchange strength from Fenrir and rushed to the first zombie feeding.

Swoosh!*

He didn't need to, but he swung the sword with all of his might like he was attempting to hit a home run. The sword went cleanly through the zombies face diagonally before its face slid apart. However the strength of Noah's swing caused him to spin in a circle before he had to retain his balance, but his rage didn't stop there. He quickly went to the next zombie to release his frustrations, but this time he held back his strength a little.

"You damn zombies! You were supposed to be attracted to brains!" His eyes stared widely at the corpses in the vicinity, he realized that almost all of the hearts were missing. He clutched his heart as if he was in pain, water began to build up in his eyes from the nonexistent rain.

"Fenrir! Arachne! Sniff* Kill them all! Ahhh!"

On the verge of crying, his mind was so distraught that he didn't notice the track star zombies like before were among the feeding zombies. But that's what Arachne was for, while Fenrir was quick to go on a killing spree. It wasn't just food that Arachne cared about, it was also Noah who allowed her to always have a full stomach that she now cared about just as much.

She saw the threats approaching Noah and knew he was still somewhat vulnerable so she chose to go after the main threats first. She was too concerned that she forgot about his skill that made him almost untouchable against zombies that had yet to evolve.

Two sprinters that Arachne couldn't get to quickly enough had already approached Noah, but when they reached a few feet from him they paused.

That sleight pause was enough for Noah to effortlessly take them out. Clumsily he swiped upwards hard, cutting the zombie in half starting from the bottom before cutting through its head. While still using his momentum, he turned towards the next one and had his sword crashing down, spitting the other in two.

He had forgotten not to use so much strength due to his emotions that the sword even cut through the ground before stopping when almost half the blade was submerged.

Luckily the quality of the sword was greatly superior than the weapons he used before and he was able to retrieve the sword again. It's been awhile since Noah has been able to let loose towards the end of killing the zombies, his emotions began to stabilize.

He began to look around and observe Arachne and Fenrir finishing up. While he looked around, his eyes could help but wander over the coreless zombies once again, causing him to clench his fist, before relaxing again.

He wasn't in the right state of mind to process it, but now that he thought about it, he began to have a bad premonition.

"I can get mana and level up my skills from those cores, that should mean they should too right? But I also need to upgrade my skills using those stones…chest don't drop for zombies, and using the shop shouldn't be possible…right?" When his thoughts reached here, he began to think about how the zombies were able to progress so fast even though the amount of people they killed didn't match the speed of their leveling.

"!"

"Are the cores the reason they are growing so fast?? If that's the case then…"

"Gggrrrrrll!!"

"No, no, no, no, NO!….This isn't happening right now…there's no way a cliche like this can happen for real! I didn't even finish what I was going to say!"

The current situation almost turned him hysterical. To him this was one of those moments where the character would say something and it would set off a red flag.

The growl from earlier was obnoxiously loud, it reminded him of the Zombie King from earlier but the sound was definitely louder. His gaze looked towards the dormitory, towards the left dorm meant for the lower clansmen specifically.

The sound was subtle, but he could hear it, footsteps were slowly approaching him, but the sound was confusing him with each step. The footsteps were slow, as if the creature was approaching in no hurry at all, but that's what caused the confusion.

As the footsteps sounded, the steps were sounding closer and closer each time, almost as if the creature was traveling large distances.

Other than the zombie approaching, Noah didn't hear anything else and that made the current atmosphere more suspenseful. Noah had half a mind to run around the corner to satisfy his curiosity which was only expecting the worst.

Boom!

"Fuck me sideways…." Noah muttered with his bottom jaw slacked open in disbelief. He was finally able to see what was the cause of the sounds and it was only his hand at first, but just that alone was enough to put him in a mood.

The hand was almost twice the size of Fenrir's which says a lot when Fenrir's palms are huge, just its paw alone was enough to grip Noah's upper torso, including his arms.

Yet the hand in question is bigger than that! He was sure it could completely wrap around him and still lock its fingers. Even then, that wasn't the issue that he found the most alarming!

"Tha-Thats the second floor…."

The giant pale hand, that held the same dark veins that he did, finally made him feel a sense of dread when he saw the placement of the hand. The feeling was brief, because a moment later, the rest of the hand's body accompanied it.

Gulp* Noah couldn't help but swallow his spit loudly when he saw the creature in its entirety. The creature didn't have eyes and its head wasn't the kind of head that seemed natural. It was as if its face were made of two layers. The inner layer contained its mouth which made up the majority of its face while the second layer was just another layer of flabby skin.

The mouth alone was enough to make anyone shiver. He couldn't count them from here, but each touch was as long as his head and extremely pointy. It wasn't the teeth of a monster that needed to chew, but was used to rip through its food.

Just from the position of the hand alone, he knew the monster was a big one, bigger than Fenrir. The zombie? Had to be over 15feet and its arms were just as long as his body! Its hands almost touched the ground, but that can also be attributed to the fact that its knees seemed to be bent.

Noah dazzlingly looked towards the monster, his eyes having yet to blink from not being able to believe his luck.

He wouldn't lie if he said that he wanted to test out how strong he was against such a creature, but he wanted it to be on his terms.

Plop*

Slowly, Noah removed the bag from his shoulder and slowly started to walk towards the zombie who seemed to be looking at them even though it didn't have any eyes.

On cue, Arachne and Fenrir positioned themselves in front of him.

'Well this doesn't seem like something I could avoid forever.' Noah's head lifted up to look towards the sky.

"No matter what happens, I've enjoyed myself. This day has been more fulfilling for me than my entire life…" He soon laid his eyes on the creature before him.

"But I want to continue to enjoy it, I won't let any person, monster or god take that away from me!"

...

A/N: There won't be a chapter tomorrow, but there will still be five for the week. I've enjoy seeing everyone's comments so I'll strive to make a bonus chapter this week to make it 6.