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After the incident with the vigilantes, Yeoman wasn’t bothered again. Another three weeks passed in relative quiet. All he had done was research animals, drill his katas, and photosynthesize. Surprisingly, the reduced hunger was quite efficient; he didn’t feel the need to eat, and after observing Red, he was sure the spider was the same. Spiders could go months at a time without a meal. After eating that rat, there hadn’t been any other critters wandering into Red’s web. Yeoman promised to bring back something for the black widow to eat on his way back from Cody’s apartment, but it wasn’t like Red could understand him.
Speaking of Cody’s apartment, Yeoman spotted it from the sky. He folded his wings against his body and plummeted. Before he was about to hit the roof, he spread his wings again, catching himself before gently landing by a large metal box. Cody and Ella were already there. The three of them had cleared the second stage while no one else in Gordan’s group had, so they decided it wasn’t necessary to go back to the warehouse since they wouldn’t be entering the same stage.
“It’s good you’re still alive,” Cody said, nodding at Yeoman. “Did any cops or zombie hunters come after you?”
Yeoman nodded. “There was a group, but I tricked them with the scavenger crow’s voice-changing ability.”
“You mean this one?” Cody asked in an extremely feminine voice.
Yeoman shuddered. “Please don’t do that,” he said. It was uncanny hearing Cody speak like that. The voice didn’t fit his body at all. Yeoman glanced at Ella. “How about you two? Has everything been alright?”
“The world’s gone crazy,” Ella grumbled. “No one buys my sandwiches anymore. I’ve had to pick up a few jobs on the side to make money. You’d be surprised at how many people are scared of spiders. I charge people twenty bucks to get rid of them; they’re basically paying me to take away their food!”
“You eat spiders?” Cody asked, making a face.
“What do they taste like?” Yeoman asked, his thoughts drifting to Red.
“It depends on the seasonings,” Ella said. “I like mine a little spicy.” She grinned at Cody’s expression. “I’m just joking with you. I feed the spiders to Zamuro.”
“Spiders,” the vulture on Ella’s head said and flapped its wings twice. “I eat spiders!”
Yeoman couldn’t help but wonder whether the bird was actually a vulture or a parrot in disguise. It spoke exactly like how one would expect a parrot to. Yeoman checked his fleshwatch. It hadn’t taken him too long to fly over to Cody’s apartment; there was still three minutes left before the start of the third stage. “Any last-minute things we want to go over?”
Cody flapped his wings and crossed his arms. “If we get scattered this time, just go into the air.” He glanced at Ella. “Send your vulture up there. It’ll be easy for us to gather.”
“That’s right,” Ella said and patted Yeoman’s arm. “Don’t abandon us this time.”
Yeoman felt a little embarrassed, but luckily, he couldn’t blush anymore; zombie blood flowed too slowly for that. “I won’t.” Even if he encountered another fat bear, he wasn’t going to run. He could kill them now—even if it did require being eaten by them first. There’d have to be something mind-blowingly dangerous for him to abandon his companions this time, and if it was dangerous enough to make a zombie feel despair, then the stage was overtuned and impossible to clear. “Where do you think we’ll go?”
Cody shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
The counter on the fleshwatch ticked down, and the three were transported to a different environment. Yeoman kept his eyes wide open this time, but he didn’t see any signs of transitioning. One second, he was staring at the city, and the next second, he was surrounded by tall buildings. They were in a plaza with a hundred other people. Yeoman looked around. There were a few people with wings, but they were in the minority. There were even fewer zombies; Yeoman only spotted five, not including himself. As for the rest, they mostly didn’t have any special traits, but they were well-equipped. Yeoman was a bit embarrassed. He was the only naked person there. Luckily, he had the giant crocodile skin in his right hand, and he held it in front of his lower half. Everyone was looking at their left wrists, so Yeoman raised his arm as well, reading his fleshwatch.
[Form a party of six people to unlock missions.]
“Yeoman, accept my invite,” Cody said. He was pointing his left palm at Yeoman. His bow was dangling from his waist along with his quiver. On his back, there was a bag that smelled a bit rotten.
A light flashed on Yeoman’s wrist.
[Accept Party First’s invite?]
[Yes] [No]
Party First? Did Cody decide on the name, or did the system assign it because Cody was the first to create a party? How did he even make one in the first place? Yeoman didn’t question it and pressed the [Yes] button.
[Joined Party First.]
[Members 2/6]
[A person joined Party First.]
[Members 3/6]
Yeoman raised his head. Ella had accepted the invite as well. She was well-dressed and had a spear strapped to her back. A furrow appeared on Yeoman’s brow. They needed three more people; however, if the aliens abducted one hundred people as usual, there weren’t enough people to divide evenly into groups of six. Four people would be left out. Four people were automatically going to be eliminated, not even given the chance to clear the stage. Yeoman was worried it was going to be them, but Cody and Ella were unflustered.
“Hey,” a particularly loud voice said, drawing Yeoman’s attention. Five zombies were making their way through the crowd, approaching him. The people around the zombies were actively avoiding them, afraid of being touched. “Join us. Us zombies have to stick together.”
Yeoman shook his head. “I already have a party.”
The leader of the zombies glanced at Cody and Ella. “These two? Are you sure you want to party with them instead of us?”
Yeoman nodded, crossing his arms.
The lead zombie snorted. “Do you think anyone will want to party with you?” He turned away, raising one hand. “Let’s go.”
The zombies stared at Yeoman before following their leader, causing Yeoman to frown. There was a bias against zombies; it was pretty clear from the comments on the news posts in the forums. People hated zombies. There were plenty of reasons, but Yeoman suspected people were jealous. They didn’t obtain the zombie gene, didn’t get its miraculous abilities, so they approved when the zombies were hunted and killed.
“Hey,” Cody said. “Don’t worry about it. As the leader of the party, it’s my job to recruit people.” He leapt into the air and spread his wings, gusts of wind pumping against the top of people’s heads. “We’re recruiting three more people. We have a zombie for a tank, and he spent his points on self-control and reduced contagiousness; you don’t have to worry about being eaten. There’s also me, a kick-ass archer with wings, and we have a badass chef who makes the best meals.”
Yeoman scratched his head. He wasn’t sure if Cody’s advertisement was appealing or not. Would anyone even want to join? Yeoman whispered to Ella, “Is this going to be okay?”
Ella laughed. “If it doesn’t work out, we’ll kill half a party and assimilate their members. Wouldn’t they have to join us?”
Yeoman’s eye twitched. Ella’s head really worked differently from a normal person’s. He expected people to slowly change as they were forced to go through tougher and tougher challenges, but Ella was twisted from the start. Cody wasn’t too normal either. How had Yeoman gotten involved with them? Wasn’t the saying birds of a feather flock together? It was clearly wrong since he had gotten mixed up with his two companions.
“Can I join?” a girl asked, raising her hand. To Yeoman, she seemed to be around the same age as Cody. However, he couldn’t really tell because her head was a cat’s. She had orange fur and green eyes. Her nose was pink, and long, pale whiskers drooped down to her shoulders. “Nice wings by the way. White really suits you.”
Cody raised an eyebrow and landed on the ground. “What’s your point total?”
“Sixty-one hundred.”
Yeoman glanced at Cody and Ella. How many points had they obtained? Other than raw points, they did obtain the scavenger crow gene and a spirit seed, so their total should technically be higher—close to eight or nine thousand.
Cody nodded, keeping a straight face despite having obtained less raw points than his interviewee. “Any special items?”
The girl squinted at Cody. “I can’t really say. What if I told you and your party rejected me? Wouldn’t that be giving away a trump card?”
Cody nodded again, pointing his palm at the girl. He tapped on his fleshwatch. A light flashed from Yeoman’s arm, and he glanced down.
[A person joined Party First.]
[Members 4/6]
That was it? Cody didn’t even ask for the girl’s name, but he invited her already. Then again, surviving through the second stage was already a testament to her ability. Yeoman glanced around. It seemed like other people understood the need to find members quickly. They didn’t want to be part of the four who’d be eliminated at the start.
“Wait, stop! Someone, help!”
“Is it here? Press the damn button already.”
Yeoman frowned. The five zombies were surrounding someone, evidently forcing her to join their party against her will. They really believed no one would party with a group of zombies, so they resorted to unscrupulous measures. One of the zombies was holding the girl’s right hand, using it to repeatedly jab at her left wrist. Everyone around them was looking, but no one was interfering. The risks were too high: One bite or scratch from a zombie, and they’d be fighting an infection for the duration of the stage.
Cody cleared his throat, drawing his party’s attention. “What’s your name?”
“Katherine, but my friends call me Kat,” the cat-headed girl said.
“How well can you fight?” Cody asked. He swept his gaze up and down her body before frowning. “What weapon do you use?”
Kat pulled two, footlong teeth out of her bag. “I don’t really have much experience with fighting,” she mumbled, “but I do have these. I picked them up in the forest, and they’re quite sharp.”
Cody nodded. “In that case, you should hide.”
“Huh?”
Cody clutched his bow with his left hand and leapt into the air. He nocked an arrow and drew his bowstring back. Before Yeoman could even ask what Cody was doing, the Asian man had already fired the arrow, hitting one of the zombies directly in the head, killing him instantly. Ella patted Yeoman’s arm, nearly causing him to flinch from surprise. “My abilities aren’t suited for fighting zombies. I’ll leave it up to you.”
Yeoman wasn’t quite sure what Ella’s abilities were. She said they were a woman’s secret. However, it didn’t seem like he’d get any help from her. Even if she were capable of fighting zombies, he wouldn’t want her to take that risk. Yeoman stepped in front of Kat and Ella, facing the shouting zombies who were running over. He wasn’t sure what they were planning on doing. Cody was in the air, untouchable, so Yeoman guessed they were trying to secure hostages.
Yeoman handed his crocodile skin to Ella and readied his spear. There were a lot of people observing the fight, and Yeoman couldn’t help but feel regretful about Lan’s pants. He wasn’t an exhibitionist, but his dangly bits were out for everyone to see. The zombies, on the other hand, were wearing armor similar to the ones the mercenaries from the second stage had been wearing. They also had similar weapons: a sword and shield, two spears, and a bearded axe.
The zombie with the sword and shield arrived first. Yeoman raised his spear, thrusting it at the zombie’s head. The zombie raised its shield at an angle, ready to deflect Yeoman’s strike. However, the zombie didn’t know Yeoman had magic tools, or it’d realize that was a dumb thing to do. Its shield-bearing hand was flung to the side by an invisible force generated by the [Bracelet of Fling (Uncommon)], and Yeoman’s spear stabbed into the zombie’s brain. Yeoman felt no qualms about killing a zombie even though it was once a human. The zombies were trying to kill him, and if they were ones to resolve arguments with words, they wouldn’t have used force to obtain a sixth party member.
From Yeoman’s sides, a spearhead and an axe appeared, striking at him from the right and left respectively. With his crow eyes, he could easily follow their movements without turning his head. He used Ella’s trick and leaned to the right, dragging the dead zombie impaled on his spear. Its body collided against the incoming spear’s shaft, knocking it away. As for the axe strike, Yeoman raised his right wing, blocking the attack aimed at the back of his head. There was a burning sensation when the axe struck him, but he didn’t mind. An arrow came down from the sky, striking the zombie who was about to stab Yeoman through the opening created when the dead, impaled zombie had been moved aside.
The spear-wielding zombie in front of him dropped its spear and raised its arms over its head. “Wait! I surrender; don’t kill me, please!”
Yeoman lowered his spear, and a moment later, black blood splashed on his face. The zombie collapsed to its knees with a blank expression, revealing Ella, who was holding a spear with black blood dripping from its tip. She flashed Yeoman a smile and gestured with her chin. “Behind you.”
Yeoman turned his head to the side. He didn’t have to turn it very far to see what was happening thanks to the placement of his crow eye. The axe-wielding zombie had yanked its weapon out of Yeoman’s wing and raised it up, blocking an arrow coming from overhead. Yeoman swiveled his body around, swinging his spear like a bat. It struck the side of the zombie’s head; there was a sickening crack as the zombie’s neck snapped from the force, its left ear touching its left shoulder. However, that kind of injury wasn’t enough to kill a zombie. It let out primal roars, gnashing its teeth, but the rest of its body remained limp and unmoving.
An arrow plummeted from the sky and landed in the zombie’s head, silencing it. Cody dropped down to the ground and plucked the arrow out, storing it back in his quiver. “You don’t mind if I get the Proofs of Murder this time, right?” he asked Yeoman. He glanced at Yeoman’s wing. “Can you still fly?”
Yeoman inspected his wing. There was a gash on it. His black blood looked like pine resin oozing out of a tree. “It’ll be fine in a few minutes,” he said, folding his wings behind his back. He used one hand to cover his crotch. Then, after reconsidering, he used his undamaged wing to wrap around his body instead, preserving his modesty.
“T-thank you.”
Cody and Yeoman turned their heads. The girl who the zombies had been bullying was standing in front of them, biting her lower lip. Cody cleared his throat. “Point total? If you want to join, you need at least six thousand.”
“N-no, I already have a party,” the girl said.
“And they didn’t help you?” Cody asked and snorted. “Some party they are.”
The girl hung her head, her face turning red. “Really, thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cody said, waving his hand dismissively before the girl could invite her party over. “We’re in a rush here. You can thank us later.”
Yeoman couldn’t help but sigh and return to Ella’s side. Cody really had no clue how to socialize with people.
“Hey,” a vibrating voice said, instantly drawing Yeoman’s attention. A three-headed Indian man with six arms was walking over. “I’ll join your party,” he said. All three heads spoke at the same time with slightly different tones, causing his words to buzz. “You can call me Aakash.”
Aakash’s six arms all faced forward, but his heads didn’t. There was a central head where a normal person’s head would be. The remaining two were on either side, facing behind him at an angle like the three points of an equilateral triangle. Cody sent Aakash an invite, and the Indian man tapped on his central arm’s left wrist.
[A person joined Party First.]
[Members 5/6]
“Welcome aboard,” Cody said.
Yeoman stared at the Asian man. He hadn’t even asked Aakash any questions before inviting him to the party. Then again, the six swords hanging from Aakash’s waist spoke for themselves. Yeoman wondered if the man would be any good with them. He couldn’t have had six arms during the last stage unless he had killed the smart infected during the first. How much experience could he have with manipulating his arms? Then again, Yeoman’s usage of his wings came naturally to him. Maybe Aakash’s additional arms were like that as well.
“We still need one more person,” Ella said. “Since we killed five people, there’s going to be five people left over instead of four.”
A normal-looking man walked over to the group. “Can I join your party?”
Cody looked him up and down. “What’s special about you?”
The man scratched his head. “I, uh, have two penises. Each of them is over a foot long, and they’re prehensile; I can use them to grab things.”
“What kind of animal gene did you accept?” Kat asked. Yeoman never owned a cat before, but he was pretty sure the face Kat was making was filled with blatant disgust.
“Dolphin.” The man cleared his throat and grabbed the waistband of his pants. “You need a sixth member, right? I can show you my—”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Cody said, averting his eyes. “And take your penises with you. Jesus Christ.”