Becoming a Monster

"Speaking of skills….I think I got one that might help."

All eyes turned to a male holding a skill parchment in his hands. The stares made him feel uncomfortable, but to get out of the situation, he cleared his throat and discussed what skill was there.

"Purification??" The room sounded like a room of echoes as everyone mindlessly repeated the spell he obtained. There were some questioning looks among the group. 'How could someone find a spell EXACTLY when we needed it most', was on their minds. This was too good to be true just to be coincidence. They questioned if the person was playing with them.

The person who spoke out about the skill before began to sweat nervously from their looks of doubt.

"Believe it or not, the skill is right here so why would I lie?? It's just…." He began to look around nervously, his nervousness actually made the suspicious ones feel more relieved. 'So there is a catch' They thought, but his answer surprised them nonetheless.

"I…I have a skill that grants me luck." The answer surprised everyone, the more clever ones were more excited to hear this. That would make him a more valuable individual.

"But….It only works when it involves saving my life…" His expression turned to gloom. Now that he says that, the group noticed there were a few torn parts on his clothes that were still covered in blood.

"So he was infected…What kind of irony is this?"

Everyone soon recovered, but there was still one thing they needed to cover before using the skill.

"Who should hold on to the skill and what happens if we roll for the wrong one?" Jasmine, who was unfamiliar with gaming, asked out. The question caused a silence to descend on everyone. The atmosphere seemed to start getting heavy.

Who wouldn't want a skill that could save their lives? Wouldn't it be unfair if someone were given the skill and only used it for themselves or worse! What if they died? A fight for the skill appeared to be about to go down

"What if we let our healers Rock Paper Scissors for it?" The crowd was startled by the voice coming from a distance. Then they saw Ailetta slowly making her way towards them while holding her head.

"Ailetta?" Both Jas and Bailey had the same urge to help support her, but stopped and looked at one another when they noticed they had the same thought. Jasmine relented under the staring contest, for she was still feeling guilty by not supporting her friend when she could've lost her life.

"Tsk! And why does it have to be a healer? Anyone of us can still use the skill." The other person that irritated Mark the most besides Noah was Ailetta. It didn't help much after he learned of the relation between the two.

But Ailetta ignored his gaze and looked to everyone else to answer the question. If we have our healers roll for the spell, there's most likely a higher chance that they will be guaranteed the skill since they already have the heal skill. There should be a low possibility of obtaining the same skill twice, so that we don't waste this chance let's have our healers roll for it to be safe."

It didn't take long for the majority of the group to agree with her. There were only three healers to choose from. One was Isabelle and the other was one of the healers that followed along with Mark while the last was a woman that happened to be with one of the more battle hardened groups.

The two weren't like Isabelle who only focused on healing. They focused more on their support skills to aid in the fights which left most of the healing to her. At the same time they all knew the importance of the skill and felt a heavy weight of responsibility when looking at the scroll. The other two folded under that pressure and didn't even attempt to challenge for it anymore, leaving Isabelle as the receiver of the skill.

The suspense was killing them while they waited to see if Isabelle successfully obtained the skill. As they watched her they only noticed her eyes closed and her forehead would crease from time to time.

Even when she opened them she still had the same blank cold expression as before. The trauma from this morning resulted in her not having any feeling of gratification in whatever she did so gaining the skill of such worth didn't make her happy.

"I did obtain the skill, it doesn't specifically say if it will cure the infection. It only lists that it can remove negative ailments in the person it's used from, but that also depends on the level of the skill."

The people started to grow a foreboding feeling when they heard the description of the skill. They wanted to immediately test out the effects, but they all forgot one important fact, her mana was too low to cast the spell!

They quickly gathered their belongings together to see if there was anything else they could use. They weren't lucky enough to obtain a cure in a vial like Noah did. They were however able to obtain a potion that was red in color. Knowing that the world was almost exactly similar to the video games most people were used to playing, the most common thought was for the potion to allow them to restore their health.

With nothing worthwhile that could help them in their situation besides gear, a few other skills and the few orbs that granted them extra attributes. Their destination was to all meet up in the cafeteria. With what they experienced, trying to survive will be much harder on their own. Their priority should be to find other people, specifically a place under government rule to secure their safety.

Meanwhile, Noah had finally made it to the cafeteria, slower than he would have liked, but the surroundings were slowly changing in the area and with that change came about some annoying pest.

He didn't know what changed during the time he spent at the gym, but the animals weren't the only thing mutating.

The grass had grown long enough to reach the middle of his shins while the average plant life grew as well. The average tree appeared to grow an extra foot while their leaves were noticeably bigger as well. Everything had a wild-like aesthetic to it now. Thankfully the campus wasn't big on growing trees and flowers or trekking to the cafeteria would be just as dangerous as walking through zombies.

The scene was no jungle by any means, at least right now. But it made it possible for the hidden critters to use the scenery to ambush them.

Noah looked over to Arachne with a look that said he was fed up. Not with her but to the spiders they encountered on the way here. The average size of each one was half the size of Arachne. However, unlike Arachne who used her body to hunt, the breed they encountered were spiders that specialized in using their webs.

Noah could've easily avoided the lair of webs in the vicinity, but there was no need to with Fenrir leading the way. He just wasn't prepared for the barrage of webs to come shooting in his direction. Multiple coming from the one tree in the vicinity while others were shot from the bushes that also grew in length.

The fight would've taken longer than he would've liked if it wasn't for the skill of Fenrir. Its roar had an intimidation factor that worked well on a beast that relied on their instincts. He hoped that with Arachne present, her presence would ward the creature away, but without the title of queen. She was just another obstacle in the way for their source of food.

After driving away the rest of the spiders that they weren't able to kill, Noah retrieved the silver chest that dropped. He was surprised to find a curved dagger in the chest that had a green tip and when pressed against something, a green non corrosive liquid seeped through. He was sure that the dagger had to be poisonous as he slid the dagger in the side pocket of his bag for easy reach. There were also a pair of fingerless gloves in the chest, Noah noticed that he still wore his bracers that he had yet to use if he didn't account for that scene in the shower.

He quickly took off the metal gloves in place of the brown leather like gloves he just acquired. He didn't feel a noticeable difference when wearing them like he would when he equipped anything else, but it was from a silver chest, it had to do something. At least that was what he hoped for.

He stored what little gold was left, he was disappointed that he found so little in the chest this time. But considering that he didn't kill that many spiders, the lack of items was justified.

They were about to leave when he noticed Arachne hovering around the head of one of the spiders.

"Arachne?" Noah questioned before heading closer to inspect what she was up to. He thought she was eating like she usually did but he noticed that she was using her legs to dig through the backside of the spider's hind.

'What the heck is she up to this time?' He watched with interest, it's been awhile since his curiosity has peaked. Soon he discovered what she was aiming for. A pearl like object was retrieved from the guts of the dead spider. Well that's how it looked from Noah's perspective, but their hind was also where their hearts were located.

Arachne quickly stuffed the pearl in her mouth, she sat there for a few seconds without moving before moving on to the next one. She was completely ignoring Noah who needed answers. He was tempted to find his own spider to dissect when he realized the notifications were ringing. He just had a feeling the answer was there.

[Fenrir Level Up! +5 attributes.]

[Arachne Level Up! +5 attributes.]

[Your tamed creature Arachne has consumed the mana source of its compatible species. Mana and the progression of its skills linked to the mana source has been increased.]

"Wait, wait, nooo….so does that mean…" He wasn't able to focus his thoughts on the new information. He thought about the hidden meaning behind what he saw. His thoughts were if this applied to the spiders then did this also apply to humans. He's seen the insane requirements to upgrade his skills at level 0, anything higher? He was sure the requirements would be insane. That thought is what was preventing him from checking his new upgraded skill.

'What if humans had the same pearl to help increase my skills and what if that was also a reason zombies are growing so fast? Wait! Do zombies have them too?' He needed to get to the bottom of it, but there was still something more important at hand.

"Hey! At least leave one for me!" He rushed to push Arachne out the way as she was digging for the next one. There were two more spiders left, he wanted to check the progression in which it increased the skills, but Arachne was being too selfish.

"Don't fuss, when I recover more mana then I'll give you more of my webs or do you want me to find a male spider for you?" Noah asked with a smirk, but his smirk changed to shock when he had to dodge leg coming towards him.

'How is a weakingly comparable to delicious food?' Noah wanted to laugh, but for some reason he couldn't. She was just on another level of a foodie. He reached his hand into the body of the spider as he maneuvered around. The squishiness of its guts didn't faze him at all, if anything he was resisting the urge to eat again. That reminded him that he could also use the spider's corpses to try to level up his skills he gained from his chimera race too. He started to regret letting the other spiders run away.

It didn't take him long to find the pearl-like object, he had no reason to wipe off the guts and blood from it before stuffing it in his mouth. He felt the pearl travel past his throat and before it reached his stomach it dispersed in his body.

'Did it work for me too?' He started to become excited at the thought. If it succeeded then he looked forward to finding more spiders in future and he couldn't help but think about the zombies that could have them.