SV's reaction was reasonable. He had no understanding of his own capabilities yet, nor could he gauge the enemy's strength. Noticing their stiff, sluggish movements, he chose to keep his distance and buy himself time.
Unfortunately, he had underestimated the sheer number of monsters in the graveyard. After only a few paces, he drew even more corpses toward him, their numbers swelling as they closed in from every direction.
He came to an abrupt stop, realizing his options were quickly dwindling.
There was only one choice left—gamble.
His eyes darted to the thinnest point in the encirclement. Without a second thought, he sprinted toward the narrow gap between two approaching corpses.
The stench of rot assaulted his nose. Low, guttural growls scraped at his nerves, and he couldn't shake the fear that something might lunge at him from behind. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he closed the distance.
Three meters.
Two meters.
One meter.
Just as the two zombies came within arm's reach, SV dropped into a slide. The soft, muddy ground carried him forward beneath their grasping arms. Fingers brushed the air above him, and then he was through.
He scrambled to his feet and scanned his surroundings. The rest of the corpses were already converging again. As he ran, a simple plan began to take shape in his mind.
After several relentless minutes, he succeeded in gathering them together. What had once been scattered threats merged into a single, grotesque horde—nearly a hundred corpses packed so tightly that they stumbled over one another in their mindless pursuit. Even so, the constant fear that one might suddenly leap at his back kept him perpetually on edge.
Nevertheless, he could finally afford a breath.
Guiding the horde toward one edge of the graveyard, SV abruptly veered and sprinted toward the opposite side at full speed. By his estimate, he had bought himself a full minute.
It wasn't much.
But right now, it was a blessing.
"System," he called.
A translucent blue panel materialized before him, displaying six options: Profile, Quests, Leaderboard, Forum, Logs, and Settings. He ignored the rest and selected Profile.
======
[Name: SV#479]
[Race: Human(?)]
[Sex: Male(?)]
[Lv: 0 (Exp: 0/100)]
[Class: None]
[Attributes: STR 10, DEX 7, CON 9, INT 7, WLL 8, SPR 5]
[Talents: Possession Lv1]
[Skills: None]
======
A quick glance at his profile left SV with so many comments: 'It's fine if you put a question mark next to my race, but what the hell is wrong with my sex? I'm an OMNI-certified male, okay?'
But he didn't dwell on it too much. On a more serious note, his game character seemed to take after his real body, another down point. He wasn't one to leave reviews, but this shitty game might just be able to break his precepts.
He quickly clicked on the only thing that seemed useful in this situation.
======
[Possession]
[Lv: 1]
[Rank: S]
[Description: When in contact with a target, initiate an SPR check. If the caster wins, they possess the target. Casting again will remove the possession.]
[Cooldown: 1 hour]
======
SV had three things to say.
One, 'how the fuck do I cast this shit?'.
Two, 'why is the description so vague?'
Three, 'how high is S rank?'
SV had played enough games to immediately point out a few details. He could tell that a high cooldown meant a strong ability, so the rank of his talent must be high, but how high on the scale of this game he didn't know. There was a certain thrill to this mystery.
He also had a vague understanding of this talent. If he guessed right, he should be able to take any entity as his character, provided his SPR was high enough. The thought brought a grin to his face. The fact that SPR was his weakest stat did not bother him in the slightest. He could always add points to it later, couldn't he?
But then again, there surely was point addition in this game, right, right? SV had a nagging feeling that it wasn't going to be that simple.
Setting aside his devious plans, he closed the window and looked at the horde that was getting dangerously close. He narrowed his eyes and circled the horde, running to the other edge of the graveyard.
He approached the only gate around, and, without surprise, it was closed. He didn't have time to check around for a lock or a mechanism, so he simply changed his plans.
Apart from the horde in the distance, there were quite a few corpses who had their legs trampled on, and even a few of them had been trampled to death. He approached one of the crawling ones. It was the corpse of an elderly man with stalk arms, deformed legs, and a trampled-on back. He kept growling as he crawled toward him with effort.
Wasting no time, SV stepped on the old man's hands and broke them. Then he stepped on his back and tried to invoke his talent.
"Activate!" "Possession!" "Talent activate!" ... "Grrr!" The nearby growls woke him up from his attempts. He looked up and saw that the horde was about five meters away and was rapidly approaching. In frustration, he punched the old man in the head. His hands smashed the old man's skull, breaking it open and splashing his brain matter everywhere.
Just then, an eerie red light jumped out of the corpse and slithered on his outstretched arm, heading straight for his head. No sooner did SV want to do something than the light drilled into his glabella. A sharp pain assaulted him as if his soul were being torn into pieces.
[You have been possessed.]
The system notification flashed in his eyes. Then another one came.
[SPR check has been initiated. 5<6. Check failed. Possession successful.]
SV wanted to bring a hand to his forehead, but his hand hardly responded. It felt increasingly stiff and heavy. Only then did he notice that his limbs were going stiff; even his breathing was becoming harder and harder. SV furrowed, his expression slowly but surely turning ferocious.
"Ah!" He uttered as he kept trying the chains around his body. Unfortunately, the corpses had already reached his location.
The first corpse that arrived pushed him to the ground, causing whatever resistance he mustered to vanish. His vision rapidly darkened, and he only made out the vision of the corpses gnawing on his body before passing out.
—
SV watched blankly as the corpses munched on his body from a third-person perspective. Then, suddenly, his body growled, causing the corpses to scatter in confusion. His body got up and joined the rest in loitering idly in the graveyard.
SV was silent for a moment before taking a deep breath. The jarring sensation of being unable to even breathe properly had left him shaken slightly. The ease at which he could breathe now was a blessing he had taken for granted.
Moments later, he shook his head, an ironic smile on his face. He'd gotten possessed instead of possessing.
He looked at his ethereal form and then looked around. He tried to move but found that he couldn't move beyond simple rotation.
He summoned the system and noticed a new option to revive at the top, which he ignored for now. This time, he looked at the Forum option. It showed various posts and a chat option on the side. He glanced briefly at the titles.
[Three things all newbies need to remember.]
He skipped it, not wanting his gameplay decisions to be affected by others. He bookmarked it so that he could come back to it later once he had formed his own understanding of the game. He did the same for other guides that seemed useful and casually browsed some posts complaining about the game before closing the forum.
He clicked on the Quests and was surprised to see a Quest lying there.
[Quest: Escape Tipeb Graveyard]
[Description: This haunted graveyard has been locked away from the world to keep the eerie creatures within out of sight. Find a way to escape the graveyard and return to the world of the living.]
[Duration: Unlimited]
[Rewards: 100 Exp]
It looked like a tutorial quest, and it provided just the right amount to level up.
Next, he clicked on the Leaderboard, and a list came into view.
[1. Dark Lord Henry II Lv10]
[2. Not A Masochist Lv10]
[3. I SEE YOU Lv10]
SV was immediately curious. How had they changed their names? He turned to the profile and clicked everywhere, but no option came up to change his name. He turned back to the leaderboard to see if there was anything there. There wasn't. It only displayed the leaderboard and a countdown for the season. Incidentally, the countdown showed 23 days.
He ignored it for now and turned to another curious thing: the level. Was 10 the maximum level, or was it some kind of threshold? Or maybe it was just the upper limit of the current version? SV thought that it should be one of the latter two.
He shook his head and checked the logs this time.
[You have discovered Tipeb Graveyard.]
[A quest has been generated.]
[You have been possessed.]
[SPR check has been initiated. 5<6. Check failed. Possession successful.]
[You have died.]
Five simple logs, but it gave SV plenty of insight into the game and even his own talent. He seemed to have somehow missed the first two, but no matter. It also seemed that even if he knew how to activate his talent, he wouldn't have been able to possess the old man. His SPR was still too low. But then again, maybe he could find another corpse with a lower SPR value.
As things stood, direct contact was too risky. He couldn't personally finish them off. Then he remembered that some of them died from being trampled on. He didn't know what happened to them. Would they wrestle for control amongst themselves? Also, what if he finished them off from a distance?
SV cleared his thoughts and opened the Settings. If he still couldn't find a way to activate his talent. He would just give up and look it up.
The settings actually had nothing at all save for control settings and displaying his account name.
'No wonder the pain was so real,' there was no pain sensitivity to adjust. He clicked on his name, and a prompt came to edit it. 'Finally!' He thought as he typed his usual moniker, 'Bandit Emperor.'
Then, he clicked on the control settings, and there was an option to add controls. SV raised an eyebrow and clicked 'create.' A prompt came up to select an ability.
'So it was here,' and he was shouting randomly back then. Thankfully, there was no one around; otherwise, he would be utterly embarrassed now.
He clicked on his possession talent, and it prompted him to perform a motion.
First, there was no way he was going to shout it. Second, it had to be fast; preferably the motion of touching the body itself should be the trigger to activate the talent... no, that wouldn't work either. Then he would have to be careful not to accidentally activate the ability. It had to be a gesture that he doesn't perform usually.
'Ah! That's easy,' he suddenly thought. Then he extended his right hand, spreading his fingers except for his ring and middle finger in a Spider-Man-like gesture. After he confirmed that it had been successfully registered. He did the same for his left hand. Now, he was all set.
He first checked his surroundings to check whether he'd get jumped by a corpse the moment he spawned. He didn't know where he would spawn, but it was a fair assumption that he would spawn at his death point. Seeing that the closest corpse was a good distance away and he would be able to react promptly once he descended, he clicked on revive.
Immediately, his head started spinning, and before he knew it, he was back in a solid body.
"Grrr," came the welcoming growls from around him.
SV chuckled as he quickly took in his bearings, "round two, bitches."