Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night - Chapter 54

A Long and Painful Day
It was a long and painful day for Olivia and Elena, who lied on the floor practically comatose as they endured the physical agony that was required to level up. A usual corruption debuff lated for thirty minutes, but it stacked with the amount of blood crystals they consumed. And since Zane had force fed the two woman’s enough blood crystals for them to level up, nearly a third of the day went by before they were finally on their feet again.

Olivia was the first to recover. After all, she had consumed a blood crystal before Zane could manage to wake Elena up and drag her ass to the classroom where the young man would proceed to watch over her for the entire duration of her suffering.

And when Olivia saw that she had reached level two, she immediately asked Zane for advice on what to do.

—

[Level up!]

[You are now Level 2!]

[Attribute Points: 2]

—

As someone who had never played a video game before in her entire life, Olivia had no idea what this meant and was quick to ask Zane about what she was supposed to do.

“Zane, it says I have two attribute points. What do I do with them?”

Zane was in the middle of reading a book, one of many he had found lying throughout the second building. And thus answered the woman with a nonchalant tone as he advised her where to put her points.

“What are your strength and dexterity stats right now?”

Olivia checked her character screen and found her stats listed below.

—

[User: Olivia Bennett]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 2]

[XP: 0/250]

[HP: 100/100]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 10]

[Dexterity: 10]

[Constitution: 10]

[Intelligence: 12]

[Wisdom: 10]

[Charisma: 10]

[Skills]

[Electric Discharge – Tier 1]

—

After observing her stats, Olivia listed them off, where Zane then advised her to put one point into strength, and one point into dexterity. This would allow her to carry more equipment and sustain longer marches.

If she was going to accompany Zane on his nightly outings to the city, then these two things were definitely necessary. Thus, after following Zane’s instructions, Olivia did just that.

[User: Olivia Bennett]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 2]

[XP: 0/250]

[HP: 100/100]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 11]

[Dexterity: 11]

[Constitution: 10]

[Intelligence: 12]

[Wisdom: 10]

[Charisma: 10]

[Skills]

[Electric Discharge – Tier 1]

—

Unlike when Zane increased his strength, dexterity, and constitution, there were no visible changes to Olivia’s physique, which Zane found to be odd. But she immediately felt like she had a newfound level of strength and stamina that she was previously lacking in. Thus, Zane felt no need to investigate further.

After all, Elena recovered shortly after Olivia began bouncing about and testing her new physical prowess. Elena glared at Zane. She had just endured the most painful thing she had ever felt in her life, and for nearly eight hours of it.

But she quickly asked for his advice on how to proceed as well. After all, her strength was already higher than the average person’s due to her previous prowess in martial arts.

“Zane, I already have twelve strength. What do I do with my attribute points?”

Zane thought about this for a few moments before eventually coming to a decision.

“Put one point in Dexterity, and one in the Constitution. I honestly have no idea what the other attributed do at the moment, and for the time being, we should be concerned with making our bodies as strong and durable as possible….”

Elena agreed with this sentiment, she also did not know what use increasing things like charisma, wisdom, or intelligence had. At least during their current circumstances. Thus, she immediately did as Zane suggested.

—

[User: Elena Pryce]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 2]

[XP: 0/250]

[HP: 110/110]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 12]

[Dexterity: 11]

[Constitution: 11]

[Intelligence: 10]

[Wisdom: 10]

[Charisma: 10]

[Skills]

[Time Distortion – Tier 1]

—

Just like Olivia, there was no real change to Elena’s physique, at least not that was immediately visible. Which Zane supposed was a good thing, as it would be extremely awkward if the woman suddenly became stacked with muscle. After all, her figure was already ideal the way it was.

And like Olivia, Elena immediately felt a surge in physical ability. She had no idea what the lengths were to her increase in dexterity and constitution. But she felt more durable over all. Which was a feeling she seemed to enjoy.

Almost as if the two women had completely forgotten about the fact that they just spent several hours enduring [Corruption] they instead looked eagerly towards Zane as if they wanted to go out and do something for once. Which was exactly what Elena expressed.

“It’s no fun being holed up here all the time… You have been going out and killing Walkers on your own, right? I mean, every morning there are new supplies, and now you have all these blood crystals on you? I want in on whatever you get up to at night?”

Olivia nodded her head in agreement with Elena’s statement, seemingly forgetting the fight that she had with Elena just a day earlier. The eagerness and stubbornness that was displayed on the two women’s faces made Zane sigh and shake his head.

Ultimately, he relented, but not without some conditions of his own that would be required for the two women to meet.

“Alright fine… But I’m only going to warn you once, it is incredibly dangerous out there… Moreso when the two of you are around… If we’re going out together, then you both are going to need to follow my commands, and we are going to have to do something about your clothing…”

Despite his warnings, the two women did not hear a word Zane had said. Because of their female minds, all they heard was that Zane was going to take them out “shopping” and that was a cause to be excited about.

As for Zane, he knew he could not take the girls out at night, as that was the most active time of the day for the Undead…. Especially those higher-level undead which had already proven to be frightening in their own right.

Thus, he had no choice but to escort the two women back to the sporting goods store, and risk being spotted by potential bandits and marauders.