Aldiun woke up with no idea whether it was night or day. All he knew was that he was hungry, and his neck hurt immensely.
He probed at it to find that a scar had indeed formed and would most likely remain there for the rest of his life.
Not allowing the thought to bother him, he prepared to enter the stillword once again. If he wanted to have any chance at surviving in this world, especially as a wanted man, he needed to utilise the ability to the the best of his advantage.
He closed his eyes, and once they were reopened, he stared at himself from an outsider's perspective once again.
He looked at his physical body, noticing that a few strands of his messy black hair had started to turn white, and his cheeks were sunken with malnourishment.
I'll really need to find a better way to live, or I'm going to die out here.
Aldiun chose a path in the sewer tunnel and started to walk down it. He did not need to worry about getting lost, as he could always return to his physical body at any moment.
However, the further away he travelled from his physical body, the faster he felt his timer being drained.
This makes sense. I assume the more I level up, the further I'll be able to travel, and the longer I'll be able to remain in the still world.
Just as he was about to close his eyes and reenter his body, he heard a strange sound break the silence somewhere in the distance.
This was strange, as other than his footsteps, the stillworld contained no noise.
He focused, and the noise came again. A deep, guttural sound from somewhere ahead.
Curious, and not wanting to miss what it could possibly be, Aldiun sprinted as fast as he could, finding that his astral form was much more physically capable than his normal body.
However, after reaching the source of the sound, he quickly wished that he had never been so nosy.
Sitting on a platform in the sewer nearby was a woman. As expected, her body was completely still. She had pink, messy hair, and wore a black, ragged thief's coat that had been torn in multiple places.
Aldiun guessed that she was nothing older than twenty, and if not for the dirt caked on her face, she might have been beautiful.
Unfortunately, he had no time to focus on that. In the distance, there was another figure.
A moving figure.
At first, he had thought it was human, due to its body and the way that it walked. Its arms were dangling by its side, and it stepped as though struggling to carry its own weight.
Upon closer glance, Aldiun saw that the creature's skin was a sickly grey colour, and its body seemed to be battered and bruised. It's hair clung to its head like a mop, and half of its face was hanging from the bone.
There was only one word that could be used to describe such a beast.
A zombie.
The zombie's attention was drawn to the pink-haired woman, as it slowly stalked towards her. However, as she was unable to move, there was nothing she could do.
However, Aldiun noticed that the closer the zombie got to the woman, its body began to fade away. Eventually, it had completely vanished.
It was almost as if it had traversed from the still world into the real world.
Aldiun put two and two together.
In Veshpa, it was known that horrific creatures existed. What if they were originally from the stillworld, and had to pass through to the real world to engage with the humans?
...
If his hypothesis was correct, then at that moment, the pink-haired girl was in great danger!
Aldiun closed his eyes and found himself back in his physical body. Despite his hunger, he pushed himself to his feet and dashed through the water towards where he had found the girl and the zombie.
It took no time for a scream to follow.
"Ahhhhh!"
The woman's screams echoed through the tunnel, forcing Aldiun to push himself faster.
As he finally turned onto the pathway, he spotted the woman sitting in the water, shuffling backwards as the zombie approached with outstretched arms and jaws wide.
In the woman's hand was a knife, but she was too afraid to use it. All she could do was hold it out in front of her, hoping that the zombie would fall on it.
However, from what Aldiun knew from his time on earth as a Leo, such a creature would never die so easily.
Wasting no time he dashed towards the woman. Luckily he made it there before the zombie did.
"Give me the knife!" He roared, taking the woman by surprise. Before she could reply, he ripped the knife from her hand and faced off with the zombie.
Now only a few meters away, he lunged forward with as much grace as an untrained man could muster and thrust the blade into the zombie's face.
It entered through its eye socket with a sickening squelch. He felt its soft skull breaking apart and its brain being pierced.
Afterwards, the knife broke, and he left it in the zombie's face before pushing it over. It landed on its back with a splash, bleeding green blood into the sewage water.
Disgusting...
At the same time the zombie fell, Aldiun felt his system shift in his mind. He received a pop-up.
[You have killed "Sewer Zombie." a first-rank horror of the stillworld. 5 EXP Gained.]
[EXP 6/10]
First rank...
It made sense. After all, it took hardly effort to take the horror down. However, his skin crawled at what other beasts might lurk in the stillworld.
"Y-you saved my life."
Aldiun turned around to find the pink-haired girl looking up at him with a sort of admiration in her eyes. It was as though killing the sewage zombie had made him some sort of god in her eyes.
But then, after getting a closer look at him, her face lit up with recognition.
"Wait a minute, you're the man from earlier. The one they were going to execute!" She said with a pointing finger.
Aldiun scratched at his head. It seemed like everyone knew he was already.
"Yeah, I am... I hope you're not a follower of this God, Cread?"
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