1 The Ride that caused it All

"Cyril! Don't rush downhill! It's dangerous!" A young man shouted at another guy who was speeding down his bike on a downhill.

"It's enjoyable doing this, Herro! You should try this too! WOOOOHOOOOO" The man riding his bike shouted towards the boy, who is still on the top of the hill.

"Fine, I'll try it since you guys look so ecstatic doing this." The young silently said as he talked to himself.

The young man on the top of the hill was named Herro Drylin. He is 20 years of age and studying in college. Right now, he is with his friends, having a long ride with their bikes.

He was on the top of the hill, and it was quite dangerous to speed up while going downwards. But since his friends reached the bottom safely, he decided to try it also.

Then he hopped on his bike and started pedaling as he goes on full speed downwards.

He found it really enjoyable since the breeze was cool as it hit his face. He keeps on laughing, but he forgets about his surroundings, and he was nearing the cliff.

Cyril shouted at him, warning him to slow down since he was nearing the edge of the cliff.

Herro's ecstatic face turned grave as he realized he was just a hundred meters away from the cliff edge.

He panicked and forgot what he should do. Then he remembered his using his brakes when he was twenty meters away from the edge.

But braking didn't help him, and it even made the situation graver. He used the front brake of his bike, and he was thrown off his bike.

His speed was so great that he flew more than twenty meters, meaning he already passed the edge and was about to die.

He saw the blue sky and the white clouds. He really admired how the color had a cooling and calming effect on him even though he was about to die.

Then everything turned black.

********

A man was lying down on the floor of a totally wrecked room. The room was so messy that it looked like there was a war in this place. The furniture there was also wrecked.

The young man slowly opened his eyes with great difficulty. Then he caressed his head that was about to split in half out of pain.

This young man was Herro Drylin, who just died recently and found himself in a foreign room.

He started to get up as he caressed his head while using his other hand to support his body. Then he scrutinized his surroundings and found out that he was not in the hospital. Then he tried to find some injuries on his body, but he found none.

"This place is a total mess!" Herro explained as he shakes off the specks of dust on his clothes.

"I knew that I died, and this place does not look like heaven. Maybe this place is the actual hell or the afterlife? And maybe I was transmigrated to this place?" Herro tried to look for possible things that ended up in his current situation. But he realized that thinking would do nothing but only adding pain to his head.

So he started to walk towards the nearest broken window to look outside, hoping that he knew where the place is and walk to his home.

But when he peeked at the broken window, he was shocked and speechless. He saw dilapidated buildings covered in large, thick vines. Then trees stood up that was as tall as the massive buildings.

He rubbed his eyes, thinking that maybe all of this was an illusion, but it was not. It was indeed real.

Then, when the shock subsides, he saw some human-like figure walking aimlessly.

"Ohhh! Maybe I can ask them where this place is." Herro nodded with the idea he came up with.

He shouted towards the nearest human he saw, "Hey brother, did you know where this place is?"

Did he hear my shout? Herro asked himself because the human didn't look back at him.

"HEY!" Herro shouted louder to get the guy's attention. Then the guy's head slowly turned back. Herro was happy since there was someone he could ask.

But when Herro saw the human's entire face, he nearly peed himself in shock and fear.

"ZOMBIE!" He was not able to control his shock and shouted unintentionally.

The human that Herro was talking about was a zombie. It had a rotten face, and it was like walking bones.

Then Herro hurriedly crouched as he tried to hide from the zombie. But before he could even think about what to do, a hand came out of the broken window. The broken glass fell to Herro and scratched parts of his skin, and some even pierced him.

He groaned in pain from the broken glass in his body. Then he saw that the hand in the window was in bad shape than he is. Large fragments of glass had pierced its skin.

He hurriedly stood up in fear and ran toward the other corner of the room furthest from the zombie. The zombie's head entered the broken window, and it tried its best to climb.

"This is just a dream, and I need to wake up!" He then slapped his face, but the scene was still the same.

"Maybe the intensity of the pain was not that strong." He tried to slap his face several times, but the scene was still unchanged.

"I should do something even more painful." He looked around and saw a steel pipe. Then his eyes unintentionally dropped down to his crotch, and then he gulped his saliva and raised the steel pipe and said, "This will deal great pain, right?"

He was about to swing it when he heard a loud bang. It sounds like something fell on the floor. Then he saw the zombie trying to stand up.

"This is not a dream, and I shouldn't sacrifice my future children just to wake up!" Then he stood up while holding the steel pipe shakily.

The zombie slowly walked towards him, and it could not run because of the broken glass stuck on his body.

He never felt this kind of fear throughout his entire life. He even concluded that falling off a cliff is a lot better than his current situation.

Herro closed his eyes as he shivered in fear while holding the steel pipe. Then he realized something.

This is what I've been waiting for! Zombies, post-apocalyptic world, and it feels like it came straight out of a fiction book!

Then he opened his eyes and gripped the steel pipe in his hands really hard. The zombie was slow-moving, and it saw a large opening, which was its unprotected head. He also remembered that if someone smashed the zombie's brain or their heads were severed, they would completely die.

He raised both of his hands as he waited for the zombie to come at him. And then, when the zombie was finally at his range of attack, he smashed down the steel pipe really hard, and it directly hit the zombie's head really hard, to such an extent that it released a *blonk* sound.

The zombie still moved, and this caused fear in Herro's heart. So he raised his steel pipe and smashed its head again and again until the zombie stopped moving.

Blood splattered in the room and also towards Herro's clothes. Rotten gray matter slowly flows out of his head that looked like a smashed melon, but it was a rotten melon.

Herro couldn't help but vomit because of the rotten stench that filled the room. After vomiting, he tried to walk away and exit the small room and escape the place. But it seems that the lady luck didn't like him, and he slipped with the blood of the zombie and touched the splattered head of the zombie.

His eyes widened in disgust, and when he was about to pull back his hands from the zombie's body, a blue rectangular panel appeared in front of his face. Herro was startled because of its sudden appearance, and then he saw that someone wrote something in it.

"Will you use the skill 'Absorption" to this zombie?"

Herro's left eyebrow raised in confusion. "Skill? Absorption? what is that?" He asked himself, but he could not come up with a clear answer.

These thoughts were running on Herro's head, and then since it is a skill, it won't do him any harm.

Then he said 'yes' in his thoughts, and then a suction force appeared on his palm that is touching the zombie. It slowly grew stronger, and he visibly saw that his hands were absorbing the zombie's corpse.

He was shocked and tried to shake off his hands because it absorbs the zombie. He couldn't accept that he was absorbing the zombie's body and not the skills or any useful items. He could not accept the fact that he was eating the rotten zombie!

After a couple of seconds, the zombie was absorbed by his body while tears appeared on the side of his eyes. After being depressed for a minute, he saw another blue panel appeared in front of him, and then it said, "Status updated, please check the status panel for the details."

Status panel? Where can I open this thing? Is there a button? Or should I just say it in my thoughts?

This barrage of questions again appeared in his head, And since he could not solve it with just thinking, he tried to say, "Status Panel."

A blue panel appeared in front of him again, and he tried touching it, but his hands passed through. So he just tried reading it to learn what is it about.

Status Panel

Name: Herro Drylin

Age: 20

Health condition: healthy

Vitals

Speed: 15

Strength: 10

Mass: 50kg

Agility: 20

Stamina: 30

Intelligence: 20

Vitality: 50

Skills:

Absorption(Ultimate) allows you to absorb dead creatures and assimilate their abilities, and you can also absorb their vital points.

Ultimate Scented body(Unique/Uncontrollable): ?????

Is this my status and my skill? Absorption? Wow! This skill is really cool, and I can absorb the abilities of my enemies!

He felt excitement beyond control as he thought of all the possibilities that may happen with his Ultimate skill: Absorption.

Herro clenched his hands and jumped as he raised his right fist in excitement.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! I got an awesome skill! I really am a legitimate transmigrator!"

He shouted so loudly out of excitement. Then a panel appeared in front of him, and it said, "Ultimate Scented Body was activated due to accomplishing certain circumstances."

Huh? The Ultimate Scented Body was activated? Why? What did I do to activate it?

Then, a rich, aromatic, captivating scent slowly engulfed the room. The previous rotten stench suddenly vanished in the face of the aromatic scent produced by Herro's body.

Is this the effect of the Ultimate Scented Body? So lame!

Herro complained in his thoughts how lame this skill is. Then he opened his Status Panel, and then, before he could read it, something happened.

The ground shook slightly, and this confused Herro.

"Is this an earthquake?" He said as he walked towards the window. He peeked, and what he saw startled the crap out of him.

"A ZOMBIE HORDE!"