Chapter 15.5: Side Story: Soul Bound! I'm a What! A Zom Paratrooper!

A raspy cough echoed through the hallway that was covered in gore and viscera, and a corpse stood slowly fighting off rigor mortis.

When it finally stood and took a stance, an ethereal bow appeared in its hand, causing its entire body to become nearly transparent. Turning into a wisp of silver, it then reappeared as a transparent figure. It was no longer completely on this plane of existence anymore. A spectral arrow appeared in the corpse's hand, and when it was knocked, the spectral arrow flew true.

The figure stood just behind Trish as a voice rang in its empty head.

You are now set as a skill. Your life is no longer your own, Cedric. You are granted the right to assist ??? and are henceforth soul-bound to her, and you shall share her fate." A gruff, raspy, almost metallic voice said. 

A soul that had been meandering in the in-between was sucked back into its previous home.

The voice droned on, not caring whether it was heard or not.

Race changed from Partial Zombie Human to F-Rank Secret Undead.

Class changed from Unholy Archer to Spell Sniper: Chaos Variant.

Stats Changed Due to an external pact, all stats besides intelligence were increased by 35.

New skills have been unlocked. Undead Constitution, Undead Immortality: Zombie Version, Very Minor HP Regen, Undead Strength, and Undead Rot. Undead Vitality, Undead Appetite: Zombie Version: Bow summon, Chaos Imbument, Minor Chaos Magic, Gifted Mana Pool, and Gifted Minor Mana Manipulation. Chaos ????????. Some skills were merged or removed due to either being upgraded or made useless. The voice had finally gone quiet.

Pov Cedric

Cedric, who had been shot to what seemed to be death, opened his eyes hours later. Then everything flooded back to him.

"Where is Trish?" he said frantically.

Looking around, he saw the corpse of the thing that had killed him, or at least caused his F-Rank skill Zombie Immortality to activate.

It took him a second to realize his bow was gone. He felt that it was very far away, an impossible distance, but his gut told him he could grab it whenever he needed it, but he shouldn't right now.

He tried thinking back to where Trish said she was going but couldn't quite recall exactly, so he decided to look around and see if he could find her on the second floor.

What awaited him was an even greater horror. Nothing was empty. He had looked for over an hour and even went back down to the bottom floor. There were no survivors, no monsters, only corpses. Even all the portals were gone except one in the classroom.

The one he came from months ago.

Sighing Loudly, he begrudgingly walked back to the portal where he had come from. 

Just as he was about to enter, the portal started to get much larger as a hand grabbed the top and started to pull the portal to be larger, going from 7ft tall to 15ft tall, completely busting through the ceiling above. A creature walks through.

A massive green-skinned bipedal creature that looked like the monsters Cedric and Trish fought before except was about five feet taller and at least two hundred pounds heavier.

Cedric's jaw looked practically hanging off, as he could not believe his misfortune.

"First, I team up with a suicidal teenage girl and die fighting an ugly troll, only for his brother to come out just as I'm about to escape. Fate is playing with me again," he grumbled to himself.

Reaching his hand out, he spoke his first word since he entered the classroom. 

"Summon Soul Sting." His tone was deep, and unlike his normal demeanor, he seemed to get very serious suddenly.

The voice he occasionally hears replied. "The Chaos version of Weapon Soul Sting will be summoned per your pact and new class."

"What new pact, and what do you mean, new class?" he shouted in utter surprise.

Which turned out to be a costly mistake, as just as the words left his mouth, he was hit by a massive uppercut to the stomach, launching him upwards through the ceiling to a thousand meters into the sky.

Cedric, now falling to his death, was very confused. The punch didn't seem to hurt him. He touched his stomach to check for damage, but everything felt normal.

"What the fuck?" he mumbled to himself. 

He snapped back to reality as he suddenly felt like he was falling.

"Oh, shit I'm going to fucking die!"

Cedric was looking at the fast-encroaching ground. A few things went through his mind: first, he was going to die; second, he wasn't sure being a zombie would save him; and finally, he was not about to go out without at least filling that damn monster arrows.

Glaring at the monster, he let loose a string of obscenities that would have made the monster's ears bleed. If the air didn't rip the words right out of his mouth, they would never actually be heard by anyone or anything.

Bracing himself for what was to come, he brought his bow to bear.

Bow in hand, still a few hundred meters in the air, he guessed he only had about 5 seconds to shoot as many arrows at the damn creature as possible. A shimmering silver arrow appeared in his hand. As soon as he pulled back the silver string, which was already nocked, he let the arrow fly downward, where he could barely spot the massive creature. 

Pacing himself, he let loose seventy-five arrows in about four seconds in that short time, like a well-oiled machine. Those arrows whistled and mostly hit their target; the monster was almost completely covered in arrows.

A mere few dozen meters above the troll, all the arrows started to glow in so many colors that it looked like glitter. As if deciding on a color, the light turned green. Then a tornado started to grow just above the corpse's head, buffeting Cedric and knocking him off course. He was flung to the side, directly into some trees. 

His last thought that went through his mind before passing to unconsciousness was, "I'm not a fucking Pokémon, now am I?"