[Skill Acquired: Instinctive Hunter]
[Passive Skill - Instinctive Hunter: Highlights nearby living creatures faintly in dim/dark environments. Slight boost to perception when tracking weakened targets.]
[Item Acquired: Rusted Reaper's Blade]
[Item - Rusted Reaper's Blade: A jagged, oversized iron sword once wielded by a vengeful wraith. While dulled with age and corrosion, the blade still thirsts for battle.]
[Stat Boost Granted:]
[+10 Strength]
[Dimensional Storage Unlocked]
[Capacity: 1 cubic meter]
[Restriction: Non-living items only]
[Duplicate Detected: Merging with existing storage...]
[New Capacity: 2 cubic meters]
Nice... Finally... Just as Ethan had expected, he was granted another starter pack. Complete with skills, items, and a stat boost!
[Binding soul fragment to skeletal remains…]
[Success.]
Ethan regained his hearing once more, along with the peculiar sense he'd experienced not long ago. Still, he chose to stay perfectly still. The last thing he wanted was for those two humans he'd encountered earlier to realize he was alive again. That would only complicate things for him.
He slowly scanned the area, and... it was already night. Straining to catch any hint of sound, he found nothing, no trace of human voices. At least one thing was clear: Ethan had come back to life in the exact same spot. The only difference now was the absence of daylight.
And that was deeply annoying. He had completely lost track of time while drifting in that endless void of darkness. Whether he had returned on the same day or not was unclear, but that could wait. For now, he'd need time to analyze everything.
Alright, first off, Ethan received a stat boost, and this time, the increase was staggering: ten full points into Strength. Compared to the previous boost, which had only been +1 along with an extra +1 in Luck, this was on a completely different scale.
Could it be that Luck carries a higher inherent value, and that's why the earlier reward in Strength was much smaller?
Now, he also had two skills: Bone Leech and Instinctive Hunter. Both were passive skills, meaning they would activate automatically whenever the right conditions were met.
The first one, Bone Leech, would empower his bones… He sighed to himself. Referring to his own body as "bones" still felt weird. But alright, let's not dwell on that. The point is, the more targets Ethan kills, the stronger his bones become.
That clearly implied one thing, he needed to kill! But… could he kill just anything to trigger the effect of this skill? Or worse, did it require killing only humans? That would be... problematic.
Next, Instinctive Hunter seemed like a passive ability that would enhance his vision in the dark. And strangely enough, that felt oddly natural for a skeleton. Hopefully, the future held even more extraordinary skills for him.
All he needed to do was die. Again and again. Gather as many skills and stats as he could along the way.
Ethan fell silent once more, pausing to make absolutely sure there was no movement, no sign of anyone else in the room. He turned his gaze toward what used to be a large glass window. Now shattered, it allowed the pale glow of moonlight to pour freely into the space.
He sighed... or at least, he tried to. Wait… he couldn't actually sigh. But never mind. The sensation was still there, faint and familiar, and he decided to act as naturally as he could. He still felt disoriented, understandably so, given that he was suddenly inhabiting a skeleton's body.
He'd been forced to work late here by his boss. Never in his wildest thoughts did he expect he'd end up stuck in this place for years. Hadn't he been the most loyal employee the company could ask for? Shouldn't he have earned a salary good enough to retire and wait for death in peace? Ha! Ha!
Ethan tried to move. A faint creaking echoed from his bones, followed by a clatter behind him. Something had fallen, its sound reverberating throughout the room. Nothing alarming, just noise.
He then made an effort to stand, going through the motions naturally: crouching down first, placing both hands on his knees for support. He wobbled for a moment... but managed to rise fully upright.
Yes, the room was dimly lit. But when he glanced down, his body… His arms, legs, everything... even the clothes he'd once worn, were reduced to ruin. He was, without question, a freaking naked skeleton.
So sexy, right?
Now… there was one thing Ethan needed to confirm before moving forward. According to the system, he should've received two reward items: a freaking cloak and a ridiculously overpowered legendary sword. Heh...
But… where were they? He glanced left and right, trying to spot the two items he had supposedly obtained.
Then, he recalled something, his dimensional storage, a kind of pocket inventory he could access whenever he needed. And the best part? He'd received this feature twice already. The volumes had merged, doubling into a generous two cubic meters of space.
And… wasn't that just insane? Every time he died, he got revived with more storage space.
Surely, this had to be part of that overpowered starter pack glitch. Absolutely broken. And he wasn't complaining.
And… right as Ethan focused on that thought, a swirling vortex of dark energy materialized just beside him.
"Oh... so convenient, huh? Everything is summoned with just a thought."
Ethan slipped his bony hand into the swirling void and, with a mental command, requested the item he had in mind. First: the tattered black cloak.
Very cool. He draped it across his shoulders. It was wide enough to cover part of his back and half of his upper body. Not bad at all...
Next came the sword. He was taken aback by its weight the moment he gripped it. He couldn't quite tell how heavy it was, not without a reference point. After all, he had no idea how his current strength compared to when he was still alive and human.
And… good. Now he had a weapon, something he could actually use to go out and hunt humans… He meant monsters, obviously.
Luckily, Ethan had once dabbled in martial arts and even learned some swordplay… back in senior high school.
Those two skills should still be embedded in his muscle memory, right? Hah!
He gripped the sword tightly and glanced at his reflection on the blade's surface. Only the hollow black void of his empty eye sockets stared back at him. And seriously, he was still trying to wrap his head around this new reality.
Ethan swung the sword forward, testing its weight and balance. He shifted into a basic stance, adjusting his footing. He could definitely feel the weapon's power. Before facing any real opponents, he'd need to practice, get used to handling it properly.
But first, there was something he wanted to confirm before diving deeper into anything else.
He returned the sword to his dimensional storage and let his gaze sweep across the area.
Then he crouched down, crawling through the rubble scattered around the spot where he had sat… and died.
Uhm… his bag. His bag… he found it. Worn, dark blue, and incredibly battered. If memory served, he had stashed a backup phone inside it. He unzipped it and, yes, there it was. His phone.
He picked it up, brushing dust off the screen with his bony hand. It should still work, probably just out of battery.
Ethan dug further into the bag and pulled out another item: a power bank. Hopefully this still held some charge. He pressed the power button, and a small light blinked on. Good. He plugged it in, and…
The phone lit up.
Hahah…
He knew his data plan had probably long expired, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the phone might still hold useful information. Anything from before everything fell apart. Anything he could confirm before the battery ran dry for good.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
After waiting a few moments, the phone finally powered back on. A faint smile tugged at the edges of his imagined expression.
As his bony finger brushed the screen, a faint spark of something made it respond, as if it still recognized the life force clinging to him. Maybe it was mana, or some remnant energy lingering in his bones.
He didn't know the details. But at least it worked.
He navigated through the menus, tapping into one of the social media apps, hoping it still held cached versions of people's final posts before the phone had gone dark. And there it was… a flood of information, fragments of the world frozen in digital memory.
Through these scattered pieces, Ethan began piecing together what had really happened in the moments following the crash that had buried him beneath that desk.
Yeah… the world-building had officially begun.