I wake to the bandages leaking blood. I unlock the closet and find some more before hiding again and changing them out for new ones. I finally decide to look around the hospital. Last night, I just rushed in to find supplies and hid, ignoring everything else. I see many bodies on the floor, some in half, some with heads gone, others missing arms, chunks of people, and blood is everywhere. The morgue should be in the basement or the lowest level to keep it could so I should be able to reach it if I just keep going down. After finding multiple storage rooms, I find the morgue. It's still colder in here than outside; that's good, the bodies are still able to be used.
I look for the autopsy Table, and it's clear nobody is on it. I find some of the tools used for either autopsies or embalming, I'm not quite sure, but it doesn't matter. I open one of the body freezers, and it's empty. I open the next and there is a body there, a man mid-thirties looks kinda sad even dead. I pull him to the table and find a medical book and skip around to what the tools are and find the ones I will probably need. A scalpel, a rib cutter, and a needle with some medical thread or whatever it's called. I then put on some gloves and medical gear. I cut open the chest area with the scalpel, getting past the skin and muscle, going straight to the bone. I then pull out the rib cutter and start cutting near the center on the left side. It's hard, and the bones are tough, but I get through them. I start moving the lungs and other organs out of my way, getting to the heart, where I use the scapel to cut it out. I then cut the rune into the heart and shove it into the man's mouth before carving the other runes into the body, then I stitch the mouth closed as best I can.
The body lies there, and I stand there waiting. move already. the body jolts up and falls off the table. [You have made a zombie. Koine Zombie Making has gained XP.] As I command it to move, I notice its legs don't work. The zombie is dragging itself on the floor. I look at the runes I carved into them, and I realize I did not carve them correctly. I can kinda remember the runes in the blank space being slightly different, but I can't remember how they are different. I grab one of the medical books and find a place in the book that is clearer, and draw the runes to the best of my ability, and try to figure out where I went wrong. The rune on the heart is a chain, the one on the skull is a skull, the one on the elbows and shoulders are webs, the one on the hands is a rune that looks like a string, and I try to remember where I went wrong and how to fix it.
What if I just take some skin from the body's other places and stitch it over the failed runes and etch the new runes into their place? That might work, but I'm unsure. But I should memorize or write down the runes and find out what they do. Each one has a purpose, and so messing them up could lead to different effects, and some of those could end up harming me. I grab the zombie and move it back onto the table. I take skin from where I cut open the chest and stitch it on top of the failed runes, etching what I can remember onto them. I order it to move again, and so it does, limping this time, the left knee rune still a failure, but it's fine, the zombie is still usable. I order it near the door to guard it.
I open the next freezer. This body is of an older man in his late fifties, but that doesn't matter. I grab the scalpel and cut him open once again. I cut out his heart and etch the runes, and at the end, stitch the mouth closed.[You have made a zombie. Koine Zombie Making has gained XP.] [Koine Zombie making has leveled up.] [You have gained some knowledge of runes. You have gotten the skill, lowest level runecraft.] I don't think the system is going to give me anything but the zombie making. hell, even that I had to learn it didn't just put the knowledge into my head. But I don't think leveling skills will give me the ability to make other types of undead or new versions of zombies. I'll probably need to figure that out myself. I wonder if I can have the zombie do more than just stand.
I bring the two I have now out of the morgue, two hours having passed. I look at the bodies on the ground and order the zombies to bring them to the morgue and leave them there. I then start looking around the hospital for any medical supplies I can find. This isn't Yevelts' only hospital; big cities have many. Yevelt has around sixty, even though it needed ten to fifteen more. I should get all I can before any monsters or people start showing up. I bring every medical book, drug, and all the tools I can find into the morgue. Other than the wall of freezers, there is a small office for the mortician and a small closet where I got the tools from.
One of the zombies, the older one, comes down the stairs, dragging one of the bodies and laying it down. The other one comes a bit later, putting the next body on top of the one before. and so on and so forth before they suddenly stop. I look at the pile, and it's definitely the people I remember seeing, around eight people, but there should be more in the building. I bring them upstairs with me and enter a room I hadn't before, and that's when I realize they didn't grab the bodies in here because i didn't know if any where in here they act based off my memories and thoughts and have none of their owns gathering what i know is there is something they can do but if i don't know something exists i cant order them to get it. They can't act autonomously from me. Maybe if they were a different type of zombie, they could, but as of now, they can't. I walk around the hospital, going into every room before going back into the basement and ordering them to start bringing them again, but I counted around 60ish people, including the ones downstairs. Most of the people here left the building and most likely died.
But now I can feel fatigue, not just from making the zombies, it's different from physical and mental, I'm using something else. Maybe mana? It's a resource that's needed for a necromancer in games, and when I leveled up, it was prioritized above all else, but why am I running out? The reanimation, probably, and then the orders could cause me to lose even more. So, how do I gain more mana? Killing monsters is a path, but it's risky. I almost died to one wolf, and then there's the fact I'm still hurt from last time.
Right now, it's best to bide my time and wait till my wounds heal. And I should read as many of the medical books as I can, even if I am at the worst hospital in the city, it should still be worth doing. What even is the name of this place again? I think it's Southeastern Yevelt general hospital. Not a good name. I think I can make one more zombie before I'm out of mana, but I don't know what would happen if I did. I can slowly feel my mana going back to what it was before, so I should probably wait in case I run out of mana, and they end up going berserk or something.
As I read, I hear screams. But a scream from anywhere else but inside the building wouldn't reach the morgue, meaning another person is in the building. Both of my zombies are here right now, so they aren't reacting to them. Meaning if they are friendly, I can talk to them; if not, I will need to kill them.
I get up and start to move my way to the sound. a knife in my pocket and a labcoat on to hide the fact I'm wounded. I have my zombies following a bit beyond sight in case of them being enemies. As I get closer, I can hear three people: two men and a woman. One of the men is getting scolded for screaming after slipping. I thought it was a woman screaming, but I guess I was wrong. I get as close as I can without being noticed.
"So, for what purpose did three young people brave the end of the world? for medicine for another? drugs to sell? a safe place to rest? So what brings you here, of all places?"
They look extremely startled. "Uhh, medicine so we can move freely without getting an infection." The man with hair like a gray Agate says. I respond, "And yet to go where? There is no more government, no military, no place to hide, among others. You can take what you need, but do not come back without warning. You will not like what you see or what happens to you." The man speaks again. "Did you take this place over? I guess we will leave a note if we want something. But I don't think everyone will follow those orders. Some guy from our apartment building became a raider or something. Said the system chose him and almost burned the place down with fire shooting from his hands. So he might not care what you want." Another variable like me? Maybe, but does everyone have the system or only the variables? "I have my ways of dealing with people. But do you also have the system, or are you unattached to it?" They look at each other before the man speaks again; he's definitely their leader. "We all got that blue screen after killing a monster together, a young red wolf." Blue? Mine is red and black. Maybe because of the different way we got connected to the system? "I will leave you to your gathering."
I bring my zombies with me to the morgue and have them guard the door in case I wait reading. And in time they leave, and I go to bed waiting for the next day, waiting for my mana to gather and my wounds to heal.