He didn't want to stop. Couldn't stop. Some primal part of him wanted to tear every last piece of this creature apart, to devour it, to consume it until nothing remained.
His vision sharpened. Colors grew brighter—the gray sky turned silver, the black blood shimmered with hints of green and purple. His hearing intensified. He could hear the zombie's heartbeat beneath him: a slow, sluggish ‘thump... thump... thump’ that grew weaker with each passing second.
His own heart pounded faster. Stronger. ‘Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.’ Blood rushed through his veins like liquid fire, hot and electric and ‘alive’.
He was alive. More alive than he'd ever been.
A soft chime echoed in his ears.
Smile ignored it. He bit down again, fangs tearing through cartilage with a wet ‘crunch’.
The chime came again. Louder. Insistent.
His panel blinked in front of him. Once. Twice. Three times.
A holographic screen materialized in front of him, glowing purple and white, hovering just above the zombie's mangled body. The light cast strange shadows across the creature's ruined throat.
A woman appeared on the screen.
Blonde hair. Mixed race. Flawless skin that seemed to glow from within. Her eyes were bright—almost luminous—like they held their own light source. She looked real. Too real. As if she could step out of the hologram and into the world, flesh and blood and warmth.
She was the most beautiful woman Smile had ever seen.
But he didn't care.
Thirty seconds ago, he'd been pinned beneath a zombie with teeth snapping at his throat. He didn't have time for beauty. Didn't have time for distractions. He wanted to ‘live’—even if just for the next thirty seconds.
The woman's lips moved. No sound came out at first. Then her voice filled his ears—smooth, calm, almost soothing, like a lullaby sung over a battlefield.
[Congratulations, Smile, for evolving into the first Zombie Vampire Halfling.]
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Smile froze. His fangs were still buried in the zombie's neck. Blood dripped from his chin in thick drops, pattering onto the pavement. His chest heaved.
‘What?’
[Zombie Vampire Halfling D-rank awakened.]
His thoughts stuttered. ‘Oh my God. Is it really happening?’
[Ability: Nitro Accelerate Level 1 unlocked. (1/100)]
The tingling sensation in his body intensified. It spread through his arms like electricity, down his legs, to his fingertips and toes.
His muscles twitched involuntarily. The energy surging through him was raw, electric, overwhelming—like touching a live wire.
[Nitro Accelerate Level 1: Boost is 0–20.]
‘Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.’
His heart pounded harder. Faster. He could feel every beat, every pulse of blood through his veins, every contraction of muscle in his chest.
[You have unlocked EXP accumulation.]
The holographic screen flickered. New text appeared, glowing brighter.
[1000 EXP grants you a level up to Nitro Accelerate Level 2.]
[Status Core]
[Name: Smile Cross
Strength: 0.90
Speed: 4.0
Stamina: 2.0
HP: 100%
EXP: 0.9
Credits: 350 points
Ranking Worldwide: 5,400,902]
Smile stared at the screen. His breath came in short, ragged bursts that misted in the cold air. His hands trembled. Blood—zombie blood, black–green and thick—coated his lips, his chin, his hands. It was drying now, sticky and cold.
Beneath him, the zombie had stopped moving. Its body lay still, throat torn open, head barely attached by a few strands of muscle and skin.
He'd won.
‘Why is the credit score 350?’
His mind worked through the math slowly, sluggishly. Each kill granted 100 credits. He'd killed six zombies. The score should be 600.
[Correction: The system halved your credit score for failing the mission. It only granted you a full score on your last kill.]
The blonde woman smiled at him from the screen. Her expression was warm, almost affectionate.
‘So that's the other penalty for failing a mission. Other than death.’
He looked down at his hands. His fingers were stained black, the blood crusted under his nails. But his nails themselves were different—sharper, longer, curved slightly like claws. His skin felt different too: tighter, stronger, like leather stretched over steel.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. The fangs were still there. Long. Sharp. Deadly. He felt their points with the tip of his tongue, careful not to cut himself.
He wasn't human anymore.
The realization hit him like a fist to the gut. His stomach clenched. His chest tightened, ribs squeezing around his lungs until he couldn't breathe. His heart stuttered, missing a beat.
He wasn't human.
But he was alive.
The holographic woman smiled at him from the screen. Her eyes seemed to see right through him, past the blood and the fangs and the monster he'd become, down to whatever was left of the person he used to be.
Smile's breath slowed. His heart steadied, falling back into a regular rhythm. The tingling sensation faded to a low hum beneath his skin, like electricity running through power lines.
‘I need to wash. I can't live like a beast.’
Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn't true. He was worse than a beast. Beasts killed to survive. He'd just torn a creature apart with his teeth and ‘enjoyed’ it.
[I can help with that. The system has a quick shower-space. You can access that through the menu.]
The blonde woman's smile widened, warm and genuine, as if she wasn't just an image on a screen. As if she actually cared.
‘Interesting... So the system responds to my thoughts?’
It seemed his mind still functioned like a human's, even if his body didn't. Even if he'd become something else entirely.
He stared at the screen hovering in front of him. In the right corner, a menu bar glowed softly, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
‘I'm going for a bath.’
His finger—still trembling slightly, still stained with blood—pressed against the menu bar. The hologram responded to his touch, rippling like water. His eyes went straight to the option labeled "Quick Shower-Space."
He pressed it.
His world shifted.
The pavement beneath him vanished. The zombie's corpse disappeared. The cold air, the smell of decay, the distant sounds of the city—all gone.
He stood in a small glowing space, maybe three meters by three meters. The walls were made of screens, glowing softly with a pale blue light.
He couldn't see the square where he'd killed the zombies. Couldn't see the red Mustang. Couldn't see anything but the clean, sterile glow of the shower-space.
