Chapter 3: A Happy Zombie
---
[The Overlord System is now online.]
---
As the system window appeared before Ethan, he felt a warm sensation emerging from the soles of his feet.
Since Ethan awakened, he could feel the cold air brushing against his skin.
’Strange...’ He vigilantly swept his gaze left and right, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
After contracting the virus, Ethan retained his consciousness for three days. Within this period, he witnessed his body mutate continuously.
His skin changed its color, getting several times stronger. His muscles concentrated, amplifying his strength.
And most importantly, he felt his senses getting numb. After a day, he was no longer affected by the changes in the weather. After three days, he could easily withstand hot and cold temperatures.
Clearly, his body had changed a lot since then. If anything, it had only grown stronger.
Realizing that there was no one in the area besides him, Ethan slowly lowered his eyes.
"Wait, that’s—!" Suddenly, his eyes widened in shock. From beneath his feet, a dark—almost smoke-like—energy was emerging. Slowly, it moved up towards his body, getting darker and bigger with each breath.
At the same time, a loud sound rang in Ethan’s mind. Instinctively, he looked up only to find a system window flickering in the air, half-glitching.
---
———————————————————
[#~System Notification~#]
———————————————————
[Beginning Class Synchronization...]
[Target:]
└ [SSS-Class: Zombie Overlord]
[...]
---
At the same time, the dark energy intensified and reached Ethan’s neck in an instant.
Ethan didn’t panic. Strangely, the dark energy wasn’t harming him at all. On the contrary, he could feel his strength gradually increasing under its warmth.
Five meters. Ten meters. The dark energy kept growing bigger and bigger, reaching an astonishing height of thirty meters before stopping.
Then, it slowly began to move back towards the bottom. Near Ethan’s head, the energy began to concentrate, condensing into fine threads.
The threads slowly flowed towards his face, entering his body through his seven facial orifices. Instinctively, a few groans escaped Ethan’s lungs, but he soon calmed down.
The process was smooth and fast.
Within a few minutes, every bit of the dark energy had been absorbed by Ethan. Just as he let out a sigh in relief, the system window before his eyes had stabilized—displaying new information.
---
[Synchronization Complete.]
[Class Accepted.]
[...]
[Class Rank Detected: SSS]
[Applying Class Benefits...]
[All existing skills have been strengthened.]
[All existing traits have been strengthened.]
[...]
[New Class Traits Obtained.]
└ [Zombie Sovereignty]
└ [Infinite Evolution]
[...]
[New Class Skills Obtained.]
└ [Undead Command]
└ [Flesh Assimilation]
---
Ethan carefully read through each line. Halfway, his lips began to twitch.
’So this really isn’t a dream after all!’ He exclaimed happily, pinching one of his arms tightly.
It was true.
Ethan Graves, a man who had spent an unknown amount of time as a mindless zombie, devouring hundreds of thousands of lives, had not only awakened as a player, but also one with an SSS-ranked class.
Although he was still very much a zombie, he was a happy zombie.
"I’m not only an SSS-rank class player but also the ’only’ SSS-rank class player in the current world. By that logic, it’s clear that I have the strongest potential." He slowly moved forward, cautiously scanning his surroundings with each step.
Ethan was skeptical about whether to thank the chicken that bit him to this state or still hold a grudge against it.
Nevertheless, it was clear to him that he needed to move forward.
"There’s a strong possibility that humans are still alive somewhere. If they are, then it’s a difficult situation for me..." Ethan was still a zombie through and through. After the virus breakout, he vividly remembered how deeply others’ rage flowed—including his own.
"Unless a miracle happened while I was gone, they will undoubtedly kill a talking zombie such as myself."
"But even if humans have gone extinct, what is more dangerous to me is this environment." Muttering so, Ethan went silent.
He was puzzled.
The surroundings had changed greatly. Even if Ethan remembered this place before, it was hard to say he would be able to do the same now.
Most importantly, he didn’t know how much time had passed.
What if he were unknowingly approaching the territory of a strong beast?
Maybe if he remembered his life as a zombie, his approach would be different.
"Meh, I’d rather not remember a life where I devoured 700,000 people." He quickly shrugged the thought off his mind.
Ethan wasn’t cold enough to simply ignore the deaths of hundreds of thousands. He was, however, rational.
"My body was influenced by the virus. I had lost my consciousness long ago. The fact that I do not remember any event backs up my argument strongly."
For a moment, he squinted and began thinking about something.
"System," he called out gently, "show me my status and skills."
Ding!
Almost immediately, a sound rang in his ears. A pair of lights emerged before his and condensed into screens.
On the left screen, his status appeared.
---
———————————————————
[#/Status/#]
———————————————————
Name - [Ethan Graves]
Race - [Zombie]
Class - [Zombie Overlord (SSS)]
Rank - [E-Rank]
Level - [1]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vitality - [13]
Strength - [17]
Agility - [11]
Endurance - [15]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Racial Traits]
■ Undead Physiology (D)
■ Temperature Resistance (D)
■ Regeneration (C)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Class Traits]
■ Zombie Sovereignty (SSS)
■ Infinite Evolution (SSS)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skills]
■ Undead Command (SSS)
■ Flesh Assimilation (SSS)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Evolution Progress - [0%]
Zombies Under Command - [0]
---
Similarly, the right screen displayed his skills.
---
———————————————————
[#/Skills/#]
———————————————————
[Racial Traits]
■ Undead Physiology (D)
└ Your body no longer functions like that of a living creature.
└ Immune to all poisons, diseases, and toxins of D-rank or lower.
└ Greatly reduced requirements for food, water, and sleep.
■ Temperature Resistance (D)
└ Possesses resistance against extreme temperatures.
└ Can comfortably endure temperatures that would be difficult or even critical for ordinary humans to withstand.
■ Regeneration (C)
└ Continuously restores damaged flesh over time.
└ Recovery speed is determined by the severity of the injury.
└ Minor injuries recover quickly, while severe injuries may require extended periods of time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Class Traits]
■ Zombie Sovereignty (SSS)
└ Grants sovereignty over all zombies of a lower rank than the user.
└ Lower-ranked zombies are unable to resist your authority.
└ Zombies of the same rank may be influenced through direct displays of dominance and superiority.
■ Infinite Evolution (SSS)
└ Your growth is no longer restricted by conventional evolutionary limits.
└ New evolutionary paths may be unlocked through unique circumstances.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Class Skills]
■ Undead Command (SSS)
└ Issue commands to zombies under your authority.
└ Command effectiveness varies according to the target’s rank and resistance.
■ Flesh Assimilation (SSS)
└ Assimilate biological matter to accelerate recovery, growth, and evolution.
└ Higher-quality biological matter produces greater benefits.
└ Excess biological energy may be converted into evolutionary progress.
---
Ethan carefully read through every detail. Once he was done, his enthusiasm and happiness had doubled. The skills and effects were completely out of his expectations!
Ding!
Just as he was collecting his thoughts, another sound appeared in his mind.