A/N

Welcome back, dear reader! I know this chapter is coming out later than usual which I apologize for. The first iteration of this chapter was at around 2100 words I think, but there was a lot of unnecessary information in it and I didn't like the way it turned out (I wasn't even finished with it). So after sleeping on it, I just decided to delete the whole thing and start over, which I'm glad I did. The important info I wanted to share from the last chapter is for me to just post short chapters every day (probably 2k-3k) and then maybe a longer chapter whenever I need to. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Chapter Three: Player of The Dead

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP- The sound of his alarm clock wakes Katsuo up to a beautiful Sunday morning, but he's having none of it. In a half-awake stupor, he reaches for the wall socket, unplugs his alarm clock, and throws it at the pillow he taped to the wall yesterday for this exact moment. For the next minute or so, Katsuo just sat on the side of the bed, staring at the wall while thinking of nothing in particular. I should get moving now. That morning was normal, or at least it would have been if Katsuo wasn't from the future. Even so, he was able to enjoy a hearty meal with his mother before departing for the morning.

It was a lazy Sunday morning, and after everyone was at their jobs, the streets quieted down (or at least as much as they could in a city). After going back to the park and sitting back down on the same bench from before, Katsuo opened the inbox and took a look inside. Just as the system had said the day before, a new message appeared at the top of the list, titled IMPORTANT. After clicking on it, a new window opened with the following message:

Now that you are accustomed to the quest system, it is time to unlock a new feature: the Player menu. This menu will allow you to view your current stats, your current progress toward leveling up, your equipped items, skills, as well as the amount of system coins you have. After claiming your experience points, navigate to the Player menu to learn about it in greater detail.

"Okay, that creates more questions than it answered, but let's hope it's able to explain what the coins thing is." After claiming the XP, yet another window opened. It was a level-up screen, telling Katsuo that he had leveled up to Lv. 2. At the bottom of the screen, it showed what rewards Katsuo had earned from leveling up. Unfortunately, the only thing he had gotten was the Player menu. After finding his way back to the main menu and pressing the button labeled "Player" (Which also seemed to have a silhouette of his face on it), multiple arrows connected to various boxes appeared across the screen.

Stat Chart: Displays your current strength in multiple categories. These categories include strength, endurance, agility, intelligence, and perception. Every stat will rise by five points after every time the player levels up.

Skill List: This shows all of the skills available to the player. A skill is a special attack that does more damage than a basic attack. Skills can be used in combination with other skills, creating combo moves. All skills have varying amounts of mana and cooldown needed to use them. Unlock skills by either defeating "bosses" or unlocking them through job change quests.

Progress Bar: Shows the amount of experience needed to level up, as well as the current amount of experience accumulated in numbers. Below those numbers is a bar that indicates how close the player is to leveling up.

Job: Owning a job unlocks certain skills for the player to acquire, as well as boosts stats without using stat points. A job change quest will need to be completed before the player can accept the job.

Weapon slots: Two weapons can be equipped at one time, allowing them to be summoned out of the air when needed.

Now that you have learned about the player menu and everything included within, it is time to learn about how to efficiently level up. There are a few methods. 1. When someone asks for help, a quest will be generated with the parameters to complete the quest. This method rewards small experience. 2. Completing "Boss Quests". The quests will require that you defeat an enemy much stronger than you. This rewards high amounts of experience. 3. Clear Scenarios. Scenarios will unlock as level up and can be used to kill monsters for experience. The higher level scenarios have stronger monsters that grant more experience upon killing them.

With that, the system finally stops showing messages and allows Katsuo to take a breather. That was a lot of information at once. Time to experiment. Getting off of the bench, he made his way back to the house, taking a kitchen knife out of the drawer and holding it in his hand while opening the player menu. As he pressed the plus sign on one of the weapon slots, a list of available weapons appeared, with the only one being the kitchen knife.

"I hate to be that guy, but I hope I won't have to use this. I'll just keep it here for now." As he confirmed the knife as his weapon, he disappeared from his hand, vanishing into thin air. Dumbfounded, he looked to see if he dropped it, only for it to appear back in his hand when he wanted it back. After that interesting display, Katsuo resigned himself to the couch where he thought of his next move. I absolutely need to get stronger before tomorrow. What's the best way to level up again? Remembering the answer, Katsuo opens up the scenarios tab and takes a look inside. All of the scenarios have been grayed out, except for one that reads "Player of The Dead". There's no description, no difficulty level, no suggested power level, just the start button.

Desperate for XP and willing to try anything, Katsuo grips the knife in his hand and presses the button that would change his life forever…

Now beginning scenario: "Player of The Dead"

The feeling of being transported into the scenario was strange. Katsuo's eyes grew heavy, and as closed them, he could feel the air around him change. It felt colder, and musty, like how the house smelled when he and his mom returned from a vacation. He opened his eyes, revealing his house changed into a storage room. The shelves were bare, only showing off junk he had no use for. Suddenly, he noticed a man across the room, bent over eating something like he hadn't eaten in days. With no other options, he approached. "Excuse me, sir, could I get some he-" Katsuo was speechless. He couldn't see what the man was eating due to the darkness of the room, but now that his eyes adjusted, he saw the body of a female office worker, her cold, dead eyes bearing into Katsuo's soul.

"WHAT THE HELL-" He was once again cut off by the man, or rather, the monster jumping on top of him, attempting to rip him open like the poor woman across the room. "RAGAGAAHAHH" An incoherent mess of gargles and beastly yelling escaped from the man's torn open jaw, his eyes were glassy and lifeless. His stomach was also torn open, with his intestinal tract falling out like a snake. Coming to a sudden realization about his problem, Katsuo summoned the knife back into his hand and drove it into the side of the monster's head, a sickening "shlick" coming from the now limp monster above him. Breathing heavily, Katsuo threw the body off of him, standing up and nearly barfing when he got a look at the blood all over him. After the sight mixed with the smell, however, he couldn't take it anymore and threw up his hearty breakfast.

After cleansing both his stomach and soul, Katsuo looked up to an alert from the system. He had gained XP from killing the zombie and leveled up. It felt strange, like his body had gotten lighter and his mind clearer. He punched the air in front of him, noticing his punch felt heavier. As he was about to test his jump height, he heard more snarls coming from the ground. He looked at the man, whose mouth wasn't moving. Horrified, he looked at the woman, who was getting up while staring at him. "Ah dammit." The woman lunged at him as well, but one simple swing with the knife had cut halfway through her head this time, getting wedged inside. He was stronger now. After wiggling the knife loose, his sudden urge to release even more of his breakfast is interrupted by the system giving him more XP for killing the office lady. However, it wasn't enough to advance.

If I want to level up, I need to kill more of those things. They're not human. They are not human. After reassuring himself, he slowly opens the creaky door and looks outside. He's in an abandoned office building. The whole place is in disarray, with cubicles destroyed and doors broken down, seemingly by the undead monstrosities plaguing this world. Katsuo's attention is immediately brought to the broken window. Walking over and looking outside, Katsuo's heart drops. It's not just this building or the neighborhood, the zombies are roaming around as far as the eye can see. Down below in the street, Katsuo witnesses a car crash in the road. A survivor gets out of the car, only to be surrounded and devoured by the horde, alerted by the sound of the crash.

By the time the zombies are finished, the man has turned into one of them, stumbling his way in no certain direction. Behind him, a little girl crawls out of the car and then runs out of sight. "Oh my god. Where the hell am I?" As if to answer his question, the system window opens in front of him.

THE WORLD OF THE DEAD

The world has succumbed to a zombie-creating virus. While they are easily outmaneuvered by themselves, the hordes have proved to be extremely dangerous, overwhelming the world's governments and killing 99% of the Earth's population. Objective: Kill The Undead.

Oh god, oh god oh god! This isn't real, this can't be real! I can't do this, I can't do this! Katsuo pulled up the scenario menu, and had his finger above the exit button before he stopped himself. Why was he feeling deja vu? Something like this had happened before, right?

"C'mon Katsuo, fight back!" It was like he was there, standing over the bullies as they beat him up and spat on him for being quirkless. The bullies hurled insult after insult, kick after kick, until there was nothing left for them to kick. He saw himself begging for Hirota to spare him, having to give up all of his money just for half the beating. He saw himself crying into his blanket while he was powerless to save his mother from her cancer. He saw an empty shell of a man being yelled at by his boss to work harder, all while the boss just sat at his desk doing nothing particular. He saw a pathetic, quirkless, weak man save a girl from death, despite knowing he would die. He saw that same man, who had been bullied and ridiculed his entire life be given a second chance.

Tears welled up in his eyes. The memories were painful, but they taught him a lesson. "I won't be weak. I CAN'T BE! If I leave here, let the fear overcome me, then how will I be able to change my useless fate and become a hero? How will I be able to see my mother's smile when she's too busy crying over my bruises? I have to be strong, so that she, and everyone else who dies in the future to those monsters can smile, AND LIVE! His blood boiled at the though of backing down now, so Katsuo closed the menu and wiped his tears away, a fire igniting deep in his soul as the system appeared once again.

New Quest Has Been Activated!

Title: Kill Your Fear! Type: Special

There's no time to be weak anymore. In order to preserve the smiles of everyone in the world, you must become the strongest being!

Requirement: Kill 100 zombies. Reward: New Skill

LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! Notifications of advancement surround Katsuo, heralding death for anything in his way. Determination and a desire to live guide his blade through the heads of the zombies in his way. With every level up his movements get quicker, his mind gets clearer, leading him to his objective: the horde. A massive collective of zombies in the city-center. Where others would see imminent danger, Katsuo saw an opporunity. He already knew what would happen if he didn't get stronger now: the same thing that happened 10 years from now: a pathetic ending. But he couldn't let that happen now, so he sliced, and sliced, and sliced, until his arm grew tired and his blade grew dull. LEVEL UP. LEVEL UP. LEVEL UP. The rate at which he was advancing was decreasing, the amount of XP needed simply couldn't be met with simply killing zombies anymore. But he did it. The quest was cleared.

The system congratulated him, but he felt something was off, like a peace of him was missing. His innocence. He looked around him. Dead boldies were piled up, their blood soaking into the ground. They were already dead, monsters who hunted the innocent, just like the Nomu. But they still looked human, and that bothered Katsuo. Don't think about it. Not yet. Seeing that his work was done here, Katsuo returned to the scenario menu, and pressed the exit button…

He was back in his kitchen. The clock on the wall showed Katsuo that not even 10 minutes had passed. The blood on his clothes and knife was gone, but the knife itself was still heavily damaged. Looks like I owe Mom a new kitchen knife. I'll have to… tell her… about…

As Katsuo fell to the ground and heard his mother coming his way, he came to a realization. Must have been more tired than I thought…

A/N

I'M FINNALY FINISHED! I don't know why, but this chapter was so hard to write! The A/N at the beginning was written the day the second chapter was released, which was two days ago. Once again, sorry for the (comparitvely) long wait. I've been working at this chapter for the last couple days, and I think I can finally be proud of it. I know there hasn't been much My Hero Academia, but don't worry because this arc is coming to an end within the next two chapters at most. Also, thank you to ZucchiSama for pointing out the plot hole with "cancer smelling quirk", and don't worry because I have a way of dealing with that problem in the next chapter. With that all out of the way, please have a wonderful rest of your day and I will (hopefully) see you all again tomorrow with a new chapter.