Ollie moved slowly, aiming to position himself somewhere that he couldn’t easily be surrounded but that also provided a way out if things got too difficult to manage. The skate park consisted primarily of a large concrete depression with ramps leading up to either side. It looked a little like a series of empty swimming pools that had been joined together.

  There was very little cover available, very little of anything other than a park bench and a drinking fountain, so Ollie headed for the space between those two, reasoning that he could use them to break up the zombie horde somewhat.

  All that planning quickly went out the window, however, when he realized that he wasn’t going to be dealing with human-sized zombies like every movie and TV series he’d seen on the subject. These resurrected goblins only came up to his waist, so the encounter was going to be more like fighting a horde of toddlers than it was a traditional zombie fight.

  A grunt from one of the closest goblins signaled that they’d seen him a moment before they started to shamble forward, bodies broken and oozing green pus, heads lolling to the side as they staggered toward him. There were six in total, half a dozen battered goblins all still bearing the marks of their deaths, not merely in the cleavers jutting from their heads or the arrows feathering their chests or, in one case, a can of sliced peaches wedged through one ear up to the halfway point.

  Each of the goblins also had a holographic sign hovering above their heads, which indicated in bold orange text the precise manner of their deaths. Clearly, the System wanted it known that the closest goblin had been ‘Garroted by Thuck Hammerfist [Orc] on Atlas Prime’, or that the creature shambling to its left had been “Shot by a dozen arrows by Swiftfeather Windfurrow [Elf] on New Gracia.”

  She shambled along so slowly that Ollie had plenty of time to inspect each of the signs indicating the manner of each goblin’s death. He took special note of the sign hanging above the zombie goblin he’d already decided to call Peaches. The sign read, ‘Bludgeoned to death by various canned goods Grum Grum Flax [Orc] on Dubin Three,’ making no specific mention of the fact that one of those cans was still jutting out of the zombie’s left ear.

  Testing his grip on the crowbar, Ollie rolled his shoulders as the first zombie came within range. It wasn’t so much a sideways swing or an upward strike that he performed as it was a one-handed golf swing that caught the hapless zombie in the jaw and knocked its head off amid a spray of blood and gore.

  Ollie’s new poncho was immediately splattered with blood as the now headless zombie stumbled forward a few more steps and then finally fell to the ground. While the poncho performed admirably in keeping the blood and gore off Ollie’s body, it did nothing to stop the spray of foul-smelling gunk that splattered against his face.

  “Fuck a duck!” he muttered, careful not to fully open his mouth as he spoke for fear that he might accidentally swallow some of the gore.

  >> KILL REWARD: 10 Belch bucks

  He moved to the goblin with arrow shafts sticking out of his chest like a strange floral bouquet and swung his crowbar at more of a horizontal angle. The weapon made a heavy thunk as it connected with the zombie’s skull, and once more, blood splattered everywhere. Instead of knocking the head off altogether, however, it flew backward and then was whipped down by a stubborn strip of skin at the back of the creature’s neck, causing the head to bob around behind as the zombie kept reaching for Ollie with gnarled fingers.

  He kicked out at the goblin, sending the creature staggering backward into the group just behind. Ollie could just see a thread of spinal cord, which was still connected to the head he’d almost knocked off. That explained why the zombie wasn’t dead yet. Or…dead again.

  He swiped the crowbar left and right, smacking it into the heads of the other zombies and showering the area in gore as they died one by one. He gripped tight to the weapon, swinging with what he soon realized was far too much force and with an effort that would probably make him throw his shoulder out or sustain some other injury if he didn’t dial it back a little.

  >> KILL REWARD: 50 Belch Bucks!

  With five of the zombie goblins lying dead at his feet and a single straggler dragging its legs as it limped towards him, Ollie wondered what the zombie enemies were actually supposed to achieve. He could see that they all had teeth, and he supposed that, if they got close enough, they could certainly bite him. Some also held weapons but didn’t seem at all aware of that fact. They just shuffled towards him, heads lolling like old pumpkins on a spike, waiting to be knocked off.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, looking around at the carnage. “I mean, what’s the point?”

  [Nero] The zombie trope is a very specific part of the Dominion Ultrimax Contest, which tends to operate by its own rules, Ollie. The initial wave of enemies will be very easy to kill, as will the second. As new zombies arrive, however, they will be more and more capable. These poor souls you have dispatched were killed in previous seasons of the game, some from many years ago. The System has kept them ‘on ice,’ as you humans say, so as to preserve them for precisely this contest.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Yeah, but ‘on ice’ usually means that you keep them fresh. These fuckers look like they’ve been left to rot in a sewer for the last fifty years.”

  [Nero] Ah, I see. Then, I may have misused that particular idiom. These souls were preserved in some sense, but they were also permitted to wither and rot somewhat. You will find, however, if you continue to fight more and more zombies, that the later foes to arrive will be those that have only recently been killed. In fact, in rare cases, some of The Refunded Dead will have actually been resurrected from this very game. Another player may have killed them, and the System has deemed their deaths interesting enough to allow them to return in undead form.

  “Shit! Some kind of reward that is, being brought back as a fucking zombie.”

  [Nero] It may not be particularly enjoyable for the goblin themselves, no, but they will have the opportunity to gain certain rewards if they manage to strike a player or even kill one. Their families will inherit the wealth they gain in the event that this happens, and if a player is killed by the horde, a good deal of coin can be earned and dispersed.

  Ollie laughed at that, walking up to the remaining goblin zombie who was struggling to make it up the extremely slight incline that led to where he was standing.

  “If you think this poor bastard is gonna get any cash, you’re dreaming. Shit, I doubt any of these zombies get anything.”

  [Nero] It is true that very few zombies are able to acquire additional wealth post their deaths. This is typically because they are charged an initial fee for the privilege of being resurrected, and that fee is quite steep. Now that I consider the matter more deeply, it is far more likely that goblins who are resurrected and fail to wound or kill a player in the contest incur a debt which is passed onto their family rather than a reward.

  “How much more likely?”

  [Nero] In 99.8% of cases, resurrected goblins fail to cover their resurrection debt.

  Ollie nodded. “Kind of makes what I’m about to do a bit of a dick move, doesn’t it?”

  Before Nero could reply, Ollie took two large steps forward as though he was about to kick a field goal and then swung the crowbar right at the final goblin’s head. The head wasn’t so much knocked off as it was popped like a water balloon, or a melon with a hefty dose of dynamite stuffed inside.

  Once again, he was showered in gore, but he managed to turn his head to one side at the last minute, allowing the hood of his poncho to take the brunt of the splatter as the zombie toppled backward, staggering down the path and eventually dropping, headless into the depths of the closest skate ramp.

  >> KILL REWARD: 15 Belch Bucks!

  “Shit, that was easy,” Ollie said, looking left and right. “Still seems like it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of—”

  A shriek split the air, cutting him off and drawing his attention to the right as something moved in the shadows between a group of two-story houses on the other side of the road. Ollie checked his map and confirmed that there were red dots appearing from the area; dozens of them!

  [Nero] It seems that there were a good number of zombies nearby.

  “Seems like I was set up! No wonder the damned system wanted me to take out the dead heads.”

  [Nero] Possibly, though you will remember that the decision to attack was still yours, Ollie. The Mammon System might engineer circumstances to generate as much excitement as possible, and that may include scenarios that significantly disadvantage you, but it will not act directly against you.

  Ollie moved to a nearby patch of grass and rubbed his blood-slick palms against the ground, trying to clear away as much of the muck as possible and doing the same with the handle end of the crowbar.

  “What you’re describing there, dude, is a trap. The System wants to squish me like a bug to ramp up the ratings.”

  He moved over to a nearby goblin corpse and used the end of the crowbar and his hand to rip off some of the fabric from the creature’s trousers. Despite the blood and gore on the rest of the goblin’s body, its pants were remarkably clean, if a little old and tattered.

  As he stood, Ollie ripped the pant leg into an inch-wide strip of linen, or close enough, and then proceeded to quickly wrap it around the handle end of his crowbar just above the gooseneck. He looked up to see that the new pack of goblins was moving much faster than the first, but that they were still relatively slow.

  “Some real Gordon Freeman shit goin’ on here,” he mused with a smile as he tucked the end of the impromptu wrap in on itself and hefted the weapon.

  [Nero] I do not quite understand your reference, Ollie.

  He rolled his eyes. “What kind of a fucking robot are you, dude? You don’t know Half-Life? Gordon, the main character? He carries a crowbar like this.”

  [Nero] I am not a robot, Ollie. I am an artificial intelligence that is spread throughout the Mammon network and tied to individual player gauntlets all throughout the contest world.

  “Close enough,” Ollie said.

  [Nero] As to your reference, I am still absorbing all relevant details about this planet and the history of your people and the various cultural artifacts you value. I have prioritized this Half-Life phenomenon and now understand everything there is to know about the franchise and all related facts. Would you like me to reveal deep secrets about the games, including how to access the backroom loop, which leads to a sub-game within the original game?

  “I’m a little busy, dude. You know, with all the zombies and shit!”

  [Nero] Quite. Yes, I understand.

  Ollie braced himself, lowering his stance a little as the zombies approached. There seemed to be more of them now, at least a dozen, and unlike the others, they held their weapons with purpose, like they knew how to use them. There was a combination of impromptu weapons in evidence, including rusty knives, hammers, wrenches, and the like.

  “Just… remind me to ask you about that backroom thing afterwards, okay?”