The Rooftop Gamble

Sanjay walked through the huge black door. His head started spinning along with his entire body. After a few seconds, he found solid ground and knelt to catch his breath.

"What the hell was that?" he muttered. After acclimatizing, he stood up. He was on the top of a building.

"So now what?" he wondered aloud.

Soon, he heard a voice. "New Soul Detected." He recognized it as the system voice that the tower granted everyone who entered.

[Error! Error! Error!]

[Multiple souls detected.]

Sanjay was astonished. What was this? He had never come across anything like this during his research. Did the tower discover his transmigration? Was the predecessor's soul still in his body? Would his soul be removed?

[Commencing eradication! 3… 2…]

Sanjay closed his eyes. "Commencing eradication" likely meant the tower would remove his soul from the body, meaning he might die again.

[1]

Sanjay felt excruciating pain in his chest. It hurt. It felt like someone was crushing his heart. He shouted, "Ah...!"

But no one came to his rescue. What felt like an eternity soon came to an end.

Sanjay slowly opened his eyes. He was still alive, and he was thankful for that. But he felt like he had lost an important piece of himself. Most likely, the tower system had erased the remaining soul of the original owner.

[Eradication completed.]

[Assigning Skill! Due to erasing a soul without the permission of the owner, points will be given as compensation.]

He didn't know that points could be granted or that the system would compensate for erasing a soul. But why would the system need to do that? Maybe there was more to the system than he knew. He didn't dwell on it too much.

Points were necessary to increase variable stats like strength.

[Skill Assigned! Please say a name you want to register.]

"Umm, a name? What name can I give?"

"CoolDude69," Sanjay said.

[Error! Name already taken. Please choose a different name.]

"Huh! Okay, then how about Ladykiller?" It sounded fancy to him.

[Error! Name already taken. Please choose a different name.]

"What the…? That is also taken? Okay. Then City Hunter," he said, remembering his ex-girlfriend mentioning this Korean drama in his past life.

[Name confirmed! Welcome to the tower, City Hunter.]

[Skill assigned! Say 'Status' to view your stats.]

"Status," Sanjay said.

A screen appeared in front of his eyes.

STATS

Name: City Hunter

Level: 1

Exp: 0/100

Skill: Replicate

VARIABLE STATS

Strength: 7

Agility: 8

Mana: 10

INVARIABLE STATS

Intelligence: 6

Luck: 5

Charisma: 6

Current Available Points: 4

"Okay, let me see where to allocate points. On the web, I saw most people recommend dividing them equally so that all the stats are balanced. Ten is the limit for humans; above it is what makes anyone an actual player. It's common knowledge that only variable stats can be changed, and invariable stats are what people are born with."

"Why can't anyone increase the invariable stats? Can't it be done?" He pressed the Luck stat, and suddenly it went up to six.

"What?" His mouth fell open.

"The points given by the system can be added to invariable stats?" Sanjay was astonished.

He knew what to do next. As a soldier in his last life, he understood how important the luck factor was on the battlefield. It could mean the difference between life and death. He kept pressing the Luck stat to the max.

His current stats were:

STATS

Name: City Hunter

Level: 1

Exp: 0/100

Skill: Replicate

VARIABLE STATS

Strength: 7

Agility: 8

Mana: 10

INVARIABLE STATS

Intelligence: 6

Luck: 9

Charisma: 6

Current Available Points: 0

Soon another notification came from the system:

[Mission Info:

1. Survive for at least a day.

2. Kill at least one zombie.

Note: At least one of the missions needs to be completed.]

Sanjay knew what the mission was about. He had read about it online. A horde of zombies would be coming soon.

Based on the suggestions he had read, surviving by hiding was the best way to pass the level. In an urban location, hiding could be both easy and hard since zombies could track their prey through smell and sound.

Sanjay stood up; he just needed to find the best location to hide and search for a weapon in case he was attacked. Currently, he was on the road and needed to get inside one of the buildings. Sanjay ran towards a multi-level parking garage.

He tried to open the door of one of the cars, but it wouldn't budge.

"Shit."

After looking around for a few minutes, he saw a security room in the second floor. He tried the door and, luckily, it was unlocked. He entered the room and closed the door behind him. Looking around, he noticed multiple TVs displaying security camera footage of the parking lot.

"Cool."

He sat down, watching the security cameras. "Okay, now that the location is a little secure, let's see what I can do with my powers."

He looked at his stats. It read "Replicate." But what did "replicate" mean? The basic meaning of replicate was to copy exactly. So, what could he copy?

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a gun.

After a few seconds, "Nope." It didn't work. He couldn't create a gun out of thin air. For a moment, he had really thought he could.

He saw a pen on the desk and picked it up. He imagined "replicate," and a similar pen appeared in his hand out of nowhere . He was almost shocked.

"What the hell?" He was astonished, staring at the exact replica of the original pen. He tried writing with it, and it worked perfectly.

He then checked his mana and saw:

Mana: 8/10

Creating a pen had consumed two mana. Sanjay started thinking—if making a simple pen cost two mana, how much would a gun consume?

He tried a few more times to replicate, and after multiple attempts, he realized his power. He could replicate anything he touched once. He didn't need to keep touching the item he wanted to replicate.

Essentially, this ability worked after he acquired the skill, meaning he needed to touch all the items he had touched before, once again, to replicate them.

However, he needed more training to fully understand his powers and their uses. For now, though, completing the mission was the priority.

He glanced at the CCTV feed and saw one zombie on the floor where he was hiding. Searching the security room for weapons, he found an L-shaped baton.

"Well, this will work for now," he muttered.

He planned to start hunting zombies one by one. To increase his stats, he needed to kill zombies.

Stepping out of the room cautiously, he checked for threats. Holding the baton in his hands, he spotted the zombie he'd seen on the camera slowly walking in his direction. You had to be careful with zombies—they were slow until they saw you. Once they did, they could be as fast as an Olympic champion.

Sanjay hid behind one of the cars and waited for the zombie to come within range. When the zombie approached the front of the car and began sniffing, Sanjay lunged and struck it with the baton before it could react.

With one hit, the zombie collapsed. Sanjay didn't stop hitting until he was sure it was dead.

The system announced:

[You killed one zombie.]

"Shit," he muttered, scanning his surroundings to see if the commotion had attracted other zombies. Seeing none, he checked his stats.

STATS

Name: City Hunter

Level: 1

Exp: 2/100

Skill : Replicate

VARIABLE STATS

Strength: 7

Agility: 8

Mana: 10

INVARIABLE STATS

INT: 6

LUCK: 9

CHARISMA: 6

Current Available Points: 0

"Okay," he noted. Killing the zombie had given him two experience points. He would need to kill many more to level up. According to the system, he would receive one skill point for every level up.

As he pondered the points, he heard a sound.

"Help!"

Someone was shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Who the hell is shouting?" Sanjay muttered, bending down from the second floor to look at the roads surrounding the parking building.

He saw thousands of zombies chasing a person. Spotting the parking lot, the person ran into the building.

Sanjay glanced at the baton in his hand and then at the zombies following the person.

"Shit, I'm out of here." He knew if he stayed any longer, the zombies would completely overwhelm him. Beating so many of them with a baton is a shitty idea.

On the second floor, escaping was difficult as zombies had already started entering the building. The person who had shouted earlier was now silent. He was probably dead and in the process of joining the zombie horde.

Sanjay rushed to the rooftop to find a way out. To his luck, he encountered no zombies on the way up.

Once on the rooftop, he looked for an escape route and spotted another building with a balcony partially covered by steel railings. He could hear the sound of zombies rushing toward him—they must have heard him running.

He estimated the distance between the two buildings to be about ten meters. Making such a jump would surely set a world record back on Earth. With a little luck, he might succeed. Otherwise, he would have to jump five stories down to the ground, which was swarming with zombies.

He prepared himself, taking a few steps back to create some distance, then sprinted toward the edge of the rooftop. At the same time, the zombies reached the rooftop and charged after him.

Sanjay leaped into the air, extending his hand with the baton.