漫画大王

Chapter 164

Bang!

“Block the door!”

After locking the door, Ellen and I moved any heavy objects, including the wardrobe and the bed, in front of the door. We didn’t know how long it would hold, but it would buy us some time.

Bang! Bang bang! Bang!

The zombies rushing in from Klitz Point must have already reached the inn door, as they were banging on it violently.

“Did all the corpses... turn into zombies?”

“... Seems like it,” Ellen mumbled in disbelief.

Goblins, skeletons, and zombies were among the classic fantasy creatures.

I had never included zombies in the story before, so these zombies must have been created arbitrarily.

The zombies here did not seem to be slow; rather, they could run.

Slow-moving zombies were overused, so nowadays, the new type of running zombies was the trend.

‘Damn, why out of all the possible trends does this one have to be followed?!’

Anyway, at least we now knew where all the missing corpses had gone. The corpses hadn’t been devoured or disappeared; they had moved on their own.

Using Control Demon was not an option. Even if I used it, it wouldn’t make any difference. Zombies had no reason or cunning. To them, I was just as much of a target. Ellen’s face turned pale as she observed the swarming zombies from the second-floor window.

“Ugh...”

Ellen, who usually maintained her composure, covered her mouth as if she had seen something unbearable, her face as white as a sheet.

“... Damn it.”

Even a brief glimpse made my mind go in the same direction. The stench of rotting corpses that was rising up to our floor was bad enough, but just looking at them felt like it could shatter one’s sanity. The sight of living, moving corpses could never be anything but horrible.

The undead...

Now that I was face to face with them, I realized that, regardless of the danger they posed, they were a type of monster I never wanted to encounter again. Dangerous and disgusting as they were, though, we had no choice now. They would soon break through the inn’s door and try to smash the door to the room we were in. Holding out forever was impossible.

We had to do something.

“To kill a zombie, you have to sever its head. They won’t die from most other wounds. Their physical abilities, especially their strength, have been enhanced as well. Do not let them grab you. If they do, they will tear your flesh off. You must not let them come within reach,” Eleris explained calmly.

In this desperate situation, Ellen didn’t have time to question how Eleris suddenly knew all this information. Information and action were critical at this point.

However, now that zombies had appeared, there was something that concerned me more.

“Do you get infected if you’re bitten?”

“Infected? Yes, there would be toxins from the corpse, so being bitten would result in infection, but...”

Eleris’s response indicated that she hadn’t fully grasped what I’d meant. Getting bitten by a decaying corpse would be fatal in itself. But hearing this from her was enough. It was clear that being bitten by a zombie didn’t turn you into one.

Growrrrr!

Grrr! Grrr!

Urrgh!

Bang! Bang! Crunch! Crackle!

Soon, the inn door was broken down, and zombies started pouring inside. They seemed to instinctively sense our location without seeing us. They were going to break into our room.

Ellen gritted her teeth, her expression becoming resolute.

“... Ms. Rellia.”

“Yes.”

“What you see here, please don’t mention it anywhere else.”

“... What do you mean...?”

Whoosh.

Having decided there was no longer a need for secrecy, Ellen summoned Lament straight away. The Lament that she hadn’t even revealed while annihilating the bandits, she wasted no time in bringing out this time.

Ellen must have assessed that it would be difficult to handle the situation without it.

Eleris’s eyes widened upon seeing the sword. She had known about it, but seeing it in person for the first time was different. Eleris probably knew from Loyar that Ellen carried a soul-bound sword. Though Loyar mentioned that Ellen had an unusual sword, she hadn’t been able to identify it.

I hadn’t told her about Ellen’s true identity either.

However, Eleris recognized at once that the sword Ellen had summoned was Lament.

“Th-This... Th-This is... this is impossible...”

Naturally, Eleris could not help but realize who Ellen truly was. For a moment, Eleris was stunned by a truth that surpassed her expectations. She was shocked that the last prince of the Demon Realm, me, was friends with someone wielding the holy sword Lament. Originally, the holy sword Lament belonged to Ragan Artorius.

A girl who somehow possessed that sword...

At that moment, Eleris must have realized Ellen’s identity.

“There’s no time to be startled.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The zombies began banging on the door of the room we were in. Only then did Eleris seem to recognize that now was not the time for astonishment, and calmness returned to her features.

Right then, Eleris, who had knowledge about zombies, needed to make the decisions.

“If we stall for time here, we can wait until all the zombies have entered the inn, then escape through the window.”

“And then?”

Since I didn’t know the specifics about zombies in this world, I trusted that Eleris’s judgment would be accurate.

“And then, we do what we did last time.”

Eleris suggested using the strategy we had previously employed. We would dig a pit at the entrance of the inn. Once we got out, the zombies would rush out of the inn too, and fall into the trap.

“Will we have enough time?”

Given that this wasn’t a surprise attack like last time, we wouldn’t have the time to leisurely dig a large pit. Using earth-digging magic repeatedly would take time, and from Eleris’s judgment, we didn’t have that luxury.

“I’ll cast the earth-digging spell repeatedly from here. Just hold them off until the pit is large enough.”

Crack! Crack!

The door to the room was gradually breaking apart. Eleris began casting the earth-digging spell from the second-floor window, towards the entrance of the inn.

We needed to hold out until the pit was big enough to trap all the zombies, and then make our escape. Any zombies trying to come out of the inn would fall right into it.

Ellen nodded with a determined expression.

“... Okay.”

Crack!

Raaaargh!

Slash!

Ellen swiftly split the head of a zombie trying to wedge itself through the broken door with a single slash of Lament. Instead of severing its neck, she cleaved through its head. The zombies were so strong that they gradually pushed aside the bed and wardrobe that we had used to barricade the door. We were stabbing and slashing at the zombies through the gaps in the broken door.

Thud! Thud! Thwack!

“Damn it! Ugh!”

This was a different kind of madness than last time. The burnt corpses and ones that were missing limbs and rotting were an awful sight to see, and were giving off a sickening stench. Maggots writhed in their gnawed flesh, and it was horrific to look at them directly while stabbing them with a sword.

We needed to decapitate them to kill them, but the situation we were in made it impossible to do so. All we could do was thrust our swords through the gaps in the broken door.

We continuously stabbed at the corpses, but they wouldn’t die and kept pushing in.

Screeeeee!

“Shut up!”

Thunk!

To keep my sanity, I yelled back at them. My eyes were wide as I repeatedly thrust my sword forward. Though I was the one doing the stabbing, it felt like I was being tortured.

Ellen was also struggling despite wielding Lament. Sword thrusts weren’t enough to take these creatures down. It was grueling to witness pieces of flesh, blood, and grease from the corpses gathering on our swords. The entire ordeal was utterly horrifying.

Fortunately, the blood and grease clinging to the blade seemed to dissipate continuously like smoke. The sword was enchanted with automatic restoration magic. I could understand why Ellen had said that this sword was the best for actual combat. The sword kept returning itself to the best possible condition. However, it wasn’t the time to marvel at the weapon.

Crack! Crack!

The zombies were gradually breaking down the door and pushing aside the barricade. If even a small gap appeared, they would all flood in. No matter how skilled we were, we would be overwhelmed by their numbers. We couldn’t hold back dozens of zombies rushing at us with just a single sword each.

Crack!

Once we were pushed back, the added force caused the barricade to be shoved aside instantly.

“Is it ready yet? Is it done?!”

“It’s ready! Let’s escape!”

“Reinhart!”

At Eleris’s urgent shout, I immediately moved to the window, grabbed her by the waist, and jumped out.

Thud

We weren’t that high up, and although I was holding Eleris, the impact on my knees wasn’t severe. It must have been the power of bodily reinforcement at work. Ellen followed, leaping gracefully from the window and landing lightly on her feet.

At the entrance of the inn, a massive pit had been created to catch the zombies pouring out. Ellen, panting heavily, looked at me.

“Just like last time. We’ll take out the ones escaping through the window or any other route one by one.”

“Got it.”

The plan remained the same—it was just that we were fighting zombies instead. Some of those zombies might be ones that we had already killed. There were zombies whose bodies had been burnt, as well as those with stab wounds to their arteries or vital spots, possibly from Ellen and me. We had to kill what we had already killed once again.

Grrrrrrrr!

The zombies that had crowded the second floor of the inn started to scramble and stumble over each other, rushing outside as we made our escape.

“You need to behead them. But don’t let your guard down; keep your distance at all times.”

This time, however, more was being demanded of us. The zombies wouldn’t die unless they suffered catastrophic damage to their skulls or were beheaded. Though this was more difficult, the fact that they were zombies instead of people made things somewhat easier, in a way.

Screeeeech!

As the zombies rushed out of the inn, they fell into the pit one by one, the trap Eleris had dug. They had no intelligence.

The zombies behind mindlessly plunged into the pit after the ones ahead of them, disappearing as if being sucked in. They lacked the intelligence to understand the concept of a trap.

Bang!

However, a few impatient zombies managed to leap out through second- or first-floor windows. While they were overwhelming when in a large group, in this situation, we could take them down one by one.

“Reinhart, protect Ms. Rellia.”

“Got it.”

Ellen left Eleris’s protection to me and charged forward to deal with the zombies. With Lament in hand, Ellen moved like a specter.

Eleris’s advice to aim for the neck was correct. Beheading was an efficient method to ensure an instant kill. But with Lament, that wasn’t strictly necessary.

Slash!

With a single swing of her sword, Ellen could sever a zombie in half at the waist or cleave it from right shoulder to left hip, making short work of any zombie in her path. Lament was such a devastating weapon that any way she swung it would result in a fatal cut.

Ellen continued to kill the zombies that jumped out of the windows.

“Ugh!”

Splat!

My weapon was good, but it was no match for Lament.

Because of this, I needed to act with more precision. The zombies’ movements were not strategic; they were straightforward. They just rushed forward to bite and tear. Understanding and responding to such one-dimensional attacks was no longer difficult for me.

I aimed a diagonal slash at the neck of a zombie charging at me, severing it. The zombie, with more than half its neck cut through, fell and thrashed on the ground.

Simply striking the neck wouldn’t cut through it. It required a slicing motion, like carving meat, with the blade at an angle. It wasn’t about hitting with force, but rather using a drawing cut.

Calculating the correct angle for the blade to meet the neck was crucial. When I felt the resistance of bone, I would apply even more force, trying to shatter it and punch through.

The tip of the sword wasn’t effective for this; it needed to be the lower part of the blade, just below the midsection. I had to adjust my swing so that portion of the blade met the zombie’s neck.

I was learning things I didn’t want to know. Or, to put it more correctly, these things were being ingrained in my mind as I cut through the zombies attacking me.

Kill these creatures by cutting and slicing, since stabbing wasn’t effective. I didn’t want to know this, but I was being forced to learn it.

Thud!

Grah... gurgle...

“Huff!”

Crunch!

As another zombie lunged at me, I embedded my sword into its neck. This time, rather than slicing, I twisted the blade to crush its cervical vertebrae. I kicked the limp zombie away.

Although Ellen had instructed me to protect Eleris, she wasn’t just standing idly behind me.

Crack!

A chilling sound sung through the air as a charging zombie’s head was shattered, and the stricken creature fell backward instantly.

Eleris wasn’t just assisting with her magic.

Whirr! Whirr! Whirr! Whirr!

A threatening whistling noise filled the air as something spun rapidly in Eleris’s hands. She was using a sling.

Whizz!

A zombie running at us from a distance took a stone to the head, and its skull was utterly crushed. One by one, Eleris loaded and readied her sling with a focused expression, eyeing her next target and spinning the sling.

Using a sling in a situation like this felt almost comical, but the zombies who were struck had their heads burst open, quite literally.

Given that her identity consisted of not being able to use powerful magic, she must have put a lot of thought into finding another means to attack, and that turned out to be the sling.

Was she aiming for a warrior-mage concept?

Thud!

“Ugh!”

Slash!

I was using all my strength to behead the zombies, all the while feeling a mix of exhaustion and absurdity. Yet, amidst this horrific scene, Eleris’s seemingly playful use of the sling somehow acted as a strange pillar of mental support for me.

In this kind of situation, Eleris had no need for powerful magic.

The confidence Eleris exuded was palpable.

Crack!

While I frantically swung my sword to sever one zombie’s neck, Eleris was systematically crushing zombie skulls with her sling, exhibiting incredible accuracy.

***

“Huff... huff...”

“Somehow... it’s more or less over...”

After about thirty minutes of fierce combat, all the zombies were finally dealt with. In addition to the twenty or so bandits, all the people who had been at Klitz point had turned into zombies, resulting in a massive number of them.

The pit was writhing with fallen zombies, and around us, more than thirty zombies had finally reverted to mere corpses.

The hellish stench and brutal scene were enough to make me feel dizzy. Ellen, having dispatched the most zombies, dismissed Lament and walked back to us.

This wasn’t the end.

“Let’s burn them all now.”

“... Yes.”

We hadn’t anticipated that the corpses would come back to life. Although they were already dead, to prevent any further unforeseen situations, we decided to burn all the bodies.

Screeeech!

Grrrr! Grrrr!

The zombies in the pit emitted mind-numbing screeches.

“They might start moving suddenly. Be careful when handling them.”

Following Eleris’s advice, Ellen and I cautiously began to gather the dead bodies into one place.

Our bodies had suffered a beating while fighting the zombies. Handling the decaying corpses was a revolting experience. No matter how many zombies we had slain, it was impossible to get used to it.

During the fierce battle, I could kill with my eyes wide open, but now that it was over, I couldn’t even bear to look at the faces of the dead.

Was death always this repulsive?

It takes only a few days for humans to lose their human form, and humans feel a deep sense of revulsion toward things that resemble them imperfectly.

This was the essence of the “uncanny valley”.

Zombies were a terrifying example of this uncanny valley. Since they were once human, the sense of disgust was amplified. While I carried the bodies and severed heads separately, countless thoughts crossed my mind.

Though it felt like we were merely handling a zombie attack, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had become someone meticulously trying to erase all evidence after brutally killing people.

We gathered all the bodies of the zombies that had not been trapped in the pit together, and Eleris poured several flammable liquids she had collected from various places over them before setting them on fire.

Whoosh!

She then doused the pit full of zombies with flammable materials and oil and set it ablaze as well.

Screeeeeech!

Amidst horrific screams, two pillars of fire rose at Klitz Point.

“...”

“...”

“...”

The three of us sat down wherever we could, staring blankly at the two pillars of fire.

Why did the corpses at Klitz Point turn into zombies? Had a similar incident occurred at Altz Point as well?

If so, had all three of the frontline bases ended up like this?

Thump.

Ellen, who was sitting beside me, leaned her head against my shoulder.

There were too many unresolved questions.

“...”

“...”

But we were too exhausted to discuss any of them right now.

“Get some sleep.”

“... Okay.”

Ellen, who was leaning against my shoulder, quietly closed her eyes.