Filled with trees empty of colours, the forest ambience sent a chill down my spine. Well into the night, visibility wasn’t bad, as long as we didn’t try to see too further away. There was a limit to how light the big moon could reflect.
Sword in hand, I didn’t need it to clear bush, mainly because there wasn’t any around, but for safety reasons. Without mana or grass around, my detection ability was ineffective. Gnash and Tara did have very good sense, but we could never be too prudent. Actually yes, we could have, leaving the whole place would have been the smartest choice, but Latie wanted to investigate the forest on Gnash warning, so in we were.
At least we weren’t wandering aimlessly. With Gnash leading us to where the smell was coming from, we knew where the danger was. We only needed to find what it was. At the first sight of something too dangerous, we would leave immediately, optimally without a fight.
Further, into the dark, something that hadn’t decomposed yet appeared, an isolated cabin in the wood. Smaller than the village we had seen up to this point, the cabin had a single entrance with a wooden door. A stone chimney was on the roof, but there was no smoke coming out of it.
Approaching carefully, the door grip was melted, so I tried to push it slowly, but something was blocking the way. Without knowing if it was a simple lock or something else blocking the door, the only thing to do would be to brute force it.
Close to me, Gnash smelled around and growled at the cabin, meaning that whatever we were looking for was inside. Looking at Latie, she gave me the sign to force it open, and I obliged. Swinging my sword at the door, it got slashed into pieces and with a single kick, crumbled into small chunks.
At the commotion, a plague dead hidden inside rushed at me with a horrendous yell. On my guard, the yell was unpleasant, but far from having the impact of a Calamity monster. Beside me, Gnash seemed more affected than I was by the monster screech. Not wanting to wake up the whole valley, I stabbed my sword into the monster's head, and he took it directly to the brain. Kicking him out of my blade, I checked inside to make sure he had been alone. With the area clear, I told Latie that it was safe and that she could enter.
Entering the cabin, Gnash seemed to still be disturbed by the monster's yell but was otherwise fine. After a quick inspection, the cabin was just as empty as every other house in these lands.
Concluding that Gnash's warning must have been about the plagued dead, Latie carefully inspected the dead body with me close by to make sure it didn’t jump-scare her while I wasn’t looking. Moving the dead to the centre of the cabin, she took out her notebook and inspected the subject.
“So fortunate that these things can’t leave the plagued land, otherwise, their smell alone would have killed entire cities.” Latie said.
“I know they are decomposing, but do they really need to stink that much? Even my plague affinity can’t filter their stench. Almost make me wanna puke.” Smelling close to rotten eggs and tomatoes, it was no wonder their smell stood out from the rest. Everything else smelled like flowers compared to these things.
“You have to thank Viperearth for that, without him, this atrocity would never exist. Joke apart, I hope this is the last we see of them. Just thinking about the horrible fate of becoming a plague dead, makes me sick. I felt bad for them, at least they didn’t suffer long since they’re dead.”
“They’re not dead.” I said. Stopping her inspection, she looked at me confused.
“What do you mean? We call them plagued dead for a reason, you know!”
“Their heart is beating, they breathe just like anyone, their brain is in control of the body, they feed to survive. In all matters of life and death, they’re as alive as you and me. The only difference is that we still have our soul.”
“I… keep that in mind in my report. I’m almost finished, so we be leaving soon.” Putting on some long gloves, she took out a knife and made an incision in the middle of the body in front of her, and opened it. With her hand searching the inside as far as her glove could cover, the sight was unbelievable.
“Good, the sooner we leave, the better. What are you inspecting anyway?” I asked.
“Potential weak point, the effect of the plague on their body, what organs were affected first, etc.”
“And you can learn all of that just by massaging his innards?”
“I graduated in medical magic and dungeon research at The University of Magic and Mana. This is why the guild sent me on this quest and not somebody else.”
Learning there was a real proper university in this world came as a shock. I initially thought that the level of development and education never got that far because of the existence of magic, but I was wrong. Asking her some questions about the university, I learned that it was created by a wise wizard who thought that others were using their magic abilities stupidly. Being a few hundred years old, the school became the best place to learn about magic and its wonders. After the initial success, other not so wise wizards tried to make their own school with variable results. As of now, this particular university is still the best one in all the known continents. I definitely needed to check it out later. I might be the one and only chance I will ever have to experience school life after all.
Interrupting my train of thought about the perfect university experience, Gnash started growling and barking. On his warning, I unsheathed my sword and took my stance, ready to slice apart whatever was coming from the front door. Latie positioned herself behind me, if something wanted to get her, it would need to go through me first.
A number of growls and zombies-like sounds were coming from outside, they were close and many. Second later, a plague dead appeared at the door and came rushing at me. Aiming at its head, I chopped it in one swing. Stepping back to make sure the body wouldn’t fall on me, I was ready for the next one. Following in its predecessor's footsteps, I killed two more of them. In no time, I was under a constant stream of head-to-behead. With even more of their horrific growl, they began attacking the cabin from outside as well.
“We should get out now when they’re busy with the walls!”
“You’re right, they won’t last longer since they’re weakened by the plague…!”
Before she was able to finish her sentence, the wall behind her crumbled on the constant attack and five dead came directly at her. Before I could react, two more of them entered the main door and aimed at me. As they were too close to be ignored, I was forced to take them out first. Attempting to grab me, I dodged his dirty hand with a sidestep and uppercut stabbed his head a second later.
With the first one out, the second was only a meter away when he directly took Hybry's breath attack. Even immune to the poison, the impact sent him back a few steps, leaving me the time to finish him off with a single down slash.
On Latie's side, Tara webbed the five targets and swung him toward one of the walls. With his bones cracking against the weakened wall, he demolished both the wall and the dead behind it. With the rest of the enemies immobilized, Latie trusted her surgeon dagger through the closest one who couldn’t move. As one was trying to crawl at us, Gnash put his jaw around the monster's neck and snapped it off with a powerful bite. The two others were finished by a single slash of Tara's front scythe legs.
Hearing their reinforcement coming, we needed to move out of there before we were swarmed. The little protection the cabin initially offered with its single entrance no longer existed, with half the walls being destroyed.
“We need to get out of this plagued land.” Latie yelled.
“Gnash, lead the way, we're behind you!” At my signal, we began running away from the hell this place offered. Knowing the original direction of where we were first going, we dashed around trees, with the plagued dead following not too far behind.
With Gnash and me in the front, we took out any dead that stood in our path. No matter how many we killed, there seemed to be an endless number of them coming from all directions. In the middle of our group was Latie, since she was the one who needed to be protected the most, it was an obvious place for her to be. On top of that, she used her fire affinity to burn any monster that escaped our formation. As we moved forward, the burning sand that Latie threw at the dead burned them quite effectively, leaving a trail of smoking bodies that were too much damaged to move anymore. I could have done the same with my own incendiary sand if I still had some mana in me, but at least I had my sword and bow. Being hungry and out of mana didn’t make me useless at all, it just limited my options. It goes the same for Gnash, even hungry, the thought of a warm meal waiting for us kept our body going.
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On the back was Tara with Hybry latched on her. With his safety web around him, the little hydra acted as a turret to slow down the army of dead following us. The giant webs Tara left behind acted as a slow-down trap that effectively made some of them unable to follow us. The problem was that, with brute force, they were able to overwhelm the web walls she created. She could do a lot of them, but there was a limit to how much web her small body could produce. So I told her to not waste all her web on them, as we may need some later.
As I was running, I noticed something strange on the ground. There were holes the size of a person just about everywhere. Being the exact shape of a corpse, my only guess was that the plagued dead camouflaged themselves into the plague ground when they had nothing to hunt. If that was it, it could explain why I never detected them at all, the exception being the one that had been hunting that Deery we saw earlier. With the number of holes just about everywhere, it was a miracle that we didn’t run into more of them earlier.
Reaching the limit of the forest. We exited the line of dead trees and continued our run into the plain, desolate land. With the horde following us, I noticed that there were no holes in the ground anymore. Either the dead around this part haven’t been awakened yet, or they prefer to bury themselves in the forest for some reason. With less of them coming from the front, I switched to my bow and fired at the ones following us. As my attention was mostly on our destination, I often didn’t check the back when we were running, leaving that side to my trusted familiars.
It was why I was in shock when I saw the horizon covering a horde of dead running at us. Their number couldn’t be counted anymore. Before there were maybe 30 to 50 of them running after us, but now, they easily exceeded multiple hundreds. It took me some time to notice why there were so many of them packed together. With Tara and Hybry slowing them down, the closest joined those who were further away and formed a natural pack over time. That would have been a great way of killing them if we could simply circle around them infinitely, but as they still had some reinforcement coming from the forest, it would have been too dangerous. Also, unlike video games, it would be impossible to run for hours while keeping them at bay, our stamina had a limit.
Things would have been so much easier if we had Lendwrek with us. He could have burned them down in an instant if he would have been here. In order to get out of here alive, we needed a change of plan. As our running speed was barely faster than theirs, outrunning them until we reached safety would be hard, but maybe possible. Still, the risk of making a mistake or stumbling was too big to take that chance. This situation would not become a horror movie, not with me around.
After some more thinking and arrow flying, I thought of something. We didn’t really need Lendwrek with us, only his fire to burn these bastards. Slowing down to be beside Tara, I took Hybry with me and got back to the front, where Gnash was. Still running, I used Tara web to tighten the Hydra on the dog's back.
“Gnash, you’re the fastest! Don’t wait for us, there is a huge dragon waiting further away, find him! Hybry, get Lendwrek in the sky, and make him shoot at our position, one way or another! That's an order! Now go, we’re counting on you!”
“Woof!” He barked.
They both seemed a little hesitant to leave the three of us so close to the army but still dashed away nonetheless. Leaving us behind, Gnash dodged between a few plagued dead, avoiding their grab and disappeared off our sight with his incredible speed, after a minute or two.
“What are you thinking?” Asked Latie beside me.
“We won’t make it unless we thinner their number, and fighting normally won’t do much! They will overwhelm us at some point if we do that! Can you shoot a huge fireball in the sky and make it explode around a few hundred feet high?”
“Probably, but why? Shouldn’t I fire at the horde instead?!”
“Can you burn them all down?”
“No way! There too many of them!”
“Then be ready for my signal! We will need that flare if we want to wreck them all.”
Continuing our run, Tenta, Tara, Latie, and I handled any zombie that came too close to us. Estimating the time Gnash needed to reach and find Lendwrek, I would be waiting until I thought it was about time. As I asked, Latie stopped firing at them, concentrated her mana and waited for my signal.
After what felt like an hour of running, we were sweating head to toe, with Tara saving what little web she had left. When I thought it was about time, I gave Latie the green light.
“Now!” I yelled.
“Ok!” Aiming high in the sky toward where we were going, Latie released all the mana in her hand into a meter-tall fireball. Blasting away, the fire then exploded into something close to a firework. The remnant fire then stayed close to where it exploded and burned brightly until it used all its mana.
“Was that enough?” Latie asked.
“Should be. How much mana do you have left?”
“Not enough to do it again, that for sure, but I can still use my incendiary sand to a decent degree, so I be fine!”
Continuing until we ran past the flare, we stopped our run exhausted and stood atop a small hill. In the light of the flare, we could clearly see the massive army coming to tear us to shreds. Being maybe a thousand, they were all packed tightly together and almost climbing on top of each other trying to get ahead. As the flare didn’t cover all the area, there still was a number of them too far into the night to be seen. With how far away we were from any dead forest, there was little risk that any dead would be coming from another direction other than the main horde.
To slow down the horde, I had Tara shoot some web in the flock to bind them together with minimal effect. They simply tore the web apart accidentally, and the slow-down was questionable for the amount of web used.
With only a hundred meters separating them from us, we took the little time we had to recover our breath as much as we could.
“Tara, use what you have left to make a barrier of web on the ground! Should buy a few seconds if it comes to it. Our artillery should come crashing soon.” My panting made it difficult to talk without burning my throat, but she seemed to have understood anyway.
“You’re sure about this?” Latie said painfully. She was as exhausted as I was, if not more. Logic, since she’s not an adventurer, but a researcher.
“Don’t worry, Lendwrek is smart, he figures it out!” Even if we were still far from where he should be, the flare could probably be seen from where he was. He knew he couldn’t join us, so he would be trying to figure out what the flare meant. As the only thing he could possibly do is shoot fire toward it, he will do just that. At least, I hope. I knew I was tired, hungry with the headache to top it all, but the adrenaline should have kept me aware enough to avoid any stupid idea. That or I was already insane.
Painting the dirt in front of us with a web, the result was a one-meter wide and about eight-meter-long sticky floor. It wasn’t enough to cover a sizable part of the horde coming at us, but it was better than nothing.
Sword in hand, I took my stance, ready to slice the first of many zombies. When they were only ten meters away, the area got warmer and brighter for half a second before a fireball crashed into the front of the horde, vaporizing the bodies on impact. With the projectile hitting the ground, multiple secondary balls were spreading all around the impact point. I didn’t know if the sound of pain that the horde was screeching was because of the fire or not, but it wasn’t going to end soon, because an entire volley of fireballs came crashing into them not long after the first one. With most of them covered with burning fire, those who were completely burned fell on the ground in pain, while those only partially on fire continued their rush at us.
With their number dramatically reduced, escaping them was now a viable option, but first, we needed to take care of the one still able to follow us. Entering melee range, I swung my sword toward him and made it only halfway in his neck. Gathering my strength, I was able to slice him off completely as I felt the cracking of his spine under my blade. With the next one coming straight at me, there would be no break between kills.
Slicing, dashing, cutting, and stabbing became my routine as I took care of the burning-plagued dead who dared meet my sword. Dancing in the sea of flame, I saw Tara protecting Latie further in the back. Even away from the main rampage, a decent number of bastards were able to reach them, only to fall before the spider-deadly scythes. As I had most of them coming for me, they would be fine.
As I swung my sword yet again at another blazing dead, my sword snapped mid-way in his body, taking me by surprise. Before I could react, his hand almost touched me, before Tenta tentacles unrolled from my waist and tore them to shred into unrecognizable minced meat. When it was done with destroying the monster's arm, it bounded the thing and shredded it with its spiky thorns.
“Thanks, buddy.” I said, patting a non-spiky part of its tentacles. Its only answer was to pat my head back, evidently without using the thorny part of its tentacle.
Looking at my sword, more than half the blade was missing, with barely a few millimetres of cutting edge left. Now unusable, I was forced to switch to my bow. With around twenty arrows left in my hip quiver, I aimed at the undead head to make sure to not waste any of my precious munition. Not wanting to leave me totally vulnerable, I made sure to always have at least one arrow left to use in close quarters if needed. To make the most of my bow, I also looted back any arrows that I previously fired to reuse them again. With Tenta taking care of the monster too close to me, I was able to focus on eliminating them before they reached us.
As a last pack of fireballs decimated the already decimated horde, we were left with nothing left to do other than crumble on the ground after all the exhausting work we had just done. There was no plague dead to be seen, only what was left of them lying just about everywhere.
Sitting in the monster's smoky and smelly guts, I tried to relax as much as I could. Feeling something pressing against my right, I found a spider trying to bring my mood up.
“How are you feeling?” Turning around, I found Latie cleaning her stained robe from the monster part on it.
“I be better after a good night of sleep and some very thick, juicy meat, but overall not that bad.”
“Great, that means we can finally leave this place.” She said relieved.
“I just have one question before that.”
“What?”
“Was going into that forest worth it?”
“Surprisingly... yes.”