Zeke didn’t know how long he was going around the tower, escaping from the zombies that were hot on his heels, or barrier, he should say.
He was still encased in his special barrier, which he now called ‘Superball Barrier’. He figured that if he was going to create a specialized barrier for escape, then it should get a name.
Though it’s in need of some serious improvements. There were some… kinks to iron out. Such as the fact that he had no control on where he landed, or how to even move about. The only thing he could do is surround himself in a super dense elastic barrier while making sure he himself survived from the impacts it made on the inside.
He knew it was a genius move to somehow affix himself at the center of his barrier, but he thanked himself multiple times for the idea as he should’ve been killed from the impacts alone. Still, it wasn’t great for his stomach, and he did vomit a few times which only made things worse for him.
Throughout the hours, he kept jumping from one place or another. He used everything in his arsenal including Mana Perception, Recovery’s senses, Barrier Craft, and whatever brain cells were left behind after each impact. Needless to say, it was not going swimmingly.
But he kept going, not willing to give up–not until he found the group again, even if he had to do it all day. Though the constant jumping was seriously messing up his directions, and he feared he was going farther and farther from where he was and where the crazy kid who controlled the zombies were.
He ended up falling into another layer of the abyss, which he realized was just a visual trick. The truth was that the abyss just actually connected to another room, just in a different layer than before. Then he would jump back to another layer if he hit something, which quite frankly was too much for his senses to bear.
Once again, he fell over into another abyss, entering into another layer. This time, it was longer and darker than ever before. He didn’t know whether it was a special case or perhaps he finally found a way out of here. He truly wished it was the former as he couldn’t leave just yet, even if he wanted to.
At the least, he needed to bring Mikella back. If possible, the lords and Myra too. As he entered into dangerous thoughts through the fall, he found himself in another layer as expected, but a surprise found him on the other side.
A giant snake, and of course it was made entirely out of body parts and limbs.
Even if he was used to jumping for miles and smashing straight into zombies before, he screamed like a little boy when he found two of the worst things he could possibly fear; zombies, and the new additions of snakes.
Zombie snake. Fuck that.
Once again, he had no control over his barrier except when he actually landed and managed to roll, so he ended up smashing straight onto the rotting snake, and actually managed to kill it.
Of course, he ignored the energy surging from the system as he witnessed the gross snake head being plastered across his barrier, blood and guts and other unmentionables smearing across his barrier.
Thankfully, that actually stopped the motion of the falling barrier, and in return for that the snake couldn’t hold purchase any longer and fell straight down into the abyss beside him, never to be seen again. He would make sure of that.
It was unfortunate that all the while, he wasn't able to loot the monsters he killed, especially that giant snake, but… if he was honest, he preferred not to get any closer than he was now.
He rolled pleasantly on the platform, finally giving him room to breathe. He decided to take a small break for once, figuring that taking out a giant snake was good enough to warrant him that.
But then a shout got him to flinch as he heard someone speaking his name.
“Zeke!”
He turned–well, tried to, before letting go of his fixture in the barrier. Apparently even turning his neck was hard to do.
He turned to find none other than the very people he was trying to find. More than anyone, he found her.
“Mikella!”
Zeke immediately put away his barrier, landing on the platform. He wobbled, having no sense of balance after being stuck in his barrier for so long.
Before adjusting himself, he was later embraced full body contact by Mikella, practically glued to his front as she held onto him tightly.
“Whoa, I…” Zeke tried to say, but just when he was about to let her go, he felt her body trembling.
Small sobs could be heard from her beside his head, and he noticed how she held him in tighter.
“It’s you…” She whispered. “It’s really you. Thank god. Thank god…”
Zeke couldn't hold back his own emotions from spilling over. He didn’t had time to think about it, not really. All he ever cared about was trying to get back to his group, back to Mikella.
He found himself almost tearing up from how worried she must have been, realizing that while she was with the party, he was all alone.
Figuring all that out, realizing just how lucky he was, he hugged her back tightly, uncaring about whatever distance they had between themselves.
Right now, none of that matters. What mattered is that the two were still alive and with each other.
“Sorry about this,” Zeke whispered, not really knowing what else to say. “I didn’t mean to leave you behind.”
“You were kidnapped, I can’t blame you…” Mikella said almost exasperated, but she held Zeke up with her arms and smiled. “But I’m glad you’re here now. Just how the hell did you survive all this?”
“Oh, boy,” Zeke shook his head. “Do I have some shit to tell you! First off, I just made a superball barrier, if you uhh… hadn’t noticed that.”
“I did,” Mikella nodded, wiping away the tears coming up in her eyes. Zeke decided to ignore that. “But that doesn’t explain just how you actually beat that boss.”
“I was literally falling all over the place,” Zeke said, pointing up. “Did you know that the dark abyss at the bottom actually changes layers, and not some deathtrap?”
“You fell into the abyss?!” Mikella practically screamed, to which Zeke should’ve expected that.
“By accident! …At first,” Zeke tilted his head. “Then when I found out that I didn’t die, it was a great way to get away.”
“That’s…” Mikella shook her head, exhausted. “Honestly, I don’t know why I even bother worrying about you. You always make up something crazy to survive.”
“Yeah, but I definitely don’t wanna go through that again if possible… hey, Myra!”
“Zeke!”
Zeke suddenly noticed that Myra was coming up behind Mikella. She charged in without a care and gave a bear hug to Zeke, which again caused him to exclaim in surprise, before realizing that she was hugging him rather tightly.
Before Zeke could say anything, Myra let him go and gave him one of the biggest grins he ever saw on her.
“I’m so glad you’re okay! You have no idea how worried sick Mikella was! I thought for sure she was gonna tear this whole tower down before we found you.”
“H-Hey, come on, I wasn’t that bad…” Mikella tried to defend herself, a slight blush on her cheeks. But somehow, Zeke knew about that.
“I would do the same if it happened to her,” Zeke nodded in agreement. Then, his eyes widened when he saw they have another guest with them. Someone very surprising. “Piker?”
“Good to see you alive and well, Zeke.”
Piker stepped up, sheathing his weapon after checking that there were no other zombies around. He glared at Zeke up and down, scanning his body for anything.
“It looks like you truly did survive. You continue to surprise me for a support mage,” Piker said coolly, something that Zeke wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or an insult.
“I’m surprised you’re even here,” Zeke said, not even trying to be hostile. It really was surprising to see Piker of all things here, along with Mikella and Myra.
“He decided to come along with us,” Myra said, pointing her thumb at him. “Honestly, it would’ve been hard to get away if it weren’t for his intervention.”
“She’s right,” Realizing the lead, Mikella stepped forward to explain. “Zeke, Piker really did offer to help us.”
“Wow, that’s…” Zeke turned to Piker. He noticed that Piker hasn’t really made any face, but it was easy to tell he was getting awkward. “Thanks, Piker. Seriously…”
“It is only my duty to make sure that the party survives, and the best way to do that is to ensure the safety of the mage capable of creating barriers,” Piker said, crossing his arms. The girls, however, didn’t look very pleased as they just glared back at him.
“You know, just once, you can try and not be a total douche,” Myra commented sourly. “It’s not gonna kill you, you know,
“...What’s a douche?” Piker tilted his head at the new insult.
“T-That’s besides the point,” Zeke intervened before they get into a weirdly unsuitable topic. “Where’s everyone else? Is anyone else okay?”
Immediately, the joyful mood turned solemn as Zeke noticed the instant change in everyone’s faces. Mikella was downcasted, Myra absolutely wilted, and even Piker pressed his lips in silence.
Zeke’s heart slammed against his chest. “Hey, what happened? What happened to everyone else? Why are you the only ones here?”
“W-We separated from the group to try and look for you,” Mikella explained. “I wanted to find you, so we took the time of the day to try and do so. The rest of the party are at a cave we found a little far away from here.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“We took some heavy losses,” Piker continued, causing Zeke’s eyes to widen. “And our morale is despeartely low. I hate to say it, but this is becoming one of the most difficult raids I’ve seen so far.”
“Difficult? More like we utterly failed,” Myra said bitterly. “We lost three of our people. The spear user Joshua, the mage Lisa… and Maxie.”
Zeke took a step back, breathing heavily. His face turned pale at the mentions of the three names.
The spearman he barely knew. Even if he acted like a dick sometimes, he was a decent guy. Lisa was Philip’s friend and a fellow mage like him. That was hard enough to swallow, especially after figuring that Philip had a thing for Lisa. And now, even Maxie–Jackie’s twin brother and Myra’s childhood friend.
His heart raced, the name dropping becoming a catalyst of everything he feared happening. Just for a short time he’s been away, or perhaps nearly a day considering the time spent, they already lost three people without his barriers.
Three people, three who had lives, families, and history back at Eve Glade. He almost wavered, shaking his head. The others quickly noticed it.
“Three of them… they died?” Zeke muttered. “They all… I can’t believe…”
“Zeke.”
He felt a hand keeping him steady, noticing that it was Mikella holding him, arms outstretched. She looked at him straight in the eyes, steady and focused.
“Focus. We have you now. Now we just need to go back to them. We need to clear the dungeon!”
“But… but if I hadn’t been… I could’ve…” Zeke tried to say, but his mind wasn’t keeping up with the swirl of emotions trying to swallow him whole.
That’s when another hand held his left shoulder, a hand that wasn’t Mikella’s. He looked up to see the tall Piker looking down on him. Mikella let go, surprised at his intervention.
The look of his face was solemn, but his eyes told a different story.
“You are here now,” Piker repeated Mikella’s words. “Your duty is to ensure the safety of our group. We failed to keep you with us. That is our own mistake, not yours. The fact that you survived this whole time on your own is proof of your capabilities. So don’t lose focus. You still have a job to do, soldier.”
Zeke was taken aback by his sympathy. His tone of voice was sincere, and when he let go, he felt the weight of those lives ease up just a smidge.
They were there, but it was bearable. Zeke nodded back to him, then to Mikella. “Right… right…”
Then, he turned to Myra. She noticed him looking at her, and tried to smile. Emphasis on the word ‘tried’.
“I don’t blame you for what happened,” Myra said, doing her best to keep up with the energy. “Piker’s right. That was our own mistake, as well as the leaders. Everyone can agree that this raid was a total failure. We just didn’t plan hard enough for the difficulty of the dungeon.”
“No… no!” Zeke realized what was happening, speaking out. That caught their attention as Zeke continued. “There’s someone in charge here. I saw him!”
“You saw… him?” Mikella asked. “Saw who?”
“A kid!” Zeke said, then he fumbled. “Well, not a kid, more like a teen… anyways, he’s the one who’s controlling the zombies!”
“What?” Piker asked. “What nonsense are you talking about? Have you hit your head when you were fooling around in your barrier?”
“Hey, I only hit my head a few times and I was fine, thank you very much!” Zeke said, pointing at Piker. Then realized how stupid that sounded and shook himself. “No, that’s not what I mean! I mean, Mikella, it’s that… you know… that…”
Zeke tried to motion about their special circumstances to Mikella, noticing that Piker was still there. Mikella furrowed her brow, then she noticed what was going on as she responded.
“Are you talking about our special status?” Mikella asked, only making Zeke widen his eyes like saucers.
“Mikella! Shh!” Zeke shushed her, exasperatingly holding a finger up to his lips. “We can’t talk about that in front of… you know!”
“Oh…” Mikella looked as though she realized something, putting on an awkward face as she peered at Piker who was just watching the scene with a raised brow. “Umm… if you’re talking about Piker, I, uhh, kinda already told him about us.”
“...About what now?” Zeke took a moment before answering with a blank look.
Then they explained that she, in fact, did told Piker about everything. Everything. Including the part where they came from a different world.
Needless to say, Zeke was flabbergasted.
“You told him?!” Zeke shouted, getting Mikella to wince as he did.
“I didn’t have a choice!” Mikella pleaded. “It was either that or Piker not trusting me enough to continue! Besides, he was cool with it.”
“How can anyone be cool with the shit we’ve been through?!” Zeke said before he ended up slapping his face with a palm, then dragged it down. “Geez… you seriously went ahead with that?”
“I-I’m sorry, Zeke,” Mikella pleaded. She sounded so guilty, her face almost twisting in pain. “I just… I just didn’t want to lose any chance of finding you. So I…”
Zeke took a closer look at Mikella. Being in her shoes, she must have been trying to convince everyone to try and find him, despite the low chance of him surviving on his own. She could also perhaps realized that he was still alive as long as they were connected, somehow. He wasn’t sure either, but that was a reason why she didn’t automatically assume he died.
If that was the case, it was only natural to explain what was going on to someone, especially to Piker, to get the message across and try to reunite together.
Zeke looked down for a second before responding. “You’re right… you’re right. I’m sorry. I guess I just blew my top off for no reason. Sorry for putting you through so much crap.”
“If it helps,” Myra stepped in, as she already knew about it beforehand. “Piker was pretty cool about keeping it a secret.”
“As I swore to do to Mikella,” Piker said, raising his head up proudly. “I swear to keep this a secret to you as well.”
Zeke looked up to him now, this time with a hint of skepticism. “You say that, but won’t you say this to your general? As far as I know, considering what she told you, you don’t think this is good news to say to him?”
Zeke can only expect what Zacharia would do to the two if he found out about their special status. However, Piker seemed almost offended, furrowing his brows.
“I shall always be loyal to the general, but I swore my honor to my promise. Regardless of the circumstances, I am bound to my word, even if I must keep this a secret to my father.”
“Huh…” Zeke was taken aback by this, only taking a few seconds before his face contorted into shock. “Wait, the general is your dad!?”
“Foster dad, but yes,” Piker answered simply.
“Okay, now we know that Piker is with us,” Mikella answered, motioning her hands to continue. “Zeke, what did you saw? You said you saw a teen?”
“Oh, right,” Zeke cleared his throat to continue. “Alright, so you know how we basically came out of the same dungeon, right? Same as this tower?”
“Yeah…?” Mikella answered slowly, then her eyes widened. “Wait, you’re not saying that… this teen is the same as us?”
The other two listening stood silent, nearly frozen at the reveal. Zeke nodded in agreement. He explained about how he looked, particularly about his baseball jacket he had on which was proof of his affiliation with their own country no less.
“But that still doesn’t explain how he can control all these zombies!” Piker added. “Even if he has some special power, that doesn’t–”
“Piker,” Zeke intervened, realizing that it was going to take a fair bit to convince him. “Did Mikella tell you about our special status?”
“That’s…” Piker slowed his interjection, his face turning pensive. “She did. That would explain how you two managed to get incredible skills at low levels.”
“Pretty unfair, by the way,” Myra commented, not being hostile but still envious.
“Bite me,” Mikella grinned back at her, getting the two girls to share a ferocious smile. Zeke only rolled his eyes at the battle fanatics before turning back to Piker.
“Here’s my guess,” Zeke continued. “I think that kid had some skill similar to necromancy. Then hr defeated a boss here with that skill. When he advanced to Apprentice, he probably got a Necromancer class or something along those lines. That would explain everything.”
“That is… that is too much to handle,” Piker shook his head.
“But if you think about it, Mikky got her Dragon Warrior Class after beating that, uhh, wyvern thing, right?” Myra mentioned, getting the two to nod.
“But for him to have this much control over the zombies, then that would mean his class is severely high level,” Piker mentioned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Surely the class madness would’ve gotten to him.”
“Sounds to me like this kid already lost it,” Mikella mentioned. “If you saw what you said you saw, it’s pretty clear he’s not thinking the same way anymore. I mean, who on earth gets excited to try and get our powers by turning us into zombies?”
Zeke frowned as he turned to everyone. “We could guess all day, but that won’t do anything. For now, we need to head back to everyone as soon as possible. I’m worried that without my barriers, there would be more losses. We can’t handle any more than that.”
“Do you know the way to where this kid is?” Piker asked. “If it’s close by, then we can just take him out.”
“That’s… hard to remember,” Zeke grimaced. His Intelligence helped a little, but half the time, everything was a blur that made his stomach turn just by thinking on it. “I jumped a lot throughout the way. But even so, it could be dangerous. The kid could be pretty strong with all those zombies he controls. And he practically painted a target on me…”
“Then that means we need more bodies to protect Zeke,” Myra mentioned. “Then as long as he’s protected, the leaders can just take him out.”
“But it’ll take us a while to walk back to the cave where everyone else is,” Piker said, grimacing at the time wasted. “If we pick up the pace now…”
“We don’t have to,” Zeke said, pointing at himself with a thumb. “We can just roll with my barrier.”
“...I’m sorry, what?” Mikella asked, now showing her own blank look on her face.
…..
“I really don’t like this idea, Zeke!” Mikella commented, her voice tinging in fear and panic already.
“It’s fine! I already tried this out multiple times!” Zeke shouted, currently enforcing his barrier with the three other riders beside him.
They were already inside of his barrier which he was now trying to transform the layer to become elastic, turning it into his new form Superball Barrier.
This time, he made sure to fix the spatial movements inside his barrier with the runes, which even now surprised the others when he managed to do so. The other three beside him were now affixed along with him at the center, ensuring that they don’t get tossed around and turned into paste.
That still didn’t make them feel better as even Piker looked rather uncomfortable.
“Are you truly sure about this?” Piker asked, Zeke picking up actual fear in his tone of voice.
“You wanna get over there as quick as possible? This is the best way. If we all work together, we can roll faster while protecting ourselves against the zombies. We can even ignore the nasty ones that shoot out that smokey undeath at us. I landed right next to one and I was completely fine.”
“Look, I trust you, Zeke, but this is…” Myra said, her voice trembling like a little girl.
“You guys are warriors, right?” Zeke said, finally unable to keep up with their worries. “Then stop your whining and get rolling! It’s done!”
Just like that, Zeke finished his construction, and as soon as the barrier was made, the sphere started rolling forward.
Zeke ordered them to move according to his movements, and when they did so, much to Zeke’s exact plan, they started to roll better with more precision.
With each turn, the barrier moved about according to Zeke’s wishes, as long as the others were moving their feet and even using their kinetic energy a bit, as they had plenty of those while Zeke was trying to maintain the Mana around the barrier. It certainly helped that the extra runes he made to keep the connection between their energies and his own made it stable enough to make this work.
He even got a level in Runecraft as he did so.
> Runecraft Level Up! It is now Level 8.
>
> You have gained +1 INT from your skill.
> You have gained +1 SPI from your skill.
“Alright! It worked! Now… let’s just go over the edge and–”
“Umm, no?” Mikella promptly ordered. “Let’s just go the normal way!”
“Yeah, I’m with Mikky on this one,” Myra said, trying to do the opposite of Zeke and rolling away.
However, the barrier refused to move. The other three, Piker included, all stared at Zeke as he looked back at them. This time, he made sure not to totally fix his body in place for easier turning.
“We’re. Going. To. The. Abyss. And that’s final!”
Zeke said slowly as he forced the barrier along towards the edge. Hearing the screams of the others, including Piker somehow, the barrier was approaching closer and closer to the edge of the platform.
“Zeke!” Mikella screeched. “How do you even know if it’s going to work!?”
“Because I literally went through this! We’ll pass through another layer, and end up getting back faster than ever!”
Zeke said as the momentum carried the sphere straight over the edge.
For just a brief moment, everything lurched as Mikella screamed one final time.
“Zeke, I swear to god, if I die, I’m going to kill youuuuuuu!”
That was the last thing Mikella said before her voice elongated as the others followed, falling straight into the abyss below.