“We’re not real?” Evan asked sceptically.

“Welcome to the club,” I said morosely.

“You mean, you’re not real, either?” Rachel asked. “Gotta say, that’s a lot easier to believe, what with the magic and all.”

“This is about the vision, isn’t it?” Borys said. “The investor meeting.”

“Yes, it’s about the meeting!” I declared loudly. “I remember my world shredding itself into pieces like a corrupted video file, and it’s been bothering me! I don’t know how the rest of you are dealing with it, but I’m not handling it well!”

The locals looked at each other and looked like they were going to come forward, but Borys held up a hand to signal them to stay back. He was keeping a wary eye on them, which was ridiculous. They were only Threat 10, which must have been Axel or the System’s best approximation of a normal human. Even I could slice one apart like an Idnul Lizard, swiftly, easily, without thinking because…

Damnit, I’m a video game character.

“I don’t really get it, to be honest,” Kyle said. “I mean, yeah, your world died. That’s…” He paused looking for words. “That’s not something you get over. But there’s something more, something that you think applies to us, and that I don’t get.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” I said. “These guys are better placed than most of you to understand that we’re all part of a computer simulation.”

“What, like in Tron?” Evan asked.

“Can’t be,” Rachel stated with certainty. “Ain’t none of us glowing and we all got hair, so it ain’t that.”

I snorted. “There you go. Better placed, not all the way suited. What about you, Borys?”

“Me?” Borys asked. He looked at his hand, flexing it into a fist and opening it again. “I feel real. The pain those bastards put me through felt real as well. Assuming that what you remember is real, and not something that Fyskel cooked up for you… I think the best thing is to not worry about it.”

I frowned. I didn’t really have an answer to “It was all faked by a god”, but…

“It could have all been faked,” I admitted. “But they all seemed… shocked. Fyskel, especially, seemed shaken. I think he dragged me into the void space just to have someone to talk to about it. How do you just ignore that?”

“You don’t,” Borys said. “But it’s not really relevant right now. Right now we have a zombie level to beat.”

“You might have magic and muscles,” Rachel said. “But there’s no beating the zombies. They just keep coming. The only thing you can do is hide til they go away.”

“There must be some way,” Felicia said. “Why don’t you tell us about the zombie games you played in the past? How do they end?”

“This isn’t a game, girl,” Travis growled. “The zombies will eat you up if you treat it like one.”

“Some of them don’t end,” Borys said thoughtfully, ignoring Travis’s comment. “They’re endurance games, see who can last the longest. The zombies keep coming until you’re dead.”

“That’s not likely here,” I said. “Dungeon or not, Axel still has limits.”

“Then…” Borys mused. “It’s likely that we have to reach some destination. A place of safety or an abandoned lab that has the cure.”

“You’re chasing that old rumour?” Rachel asked scornfully. “There ain’t no cure, and it wouldn’t help none if there were.”

“Why not?” I asked, looking intently at her. “Why wouldn’t it help?”

“Cause just about everyone’s already dead, fool,” Rachel replied. “It’d be nice if we didn’t turn as soon as one zombie got a bite on us, but zombies don’t stop at one.”

“Sometimes it works that way,” Borys said. “Other times the cure is a countervirus that wipes out all the existing zombies. Or it… turns them back to normal.”

“I don’t think that’s on the cards,” Cloridan said grimly. “I saw some of them up close, and there’s a lot of wounds and missing pieces that would be fatal pretty quick on a live human.”

“They’re not dead, though,” I mused. “Not like undead zombies back in Anchorbury. I wonder… Felicia, do you think you can heal them?”

Felicia started in surprise.

“I’ve never tried to heal a monster before,” she said. “I can cure diseases so… maybe?”

She blushed and looked at the survivors. “It might… be a good idea to test it on a monster first.”

Travis frowned. “Watch who you’re calling a monster, Missy, or I’ll show you one.”

I cast my own gaze over the rag-tag group of survivors.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Isn’t there always one of the group who’s hiding the fact that they have the virus?” I asked. “And they don’t find out until it’s too late and doom at least one other victim?”

“Just about every time,” Borys agreed.

“Hey, don’t you go accusing us of stuff!” Travis blustered. I ignored him and kept scrutinising the others. The older lady, Marta, had started looking nervous.

“Felicia,” I said slowly, keeping my eye on the woman. “You can detect disease as well, can’t you?”

“Oh sure,” Felicia said. “Oh! You want me to do it now?”

Not waiting for a response, she held her hands out and swept them over everyone in the room. After a single pass, she looked at Marta.

“She’s got… something,” Felicia said. “I’m not familiar with what, but it’s serious.”

Marta staggered back. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me,” she stammered. “I just get hot flushes now.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Felicia can take care of that… probably.”

“Don’t let her at me!” Marta shouted, moving away.

“You think you can lay your hands on one of us?” Travis snarled. He stepped forward, knife in hand.

“Stand down, boys!” I said firmly, slipping forward. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust their judgement. Okay, I was a little worried that Kyle’s restraint would slip when Felicia was in danger. But the main reason I told them to stop was that I wasn’t sure if they’d grasped just how restrained they needed to be.

Plus, this would have more effect coming from a woman.

I didn’t move particularly quickly, by the standards I was used to. Level Six gave me some advantages, but Cloridan and Borys were far faster. But it was still much faster than Travis was used to. He blinked at my sudden closeness, then struggled and fell off balance as he tried to adjust.

It was a little difficult for him as I was holding the blade of his knife.

Both my regular instincts and the new and improved ones that came with [Dodge] and [Weapon Mastery: Dagger] were screaming at me that I was doing the wrong thing. I should be dodging, or blocking him with my own dagger, not catching the blade.

Efficiently avoiding damage wasn’t my goal here. Felicia could have easily dodged the knife on her own if it was.

“Go and heal her, Felicia,” I said, while my eyes stayed locked with Travis’s. He was struggling to get the knife away from me, but I was a lot stronger than I looked. Not that my strength was particularly impressive, I think I was only a little stronger than Travis, but the fact that the knife hadn’t managed to cut my gloves made me confident that there was nothing he could do to hurt me.

“We’re magic, Travis,” I said. “And you’re just ordinary. We’ve got a mission to complete, and you have the option of helping us or getting out of our way. You don’t get to try and stop us.”

“It’s done,” Felicia said in a subdued voice. I let go of the blade and took a step back.

“Did it work?” I asked.

“Yeah…” Felicia said. “It worked, just like on people.”

“Did she really do anything?” Evan asked. He glanced nervously at Travis. “I mean, she just laid her hand on Marta. Nothing happened.”

“There was…” Marta reluctantly admitted. “I was feeling a bit of a fever. Just hot flushes, like I said. It’s gone now.”

“Marta…” Jenna, the young woman with red hair, put her arms around the older woman’s shoulders. “You’re supposed to speak up if you’re feeling sick so we can all look out for each other.”

“It wasn’t anything serious,” Marta denied. “Just a light fever. I was fine.”

“Well, now I want to see what you can do to a fully turned one,” I said.

“Oh no!” You ain't bringing one of them in here!” Travis shouted. I frowned at him, annoyed that he had recovered his bluster so quickly.

He took a quick step back.

Okay, so he hasn’t totally recovered his bluster…

“Travis is right,” Rachel said. “This is our home. If you bring those monsters in…”

“That’s fine,” I said. “We can do the experiment outside. Cloridan, Kyle, Felicia, you up for a quick expedition?”

“Sure,” Felicia said. The others nodded.

“I think you know what to do,” I said. “Don’t stray too far. There should still be some nearby. Borys and I will stay to make sure the way back in stays open.”

I glanced at the survivors who stared back resentfully. They couldn’t stop us from getting back in, of course, but we’d have to damage the building which didn’t seem like a great idea.

While we were waiting in the upstairs bedroom, Borys started up a conversation. The survivors had left us alone, no doubt to plot some kind of resistance.

“You’re being a little hard on the survivors,” he said.

“I know,” I admitted. “But… they are monsters.”

“Monsters that happen to be human,” he said. “I think it’s throwing the others for a loop as well.”

“It used to be that I was the only one who understood when monsters spoke a language,” I said. “Now—”

I was interrupted by a terrible eldritch scream from outside.

“What was that?” I exclaimed. “A zombie?”

Borys pointed out the window. Our friends were returning, carrying a fourth person. Borys quickly threw out the ladder, then started hauling it in as Kyle grabbed on.

Kyle held the rope ladder in one hand, while the other held a limp body. He let Borys pull him up, walking up the side of the building. When he reached our level, he started shoving the body in.

“We said we wouldn’t—” I started.

“It worked,” he said shortly.

I took a look at the body.

[Identification]: - Marcus Thompson - Threat: 10 - Properties: None

“What was that scream?” I asked.

“Him,” Kyle said, nodding at the body.

Everybody started piling into the room at once. My friends were coming in the window while the survivors were coming from the inside, looking to see what the commotion was. They noticed Marcus pretty quickly.

“What have you done?” Rachel asked. “You found a survivor?”

She raced forward and started checking the man’s pulse. “He’s alive!” she said incredulously. “Everybody out, give me some room!”

“Let’s move this all downstairs instead,” I said. “It’s way too crowded in here.”

There was general agreement, and it wasn’t long before we were back in the main section. Marcus was laid out on a portable cot, while Rachel examined him.

“He seems fine,” she said, “Just unconscious.”

“Rachel,” Evan said grimly. “Look at his clothes.”

We had all already noticed. Marcus’s clothes were barely worthy of the name. They were ripped and ragged, hanging on by a few threads. They didn’t serve any purpose, and anyone alive wouldn’t have bothered keeping them on. Only a zombie that didn’t care would wear clothes like that.

“He was a zombie,” I confirmed. “Felica turned him back.”

Whatever response the survivors had was cut short by another scream.

“What is that?” I asked, irritated.

Evan swallowed. “It’s a call,” he said. “They’ve started to gather.”

“So soon?” Jenna asked. “I thought we’d have more time.”

“I guess we’re just unlucky,” Evan said. To us, he replied, “When a zombie starts to call like that, they gather more of them.”

Another call sounded. Evan shuddered.

“They’ll gather in a big swarm, and go looking for fresh meat,” he said. “They remember places they couldn’t get into before, and they come looking in force. Sometime around midnight, this place is going to be crawling with zombies.”