The duo passed through the third door and down a long corridor. As they walked Edgar began to pick up a scent wafting towards them. The smell of decay and long dead things.

“Man, that’s bad, yikes…”

“What’s bad?”

“That smell.”

“What smell?” Mirai asked as she swatted her way through a cobweb.

“You can’t smell that? It’s awful.”

“No, nothing.”

“Sigh… Another piece of my humanity slips away…”

“A good sense of smell could be an asset. Monsters won’t be able to ambush you if you can smell them coming. Also, flowers? And baking! Think of the cookies! Ugh, I could go for some cookies right about now.”

“You’re a dessert person? I would have pegged you as more of a savory flavors person.”

“Not me. Bring on the sweets!”

“I can’t even think about cookies right now, with this rot filling my nose.”

They walked for a good twenty more minutes in the darkness before they emerged in a large stone room. The ceiling towered over them, revealing a series of iron doors decorated with haunting imagery—burial vaults.

“One of those doors must lead out of this room.” Mirai scratched her chin.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

Edgar moved towards the first door and, with a great deal of effort, pushed the large latch out of its socket. The door slid open. Inside the room, a shaft of ethereal light shone down on a stone tomb. As they watched, decayed fingers reached up through a crack and wrapped around the stone lid, pushing it slowly aside.

All around them, the sound of iron doors unlatching filled the room.

Mirai wrinkled her nose. “Oh, yup! I’m getting a whiff of something nasty… It’s like something farted hundreds of years ago.”

“A sandwich lost in time?”

“What’s a sandwich?” Mirai unsheathed her sword next to him.

Shhhiiing… Edgar’s claws gleamed in the low light.

“I’ll have to show you some time. It’s really quite a clever thing.”

The stone lid shifted and crashed to the floor in front of them. From the other rooms, they heard similar sounds of grinding and crashing stone as the crypt’s inhabitants stirred in their resting places, rising to greet them.

A chorus of moaning filled the air.

“Zombies?!” Edgar perked up, excited.

“Why are you so excited about zombies?”

“Where I come from, we have these things called movies and the zombie ones are pretty classic.”

“Movies?”

“Yeah, it’s probably a bit hard to explain, but like a moving painting that tells a story?”

“I thought you said your world didn’t have magic.”

“We don’t, except for movies… and books.”

“Books aren’t magic, they’re just ink and paper?”

“Debatable.”

The zombie ahead of them had lifted itself from its coffin and was striding towards them.

“Let’s just hope these guys aren’t sprinters. The slow, stumbly ones are the ones you hope to see in real life.”

Monster: [Zombie]

* Type: [Undead]

* Level: 1

The putrid creature moved pretty well for something so thoroughly decayed, better than the skeletons they had fought before. It was unarmed, but a green ooze dripped from its mouth. Clearly, a bite from it would not be good.

Mirai fell into her stance beside him, smiling. “On the bright side, if they have flesh, they should be a better match for my sword!”

She darted forward, dancing around the larger, ungainly creature. She sliced at it, chipping away at its decayed body. Edgar spun, seeing the other zombies approaching quickly across the room. They weren’t sprinting, but they definitely moved faster than the skeletons. He ran at one, activating [Acrobatics] and [Tail Whip] to deal a fierce blow.

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However, Mirai was right, the creatures were more sturdy than the skeletons. Edgar’s blow caused it to stagger and its arm slopped to the floor, but the creature continued towards him. It grasped out at Edgar’s tail, but he was too fast, rolling away. He jumped at it again, raking his claws over its legs. This was more effective and the zombie collapsed in a pile. It was still alive, but now it had to drag its body across the floor, leaving a trail of gore behind it.

Edgar had miscalculated, expecting the zombie to fall on the first hit, and looked up to find the other zombies nearly on top of him. With the last dregs of [Acrobatics] he dodges back towards Mirai. She had also finished off her zombie, with a good splash of zombie muck decorating her pants and shoes.

“They’re more sturdy than I thought.”

“Yep.”

Mirai’s sword began glowing with the light of a skill. “We’re gonna have to watch each other’s back. If one of these things bites us…”

Edgar glanced down at his foot.

“You mean like that?”

The zombie he had maimed had caught up to him much faster than he anticipated and… chomped down his foot.

“Wow, that actually hurts quite a bit.”

Mirai’s skill enhanced foot pulverized the zombie’s head and it rolled away, unmoving after her blow.

“Edgar! Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Condition: [Rot]

* Creatures affected by this condition take necrotic damage every ten seconds for a minute.

* Removed by healing.

Edgar wobbled on his feet as the rot throbbed in his foot and leg. Green tendrils spread outward from the bite mark.

“No big, I’ll be fine. Nothing a bit of healing won’t fix.”

The zombies were fast approaching, but he glanced quickly at his inventory.

No potions left.

“Really? I used them all?… Well shit…”

“Don’t panic! I have potions too!” Mirai shouted, fumbling quickly with her nav and Edgar slid in front of her, activating [Parry] to knock aside the attack of the first zombie that reached them. The second wasn’t far behind.

“I don’t have any potions left either!” Mirai’s voice was rising quickly in pitch.

“Keep it together! If we don’t fight these zombies off, we’ll die from that before the rot gets me.”

The wound pulsed and he lost another chunk of his health. The edges of his vision were turning green and he was feeling a bit woozy. His typical aerial stunts were probably off the table.

Mirai’s sword was a flash as she dispatched three zombies, one after the other.

What an amazing swordswoman. How lucky was I to meet somebody like that?

Edgar nearly slapped himself, spinning to catch another zombie in the head with [Tail Whip]. That zombie went down in one hit, but the one behind it was more determined. It lept at him, grabbing his shoulders and tackling him even as he stabbed it repeatedly in the chest with his claws. Its sightless eyes and dripped mouth hovered over him.

“You could really use a breath mint, friend.”

Then he cut its arm and stabbed up, through its neck and the zombie finally died. He rolled aside, looking around the battlefield. Mirai was cleaning up the last few zombies. Her form was truly a pleasure to watch.

He felt another throb of pain in his leg as the green haze encroached further on his vision and his health took another concerning dip. One or two more dips and he’d be dead.

He glanced down at the putrid, gross body lying underneath him.

“No… No no no no no! There’s no way!”

He shuddered as the beginnings of an idea began to form in his mind. In the corner of his eye, he saw Mirai turn towards him, her breath was coming in starts and stops. Tears shone on her face.

“Edgar? Sniffle...”

His heart clenched. “Sigh… well, here we go again…”

He lifted up the zombie’s arm and… took a bite.

[Zombie Meat] has been consumed.

Condition [Rot] has been removed!

The [Zombie Meat] tasted much better than it had any right to and Edgar shivered uncomfortably. It was downright weird to take a bite of something so gross and experience such bliss. It was wrong, on so many levels… He took a second bite… The green haze at the edge of his vision was already retreating. His health was beginning a slow crawl back to full.

Mirai pulled up to a stop, with an expression of utter disgust plastered on her face.

Edgar looked up at her, an apology plastered on his face.

“So… you’re ok?”

“Yeah, I have an ability that lets me heal by eating monsters.”

“That sounds—gag—awful!” She retched.

“I blame Pharaoh…” Edgar hesitated. “My health’s actually not quite full yet… I’ll just have one more bite.”

Edgar took another bite. Mirai shuddered, retching.

“Just… not the zombie! For Pharaoh’s sake, I’d rather see you eat anything besides that rotten corpse!”

She poked the zombie with her toe, disgusted. She was clearly thinking about what it could possibly taste like, and nearly vomited again.

“Let’s go. I have to get the image of you eating that out of my head.” Mirai stomped away, glaring at each of the open iron doors she passed.

Edgar dropped the zombie arm and followed.

“Hey, would you mind throwing up some water for me? I’d like to wash off my—wham!”

Edgar took a blast of water to the face. Mirai had clearly restrained the blow, not wanted to actually harm him, but she was clearly glad at the chance to douse him.

“Thanks…”

“This way!” Mirai called, reaching an open iron door towards the back of the room. “There’s another door behind the coffin in here.”

~~~~~~~~~~

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