You gradually open your eyes after taking a deep sleep.

You get yourself up and out of the tent you were sleeping in.

The campfire from last night just has black ashes.

You try to find Riley, but you can’t find a single soul around.

You recall what happened before you slept.

…

“Wait, was I left behind?” You say in the campfire you think was empty and abandoned.

You check again and still cannot find anyone.

You worryingly put both hands in your head, “Did I screw up?”

You immediately think about what you have to do at this point.

But before that, “Wait, I’m just in a domain right? They’re totally not gone.”

…

“What’s in a domain?” You hear a familiar voice.

You lower your hands and look at where the voice came from.

You see Tawa just closing by, “What’s got you worked up after sleeping?”

“Tawa?” You calm down, “Oh, I was thinking of a worst case scenario.”

“Well, everyone has left,” Tawa laughs.

…

Both of you stay silent for a bit.

“I woke up too late, did I?” You ask.

“Basically,” Tawa smiles.

Again, you both go silent.

You straighten yourself, “I should go.”

…

Tawa instructs you where you have to go while walking a little far away from camp.

He points to a side, “Just go that way and you’ll find your friend and the soldiers.”

Before you catch up, you ask why he stayed behind.

Tawa calmly reassures you, “Oh, someone needs to protect the camp. I’m a capable mage.”

“Oh,” You look away from him, “Stay safe, they don’t want to lose a valuable person on the team.”

Tawa chuckles for a bit, “Don’t flatter me, I get that a lot.”

He waves as he and the camp disappear into the darkness as you move further away.

…

You step out of the forest.

Even though you have been far away from the camp, it feels like even the forest was safer than the plain lands.

Luckily, you haven’t encountered any zombies or monsters.

You scan the view, find any signs of the soldiers fighting or loud fire explosions coming from a distance.

You kept rotating your head, but still can’t find any of them.

…

“Maybe I just need to move a bit further,” You quietly speak as you begin walking.

And then, you hear running footsteps getting louder.

You see on the left a silhouette of a man charging in a limping manner.

As he gets near to the forest, you notice that he has the same uniform as the soldiers of the camp…

But when you look closer at his face, it wasn’t anything good.

…

You run to him and stop him, which he returns with a scream.

“Hey, calm down!” You place both your hands on his shoulders.

He stops, only breathing very heavily, “The group… is in… danger! Came… to get… help!”

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You let go of his shoulders in shock, while he places one of his hands on his chest to catch some breath.

You interrupt his moment, “Where are they?”

…

You run as fast as you can, hoping you are not too late.

You don’t have any abilities for sprinting really fast, so you wish you had a horse with you.

However, as you see a hill, you begin hearing the screams of soldiers fighting.

You climb it up, and find a horrifying scene but it felt like you expected this to happen.

The large horde of zombies completely outnumber the soldiers, struggling to fight back and even losing men in the process.

…

You get down and join the battle, even if it’ll have minimal effect.

You see a soldier cornered by the horde.

You jump off the hill, and land in front of the soldier.

You punch down zombies nearing the scared man.

“I’m gonna try and make a path for you, just stay behind me!” You try to calm down the soldier in quite a dire situation.

…

You look behind at the man, and see that there’s an opening.

You quickly turn around and point for the soldier to see, “We can go there, come on!”

Both of you run towards the opening, and fight back any zombies that get in your way.

You managed to get a safe distance, as the horde didn’t continue chasing you.

The soldier falls to his legs, and starts catching his breath.

…

You ask the man as you try to get the gist of the situation, “How many men did you lose?”

He began tearing up, “I don’t know, I-I’ve lost count.”

You only click your tongue and instead ask a different question, “Where is your leader? Mr. Normand?”

“I think they’re in the north but I’ve lost contact with them,” He wipes out his tears with his palms.

You look to the north of the horde and see large bursts of fire coming from the area.

…

“Okay, I’m gonna leave you,” You stand up and turn away from him, “Better find a safe area.”

But he grabs your leg, “Wait, I don’t want to die.”

You put your left hand on his arm as you face him, “Look, the campsite might be safe there,”

“But, Normand m-might get angry,” He stutters in fear.

You close to him and focus on his eyes, “Look pal, your life is far more important than what your leader has to say, so it’s up to you.”

He quietly falls down as he lowers his head. You left him alone, hoping he’ll be safe.

…

You rush through a barrage of zombies, with the fire kind jumping around and moving really fast.

You pass by a few fallen soldiers but you could do nothing to save them.

You get flash by a large explosion and hear its loud sound go through you.

The explosion shakes the ground and makes the guts of the zombies killed by the explosion fall from the sky.

One chunk of undead meat goes to your face but you quickly grab and throw it to a zombie close to you.

…

You see Riley with the captain and a few soldiers completely surrounded by danger.

Riley is aiming her hand to shoot down zombies one by one while the army panicly tries poking and swinging their weapons to any nearby ones.

You punch your way through and force your way into the horde.

Riley looks and aims at you, firing a shot. You dodge it and it kills a zombie following you.

“Took you long enough!” Riley sweats heavily.

…

Normand shouts at you, “Why didn’t you wake up sooner?”

“Well, I warned you!” You extend your arms.

He slightly turns his head as he closes his eyes before facing back, “It doesn’t matter anyway, everything we have done was in vain.”

“We need to get out of here, staying here will make our situation worse,” You suggest.

Everyone packs up anything they can hold as Riley does her usual to make a path big enough for you to escape.

…

The group arrives in a safe spot, with no horde of zombies in sight.

Normand scans the group which only has a handful of his men, Riley and you.

He reacts with disgust before he faces you eye-to-eye.

Irritated, he stomps his way into you and clenches his fist.

You noticed that he was preparing for a punch so you should be defending yourself.

…

You instantly close your eyes as you wait for it, but you don't feel any damage.

You let one of your eyes open and find Normand just standing there with his fist ready to hit you but frozen in place while he looks slightly lower.

You do the same and see Riley with her arms raised to shoulder-level, stopping him from giving you a hit.

“Get out of my way,” he seems scared by Riley but he insists, “I want to give this idiot some lesson.”

…

She shouts at him, “You knew this was not gonna work, yet your soldiers' lives died in vain.”

Normand’s disgusted face slowly turns into regret while stepping away.

“I warned you last night that what you’re doing is impossible and ultimately pointless, but you didn’t listen!”

The soldiers around them silently question it.

“Is it true?”

“Did we really lose our friends for nothing?”

“The captain kept making the wrong decisions.”

“QUIET!” Normand orders them.

…

“You told us to clean up our mess because it’s us who made this happen,” He tries to blame Riley.

But she refutes it, “Yes, I did blame you for this entire thing but I didn’t mean to do it especially since you don’t even have enough people. You could’ve gone back to the human kingdom and gotten reinforcements!”

Normand didn’t say anything or he couldn’t say anything at all.

However, tears start to build up in his eyes and slowly drip out of it.

Riley became worried, “Wait… no way… I thought…”

…

Tawa finally finds you and shouts the leader’s name.

Riley looks at you and grabs your arm, “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” You stop her from dragging you, “I need to know something.”

She didn’t want to be stuck around, “We have to go.”

You give in and follow her.

You turn your head to the back and see Normand and his team barely competent to fight again going to where the forest was.