Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Second Encounter with Zombies

It is nighttime on the outskirts of Rafen and I am walking along with Sekrit, Ivanna, Clementine, Sylvia, Mirai and Kurotsuchi. 

"It’s pretty dark here…… hoi."

A small flame suddenly lights up on the tip of Sekrit. It a flame ignited on a lighter.

Ivanna is the only one to switch on her torchlight as to avoid being too bright that attracts zombies.

"It’s nice to take a walk at night! The moon’s pretty and more than anything, it’s quiet!!" 

Clementine is walking cheerfully with long strides.

She’s been getting hit with countless tree branches for a while now, but she’s been snapping them all and walking as if they weren’t there.

And I think the one who’s ruining the stillness in the night is you and your noise.

Walking behind the lumbering Sekrit, almost as if hiding from something, is Sylvia.

She’s looking around fearfully with a fire from a lighter in her hand.

There is a sound of grass rustling caused by the wind or a small animal.

"T-there’s nothing here."

Sekrit enlarges the flame at her fingertips and confirms.

"Wahahahaha! The breeze is cool and refreshing!"

Clementine doesn’t realize.

"Hiih!"

Sylvia lets out a little scream and hides behind Sekrit’s tall back.

"Geez, why are you so afraid? You’re not even on the battlefield, so it’s not like an arrow will suddenly come flying at you." Clementine scolds Sylvia.

"Don't you remember last time. We were surrounded helplessly by those things!" Sylvia answers.

That’s exactly right, we have to be careful of zombies.

There’s a reason why I’m wandering the cemetery at night with these girls though.

"I know it’s the abandoned village and all, but it’s really quiet."

Sekrit gazes at the night sky brightened by the moon and smiles slightly.

"Mm, there is a kind of mood here too."

"It’s quiet and cool!" 

Clementine's voice is too loud.

Meanwhile, Kurotsuchi and Mirai have been quiet since the beginning, perhaps worrying about their fellow comrades from Sooka.

"Over there…… something just moved."

Ivanna swiftly points in the direction where she believes she sees movement.

The flame on the tip of her lighter grows bigger and lights up the surroundings.

However, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the area she points in.

"…strange. My mistake."

"It must be your imagination, we can easily spot zombies since they don’t have a brain which tells them to hide." I elucidates.

If what moved just now was a zombie, it would beeline straight towards us because of its craving for flesh.

"Hm……maybe you’re right."

We resume walking once again, with Sekrit and Clementine in the lead position, me and Sylvia behind her, and Mirai, Kurotsuchi behind us. Ivanna is our rearguard.

The tension from the mysterious sighting earlier on starts to fade as I pat Sylvia’s head and Clementine hums a tune while we trot along.

And then, the light from the torchlight held by Ivanna captures a human-like object on the ground.

We all stop in place briefly to confirm what we saw, and it isn’t a mistake this time.

Two zombies are crawling towards us as their legs had been cut.

Clementine and Sekrit walks slowly to their side and stab their necks.

We come close to check. There are two killed zombies, one female and one male. The male body is so thin that he’s easily mistaken for a corpse and his eyes are sunk in so he shouldn’t be able to see anything.

The female has been reduced to nothing but skin and bones and not even her eyeballs are left. Their similarly is both their legs are gone. There are clean cut below their knees.

"Probably the ninjas." As I say that, Kurotsuchi becomes more depressed.

Sylvia points to the root of a tree nearby. There are over a dozen of corpses there with fresh cut on their necks.

The girls grip their weapons tight and focus their attention to the entire perimeter.

Silence envelopes our surroundings, almost making us believe the moment is some sort of mistake.

And then an unpleasant crawling sound can be heard as something makes its way through the snow.

"On the right! No, the left…… no, they’re everywhere!"

Ivanna shouts.

The ground under the snow in the area bulge up and a bunch of rotten arms push out from underneath the dirt.

"Tch."

"Awawawawawa!"

I unconsciously click my tongue.

All of a sudden, zombies appear around us.

How could so many of them appear like this, but we can only deal with the threat in front of us right now.

"Aaaah…"

"Uuaah……"

The horde of zombies make nonsensical groans as they drag their feet towards us.

The stench of rotten flesh hangs over the air.

"Eei, how irritating!"

Ivanna swings her rapier horizontally and mow down two zombies, bisecting them at the waist.

Their guts spray out and spray onto her rapier as well, causing me to click my tongue again.

I worry about getting my weapon dirty just to cut down one or two, and I would rather kick them all down, but we don’t have the luxury of doing so because of the mass number.

"Run to the right!"

Sekrit shouts while sprinting straight to the right, cutting down the group of zombies blocking the path.

Clementine sends their heads flying, whacking at the entire bunch of densely packed zombies altogether.

In the end, they’re nothing but corpse monsters and it’s easier to tear their bodies apart than regular humans.

"Hiro!!" Ivanna yells.

When I focus on breaking through, one zombie encroaches from the side to try and bite me. I respond by ramming my elbow at it and then kicking it away.

The airborne zombie jumps into a tree and struggles after getting pierced by one of the branches, although it hangs limp after I cut off its head.

"Mirai, defeat all the enemies that get close to Hiro-sama! Aim for the neck, if not possible then slice their legs before running away!" Kurotsuchi instructs as the small Mirai get really close to my body and moves in tandem with my movement as if we are a couple of tango dancers.

"Uooooh!"

Clementine spins her dirks wildly above her head.

The clueless zombies don’t bother to be careful while approaching her and gets flung away as soon as they touch the spinning girl.

Getting hit at that speed, it wouldn’t matter if it is the shaft or tip that hit them.

"This guy! Take that!"

Sylvia uses her shield to knock down the zombie trying to get into the gap left open while Sekrit and Clementine are rampaging.

When the zombie falls over, she would swing her rapier down over and over again.

"Sylvia. it’s pointless to cut at its body, stay calm and aim carefully at their necks or heads! Mirai, set flame to the areas where they’re bunched together!"

Ivanna shouts her instruction.

Mirai throws away several small plastic bags containing oil that broken apart upon hitting zombies. She then burns several paper before throwing them at the zombies.

Those burning papers drop in the middle of the various crowds of zombies before exploding.

The zombies don’t scream but there was a remarkably loud groaning sound accompanying the burning of the zombies.

"Kuh…… there’s so many!" Kurotsuchi complains.

The pillar of flames illuminate the area to reveal even more zombies.

Exactly how many are there, it’s unbelievable that such a large number of zombies would appear all at once.

"Hiro-sama! There’s too many of them as expected, and things will get worse if we continue to run!" Kurotsuchi yells.

"I am running out of oils." Mirai yells.

"Hieeeeeh, don’t come over here!" Sylvia blocks and kills and several zombies coming at her.

If we are going to run, we would need to run all the way to the edge of the village. But since we’re currently between the plain and village, it would be quite a far distance, so we would need to breakthrough the mass of zombies. Plus, there would be more zombies in the village.

I ponder some more while slicing the legs of the approaching zombies and trampling over their heads.

Several fire soar from the horde of zombies and instantly turn them into lumps of charcoal.

"How about over there!?"

The vigilant Ivanna points to our left which lack zombies.

We run towards there but the zombies from everywhere is starting to encircle us. 

"Blizzard."

A sweet voice d heard from above. Dozens of ice spike from the ground and stab the zombies from their feets and crotches. The ice spikes also block zombies from approaching us. 

The elven girl, Selene is floating above us. 

When she lands, she run further to the left an we follow her.

She runs towards the edge of a village, no, towards a very unique house.

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It two storey house made of brick, unlike other houses that are made of woods.

"It’s made of stone, the door is steel…… if we shut the door, it might work." Selene shouts.

That's right. The zombies are merely corpses, so there’s no way they could split open the sturdy steel door and brick walls no matter how many of them piled up against it.

If we hole up in there until the next morning, the zombies won’t be able to harm us.

"Beware of zombies at the front!" Selene yells and float to the air as to avoid several zombies stand between us and the house.

"They pursued us from behind and ambushed us at the only available shelter…… " I shout while striking the head of a zombie nearest to me.

What a luck.

"It’ll be bad if they pincer us! What should.."

Before Sylvia could finish her sentence, Clementine rushes towards the blocking zombies.

There is no time or meaning in holding a question-and-answer period here.

"We’ll crush one side, of course!"

The zombies at our front swarm over but as Clementine charges at them, but their accuracy is not precise and their movements are sluggish.

Clementine doesn't even need to deal with the three zombies that missed their mark and only twist her body to avoid the two hands which comes somewhat close to hitting her.

It seems that even after turning into undead, part of their former human selves still remain in them and cause them to panic when the opponent runs out so suddenly.

When the second fastest, Sekrit enters close-combat range, the zombies step forward to meet her.

If she takes the time to squish each one individually, the zombies would close in behind her.

She have to finish them all in one blow. Sekrit spins her body in 360 degree and slash the necks of attacking zombies.

As the are many of them, not all zombies are slashed on their necks.

Even so, they fall to kneir knees because their wrists are shattered and they fall to the ground because their legs are slashed.

Now that they’re rendered helpless, they’re no different from a useless lump of corpses.

"Only four left who are still in one piece…… Sylvia! Finish off the ones who have collapsed!"

Sylvia crashes a zombie's head with her shield and rapier on her right hand pierces a zombie's neck. However, that locks both of her hands on dead zombies. Another two zombies crawl towards her.

Ivanna and Kurotsuchi  are holding off the zombies at the back and in the most dangerous situation. 

The crawling zombies suddenly stop at their track as Mirai casts her shadow binding spells. She then run and kill another zombie.

As the two zombies stop, Sylvia has enough time to pull her weapons and kill the immobile zombies.

Sekrit retreats to our behind to back up the two girls who struggle as our rearguard. Sekrit jumps before getting a response from them and then swing her swords across her body using a spinning motion.

Ivanna and Kurotsuchi retreats and run forward. The zombies use their numerous bodies to block Sekrit's spinning slashes. 

But it’s a little sad. The worn out, fragile bodies and the thin arms don’t put up any meaningful resistance, shattering into pieces after taking her attack.

She violently sweeps at the next group’s legs.

She might have used too much strength as the zombies' legs shattered into pieces, and it crashed to the ground head-first after one rotation in midair.

A zombie escapes her attacks and leaps over her but she thrusts at the ribs of the zombie, and kicking away the zombie towards another advancing zombies.

Another zombie that escape her initial spinning slashes tries to bite her but she nimbly jumps to its side an pierces its rib. The edge of her blade couldn’t be contained by the gaps in its ribs and crushes the bones to pieces as the tip penetrated the rib cage, but that isn’t enough to completely finish the zombie. As its arms are being raised to catch her, Sekrit lifts her sword to pick up its lightweight body and then she flings the thin frame at the other closing in zombie. She forcefully pulls her blade out from its shattered rib cage and sends it flying. 

It is quite the accurate shot if I do say so myself, as the mass of flesh strikes the other zombie and both monsters explode into flesh after colliding into advancing horde of zombies.

"Blizzard!" 

50 meters long wall of ice spikes rises from the ground, blocking the advancing zombies.

As Selene lands beside Sekrit, she grabs Sekrit's shoulder and says,

"I am running out of magic power. Let's escape!" 

The two girls run towards us while the horde of zombies try to past through the wall of ice spikes.

Clementine cut two zombies. With that, the enemies in front are taken care of.

Now that I look, Mirai and Sylvia has finished off three of them and are fighting with the last one after it lost an arm.

"Eei! Take that! Oraah!"

"……What are you doing against a one-armed opponent?"

Kurotsuchi kicks the zombie from behind.

Its body is destroyed in a single blow as it flies to the wall and then its skull is crushed underfoot.

Sekrit is slowly but steadily mowing down the zombies from our left and right while retreating and Selena is sending wind slashes at the places where they bunch up. Luckily, the ones from the left an right are not horde.

Even so, the dead are still escaping from the space between ice spikes, which force them to retreat.

There isn’t much distance left between them and the brick house.

"The front has cleared up! Let’s run straight to the house!"

Luckily, the door could be opened. 

We enter the house.

"Selene and Sekrit, hurry and get in!"

I stand at the entrance of the house and shout.

Sekrit and Selene are already starting to get surrounded.

"Yeah!"

Sekrit swiftly uses one arm to pick the much smaller Selene up by waist, turns 180 degrees, and then sprints to where I am.

Right before rushing in the entrance, Selene, who is hanging in Sekrit’s arms, conjures a creeping carpet of wind, unlike her usual wind slashes.

The area close to the entrance of the house turns into a small typhoon and the zombies that try to chase after the two girls gets engulfed in  violently rotating wind.

After the two girls enter, we push the door from the inside and there is a heavy stone-grinding sound as it closes shut.

I push two sturdy planks from the side of the door to block the door from inside.

After a while, the sound of tornado disappears and we hear the sound of zombies walking towards the house.

The zombies are heard walking around the house, searching for us. Several zombies are pounding on the wall and door. As most of them don't hit the wall, we assume they don't know that we are inside the house.

We push furniture behind windows and also stack up a pile of rusted objects to seal any gaps.

That will reassure us for now.

"Is everyone okay?"

"No one gets bitten. So, it should be fine."

"This is so frustrating against mere zombies…"

Sekrit has a somewhat annoyed look on her face when she mutters that, but she’s breathing pretty hard after fighting her way through. Selene is leaning on a wall, so she probably doesn’t have much magic energy left.

Sylvia also seems to be fairly agitated after killing a dozen of zombies.

The two storey house is about 20 square meters.

There is a brick stair in the middle that leads upstairs. 

"It seems you know about this house quite well." Ivanna asks Selene.

"I frequently sleep here when I was small." Selene's face turns gloomy as she says that.

We wander around the ground floor and there are two rooms with beds.

I’m bored now…… and I would like to embrace a woman right now but I’m sure the girls wouldn’t get wet with mess in here and the zombies waiting outside.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Suddenly, we hear foot steps on the upper floor, walking towards the staircase. 

We stand up and surround the stair case with our weapons ready.

"Is it zombie?"

"There are about four of them." 

"I hope it is not the zombie boss." I remind them about the powerful peculiar ghoul we fought before.

Suddenly, several silhouettes jump from above.

"Oh, no. The zombie boss. They are strong and quick!"

Sekrit, Ivanna, and Clementine blocks their attack and the sound of metal clashes are heard.

"Human."

There are three men, in ninja uniform.

"Dan... Danzo .... Genma...."

Before we could say anything, Kurotsuchi walks to the three men.

"Ojou-sama. Thank god, you are safe." The man who looks like the leader bows to her, followed by the other two men.

"Dan. Are there others?" She asks worriedly.

As he stands straight, the leader that is called Dan answers.

"Twenty of us comes here but only four of us remain alive."

Kurotsuchi becomes gloomy for a while before looking restless to them.

"Four.. where is the another one?"

Steps coming from stairs, descends from the upper floor.

A beauty walks down. Her snow white skin is typical of Sooka woman but her breasts are bigger than Kurotsuchi and Mirai, obviously due her older age. She should be around Ivanna's age. She has long black hair that reaches below her back. Her braid is tied at the end of her hair, causing the width of her hair fully cover her nape. A single large bang covers her nose and middle of her forehead.

Her pupils are transparent but big. 

"Could it be... Hanabi-ne."  Kurotsuchi seems very pleasantly surprised.

Mirai suddenly jumps and hugs the woman called Hanabi.

"I am glad you are safe, ojou-sama. You too, Mirai."

Finally, our first mission is successful.

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