Chapter 125
According to what Simon learned in his Summonology class, a necromancer’s black magic used to raise corpses as zombies is generally divided into two types.
Raise Zombie.
Summon Zombie.
Raise Zombie is a type of black magic that creates instant zombies capable of fighting for only a few hours on a hectic battlefield.
In contrast, Summon Zombie is meant to create semi-permanent zombies with the intent of using them as summons, taking time in the process.
And naturally, this time, the subject of Aron’s evaluation was ‘Summon Zombie’.
Simon intended to handle everything alone, but before he knew it, the other group members had taken their places and were assisting him.
“Simon, the ‘Frenzy’ formula in the magic circle is causing a rejection reaction with the corpse. We’ll have to replace it entirely.”
“Ah, okay.”
“The summoning magic is activating, and it’s causing an abnormal reaction in the actomyosin inside the body!”
“That’s probably because decomposition doesn’t occur in Deathland. We should be fine to proceed as is.”
Though Simon felt a bit moved, he pressed forward with constructing the magic circle.
‘Focus. I need to make full use of the unique characteristics of Deathland. Eliminate all formulas related to preservation and decay.’
Taking the environment into account, Simon simplified the complex formulas as much as possible and then activated the magic circle.
Clunk, clunk.
The dead guard in armor started shaking violently, like it was having a seizure.
“Everyone, step back!”
Dick spoke.
“Right after a summoning spell activates, aggression toward the living can be at its peak!”
The four of them all backed away to a safe distance.
Finally, the corpse slowly rose. Thankfully, it didn’t show any aggressive behavior and simply stood there blankly with its mouth open.
“I-Is that a success?”
“Looks like it.”
The four simultaneously let out a sigh of relief.
Simon, the summoner, then connected to the zombie’s residual consciousness. There were no rejection reactions or side effects.
“I’m going to try making it attack.”
Through thought, Simon commanded the zombie to attack a nearby tree.
The zombie guard dragged its armored body, ran up to the tree, and bit into it. It aggressively scratched at the trunk with its claws, pressing forward.
“Hmmm.”
Maelyn bent down, closely observing the zombie’s movements.
“The aggression’s perfectly replicated, and there’s corpse venom coming off its teeth and claws. A shame it’s limping a bit from a leg injury it had in life, but overall, this is solid.”
Maelyn straightened up and finally nodded.
“Yeah, with this zombie’s quality, we’re guaranteed a spot in the upper-middle ranks.”
“Everyone, great job!”
The hard part was finally over.
With the weight lifted, they all started chatting with ease. The zombie would be stored in Simon’s subspace for now.
“Ugh—ah!”
Maelyn stretched with a shiver.
“So now, we just head back the way we came, take the sewer route to camp, and get our evaluation from the professor, right?”
Dick blinked.
“Huh, unexpected.”
“What now?”
“I thought you’d want to dig up all the graves here to find an even better zombie.”
“No, thanks.”
Maelyn shook her head firmly.
“I really don’t want to go that far here. That talk about Talhern earlier left me with a weird feeling. Let’s just go back to camp.”
“Sounds good!”
The other three nodded in agreement.
“But…….”
Simon, who had been scanning the area, spoke with a grim face.
“Getting back won’t be easy.”
“Hmm? Why not?”
Fweeee.
A cool breeze blew. The bushes began to rustle.
“What’s that over there?”
Simon simply nodded in silence.
Moments later, corpses with their backs twisted grotesquely began to rise from the bushes.
“Z-Zombies!”
“There were more?!”
Clang!
Crash!
This time, the mansion’s windows shattered.
Turning their heads, they saw zombies pouring out of the windows. Bodies falling from the fourth and fifth floors quickly got back up on the ground.
“Holy crap! What the hell?!”
“Run!”
Without needing to be told, they all bolted in the opposite direction of the oncoming zombies.
Because they had wandered to the rear of the mansion while searching for zombies, they now had to run quite a distance to reach the sewer again.
‘It’s already gotten this bad……’
Simon muttered as he glanced toward the garden. The once-beautiful garden was now swarming with zombies coming from all directions.
What was going on?
The zombies had been in the mansion too. If they were going to attack, they should’ve done so from the start. Instead, it felt like they had intentionally lured them in deep while waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
Of course, zombies shouldn’t possess that kind of intelligence or tactical sense. But the suspicion in his mind was rapidly growing like a snowball.
“This way!”
There were too many undead in the garden. Simon’s group decided to circle behind a storage building adjacent to the mansion.
But zombies were guarding this path as well.
“This really never ends!”
“Let’s go!”
At this point, the only option was to forcefully break through the encirclement.
While Dick and Maelyn were charging ahead and frantically taking down zombies, Simon quietly stopped in his tracks. Standing behind the storage building, he reached out and pulled an invisible lever.
‘Someone will get hurt like this. I need to borrow some strength here. Feer.’
Whooom!
From this angle, hidden behind the storage building, his teammates wouldn’t be able to see the subspace.
The subspace opened, and Feer along with the legionized skeletons poured out.
[Khehehe! I’m always down for a good rampage!]
Feer spoke, resting his greatsword on his shoulder.
[But if you fight like this, your friends will find out you’re the Legion Commander, you know?]
‘They won’t find out.’
Simon grinned.
This is Deathland, the paradise of undead. It’s not strange for skeletons to fight zombies here.
[Aha!]
‘Feer, act as a separate unit. Pretend like we don’t know each other.’
[Kuhahaha! Understood!]
In short, he was telling Feer to pretend they were native monsters of the Deathland.
Feer moved off with the legionized skeletons, while Simon quickly rejoined his group as if nothing had happened.
“Whoa, this is seriously dangerous.”
Dick muttered.
They had cleared the zombies blocking their way, but nearly a hundred zombies were now obstructing the path to the sewer. On top of that, the number of zombies kept increasing in real time, tightening the encirclement.
Maelyn bit her lip and looked at her Tongue Pad. She seemed torn about whether to send a distress signal.
But her hesitation was instantly blown away.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!
A massive slash split through the densely packed zombie formation.
[KUHAHAHAHA!]
A tall skeleton with a gleaming white greatsword charged into the zombie horde. With a single swing, dozens of zombies were slaughtered. The legionized skeletons followed behind Feer, beginning their purge of the zombies.
“……Huh?”
“A fight between skeletons and zombies? Is this a turf war?”
Simon feigned ignorance and spoke.
“Whatever it is, now’s our chance! Run!”
Simon’s group dashed toward the sewer, and Feer and the skeleton unit carried out their separate mission perfectly.
From the outside, it just looked like they were randomly attacking, but Feer was carefully drawing the zombies’ attention while tailing Simon’s group. Occasionally, he would launch a slash to destroy any zombies moving toward Simon’s direction.
“Whoa! Whoa! That’s f***ing awesome!”
Even while running for his life, Dick’s eyes were locked on Feer.
“That sword, that cape—whoa! That’s every necromancer’s dream! Isn’t this insane, Simon? If I had an undead like that, I could die happy!”
Simon forced a smile.
“Y-Yeah, I guess.”
“But isn’t it a bit weird?”
Maelyn said.
“Are those really skeletons that live in Deathland? Why does it feel like they’re helping us?”
“What are you talking about, it’s probably just a coincidence.”
Dick replied, but Simon had a guilty look on his face.
‘Ugh, I guess it really does seem a bit contrived.’
Since Simon’s group and the legion were moving in a similar direction, it was understandable for them to think that. Simon poked Feer’s avatar with his finger.
‘Feer, you can see my location, right?’
[Yeah, I see it.]
‘Fire off a slash precisely aimed at our position. I’ll find a way to react to it somehow.’
[Kuhahaha! You crazy bastard!]
Still, Feer seemed willing to follow orders right away, and a flash of light erupted from his side.
[It’ll land ten steps in front of your current location.]
Simon reacted immediately. A massive slash was heading his way.
“Maelyn!”
Simon tackled Maelyn, who was running ahead, and threw their bodies to the ground. In the next instant, the slash swept through the spot where the two had just been.
Dick and Kamibarez fell flat on their backs in shock.
Rrrrrrrumble!
A huge scar was left on the ground, accompanied by thick smoke.
“Holy shit…”
Dick let out a hollow laugh as he looked at the aftermath of the slash.
“You said that monster was on our side earlier, right?”
Simon sprang to his feet.
“Maelyn! Are you okay?”
“……”
Still dazed and flushed, she snapped out of it and responded.
“Ah! Yeah, thank you.”
“Here comes another one!”
Feer was unleashing indiscriminate slashes in all directions.
The ground shook like mad. Buildings collapsed and debris rained down. Dodging falling rubble, the four of them sprinted like crazy.
[How was the performance?]
‘Nice!’
While running, Simon gave a thumbs-up in Feer’s direction. The avatar chuckled gleefully.
“Over there! I see the sewer!”
While Feer and the skeletons held back the zombie horde, Simon’s group safely reached the sewer cover.
Once again, Maelyn obscured the view with a Dark Flare spell, and Dick scattered noisy music boxes around the area.
Simon opened the cover, and the three quickly climbed down the ladder. Simon followed last and closed the cover discreetly. Dick secured it tightly with an enchantment.
“Phewwww.”
“We’re alive.”
All of them let out a deep sigh, like they’d been holding it in.
“Let’s hurry back to camp. This place really isn’t normal.”
“Amen to that, a hundred times over.”
The four descended the ladder and started walking through the sewer. The zombies from above hadn’t followed them down, and the tension gradually loosened. They even began chatting casually.
“That skeleton earlier, man, wasn’t that thing badass? Whoa! That’s probably the ruler of Deathland, right?”
“Shut up already, dumbass.”
Maelyn scolded him.
Since it came up, Simon tapped Feer’s avatar with his fingertip.
‘Feer, how’s it going?’
[There’s just a filthy lot of them, but no real problem. I’ll keep fighting for a bit, then fall back and join up with you.]
‘Okay. Please do.’
One way or another, it seemed they had completed this mission safely. The only regret was that they hadn’t found any clues about Prince.
Simon wanted to explore the Deathland a bit more.
But he couldn’t think of a good reason to leave the group behind and go searching alone. If he said he’d go alone, they’d all insist on following because it was too dangerous.
‘……!’
Simon suddenly stopped walking. A chill ran down his spine out of nowhere.
Carried by the wind was the stench of rotting flesh.
Kamibarez, walking beside him, looked at Simon with a puzzled expression.
“What’s wrong, Simon?”
“Everyone, stop.”
Dick, who had been leading, raised his arm and spoke.
“Someone’s coming from the opposite direction.”
Shuff, shuff.
Footsteps echoed through the sewer. Since it was enclosed top and bottom, the sound was particularly loud.
Maelyn whispered softly.
“Who is it? A zombie?”
“The footsteps sound too normal for that.”
“Maybe Keyzen students entered the sewer too?”
Simon shook his head.
“If that were the case, we’d hear at least two sets of footsteps. No Keyzen student would come alone into a place this dangerous.”
Step—step—
Draaag—
Everyone held their breath and waited.
[Hmm.]
And out of the darkness emerged a boy with an eerie appearance.
He looked to be about 12 years old, with striking grayish skin. He wore the luxurious formal attire that noble sons would wear and had a crown on his head.
The boy was dragging something behind him along the ground.
It was the corpse of a horse, reeking with a vile stench. There was a huge hole in its side, as if it had been ripped open by a wild beast.
‘W-Who is that?’
It was obvious, even without saying, that this wasn’t a normal person.
As the group tensed up, the boy threw the horse’s corpse at their feet. The grotesque sight made them flinch and recoil.
[My name is Prince.]
The boy spoke.
[I am the ruler of the Deathland.]
Superb.