I reprimanded myself for trying to be polite about my intentions. I was furious and would no longer let the folk who’d tormented Mottenheim and hurt my friends live. That was why they had to die; why I had to kill them. They’d come to kill us, after all; turnabout was fair play.
“Eins!”
I performed a heavy vertical slash as I landed, slicing the zombie at the back in two.
“Zwei!”
I rode my acceleration into a dash and sliced through the gap between the enemy’s abdomen and waist.
“Drei!”
The third zombie finally had the time to react, and made a poor attempt at a horizontal slash. I ducked underneath it and severed its legs.
Now that I was this close, Ursula’s blessing allowed me to see the whole scene, even in the dark. They had left two more in our way. In the middle of the group was the mage. A single glance told me they were different from the rest. The fact that they had a staff and cloak meant that it was unlikely they were a fake.
“HRAAAH!”
I made use of the minute gap I had to work with as the necromancer left more units to get in our way and threw the Craving Blade right at the mage. I was sick of this game of tag. I didn’t want to find out they had a horse waiting at the end of it. Unfortunately I was too far to plant the sword pointy end first with any certainty, but I could probably break a bone or two, and that would be good enough for...
“Enough!” came a shout.
“Whuh?!”
Suddenly a clang rang out as my sword, thrown with all my frustrations, was repelled.
That one spoke?!
One of the hooded figures among the zombies had moved with an astounding speed, completely unlike the others, to protect the mage! Was this one not a zombie, then? Wait, were there two mages? Or, no, was this a specially made super zombie?
“Coming throoough!”
Just as I was sorting out my thoughts, Dietrich had charged in from the side, leaving our allies who had gotten off their horses to smash through the enemy. She then turned to the two remaining enemies and barreled at them, as if they were mere twigs waiting to be crushed in her path.
“No you don’t!” the figure said.
“Whoa!”
There was a rumble—no, more like an explosion. The zombie that had batted away my sword to protect the mage a second ago had brought its arms up to the fore and somehow managed to stop Dietrich’s halberd!
“Yeow, that’s hard! What the hell?!”
Dietrich had approached at full tilt, bringing to bear a brutal mass of metal no ordinary mensch could lift, let alone swing, yet she wasn’t moving an inch! Do your job, physics! I thought. She had hit that enemy with all the force of a truck, dammit!
As I watched this impossible scene, I saw that the zombie she was locked in combat with had rooted itself in place with spiky appendages that burst from its shins! All the same, this was weird. Even with all the advantages it was bringing to bear, Dietrich’s power should’ve been enough to send the top half of its body flying away.
“Siegfried, we got an anomaly!” I said.
“You talkin’ about yourself?!” he called back.
“Oh, shut up!”
I decided to take on our bewilderingly hardy outlier so that Siegfried could head onward. Just as I slashed at it, the leg braces retracted, and it used its right arm to stop my sword strike. From the hit, I’d gathered I’d struck a hard target. I had put in about half of my forearm strength into this strike, which should’ve resulted in a nice, clean hit, but my sword was stuck in place.
Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me! My cutting edge was perfectly aligned, I put a ton of muscle into the attack, and this is the Craving Blade we’re talking about! How the hell is it not cutting flesh?! What are this thing’s bones made of?!
I tried to force the cut, but the enemy’s flesh seemed to clutch at my sword, so I pulled back, not willing to lose my grip. Even still, it didn’t feel like I’d actually cut the bastard. It was true I hadn’t put a full combo into the attack, but I liked my fixed rates! There was something wrong here!
“Whoa!”
I tried to buy myself some space when, suddenly, another arm tried to grab me from under the cloak. I hurried backward and narrowly avoided its clutch. This was no vierman—the arm was plainly unnatural, patched together from many sources, with entirely too many joints. It had been folded away under the cloak, ready to grab me. Not only that, the creature before me had a rather thin frame, but this extra arm was huge and powerful—I imagined much of it had been stolen from someone a fair sight bigger than any mensch. That hand could crush my head like an overripe fruit.
Finally, it had made its debut: a modified zombie.
I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with these creatures. For a time in my old life I’d been fascinated by a game world I shan’t name in mixed company whose singular aesthetic sensibilities had beckoned me not just to dally with such horrors, but to build my own from scratch. But here, now, necromancy was ethically taboo and a tremendously tasteless discipline in the eyes of the College. Had no one told this person that patching together body parts to make a monster was both vile to even contemplate and hideous to look at?!
“Dammit, this is gonna be tough...”
This zombie had been forged into something terrifying to behold and could tank my hits frighteningly well—it must have been a specially made bodyguard. I could leave the necromancer to Siegfried, but in order for him to complete the job, I needed to make sure this thing was kept occupied.
I kept my distance as a cold sweat broke out. I reaffirmed my relief that I’d never taken up necromancy. It was strong, yes, but my gods, was it far from heroic.
[Tips] Talented necromancers can stitch body parts together to create powerful zombies and use them as useful emergency tools. It is a lot of effort to create and maintain these zombies, but their power is the real deal.
“Wait, you bastard!” Siegfried roared as he struck with his spear.
The zombie that blocked his path went tumbling out of the way. With triple the thickness of a usual spear and a heavy core, Siegfried’s weapon struck with a destructive power that could crush a helmeted foe. He could shatter the spines of even zombies, known for their sturdiness, leaving them neutralized in an instant.
“One more!” Dietrich shouted.
“Eek!” the necromancer squeaked.
The zentaur had gotten used to dealing with these zombies. She had realized that all she needed to do was use her halberd like a tenderizer. She quickly mopped up the remaining zombie bodyguards, slowly stripping away the necromancer’s defenses.