◆ Chapter 9: Where There’s a Fantasy World There’s…
THE wagon has been bouncing around for a while now—it’s really throwing off my sense of balance. I can’t stand the gloomy mood a second longer, so I try to break the ice.
“There’s not much flat land in these parts, is there? Must be hard to transport goods.”
“That’s why peddlers such as myself are invaluable. We should be arriving soon,” Kodbyen says as he turns and lifts a corner of the canopy.
I’ve only seen territories belonging to Grantz since coming to this world. I wonder what Torstana looks like. I lean forward to peek outside when a zombie shoves its head through the opening!
“BWAH!”
“Eeek!”
“AGGH!”
Screaming, I roll back so hard I slam against the other side of the wagon. Kodbyen releases the canopy and falls on his butt. He scoots back as fast as he can from the snapping teeth.
“Wh-When did that get there?! H-Hey! Do something about this thing!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice!”
The bodyguard was already moving before Kodbyen gave the order. He easily peels the zombie off the wagon by shoving his club in its face. I can hear the zombie hitting the ground and bouncing behind us as the wagon continues without stopping.
“Be careful. I still haven’t gotten all the coin you promised me yet,” the bodyguard says flatly to Kodbyen as he sits back in his corner.
Meanwhile, Kodbyen still seems to be in shock as he’s taking sharp, short breaths.
“You just glimpsed one of the many dangers out here. Why not stop while you still can?” I coax.
“I-I’m doing this for my family. I won’t stop over a single zombie scare!”
I thought it might work this time, but he still won’t change his mind. He probably needs a bigger scare.
✦ ✦ ✦
A while later, the coachman calls out “We’re here” and stops the wagon. After our zombie hitchhiker incident, Kodbyen and I are extra cautious when we exit the wagon.
“Holy smokes…” My cheeks twitch as soon as I’m outside. Not because I’m overwhelmed by Cladorca, a city built into a giant mountain with thick walls surrounding it. No, it’s because of the countless bluish-purple and black dots roaming the massive plain in front of the trade city.
I seriously wish my eyes were playing tricks on me, but all those dots are zombies. There are more than double what I took on at Grantz’s royal capital. At a glance, I can tell there are more than a thousand. We’re probably looking at two or three thousand. Considering there’s going to be even more inside the city walls, this plan just got that much dumber.
“Er, Kodbyen? I can only purify a maximum of five hundred people a day…and with these numbers, we won’t have the leeway to care for anyone we purify. Also, food and water are going to become a problem fast.”
“I see your point, but I’ve come this far. I will save my family at least.” Kodbyen is blinded by his goal. Trying to save just his family rather than the entire city is a better objective, but still unrealistic.
The guard who finished tying the horse and wagon to a nearby tree voices the same concerns. “Yeah, but do you see how many people there are? Is it even possible to find your family?”
“No worries, we will look with you,” Kodbyen offers.
“Does that ‘we’ include me?” I ask dryly.
“Obviously.”
Of course it does. I figured as much, but it only adds to my misery to hear it. I probably can’t escape with the guards watching me, so my only choice is to do whatever it takes to increase my odds of survival.
“All right, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right,” I say and launch into a crash course on zombies. “As I said on the way here, be careful not to come into direct contact with the zombies, or you will be instantly infected. The infection will also spread through anything touching your body such as gloves or clothes. I recommend using a shield and weapons with a long reach. They react to sound as well, so please, don’t make any loud noises.”
“Yeah, yeah. We know,” the two bodyguards gruffly reply, a shield in their left hand and a club in their right. They don’t hesitate to walk toward the zombie-infested plains.
I hear one scoffing, “Normos couldn’t catch me with my pants down.” The other snorts.
They’re completely underestimating the situation. There’s no question that the bodyguards are quite strong because they easily knocked out the castle soldiers, but their opponent this time is a plain crawling with zombies. Not only do zombies smell worse than rotten eggs in the sun, but they are a supernatural creature beyond human understanding that’s capable of causing instant decay in anyone they touch. You shouldn’t let down your guard even with the normal ones.
Or at least that’s what I thought…
“Wow!”
The search for Kodbyen’s family has officially begun. His bodyguards keep the zombies in check like it’s a walk in the park for them. They carve a path through the horde by shoving aside zombies with their shield and knocking them back with their club. Maybe I overestimated the danger. The guards also took my tip about noise to heart and are advancing while making the bare minimum amount of sound.
“No offense, but we ain’t as weak as some wee girly,” one of the burly guards says, mocking me.
My strength is indeed paltry compared to trained bodyguards in a war-torn world. But I’ve survived for three months in a world that only had zombies when I first arrived—their disrespect irks me.
But, contrary to my growing displeasure, our trek through the plain is proceeding smoothly. The city gates are still far away, but I can make out their shape now.
“Our path inside the city is practically secure now,” Kodbyen says, relief creeping into his quiet voice.
ROOOAAAARRRR!
He spoke too soon. A deep, rumbling noise shakes the ground, causing my ears to ring and my stomach to twist in knots. The lingering, changing notes sound as if they came from some sort of giant beast. I shudder. Unable to ignore it, the bodyguards rake their eyes over the plains in search of the source.
“What made that sound…?”
“L-Look! The zombies are actin’ funny!”
Every zombie is staring at us. Even the zombies on the other side of the plain react to the sound and stagger toward us.
“What’s gotten into them?! They weren’t paying attention to us before!”
The bodyguards might’ve underestimated the zombies, but they kept their numbers in check by reducing noise to a minimum. So how did we attract every zombie here?
“What’s goin’ on?! This wasn’t part of our deal!” one of the bodyguards yells.
“I d-didn’t know this would happen…!” Kodbyen argues.
“Dammit! There’s too many! U-URGGHH!”
One of the zombies lunged onto the bodyguard’s back. He quickly dislodges it, but it’s too late. His body instantly turns bluish-purple and exudes the heinous odor of a zombie.
“Killing is our only option!” The last remaining bodyguard draws his sword.
He plans to get out of this by killing zombies. They might be rotting fleshbags right now, but they will return to being human if I purify them. In other words, killing zombies is the same as murdering sick people. I can’t let him do that. I’m about to stop him when the zombies take care of it for me.
“AGH! Let go! URK! My arm! My aaaarrrrrrmmm!”
It takes just one second for zombification to spread through the body. Sadly, another bodyguard has joined the undead. We only progressed through the horde because the bodyguards were keeping the immediate zombies at bay. Without them, there’s no searching for Kodbyen’s family, much less getting out of here alive.