I wonder if this is what it would’ve been like if I had had a sister. Now’s not the time for such delusions, but I can’t help myself. The princess’s petite frame fits perfectly in my arms. She’s comforting to hug. Plus, in spite of having been a stinky zombie until not too long ago, she smells sweet like vanilla. Is this princess power?
Thus, the zombie horde begins to pass by us while I’m enjoying my hug with the princess. I was worried sick about what would happen when they got closer, but we can survive without incident if they keep going on their merry way like this. All thanks to Lex for quickly noticing them coming.
Giving him silent thanks, I glance at Lex. Just then, the tree he’s hiding behind creaks. It must have been rotten on the inside as well. The tree makes more cracking sounds and snaps in half.
It falls on the ground with a loud KA-BAM! The zombie horde swivels toward him as one and all cry out “BWAH!” as if it’s a call to battle. Or maybe a dinner bell in this case?
Lex turns toward me with a tense face. “I-I deeply apologize…!”
“STUPID LEX!”
It’s because of Lex that the zombie horde hadn’t noticed us up until now. I’m grateful for that—I am—but it doesn’t mean much if they find us in the end anyway!
The fallen tree has drawn the zombies’ attention to us already. They single-mindedly lurch our way like a bloodhound on the trail. They move at only a brisk walk, but the sheer number of them is what makes it plenty intimidating.
“Run away first, ladies!”
“What about you, Lex?!”
“I will follow right behind you after I slow them down!”
“Sl-Slow them down?! Did you forget you got reinfected doing that earlier?!”
“Please fret not. There are a plethora of ways to get by now that I know not to touch them.” Lex draws a real long sword from the sheath at his waist, and something sharp gleams in his eyes.
“H-Hey! D-Don’t tell me you’re going to cut them with that?!”
Right now, they’re deadly zombies, but there’s a chance they can return to human if I purify them. We shouldn’t kill them if we can avoid it. Lex should know that more than anyone. I sure hope his brains didn’t fry some more after being reinfected!
My fears are proved wrong when Lex runs toward not the zombies but the gigantic tree growing beside the road. He drops his knees and swings his sword sideways in a flash of steel. He slices right through the trunk close to the ground, separating the top half from the bottom. Groaning, the giant tree falls across the road.
“Wow…”
I don’t care how good you are with the sword—it shouldn’t be possible to slice through a tree trunk bigger than the human waist. At least, it’s not possible in the world I come from. This is surreal in every sense of the word.
“Lex is the best swordsman in all of Grantz,” the princess explains as I stand there dumbfounded.
“He’s that amazing of a person…?”
“He does lack in a few areas because he is so serious, which is the one blot on his character.”
“That blot on his character utterly offsets the good.”
I can’t stop from replaying in my mind the scene of Lex courageously taking on the zombie only to be stupidly reinfected. It’s going to be pretty difficult to erase this image without something making a bigger impression on me. While it didn’t do the trick, his splitting the massive tree in half was pretty awesome.
While the princess and I are chatting, Lex is going around knocking the trees down onto the road. Thanks to his efforts, the zombie horde’s forward progress has been drastically slowed, though they haven’t completely stopped in their tracks. Some of the horde are walking the long way around the downed trees, while others are sluggishly climbing over them, all the while steadily closing in on us.
“Right, this isn’t the time to be casually watching… Can you run, Princess?”
“Y-Yes!” The princess nods, her expression frantic.
I take her hand and break into a run in the opposite direction of the zombies.