The number of undead chasing us was about five or six. No matter how the sounds of footsteps and rustling leaves increased, they never decreased; reinforcements kept pouring in one after another.
Shit, if these were classical Romero zombies, it’d be easy, but aren’t they a bit too aggressive? Combined with their ability to sprint full-throttle and attack en masse, they’re a troublesome foe. I could dismember and neutralize them one by one, but who has the time for that?
“Ah, hey, Erich, can you slow down a bit…?”
“No way! They’re getting closer! We’re going to be surrounded!!”
Mika, who was half-dragging herself while guiding us, tried to keep her balance using her staff and called out, but there was no time to slow down or show any consideration. The positions of the increasing footsteps were perfectly calculated; they were cutting off our escape route leading out of the forest while gradually encircling us.
If it was just a chase, things would have been much simpler. Had Mika been able to transform the ground into mud and solidified it as we did with the bandits yesterday, that would have sufficed. But with enemies attacking from all sides while pursuing us, figuring out our own retreat becomes rather difficult.
Above all else… if they overwhelmed us with sheer numbers like in the movies—using their fallen comrades to fill trenches and trample over them—it’d be game over at that point.
Running to escape the approaching footsteps didn’t really mean much.
Because instinctively, we had fled deeper into the forest.
Without thinking, driven by their pursuit, we had run further in, though it led to nowhere. In fact, this way only brought us closer to something potentially worse, making it the worst of plans—a consequence of our lack of experience.
“Ugh, they’re here!?”
As I bit my lip at my own carelessness, my companion cried out in distress. Simultaneously, from between the trees we were trying to dodge, an undead emerged. With a broken leg crudely mended using a branch, it stood upright. Judging by its simple yet armed appearance, it might have been an adventurer or a mercenary in life.
But there wasn’t time to examine it closely. With two invisible hands, I grabbed a large rock and smashed it into the creature’s face as a form of counterattack. I used the same “hands” to drive a thick branch into its exposed abdomen after it fell backward, rendering it temporarily incapacitated. The branch pierced through its cracked armor, impaling its decayed flesh and pinning it to the ground. Thus incapacitated, it wouldn’t move for a while.
How long had we been running? Twice we had repelled corpses, I supported my companion when he almost fell, and I myself stumbled once. Additionally, when my friend dropped his staff, I had to fight off another undead while covering for him. Tripping over a tree root, I smashed my face down hard and was saved by a wall of defense conjured by my companion.
It felt like we had been fighting for a long time. In the middle of the forest, the passage of time was hard to discern, so it might have felt even longer.
The sure thing was that we were consuming our energy rapidly, while the footsteps drawing closer showed no sign of decreasing.
Wait a moment, that’s odd, isn’t it? This is the frontier; there shouldn’t be so many people for the undead to form such a large group. Where exactly are they appearing from…?
“More are coming!”
“Oh, come on!”
It was as if the dice threw an initial lucky roll and now bad luck wouldn’t stop for compensation. Damn, what is this—some kind of curse? At the very least, can you give us enough time to express our frustration and question the abnormality of the situation?
Mika conjured some mud in a hurried and rushed manner, creating a shallow pool to impede their rear advance. I swung my “hands” to cut through their ranks and kept swiping away the ever-approaching death as we ran.
Then, mid-escape, an idea struck me:
Are we being led somewhere?
It might have been a little too late to think of that. Because right then, we emerged from between the trees into a space faintly lit by the sun, only to be greeted by a mysterious dungeon that awaited us like a cavern opening its mouth.
It resembled something akin to avant-garde art. Wooden structures were haphazardly stacked like blocks, spreading out in chaotic order much like a child’s poorly drawn picture. A closer inspection might have revealed that many of them were simply copy-pasted, built up from a single prototype house.
This space just screamed trouble. Normally, one wouldn’t dare step into such an ominous doorway, let alone approach it closely. In fact, as calm and experienced adventurers, we might have immediately unleashed a fire attack at such ominous premises.
No structure that looks this ominous can be anything but trouble. On the flip side, if it were to burn like a regular building, the GM would lack foresight to have not included fireproof measures or strange wards—I’m sure of that.
Unfortunately, we had no options in our desperation.
“Let’s go!”
“Alright!”
The moment we broke out from the forest, countless animated corpses emerged, making them too numerous to count. How had these things been hiding here unnoticed this entire time?
With labored breaths, we darted into the entrance, slamming the door behind us with our bodies. Mika quickly pressed the tip of her staff against the door, muttering some incantations. Lo and behold, locks began to sprout on the door—one, two, three, and even a few bolts appeared. The door, shaken violently by the relentless knocking of the starved undead, was completely barred.
Leaning against the door, we both slumped to the floor in unison. Our shoulders heaving, we gulped down air rather than breathed it in as our hearts pounded violently.
“But…”
“Yeah…”
Troublesome. We both muttered, each displaying gestures indicating our predicament. I sighed deeply, while Mika pressed her palm against her forehead. The situation had only worsened at this juncture.
“Sorry, it was my mistake… If we had only fled towards the edge of the forest…”
“Ah, it’s not your fault, friend… In that situation, there wouldn’t have been much we could do. Besides, it’s likely they lured us here. There must have been several ambush positions on all the routes out of here.”
My apology was halted by a革 pouch I offered as if in denial. Without a word, the革 pouch was handed over, and the water we drank from it revitalized our bodies, dried out from the full-speed run.
After exchanging the革 pouch a couple of times, we managed to calm down a little.
Indeed, whoever had led us here set up numbers we couldn’t easily breach. Even if we could, we’d likely be surrounded and trapped by the next wave. Nevertheless, how did they gather such numbers and deploy them to drive us deep into the forest?
The mysteries were endless, but pondering was for later. Now, we needed to think about how to get out of this mess.
“Help…?”
“Ah, probably not gonna happen.”
We can’t expect any help to arrive. The reliable strong characters are far away, and the fairies, our last resort, will be unable to help us for several days. Even if Lord Faige noticed the abnormality, it would likely take him the agreed-upon 2 to 3 days.
Needless to say, there’s no one around here who’d willingly come looking. Even if there were, they’d be in a similar predicament as us. The chances of them being capable employers or crazy undead sorcerers that could rescue us are so astronomically low they might as well be mathematically rounded down to zero.
In short, it’s up to us to handle the situation.
“Could it be a story flag…?”
“Story flag?”
As I hung my head and muttered in despair, Mika seemed to react but I had no time to respond. Unwittingly calling the fight against the bandits a “middle battle” had caused this main quest and dungeon to spring up, and it was clear that a climax battle would inevitably follow. Whether it’s mere paranoia or not, I resolved to engrave this as a personal taboo and never mention it again in the future.
Ah, right, for the future… For the sake of the future, I can’t afford to give up here.
Standing up, I checked all over my body. I was exhausted but without injury. Mika must be the same.
I haven’t used up much of my magical energy either. Since I’ve only used the “hands” and not compelled them into complex actions, I’m near full strength. However, Mika used quite a bit with her hindering magic, so it’d be best not to push him too hard, talented though he is.
Taking out the lantern we had hung preemptively, I conjured a spark with magic to create light. There would be no way to proceed using only the faint light seeping through holes in the broken roof or the cracks in the walls.
“Alright… shall we move forward?”
“No problem. Leave the light to me.”
Handing the lantern to Mika, we plunged into the dungeon exploration. Now that we’re here, it’s all or nothing—we have to go through and cut our bloody path to the end. The level design or world layout is irrelevant; it’s not all over yet, and while I still have all my limbs, I can’t afford to give up.
Being mindful of our weight on the creaky corridor, we proceeded, encountering several doors, but a close inspection revealed they were all identical. After careful observation, the repeating patterns at the joints of the corridor became visible, making it akin to a sloppily made doujin game where distances were hard to judge.
“But…is this a mage’s palace?”
On opening the nth door—where the door alone opened to yet another wall—we marked it with a cross for reference. At that point, Mika spoke as if suddenly recalling something.
“Palace of Magic?”
“I too only remember reading about it in some document or the other”
With that preface, Mika narrated the existence of the so-called “Palace of Magic.”
Apparently, it’s a result of the accumulation of magic or magical elements at high-density sites like sacred or forbidden ground, leading to the creation of a maze-like structure in such places, almost like a distortion of the world itself. This phenomenon, referred to as “Palace of Magic formation,” gives rise to peculiar labyrinths called “Palaces of Magic.”
Essentially, it’s a place where something ominous has condensed, slightly out of phase with reality. Unlike natural dungeons or human-made mazes, these are the final forms of condensed malice and hatred—or perhaps something else entirely indescribable.
Now I understand; if such ominous structures exist here, it makes sense this forest would end up as a graveyard for the undead.
Still, what are the chances that I stumble into something like this after a casual adventure? This must be my perpetually bad luck—though there’s no luck attribute in my stats, it surely exists in low-altitude form as masked data. Truly, I’ve always ended up in bad situations whenever anything happens in my life.
Ordinarily, such grandiose affairs only happen to adventurers when they’ve grown considerably experienced.
Crushed by continued misfortune spanning across lifetimes, the stench as I opened the next door made me break out in a cold sweat. The exact unpleasant odor I had been forced to endure earlier… the smell of what a person is when they’ve reached the end.
“Erich…”
“Right… let’s go.”
We knew from the very start that enemies would be waiting on the other side of the antechamber. After swallowing the rock-hard saliva in our mouths, we stepped into the room.
Furniture lay scattered broken, with the rotten smell of meat mingling with the wooden stench in the room. There stood one animated corpse. The blood-stained travel clothes and greatcoat wrapped around it suggested it was an experienced traveler during life.
But the one thing missing from this otherwise full ensemble was this person’s head.
Hanging in its right hand was a foreign straight sword. Narrow at the base and broader towards the point, it’s called a Falchion, a type of single-edged one-handed sword. Similar to a scythe, it’s easy to handle and fits one’s hand well, serving both as a weapon and a tool for daily use.
However, in the hands of this corpse, it bore the unmistakable mark of a dangerous weapon.
“Mika, you’re pretty drained, right?”
Stepping in front of my friend protectively, I took on a practiced stance.
A room containing just one skeletal figure. Space with several meters to each side, ample room for a fight. And all the corpses we’d faced during the chase had been missing parts of their bodies.
For some reason or another, I had a feeling I was starting to understand the theme of this Palace of Magic.
It seems this place has gathered its share of cursed and ominous elements into something quite formidable.
“This is my domain for one-on-one combat.”
As soon as the declaration left my lips, a surprisingly sharp slash came flying my way. Despite the compact swing, it was a powerful strike with proper centrifugal force put into the blade, fully utilizing the characteristics of the Falchion-like weapon. Blocking the proficient attack, I stepped forward to deliver a counter strike, but the corpse retreated in sync with my advance.
It deftly softened the rebound impact with a wrist motion and re-established its guard without a single opening.
…Capable this corpse is.
Without stopping, I continued my forward momentum, converting it into a thrust. Pushing forward while thrusting my arm, I concentrated my weight and muscle into the tip for an extremely sharp stab that could pierce through half-hearted defenses.
However, this animated corpse avoided it gracefully and, as my extended sword went limp, it swiped it aside with its weapon.
A perfectly rational move. Given the challenging nature of blocking and the ineffectiveness of deflecting the weapon, the corpse chose to swat the extended weapon as it lost momentum—a maneuver only someone battle-hardened could pull off.
Having cleared the weapon out of the way, the corpse quickly stepped in for an aggressive strike aimed not at my head but my shoulder. The weighty top-heavy sword would undoubtedly break two or three bones if it landed cleanly, despite my armor and padding.
Still, I wasn’t foolish or inexperienced enough to take that hit.
At the same moment the sword was deflected, I gracefully moved my fingers to switch from an orthodox grip to a reverse grip. At the same time, releasing my left hand from the handle and sliding it down to grip the middle of the blade, I hadn’t been pushed back unintentionally but rather had calculated this perfect moment for a switch.
I caught the opposing blade at the crossguard, hearing a sharp clang ring through my head. While the Falchion’s edge had slightly dented the crossguard, the ricasso effectively stopped it.
Suppressing the trembling in my hands from the impact, I used the enemy’s attempted overbearing thrust as a fulcrum to push the weapon upward. Holding the sword firmly with both hands, I swung it, and the Falchion, which had bitten into the crossguard, slid along the hilt and escaped into the air, raising the blade into the opponent’s right flank.
Of course, thrusting only the blade would not suffice. Using the weight of my opponent, the keen edge of my “Sending Wolf,” and the inertia from pulling the sword upward, I delivered a powerful diagonal slash which severed the corpse’s right arm. The sword flew through the air while the mutilated body collapsed gracelessly.
A single cross of blades, a few precise moves, determined the outcome.
Ah, this is why swordplay is so wonderful. No matter how complicated, it remains perfectly “understandable.”
As I stood drenched in the overflowing blood, I drove my sword down into the left shoulder of the fallen corpse. The sharp blade tore through travel clothes and shattered the shoulder joint, severing the left arm after the right. Following through with the right and left legs, cutting into the more flexible joint areas, only a helplessly twitching lump of meat remained.
Regulating my slightly disordered breathing, I swiped the “Sending Wolf” to dispel the sticky blood. Despite the practical focus of the blade’s design, it wasn’t entirely immune to the clinging undead filth.
The blood pooling on the floor might just have been my own, still warm.
This undead was powerful. That fight, despite lasting only a few exchanges, consisted entirely of fatal strikes. Skillfully wielding the sword and tactically planning each move is not something commonly seen. By my sense, it’s probably at the level of “Proficient.” Most members of the local militia would likely struggle or fall under its blade in single combat.
With a sigh, I heard a creaking sound, and when I looked, the opposite diagonal door had opened on its own.
Ahaaaan, I see… Naturally, it was designed this way.
—
[Note: The art of resurrecting corpses varies by the precision of its spellwork or the strength of the possessing ghost, but some retain their full pre-death proficiency.]
