The Sequel to the Romance Fantasy Was a Zombie Apocalypse – Chapter 10

“…”

I was just blankly watching the area being engulfed in black flames.

Whoosh, whoosh!

The Flame of Herta burned everything, from zombies to the mansion’s walls to the lush green lawns of the garden.

Zombies engulfed in the black flame couldn’t even scream in their death throes, turning into mere ashes.

It blazed. Burning red and black.

“This is the true Flame of Herta…”

I couldn’t help but admire it.

“Hmph.”

Esmela seemed a bit smug when she heard that.

As I was lost in thought, my earlier worries resurfaced suddenly.

“Young lady, but what about the aftermath…?”

That’s right. There was a reason Esmela hadn’t used the Flame of Herta earlier in the town, and that was because the flame was extremely difficult to control.

You couldn’t extinguish it with ordinary Water Magic, and once the flame started to grow beyond a certain size, even the caster couldn’t manage it.

You could only watch as the black flame burned on and on until there was nothing left to burn around it.

At this rate, the Flame of Herta would incinerate the entire area.

No, it might spread and cause a massive fire that engulfed the Royal Capital.

“Don’t worry.”

Esmela’s gaze turned to Arit.

I followed her lead to see what Arit was doing.

The Saintess had her eyes closed, praying.

“O God Juten, protector of the 36, among them, the guardian Sigal, who willingly extends a hand to my frail path.”

A brilliant mass of light wound around her, shining golden.

Her golden, radiant hair flowed gently with the soft breeze.

“Wrap us, protect us, save us. Establish a refuge here for the weary.”

Fwooosh!

As she finished her prayer, the massive dome of light we’d seen earlier reappeared in the sky.

It came down over the flames, sealing them completely.

Fizzle.

The light’s curtain wrapping the flames gradually shrank, gathering the fire in the center.

Strangely, the curtain didn’t affect anything material; it only enclosed the Flame of Herta.

As the flame, which had been burning everything around it, was blocked by the curtain, it began to lose its momentum and fade away.

Pop.

Moments later, as the dome shrunk away and disappeared, the black flames completely ceased.

“…”

With the light’s curtain gone, all that was left before my eyes was the charred earth.

The Flame of Herta had burned everything equally.

“Huuh.”

Esmela wiped the sweat from her forehead and, with a relieved expression, said,

“Well then, shall we head back to the mansion?”

She proposed cheerfully as we walked down the now zombie-free street.

It seemed Esmela’s announcement magic worked quite well—all the zombies in the area must have flocked toward her and gotten wiped out.

After the Flame of Herta vanished, I worried whether it had burned other nobles’ mansions or caught someone in the blaze.

But Esmela dismissed my concerns.

“I made sure the flames only encompassed the gardens around, not reaching the mansion. There were no people around either. If any gardens or walls got burned, it’s nothing a little compensation can’t fix. The owners are nobles who have dealings with Father, so it’ll be fine.”

I figured if a duke’s young lady said so, it must be true. I decided to quickly follow their lead back to the mansion.

Looking around, the street we had walked through was similar to the Royal Capital’s earlier scenes, with corpses partially devoured by zombies scattered on the ground and in the gardens.

They were probably servants who had been waiting in the mansion for the noble guests attending the wedding.

I silently prayed for their souls.

“O God Juten, please watch over the innocent lives that just left us…”

Arit seemed to share my sentiment, her face filled with sorrow as she offered a requiem.

Thus, we continued on in silence.

Finally…

In the distance, the grand mansion of the House of Herta came into view.

Situated in a broad area in the north of the noble residential area of the northwestern Royal Capital, the Herta mansion could only be seen if you traveled even further north.

The House of Herta’s might was evident, owning such a vast garden within the walls of Herca, the kingdom’s first city.

A wide expanse of lawn.

Surrounding it was a red brick wall that towered far above a person’s height, neatly enclosing the well-kept garden.

Beyond the wall loomed a massive five-story Renaissance-style mansion with dozens of windows, proudly showcasing its grandeur.

It was a place I had become quite familiar with during my two years as a butler.

Perhaps it was nostalgia since I hadn’t seen the mansion for a while; it felt good to see it again. In reality, only a few hours had passed since I’d left the mansion, but I felt like so much had happened in that time.

However, as we got closer to the mansion, unsettling signs that I hadn’t noticed before began to catch my eye.

Bright red blood smeared over the red walls, and dozens of zombie corpses leaned against the walls both inside and out.

The mansion’s front gate, made of bars, looked like it had been forcefully pushed inward, as if multiple people had tried to shove their way in at once.

“…”

Esmela’s expression visibly hardened as we approached the mansion.

“Please, let it be safe…”

Arit seemed worried as well.

Now, even Esmela started to run, her heels clacking against the ground.

“Young lady!”

Just then, a familiar voice called out to Esmela from within the front gate.

Peering through the gate into the garden, I saw a boy around my age in a butler’s outfit waving at us as he ran over.

“Everyone! The young lady has arrived! Hurry!”

The boy shouted as he turned back.

Other servants were also rushing toward us across the garden.

“Just wait a moment! I’ll open the door!”

The boy shouted confidently, while other butlers hurried to the front gate, grasping the two doors and pulling with all their might.

Creak, creak—

The bent iron gate began to open with a cacophony of discordant sounds.

“Please come in, young lady. Hurry!”

Right now, we were in front of the main staircase on the first floor of the mansion.

The servants who were in the mansion had all gathered around us, babbling in disorder.

“Young lady, oh my. What on earth happened…?”

“Are you alright? Young lady?”

“But young lady, who’s that standing beside Renit?”

Esmela looked troubled, surrounded by them.

I figured some crowd control might be necessary.

“Alright, enough!”

I squeezed my way through the crowd, standing in front of Esmela, clapped my hands, and shouted.

“Everyone, calm down! As servants of the House of Herta, we must maintain our dignity, right?”

At my shout, their murmurs began to quiet down.

A few among them shot me disapproving looks, but I decided to ignore them and continued.

“First of all, the young lady would like to know what has transpired in the mansion during her absence!”

Turning my head to see Esmela, she nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly, in agreement.

“So the young lady will select someone to explain the situation!”

I concluded my statement and nodded silently to Esmela before stepping back behind her.

“You, what’s your name?”

Esmela scanned the crowd before pointing to the boy who had welcomed us earlier.

“Uh, me? I’m Butler Trainee Gilrot Lorihe! The third son of the Lorihe Baron family, and I’ve only been with the House of Herta for two months…”

The boy with orange hair and a slightly awkward demeanor began nervously rattling off unnecessary personal details at Esmela’s summons.

Gilrot was the most junior among the trainees and was 17 like me, but he was a head shorter than I was and still had a boyish face, so he obviously looked quite young.

Being around the same age gave him a certain favorable impression toward me, and I couldn’t just leave him alone in his inexperience, so I tried to lend him a hand within my limits.

“Summarize what happened in the mansion and report.”

Esmela curtly cut off his rambling and commanded.

“Y-yes! Uhm, so, after Lady Esmela left the mansion, we continued our usual tasks! I was, um, transporting food from the storage to the restaurant…”

“I’m not interested in your personal duties. Skip to the point.”

“Uh? Y-yes! So, it was a pretty uneventful morning until about 20 minutes ago, around 11 AM, when suddenly someone began to knock on the front gate!”

At this point, the boy’s tone became more serious.

“At first, we thought it was just an unwanted visitor, so we ignored it, planning to chase them away, but then more and more people started banging on the gate, and they even began hammering on the walls. So the butlers went out to check the situation. Only to find that they were not people at all… but sinister-looking corpses!”

As he reported, Gilrot began to tremble in fear.

“Gilrot, calm down and speak steadily.”

He was so frightened he could barely speak, so I had no choice but to soothe him.

“Renit? W-well… anyway, we initially tried to chase them away with words, but they wouldn’t listen at all and just kept gathering at the front gate, increasing in number… Then, the gate was eventually forced open, and they flooded into the garden. Some of them even climbed over the walls by stepping on each other… So the other servants sought refuge inside the mansion while the butlers and maids tried to drive them away with force.”

He managed to continue.

“But no matter how hard we slashed and hit them, they just wouldn’t fall. Thankfully, somebody figured out that a blow to the head would take them down one by one, but… even though we eliminated a few, more kept coming, and it was a life-or-death situation. Then at that moment!”

Suddenly, a look of excitement crossed his face.

“I heard the young lady’s voice from afar! Fortunately, those things turned and fled the mansion upon hearing it, allowing us to shut the front gate again! Not long after, the young lady returned!”

As he finished his report, a proud expression appeared on Gilrot’s face for some reason.

“Hmm… I see. Thank you. Now, go back to your place.”

After Esmela thanked him, Gilrot turned away with a grin, but at that moment…

I noticed a piece of white cloth tied around his left forearm.

It was stained red, bleeding profusely.

“Wait a moment.”

Before I could fully comprehend why, I instinctively called out to him.

“Huh, what? Renit?”

“That left arm of yours…”

“Oh, this? I got bitten by one of them while fighting earlier.”

My blood ran cold the moment I heard his words.

“I quickly struck its head with the back of my blade, but the bite hurt so much. I happened to be called out while working in the storage, so I didn’t have my jacket on, and I had rolled up my shirt sleeves, so I ended up with a bite mark right on my bare skin. How unfortunate, haha.”

The poor boy had no clue about the fate that awaited him and smiled cheerfully.