The Sequel to the Romance Fantasy Was a Zombie Apocalypse – Chapter 5

I stare ahead.

-Grrr!

-Hah, no! Don’t bite me!!

-Kyaaaah! Honey!

The couple who were escaping together are overwhelmed by ‘those’ things.

‘Those’ monsters feast upon the man as if his flesh were a juicy steak, savoring his screams like seasoning, while his wife can only scream helplessly, her legs in a frantic dance.

I turn my head to the left.

-Die! You monster!

My colleague Eric stabs ‘one of them’ in the chest with his spear.

-Ha, serves you right…

Before he can even laugh, ‘it’ lunges at Eric, gnashing its teeth mercilessly into his neck.

-Ugh…

Eric collapses to the ground without even letting out a scream.

Now I look to the other side.

People are fleeing, and ‘those’ are chasing.

‘Those’ monsters bite and devour people, who scream as they perish.

This is hell… yes, hell it is.

Eureka has descended into hell.

There’s simply no other way to explain this situation.

“A riot, they said…”

I was patrolling the outskirts of the Royal Capital, as usual, when suddenly a revised order arrived.

It stated that unidentified rioters were causing violence in the plaza where the Prince’s wedding was taking place, and there were too many for the Kingdom’s Army to suppress alone, so the City Guard’s support was needed.

-Damn it. As if we weren’t already short on personnel, they took half of the guard for the Prince’s wedding and now they want us to come help?

-What are those high and mighty Kingdom soldiers even doing? Eating expensive meals while doing nothing?

As I chatted with my colleagues, disparaging the Kingdom’s Army, I was making my way leisurely to Firke Plaza.

Just about ten minutes until we reach the plaza, I spotted a group of people running from a distance.

-What are those guys…?

Before we could figure out who they were, they charged at us…

And then the slaughter began.

‘They’ rushed in, attacking and biting indiscriminately at civilians and City Guards alike, refusing to stop as they voraciously tore into human flesh.

They said the riot was going on in the plaza, but it had spread all the way here?

What the hell is the Kingdom’s Army doing?

How am I supposed to survive now?

I need to run. Yeah, I need to run first.

Just as I made up my mind—

-Crack!

“Uh…?”

Eric, you definitely just died…

With legs strengthened by acceleration magic, I push off the ground and sprint away quickly.

While keeping a vigilant eye on the surroundings for zombies that might charge at me, thankfully, it seems the effects of the Zombie Incident haven’t reached this far.

“Renit.”

Esmela calls me.

She is still clinging to me like a princess.

Her twin, golden hair swings up and down with my steps, and the hem of her bright red dress flutters in the wind.

If only the situation weren’t like this, I would’ve asked someone to take a picture of Esmela in her rare state.

This moment is a privilege that only I, the reincarnated player of [Loina], can enjoy.

Thinking that way, I feel grateful to the heavens for allowing me to be reincarnated even now.

“Yes, Young Lady.”

I respond while diligently suppressing my rising feelings.

“Now tell me what you know about those things. What are they?”

I glance down at Esmela’s face, which is once again filled with anxiety and fear.

That pitiful expression snaps me back to reality from my daydreaming state.

“Understood.”

Alright, how should I explain about the zombies to Esmela, and how far should I go?

“So, in the legend passed down in your hometown, similar beings appear, right?”

“That’s correct. So when I actually saw those things, I was truly shocked. How could a monster that only appeared in the superstitions the neighbor’s grandmother told me actually appear in front of my eyes?”

First, I blurred the source of information about the zombies, suggesting that the figures from the superstitions of my hometown resembled those things.

“I’ve never heard of such a story before… which hometown did you say you’re from?”

“I come from a small island village on the eastern coast of the Kingdom.”

“Hmm… then it could be a superstition only passed down in that area.”

Since the second hometown I was born in within the world of [Loina] is a small rural island far from the Royal Capital, if someone doubts the truth of my words, it would be easy to dismiss it as a superstition only told in an isolated village.

However, if Esmela later sends someone to check whether such a superstition exists in my hometown, my lie would be exposed without mercy…

But what can I do, this is the best excuse I could think of in my head right now.

I’ll leave the future to the future. Right now, it’s my top priority to share information about the zombies with Esmela so that she can prepare herself.

“So, what’s the content of that superstition you know?”

“It’s a story that’s found in every village, designed to scare children wandering at night.”

Great. Now it’s my turn to tell Esmela the 100% original tale that I whipped up right until just now.

“My father is a fisherman. And due to the nature of the fish species living in the eastern coast of Arkesia, fishermen in my hometown frequently went out at night to fish.”

“If my father had to go out at night, and my mother was away from the island to buy necessary goods in the inland city, she would leave me, who was still young, at the neighbor’s grandmother’s house until she returned.”

This story is actually based on my real experiences, added before the concocted tale to enhance the credibility of my false testimony.

“While staying with the grandmother, I would become anxious at night without my parents and would whine to go back home. That’s when the grandmother would always tell me stories about… the undead, which first emerged to seek a sacrifice in the night.”

“The undead?”

“Yes. Young Lady Esmela, are you familiar with Hadiron of the 36 deities of Radain Church, the god who takes the deceased away?”

“Yes. I know. I’m not particularly religious, including Radain Church, but I learned about it in Religious Studies class at the academy.”

“Then we should get to the story quickly. If someone dies, they say Hadiron appears next to the deceased to take their soul and guide them to the afterlife. However, the protagonist of the story my grandmother told me was about a deceased who rejected Hadiron’s guidance.”

Nervous, I unexpectedly swallow dry saliva before getting to the main legend I just made up.

Okay, deep breath…

“Most of the deceased follow Hadiron and leave peacefully for the afterlife, but there are occasionally those who reject his guidance. Typically, it’s due to harboring deep grudges against someone before dying, or they might have an unfulfilled wish they desperately wanted to see achieved, leading them to resist death and oppose Hadiron. And for these, who refuse to return to the afterlife in accordance with the natural order, Hadiron becomes enraged and casts a curse upon them.”

“A curse?”

Esmela looks at me intently.

“Yes. A curse that prevents them from dying or living. Those who receive this curse end up dead but cannot go to the afterlife, and since they are dead, they cannot be revived either. Their spirits forcibly return to their original body, but by this time their physical form has accepted death and begun to decay, so they can’t properly attach to their bodies. In the end, they move their rotting, decaying forms like a child playing with a doll.”

And now comes the real crux of the story, the part Esmela needs to pay close attention to.

“Thus, the cursed undead, trapped in their decaying bodies, inevitably become beings that can neither die nor live. Until their bodies decompose and rot enough that they can no longer move… they are said to mindlessly repeat just one action.”

“And what is that?”

Esmela can’t contain her curiosity and keeps urging for the next part of the story.

Good. Judging by Esmela’s reaction, it seems my story is hitting the mark.

“That is… to turn living humans into beings like themselves.”

“Why?”

“They do this out of jealousy towards the living. They mourn their condition of eternally drifting at the boundary between life and death due to their curse, while simultaneously feeling envy and anger towards all living beings that still manage to enjoy life, thus committing such acts.”

“What? That’s too much. There’s gotta be some limits to that nonsense.”

Esmela remarks, sounding incredulous.

“I assure you, Young Lady, it’s truly that way. Now, back to the story… My grandmother would tell me about those cursed corpses and always warn me like this:


If you wander outside alone at night, they will charge at you to make you their prey.

If they catch you, do you know what will happen to you? First, they will crave your flesh and tear it apart with their filthy teeth.

Once their teeth make a wound in your body, before long, your body too will start to rot like them, and your soul will receive the same curse, rendering you a wandering undead in search of your next prey…”

When I briefly glance at her complexion, she seems to be fully immersed, her mouth slightly agape as she listens to my story.

“What do you think, Young Lady? A rotting appearance, blind aggression towards humans, the habit of biting the flesh of living beings… don’t they resemble the ‘things’ we encountered?”

That’s the entirety of the story I concocted.

Now I just have to wait and see how Esmela reacts.

“…What’s their name?”

“What?”

“Do those beings in the story have a name?”

Uh, a name? I haven’t decided on one yet.

“Why can’t you answer that?”

As Esmela narrows her eyes at me suspiciously, I panic and end up answering without thinking.

“It’s called… zombie.”