The Sequel to the Romance Fantasy Was a Zombie Apocalypse – Chapter 75

Three years ago, the Saintess Arit set up a gigantic shield to protect the House of Herta.

Lanit and Esmela directly witnessed the barrier breaking under the assault of mutant zombies from within the mansion.

And now, exactly the same situation was unfolding right before their eyes once again.

The only difference was the overwhelming scale of it.

The anomaly came without warning.

A massive magical barrier, dark blue in color, covered the entire Royal Capital like a cage.

Crackle—

Bang, crash!

As if the dry ground was splitting apart, as if tearing and shattering a mirror held with both hands, countless cracks and collapses erupted in that enormous barrier, resembling an apocalypse descending upon Erka.

And the process of the barrier that enveloped a whole massive city collapsing brought about an equally enormous aftershock within the city.

Boom—

The mansion shook.

Even the very ground that supported the mansion was violently trembling.

“Ugh…!”

Lanit, barely maintaining his balance as he staggered, caught sight of Esmela, who had collapsed to the floor.

Seeing that, Lanit desperately rushed across the vibrating hallway and covered her with his body.

Boom…

In reality, it was just five minutes, or at most ten. Yet for the two who had just experienced an earthquake, it felt like an eternity before the tremors finally began to subside.

Finally, the two of them, huddled on the floor, carefully lifted their heads and surveyed their surroundings.

The mansion, which had already looked dilapidated, now appeared even more grotesque.

The floor, which Lanit had cleaned up a bit, was now dirtied once more by debris falling from the ceiling and walls.

The glass shards that had been partially clinging to the window frame were completely dislodged, and zigzagging cracks, hinting at the mansion’s collapse, appeared all over the hallway.

“…Let’s get out of the mansion for now, Young Lady.”

Esmela couldn’t muster the courage to respond to Lanit’s suggestion; she merely nodded slowly, her pale face moving up and down.

“Goodness…”

A short sigh escaped Lanit’s lips. But the meaning behind that sigh was anything but simple.

Upon hastily gathering their belongings they had left inside the mansion, the two of them hastened outside, met with a marching brigade of zombies.

To assess the situation, the two climbed atop the roof of a nearby grand mansion.

Before them unfolded a sight of an overwhelming number of zombies converging in one direction, a sight they had never encountered in the last three years.

An entire northwest district, no, the very edge of their sight was completely filled with hordes of zombies.

Tens of thousands of zombies marching uniformly in the same direction struck them with a sense of awe that surpassed mere fear.

“Was there still this many zombies left in the Royal Capital?”

Esmela muttered quietly to herself in disbelief.

Lanit shared her sentiment.

Having become somewhat accustomed to zombie hunting, they had begun venturing out into the streets to hunt zombies whenever they could.

With their consistent efforts of gradually whittling down their numbers, they harbored a small hope that they might someday rid this Royal Capital of zombies completely.

So by now, they figured they had significantly reduced their numbers; that was a quiet expectation they had.

However, contrary to their predictions, an astonishing number of zombies still remained in Erka—enough to be counted in the tens of thousands.

“…Young Lady. They are heading south.”

And now, with the barrier that had trapped them gone, the unimpeded zombies began their massive escape towards the Southern Entrance, which had been wide open since the rescue operation three years ago.

“How did they realize that entrance was open…? Is there someone coordinating them…?”

Esmela, biting her thumbnail in a sense of foreboding, observed the movement of the zombies.

Lanit stood next to her, watching the scene with a heavy heart.

Flap flap.

Suddenly, a familiar sound of flapping wings reached the ears of the dazed duo.

“Beep—!”

“Piyo!”

Piyo let out a long, complaint-laden squawk, as if finally having found them, and gracefully landed on Lanit’s right shoulder.

“Where have you been? I searched everywhere for you before leaving the palace this morning! Are you okay? You’re not hurt, right?”

“Beep. Beep.”

Piyo chirped as if to say, “I’m fine.”

“Good. For now, stick with us and don’t wander off. The situation isn’t normal.”

Lanit instructed Piyo accordingly, then turned to Esmela with another suggestion.

“Now that Piyo’s back, let’s look for another house nearby that suffered less from the earthquake and wait there temporarily.”

He paused, glancing again at the zombies.

“Given how things are now… there’s nothing more we can do.”

It was about six hours after the barrier collapsed that the zombies completely vanished from the Royal Capital.

As the sun began to set, Lanit climbed back up to the roof once more for a reconnaissance, confirming the empty Royal Capital devoid of all zombies, before leading Esmela and Piyo outside.

They hadn’t specifically discussed where to go, but they too began moving towards the Southern Entrance, following the retreat of the zombies.

Not knowing why the barrier had collapsed or how all the zombies had suddenly flooded out, the two remained in the dark about the situation. However, one hope began to blossom again in their minds—it was possible to exit the Royal Capital.

Thus, in silent agreement, they started walking briskly through the Royal Capital.

Piyo, sensing the serious mood between them, no longer fluttered around in a frantic manner but quietly perched on Lanit’s shoulder as they moved.

During their journey from the northwest of the Royal Capital to the Southern Entrance, they encountered the desolation of the once bustling streets.

Now, in the Royal Capital Erka, nothing remained but ruin and remnants.

Decomposed buildings, corpses that had been too ravaged to be revived as zombies, and traces of humanity.

Unidentifiable bloodstains, zombie corpses hunted down by humans including Lanit and company, remnants of zombies.

Only remnants remained in the Royal Capital Erka.

The two of them and one bird walked on, mourning the remnants in silence.

After a little over an hour, they finally managed to pass through the Southern Entrance out of the Royal Capital.

“The reason the barrier fell is quite simple.”

Immediately upon exiting the Southern Entrance, Esmela spotted the large magic stones left nearby the city walls.

While examining the fractured magic stones that had lost their original light for quite some time, she finally spoke.

“And why is that?”

“They’ve reached the end of their life.”

“Oh, so the barriers encompassing the entire Royal Capital were siphoning magic from these magic stones, and thus maintaining the barriers would require regular management and recharging of the magic stones. But for some reason, those in charge of the barriers didn’t do that, leading to the eventual collapse…”

Like swapping out dead batteries from a remote control, Lanit internally added.

“Well done. You’re finally grasping the basics. It’s been worth the effort I put into teaching you magic.”

Esmela beamed at her progress as she continued Lanit’s explanation.

“Indeed. Even a magic tower wouldn’t have the means to maintain a barrier of this scale indefinitely. No, perhaps being them, they were able to procure this many magic stones within such a short timeframe. Regardless, to maintain a barrier, it’s necessary to periodically recharge the magic stones and replace those that have run out of life, yet these magic stones show no signs of having been maintained.”

“The magic tower was likely in charge of the barrier’s maintenance, right?”

“That seems likely.”

“What happened to the magic tower?”

“That’s a reasonable inference. If nothing unavoidable happened, those who always aim for perfection in magic wouldn’t have simply neglected the maintenance leading to the barrier’s collapse.”

“What on earth could that circumstance be?”

Even Esmela, who had been offering answers keenly until now, was left silent, unable to express anything regarding Lanit’s last question.

“…Well, it’s clear that pondering over this here won’t yield any answers.”

Noticing this, Lanit attempted to shift the atmosphere by stretching exaggeratedly with his back to the wall.

“I’m still quite baffled about everything that’s happened… but regardless, haven’t we managed to step outside the Royal Capital now?”

“…True. We really have.”

A gentle smile spread across Esmela’s face.

“We can figure out why the barrier fell out later…”

Lanit responded to her smile with a cheerful grin.

“It’s time to ‘really’ return, Young Lady. To the head of the family, the head butler, Helinante… to everyone in the House of Herta!”