The Village of Fleeing Undead
After breakfast we broke camp and set out again. We reached our destination before the sun went down.
It was a fairly large village. The buildings were varied, but signs of neglect were everywhere.
"We've arrived," Investigator Liza said, gazing at the village with distant eyes.
"It's certainly thick with miasma."
Everyone except Investigator Liza possessed either Holy Power or mana, and all of them could feel it. Sister Mary and I, in particular, were painfully sensitive to the miasma.
"Maybe because the sun's still up? I don't see any undead wandering around."
"Whether the sun is up has nothing to do with undead activity…"
I froze at the young master's words.
Huh? It doesn't? Aren't undead dark-attribute creatures that can't move in daylight and only come out at night?
That was wrong information?!
I'd been an adventurer for over a year and never learned that. My skills had been too poor to take dangerous jobs in the first place. I'd pretended to be experienced, but my knowledge was badly skewed. On top of that, knowledge from my previous life was mixed in, so I had plenty of things I didn't even realize were wrong.
"I-is that so?"
"Yes. Judging by the miasma coming off this village, undead should definitely be appearing…"
And yet, for some reason, they refused to show themselves.
The young master seemed to have experience purging undead. Well, he was a properly trained knight—he wouldn't be short on real combat experience.
Just then, Sister Mary looked at me. Her eyes were full of questions.
"I-I didn't do anything."
"No. I have a fair idea why the undead aren't appearing."
Huh? What had Sister Mary figured out?
"For now, let's go in."
We carefully entered the village. The place was a wreck. It wasn't simply that an abandoned village had crumbled with time—there were clear signs of deliberate destruction.
"Looks like someone already looted this place…"
I muttered it under my breath, but Investigator Liza must have heard. Her expression darkened. We tried the nearest building first.
With a creak of old hinges, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The interior was a disaster. Belongings lay strewn about as if someone had ransacked the place; some were broken. It wasn't the kind of decay you got simply from people dying and time passing.
"Just as I thought…"
Someone had stolen whatever was left in the village. After the plague killed everyone and enough time had passed, they'd come through and taken what they wanted. Hidden money, magic tools—that sort of thing.
"Hmm…"
The young master carefully surveyed the room, then yanked open a small door.
"Guaaaah…"
Behind it was a rotting corpse. A moving one.
I tensed and drew my weapon. But the undead didn't attack us. Instead it kept backing away, trying to flee.
"Strange. Undead that see living beings should charge them, yet this one is running…"
"First, let's give it rest."
At Sister Mary's words we exchanged looks and nodded. We separated the head from the body, then burned the remains. Being indoors, we nearly set the whole building on fire, but we managed to keep it under control.
"Miss Mary, if you know the reason, would you share it with us?"
Sister Mary suddenly kept glancing at me.
"Hah… all right."
She quietly approached the young master and whispered in his ear. Something she couldn't say out loud?
As he listened, the young master's expression shifted by the second. Then he looked at me too.
"What?"
They wouldn't tell me the reason, and it was starting to annoy me.
"It's nothing. Yes—I believe that explanation is correct."
Why did only the two of them get to know?! Just spit it out already! Was something going on between them? Why the secret whispering? Had they confirmed their feelings for each other behind my back?
I clenched the necklace at my throat.
"What will you do now?"
Without even looking at me, the young master walked over to Investigator Liza.
"Pardon?"
"We've confirmed the undead. You need to decide."
"Ah… I'd like to give them all rest, but…"
Extermination jobs paid well. Compensation was usually set by the number of monsters slain.
Judging by the size of the village, there had to be at least a hundred undead. Even at five silver a head, that was a minimum of five gold. And that wasn't all—the escort and investigation fees already came to ten gold. Meaning if we took the purge as well, the total outlay would be at least twenty gold.
"You may not be familiar with this, so allow me to explain…"
The young master calmly walked her through adventurer extermination rates. At the mention of per-kill pay, Investigator Liza let out a long sigh.
"Since they're undead, you'd need to offer at least six or seven silver each."
Not knowing how many there actually were, she had a lot to weigh.
"W-would a discount be possible…?"
Investigator Liza hung her head and spoke in a tiny voice. The young master looked at the rest of us.
"I think we should discuss this."
We left Investigator Liza inside and stepped out of the building.
"What do you want to do?"
Hmm…
After hearing her circumstances earlier, I really did want to help.
"Money matters, but… I feel sorry for her."
Giving the dead their rest wouldn't be a bad thing either.
"I'd like to help as well."
Once Sister Mary and I leaned toward helping, the young master and my sister fell silent.
"Then it's decided. We'll hear the maximum amount she can offer and settle on that."
"Yes. Let's do that."
The discussion ended there. Before we went back to Investigator Liza, I caught the young master's hand.
"More importantly—why are the undead running away?"
I asked him straight out.
"Ahem. Out here, I suppose I can say it."
Out here?
"Well…"
He bent down and whispered softly against my ear. The brush of his breath made me flinch.
"I suspect they're sensing Miss Julian's Holy Power—or her Holy Scar."
I gritted my teeth against the ticklish feeling in my ear.
Holy Scar? A mark of the gods? So undead—beings that defied the natural order—were feeling some divine presence from me and steering clear?
"It's only a theory, but nothing else explains the phenomenon."
Holy Power and miasma were natural opposites, he said, but undead didn't normally flee just from seeing someone who possessed it.
"Then it's probably right."
So that was why they couldn't say it in front of Investigator Liza…
"Still, you didn't have to hide it from me…"
I'd thought the two of you were sharing some secret…
"My apologies. I intended to tell you once we had some distance."
"Fine. Let's go back in for now."
Inside the building, Investigator Liza was pacing the room in obvious agitation.
"We've decided."
"I-is that so?"
"Yes. Could you tell us the maximum amount you can offer as payment?"
"That is… please give me a moment."
Investigator Liza brought a hand to her chin and sank into thought.
"Excluding the Adventurers' Guild brokerage fee… I believe it would be eighteen gold."
Ah. The brokerage fee…
"I-I'm sorry. It's far too little, isn't it?"
"It's fine."
"Can't be helped. Leaving the undead alone isn't an option either."
At my words, Investigator Liza's eyes went wide.
"We'll clear them all for eighteen gold. But we won't be able to do it neatly."
Holding individual funeral rites for each one would be impossible. We'd burn the bodies.
"Thank you."
"We haven't even started yet. It's a little early for thanks."
"Please. I'm counting on you."
"And if a few buildings get wrecked in the process, no complaining, all right?"
"Of course. Handle it however you need to."
"Good. Shall we get started?"
I took the lead, and the young master and my sister followed.
"Before we move out, let's decide how we're going to run this purge."
"Can't we just take them as we see them?"
"The undead are avoiding us," the young master said quietly.
Ah… right. If they really were sensing my presence and fleeing, we couldn't move carelessly. They might slip out of the village entirely and escape somewhere else.
The strategy meeting didn't take long.
"We'll work the outskirts and slowly drive them toward the center."
In moments like this, the young master's systematically trained knowledge was a real help.
"That sounds right."
"Miss Liza, is there a graveyard nearby?"
"A graveyard…?"
"Yes. It may have been affected by the stagnant miasma."
He was wary of a mass undead outbreak from the cemetery side.
"There was a graveyard on the south side of the village."
"I see…"
The plan shifted slightly. We would still clear from the outskirts inward, but the direction we herded them would be south.
Part of me wanted to split into two groups, but we had Investigator Liza's safety to consider, so we stayed together.
"I might get to try this out."
I pulled a dark crimson stick from my pouch. It wasn't very large, but it was a dangerous little thing.
"That's the one you compounded back then, isn't it? I'm curious what effect it will have."
"So am I."
It was most likely a bomb. I'd save it for after we'd driven the undead into the graveyard.
We carefully checked both the streets and the insides of buildings, cutting down zombies and skeletons as we went.