The Grim Reaper
The Scouter’s fourth-stage upgrade.
It could detect hidden objects.
Objects.
Bodies.
Even ghosts like Chronos were no exception.
Medusa. Nine-tailed fox. Demon.
And banshee.
A specter that announced a human’s death in an eerie voice.
A ghost that revealed the time left to live and hurried the end along.
In a way, one could even call it a grim reaper.
I clamped down hard—
wrapping holy power around my hand, I seized his arm.
“…How did you find this one?”
Chronos swallowed a breath.
“Y-you… What are you suddenly doing…?”
“Veronica, stay far back.”
“H-huh?”
Still gripping Chronos, I—
BOOM!
—donned my armor in the same instant and smashed straight through the train, leaping out.
We tumbled from the train with its window punched clean through, rolling into the grass along the tracks.
It was a field of tall corn.
The train rattled for a moment, then slowed and continued forward.
Across the way, the station of Julian’s territory came into view.
The place Oskar had stopped at on his way to the Grand Duke.
With a soft whisper of movement—
Chronos slipped free of my grip as a spirit body and stood before me, bold as you please.
“How intriguing. However did you recognize this one?”
“No idea. Just happened while I was busy chasing skirts.”
Chronos cocked his head as though he could not make sense of the answer.
“Hmm. A crisis, then. This one had no intention of facing you alone.”
“What, you scared?”
Clank—
When I clenched my fist, the gauntlet finger plates locked into place with a metallic series of clicks.
“Your choice of words is crude, yet not entirely wrong. This one still has no desire to die.”
“Says the guy who’s already died once.”
“Oh-ho. From a mere glance you already know a little about this one? A special power seems to dwell in those eyes of yours.”
Chronos smiled with leisurely composure and took a step back.
“Then this one shall take his leave. Facing you is still premature. Let us meet again another time.”
CRACK!
A fist wreathed in holy power smashed square into Chronos’s jaw.
“Guh!”
Struck clean mid-sentence, Chronos went tumbling through the cornfield, rolling a couple of full turns before he stopped.
“What makes you think there’ll be a next time?”
“Heh.”
Chronos laughed as if letting out a sigh and rubbed the spot he had been hit.
“Holy power… That is precisely why this one preferred not to fight you head-on.”
He wrinkled his brow, as though the touch of my hand against his body—tainted by holy power—disgusted him.
“Now this one truly shall be going.”
The moment the words finished, Chronos’s form vanished.
Whoosh—
And reappeared right behind me.
I sensed it, spun, and swung a fist.
Whoosh!
He was already far away again.
Not the type that moved with sheer speed.
Like a ghost. Like a spirit.
He vanished and reappeared.
Whether that was magic or simply the privilege of a specter, I did not know.
I gave chase.
Kiiing—
The spirits clinging to my armor flared, flaunting their output.
PAAANG!
Beams of light blasted from my legs and arms as I closed the distance.
In no time I had crossed to the far side of the cornfield and reached the station itself.
Meanwhile the train, perhaps to check for damage, had begun returning to the station it had already passed.
Veronica had once said she only ever looked ahead, yet here the train was coming back.
Kiiiiiing—!
The spirits on my armor shrieked like things in pain.
Chronos must have felt the threat in that noise; he blinked past the station and into Julian’s territory once more.
PANG!
I accelerated again.
I kept after Chronos without pause.
Because of that I drew farther from the station, yet I still could not catch him.
I prepared a third burst of speed, then stopped short and thought.
If he meant to run like this, the cornfield would have been fine.
Why turn toward the territory?
If he had only intended to get behind me, his next move should have been an attack, not another escape.
The moment he appeared at my back had been the perfect chance to strike.
A trap?
Was he luring me?
Among the Five Lanterns of the Death God Cult, Chronos was no outstanding combatant.
The vanguard had always been the fox’s role; Chronos handled work more important than battle.
Dealing with corpses.
Finishing the dead.
An undertaker who carried coffins and bodies on his back.
Inside the territory, Julian’s funeral was still in full swing.
A full week had already passed, yet the grand atmosphere lingered.
A funeral.
Chronos’s eyes flashed as though he had spotted prey.
As if the funeral itself were his stage, he spun around to face me.
So it had been a lure after all.
“Then this one shall take his leave.”
He bowed his head in polite farewell and vanished toward Julian’s coffin.
“An unexpected turn of events, yet Sir Karma will be all the more pleased this way.”
He spoke Karma’s name out of nowhere, then was gone.
I stopped chasing and watched the funeral procession.
White flowers, black clothes, and a red carpet stretching toward the coffin.
I stood at its beginning and stared down Julian’s casket.
Thump.
Thump.
Julian’s coffin jerked as though convulsing.
BANG!
The lid shot skyward.
Every gaze in the crowd lifted with it, then dropped again as the lid crashed to the ground.
Crrrk—
With the nauseating sound of a severed neck reattaching, Julian slowly sat up.
“Oh my god…”
“E-eek! Wh-what is that?!”
Panic erupted first among those nearest the coffin.
Like falling dominoes, the horror spread farther and farther out.
Julian’s eyes, blackened completely, swept the surroundings for a moment before locking straight ahead—
on me.
Even though the whites of his eyes had turned wholly black, I somehow knew with absolute certainty that he was looking directly at me.
Most of the people by the coffin screamed and fled, but his family was the exception.
Among them, a woman who appeared to be Julian’s mother approached the coffin with slow steps.
“Ju-Julian! My baby…!”
Calling a full-grown middle-aged man that, the woman tearfully embraced the son who had returned a week after having his head cut off.
“Julian! Julian!”
Wrapped in her arms, Julian stared blankly at me.
And in a single instant—
CRUNCH—
Julian bit into her throat.
“Juli…an?”
Those were her last words.
She lost her balance and crumpled onto the red carpet.
Julian, having bitten his own mother to death, calmly gripped the coffin and climbed out.
He began walking toward me, trampling her underfoot.
Closer and closer.
Meanwhile, from the ragged wound in Julian’s mother’s neck, blue-black veins twitched and writhed.
Then she, too, opened eyes black as his and lunged at the nearest living body.
“KRAAAAAH!”
“R-run! Run!”
“Don’t push, you bastard!”
Chaos in an instant.
Julian. And his mother.
Again like dominoes, people toppled one after another.
The risen humans leapt upon whatever they could grab, whatever they could see.
They bit. They killed. And those they killed rose again.
It spread at terrifying speed.
Julian, however, walked on as though he could not even hear the slaughter and screaming unfolding behind him.
His gaze stayed fixed solely on me.
“…Chronos.”
I spoke the name of the specter who had turned Julian’s funeral into a mass grave for the territory’s people and then vanished.
The war heroes who had been resurrected before—that had surely been Chronos’s doing as well.
Only Chronos, who could pass through anything, could have managed it.
But these undead were different from those war heroes.
Undead that attacked indiscriminately and infected others.
Raising zombies was something that, originally, should not have happened for a long time yet.
Scenes from my previous life flickered through my mind like a panorama.
I drew the ceremonial sword from the funeral grounds.
Ignoring Julian as he walked toward me, I turned straight back toward the station.
At the station the train had stopped and was inspecting the gaping hole punched through it.
Veronica had disembarked and was looking around.
Spotting me, she rushed over.
“Where the hell have you been? Why is the train like this, and what suddenly—!”
There was no time to explain everything.
I immediately covered her face with my right hand.
“What are you—?”
I gently stroked Veronica’s flushed cheek with my thumb.
A low hum—
A pattern bloomed from my thumb and spread.
A buff that can pull the recipient back from death’s threshold—exactly once.
“Veronica, the plan has changed.”
I spoke with such gravity that Veronica’s expression hardened a little.
“Find the Silver Knight.”
“Huh…?”
“Bring the Holy Knights.”
Ending number 31.
Paradise.
In that ending script there had been a line:
Leave the undead to the specialists.
Specialists.
Experts.
Undead counters.
Only Holy Knights could resolve this situation.
“What are you talking about? You want me to go back alone?”
“Yes. Find the conductor and get the train moving right now. If those things board it, the infection will spread beyond control.”
“No, at least explain— What do you mean, ‘those things’…?”
Just as Veronica asked, screams rose from the passengers near the train.
“Kyaaaaah!”
“What… what is that?!”
They had spotted the zombies flooding into the station and recoiled in horror.
“E-everyone! Into the train first! Get inside!”
Thankfully, without Veronica even needing to act, the conductor rushed over and began shoving passengers back aboard.
Naturally the passengers had no idea what was happening or which direction was safer.
They simply all piled into the train as though getting to the opposite side of the zombie horde would be enough for now.
Once Veronica boarded, it would leave.
“Veronica! The Holy Knights!”
“What about you?!”
Slash!
I beheaded an undead that had started climbing onto the platform.
“The Theological School is closest from here! You remember Chris, right?!”
Thud!
Another one down.
“Find Chris!”
“You still haven’t answered me! What are you going to do?!”
Hisssss—!
The train vented steam.
Pressed by the passengers’ urgency, Veronica had no choice but to back into the carriage.
Because of that she never heard my reply.
After the train had gone—
BOOM!
An explosion roared from the direction of the territory and black smoke billowed upward.
Inside, it must already have been pure bedlam.
I confirmed the train had pulled far enough away, then summoned my armor once more.
Streams of light poured down, wrapping my body in pure white plate.
Chronos had raised Julian first, so Julian would be a little different from the other zombies.
Likely the mother body for the hosts.
He had even seemed to recognize me.
Unlike the other undead, some capacity for thought would remain.
Originally the Death God Cult would plant believers in every region, stir up conflict, spark territorial wars, create division—and only then pull a stunt like this.
Only when humans no longer trusted one another was the board set for them.
They buried countless corpses through wars large and small, then raised those same corpses again and choked the life from this country with overwhelming numbers.
The bad ending.
That was the conclusion of this world.
They recycled humans.
To do that they first needed a large stockpile of discarded materials.
A ghost unhindered by terrain was one thing, but the moment the fox obtained the Magic Tower Master’s power, the Death God Cult’s operational range had become extremely wide.
But now the fox was already dead, and the Death God Cult was not sufficiently prepared.
This outbreak had begun far earlier than in my previous life.
Yes.
Quite literally, the corpses had risen earlier.
Chronos had not staged this incident according to the Death God Cult’s plan.
It had merely been an action to buy time so I could not pursue him.
He had advanced their final measure.
Because of me—changed from my previous life.
The Death God Cult was far more desperate than I had expected.
Desperate.
That was different from merely being fast.
In my previous life they had struck when humans were already tangled in mutual hatred; now they were simply desperate.
So if I stopped them here, humanity would unite even more tightly.
A common enemy.
Crisis would become opportunity.
If only I could hold the line.
BOOM! BANG—!
I detonated every zombie at the station, then, with the spirits’ help, shot up to the top of the bell tower in a single bound.
From here Julian’s territory lay in full view.
Crimson blood.
The acrid stench of black smoke.
Screams.
Every one of my senses confirmed that Julian’s territory had become hell.
If I failed to seal every gate at once, the outbreak would spill into Oskar’s territory as well.
Oskar’s soldiers would become zombies before they ever reached the Royal Capital.
The territory was a slaughterhouse.
Time was short.
The mother body was hunting me.
And the only Holy Knight who could take responsibility for all of it was one.
“Haha.”
As I sorted the situation, a laugh slipped out for no good reason.
“Well, damn…”
What a sickeningly familiar landscape.