Too Late to Run
Julian’s territory.
Bang!
“Hyaaaaah!”
Zombies were trying to force their way into a family home. From inside, the screams of young girls rang out. The undead pressed against the front door and windows, thrashing their arms toward the sisters huddled under the dining table.
Then—
Crack!
The weight of the zombies piled against the wooden door finally shattered it. They poured into the house in a cascade of rotting flesh, tumbling, crawling, and scrambling to fall upon the two remaining sisters.
A long arm stretched out, fingers about to seize one girl’s nape—
“Huh…?”
The zombies froze where they stood. They swung their heads this way and that, sniffing the air, searching. A moment later they all flooded back outside and surged toward a single point.
One of the girls found the courage to look after them. The zombies were chasing a man in white armor.
Heavy snow had begun falling the night before.
Even after the Academy’s winter break started, it had never felt like true midwinter—until yesterday, when the cold suddenly bit down hard and the snow followed. Such a heavy fall was rare in the southern regions. Of course, zombies appearing in the south was rarer still.
Thud!
I drove my foot into the middle of the wall and bent my knee, hanging horizontally against the vertical stone. Then I looked down at the single zombie staring up at me.
“Hey, Julian.”
He glared back, grinding his teeth.
“How’s it feel to be back among the living?”
“Daywin… Hasgard…!”
He bared black eyes and snarled. I had figured he would regain speech eventually.
Unlike the others, Julian still moved with a shred of reason. He was the first corpse Chronos had chosen. His eyes had turned completely black, so I couldn’t read them properly, but the emotion aimed at me was unmistakable: pure hatred.
“How dare you… how dare you…!”
He clawed at the thin scar ringing his throat and staggered closer. When he stretched out a hand, every nearby zombie swarmed toward me. I was still hanging on the wall; they had no way to reach me.
But soon the ones that had gathered like an ant colony began building a living hill with their own bodies, climbing the wall and falling, climbing again. They kept failing, yet the mound grew steadily higher.
As long as Julian kept his eyes on me, the rest would follow.
In that case—
I yanked my foot free and dropped straight at him.
Boom!
The instant I landed beside him his arm shot out, jaws yawning wide. I was faster.
Crack!
My fist smashed into his face. Julian spat broken front teeth and crumpled. I didn’t finish him. I still needed him to draw more of them in.
“Gyaaaaah!”
Fury tore a bestial howl from his throat as he seized control of the horde. The zombies that had been forming a ladder on the wall wheeled around and charged me instead. So many feet pounded the ground that earth and heart seemed to shake together.
I fixed spirits to my armor and accelerated, putting distance between us. A few stragglers lunged from every side, but the detection spirits reacted first.
Whoosh—
I spun and swept the ceremonial blade. The zombies that had closed in were cut down in a single stroke—some at the waist, some across the chest, some through the neck, depending on their height.
Still not enough. I needed every last one of them, gathered in one place, before I detonated the lot.
I kept just enough distance from the oncoming tide to stay inside Julian’s line of sight. While I backed away, his mansion came into view—the same manor I had visited before. Sitting dead-center in the territory, it was the perfect stage for the plan.
I circled the grounds again and again, drawing every zombie from every corner of the estate. Ordinary human-shaped undead posed no real threat. They weren’t monsters or demons or fallen war heroes—just zombies. When ordinary people turned, the only people they could harm were other ordinary people.
Once I had pulled them to the absolute limit, I slipped inside the mansion and barred the front gates. But these were the same zombies that had already climbed halfway up a city wall, and their numbers had only grown. Scaling the manor walls was child’s play.
I climbed to the top of the tower that had once held Julian’s chambers and looked down on the swarm. Julian led the pack.
“Julian. The map showed a box somewhere in this house. What was inside?”
He had no interest in answering. He simply pointed a finger at me. Zombies packed the mansion so tightly there was no room left to stand; they climbed over one another just to get higher. Every single one of them stared up at me on the roof, thrashing limbs in frantic hunger.
I felt like a dried fish hung out of reach. According to the old stingy-miser tales, that meant they would never get to eat me.
“Give up,” Julian finally said. “Where do you think you’re going? There’s nowhere higher to climb.”
He was right. I had already reached the highest point. The zombies filled not only the gardens and courtyard but the interior of the building itself. Another human hill and they would reach the tower roof soon enough.
As I thought it, I spotted one already hauling itself up by a protruding ledge.
“Heh… heh-heh…”
Julian watched the same sight and laughed. “In the end you’ll end up just like me.”
Satisfaction twisted his face as the circle closed around me. “This Julian may have died by your hand, but I will not go alone. I swore it the moment my head left my shoulders. You will carry my curse!”
“You didn’t have time for any of that. It was instant. You’re overdoing the theatrics.”
“You talk a good game. Have you lost all sense of reality?”
Thud—
The moment he finished speaking, a zombie hauled itself onto the tower roof.
“Heh-heh… you’ll die in the exact place I died. No—worse than death. From now on you’ll be my servant.”
Julian roared, “Accept it quietly. There is nowhere left to run!”
“You’re right about that.”
I swept my gaze over the zombies that had poured into the mansion.
“Because every last one of you is now inside the blast radius.”
I slipped past the arms of the zombies that had reached the top and dropped straight onto Julian’s head. His eyes went wide with sudden panic.
“It’s too late to run.”
I threw his own words back at him and gathered every drop of holy power I possessed. I dragged out every scrap of mana—not a single drop left behind. Once I spent it all, recovery would take a long time. So this one strike would carry everything.
I don’t have a unique halo like Laward or Chris. Mine is the same shape, the same light, as every other Holy Knight’s. Nothing special about the flavor—yet that also makes it pure foundation.
In mid-air I kindled a blazing light.
Vmmm—
The basic technique I taught Laward.
F-Rank: Holy Light Emission.
Laward had refined it into a compressed bullet. I did the opposite.
Vmmmm—!
I simply poured every ounce of holy power into it without finesse. My holy power is stronger than anyone’s by birthright. In battery terms, both capacity and output sit at the absolute peak. Even the same spell, at maximum discharge—
KRA-KOOOOOM!
F-Rank Basic Divine Magic — Full Output
All remaining holy power expended in a single detonation
As if a bomb had fallen from the sky, Julian’s mansion ceased to exist upon that earth.
“Thanks for the ride, Kaine.”
“It was nothing.”
The Silver Knight gave a small shrug of her armored shoulders.
“So this is Duke Julian’s territory.”
Blash held his breath and scanned the surroundings. Silence. A place that should have been swarming with undead was unnervingly quiet. The only sound was snow skittering on the wind.
“Strange.”
“Yes. Not a single undead—or living person—in sight.”
The Silver Knight took the lead as she spoke. “Still, he seems every bit the man the rumors claim.”
“Hm?”
“Daywin Hasgard. The clock tower we saw near the station, the eastern gate we just passed—everything sealed. If I couldn’t fly, we never would have gotten in.”
“True. He even cut the bridges, just in case.”
“He must have prioritized containment to stop secondary damage.”
“I think the same. Only…” Blash’s voice dropped. “That also means he locked himself inside with them.”
“…Yes.”
“He requested reinforcements and sealed the territory completely. Which means—” Blash’s lips twisted at the ugly possibility. “He planned for the worst as well.”
“The worst?”
“Even if he failed, trapping the undead here would let us finish the job.”
“…He thought that far ahead.”
“Leaving the rest to us makes me uneasy.”
The two of them swept every direction, trying to see as far and as much as possible. Even after walking a fair distance they found no people—only bloodstains and scraps of flesh scattered everywhere, mixed with mud, snow, and fragments of the wall. Everything they saw only deepened the Holy Knights’ dread.
“Hmm.”
“We may need to check from the air.”
As the Silver Knight shifted her armor, Blash raised a hand to stop her.
“No.” He pointed at the houses lining both sides of the road like evenly spaced trees. “Every window is shattered.”
“The windows…?”
The Silver Knight turned her helmet left and right. Just as he said, not a single pane remained intact.
“Isn’t that simply because the undead broke in?”
“Yet many doors stand open. Why smash the windows if the doors were already available?”
“Perhaps the doors were opened afterward?”
“And near the eastern gate where we entered, none of the windows were broken.”
Blash approached one house and studied the empty frame. “This looks more like the work of a shockwave.”
The Silver Knight nodded as understanding dawned. “There are even signs the powder magazine burned.”
“So the eastern gate was simply too far from the explosion for the windows to break?”
“Exactly. Whatever happened here… we are walking straight toward its center.”
Blash’s face hardened and he quickened his pace.
“Commander.”
For the first time they found living people—two young girls.
“Eek!”
The sisters flinched the moment they saw the Holy Knights.
“Kaine, I think your bulk startled them.”
“It always does.”
The Silver Knight sighed and stayed put while Blash alone approached the children.
“I am Blash, Commander of the Holy Knights! Can you tell me what happened here?”
“S-sir? Well…”
The sisters hesitated, then carefully explained: how the townsfolk had turned into zombies, how those zombies had attacked their home, and how the entire horde had suddenly chased after one man and vanished.
When they finished, Blash’s expression turned to stone. The man they described had to be Daywin. If he had been able to lure the zombies that way…
That also explains the shockwave and the explosion.
He had self-destructed. Daywin had sacrificed himself.
“Commander? What’s wrong?”
“Kaine… Lord Daywin must have moved the explosives out of the powder magazine before it detonated. He drew every zombie into one place and then—”
“…Yes.”
The Silver Knight’s helmet dipped; she understood the rest without hearing it.
“I only hope we can at least find a body.”
With a grim face Blash headed for the mansion—the epicenter. He had believed Daywin would find a way to solve everything. He had never imagined the man would choose sacrifice.
Thud—
Their footsteps stopped.
The place where Julian’s mansion had once stood was gone—building, walls, everything reduced to powder as though the ground itself had been plowed under. Only the scattered rubble of the outer wall hinted that walls and a fortress had ever existed here.
“Looking at this, survival would have been nearly impossible.”
The Silver Knight surveyed the devastation.
“……”
Blash’s face grew even darker, as though he already knew the ending.
Then—
Thwack—! Thud!
A sharp, rhythmic sound cut the air. They hurried toward it and found Daywin standing there, gripping a shovel made of light.
“Huh…?”
“What?”
Blash and the Silver Knight blurted the same stunned syllable at once. At the noise Daywin turned and spotted them.
“Ah, you’ve arrived. Later than I expected.”
Vmmm—
Looking almost pleased, he forged two more shovels of light and pressed one into each of their hands. Somehow the Holy Knights found themselves holding radiant tools.
“I’ve completely exhausted my mana, so we’ll have to dig by hand. I can barely manage these shovels—could you two give me a hand?”
“What on earth—?”
“The map says it’s right under here, but the snow is covering everything. Start by clearing the snow around us.”
“Never mind that—how are you still alive…?”
Instead of answering, Daywin simply kept digging.
Thud—
Still bewildered, the two Holy Knights found themselves shoveling snow before they quite knew what was happening. The Commander and Vice-Commander of the Holy Knights, for the first time since their days as the lowest rookies, were sweating freely as they cleared snow.