If There Is a God (3)
Half a day of holding the line.
Only when night fell did the chaos that had erupted through the city finally settle into something like a stalemate. The districts overrun by zombies and those still free of them stood clearly divided, locked in a grim opposition.
"Any medicine left?"
"None. That was everything the man left us."
"Shame."
The bundle of Demon Energy antidotes the Demon Knight had given them was gone. Fighting the demons had left more than a few people eroded by Demon Energy, and that was why. They had even tried feeding the stuff to the infected on the off chance it might work—sadly, it hadn't. Still, saving even a handful of those suffering from Demon Energy erosion counted for something.
"Hwaaaagh! Help me, help me!"
Someone came sprinting out of the zombie-infested zone.
"Zombie!"
"Arrows ready!"
"Bite marks?! Don't just grab him!"
"Were you bitten?!"
The zombies trailing the survivor dropped under a hail of arrows. In that span the man nearly reached the barricade. Torches raised all around lit the night and painted him in firelight.
"No—I'm not!"
"Back off! He's got bite marks!"
"I said I'm not!"
He denied it, but the clear imprint of teeth showed through the fabric of his sleeve, blood welling around the wound.
"Save me!"
"We can't! We don't know when he'll turn!"
"I'm not— ghk!"
Mid-climb up the barricade, the man stopped. His whole body began to contort. Response time and infection speed were vastly different from forty years ago—but that scene itself was identical.
People gathering, never knowing a demon had already nested among them. The priests enforcing a ruthless quarantine. The fights that broke out because some refused to accept it. Then the spreading fire and blood, blood, and still more blood…
"Hey—hey! Lord Baramson!"
A young Cueoty man clapped a hand over his mouth. The breath that had been racing far too fast was forced still, and the reeling in his head eased a fraction.
"Snap out of it!"
"Right… right. I have to…"
He thrashed in the sea of memory, but somehow clawed his way back to reason. They had only just managed to finish this battle line. If something broke here and he failed to stop it, the damage would only grow.
The one who had turned was finally beheaded by a sailor holding the defensive line.
"Why… why again…"
"Dad…"
But to exist amid the gushing blood and the weeping rising from every side was to watch the past keep flickering before his eyes.
It was worse because he was Slend—among humans, the longest-lived race. Had he been any other species, age might have blurred the memories by now.
"Damn it…"
The average lifespan of the Slend ran between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Baramson was fifty-three—still in his prime, memory sharp as ever.
That was the problem.
Those days, branded into him, rose far too easily. Thirteen years old. That childhood drowned in grief rose up with merciless clarity.
"Flying demon coming in!"
Someone shouted. The fear clouding his mind cleared a little.
It was absurd, but true: a demon that soared through the sky spitting fire was somehow preferable to the zombies.
"Everyone, brace!"
Baramson gripped his sword and barked orders.
Wooden planks—torn from ship hulls or house walls, soaked in seawater so they would not catch easily—rose over people's heads one after another.
Kyaaaaaah!
And just as the flying monster's cry drew nearly overhead—crack—a subtle tearing sound drove into his ear.
"My lord?"
The Cueoty youth beside him flicked an ear.
Kyaa—kakh!
The flying demon's screech broke in a strange, strangled way.
"Wait."
Baramson lifted a plank just enough to check the sky. The demon's body was tangled in rope, being hauled off to one side.
Boom!
The rope finally dragged the demon down and slammed it into the ground. What followed was a smooth cutting sound—shhk!
The tough, unnerving noise of a single stroke parting meat burst out together with a spray of blood.
"My lord!"
The Cueoty youth bolted forward, and Baramson found himself holding his breath without meaning to.
The blood-scent of the present tangled with the reek of the past. A faint smell of ash drifted from nowhere, and for a moment he was certain it was the perfume of a village burning. Just like then. Just like that moment.
"Suriya, run. Don't look back—just run. Understand?"
"Dad—what about you?"
"I'll be fine. So run. Run!"
The day the Temple's inquisitors, claiming they could no longer tell zombie from living soul, had burned an entire village to the ground.
The day his father had thrown his life away to draw the inquisitors' eyes and buy him a gap to escape—that damned day.
"Wait—check for marks—"
"No need to check that one!"
And then, and then…
"It's all right now, child."
"Baramson."
It was the same as the instant his savior had found him hiding and reached out a hand.
"You're safe now."
"I saved the Lord."
This time, at least, I didn't lose you. This time I didn't lose you.
My savior. My benefactor. My…
"You coming?"
"Of course."
Mother.
After dealing with the golem, rescuing the Lord, and sweeping every enemy along the path the golem had come through—after even finding, against expectation, demon worshipers at Amsen Pier and wiping them out as well, along with the additional forces that had shown up—we cut back through the town at a measured pace toward where our people should be waiting…
"…"
I looked at Baramson's dark, drawn face and wondered what the hell had happened.
Had people died in droves while I was gone? I was sure I'd seen quite a few familiar faces earlier.
The adventurers had even waved me off, telling me to go and leave things to them. If the damage had been that bad, they never would have reacted that way.
And yet Baramson still wore that melancholy look.
Shhk!
With no better idea of the situation, I simply swung my sword. A gargoyle's severed body landed on the roof of a house empty of any human presence.
"Is it all right to leave the people behind?"
"…After the Incident forty years ago, everyone knows how to respond when zombies appear. You saw it yourself—pirates and civilians alike banding together to throw up a defensive line first."
"True enough."
"…The infection speed is unnaturally fast, but it'll be fine. It has to be…"
For the record, it was just the three of us heading for the castle.
It would have been ideal if everyone could move to the castle, but the conditions simply weren't there. Nothing to be done about it.
A dozen or so people I might cover. Once the numbers climbed past a hundred, even I couldn't manage it—especially not now, with a long escort distance and the vulnerability of a night assault stacked on top.
The people knew that, and they stayed on the line. No one would complain. And if someone did… well, if they didn't show it, it didn't exist. Yeah.
"This time… there won't be another massacre like that…"
I flinched mid-stroke as I took a zombie's head.
The genre shift from fantasy to zombie apocalypse was already more than enough to rattle me—and now he was talking about a massacre?
A scene flickered through my mind, and I adjusted my grip on the sword for no good reason.
Did sinking five ships count as a massacre? That useless stray thought came free of charge.
"…! You—!"
A reaction from the castle—specifically from the soldiers holding formation in front of the gate.
It was dark, and I wasn't even carrying a torch. Sharp eyes.
"Open the gate!"
Recognizing me, the soldiers scrambled to raise the iron portcullis they had lowered. As the metal grate screeched upward, Baramson twitched as if he might bolt through at any second.
"The damage looks lighter than I expected. That's a relief, Lord Baramson."
"…Yeah."
Come to think of it, what about Baramson's brothers?
I still remembered what he had said—that he couldn't gamble with his brothers' lives, that he needed them saved. And to this day I had no idea who those brothers even were.
It hadn't sounded like actual blood relatives, so I had roughly figured they were privateer crew left behind in Zakrati… but the only person he had specifically asked me to save during the day was the Lord.
Calling the Lord his "brother" ran into the problem of singular versus plural. The picture wouldn't come together.
"Suriya?"
Someone called Baramson's name.
"Mayan!"
"Suriya! It really is you!"
The one who came running through the open gate was someone I already knew—the man who, earlier, had risked his injuries to tell us the Lord was still inside the castle.
"You came back?"
"…Yeah. Brought someone who can help."
I sidestepped their embrace and scanned the castle interior. Torches were posted everywhere, so even at night the visibility was decent. Probably set that way so approaching zombies would be easy to spot.
"The Lord?"
"Safe inside."
"Yeah…? That's good."
"Go see him. He'll be glad."
"…Mm. I will."
More to the point—they had roughly plugged the breach in the wall. I spotted the barricade that must have gone up after I left the castle and felt a modest satisfaction.
If the interior had been fully cleared—if no zombies remained inside—then safety here wouldn't be a concern.
"Ugh. Is that the monster you saw from the ship? The one that smashed the walls?"
Meanwhile Dev was grimacing at the corpse of the thing I had killed. A fair reaction.
It hadn't been easy on the eyes to begin with, and now, dismembered, the Ragged Golem had hit the absolute peak of ugliness.
"I still can't tell how any of this is supposed to fit together. If it hadn't been for you, Sir Knight, the damage would have been enormous."
Dev snapped a branch off a shrub inside the castle grounds. Poke, poke. The leafy stick prodded at the Ragged Golem's remains.
"Could Bipurit have made a contract with the demon worshipers?"
Well. Probably.
The fact that Bipurit's people weren't being attacked by the zombies pointed that way, and I had found and killed several demon contractors at the harbor earlier.
On top of that, they had supposedly grown strong enough to swallow a city "all of a sudden." If cooperation with demon contractors was behind that, it explained everything at once.
Though why they had to blow it open the exact moment I arrived was another question.
No, seriously—not joking—how did incidents keep detonating with perfect timing everywhere I went? No wonder I couldn't shake the suspicion that this was a game. It was ridiculous.
What next—if the city's victim count crossed some threshold, would an actual GAME OVER screen pop up? Ugh. Just thinking about it was horrifying.
I hadn't wanted to redo the sewers or the dragon hunt either, but this was a different kind of headache. With those two I could at least throw my body around and cut the casualties. This one was a mission that only resolved if the people themselves did well.
After all, the city was vast, and I only had one body.
"It's strange that there haven't been any more attacks since daytime, too…"
I had been debating whether to start a night patrol right then and there—then that comment made my hand twitch.
Well. If he was worried about additional forces, there had been some… about three or four hours ago, showing up at Amsen Pier while I was dealing with the demon worshipers…
Except I had cut every last one of them down before they even reached the harbor. Ships and the ones swimming for shore alike.
"Uh—where are you going now?"
…Honestly, I had figured that once they hit land it would get far too annoying.
And that was still true.
"Don't tell me you're going to hunt the remaining demons all night?"
"Hm? Hold on. Where do you think you're going?"
I kept walking at a measured pace.
My fatigue was still around sixty, and something about the whole situation felt wrong enough that I wanted another look at Amsen Pier. Or maybe Katoonat Pier to the west.
"At least rest a little before you go. Dawn's almost here."
Dev's hand caught my collar. I struck it away sharply. He had good reflexes and yanked free fast, but there was still a light contact.
"Sir."
"Do not interfere with me."
That little hit wasn't going to leave a bruise, right? My character's strength was so high I was a bit worried. Not that I had hit gently on purpose.
"Hey—you should at least go see the Lord."
"I have no time to waste on useless things."
I brushed off Baramson's suggestion as well and climbed the piled furniture.
Beyond the barricade, the road I had taken once during the day came into view—along with the traces of every demon I had slaughtered on the way through.
"I'm saying rest. No matter how good your stamina is, rest doesn't seem like a waste of time to me."
He wasn't wrong. He wasn't—but my concept wouldn't allow it!
More than that: if this had been a sealed dungeon, fine. But zombies and people were mixed through the streets. That made me uneasy.
Not full-blown terror so much as the feeling of going to sleep with homework unfinished. Like catching a cold right before a deadline.
And with "eliminate the demons" still sitting on the quest list, there really was work left to do.
Either way, this subtle, gnawing tension did not sit well with me. The possibility that too many people would die overnight and force a retry was even worse.
Better to just work a little more than sit here with that hanging over me.
"If you're pushing yourself because of the commission I gave you…"
"Pushing myself?"
I turned and looked back.
"I do not tolerate insults."
"…Fine. I apologize for that. But—"
"Leave it, my lord. Once demons show up, no one can stop Sir Knight."
Dev grunted and climbed onto the barricade. So he meant to follow. Given who the enemy was, staying here would have been wiser for him—but never mind.
"I won't try to stop you. Just let me come along."
Well, if that was his choice, what could I do? I turned forward again and stepped onto the highest point of the barricade.
"Ships!"
Someone shouted.
"Seven ships from the south!"
"…!?"
South was the direction of the island Bipurit held. Ships coming from there could not be friendly. Meaning all seven needed to be dealt with.
"No wonder the attacks stopped…"
Why did bad instincts always turn out right? If there was a god, this was no way to run things.
Or had they been deliberately spotted while I was here, to cut the damage? If I had been somewhere else, word would have taken longer to reach me.
"Sir—!"
Whoosh!
Enough. Time to move. I dropped off the barricade and ran for the opposite wall.
No choice. The hole I had meant to pass through opened due north, and the enemy had been sighted to the south. To see them I needed the southern wall and a clear line of sight.
Tap. Tak.
My coat flared out behind me as mana wrapped my legs.
And when my racing body hit the wall, I leapt straight onto it and ran—vertical sprinting.
Flap!
Before gravity could overtake speed, my hand caught the battlement and hauled me up. The stiff rustle of my coat rode the night's quiet and spread soft and thin.
"…!"
The sentries on the wall could only gape without a sound. From the top I swept the sea. The night water was very dark, but the moon was bright enough that the ships showed as faint shapes.
Still a good distance left. Far enough that I could be sure of reaching the harbor faster than they could close it.
"You. Deliver a message."
"Y-yes?"
"Tell them I need no support."
Boom.
My boot struck the battlement with a crash as I leapt down from the wall.
I didn't worry that the soldier might fail to pass the word to his superior, or that the superior might distrust me and send troops anyway.
Even if they did, they would only be walking for nothing…
"Take care of yourself!"
Looking at the soldiers' reactions, the odds were high they would trust me and hold back.
After all—the ones who had spotted the ships before me last time, dispatched forces, and then done nothing but watch me sink five vessels were not about to make the same mistake twice.