Into Deathland
Aaron went on to explain the detailed rules of the practical assessment.
It was just past noon, and they had until midnight at the latest to complete the evaluation. When the time limit ran out, Kizen would trigger a mass teleportation no matter where in Deathland a team happened to be.
Aaron and the teaching assistants would remain here at the arrival point, having set up camp and standing by. Any team that brought their zombie back to camp—secured inside a subspace—would be assessed by Aaron, and that team would then be free to return to Kizen. Each team could receive only one assessment.
If trouble arose during the search, the team leaders could send a distress signal through the Tong Pads issued to them. Aaron and the assistants would rush to their aid immediately, but doing so would be treated as forfeiting the rest of the exam.
"Deathland is crawling with every kind of undead. The naturally-formed zombies, especially."
Aaron began.
"Zombies are Grade 2 monsters as a baseline, and some individuals exceed Grade 4. You've all studied zombies by now, so you know this—but engaging them is not recommended."
Simon nodded as he listened.
Zombies reacted sharply to sound, and once a fight broke out, every zombie that heard the commotion would come swarming in. Unless they wanted to find themselves surrounded by a horde, avoidance was the wisest strategy.
"Because this is a dangerous place, combat between Kizen students is strictly forbidden. Also, you won't be the only ones in Deathland—corpse peddlers and other necromancers come here for materials too. Avoid any involvement with them if at all possible. Get away from them and move on. They are, in the truest sense, madder than the zombies."
"Yes, sir!"
"Then scatter."
Aaron checked his wristwatch.
"Effective immediately, the Class A Summoning practical assessment begins."
* * *
Deathland was less a forest than an enormous city.
Only once their eyes adjusted to the darkness did the outlines of the buildings emerge. It was a city vast enough to rival the capital of Langestin itself.
But it was dark, gloomy, and utterly devoid of life. It was nothing short of an empty ghost city.
"...Hoo. The atmosphere here is genuinely insane."
Dick muttered, scanning their surroundings with a tightly wound expression.
Camibarez clung to the hem of Simon's clothes, scurrying after him in quick little steps whenever he moved. She seemed frightened, but whenever their eyes met, she flashed him a nervous hehe smile.
"You okay, Cami?"
"Yes!"
She answered bravely.
"I know this is a scary place, but all four of us are together, aren't we? That's enough to put me at ease!"
"Right. Let's do this together."
Meilin, meanwhile, showed more enthusiasm for the search than anyone. Striding boldly into an alley, she was running her palm along the wall of a wooden building.
"It's amazing how intact the buildings still are. Aside from the darkness and the zombies, it just looks like an ordinary city."
"Whoa, don't go wandering off on your own!"
Dick yelped.
"What is wrong with her? Has she no fear? There are zombies lurking on every side!"
Meilin glanced back at him with a smirk.
"Scaredy-cat."
"...!"
At that one word, Dick froze mid-step.
"Hey—hey! Who're you calling scaredy-cat! I'm a necromancer of Kizen! Handling zombies is literally my job, why would I be afraid of zom—"
Clatter.
Meilin gave a nearby rock a light kick. Dick and Camibarez, both strung tight as bowstrings, shrieked and dove behind Simon's back.
"If you really can't handle it, just stay at camp."
Simon said with a wry smile.
"Meilin and I will find a good zombie and come back."
In truth, there were students so paralyzed by fear that they'd refused point-blank to set foot in Deathland. They were waiting under Aaron's protection at the camp.
"N-No way!"
Camibarez squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead firmly against Simon's back.
"Please don't abandon me! I'll work hard, I promise!"
"Huh? No, no! That's not what I meant—"
"We go all the way or not at all."
Dick forced a smile even as his lips trembled.
"If I chicken out now, Meilin will spend the entire first semester nagging me about teamwork."
"You know it~"
So saying, Meilin rose on her toes and peered through a window.
"Nobody inside."
"Uh, obviously there's nobody! There's no people here at all. Only undead, remember!"
"But, Dick."
Simon, his gaze sweeping over the eerie city swallowed by darkness, turned back to Dick.
"Did people actually live here once?"
"...Huh? Oh. Yeah, of course."
Dick nodded, lowering his voice.
"Professor Aaron uses this place as the practical exam site every year, but apparently there's been quite a bit of opposition to it within Kizen."
"Because it's dangerous?"
"That's part of it, but... this place is something like Kizen's dirty secret."
Dick went on, his face grave.
"The truth is, this used to be a city of the old Talhern Empire."
Talhern was an empire Simon knew well.
The empire that had risen against Kizen, only to suffer the 'Rose Retreat' at the hands of ten necromancers and be brought to ruin.
And back in the Talhern era, Deathland had been the empire's second city—prosperous beyond all others but the capital itself.
"According to the histories, after the 'Rose Retreat'—when the fifty-thousand-strong army that marched on Kizen came back as undead and returned to the capital—the emperor was captured there, right? Turns out that's not actually what happened."
At some point, Meilin and Camibarez had drifted over to listen to Dick's story.
"In the chaos, the emperor actually managed to escape the capital safely. He went looking for a new stronghold from which to resist Kizen—and the site he settled on was this place, Deathland. Back then, Deathland was ruled by one of the empire's mightiest Sword Masters, and he commanded a large standing garrison. The emperor intended to use this place as his base and launch a massive counteroffensive."
Deathland was an impregnable fortress city, built upon towering ramparts and a vast population.
Add to that a Sword Master capable of going toe-to-toe with high-ranking necromancers. For a prolonged war of attrition, it was the perfect location.
"Kizen feared the empire reassembling itself into a united front against them, and judged that overwhelming terror was what the situation demanded. So they dropped a strategic-weapon-grade dark spell—one of the most horrifying ever devised—straight onto this territory."
Dick spread his arms wide with a shrug.
"And this is what it became."
"...!"
Camibarez clapped a hand over her mouth, her face frozen.
"With the empire's second city wiped out by a single dark spell, the emperor lost his will to fight entirely and surrendered to Kizen. And that's roughly how it all went down."
A sudden silence fell over the group. Meilin rested a hand on her hip.
"They didn't really have a choice, though, did they? If the emperor had made it into this city safely, his own pride would have driven him to shove every citizen of the empire into the fires of war! All-out war between Kizen and the empire—that's just carnage, plain and simple. Hundreds of thousands, millions would have died. HQ cut it off before things spiraled beyond control, and honestly? I can accept that."
"But..."
Camibarez said quietly.
"...I feel so sorry for the people of this city."
"Y-yeah, that part's true."
Meilin sighed and admitted it. She'd only said the decision was strategically defensible—she could never claim the method itself was right.
"Alright! Enough history class. Back to business."
Dick clapped his hands together.
"To use zombie summoning magic, the first thing you need is a corpse. Not every living thing in Deathland turned into a zombie. Some are still rot-free corpses that never rose—and finding those is priority number one!"
Meilin raised her hand.
"Then let's start by searching the houses around here. Something might turn up."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"How about this?"
For the sake of speed, Simon suggested splitting into two teams—Meilin's and his own.
But.
"Hey! You want to send me off alone with that clumsy oaf? She's useless!"
"There's still plenty of time, so maybe all four of us should stick together? It's a really dangerous place, after all..."
Come to think of it, Simon had to admit Camibarez had a point—there was no need to rush. Safety came first, before results.
And so Group 7 decided to search the houses as a full team of four.
Knock knock.
Dick rapped on a door with the most solemn expression imaginable.
"Nobody home, right? Coming in. Sorry about this."
"Stop showboating and get moving, you clown!"
Meilin shoved him aside and strode inside with confidence. Simon followed and cast a quick glance around the house.
It was the picture of an utterly ordinary family home. The place had been preserved exactly as it was on the day the curse fell.
"Nothing upstairs either!"
Meilin clattered back down the stairs—when had she even gone up?
"Next house!"
"Okay."
The four of them threw themselves into the search, moving from house to house.
"Nothing here either!"
"Next!"
They combed through the buildings for nearly two hours, and in the end, found absolutely nothing.
"Whew, this is tougher than I thought."
"Let's rest here for a bit."
Their stamina was beginning to flag, so they decided to take a break.
They entered a house and locked the door behind them. Each had settled into a comfortable position and was pulling water bottles out of their subspaces to wet their throats when—
-Grroooaaan.
"Holy—! You scared the hell out of me."
At the strange moan from outside, Dick rolled across the floor.
"Quiet, idiot!"
Meilin warned, pressing a finger to her lips.
Holding their breath and exchanging glances, the four of them heard footsteps dragging across the ground outside the house.
Shff. Shff.
Very close. The footsteps were sounding right beside the window.
'Oh no.'
Simon glanced at the window and signaled. All four dropped flat against the floor at once.
Simon lifted his eyes, and beyond the glass a silhouette came into view.
A corpse with a horribly mangled face was moving.
"...!"
Camibarez clamped both hands over her mouth. Dick fixed his stare on the floor and didn't dare look up, while Meilin readied her dark magic, prepared for the worst.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Her heart pounded. The zombie lolled its head around and peered through the window. Its neck was torn open, the bone laid completely bare.
"..."
"..."
For a moment, the silence was so absolute that even breathing felt impossible.
Shff. Shff.
Before long, the zombie dragged its feet away, its distinctive shuffling fading into the distance.
"Haaahhh..."
Sighs of relief burst out all around. Dick thumped his own shoulders and said,
"Ah, we lived. I swear that took years off my life, hoo!"
Meilin rose to her feet.
"Let's change locations soon. The zombies are starting to roam the area now, and searching this neighborhood any further feels pointless. The way I see it—"
Simon, who had been listening quietly, suddenly widened his eyes.
Behind Meilin's back, something had just shot out of the window frame of the storeroom door—a window that had been unmistakably empty a moment ago.
"Look out!"
A corpse-gray hand, pale as death, clamped over Meilin's mouth and yanked her back toward the storeroom door.
Thud!
"Mmph! Mmmph!"
She struggled with all her strength. On the zombie's other side, they could see its arm worming its way out through the barred window.
Crackle!
The first to react was Simon.
He closed the distance like lightning and drove his elbow down onto the arm gripping Meilin.
Bang!
The moment Meilin tore free of the zombie's hand, Dick threw his whole body against the door to block it.
-GRROOAAAR!
Beyond the storeroom's barred window, the zombie wrenched both arms free and thrashed wildly. The door was latched from the inside, but one of its feet had already wedged its way out beneath it.
The door rattled and shook, on the verge of bursting open at any second.
"I've got it!"
Blood Silk
Calmly completing her dark magic, Camibarez sent a carpet woven of blood flying through the bars.
Cleverly, the carpet coiled around the zombie's neck and hauled it back—and in that gap, Dick shut the door completely and pressed his palm against the handle.
'Enchant!'
Dick reinforced the rusted old hinges with Jet-Black.
"Got it, Cami!"
At Dick's shout, Camibarez nodded and released the Blood Silk. With a shrieking roar, the zombie threw itself at the door again.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
But the hinges, now solidly enchanted, held fast. The door did not give.
All four exhaled a sigh of relief at the same moment.
Simon looked at Meilin.
"You okay, Meilin?"
"Ah—yeah. Thanks."
She took Simon's hand and pulled herself up. Dick scratched his head furiously.
"God, I thought my heart was going to fall clean out of my chest."
"I'm sorry! I should have checked more carefully."
"No, no."
Even rattled with fear, they'd all responded the instant an emergency struck—truly Kizen students, Simon thought, feeling a swell of pride. He looked around at his comrades, then turned his head to stare out the window. In the darkness, more and more unearthly howls were rising.
"I think the zombies heard the noise. Let's get out of here right now."
No single zombie's combat strength was what frightened him—it was the fact that the commotion would draw every other zombie in the area. Everyone nodded and readied themselves to escape.
Drawing a long breath, Simon gripped the door handle.
"Okay. We're going."
Every eye fixed on the door. The moment Simon opened it and stepped outside—
'...Ah!'
He found himself staring directly into the faces of the zombies loitering right outside.
That was when Dick hurled the table he'd been holding straight at them and bellowed, "RUN!"