A Secret Confession and the Zombie Wall
"So would it be okay if I confessed to Simon today?"
At Ellen's bombshell of a remark, Lethe's shoulders flinched hard.
Ellen caught the reaction perfectly and curled the corner of her mouth into a knowing smirk.
"Wha—no! Why are you asking *me* that of all things...!"
"Just kidding~"
A kick shot out from Lethe's crossed-legged position, catching Ellen square in the face. She let out a strangled "Oof!" and toppled backward.
"...I'm seriously going to kill you."
Drawing her legs back in, Lethe growled, her face flushed red.
Even with a boot print on her cheek, Ellen burst into delighted giggles like she was having the time of her life.
"I know, I know. A confession, out of nowhere, in the middle of a matter that decides the fate of the continent? Something like that could shake Simon's focus. I have at least that much common sense, thank you very much!"
Since her expulsion from Efnel, it had been a long, long time since Ellen had worn a school uniform (a knockoff, granted) and chatted the afternoon away with another girl her age.
Gossip like this used to be an everyday thing for her. Now it survived only as her fondest fantasy.
Even now, Ellen missed that ordinary life terribly.
"Then how about this question?"
"I don't know! Drop it!"
"Honestly now, setting aside the whole necromancer thing—isn't Simon actually pretty attractive, as a guy?"
Lethe, sitting with her knees drawn up, let out a long sigh.
"Ugh, fine. He's *very* handsome, alright."
"Ahhhh! I knew that's what you really thought! For real? Is that your true heart talking?"
The lesson-proof Ellen took another kick to the face and went tumbling backward again.
Lethe answered with studied indifference.
"I'm a girl too, and I've got working eyeballs. I know the brat's got a pretty face, and I know he's got a decent personality on top of it."
"Then why do you—"
"Because he's a necromancer."
Lethe said it like she was spitting out something bitter.
"I got burned so badly by one when I was little that the word 'necromancer' just fills me with horror. There's nothing in me that can feel attraction or warmth for one. Physically impossible. I'm repulsed, plain and simple."
Ellen blinked.
"But Simon risked his life to save complete strangers like us, didn't he?"
"Argh! He's a necromancer in the end, isn't he?! He's got a core jammed in his heart, and at his core he's a monster that raises corpses with that power! That's what he *is*!"
Watching Lethe get so swept up in her own topic, cheeks flushing as she argued, Ellen felt a quiet glow of satisfaction. This was exactly what she'd been hoping for.
"Then why not try looking at it this way?"
The moment Ellen raised her index finger, Lethe cut her off.
"No! Stop with that infuriating 'what if' of yours—!"
"What if Simon weren't a necromancer, but something else entirely?"
At that question, Lethe's mouth twisted inward.
"Think about it! No—where in the world is there a necromancer who wields divinity? Simon is a being completely outside the bounds of common sense, a walking exception to every rule! He received the Goddess's choice and channels holy power, but he has a core, so he's a necromancer. Can you really just lump it all together like that? Honestly, Simon's divinity is far too pure and warm for that."
"..."
Lethe traced her lips with a finger, sunk deep in thought, her expression remarkably serious. But what Ellen wanted wasn't earnest contemplation or debate—it was idle, easy banter, the kind where you toss thoughts back and forth without weighing them.
Ellen was just opening her mouth again when—
"What's got you two discussing things so seriously?"
Simon had returned, wearing an easy grin.
Ellen waved a small hand with a wistful smile, but Lethe jolted upright with a reaction bordering on violent.
"Gah! You scared the daylights out of me! If you're going to come over, at least make some noise!"
"Hm?"
"Who sneaks up behind people like that? Pervert!"
"Funny—I'd say it's your problem that you couldn't even hear the train door open."
Simon shot back playfully and set down a large pile of fruit in front of the two of them.
Ellen's eyes lit up.
"Wow! What's all this?"
"Picked it up from the kitchen car."
"Ooooh, that's our Simon! What a smooth operator!"
And so the three of them were trading stories over slices of fruit when it happened.
Lethe, who had been silently eating the pieces Simon cut for her, felt her eyebrows twitch.
"They're here."
She shot to her feet, and the other two looked up.
"What is it?"
"The detection wards set up around the train picked up the Blood Sky Cult. Head count, zombies included—minimum one hundred and counting."
Ellen's mouth fell open, and Simon surged to his feet.
"Engine room. Now."
"Right."
Ellen hurried off to spread the word to the others, while Simon and Lethe pushed into the engine room.
Metin rose from his seat as they entered.
"Perfect timing. We're down to about half our fuel, so—"
"Tell everyone to get clear. We need the train moving *right now*."
"What's happened?"
"The Blood Sky Cult is coming to take the train."
At those words, Metin bolted out the door immediately. Lethe settled in beside the great ward, laying her palms flat against it.
"Whew."
She exhaled lightly, hardened her gaze, and raised her divinity.
VMMMMMMMM!
The divine magic circle hummed to life—another vast world woven from intricate equations, turning over and over.
Chug! Chug!
Barely moments after she touched the circle, the train actually began to move. Simon let out a whistle of admiration.
"So it really can go in reverse!"
"Reverse means slow, but once she builds up speed we'll be fine, probably."
Lethe rose from her seat.
"Come on. Let's go stop some heretics."
The two of them slipped out of the engine room and into the passenger cars.
Simon stared out the window. A train racing through empty, featureless darkness. And then—
Kieeeeee!
Just as Lethe had said, the zombies came swarming in.
Boom! Bang!
The train hadn't gathered speed yet, so the zombies sprinted alongside and hurled themselves at the hull. Screams erupted from every corner of the cars at the sight of undead shrieking through the glass.
Simon immediately threw open the ceiling hatch and climbed up onto the roof.
Clatter, clatter!
He looked down into the biting wind. Seething masses of black and red, writhing in the dark. Simon flipped his robe inside-out with practiced speed and pulled out his mask.
Crack!
He booted the first zombie off the roof, then reached into his subspace and pulled out the last remaining zombie he had.
"Prince. Time to work again."
Simon pressed the ring on his left hand against the zombie's body as he spoke. Black lightning cracked down instantly, and Prince rose from the corpse mid-yawn.
"Called me out fast. What is it this time—the Blood Sky Cult or whatever they're called?"
"Yep."
More zombies were clambering up onto the train roof. Prince fixed them with a narrowed stare.
Click.
The zombies' eyes flooded gold—and in the next instant they were kicking the zombies trailing behind them off the roof, then dropping down after them.
With the rear in Prince's hands, Simon sprinted along the train roof toward the next car.
<Bone Armor — Handgun Mode>
Bone armor handguns fitted to both arms, he tore down the roof of the train, spitting bone bullets the whole way. Zombies dropped like flies; the ones already up on the roof he finished off with direct kicks.
"Back again, are you?"
There was Metin, fighting on the train roof just like him, grinning as he spoke. Simon did his best to ignore the jab and vaulted to the next car.
"Hold the line! Hold it!"
"Get them off, whatever it takes!"
It turned out that a good number of the passengers were Priests and Clerics, and that helped enormously. They rained attacks down on the zombies pushing into the cars, and even the ordinary civilians who couldn't use divinity piled broken glass and furniture into barricades, defending as one.
Clatter! Clatter! Clatter!
The train was picking up speed. Simon ran heedlessly from the front of the cars toward the rear, loosing bullets again and again.
"Hahh! Hahk!"
Gasping for breath, Simon finally reached the last car.
The zombies could no longer keep up with the train's speed. All he had to do now was punch straight through them.
Except—
"...Now what the hell is *that*?"
Simon couldn't believe his eyes.
The zombies were pouring onto the tracks ahead, stacking their own bodies into a wall of flesh. If they couldn't match the train's speed, it seemed, they would simply block it with their bodies.
'That has to go. NOW.'
Simon raised the ring on his left hand to his lips.
"Prince! Get to the rear car! Right now!"
Boom! Bang! Bang!
Before the words had even left his mouth, a thunderous pounding came from far off, like something being pulped. A moment later Prince's body dropped out of the air beside Simon.
CRASH! The roof dented inward, and muffled startled murmuring rose from the passengers below.
"Here. What is it?"
"See that wall of zombies? Use the crown's power to rip control of one zombie out of the middle of it."
"Ah, got it. I see where you're going with this."
Prince narrowed his eyes. Dead center in the zombie wall, one zombie's gaze turned gold like his own. Simon triggered the dark magic he'd been holding ready.
"Corpse Explosion!"
KWAAAAAANG!
The zombie detonated with a deafening roar, and the wall of flesh came collapsing down in an avalanche.
Zombie bodies went flying through the air and tumbled in all directions, while the speeding train plowed headlong through the rubble. With a tremendous boom, the remaining zombies scattered like the wreckage of fireworks.
"Simon! There's another wall behind it!"
"Keep it coming!"
No wonder the ambush had come late—they'd been preparing this whole stunt.
Prince stole control of the zombie at the center of each wall and bound it to Simon, Simon blew it apart with Corpse Explosion, and the wall crumbled—again and again.
After tearing down five zombie walls in total, the tracks ahead were finally clear.
The train's speed was up now, too high even for the Blood Zombies and their signature sprint. The Priests inside the cars mopped up the last of the undead clinging to the hull or slipping through the windows.
"We did it! We're alive!"
"WAAAAAAAH!"
The passengers who'd fought together threw their arms in the air and cheered. Simon, too, sagged onto the train's floor, chest heaving, and smiled.
"Hey."
Prince held out an open palm, looking vaguely embarrassed about it.
Simon happily reached up and returned the high-five—only for Prince to hold his palm out flat again, facing downward.
"?"
"Ah, if you start a high-five you obviously finish the whole thing! Palm slap! Fist bump! Then you top it off with the slap-slap-tap-tap!"
"...?"
Simon blinked in bewishment before it dawned on him.
"Wait—you don't mean a handshake, do you?"
"Yes! That one!"
And so Simon was subjected to the full ritual: palms meeting from above and below, fists bumping, elbows touching, and then the two of them turning back-to-back to thrust their arms behind them in a bizarre reverse high-five to finish it off.
Only then did Prince wear a satisfied smile.
"Yes! Yes! That's exactly it!"
Revved up by their first successful routine, Prince snorted steam like an excited bull.
"From now on, whenever you summon me, we're doing this! When I hold out my palm, you do the whole set! Memorize the order!"
"...Where on earth did you even learn that?"
"I thought of it myself!"
Prince conspicuously left out the part where Richard had often played with him exactly like this.