Cataclysm of Chaos (3)
"It's over now. I'll buy you time, so everyone run. And make sure you survive."
"Vice Captain!"
When someone lost control like this, it not only tightened the noose around their own neck, but forced a miserable reality on everyone around them as well.
The panting knights shouted after their commander as he charged forward with his sword in hand, but he had already made up his mind.
"Die, you monster!!"
With a roar, he drew up mana and hurled himself at the corpse golem that had smashed through the wall.
"Ghk!"
His blade sank deep into the giant corpse golem's side. It stood well over two meters tall, but a body made of corpses knew nothing of pain.
A hand burst out of the swollen belly, tearing through skin and flesh, and clamped around his collar.
"What the...!"
"Graaah..."
Then a massive fist came crashing down on his head. With a hideous crunch, his neck snapped, his skull caved in, and his brain matter and blood sprayed everywhere as he collapsed.
It was a single blow that took down even a fairly skilled knight in an instant.
The sight left everyone frozen in shock.
"Ru-run! Move!"
"The corpses are swarming in!"
Of course, a few of them managed to grasp the reality of the situation and shouted for the others to flee. Thanks to those cries, even the stunned could start moving on instinct.
"Sophia. You run too."
"But!"
"If you're not there, nobody will look after your brother."
She had been about to fight alongside the others, but at her fellow knight's words, she held her breath and stopped in place.
"When there's still something left to protect, protect it. If you wait too long, you'll regret it."
"Sir Eric..."
Eric, the knight who had already lost his entire family to the zombies that had overrun the land, gave her a bitter smile and sent her away.
Once she'd heard that much, she could no longer stay. Like Eric said, there was something she still had to protect.
In the end, Sophia clenched her eyes shut and turned to run, leaving behind the comrades who were falling one by one as they fought the zombies.
"Rick! Where are you!?"
Sophia hacked down the zombies attacking the people around her and searched frantically for her younger brother, Rick.
For the moment, it was still all right. There were people up front throwing their lives away to buy time, holding the line. That was why, if she wanted their sacrifice to mean anything, she had to get out of here before it was too late and run.
"Rick went out through the side gate with the others!"
"Uncle Hank."
"Go on, hurry. I already..."
Then a middle-aged man, gasping for breath as he called out to her while she ran about desperately searching for her brother, told her where Rick had gone.
She rushed to help him as he leaned against the wall, but he shook his head and showed her the thigh that had already been torn open and half stripped away.
"My l-last request is... that you make it easy for me... before I turn..."
"...Thank you."
Seeing his eyes slowly redden and the veins stand out beneath his skin, Sophia gritted her teeth and clutched her sword. Then she swung it, cleanly severing his neck.
Between the scattering spray of blood, her eyes flashed with a fury so raw it seemed about to spill over.
Why? Why is this happening?
She ran again, but her thoughts were as feverish as her heart. No matter how hard she tried to suppress it, this enormous rage simply would not die down.
"Rick!"
She burst through the side gate and into the woods beside the manor, where she spotted the tracks left in the dirt by the fleeing survivors.
She could sense voices ahead of her too, so she threw herself forward with everything she had.
"Sis!"
And then, just ahead, Sophia saw the small boy standing with several other people.
No.
But she could not bring herself to smile back at the relief on her brother's face. Her own expression went pale.
"Ah..."
Rick turned to look behind her.
The massive, heavy thing there did not wait for Sophia, who was grinding her teeth and running with all her strength.
I curse everything.
When another corpse golem emerged from the forest and attacked the people alongside the zombies. When she saw her little brother's small body crushed in their hands, torn apart right before her eyes.
Sophia raised her sword and charged at them alone, with the sensation that something inside her had broken.
Her furious blade split most of the zombies clean in half, and when a former knight among the undead swung at her, she smashed his wrist and then struck his neck with a blow that snapped it aside and dropped him to the ground.
"Kheh!"
But the corpse golem's strength was not something rage alone could fill.
It swung a thick wooden club slick with Rick's blood across her body, and Sophia lost her sword as her arm broke; then she rolled across the ground.
"She's a knight. Infect the knights separately!"
She had no idea who, beyond the corpse golem, was manipulating and shaping this situation from the shadows.
Diego, drunk on the chaos and long since lost to reason, had no notion of what kind of emotions she was feeling either.
I'll make sure of it.
Even in that situation, Sophia did not forget the hatred that came before pain. Through the one eye that had not been crushed and blinded, she stared at the approaching corpse golem.
"...!"
"I'm a little late, but it looks like I made it in time."
And then, in that instant.
Something came crashing down from the sky, a piercing strike so powerful it drove straight through the corpse golem's head and smashed through the ground it stood on, descending into the earth.
Amid the burst of shockwave, the shattered pieces of the corpse golem, and the thick cloud of dust, Sophia's lone remaining eye went wide.
It's not... a human?
What caught her eye first was the face of the boy looking down at her. An ordinary face, with messy red hair. But aside from the face, his body was anything but ordinary.
Black armor covered his entire frame, and his two legs were especially overdeveloped, bent in a powerful reverse-jointed form. It had been those legs that had crushed the corpse golem's body.
Black Beetle.
And the strange beings that had swarmed in with the boy began tearing through the rampaging zombies without mercy. At last, Sophia recognized them for what they were: the Black Beetle horde that had been the subject of so many rumors.
Insects with terrifying breeding power and black carapaces... or so they said.
Even as her vision blurred, she panted, struck by a kind of cognitive dissonance.
The Black Beetles in the rumors had been a hellish legion of insects that destroyed everything in their path. But the Black Beetle army she was seeing now was nothing like mere bugs.
There were minions shaped like giant spiders, and other beast-type minions that resembled spiders, yes, but minions like wasps and locusts felt more like armored soldiers than monsters.
Above all, the presence they gave off was completely different from the madness of the rampaging zombies. So refined, so controlled, they felt less like living creatures and more like dolls.
"Lark. Before it's too late, give her Ascalas's blessing."
That was when a woman in a black dress descended from the sky with fluttering wings.
Glancing at Sophia, whose breath was nearly gone, Karin handed Lark the concentrated essence of Ascalas she had been storing in her own body.
***
"Compatibility is 65%. We got one, and by a hair at that."
"It isn't easy to obtain them. Once you start mass-producing minions, they really are your main force in name and in truth."
"True enough."
I snorted as I watched Lark carry the knight named Sophia in his arms.
Anything above 60 percent compatibility could evolve into a high-grade unit like a knight or a priest. From my perspective, I'd love it if more and more of those units kept multiplying until they filled out entire battalions, but that would shatter the balance completely.
"I'll use the experience points I saved for Sophia. That should let her evolve into a high-ranking species in one shot."
"Are you serious?"
"If we win today's match, we'll get more experience points for the two-win achievement. That'll be enough."
This was the time for us to keep expanding. The other player had foolishly become a target for both the local faction and us, and if I used that well, I could win efficiently.
"Mythic Essence... it's building up nicely now."
As the war grew larger, it was only natural that the income would rise with it. I smiled faintly at the rapidly stacking Mythic Essence, then on a whim purchased an appearance-enhancement potion worth 800 points.
I had already seen how effective the potions were, so this one would no doubt be the same.
"Won't people think I've had work done?"
"The others won't notice the change. I can guarantee that."
Agarest had already confirmed there were no side effects. That was enough. I had wanted to try taking the title of the best-looking pro gamer at least once.
"Never forget this. Even if things go well from here on and you truly become a great lord."
"All of a sudden? About what?"
"You must always keep clear in your mind who you are, and why you are playing this game. Do not let yourself be consumed by the will of the great colony. That is the advice I can offer you."
"...Is this because I suddenly started talking about my looks? Don't worry. This was just something I bought on a whim because the reflex-enhancement potions I'd been buying so aggressively were supposedly losing their effect. I won't forget."
Agarest's sudden words drew a bitter smile from me. The miserable defeat I could not forget even if I tried was the very thing that had dragged me down to where I was now. The player I was fighting so desperately at this very moment probably had something just as urgent driving him too, which was why he had taken such a reckless gamble.
Of course, he did not say anything beyond that.