I didn’t believe in ghosts, but in this fantasy world, everything is possible, in my opinion.
And thus, my first instinct was that they were fucking possessed.
Just for safety, I drew out my falcata, watching them carefully as I tried to gauge what happened.
They appeared frozen in place, looking at me with whitened, blank eyes.
Slowly, their bodies began to twitch, glowing slightly in the bluish tint.
GRAAH!
One of them screamed, tearing his mouth open with spit flying everywhere.
I would like to guess that it was a zombie, but the man didn’t quite look like one. He looked completely normal, except for the fact that he was looking at me as if I was a delicious meal.
Gay.
But jokes aside, I nearly shat my pants when they both began to act like zombies, growling at me before leaning forward and dashing at me in a proper zombie fashion.
Arms swinging wide, without a single care about anything else as they kept growling and running towards me with no care about themselves.
I really wished I had a pistol or something right now, as I had no fricking intention of getting personal with these rabid dogs.
Yet, to my bad luck, these fuckers had a decent agility that yes I was able to outspeed, but as much as I know about zombies, they are some inexhaustible bastards.
I don’t know if they really are zombies or not, but everything about them screamed that they are.
Except for their looks, I guess. They didn’t quite look too ’undead’.
But as the world taught me, judge the personality, not the looks.
Thus, I kept my falcata gripped in one arm and began to sprint all over the shattered boss room.
Going into the exit door to escape was impossible since the process took time, it wasn’t instantaneous that I could just jump in and get teleported.
So my best option was to dash across the room, keeping my eyes peeled onto the ground for any kind of new weapon I could find.
My falcata’s biggest drawback was that it was really short, if I tried to attack the zombies, I MIGHT get bitten.
***
’FUCK FUCK FUCK!’
Internally cursing at the lack of long ranged weaponry, I was beginning to feel tired.
I have already been running for over 5 minutes, and not just any run, but at max speed.
It was enough to kite them safely, but consumed a lot of stamina.
My eyes drifted to a broken spear on the floor. I had already found it a couple minutes ago, but ignored it in hopes of a better alternative.
It was a meter and a half long, even after getting broken.
Must have been 2.5 or something.
Regardless, it was a huge upgrade than the barely 50 cm blade and 20 cm handle of my falcata.
Kiting the dumb zombies wasn’t that hard, as I slowly reached over to the broken spear and picked it up, before continuing to run.
Now was the important question, would killing them count as a murder.
Maybe, but I would like to debate that even if they are still humans or saveable, this should still count as self defence.
From the legal side, I was safe.
And as for the ethical side, I didn’t care much either.
I judged their personality for these past 5 minutes and I can safely say that they ain’t any humans.
"What’s going on over there?!"
Suddenly, before I could prepare to jab my spear into a zombie man’s skull, a loud and authoritative voice cut through the room.
Hah? What a timing to receive the backups!
Fuck you, I am taking this exp! I am nearly level 8!
I jabbed the spear into one man’s skull regardless of the voice, simply pretending like I didn’t hear her.
I felt a cold gale brushing my body as the already broken spear was further snapped into two smaller parts.
Its splinters flew in the air, showing me the face of the woman that just intervened.
What’s my luck?
Yes. It was Ruby.
That’s why I felt that her voice was strangely familiar. I just didn’t notice it instantly.
[ You have slain a human Lv 7 ]
[ Exp: +197 ]
[ You have levelled up ]
[ +1 to all stats. +5 additional points. ]
The level up message came, but I simply smiled slightly and waved it off.
There was a live Ruby standing in front of me, after all.
"Aaron..." Her voice softened instantly before she suddenly turned around and grabbed the rampaging zombie.
"Mana frenzy...?" she mumbled to herself.
Mana frenzy? That’s what she said, right?
Ah, now I get it. These guys didn’t become zombies, they just became frenzied due to mana overdose, or in other words, their bodies absorbing more mana than they should.
It triggered an event where the person then goes into complete frenzy and tries to find any source to absorb even more mana.
I had read about it on the internet, but it was such a rare and small phenomena that it didn’t even cross my mind until Ruby mentioned it.
Talking about her, she karate chopped the man on the back of his neck, instantly making him pass out.
"Ruby, hey, what a coincidence." I chuckled, "Thanks for saving me, though you just ended up breaking my spear in the process."
I didn’t mind putting the blame over her about the spear. Even though it wasn’t mine.
"Oh– I am so sorry..." She fumbled, still reeling from the shock of finding me here.
Same for me, but I was better at controlling my actions.
I looked at the entry door of the boss room, and to my displeasure, there they were.
Her rest of the group, Klaus, Lina and Greg.
"What happened here... were they of your party?" She looked at me with a tinge of worry, glancing at the strewn corpses of the group that went before us.
My party?! Keep your flags with yourself, woman!
Don’t put a fucking flag on my beloved Claire!
I hurriedly shook my head, "No no, they’re from another party. My party headed to the higher floor to check out this anomaly."
She heaved a sigh of relief, "I am glad– I mean–" she then realized that being relieved about someone’s death wasn’t that nice, so she tried to correct herself.
"It’s okay." I waved it off, turning to look at the bluish passed out ex-zombie.
"Can you please explain what’s going on?"