Going back X number of days, Capital City of Omni Empire - Karkin.
As Dan was the first person to use the Return Stone, he immediately noticed something was wrong when he arrived in the room. Low growling sounds could be heard all around him, so he instinctively took out his sword from the Item Box.
As a former A-ranked adventurer, Dan had trusted his instincts for so many years to stay alive, and he wasn't about to forsake it at this moment.
Mary, Kaori, and Luna were the next ones to arrive. However, since their sense of danger wasn't as good as Dan's, they were still somewhat calm. The dim lightning in the room did startle them a bit, but they weren't going to make a fuss from just that.
When their eyes adjusted a bit to the darkness, they saw Dan with his back towards them.
"What's wrong? How come you have your weapons out, Dan?"
"Shh!"
He immediately hushed the girls, telling them to be quiet.
Even though the girl's were not experienced in sensing danger, they were all able to tell that something was wrong, because Dan would never act so cautiously in a normal situation.
"Grr…"
As the girls looked around the room, they saw the silhouettes of many human-shaped figures in front of them. However, what caused them to worry were the sounds those figures emitted, as well as their strange movements.
A few of them were wobbling from left to right, while some of them were just standing still. There were also quite a few bodies lying on the floor.
When the girls entered the room, they could already smell something weird all around them. However, Kaori and Mary didn't know what it was, since they were never exposed to it, even though it did smell disgusting. Luna on the other hand, could faintly figure out the situation due to her slave life in the past, where she would occasionally witness death as other slaves were brutally tortured and killed.
Although Luna wasn't able to figure out that the smell of rotting flesh was also in the air, she could faintly tell that the smell of blood was all around them.
As Kaori and Mary's vision gradually restored, what they saw caused them to shake uncontrollably. There were multiple dead bodies in front of them, while some of the figures were engorging themselves on the bloody flesh and entrails.
When they were about to shriek in fear, Luna had already expected it so she quickly used both of her hands to cover their mouth. Luckily, Luna muffled most of the noise emitted by the girls.
"...mm!"
"Shh. Close your eyes and clear your minds. Don't look at what's in front of you."
Kaori and Mary both nodded as they did what she told them.
However, before they could even calm down, another person appeared beside them.
"-you fucker! How dare you steal my brother's Return Stone!"
"GRRR…"
All of the zombies around them quickly became excited as Fae's words acted as a stimulant that awoke them from their slumber.
Dan didn't want to fight until everybody finished teleporting, as he knew the battle would become chaotic once it started. However, since the zombies were already locked onto their position from the shouting, he had no choice but to use his skill.
"[Weapon Control]!"
Dan had taken out at least 20 weapons, opting to go for quantity rather than precision. He needed enough weapons to be able to protect the girls behind him. He directed half of his weapons to protect the girls, while the other half were used offensively.
*Clang*
As he launched the weapons forward, only a few of them were able to hit the head, while the rest of them hit the chest, arms, or legs. The zombies in this room were equipped with armor, and Dan's weapons had created clanging sounds as they collided with the ones that had iron or steel armor.
There were at least 50 zombies in the room, causing Dan to worry since he knew he wouldn't be able to protect everyone at this rate. All of the zombies were madly dashing forward, closing the distance between the two groups with every passing second.
"Fae, I'm going to need your help here!"
Dan's words had pulled her out of her daze, as she was worried about the fate of her younger brother.
"Got it!"
Fae took out her bow and started shooting at the zombies, relieving some of the pressure from him. Needless to say, she aimed for the head as she already knew the weak point of the zombies.
While they were fighting, Dan made sure to keep his attention on the girls, as he left half of his weapons around them earlier. The swords, axes, and other weapons were constantly moving around in the air. Whenever a zombie got close enough to them, at least three weapons would engage it at the same time to maximize the chances of killing it in one blow.
After a few of the zombies were killed that way, an opening was created when four zombies charged at the same time towards the girls. Since Dan was already preoccupied with his own fight, he wasn't able to make any immediate changes to his previous plan.
Thus, nine of the weapons went out to confront three zombies, while only one sword was left to slash at the fourth zombie.
The sword lodged itself into the zombie's shoulder, causing it to get stuck there. When the zombie was a meter away from the girls, Luna stepped in front of Kaori and Mary and shouted.
"AH!!!"
Luna had used her [Dragon's Roar] on the zombie. Even though her skill was only at level one, which caused her to have trouble using it offensively, she was able to momentarily stop the zombie in its tracks.
Luna raised the spear in her hands as she took up a defensive posture to be ready to pierce the zombie once it got too close. However, she knew it would be a futile attempt as her strength is severely lacking after her original levels and skills were sealed.
Even though she did level up a bit as she traveled with Kio and the rest for a few days, she still wasn't back to her full strength.
Fortunately, the zombie slumped to the ground as blood oozed out of its head. Her [Dragon's Roar] had done enough damage at such a close distance that it caused the zombie's brain to explode internally.
"Phew…"
Releasing a deep breath, Luna felt lucky that she didn't need to confront it in a melee fight.
After the zombie in front of them collapsed, the 9 other weapons from earlier got into formation again as the three zombies from earlier had been killed.
A trace of cold sweat could be seen on Dan's forehead as he realized how much danger the girls were in just now.
"Fuck! There's too many of them!"
While Dan and Fae were slowly reducing the number of zombies around them, another person slowly appeared beside them.
Before that person could even finish transporting to this location, Fae felt a surge of anger rush to her head as she took out more arrows from her quiver and shot it at that person.
Four arrows landed on that person's legs, two on each of them, causing him to yell out in pain and fall backwards as soon as he finished teleporting.
"OUCH!"
As expected, the last person to teleport to this room was Eldritz since he stole Felix's Return Stone and used it for himself after Fae left.
However, what she didn't see afterwards was him fiercely pummeling her brother for constantly preventing him from courting Fae. He had a lot of pent up resentment since whenever he invited her to go out for dinner or a casual stroll, she would always reject him, saying she was either too busy taking care of Felix or searching for him after he got kidnapped.
As soon as they were left alone, Eldritz took this opportunity to release all his frustration and constantly punched Felix as hard as he could. After a minute of ruthless beating, Eldritz took out an arrow that was stained with blood and pierced it into Felix's arm before locking him inside one of the rooms.
"Kekeke…"
Eldritz laughed menacingly before using the Return Stone, leaving Felix alone in the house.
He had stumbled upon a goblin corpse with a few arrows sticking out of its body when he was on his way to Fae's house earlier. When he removed some arrows out of the goblin, he never would've thought that he would use it on Felix like this.
He was pleased with himself as nobody would ever know that he was the culprit in turning Felix into a zombie. With Felix taken out of the picture, he knew it wouldn't take long before he would win the affection of Fae with his appearance, charisma, and political power.
However, while he was rejoicing from his successful revenge, he felt a sharp pain in both of his legs while he was in the middle of teleporting with the Return Stone.