Chapter 58: The Earth That Swallowed The House
The chances of it being September was high, but not assured. Junk and April both readied themselves to do battle in the tunnel. They waited and waited for the shape that they had heard moving in the tunnel to turn up. The longer they waited, the more they seriously began thinking that whoever this person was, that it wasn't September at all. The shape came into view and revealed itself to be a man. A man who wasn't exactly a man. It was an undead. A zombie with green skin with a few pink flowers that blossomed a little over his face and body. The undead didn't say anything as it came into view. He growled and charged toward April, who was, unfortunately, on the front line. The zombie immediately went for her, and Junk felt like it was up to him to protect her. Even while being in his human form. However, he soon found out that she had that covered all by herself. By the time Junk tried reaching her and protecting her, April had already leapt into the air and jumped and kicked the undead right in the face. Sending him flying in the air.
The zombie fell and crashed on his back. He kept moving afterwards, but had so much trouble getting back up on his feet that he contented himself to be crawling on the ground. Crawling back toward April. The undead with the flowers all over his body hadn't learned any form of lesson. He was still trying to attack her. This time, the boy wasn't going to let that happen again. He stood in front of his favorite elvish girl and stomped on the soft head of the decaying zombie as soon as he crawled far enough for his own taste. With his head and his brains destroyed, he finally stopped moving. It was the end for this horrifying thing in the tunnel.
"Do you have any idea what that thing was?" Junk asked.
"I'm not sure. I'm glad you ended his tragic life," she said.
"No problem. Impressive kick you just pulled right there."
"We have to find Sep, as soon as possible," April didn't take the moment to accept this compliment and turned her back. She walked deeper in the swampy tunnel and the young man followed her. His right boot was covered in the green blood of the undead, which he had on, even though he wasn't wearing much.
It was time to fix that.
"Armor up!" the brave boy shouted as he summoned the Halloween demonic armor and wore it!
Fortunately for her, Junk took the time to dress up before descending into the tunnel earlier. Still , his right boot could use a bit of cleaning, but it'll have to wait for a while longer. Well, for as long as they still were in this underground tunnel, they were no point in cleaning up. There was no way either, so the only thing the Minotaur could do was to keep venturing deeper into the ground and following April.
After moving into this long fungus-filled corridor for the longest time, the two arrived into a bigger underground room. This room was submerged with a thick fog. It was almost entirely impossible for any of them to see anything here. The room could have been full of people or things, or it could have been entirely empty. There was no way of knowing at the time. Junk wasn't so sure about exploring the room with this thick fog in place, but he didn't say a word and continued following April no matter what.
"Did you feel that?" April asked Junk at a certain point.
"Felt what?" he demanded her in return, confused.
"This. I ran into something. It's weird. Was that you?"
"No. Wait a minute. I did, too. I touched something," he observed. But then, through the confusion, the fog cleared up a little and the reality of things became much clearer as well, for the both of them. They were surrounded! They were surrounded by an army of similar undead as the one they encountered and defeated in the tunnel earlier. April and Junk stopped moving as soon as they realized what was going on. April panicked. She froze and became nervous.
"We are surrounded, Junk. What are we going to do?"
"Circle around them and come in my back. I'll slaughter all of them myself. Everything is going to be just fine. You'll see."
"Why are you such a fool?" They suddenly heard a woman's voice. It was September's stern voice. The fog cleared up a little more, and it was revealed that September was silently standing right next to the reckless Minotaur this entire time. She was much less nervous than any of the other two. She successfully prevented Junk from pulling his weapon from behind his back and assaulting all the green zombies in sight. "Attacking them is not what we need at the moment. We only have to speak as quietly as possible, and they won't be hearing or seeing us," the Autumn witch explained to the both of them.
"Sep!" April whispered her name.
"September? Where were you all this time?" he questioned her.
"Around. I couldn't wait for you two to wake up this morning. As soon as I saw that my master's cottage had vanished into the night, I began investigating," she said.
"Do you know why the house is gone?" Junk asked her.
"No. Not yet. But I suspect that it's because you spilled the magical tea I made yesterday. These swamps are sacred and hold an impressive magical history. The magical tea did something to this land, and the cottage was most likely swallowed by it."
"Of course, I caused this to happen…" Junk nodded.
"If the marsh swallowed the house, where is it now?" April asked herself, scratching her chin.
"I have no idea, but the investigation just began."
"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it, witch," the Minotaur grew excited to be searching for the house that had been swallowed by the marsh. So excited in fact that he accidentally spoke a bit too loud this time and hit one of the surrounding zombies with his arms as he moved.
Big mistake!
One undead slowly turned his head to him. Another did. Another did. Then another did. And before they knew it, all of them did. They were all aware of their presence now.
"Dang it…" he said to himself.
"Junk? Really?" April couldn't believe it.
"They are aware of our presence now," the witch said.
"Which means that we have to kill all of them now. Right?" he waited for her signal.
"No. That would be a bad mistake. With such a big volume of them, we have to come up with a different strategy if we want to get out of here alive. We have to appease them. All of them."
"But how?" April asked her.
The witch smirked.
"Looks like you are going to have to seriously start your pumpkin cultivation training a tad a bit ahead of time, Junk. The only way to appease them is to satisfy them by showing them something they haven't seen in ages."
"Which is?" Junk desperately wanted to know as the army of the undead slowly marched toward them.
"Junk. I want you to make sweet love to April."