Nate's voice had rang out across the seemingly dead land as if they were in an empty cavern. However, the person he spotted had stopped moving and began to sluggishly turn. It was almost inhuman.
Christoff had raised an eyebrow, but at first thought nothing of it.
Nate however, was ecstatic to see someone else still alive. Especially within this village.
The person then began to walk towards them, slowly but surely.
"Are you okay?!" Nate had called out again. This time the person had picked up the pace a bit. The pace was resembling a limp, or more accurately someone trying to run with a limp. Closer and closer, the person had made their way to the two. Soon enough, they could make out the person's features.
A gash across the stomach, with intestines still hanging out of it. A grizzly sight to see, especially as the intestines looked as if they got closer to falling out with every limp.
Was this person just injured and running on adrenaline?
The only undead that either of them had seen were from the Sorcerer King's army and even then, it was mostly skeletons and Death Knights.
"What…" Christoff managed as the person grew closer.
His bald head was gleaming in the sunlight, even more so with the pale skin. The blue veins almost popped out of the skin.
His clothes seemed intact, minus the obvious gash and blood that had rested all down the front of his pant legs. Not even a hint of pain was present on the face of this man, nor did any sound ever escape his mouth. It was like he was mute…but he had heard them.
Christoff drew his partisan and pointed it at the man, His eyes locked with the glassed over eyes of the person.
"This guy…there is no way he is still alive." Christoff said
"You can't be certain about that…he heard us after all. Yeah, he heard us." Nate replied, adamant about defending the standpoint he had made. He really wanted to see someone else that survived the onslaught.
"No, you fool." Christoff spat.
A rare moment when Christoff was serious, he had no choice in this situation. Nate would get himself killed by believing in the falsehood that this person was still alive. Christoff was certain about it, if he didn't intervene he would surely get himself killed.
As the man approached closer, Christoff called out for him to halt.
Nothing.
The man continued to hobble forward and with that, Christoff thrust the tip of the partisan into the man's chest where his heart would be. Christoff used enough force that a normal person would've dropped. But this man did not; he continued trying to go after the two. Interestingly enough, Christoff struggled to maintain a grip at first until he adjusted to the strength that this creature possessed.
Nate was shocked, his jaw had dropped and his hands trembled ever so slightly. He wasn't sure what he just witnessed.
"Some help would be appreciated." Christoff grunted, keeping the undead at bay.
Nate snapped out of his trance, unsheathing his longsword and bringing it down where the collarbone would be on the zombie. The blade of the longsword lodged into his collarbone rather easily, and as it was ripped out blood sprayed.
The creature wasn't even affected by that, in fact it was almost as if it treated that as a minor inconvenience.
"To hell with this." Christoff spat, the aggravation getting the best of him.
He raised his leg, kicking the zombie back causing it to stagger and held his partisan up as if he were swinging a bat. He swung his partisan, the blade connected with the neck of the undead and went through as if it were butter. The creature's head went flying as the body fell forward, thudding as it hit the ground.
The two waited for a moment, seeing if the body would once again move. They didn't even notice a twitch and at the same time a sigh of relief was exhaled.
"What just happened?" Nate asked, still trying to piece together what happened
"I watched my sword connect a lethal blow and that..thing just shrugged it off."
"And it took a partisan to the heart as if it were a mere pebble." Christoff shook his head as he spoke.
"I am not religious but I pray we don't run into any more of those…things."
"That makes two of us then." Nate agreed.
Nate hesitantly stepped off down the hill, towards what buildings remained of this village. The houses that still stood were made out of stone, with black tile roofs. It looks remarkably close to Carne VIllage as most did anyway.
Christoff stopped in the middle of the street, scanning the area.
"Something's not right here, why was there only one undead?" He questioned
Nate walked to a door, checked if it was unlocked and opened it. Inside the house was a flipped over table and a chair that found it's way on his side along with two corpses. One man and one female. Nate was able to connect the dots almost instantly and was able to tell they were a family before they were attacked.
"What bastards…" Nate said as he approached the two corpses. The couple appeared to be young, only in their late teens and they had already met such a grizzly fate. This was not war, it was as Ainz had said…an extermination.
Without a delay, Christoff moved in to where the kitchen had been and started to rummage around for food. Nate shot him a look before raising an eyebrow
"What? They are dead, they won't be needing it anymore." Christoff said back as he opened up a pantry cabinet.
Of course, that left them prey to the other denizens that haunted the locale, but the soldiers were willing to risk an unknown threat to escape a very definite one which was the Sorcerer Kingdom being on their tail.
Christoff tossed a few loaves of bread to Nate who begrudgingly caught them and shoved them in a stuff sack.
The two left and made their way down the eerie silent unpaved road to a much larger building that had been left mostly intact, aside from scorching that stained the stone walls. Christoff this time took the point, approaching the door. He gripped the handle and the door had swung open due to what was behind it.
It was Finlay, or his corpse at least. He had a bolt in the back of his head and fell towards Christoff. Christoff was able to catch his corpse in time, dragging it backwards and gently placing it on the ground. His eyes were still open, open wide as if he had seen a ghost. Christoff took a knee, placing his hand over his eyes and proceeded to close them.
"Poor kid deserved better." He said, getting back up and walking inside the room that presented itself.
The stone floors had been stained with blood, smears of blood were present at almost every corner. Tables flipped over, some still standing upright. Here and there corpses were scattered across the stone floor. Interestingly enough, some had been members of the Royal Army who seemed they were preparing one final stand.
Corpses from every angle began to move, letting out a groan as they rose to their feet. Some of them had been pale , others already starting to show signs of decay.
"We have a problem." Nate said, drawing his longsword
"You don't say!." Christoff replied, twirling his partisan to prepare for what was to come.
To Christoff's left, undead villagers made their way towards him and almost as fast as quicksilver he cut their heads off showcasing the prowess he once held as a Mithril adventurer. Some even stated if he continued, he may have been Orichalum ranked.
Nate swung his longsword, he wasn't moving nearly as fast as Christoff but he was still able to cover his flank.
Around them, Seven headless corpses of villagers had now lay there. A Royal Army member who was a Squire Zombie approached them. His skull had been showing, wrapped with rotting blackish brown skin and Eye sockets empty, staring into them had almost been like staring into a void.
"I'll take this one." Christoff said, gripping his partisan even tighter now.
The zombie was gripping a sword and raised it to swing, Christoff side stepped and took the head clean off of the Squire Zombie. The clang of the metal armor on its head was heard as it hit the floor, but the zombie did not stop. It kept coming towards him.
Christoff raised his partisan aloft and spoke [Thunderbolt] Within a millisecond, a thunderbolt had come crashing through the roof and struck the Squire Zombie effectively reducing him to ash.
More undead came, quickly being taken care of. Their heads being sent flying and crashing back down onto the floors with their bodies.
"I think that was all of them," Nate said, breathing heavily. He leaned against the wall and let out another sigh of relief.
"I certainly hope so, we would be walking amongst their ranks if there are any more." Christoff replied, taking a look around.
He made his way to a room where the door had been left cracked open, he pushed it open and inside nothing was there minus someone elses supplies and two beds.
"Jackpot." A smile said as he laid eyes on what was in the room.
"Over here buddy, come check this motherload out." Christoff said, calling for Nate.
Nate walked over, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword and a small whistle escaped his lips.
It was apparent this was a room that adventurers were staying in as a knapsack had still been present, two of them and one other thing that had been a shocker was two sets of plate mail armor. Among them were two closed burgonets with integral falling buffets.
"A good find, Christoff."
"We may be able to survive yet." Christoff said, a small laugh escaped his lips
They had to take victories as they came to them, in this life they had now been thrown into such victories would be a rarity. This armor would at least mask their allegiance, taking the target off their backs from donning the armor of the Royal Army.
A slight rustling could be heard in the small closet that was present in the room, it was obvious someone had been moving around inside of it.
"Of course, it was too good to be true. Why would it be? I wanted to see more zombies, of course." Christoff stated in an obvious sarcastic manner before he readied his Partisan once again.
The door slowly opened and Christoff almost thrusted his spear out of habit, but Nate put his arm out in front of the man to stop him from doing such a thing.
A woman emerged from the closet, visibly scared by what was going on. A beautiful woman had emerged from the closet. She had golden eyes and snow white hair tied into a ponytail that had it been free, would have hung to her waist. She had long slender legs which ended at well formed hips and an ample chest. At first they did not notice it, but she possessed pointy ears that are characteristic of elves except hers were shorted.
A half-elf.
Whatever Christoff had thought before about her beauty was thrown aside and a sense of disgust had taken hold of him. Someone as devoted to the kingdom as he once was, he couldn't help but cringe at the sight of this…abomination. Or at least that is what he referred to half-elves as.
"Lower your hand, this abomination is about as bad as the zombies we fought earlier." Christoff said, practically snarling at this point. His hatred for half-elves come from not only the prejudice from others but his personal experience with some when he was a kid.
As a kid, Christoff grew up in a village not much different than the one they were currently in. His Father proudly served within the Royal Army and his Mother was left to watch over him.
He helped her tend crops and whenever he had time to himself, he would jab wooden sticks around pretending that they were spears.
On Christoff's eleventh birthday, he accompanied his mother into the woods in order to pick up some herbs.
"Mama, what kind of herbs are we getting today?" Christoff asked, a smile beaming on his face as he looked up to his mother.
His mother looked down at him with a smile on her face
"Today we are gathering some Arnica Grass as I need to get some more healing potions made."
If it hadn't been clear, Christoff's mother was a herbalist and the village's only one at that.
The two walked into the forest, a brisk breeze blew across the two of them. Christoff would much rather be training with the spear that he had just gotten for his eleventh birthday, but he felt that he owed his mother so much for just being able to watch over him.
His duty, or so he felt, was to help his mother whenever she needed him to or even at times when she didn't need to.
As they maneuvered through the woods, they made their way to a clearing where Arnica Grass had been growing. Rustling could be heard in the tree branches above, but he thought it was just a bird or a small animal so he thought nothing of it.
Three individuals dropped down, all dressed in raggedy clothing and all three owned daggers.
"What's this then?" A male half elf had said, looking towards the mother.A smile came to his face as he saw the pouch she had on her.
Payday.
"How about we drop that pouch and you and your little boy can run along." The half-elf said, moving his dagger in a motion that looked as if he was waving the two away.
"I-I can't do that!" Christoff's mother exclaimed, visibly scared and shaking but still she managed to position herself in front of Christoff.
"My Village needs these supplies, I can't just empty it."
The bandits clearly thought it was gold and tracked these two as they were easy pray.
"Wrong answer." The Half elf shot a toothy grin as he approached the woman.
"Christoff, run!" She screamed.
Christoff stayed still for a moment, only running after her mother looked back towards him with tears flooding out of her eyes and repeated it.
Soon after, her eyes widened and she fell to the ground with a dagger plunged into her back. Christoff screamed and sobbed and only then, did he start to run away but as he did. He memorized the face of the man who murdered his mother and swore to himself that one day he will pay him back in kind.
Christoff snapped back to the present, his face contorting into a cold expression. He grit his teeth as he stared at this elf who despite the situation in front of her remained calm.
Nate cleared his throat, speaking to the elf finally
"Apologies for my friend, he hasn't been the same since the fall." He stated, lying at the last part.
Lying was never his favorite thing, he wasn't gifted like a certain princess who sold her kingdom out but he could certainly lie to not invite alarm.
"My name is Nate, Nate Stutnoch if it isn't clear enough I am…or rather once was a member of the Royal Army." He offered her a slight smile before continuing on
"Would you mind giving me your name?" He finished, raising his eyebrow slightly
The woman was hesitant at first, her body language gave it away
"Glenys." She spoke
"I am an adventurer from Argland, I came here before the Sorcerer Kingdom had attacked." Her expression remained the same as it had before
"I see." Nathan spoke, his glance drifting back over towards Christoff who still had been gritting his teeth. Rage had contorted his face, though it had died down it had still been present. His eyes are practically boring through the woman.
It was clear that Nate wanted Christoff to introduce himself, but that was not within his interest. All Christoff could think about at the moment was shoving his partisan clean through the neck of this abomination, perhaps then would he feel a moment of relief from the immense hatred that had crutched him for the past 10 years.
"I have no interest in exchanging names with this…creature." He finally stated, His voice was a melody, clear as the note of a struck bell and his eyes never moved from the woman.
His features furrowed and he soon put his Partisan away, taking a knapsack and a suit of armor with him as he exited the room
It didn't take long for him to don the new set of plate armor, casting his old royal knight armor to the side. Perhaps it was better this day, armor that was a relic of a time gone by set to vanish along with a village that the Sorcerer King will likely see burned due to the presence of the undead that was here..
He stepped outside, ash and embers still falling to the ground. He took a deep red scarf and wrapped it around his helmet, this was to help with the breeze that befell the kingdom at night and also would help to conceal his identity.
Christoff raised his left hand, his new plate armor creaking as he did let motes of ash that thickened the air outside fall into his open palm.The ash of Re-Estize. Our home. The home from which we came and now are forced to leave. All will be dust in our triumph. Christoff had thought to himself before his open palm turned into a fist.
The other two had walked out, Nate donning the other set of armor he found and Glenys who wore a maroon colored, corset styled leather armor with a matching colored skirt and stocking.
Christoff didn't bother to look, even though he wanted to see that abomination dead, numbers were the only strength they would have now.
"All I gotta do is put up with this until we find the Blue Roses, right?" He asked out loud, shooting a side glance towards Nate.
Nate gave him a nod and began to walk, Glenys following behind him with Christoff taking up the rear.
The motivations for this Elf traveling with them had been a mystery to Christoff, especially after he had almost killed her. Unbeknownst to him, she was only traveling with them for a degree of safety as she was trying to get back to the Argland. The war had made the latter almost impossible for obvious reasons.
Instead of sticking to the woods, this time they took to the roads. They could pass off as adventurers or even just wanderers at this point. People from a distant kingdom who wished to see the carnage that had taken place at the domain of Re- Estize kingdom.
Only a few days later
The three warriors had stopped suddenly when two figures appeared in front of them. At the same moment, Christoff raised his spear and placed it precisely on the throat of one of the refugees. The sharp tip hissed with a loud metallic sound after being cut swiftly through the air.
"Holy unity!" Nate shouted through his helmet. "What are you doing?"
Christoff looked down into the wide eyes of a boy who was no more than seven or eight years of age. The figure next to the child was even smaller: a girl, judging by the similarity in skin color and facial features, the boy's sister
.
Christoff wasn't sure though, he wasn't good at estimating the age of people. The girl looked up at the soldier, eyes wide with terror. A scream came from the crowd, her horrified mother. The children only stood there with their mouths open and their lips trembling.
Christoff pulled his blade back from the boy's throat and spoke, his helmet slightly muffling his voice.
"I apologize," he said with stiff formality.
The children flinched when they heard his raw voice that was muffled by his helmet. Nate made a slow movement to remove his helmet. When the mother reached her children, he stood before them with his head being visible. The boy resisted his mother's attempt to move the children away. Glenys also moved forward.
He pulled away from her and stood in front of Christoff again.
"Are you a soldier?"
Christoff was motionless. "Is that a joke?", he asked
.
Glenys looked at the boy with a bittersweet smile. Slowly she knelt before him and her red leather corset practically made no noise. Even kneeling, she was taller than the boy
"No, child," replied the Half Elf. 'He is not a soldier. But he knows them very well."
The boy's tears streamed from his eyes. The appearance of the armored giants in front of him overwhelmed his senses - mighty silver and red and the sound of the armor clanking with every slight movement. Awe was written on his young face. Awe and despair and an expression of fear.
Christoff would have told Glenys his anger about the conversation she had just started, though he didn't want to make matters worse.
"What's your name, boy?"
"Darak."
"Darak," repeated the Half-Elf. "My name is Glenys. And as big as my companion may look here, he is not a soldier. What did you want, child?"
The boy stuttered: "I… I wanted to ask a soldier or member of the Royal Army when we can go home. My parents are still there. They stayed behind when we got on the carriages that left the city.."
Christoff glanced at the woman protecting the little girl. So she was not her mother. The structure of her face, however, had family resemblances, so there was a genetic relationship. An aunt or an older cousin, maybe. It was almost like he switched off the crosshair of his targeting system that swirled over her dirty face and was no longer interested in her.
Glenys continued. "I see," she said. "And what's the name of the city you come from?"
"We come from E-Naüru."
Glenys nodded as if she knew the city well. Christoff doubted that one adventurer from the Demi-Human kingdom. had set foot in that city. A useless province.
"Then you've traveled quite some distance." Glenys spoke, her golden eyes practically shining when talking to the boy "Welcome to Re-Estize, Darak. You're safe here."
Glenys was playing the situation the best he could, the children probably could not comprehend the situation that had unfolded. This was the only course of action she could take to even put the children's mind at momentary peace.
"For now.", Christoff had thought.
"What are your parents' jobs?" Glenys asked the boy. "If they fought, were they soldiers?"
The boy nodded. "They fought against the bad people from the Baharuth."
"My parents are warriors, too," Glenys said, ignoring the fact that they had died in the radioactive poisoned deserts of the chasm over a century ago. They had long been dust in the desert wind.
The boy looked at Christoff
.
"Are your parents soldiers too?"
"No," said Christoff. "They've been dead for a long time. My mother was a herbalist. She died because of a robbery gone wrong. My father was a member of the Royal Army also, executed by a noble because he defied the principles of unity. "
"The… what?"
"Our conversation is over.", Christoff said to the boy. Darak narrowed his eyes and looked at Glenys again.
'I want to go back to my parents. I want to ask the nobles to send their forces or even adventurers, " he said. "The nobles could send you, right?"
"They could" Gelnys agreed, "and maybe they will. I'll ask them about posting a job request the next time I come face to face with a noble. "
Christoff felt sick from hope in the boy's eyes. He was all too aware of the eyes that were on him during this absurd conversation
.
"Our duty is waiting," he said urgently.
"Indeed," replied Glenys. "Well, Darak, I have a duty to do. Thanks for taking the time to speak to me. "
The boy nodded silently. Glenys patted the boy on his helmet and she spoke one last time . "Take care of your sister, Darak." Darak ran to his aunt and sister, who was still sobbing quietly at the horror Christoff had given her.
Nate, who had followed from the rear, had went on with Christoff and Glenys.
If the stares of the refugees had not been irritating before, they had practically been boring through his silver plate armor.
"You clearly are a creature of pointless sentiment, the kingdom is gone." Christoff said to his new companion, a sigh had escaped her lips
"You said I disappointed you, warrior. I assure you, I feel the same way. I didn't expect a conversation with one of the esteemed soldiers of the Royal Army to be such a soulless conversation. "
Christoff did not think this deserved an answer.
One of his many flaws, he was distant from anyone who was not a soldier. Treating them as a mere burden. He completely was detached from how others may perceive him, only treating his fellow men at arms any differently. Without a fight, he felt worthless and he was upset at the fact that the Sorcerer Kingdom had ripped the kingdom he knew and served with pride in tiny shreds only to let the breeze carry the pieces to oblivion.