The group gathered, slowly walking away from the cafeteria, now a burned mess, filled with countless corpses, closer to a tomb than a place to eat now.
'I wonder how Claire is doing; she isn't far away. I want to meet her after sorting out the issue of the remaining students.'
Faust walked forward, closing his eyes at the sudden greeting from the bright morning sun over the horizon; like a bad dream, all the dark shadows vanished from the area, leaving a dark red hue filling the small passage.
None of the group seemed to care about the bloody mess and half-eaten corpses of the boys from earlier, while Faust held onto Laura tightly, making sure she didn't fall or drop, making her still bleeding wounds worse.
'I didn't want to turn her like this; she is a special race, and turning her should have been a slow and enjoyable thing, but now she will die unless I make her a vesta.' Faust lamented, looking up to the bright sky, a warmth that seemed to be missing since the world ended.
Mildred stood slightly behind him, her body aching with two red marks on several of her fingers, firing rapid shots was far too intense for her bare flesh, which made her decide to improve endurance and hope it improved.
'Faust was strange fighting that zombie; it was different from the normal man I've seen.'
She recalled his face the moment he killed the huge zombie; like a boy who woke up to several large presents, he smiled without any sense of evil or corruption, a pure smile of bliss and happiness, which threw her off.
'Such a wonderful face, different from usual.'
Mildred hated to admit it herself, but seeing him make that face caused her heart to thump, speeding up rapidly as she could feel his emotions just through that simple smile.
'I did it.'
It was like his entire face, body and soul were screaming out in defiance.
Her steps hastened as she thought of this moment, her lips curved into a smile while fixating her gaze onto his body and face, blushing slightly before he looked towards her with a blank yet calm look.
"Are you curious?" Faust's deep voice sounded, causing her to stir.
'What, curious? Of course, I am, but how do I ask you without making you angry?'
Yet her body was honest as she nodded briefly, causing a wry smile to fill his cheeks.
His pace slowed down as if joined to his mind.
Samantha also slowed her pace, with the girls following her too ragged and tired to care, following this woman who protected them over the fearsome man who forgot them and fought hand-to-hand with the huge monster.
Faust looked up to the sky before looking back at Mildred, feeling her expectant gaze, soft green eyes watching him warmly.
"It was the zombie that took my life."
"Eh?"
Mildred was confused because he was standing right now, unsure she was about to continue before he pressed a single finger to her lips, grasping Laura tightly with one hand.
His mind began to see the images from three days ago, telling her how he gained that ghoul skill by mistake, something weird and chose to abandon half his humanity without even a second thought, causing his willpower to almost plummet to zero.
'So it started as a mere skill; he wasn't always this fierce and monstrous?' Mildred thought to herself; even Samantha and the girls behind listened quietly.
Having known the real Alex, they could understand him and the great changes; hearing how the first zombie he killed was a close friend, the emotionless voice speaking of his struggles and failures added to the strange sense of loss the girls imagined and felt towards him.
He then began to speak about the cute Claire and the selfish students in the shop, wanting to save their food and other things, even killing the kind old lady who ran the place.
'How cruel, but this Claire girl, is she a rival?' Samantha thought, confident that a mere Claire couldn't compare to her, especially when they were so close in body and mind.
Slowly they reached close to the main hall, and only a few stranded corpses and zombies were in their path, nothing special as Mildred easily dispatched them with her bow.
Then his voice became solemn, and for the first time, emotions began to brew, speaking about Sarah with great affection and excitement, speaking about her clean movements during the huge zombie horde that attacked.
'He must love that girl, Sarah was it... I feel strangely jealous. His eyes began to shine, and his smile became natural when he began speaking of her.' Mildred thought to herself, letting Samantha and the four girls go first.
"I want to hear the rest; what are the people of the martial arts club doing now? You should be with them, too, right?"
Faust, immersed in the sensation of speaking about meeting them, wanted to avoid that topic; somehow, even as a ghoul losing all his dear friends, it caused him to become sullen and quite sour.
"Yeah....sure...." He spoke with a slow, hoarse voice.
"That big monster came out of nowhere...."
He told her how massive pieces of rock and stone smashed into the martial arts clubroom, crushing and killing many of his friends before even having time to react, although they tried to put up a valiant defence.
His hands grasped onto Laura, her body trembling from the sheer power in his fingers, trying her best not to make a sound and let him know she was awake.
"Honestly, my body moved before I could even think."
Faust looked towards Mildred; his face reflected in the glass as Laura's soft eyes opened. Watching his pained face, she could feel the intense sorrow and sense of weakness in his body.
'He could be this fragile, despite this wild look, such a cute man!' Laura thought as she tried to spend her last moments at peace.
She hated the elves that tossed her aside, yet because of her weakness forgave them and never complained.
She despised her ex-husband, who abandoned her and chose another woman, making her feel disgusting and worthless.
The countless years she spent as a teacher rushed through her mind, and she realised she had never made a true bond with another person since the day her husband left.
'If I had a second chance, a boy like Alex wouldn't be so bad.'
His story reached its climax when he watched or heard the gruesome deaths of all his friends from over a decade; before they even came to this university, many people would train at Sarah's family gym together.
It was like losing his family, filled with helpless dread. Laura and Mildred heard how he gave up, wanting to die, before hearing Sarah's last words and confession; it made both girls envious of such a strange but passionate romance.
'Wasn't Alex dating Amy though, strange! This situation is too strange! Although those girls aren't human, polygamy isn't rejected and widely accepted.'
Laura's mind began to grow hazy, wondering if he knew the truth about those girls, why he could never match them despite working twice or thrice as hard compared to them.
Then her eyes snapped open when he mentioned his ability when he awoke from death and realised how his ghoul skills could be used.
'Fluids, stronger the faster I will become one... Immunity, life!'
A sudden burst of enthusiasm filled Laura's body as she saw his large hand with delicate fingers close to her cheek, it was her chance, and this time, she would live however she wanted, with no more rules or hiding her true feelings.
'I will beat those fuckers that abandoned me and fuck this damn hot ghoul bastard! Let's live for a change!'
"That's when I woke up alone, in the same place I met you. Ugh! Alone... then realising that Sarah was long gone."
"!!" Mildred was shocked at both his story and the sight that entered her eyes.
Laura's soft pink lips were stained red with blood.
She bit into Faust's fingers, using her cute little fangs to break his skin, sucking on them with great enthusiasm, knowing that the more she took inside, the quicker her transformation.
"Gah!?" Laura began to cough and wheeze before gasping for air.
Her chin and lips were now bloody and alluring for Faust, his eyes looking towards her with sorrow, truly not wishing to have wasted this chance to see the changes of an elf faced with his infection.
Suddenly, her warm tongue began to slip around his fingers, coiling around them as she started to mimic an erotic motion as if she was blowing his fingers, using her arms to grab around his body as the loud slurping filled the area.
'Strange, she's drinking so much and isn't a stage 1? What's going on?' Faust thought to himself before watching Laura's next crazy action; it was too insane that he couldn't comprehend what had happened.
A silver dagger pierced her chest, almost gouging her heart out, before she began to tremble widely and dropped the dagger with a loud clang, attracting a few zombies towards them.
"Why!?" Faust roared, his voice angry and deep as if scolding the blue-haired teacher.
Laura looked towards him as blood seeped from her chest and lips, a strange smile almost crazed, yet her eyes were completely sane and filled with reason.
"Haha....why so serious? Guha!? This hurts so much! Nothing like those fuckers in movies!"
She complained while Mildred looked through her belongings for something to heal her with; the amount of blood pouring from her was too much, though, as her slightly tanned skin became pale and sickly before she looked directly at Faust.
"Hey, since I was going to become a ghoul... I wanted to be the same as you, not like Samantha but like Maria...."
Currently, Maria was squatting like a slav on a parking pole several metres from Faust, her eyes watching him, but her nose and ears twitching, always trying to detect incoming zombies and things to devour.
"Hey... It's getting hard to breathe.... but... If I succeed."
Laura's face became pale, her eyes dull as she struggled to speak and breathe, only a soft voice sounding in his ears as her hands grasped his chest.
Although she didn't feel affection towards this man, he was strong, attractive, and more than showed his power in this broken world.
Thus she wanted to bet on something other than her heart and mind.
Her instinct told her that Alex was a jackpot. Thus she would do anything to seduce him, and she could easily fall for him even more after learning he wasn't some heartless bastard.
'Ah, it's so hard even to see... I want to tease this cute boy; he's not even a tenth of my age!'
"Laura, stay with me; there's no reason to worry; you won't die!" His reassuring voice sounded, feeling excitement at what kind of fucked up ghoul she would become, a divorced half-elf... it caused his mind to scream in delight.
A weak hand stroked over his crotch as she forced herself to smile.
"Hey, if I survive, I will make you a prisoner beneath my hips, panting for mercy! You wait, little Alex Faust~ ha....ha....."
Laura, the half-elf teacher, died at this moment.
Her transformation would soon begin, allowing her to be reborn.
Laura, the ghoul, would be born into the world.
'So exciting!' Faust thought as he gripped tightly onto her convulsing body.