Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Takanosu.
October, x785.
While Elicia, Rei, and Kohta were headed to the shopping outlet, Alfonzo, Saeko, and Saya were headed to Takagi mansion in the Humvee. However, they came across quite a few pockets of zombies on their way. So, they dealt with them in a way similar to how they dealt with the ones outside the primary school.
"Alright, that's the last one." Alfonzo said as he finished electrocuting a normal zombie. "Let's get back on the---"
Before he finished his sentence, however, Alfonzo heard the faint sound of banging. On top of that, he could hear the faint voice of a woman asking to be allowed into somewhere.
"What's wrong, Alfonzo?" Saeko, while sheathing her katana, asked as she approached the Humvee.
I'm hearing the sound of banging coming from that direction." Alfonzo said while pointing in a particular direction.
"Really?" Saya asked suspiciously. "I don't hear anything."
"You haven't been manipulating your magic power for very long." Alfonzo replied as he returned to the Humvee, as well. "With more training, you'll be able to hear stuff like that, too."
In response, Saya only snorted before dropping back into the Humvee's back seat through the hatch on the roof.
"Are we gonna check it out?" Saeko asked as she put her hand on the passenger side door.
"Yeah." Alfonzo replied. "I can sense another two groups of undead approaching that location, they're probably being attracted by the noise."
With that, Alfonzo and Saeko climbed into the Humvee before Alfonzo started the engine and started driving.
Meanwhile, a relatively tall, beautiful, buxom, light brown haired woman with red eyes wearing a long white coat with red trim over top of a white blouse, a black leather corset, black leather pants, and black leather boots with a red spear and a bag filled with scavenged food strapped to her back was standing outside of a house several blocks away in a residential neighborhood.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
"Hey, what are you doing?" The woman asked. "Hurry up and let me in. The undead are coming this way."
"No, it's because of you that we are stuck here." The voice of a man came from the other side of the door.
"What are you talking about?" The woman asked in a disbelieving tone. "I saved all of you from those things. I'm the one who has been keeping you all fed, too."
"Please, Mrs. Miyamoto, just leave us alone." Another man said in a scared tone. "We want the chance to return to our families. But you just want us to stay here."
'Are these people serious?' The woman, Mrs. Miyamoto, or Kiriko Miyamoto, the mother of Rei Miyamoto, asked herself as her hand fell weakly to her side. 'They begged me to take them in and keep them safe because I was the only one who could fight. And now they're saying it's my fault they've been stuck in this house?'
In fact, this was not Kiriko's fault. Instead, it was thanks to a new survivor they took in the night before. Like the others, he claimed he was unable to fight. So, when it came time to scavenge for materials and food, Kiriko once again went out alone.
However, while she was gone, the new man somehow got into the heads of the few people Kiriko had been keeping safe. With words alone, he was able to turn everyone in the house against her by blaming her for their current situation.
"You should just leave, Mrs. Miyamoto." The man Kiriko had accepted into the group only the night before said from the other side of the door in a smug tone. "We all agree that we no longer want to be beholden to your whims any longer."
'So, it was him… Son of a bitch!' Kiriko roared in her mind. 'I had a bad feeling about him from the moment I met him. But I ignored that feeling, wanting to help as many people as I could. *Sigh* I guess that will teach me to ignore my instincts, won't it?'
"Fine…" Kiriko said while clenching her fists and gritting her teeth. "I hope you don't regret this when it comes to finding food later."
"Speaking of food…" The traitorous man muttered as if he had just remembered. "Why don't you leave the food you found behind before you leave?"
Hearing the smugness in the man's tone, Kiriko had to resist punching a hole in the door with her spear. Instead, she took a deep breath to calm herself down. Then, she took a step away from the door before raising her voice again.
"If you want it so bad, why don't you open the door and take it from me?" Kiriko asked, still resisting the urge to unstrap the spear from her back. "If you do that, I'll leave without a fuss."
The response Kiriko received was a few moments of silence. However, the silence did not last for too long.
"See? This is the kind of person who was claiming to keep you protected." The traitorous man said loudly. "She's holding the food hostage to force us to let her inside. Is that really the kind of person you want to lead you?"
Once again, Kiriko was dumbfounded. On top of that, she could hear the people in the house agreeing with what the traitor said.
"If you were really the kind of leader you claimed to be, you would just leave the food behind and be on your way." The traitorous man continued. "So, why don't you show them what kind of leader you are one last time and leave the food before getting out of here."
Shaking her head in response, Kiriko pulled the spear off her back. However, instead of thrusting it towards the door, she looked to either side at the zombies that had been attracted by the banging and yelling.
"Damn it…" Kiriko muttered. "I got too wrapped up with those fools. I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. "Well, I guess I'll do one last good thing for these people before I die. At least I can thin out these numbers to give them a chance."
With that, Kiriko took her fighting stance. Like Rei, Kiriko also had a more than decent amount of magic power in her body. Unlike Rei, however, she had been trained to use it. She never taught her daughter to do so, though.
When Rei was young, both Kiriko and her husband wanted Rei to have a safe and happy life. So, they did not want her to be a wizard. And the reason for that was because as wizards, they knew how trouble seemed to be easily attracted to them in some way or another.
"[Physical Enhancement Magic: Full Body Enhancement]." Rei chanted before taking a step to her left.
*bang!*
In the next instant, a magically enhanced zombie whose power was nearing the A-Class slammed his fist down from above, creating a crater in the street.
Immediately, Kiriko could hear the sound of the people in the house panicking. However, she did not have the luxury to pay attention to them. Instead, she swept the butt end of her spear at the enhanced zombies' legs, knocking it off its feet. Then, before it could fall to the ground, she thrust her spear through its head.
A moment later, with the zombie still hanging from her spear, Kiriko took a step towards the zombies on her left and hefted her spear back into a throwing position.
"[Spear Magic: Gungnir]." Kiriko chanted as she threw her spear at the group of zombies in front of her.
In the next instant, the spear in Kiriko's hand turned into a red streak of light as it covered the distance. Then, it pierced through the front most zombie. At the same time, the head of the zombie that was still pierced on the spear exploded on contact with the other zombie's head.
On top of that, Kiriko's spear continued flying forward, piercing through the necks, heads, and chests of all the zombies behind the first one, eventually losing momentum after piercing through at least fifteen zombies.
"[Return]." Kiriko chanted as she held her right hand towards her spear.
A moment later, the red spear, which was pierced into a zombie's upper chest, flicked upward, freeing itself from the zombie's flesh, slicing the zombie's head in half in the process, before spinning back through the horde as it returned to Kiriko's hand.
Easily catching the spinning spear, Kiriko was just in time to parry the outstretched arm of a normal zombie. Then, she lowered her head to avoid a bite from a magically enhanced zombie while simultaneously stepping backwards, placing the butt end of her spear between the enhanced zombie's legs, then raising it to throw the zombie into the normal one in front of her.
As a result, the magically enhanced zombie's open mouth closed on the normal zombie's arm. Then, while distracted by the meal it just bit into, Kiriko stabbed her spear forward, piercing both zombie's' heads with one thrust.
Retrieving her spear, in the next instant, Kiriko whipped its bladed end around in a circle, cutting through the heads of a dozen zombies that had approached in the meantime.
Realizing that she had been surrounded, Kiriko took advantage of the space she created for herself, slamming the bladed end of her spear into the ground and using it to fault high into the air.
'Even though they don't deserve it, I should draw these things away from them. *Sigh* I really don't want their deaths on my conscience.' Kiriko thought as she flew towards the edge of the horde of zombies.
A moment later, while still airborne, Kiriko raised her spear above her head while charging it with her magic power. Then, while approaching a zombie from above, she swung it down with all her might.
"[Spear Magic: Meteor Strike]." Kiriko chanted loudly.
*Boom!*
In the next instant, Kiriko's spear head cut straight through the zombie she had targeted before slamming into the street. Then, immediately upon making contact with the street, the magic power Kiriko charged into the spear was released. As a result, a shockwave sent all the nearby zombies flying while a crater was created in the ground.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
"Come on you undead sons of bitches!" Kiriko shouted as she leapt out of the crater and slammed the butt of her spear into the ground repeatedly. "I was expecting more from an entire horde of you ugly mother fuckers."
Immediately, the zombies, both normal and magically enhanced, were attracted to the sound Kiriko was creating. As a result, they completely ignored the panicked sounds coming from inside the house.
Naturally, the first to arrive at the source of sound was a magically enhanced zombie. And like she had done before, Kiriko thrust her spear at its head.
*Clang!*
However, before her spear could pierce its skull, the zombie opened its mouth and bit down on the spear tip, stopping it in its tracks.
'Shit! This one is a lot stronger than the rest.' Kiriko thought to herself as she tried to pull her spear back.
Unfortunately, Kiriko was unable to pull her spear away. On top of that, two weaker magically enhanced zombies were approaching her from either side. So, at this point, she only had two options, continue struggling to free her spear, or abandon her spear and fight barehanded.
Although fighting barehanded was a possibility, Kiriko's combat prowess would drop drastically. So, she gave up on fighting barehanded immediately.
'Damn, I would have liked to get a bit further away from the house before dying.' Kiriko thought to herself as she threw a kick at the S-Class zombie's legs. 'But I did all I could for them. I hope they can appreciate my last show of kindness.'
With her kick having next to no effect on the zombie, and her spear lodged between its teeth, Kiriko had all but given up. Before she could close her eyes, however, a pair of kunai, crackling in violet arcs of electricity, flashed past her.
*Boom!* x 2
In the next instant, the heads of the two magically enhanced zombies on either side of Kiriko exploded.
"What the hell was that?" Kiriko wondered aloud.
*Vroom!*
Instead of an answer to her question, Kiriko heard the sound of a magic engine. Before she could look in its direction, a shout from the distance stopped her. Instead, she followed the instructions that were shouted from the distance.
"Let go of the spear and get down!" Alfonzo, while driving the Humvee towards the horde, shouted at the top of his lungs while his left arm was sticking out of the window with his palm pointing at the horde. "Get down on the ground and dig your fingers into the street! Hurry!"
Doing exactly as the shout told her to, Kiriko dropped down to the ground on her back. At the same time, she dug her fingers into the street.
'Fuck! I just broke a nail.' Kiriko thought while trying to escape reality for a moment.
At the same time, Kiriko noticed several short spikes piercing the ground around her. Then, she heard the chanting of a spell.
"[Electromagnetism Magic: Lightning Shell]."
A moment later, a violet flash passed over Kiriko. On top of that, this flash was discharging small bolts of electricity, which were mostly drawn to the spikes in the ground next to her. However, she was hit by one, as well. Luckily, she had dug her fingernails into the street, partially grounding the shock. Meanwhile, the rest of taken care of by her natural defenses.
The rest of the flash, on the other hand, continued forward, obliterating the zombie with her spear in its mouth, before continuing on to the rest of the horde. Then, when it reached roughly to the center of the horde, it exploded into bolts of horizontal lightning.
*Boom~~~!*
"I guess that's the end of my spear." Kiriko muttered, though no one would be able to hear her over the sounds of striking lightning. "Those ingrates are probably dead, too. Oh well, I did what I could to save them. This wasn't my fault."
By the time all the sound had ended, and Kiriko's eyes returned to normal, Alfonzo had parked the Humvee next to her.
"You alright?" Alfonzo asked from the driver's seat while looking down at Kiriko.
"Yeah." Kiriko replied as she sat up and pulled her fingers out of the street. "I broke a nail, though."
"I'd say that's a pretty small price to pay for surviving a horde like that one, don't you think?" Alfonzo asked with a smile.
"Yeah, and if that were all, I wouldn't have anything to say." Kiriko replied. "But the spear I've been using for decades is gone now, too."
"Oh, are you talking about this spear?" Alfonzo asked while lowering a red spear with a zombie head biting down on its tip. "I could tell this was a pretty good spear, so I decided to save it."
Hearing that, Kiriko looked up at the spear that was floating down from the sky. Then, she jumped to her feet, grabbed the spear's shaft, and yanked the zombie's head off the end.
"I'm glad I didn't lose you." Kiriko said with a smile while holding her spear. "It would have taken forever to find another spear as good as you."
After gushing over her spear for a few moments, Kiriko finally remembered the people she was trying to protect. Then, she looked back at the explosion sight, expecting to see a large crater and the debris of destroyed houses. And although she did see a large crater, it did not extend past the edge of the street. Instead, lining the road was a row of large metal spikes.
"Well, at least my effort didn't go to waste." Kiriko muttered.
"Oh, were you trying to protect the people in that house?" Alfonzo asked while pointing at the house with the people that betrayed Kiriko.
"Yeah, one last act of kindness before I left." Kiriko replied.
"Well, if you're leaving, wanna catch a ride with us?" Alfonzo asked. "We're on our way to Takagi mansion. "Their little princess is with us, too."
"Don't call me that!" Saya shouted from the back seat.
"See." Alfonzo said with shrug.
"Wait, Saya?" Kiriko asked, finally looking into the interior of the Humvee. "You're okay. How are Rei and Takashi?"
"Hi, Mrs. Miyamoto." Saya said politely. "they're fine. This guy and his wife saved us on the first day. Right now, they should be near the primary school with Takashi's mother."
"I see, I'm glad you're all safe." Kiriko said in a relieved tone. Then, she finally looked at Alfonzo for the first time. "I should have known it was you after seeing the spear float, the electric spell, and the metal spikes. Thank you for saving me, Master of Metals, Alfonzo Marcus."
"No problem." Alfonzo replied nonchalantly. "It's part of my job. Anyway, you wanna come with us to Takagi mansion?"
"Of course." Kiriko replied as she pulled open the back door.
"Wanna say anything to the people in that house before we leave?" Alfonzo asked as Kiriko shut the door behind her.
"No." Kiriko replied bluntly.
Shrugging his shoulders, Alfonzo stepped on the accelerator and continued driving towards the Takagi mansion, completely ignoring the shouting coming from the people in the house.