Leaving behind the scene where their husband, Mikhail, was happily chatting with Prince Ash, the commander of the frontlines, the five queens of Vermillion stepped out onto the deck of the airship. They needed some fresh air to clear their minds.
"Wow, did you see Mikhail's face?"
"Yeah, he had a big smile plastered on."
"Boys' talk must be really fun, huh?"
The young new king of Vermillion, along with the prince of the Everblack Empire and the master of the Ivory Tower, was smiling brightly and exchanging words with a much more relaxed expression. The queens, recalling this sight, grumbled with a hint of jealousy in their eyes.
"He never shows us that kind of face."
"Seriously, tonight I'm going to kill him..."
"I'm going to torment him all night until he confesses what he did wrong."
As the five queens began to concoct a grim plan for Mikhail's grand "execution" that night...
Creak...
Creak...
A figure was slowly but steadily crawling up the side of the airship La Mancha, against the howling wind.
It was a blood-soaked hunting dog, its body mangled.
Despite its severe injuries, the hunting dog, its eyes glowing green, climbed all the way up the side of the airship and finally reached the deck.
"Grrr!"
The hunting dog shook its body once it was on the deck.
"Huh?"
One of the queens, a beat late in noticing the dog, pointed it out.
"Isn't that... a monster?"
"What?"
The five queens turned around in shock.
It was a creature from the Hellhounds unit that Ash had spotted earlier.
"Oh my god, it must have boarded during the contact earlier!"
It was a small-sized monster that managed to avoid La Mancha's sensors and climb up to the deck.
The queens hurried to draw their weapons to subdue the monster, but then they realized.
They had left their weapons strapped to their griffins' saddles.
They thought the airship was safe...!
"We need to get inside the airship...!"
But before the queens could return inside in time,
"Kaaaah!"
The zombie hunting dog, spraying blood everywhere, lunged at them.
***
"What's the situation?"
Returning to the bridge, I asked McMillan.
Mikhail had returned, and the powerful Sky Knights had joined us.
Thanks to that, the atmosphere had briefly brightened with laughter, but the situation was far from optimistic.
As soon as I returned, McMillan, who seemed to have been waiting, reported.
"Perfect timing, Your Highness! The zombies have started advancing!"
"...!"
"And... at an incredible speed!"
After La Mancha ascended, the zombies gave up chasing it.
Instead, they seemed determined to head north toward their destination—Inse—at a faster pace.
The ground situation was displayed on the magic panel of the bridge. Everyone present sighed in unison.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
It looked like a river of corpses flowing.
The zombie monsters, moving at an alarming speed, intertwined and tripped over each other, began rushing north as if their previous sluggish movements had been a lie.
"How long until they reach Crossroad?"
"At this speed, in about two days and twelve hours!"
Zombies moving faster than horses.
Mikhail, who had followed me onto the bridge and was watching this scene with a pale face, asked me quietly.
"There is a way to deal with them, right, Prince Ash?"
"..."
Everyone's eyes were filled with trust as they looked at me.
They believed that, as I had defeated countless monster armies before, I would solve this too.
Sure. I did have a plan. However...
"..."
I fell into thought.
The usual method would be to gradually whittle down the zombie monster army before they reached Crossroad, and then use our forces at Crossroad to wipe out the remnants.
This was the standard method for dealing with monster armies, and I planned to use it this time too. The problem was...
'Our forces are not in full strength.'
The question was whether the current defenses at Crossroad were sufficient to crush the main enemy force after whittling them down.
And.
'The enemy monster army's abnormally high combat power...'
The rule of this 'Doomsday Game' was that even deploying two monster armies simultaneously would incur a penalty.
The penalty was so severe that after the battle with the King of Flies, which involved an imp army combined with flies, there were no subsequent defense battles for a while.
But look at what we have here now.
Even though their combat power had decreased due to being zombies, dozens of monster armies had united and were advancing north.
'The difficulty of this defense game has already gone off the rails, but this is too different.'
Considering the previous insane difficulties, this might sound strange.
But the previous stages had subtly, if not blatantly, considered the balance of the game.
There was a balance for a single showdown. Especially when the Demon King was directly orchestrating the stage.
The Demon King was different from the King of Flies or Night Bringer, who wanted to destroy the world without regard for anything.
The Demon King's goal seemed to be to make me suffer but not to completely break me.
Though I never met him face-to-face, we had crossed paths countless times... no, considering all the repeated cycles and experiences in the game, the Demon King and I had shared countless exchanges in the stages.
I know his style.
'Considering the recall of the Royal Hole, the Demon King has indeed returned.'
Only the Demon King could resurrect the already-dead Cromwell.
So, my opponent is undoubtedly the Demon King.
But the unusual enemy composition of this stage...
'If it were the usual Demon King...'
It's strange to say this about an enemy, but.
He would have planted a 'loophole', a 'weakness' that we could exploit to overcome. Or rather, he would have left it knowing.
'The enemy's weakness...'
I propped my chin on my hand and fell into thought.
'Let's think. The characteristics of zombies, the characteristics of demon species, the characteristics of Cromwell...'
As we hastened back to Crossroad ahead of the advancing zombie army in the airship, I pondered for a while.
Everyone on the bridge kept a respectful silence, not wanting to disturb my thoughts.
How long did that quiet flight last?
Thud...! Thud...! Thud...!
Noise started to arise outside the bridge.
At first, everyone didn't pay much attention, but the noise grew louder.
No, it wasn't just noise. Screams and howls began to mix in.
Noticing something strange, the people in the bridge exchanged glances.
"Hey, is there something going on..."
Dearmudin was about to open the bridge door and ask outside when,
"Ahhhhhh!"
One of my soldiers screamed terrifyingly and tried to burst into the bridge.
Dearmudin froze, unable to move, but Mikhail reacted with lightning speed, spinning around and kicking the soldier.
Thwack-!
"Ugh!"
The soldier was flung back outside. Mikhail, suddenly looking alarmed, apologized.
"S-Sorry. I got startled when you rushed in. Are you okay?"
"Ahhhh! Aaaaaaaah!"
But the soldier continued to scream and tried to re-enter the bridge.
Panicking, Mikhail slammed the bridge door shut, and the soldier pounded on it with his fists, screaming.
"What's wrong with this guy?"
"Let me see!"
Pushing Mikhail aside, I stood before the bridge door and inspected the soldier through the transparent glass part of the door.
"Ahhh! Aaaaaaaah...!"
His bloodshot eyes had completely lost their sanity, and he was gnashing at the glass, trying to bite us inside the bridge.
And on his forearm...
There were clear bite marks as if someone else had bitten him.
I broke out in a cold sweat.
"This can't be."
"Your Highness! Look at this...!"
After locking the bridge door, I turned around. McMillan was pale, manipulating the magic panel.
"This is the current situation inside La Mancha."
McMillan operated the optical devices installed inside the airship, showing the internal scene.
Everyone was screaming like the soldier outside, rushing at the still-normal people.
On the screen, a normal soldier was captured and bitten.
「Ahhh, it hurts, ahhhh...!」
The soldier, bleeding from the bite wound, writhed in pain and then transformed, emitting a similar monstrous scream.
"...They're infected."
I said, sweating heavily.
"Someone was bitten by a zombie monster, and the infection spread."
"That's impossible! During the bombing operation, there was no chance of infection, and the Sky Knights were also quarantined after the battle! No one was injured!"
McMillan strongly protested, but what can we do? This is the reality.
Through a small gap we missed, the infection spread.
'In this world, zombies are a kind of 'condition'.'
If bitten, one becomes 'infected', but this alone doesn't turn them into zombies. They must die in that state for the corpse to rise, attacking the living.
In other words, the people outside are not zombies yet.
They are in an aggressive state due to the infection. It's more accurate to call them 'infected'.
"They seem more than just aggressive!"
"...I've never seen anyone bitten before, you see."
Usually, people get eaten right away when bitten by zombies.
In any case, a person becomes infected when bitten and turns into a zombie when they die in that state. It's easier to think of it as a three-stage mutation: human → infected → zombie.
And another characteristic... they don't attack fellow infected.
This is how the zombie army maintains its numbers. It seems some kind of mutual signal prevents them from attacking each other.
"So, they are not monsters yet. They are just patients infected with the zombie plague."
Dearmudin calmly rebutted my conclusion.
"That's just the commonly known symptoms of the zombie plague, Prince Ash. We don't know what mutations have occurred as the infection spread among the monsters below."
"..."
"And if there are fatalities among the infected outside, and we return like this, then to Crossroad too..."
Dearmudin didn't finish, but the implication was clear.
This airship is already contaminated.
All the crew inside, except for those on the bridge, are infected. And while they are just 'infected' now, they could turn into zombies at any time.
We must not return to Crossroad in this state.
It could put Crossroad and even all of Inse in danger.
In that case...
Beep. Beep.
Just then, a communication came in.
McMillan, checking the source of the call, shouted.
"It's coming from the communication network installed near the hangar!"
"Connect it."
The communication was connected.
A trembling voice accompanied by sobbing was heard shortly after.
「Mikhail, are you there...?」
It was the voice of one of Mikhail's five queens.
"..."
Mikhail's face had turned as pale as a sheet.