What's going on? Whose horrible screams are those? Is it related to this ominous fog, or is it just a troubled neighborhood?
I didn't want to find out, but just in case, I got out of bed, put on my shoes, and drew my sword. Standing by the bed, I didn't take my eyes off the window, and at some point, I even began to see images of burglars peering into the window from the other side.
Knock, knock!
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door of my bedroom, startling me a lot, but I quickly regained my composure. It was Uncle Jack!
"Can I come in?" asked the familiar voice from the other side of the room.
"Yes," I replied, and the door swung open.
Before me stood a man about 30 years old, tall but quite well-fed. In his youth, he probably matched the current mayor in muscles. His stubbly face betrayed weariness.
"It's already midnight. Are you going to the Victory Festival?" he asked, staring at me with a weary look.
I looked significantly at the window, and his gaze followed mine there.
"It's quite foggy," he accurately noted but declined further comments.
"Holy Paladin Jeanne mentioned that this fog emits strange energy. Besides, someone was screaming outside. It's clearly unsafe out there," I replied as calmly as possible, trying to convince Uncle Jack not to go out.
"It's dangerous everywhere in the city, if you think about it," he replied.
That was odd. Uncle Jack usually didn't argue with me.
"What about the fog?" I persisted.
In response, I received silence, with a hint of doubt in the man's gaze.
"Maybe you're right after all," he eventually conceded.
I looked out the window again, the fog remaining just as thick. At some point, I once again imagined that a intruder was peering into the window, but it quickly disappeared.
If the fog can really influence us in some way, then our oddities become understandable. I was about to tell Uncle Jack about this thought, when suddenly the hallucinations returned again, but this time the human figure outside the window seemed voluminous.
No! This wasn't a hallucination!
The intruder forcefully struck the window, leaving a web of cracks on the glass in the center, which with each subsequent blow began to spread over the entire surface.
Uncle Jack and I stepped away from the glass as far as possible, holding our swords ready.
Very soon, the glass shattered from such an onslaught, and a man in a shabby shirt with a rather thick but dirty beard looked at us out of the fog.
His eyes were bulging so much that the veins were visible, his face was red, and foam was oozing from his mouth.
He said nothing and did nothing, just stared at us, sometimes shuddering from the cold.
I tightened my grip on the sword in my hands.
"Get out!" I yelled towards the intruder.
He didn't react.
"Leave or I'll attack!" I shouted again.
"I'm from the Festival," the old man suddenly croaked. "You overslept, but you can still see Him. The God has awakened."
"What are you talking about, you lunatic?!" I yelled, taking a step forward.
"The God has awakened! Awakened! Ahahaha!"
In a fit of laughter, he began to slowly move away from the window, but his eyes constantly stared in our direction without blinking. He didn't break eye contact until he turned completely away and left. The laughter didn't stop but gradually faded as he moved further away from the house.
Strange fog seeped through the broken window into the room, so I decided to leave and lock the door.
"I know him, he's my upstairs neighbor," the man suddenly said.
"Well, you've got some interesting neighbors, Uncle," I sighed.
"He's never behaved like this before," the man continued sadly. "This fog or what he saw at the Festival must have affected him so strongly."
"He said that the God has awakened. Is this related to the awakening of the Tower God?" I asked.
"Although I am a believer of the God of Sun, I have lived all my life surrounded by followers of the God in the Tower," Uncle began. "Let me put it this way, the true God should awaken in the Tower itself; everything else is lies and schemes of the False God."
"I think what he saw at the Festival drove him crazy, not the fog itself," the man continued. "Nevertheless, the fog definitely affects us."
"So, it's in our best interests to leave the city as soon as possible," I concluded Uncle Jack's thought.
The man pondered over my words and surveyed his empty house. Sadness and... nostalgia reflected on his face?
"This place stopped being home for me a long time ago," Uncle Jack said with a sigh. "When such things happen in the city, running away isn't the worst idea."
Okay, I managed to convince him. But if we leave the city just the two of us, what will happen to Adele? Yes, we hadn't known each other for very long, but I still felt some sympathy towards her.
"Uncle Jack, do you know where Adele might be?" I asked, not really expecting to get any information.
"I've heard she and Kyle lives with his parents, but I don't know where their house is," the man replied with regret. "Do you want to help them?"
"Only her," I admitted honestly.
After Uncle Jack, she was the only one who treated me kindly in this world. I could also mention Jeanne, but she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
"I see," the man nodded understandingly. "I know one man who did a personal errand for Kyle's father and was at their house. He rents a room at the Adventurer's Guild."
So, our first stop is the Guild. I didn't want to go out into the streets, but that wouldn't stop me from helping a friend.
...
The city streets seemed deserted. Probably, most of the people had gathered at the Festival, where they had completely lost their minds.
The fog was quite thick, but I could still see at least 20 meters ahead.
Surprisingly, everything was going smoothly so far.
[You received a new effect!]
[Strange Regeneration – while in this fog, you will gradually regenerate, even if you die.
Description: all injuries and wounds, if they do not have special effects, will slowly heal. Health points will regenerate at a rate of 1 point every 10 minutes. If you lose all health points and die, you will resurrect as undead. If you die again, you will gradually regenerate.]
Well... that's not bad, but still very strange. But what's even worse is the mention of becoming undead. Furries' bodies are hung all over the city...
I looked at Uncle Jack. He also read the notification and understood what it meant for us.
"All these bodies were mainly closer to the city center, but they're also present in other districts, even here," I noticed. "We need to be on guard."
Uncle Jack just nodded in response.
At some point, a horrifying smell hit us. It was the familiar stench of deads, but we still hadn't reached the areas with concentrated corpses.
We stopped. Despite this, the smell only intensified, and very quickly, as if its source was coming towards us.
We didn't have time to hide before a living dead appeared before us. It was an anthropomorphic wolf about my height.
His fur was darkened with dirt and blood, his eyes burned with a menacing green light, but his face showed no emotion.
There was a hole in his throat, as if someone had removed it, and he made strange hissing sounds as if trying to say something.
His stomach was torn open, most of the organs inside were missing, but some intestines were hanging out. I could clearly see small white maggots crawling all over his body.
I felt nauseous, but I held back my urges, gripping my sword tighter in my hands.
At that moment, the monster lunged towards us and quickly closed the distance.
Uncle Jack stepped forward and forcefully slashed at the zombie, splitting it in half.
I stepped aside, dodging the two separated parts of the dead body flying towards me.
Despite such a critical injury, the upper part of the monster turned towards us and began to crawl in our way.
I approached it and pierced the head of the enemy with my sword, causing a small amount of blood and brain fluid to splatter on my leather armor.
However, I didn't receive a notification from the system. Well, it seems if it's already dead, then the second death doesn't count as a kill.
As I pulled the sword out of the zombie's head, I noticed that, albeit slowly, the wound was healing. It seemed that within an hour, the gaping hole in the skull would completely close.
"Let's go," I simply said, heading towards the Guild. Uncle Jack followed me.