Chapter 36 (1/2)

After burying the revenants, they continued down the road.

The encounter with the undead gave some of them thoughts of going back to Kauffa, but since they accepted the quest knowing that there would be some sort of danger on the way, going back wasn’t an option.

While preparing to bury the bodies, Loren checked their belongings, but none of them had anything peculiar, and the only things they had were wallets and jewelry, nothing to let him know who they were or where they came from.

But on the other hand, that itself told him that they were common folk from a nearby city.

They loaded the belongings into the caravans just in case.

If they had any relatives they needed to give them back to them, and even if they didn’t it would serve as proof that they had defeated undead monsters. But still, carrying the belongings of the dead wasn’t the happiest thing, and the party’s morale sunk slightly.

Klaus and his party, who had defeated the group of revenants by themselves, was now acknowledged and had a high evaluation among the adventurers. But Loren continued to ignore him, as he kept on sending smug looks his way.

After a while, an incident that lowered the morale of the party even further happened.

The driver of the caravan Loren and Lapis were on had died.

Loren noticed that the caravan was moving unnaturally, even though they weren’t getting attacked, and went over to the driver’s seat. When he tapped the driver’s shoulder, the driver suddenly fell off the caravan.

He panicked and grabbed the reins and stopped the caravan, but the driver was already dead.

The cause of his death was unknown.

Lapis immediately examined him, but all the injuries on the body were scratches and bruises from falling down from the caravan, and couldn’t find anything that could’ve been the cause of his death.

On top of that, the body was already halfway undead, so they had to cremate it on the spot.

“What the h.e.l.l is happening?”

Sitting next to Loren was Lapis, who was driving the caravan.

Apparently priests of the Knowledge G.o.d knew how to drive as well, and Loren thought that if the Knowledge G.o.d was such a handyman, maybe more people should start following him.

“I wish I knew.”

On Lapis’ other side, Shayna sat leaning onto Lapis, sleeping soundly.

She looked like she was sleeping peacefully, but Loren frowned slightly as he wondered what she was thinking inside about their current situation.

She hadn’t eaten much since the day before.

She looked fine, so it seemed that she still had some strength in her, but not eating anything worried Loren.

Food was important no matter what you did.

Since she wasn’t eating, Loren decided that she was must be stressed out mentally. As he continued to be alert on their surroundings, Lapis muttered to him.

“It seems like there are a few in that direction.”

She said it so suddenly that Loren couldn’t understand what she was saying, and after a moment realized what she had meant and looked towards the direction she was facing.

He saw a large plain, but couldn’t find anything of the sort Lapis had talked about.

He was relieved and thought that he must be worrying too much, but Lapis gave an additional blow.

“They can’t be seen by human eyes.”

Loren then remembered.

Although it couldn’t be noticed just by looking at them, Lapis’ eyes were artificial.

Her limbs were prosthetics as well, and they were being used to hide the fact that Lapis was a demon.

Loren found that out during his very first quest as an adventurer, and also learned that Lapis’ goal was to gain experience as well as search for her lost limbs and eyes.

Leaving that aside, since her eyes were artificial, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was some sort of special function built into them.

“There are some over there as well. Around twenty of them.”

“What is wrong with this area?”

Lapis tilted her head at Loren, who had given up trying to search the area and muttered with a lowered voice.

As the caravan was going slightly off track, Lapis fixed the pathing and whispered in a hushed voice.

They were both trying to be considerate of Shayna, who was still sleeping.

“There are a bunch of undead roaming in broad daylight. That means there is a source somewhere.”

“That’s a pretty depressing thought when it’s going to be night time soon enough.”

Undead were more active during the night than during the day.

They could see quite a few of them right now during the day, and Loren couldn’t help but feel melancholic as he thought about how many there would be once the sun set.

“In the case of an emergency, let’s take Shayna and run away. It’s okay, we’ll definitely be able to reach Hanza.”

“Am I the only one that feels that there are more undead the closer we get to Hanza?”

“Hahaha. That’s such an unpleasant thing to say.”

“It’s not something to be laughing about, geez…”

Loren sighed, but their worries soon started to become a reality as night came.

As they were trying to find a place to spend the second night, many different kinds of undead became active and started attacking them.

“d.a.m.n it! What is this!? There’s no end to them!”

Broas yelled, blood and flesh flying around him as he swung his axes. Around him were a large number of zombies, with their muscle and intestines showing beneath their rotting flesh.

If it were a few or even a decent sized group of them, they could’ve dealt with them without any problems, but against a seemingly unending number of undead, even iron rank adventurers had a difficult time.

The adventurers would get tired and eventually be unable to move, but to the undead, such things didn’t exist.

That meant no matter how much they were cut or pummeled, as long as a part of them could move, they would continue to attack.

To add on to that, there were revenants mixed in with the zombies every now and then.

Since they were higher ranking monsters than zombies, they were stronger and moved more smoothly than them, and didn’t feel fatigue as well.

They joined the zombies, which were surrounding the adventurers, and started attacking as well.

“S-stop! Get away from me!”

“Ow, it hurts, it hurts! Stop biting! Stop eating me!”

The female adventurers that had been riding with Shayna and lost consciousness the first day were far from being completely healed, and tired faster than the others. The zombies knocked them down and started biting off the flesh that wasn’t protected by their armor or clothes.

The other adventurers tried to help them, but the revenants attacked them as if they were waiting for them to turn away, knocked them down, and started biting at their throats.

“O-onii-san…”

Of course Loren, Lapis, and Shayna were in the middle of it as well.

With Lapis standing near him and Shayna clinging onto his waist, Loren reached back towards his weapon, grabbed it, and muttered.