Lay to Rest

Rowan smiled to himself as they reached the high rise building. Rowan looked up at the building with a light in his eyes. He could see his penthouse from where he stood; he had designed the building with that in mind. He wanted to be able to see it even from down here. Camille smiled and was getting ready to walk in when time seemed to come to a stop. He had still not turned in his quests; he was waiting until he made it home before he did that. [New Quest: Lay to rest the tower of the dead. Reward: Passive Skill Box] Rowan had frozen in his tracks before even the system could comment.

[Comment:You've taken the apocalypse too lightly Rowan, lay to rest the souls that once relied on you as is your responsibility] Rowan stopped in his tracks as time resumed. He turned to Camille and Em. "I need you both to do something for me. I need you to stay out here for a bit. There's something I need to do first." Camille looked at him strangely, and Em just nodded. She looked at him again as he walked forward. "Are you sure you won't need help with this?" Rowan only shook his head without ever stopping his feet. "No, I think I have to do this one alone."

Rowan walked through the front door and the first person he saw was Robert, the doorman. His skin was pasty and when he swiveled to Rowan, his eyes glowed with hunger. Rowan never even bothered to take out the second dagger. Robert charged and when he did, his end was swift. He had stayed right in the lobby this entire time. He was a level one zombie. As the dagger passed through his neck as easily as a hot knife through butter, Rowan remembered the day he shook his hand and hired him. He remembered the little things he would do., He remembered that no matter how early he woke; he was there to say good morning and no matter how late he came home; he was up to lock the door behind him.

Rowan stood over his headless body, still wearing the uniform that Rowan had bought. It was one of five identical uniforms that he had jokingly asked Rowan for, but that Rowan complied with, anyway. Rowan generated a storm point above his body but instead of using ten mana, he used thirty, making it the size of a basketball and doing something he had never done before. With a wave of his hand, cyan lightning poured down from it and turned the body to ash and while the storm point vanished, a gust of wind blew it away before a slight rain washed the scene clear.

Rowan sighed to himself and opted for the steps instead of the elevator. He went from room to room. Lisa in 1a would make lemonade in the summer that was to die for. Bill in 2b was a foreman before losing everything in a bad business deal. Rowan gave him a room and asked that the only payment be him checking up on the building and making sure everything ran right. Angelo in 3c had a story much like Bills but as it was, he was a plumber. Gabriele in 4d had acted as his nurse when he broke his leg mountain climbing. Tina, in 5E, invited the whole building over for Sunday dinner and cooked herself and so Rowan made sure that her place would always be big enough to fit everyone.

This building was the one he had lived in the longest and the one that meant the most to him because time after time he had redone the building to make it work for everyone that lived here. Rowan lost his only family in what was simply an accident, there was no one to blame and no one to hate, but through the course of him helping people he found himself with this building and in this moment he realized that he had built a family for himself, not through blood of course but through genuine companionship and that made all of this hurt even more.

Rowan continued to go floor by floor until he reached the eleventh floor and it was there that he no longer found the residents that he expected and instead just blood stains. He followed the obvious trail of blood that led to the stair while his eyes had switched into a separate spectrum and he was able to get even more information. He could see the trail of blood that glowed in his vision, while the color in the blood trails was more faded.

Rowan followed the overlapping blood trails as he climbed the steps, flight by flight slowly. He even bypassed the penthouse and went straight up to the roof. He walked out onto the roof with one dagger and shuddered at the scene that was waiting for him. Sitting in the middle of the roof was a woman not much younger looking than him. She was wrapped in an armor made of crimson. Her warm yellow skin highlighted by the snow white hair that cascaded all around her. She turned around at hearing him coming and Rowan let the realization of what had happened run through him. [Anomaly Detected tier zero existence identified.]

Rowan ignored the message completely as he recognized the pale body parts of the other tenants' turn zombie. She slowly turned around with tears pouring down her face. "I swear I didn't want to do this Rowan, I swear. I was so hungry, and they were mostly already turned. I didn't have a choice, the hunger is so bad.

Then the ones that weren't turned yet attacked me and before I knew what was happening, my body acted on its own. I swear, I didn't want everyone to die… but they tasted so fresh compared to zombie flesh Rowan." Standing in front of him was one of the members of the building here the longest, second only to Rowan himself. She was his childhood friend Akari Abe; she was an orphan in the first orphanage that Rowan was sent to. He was no more than a broken child who missed his parents back then, but she had been a friend to him, her situation not very different from his own. She had stuck to him like glue and they had been best friends ever since.

When everything happened, he assumed she would be fine here. He assumed that there was no way that Akari would not excel in this new world, but the woman in front of him proved him wrong. Her hair that was originally black, had been drained of its color. Her eyes robbed of their mellow brown completely and now a vibrant Vermillion. She had blood red crystalline armor on that covered very little and while the two of them had briefly entertained something romantic, they both decided that they preferred just being friends because of the fear of messing it up and potentially losing one another,but he knew her body as well as he knew his own so it was easy for him to spot the increased bust size, but not some type huge improvement it was more so like they had rounded them like whatever changed her body was perfecting it.

The armor formed a corset around her belly, but it was cut out in the middle, fully exposing her navel. It came down into some type of battle skirt that had the ends looking like swords. The skirt was open in the front and she was wearing no underwear, nor did this blood red outfit come with leggings, so her vagina was laid bare for him to see. He had not realized it but the battle skirt was only on her sides. It was missing the front and the back, so her ass was just as exposed. It reached up and two blood red scaled claws gripped her boobs while the middle finger on the claw extended slightly farther than the others to cover her nipple with a single talon.

She was older than Rowan by about four years, so while he was currently 18 she was 22 and while he took in everything he prepared to pull his dagger and end this when he noticed something, she had no name above her that he could see. Time slowed down to a crawl once again.

[Quest Complete. Excluding being outside of parameters] Rowan had not noticed because of the fact that he was stunned to stunned to speak even but now that the quest was complete, albeit oddly enough with a zombie still present he became fully aware that he could not see a name above Akari's head indicating that she was human. Rowan wanted to approach her and her eyes, that still had the tears pouring from them, were begging for him to treat her like the friend she had always been.

"System, help me out here. What's going on?" Rowan waited in silence and just when he was about to give up, the system answered. [This information can not be given for free, So in return the host will have to sacrifice the level improvement from both the kill Garda quest and the quest Absolute Idiots.] Rowan never even had to think about such a simple decision. "Sure system, I'll earn those levels myself, anyway." [=0 Good answer host!][ The woman in front of you is a unique existence as well, It appears that she was indeed turned into a zombie but the power of a tier zero soul is not to be underestimated, it appears that her soul consumed the parasite and broke it down and fused it into her natural bloodlines making her a new existence born from humans just like host will become when he fully awakens his bloodline.] Rowan nodded to know one as he walked closer to her.

"Akari, listen to me, everything is going to be alright." She finally looked up from her tears, "No it's not Rowan, I know what I did here. I killed people that I loved Rowan. I killed people that you love. I'm a monster now. Even from here, I can almost taste how delicious you would be. My whole body is screaming for me to take a bite and it's so hard to hold back." "System, is my friend still in there?" [Yes indeed, and if the source of what makes her just as unique as you is correct then with the power of {Redacted} she is quite possibly fully awoken her bloodline and has access to the system, she may be around your level but she will make for your most dangerous foe since Garda, while she just like the current you has the potential to kill him.]

Rowan looked back to his friend. "You can't be blamed for what happened, here you did not ask to be turned into a zombie, it happened, but you are through the worst of it, you have to live on so that the lives of our friends that you were forced to take can live on through you. You now have to carry the weight of their lives for as long as you breathe." Rowan held his hand out to her, "Can you make me that promise? Promise to live on no matter what because now you carry the lives of those no longer with us, and I will do the same because I should have been here for all of you. The world was ending and you all should have been my first priority. I don't want to lose anyone else that I love today. So I too will carry the weight of ending their lives, because I am to blame as much as you are". She looked up at him and she reached her hand out to him and he took her hand in his. [Soul Resonance activated]