ch. 6 Monastery Defense

[Name: Zombie

Age: ???

Specialty: Biting, clawing.

+ Currently in an 'instinctively ravenous' state]

Allen's [Hungering Gaze] showed no important information bowever, it was enough to reassure him.

Watched the zombies stumble forward towards the hole in the barricade, they stepped into a clear puddle that immediately dissolved them down to just bones!

"Don't forget to clean it" Allen yelled out as he slammed his shovel on the head of zombie trying to worm its way through the rock barricade..

With a reminder from Allen, two of the younger villagers used a pair of rakes to pull the bones out of the puddle of Holy water, setting them next to the growing pile of bones.

It had already been thirty minutes since the horde attack, and the number of bones inside of the Holy water worried Allen and so he quickly commanded the villagers to drag out the bones, preventing the zombies from walking on them.

The villager had followed Allens lead, they too were using their tools they had brought alongside the wooden spears to poke at the zombies over the barricade.

With a crack to the head of a zombie, allens face suddenly turned to shock as he realized something. With each zombie he killed a tiny, almost nonexistent, amount of Divinity flew into him and increased his capacity!

It's be impossible to sense them individually, but after killing dozens of the zombies Allen felt the tiniest bump in his Divinity.

Allen had a brief moment to look around at his surroundings and surprisingly had a small smile on his face.

'My barricade is holding up, the villagers have gotten into a groove of fighting fighting, my Divine puddle is working perfectly and now i realize killing zombies makes me stronger. Everything is going better than expected!'

Maybe it was his new body or perhaps an unexplored aspect of himself, but him creating a plan, commanding people, and actually suceeding filled Allen with an overwhelming satisfaction that triumphed anything he experienced in past life.

Quickly hiding the grin, Allen lifted his shovel up and slammed it down onto the head of an old and aging zombie.

"H-honey…?!" Looking next to him, Allen spotted a man who's face was of despair, tears flooded down his cheeks as he began to wail and collapse.

Allen observed that in the midst of the zombies horde, a woman with half of her face ripped off and a silver ring on her finger was walking forth.

"C'mon man get a grip, we need you!" Another villager said as he moved closer to the wailing man, trying to pick up the slack and killing a zombie that nearly climbed over.

"I can't do this!! I just can't!!" The sobbing man loudly shouted out, his face angry and hopeless.

"They were our family members! Our friends, our neighbors! How do you expect me to kill them?!"

Scanning the villagers, unrest was rising up among them. He knew they'd have a problem killing their zombiefied loved ones, he just thought the problem would be life long PTSD after the battle, not during it!

"They're already dead. Nothing will change that even if you ignore reality." Allen's harsh words echoed out.

The man was startled by his word, and began to glare at him along side a few other villagers. His tearful eyes were now filled with hate instead of sadness.

"Since you don't want to fight, are you just gonna run away instead? Leaving your little girl in the protection of other men as her father cowers away like a chickenshit! You know what, do what you want as I won't stop you... But I will say this!" Allen's voiced was loud enough for all to hear.

"These zombies may look gruesome in the outside, but their insides are even worse! What do you think is happening to your zombiefied loved ones right now?"

As Allen voiced this question, none of the villagers had an answer for him, so he continued speaking as his shovel bashed away another zombie

"Their corpses are rotting away while their soul have been shackled to their decaying corpse's, slowly being corrupted by the demonic energy! Right now your wife is suffering well beyond human comprehension and if we don't end it soon, her soul will become too corrupted and become barred from entry into the after life!"

"She… she's suffering?" The man's eyes trembled.

Allen nodded his head, " She's still aware in their, and she has to witness everything her body does."

"..…"

Picking up the discarded farming tool, Allen gently shoved it back into the man's hand before going back to the barricade.

"Your wife wants her suffering to end, and it's your job to comfort her. Let the last thing she sees before passing on be you." Allen felt bad, most of what he said to the man wasn't confirmed at all.

The books in the monastery had a few theories about the afterlife and the undead, but nothing concrete enough to guarantee someone.

What he told the man was one of the humdreds of theories around the top, still the theories that he told made enough sense to Allen so even if he didn't fully believe it, he didn't feel too guilty about it as it really could be true.

The man was no longer looking at Allen. He silently stared at his zombified wife, his hands gripping the farming tool tighter and tighter.

Tears fell as his expression crumpled even further, this was the face of a man in agony. However, his eyes had stopped wavering and his gaze towards his dead wife had transformed into a glare.

With a nod towards the man, Allen spoke comfortingly. "The dead should remain dead, while the living should go on and live."

He then glanced at the rest of the villagers.

"I don't care if you decide to run away. However, you better discard the notion that doing so will guarantee your survival. These aren't your run-of-the-mill zombies, something smart has gained control of them. The killed our messenger men and have blocked our exit to the outside world!"

Allen knew to maximize moral, he had to break them down before building them back up.

"But fear not! For the descendant of God's Emmisary, the man who killed the Necromancer King, is here with you! As long as we defend this Monastery for a few more days, we'll soon be rescued!"

With reinstated vigor, the men began stabbing and bashing zombies with purpose but Allen noticed something weird after he made the speech. A few zombies stepped forward and mindlessly attacked the barricade like usual, but the large majority seemed to bunching up in the back of the tree line.

With a shocked expression on his face, Allen suddenly remember a certain video game in his past life.

"Zombie wave incoming! Prepare yourselves!"

***

Charlotte grew up in a happy family.

She was renowned for her honest and hardworking ways in this small village that was located far north in the Land of the Dead.

In the mornings, she would help her mother out by preparing breakfast and drawing water from the river. In the afternoons, she'd help her father out by entering the forest to cut some firewood.

That very fateful day began the same as any other day.

She finished helping her mother prepare breakfast and went to the river outside the village to get some water. While struggling a little with what she was carrying, she returned to her house.

It was then, a rather familiar noise entered her ear.

"Blergh…. Uwahk…. Blergh….."

Charlotte was startled by the sound and quickly shifted her gaze to the side.

The next-door uncle was clutching his stomach while vomiting out everything in his tummy. His wife was beside him, gently patting his back with a concerned expression on her face.

A sour, stinging stench strong enough to make Charlotte instinctively block her nose wafted about. The girl formed a worried expression of her own.

'Neighbor Ben is also sick.'

The autumn and winter seasons were the time of plagues. Even Charlotte's father was struck down by the illness himself and was suffering in pain right now.

"Don't worry darling. I'll be fine after a week or so from an illness like this."

Charlotte trusted her father's words. After all, she too had contracted a plague last year so if she could survive it, then surely her strong father could as well.

While feeling worried, Charlotte tried to talk to her neighbours to comfort him.

"Hello there." Ben and his wife flinched at Charlotte's greeting before scowling at her appearance.

Without saying a word, they quickly entered the house and slammed the door behind them.

A large feeling of sadness consumed Charlotte. She'd always smile and share greetings with her neighbours, but during the plague seasons, everyone would become as unfriendly as one could get.

But then again, the neighbors only got the plague after Charlotte's father did, so they must've assumed it was him who got them infected.

After thinking of this, Charlotte tried to enter her home holding back tears.

*Squeak, squeak!*

She lowered her head and found a rodent busy biting at her leather shoe. She frowned a little and kicked the vermin away hard.

The creature was flung towards a nearby shed, slamming into it before getting up without any problems. Just as she was about to walk away, she saw tiny red eyes suddenly open within the gaps of the old wooden shed.

"What-"

Just as Charlotte formed a stunned expression, the rodent that she kicked screeched out loudly.

*Kiiiiieeeehk!!*

The howl was so monstrous that such a little body couldn't have possibly produced it naturally.

She was frightened by the screech that so loud that it began to hurt her eardrums, forcing her to drop the metal bucket filled with water. Without any reserve, she turned around and ran away with dozens of rodents chasing after her.

She hurriedly dashed inside her home and shut the door behind her, locking it firmly in the process.

*Slam!* *Boom!* *Bang!*

The rodents slammed their bodies against the door with a surprising amount of force.

"Mom! Dad! Help me!" Charlotte's face was pale from fright.

She quickly backed away from the door in horror as she continued to call out to her parents with a frightened voice. Unfortunately, they didn't reply to her call...

What did return however, was a horrifying scream that sent a chill down her spine.

Charlotte was shocked by what she heard and hurriedly ran into the kitchen. Almost immediately, her whole figure froze up.

Her mom, who was holding a kitchen knife and should've been preparing the family's breakfast, she… her neck was being ripped apart by her father's teeth.

'Why...How?' Her Mom weakly muttered out as she collapsed to the floor.

Spotting her daughter in the doorway frozen at the scene, the mom weakly muttered with her failing voice "R… un… away…"

Charlottes frozen face snapped awake.

"I-I'll ask someone for help!" Charlotte looked at the front door briefly, rodents were still pounding away on it.

She quickly approached the nearest window and leave the windows shut so the rats could come in, she shouted out as loudly as she could at the neighboring houses

"Help us! Mom, she… My dads killing her…!"

Charlotte watched as people peek out the windows of their house, hope blossoming in her heart when suddenly they all closed their curtains and ignored her.

"What...why wo-" *auurghh!*

It was then that she heard a bizarre grunt coming from behind her. Flinching ever so slightly, Charlotte slowly turned around to look.

Her dad was unsteadily standing there, his mouth which was ripping into her mom's throat only a second ago, was now dripping with blood. His now-dead eyes were staring straight at Charlotte with a hunger in them.

Charlotte notice that he cobbled unsteadily, his left leg seemed ti have been ravaged by a bunch of tiny bites.

Her zombified father pounced on her, then her mind went blank. She couldn't remember what happened properly after that, but in faint fragmented bits of memories she was running into the kitchen to pick up the knife. That's where she confronted her now zombified mother.

Charlotte wielded the knife in a wild flurry and when she finally came to, both her father and mother lay dead filled with stab wounds all across their bodies.

She stood there, dazedly staring at the two unmoving corpses. She couldn't understand it, zombiefication took atleast a day in the Land of the dead and yet they instantly turned!

"Help!!! Save me!" Screams from outside her house slightly roused her from her daze.

She robotically looked out the window as swarm of rats now littered the streets and banged on doors

"What, what's this?! So many rats…?!" The screams of the villagers reverberated outside the window as Charlotte slowly drew the blinds closed.

Charlotte turned her head towards the front door, the vermins had gnawed through it to create a hole and began pouring in but the expression on her face remained the same.

Staring at the undead rats charging her, Charlotte gripped her knife tightly as she stepped forward!

***

"-diots doing! Rake the bones out of the puddle now!" Charlotte opened her eyes and shot up from the bedding.

Cold sweat rolled down her face as she quickly scanned her surroundings and had her hands reflexively flail about in the air in a defensive manner.

Somewhat embarrassingly, Charlotte realized their was no rodents that were currently pouncing at her and looked up at the monastery interior.

"Where is this? What happened?!" The ladies and elderly men were taken aback after seeing her wake up screaming

"Hush child, you need to be quite! The battle is under way..."