A glaring headache at the back of my head forced me awake with difficulty in opening my eyes. Where am I? Aren't I supposed to be a zombie by now? I forced myself to sit up and rubbed my forehead, only to realise I was actually resting on a bed. How did I end up here? What happened to Rose?
As I pulled myself up, the effects of the headache grew worse and I had to lean on something just to keep myself upright. A couple of things fell with a loud clank and the door of the room swung open with Rose appearing at the doorway.
"Onii-chan, you should be resting if you can't stand up. We're in a safe place, don't worry. You can rest now," she guided me back to the bed.
"Where are we? What happened after I blanked out? From what I recalled, I was about to stab myself after—wait, what happened to those worms in my body?!" I shouted.
"Technically speaking, you were about to kill yourself," spoke a voice. A figure stood at the doorway and upon revealing himself, it was the mayor. Glad to know that he's still alive.
"What do you mean exactly? What about the city? Are we losing?" I asked for answers.
"Quite a long story to recap. But seeing that you can't move around just yet, perhaps there's enough time after all. Quick to start killing things that you're not familiar with, aren't you? Killing the worms—releases some sort of hallucinogen that causes its killer or anything around it to kill itself, providing a host body for its larvae within its dead body to inhabit a new host. Quite the biology, isn't it?" he chuckled dryly. He must have witnessed such scenes too many times for him to start chuckling this way. Guess that solves the mystery as to why there are no dead bodies around.
"So… I nearly killed myself for some worm babies. Wow, that went well," I sighed with disbelief.
"Both of you, actually. You were lucky that my scouts were nearby when they saw what you were doing. According to them, both of you put up quite a fight in trying to kill yourself. Do forgive my people for knocking you unconscious, Zen," he bowed lightly.
I waved it aside and rubbed the back of my head. A little headache in exchange for my life is a rather small price to pay. What an interesting yet crazy biology this one worm has. Now it made sense why I felt arms trying to stop me from moving myself. I'm rather interested in studying these worms for alchemy myself. Rather certain a few new recipes could be made from them.
"What about the city? Are these worms just slithering throughout the entire city? Doesn't make sense for worms to destroy your workplace," I asked.
"Ahh… so that was how you entered the city. I was wondering how you came in from the main gates. Guess the Underwater Dragon King is getting rather desperate, as he should be. Sigh… I won't lie to you, Zen, the city is in disarray. I'll tell you the truth directly since there's no point in twisting the facts," he sighed.
"Listen closely. We are being attacked by a cunning and calculative being. All these worms, they're just his lackeys or something. We have reports about this individual, but he has been controlling these worms from the shadows and attacking key parts of the city. Sadly, we couldn't even eliminate him as he's really fast. Might even be faster than you, Zen," he shook his head.
"Any description of this being? What are your strategies in combating these worms? Seems like your scouts were able to resist the hallucinogen just fine when they rescued us," I asked him.
"Very perceptive of you. Well, thankfully we have—" he was cut short as someone ran to the room's doorway and started shouting.
"Sir! One of our scouts… they need help!" he shouted as he continued to pant. He was wearing a bubble helmet with some form of suit that made him look like he's about to head to space. So that's how they counteract the hallucinogen gas. Very clever indeed.
"Run me through. Keep it short but highlight the location," spoke the mayor as he gestured him in and rolled out a map on the table.
I turned my gaze towards Rose and asked her to heal my head immediately as I need to focus on what they'll be discussing.
"They were last seen— here. This is where I last spotted them when they were getting cornered by those worms and their hosts. It would seem that their leader is attacking our scouts at an opportune time. We won't be winning this war in a battle of attrition, sir. He's outsmarting us," spoke the scout.
"Any visual on the leader?" I asked. The scout glanced towards the mayor who nodded with approval to indulge me with this supposedly secretive information.
"There… is some visual on him. We know that he's humanoid in nature, but we've never gotten any facial identification on him since he's always wearing a hood," he explained as best he could.
No facial identification? What reason would the leader need to do that? Now I'm starting to get worried, thinking back on what the Underwater Dragon King's told me. Who is it under that hood? Is it really someone related to me? Sigh.
Rose continued to heal my head as my right hand reached into my hip pouch to pull out the special coin with red strings. Time to see whether the Underwater Dragon King was yanking with me. I pulled myself up after Rose was done and proceeded to the table. Both the mayor and the scout were busy discussing, but I had no choice but to interrupt them. I needed more information and reports should I wish to lead this war.
The sound of the coin clinking could somehow be heard as I threw it onto the table, seemingly ending their conversation short. A moment of truth now, will they recognise what it is or will they just ignore it?
"W—where did you get this?" asked the mayor as he picked it up. Guess he wasn't yanking with me after all.
"The Underwater Dragon King handed it to me in request to lead the war. What say you as the mayor?" I asked him nonchalantly.
"Well… by all means~ We've been needing someone more qualified than me to lead us ever since we lost most of them during the initial assault. I didn't want to impose on you when you just got here but since the Underwater Dragon King sent for you, be my guest, General," he handed the coin back to me, informing me to tie it somewhere visible.
"Please… don't call me that. I'm just here to help. Let's see, I still need you as the main contact point to gather information and reports for me since I'll be on the field eventually. As of now, let's save the scouts first. Any spare bubble helmets and suits for two?" I asked the scout and he quickly gestured us to follow after him.
He led us to another room where there were a couple of suits lying around. Upon inspection, all of them were worn and not in the best condition or even cleanliness. Rose swore loudly and quickly searched for some cloth to wipe the insides of the suits. I helped her since we were rushing for time and a couple of minutes later, we suited up and were on our way with the scout leading the way.
***
We used the roofs of the buildings exclusively since there were so many infected bodies on ground level. Guess it's time to brush up on my parkour skills. Some managed to climb up top, but nothing a little kick can't handle. Some screams could be heard nearby, and I knew we were close to those scouts. Despite the fact that we were wearing suits, it didn't hinder our mobility too much, for now.
"Stay back, we'll handle it," I told the scout who remained on the roof before leaping towards those trapped scouts cornered by those infected.
They had barricaded themselves inside a small building surrounded by plenty of infected trying to break in. And they are going to succeed if we don't take action soon. Rose charged ahead of me and began stabbing those infected in the eyes, pinning a couple of them as she extended the length of her rapier and tossed them aside.
I decided to try something on the infected while Rose went in for physical attacks. I'll be using the blunt side of Inazuma while maximising the electricity effect on my enemies. My theory is that I can eliminate all the worms by roasting them from the inside out instead of killing them one by one. I'm going to need your help with this, Kirin. Share some of your powers with me.
Inazuma started sparkling with response, giving me the signal to test whether my theory checks out. I smacked a couple of them, hoping Kirin's electricity would shock them all to death; but… I miscalculated—horribly. While they were indeed electrocuted for a short while, all of them seemed to tough it out as though they were hit with nothing! Fuck, seems like this Cosmic Being is learning from the previous battle and infused his underlings with lightning resistance, or he just loves lightning so much since his Vessel was literally using green lightning. Now what am I supposed to do? Kill it with fiyah? I only have one fire coating left and it feels like a waste to use it on these infected.
"Stop fooling around, Onii-chan! Start killing these worms already!" scolded Rose as she changed her rapier to an urumi and started slicing those infected from range. Had she been learning ballet? She's moving much more gracefully and skilfully now compared to when she first started using it.
I do agree that I shouldn't be fooling around and start killing these infected. Sorry Kirin, seems like Tengu-kaze's wind power is much more useful in this situation. I began gathering power to Tengu-kaze and unleashed its wind power upon the infected, pushing them back and slicing them apart while keeping their hallucinogen gas away from us. We'll need to get rid of more of them before it is safe for the scouts to escape.
I thought of knocking on the door to give them a heads-up to ready themselves to escape when opportunity presented itself. However, as I swung my fist backwards without looking, I began noticing that I was knocking on something soft instead of something solid. I immediately glanced backwards upon realising it, only to realise that I was knocking on a woman's thigh who opened the door while holding a sword with her shaky hands.
"Get back inside but ready yourselves to escape. What happened to your helmet and suit and how many of you are there?" I asked as I noticed that she wasn't wearing any suit or helmet.
"There are only three of us left. All of our suits got busted as these worm hosts kept biting them specifically. We have no way of protecting ourselves from their gases now," she uttered softly. She must have been scared but pushed herself to help out.
"Understood. Gather the others quickly, the coast will be clear soon. Three knocks will be your signal," I told her as I pushed her back inside and closed the door.
Rose was fighting bravely against the infected, but is it just me or did their number increase significantly over a short period? I rushed over to help her, using Tengu-kaze's wind power to blow and cut them apart, but it seemed that they were able to regenerate the host body they were inhabiting. I guess we must eliminate the worms directly rather than the body of the infected, which is going to be really troublesome. No wonder the soldiers have such difficulty in getting rid of them. Not only are they difficult to kill unless you eliminate all of the worms inside a host, killing one exposes chemical warfare against you, contributing even more host body for the worms.
"We're sitting ducks here. There's no point in fighting all these infected hosts when we should be focusing on rescuing the scouts," spoke Rose as she continued using her urumi skilfully, but since it was mostly causing flesh wounds rather than direct contact with the worms, the infected hosts were healing themselves on any wound that she inflicted.
"Stay close to me, I'm going to blow them away, then we'll make a quick getaway using the roofs. Get ready to knock the door three times," I told her and began gathering wind power around Tengu-kaze.
Rose stood behind me as we inched our way closer to the door where I slammed Tengu-kaze into the ground, producing a strong wave that knocked all the nearby infected off their feet. With a quick spin, Rose had already knocked on the door before the infected even touched the floor. The scouts emerged from the hideout and we immediately leapt to safety before any of the infected got back on their feet.
Yosh, glad we made it. Only at this vantage point could I see how many infected were actually converging on the hideout. Geez, that's a lot of infected indeed. We need reinforcements if we wish to eliminate all of them and reclaim the city. Let's regroup with the mayor and the remaining forces before figuring out what our next step is.
As we began making our way back via the roofs, Rose suddenly pointed out that my cloak pin was somehow turning black and it was for this very reason that I felt a cold, dark, piercing aura approaching behind me. I instantly summoned both Inazuma and Tengu-kaze and spun myself to block the incoming attack. A loud clank erupted as our blades clashed, I somehow managed to block the attack in the nick of time. A white-hooded figure was the one who initiated the attack but despite being in such close proximity, all I could see was his smirk and nothing else. Rose didn't miss a beat and immediately attempted to stab the attacker in the face as she used the cover of my body for a counterattack. I saw her rapier blade fly past my right vision which was dangerously close to my neck. But alas, the attacker avoided it with ease, resulting in the blade only being able to pierce through the edge of the hood.
Rose made a "Tch" and retracted her blade while the white-hooded man leapt backwards. We couldn't get a good look at the attacker despite being in such close proximity, but something unexpected happened which caught me off guard. The part where Rose had stabbed the hood suddenly burst with a pink flame, causing the attacker to disrobe his cloak and quickly toss it aside as the pink flame continued to burn with abnormal speed. What did Rose just do? Since when can she use flame spells? Hold up— is this the power of the gem she bought recently? This person is a demon? He looks pretty human to me. Can it be a demon in disguise again?
As we all glared at this person who was still glancing at his cloak engulfed in flames, a cold shudder ran down my spine as I couldn't believe what I was seeing when he finally glanced at us. Or who, for that matter. It was as though I was staring at—myself. He literally had the same hairstyle and colour as me, yet his face had similarities to me. Who the hell is this? Is this supposed to be a clone of me or something?
"Hello, boy," he smirked, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I started breathing harder as reality fell on me as I realised who this person was. It was only then that I felt a flaring pain in my left abdomen, only to find a strange-looking dagger lodged there. I began losing consciousness as I gripped the dagger before dropping to my knees. The last thing I recall before blanking out was asking the question, why was he here? Why is he even alive? Why… is my father alive?