Kapitel 8: Sper—?
In a decayed city, the dark armored groups were passing through the streets with blades and blood.
A tide of undead was surging toward them, but they met the undead with steady formation.
"Press forward! They are just mindless undead! Just cut their limbs off if you can't destroy their hearts!" The gray-haired old woman shouted as she horizontally cut a few dozen undead in half, right where their heart belonged. The undead whose heart was destroyed crumbled into a mess of black ash.
Most of the people were fine, they weren't recruits but experienced Eclipsed Walkers – the people who absorbed the power of darkness to fight against the creatures of darkness.
However, they were fighting almost nonstop for two days, this city infested with a great amount of undead didn't give them the time to properly rest.
They were tired.
"Press forward! We are close to the safe area!"
*
Campfires were lit and groups were gathered. Immediately laying their sleeping bags, except the ones who were guarding the sleeping ones.
After two more days of battling against the undead, they reached the internal parts of the city, where it was free of undead. Now, it was time to rest.
At least to most of them.
"Report," a broad-shouldered man covered in black blood said before bowing to the gray-haired old woman.
"Speak, Michy."
"We have two dead and three injured, Baroness. Two of them are our scouts, one dead and one injured. We burned the corpses before taking their tags." The man, Michy, reported to the Baroness.
"That is unfortunate, isn't it? But we can't shed tears for our fallen while it is not certain for us to stay alive."
"That is…"
"You are the most experienced after me, Michy. You must have noticed too. This part of the city is too empty as if it was cleaned by someone thoroughly."
Baroness's words meant one thing. They could encounter an intelligent Creature of Darkness or an expert Eclipsed Walker who was living alone in this city to clean the undead.
"Both of them are bad news…"
"Yes, that kind of Eclipsed Walkers are more unreasonable than mindless undead."
While the Baroness and Michy were talking, a silhouette appeared from a back street.
Duched immediately grabbed the hilt of her sword, expecting the intelligent adversary of this city.
"Eh?"
But the silhouette turned out to be a mindless undead, whose head was dangling on its side, connected by little bits of dried flesh.
"So, there is still undead here." The baroness laughed lightly, it was funny that she worked up herself for a regular undead.
Then, her ears caught footsteps, it was coming from the place where the undead appeared. Something with two legs was coming. It was light and rhythmic, not something a mindless undead could produce.
The Baroness gripped her sword again, this time ready to wake everyone up.
However, the thing that appeared was not an intelligent creature of darkness or a lone wolf Eclipsed Walker, it was a child. A boy, no older than 14, came out from the back street and jumped towards the undead. With a black dagger in his hand, he thrust the blade into the undead's heart. The undead tilted its head for a moment, not understanding what happened, and then it crumbled into fine black ash.
"So, that is how you kill these things. Interesting." The boy murmured, his white hair that reached to his shoulders swayed in the air with every moment. He scooped a little bit of the black ash and rubbed it with his finger as if he were curious how the ash felt on the skin.
Then, the boy turned his face to the Baroness, a pair of gray crystals were directly looking into her eyes. A small smile adorned his healthy pale face.
"Hello there, grandma. Can I join your group?"
*
(2 days ago)
After his transformation, Ashy closed himself to a room and thought deeply. A day later, he more or less accepted his change and made a truce with his doppelganger side. To him, who didn't know the dangers of this world, having a stronger and more resilient body is better than nothing.
And, it wasn't like he turned into a complete doppelganger both body and mind like Elissa. Although there were a few new senses and desires, he was still Ashland or in short Ashy.
'Well, well, I should search through the mansion. Maybe I can find something useful.' With this thought in mind, Ashy got out of the room.
"Take me too, Ashland~ I will die because of boredom!"
Ashy turned his gaze to the severed head that hung to a nail and smiled widely.
"No."
Then he left Elissa there alone and began to search through the mansion.
"Nooooo! You can't do this to me, Ashy~!"
Although sewing her lips was a perfect solution, he didn't want to dirty his hands and also didn't like it when it became too quiet.
So, Elissa was like a TV that was left open to generate sound in the background.
Anyway,
With the help of the magical lantern —which was now burning with brilliant gray fire instead of white — Ashy dressed himself nicely as much as possible with the clothes he found and grabbed everything he thought would be useful.
And when he was about to get out of the mansion, something crossed his mind, and directly went back to Elissa's side.
"Missed me already, Ashy~?"
"No. I have a question."
"Take me with you, then I will answer whatever you ask~"
"Alright." Ashy nonchalantly grabbed Elissa's severed head from the hair and this time got out of the mansion.
With that, a white-haired boy and a severed head of a little girl were wandering on the streets.
"You said you were starving for 1200 years, right?"
"Yes. I starved for nourishment and attention~"
"This means this city is more than 1200 years old, right?"
"Yup, but you can't ask a lady's age~"
"I don't care about your age. What I am curious about is how these houses, no, this whole city haven't decayed over time."
"Duh, you are asking the obvious, Ashy~ but don't worry, even if you are an ignorant fool, I won't abandon you~"
"..."
Ashy couldn't help but lift his arm to throw the head away.
"Wait wait!"
"Hmm?"
"Undead! Most parts of the houses are undead!"
"...what the fuck?"
"It is nothing shocking~ When humans die, they become undead, when animals die, they also become undead, and when trees, plants, and greenery die, they become undead too." Elissa smugly explained. "With time, all living beings will be under the darkness' control."
'So, it is magic bullshit?'
Ashy pondered for a moment and asked. "Does just burning do the trick? And why didn't the undead houses attack me like the human undead before?"
"That is what living humans did before. They even burned themselves while shouting heroic words like 'I refuse to become an undead!', their screams of pain were not so heroic though~"
"..."
"As for your other question, like how trees can't move, their undead form won't be able to move either in most cases. They are just there and will stay there for an eternity. If the blood of living spills on them, they might get a little bit lively though. They are starved too, so they are in a dormant state."
"...okay."
Ashy didn't ask any more questions. He still had many things to ask but first, he needed to digest this new information and think about it.
'All the dead become undead… even the trees and plants.'
'What about the plants you just picked up?'
'Can I eat an undead fruit? Will I then turn into undead afterward?'
'What about germs? What about fruits? What about sper—'
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
GuiltyHeart
GuiltyHeart Sper— what? I don't get what Ashy thinking at all...
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein