“What? No! Absolutely not. How the fuck would that even work?”

“Oh thank god maybe there is ho-”

“Dammit. I can’t believe I got infected on the very first undead I came across, I guess this means I’d be the first to die in a zombie movie.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andrea and Julius meanwhile were taking a much slower and more cautious approach towards the temple, even though they followed the same path as Alyx had. The two rangers felt confident they could take their time, even if Alyx tried to run for it instead of clearing out the temple, they could always track him down, and it was worth it to avoid the undead.

“So how much damage do you think the human can really do here? He’s only freshly classed after all.” Andrea asked without turning toward Julius, her eyes constantly scanning their surroundings.

“Hmmm, tough to say, I did get a good look at his Owlbear form, It’s certainly impressively large. I don’t imagine the lesser undead giving him much trouble, that said if he isn’t careful he’s likely to get infected.”Julus pursed his lips considering what he’d seen on the training field and mulling over what he knew of the undead werewolf’s supposed capabilities.

“ I’m hesitant to answer one way or the other, but the priest was well into his second class evolution and approaching his third while he was alive. If he’s retained those levels and abilities as an undead then I think Alyx likely to die.”

While one might expect a smile to play across Andrea’s face at the prospect of a human’s death, instead her brow furrowed into a frown. “Won’t we just have to deal with an Undead Owlbear and Werewolf at that point?”

“Only if we are particularly late to arrive, Or if Alyx has a couple of blessings of Mor’noctum that allow him to rise immediately after death. He didn’t strike me as one of her worshipers though, wasn’t wearing enough black. No skull decorations, or extremely pale skin for that matter. No, we will have at least twenty-four hours after his death to take care of the priest before the shifter rises.”

“Huh,” Andrea commented as She and Julius came across a pile of elven bones, this one with a shattered ribcage. Stopping to inspect it the pair of elven rangers were able to easily determine that this was a recently vanquished undead.

“Well if nothing else at least the number of roaming undead will be fewer”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That proved to be true as it turns out, Alyx stumbled into one low leveled undead after another. Even going out of his way to go after every undead in sight of the path. It was not until he’d broken a fourth skeleton’s skull from its spine that he received a new notification.

“Oh...oh that is interesting, I guess that means I only need nine more levels to evolve my class? Well it isn’t like there are not plenty of undead around here, and that last one was a higher level than the first three, if I’m lucky that will mean that the closer to the temple the more high level the undead becomes. Which means more EXP for me. I should really stop talking to myself”

So far, other than becoming cursed with undeath, these undead have been pretty weak. Leoric had seemed convinced that this task would be the death of me though. Maybe the undead in the temple itself are just that much more dangerous? If that’s the case then I should do my best to clear out as many of the undead around the temple as I can.

“Alright, let’s see how quickly we can clear this place, no telling how quickly I’m going to succumb to the undead Plague after all.” Truthfully Alyx didn’t feel any changes since he’d been cursed with undeath, which in and of itself was worrying, you’d think he would notice something. But that can wait, for now, he had a shrine to clear.

With a deep breath Alyx shifted into his Owlbear form, fur exploding outward as his body expanded, his clothing magically consumed by his body in the process, the world once more seemed to shrink around Alyx as he grew into a giant murder fluff, his lungs expanding to incredible size as he activated body modification to adjust his vocal cords and released a warbling bellow that echoed through the forest around him.

“SCREEEEE----QUOOOONNK”

His roar was such that it had shaken the ground beneath him, and the newly formed Owlbear looked around with anticipation to see if his tactic had worked. After all, if he could take down the undead outside of the temple with just two hits as a human, he was betting that as an Owlbear he could take on several at once. Hopefully, that roar would work to taunt the undead in the area toward him.

As it turned out, Alyx’s new tactic worked quite well. Perhaps too well as he was about to find out, as a new sound carried itself on the breeze, that of dozens of fluted wooden wind chimes clacking, along with the clink of metal on bone.

Shambling out of the underbrush of the forest where dozens of undead, some looked like the skeletons he had dispatched before, but the new variety was armed and armored wearing chainmail and carrying spears, though both the chainmail and spears were rusted Alyx doubted that would do little to reduce the potency of the steel.

Still, though this had been his plan, so instead of doing the sensible thing and begin a fighting retreat, Alyx reared up on his hind legs and let loose another -SQUONK- of challenge before he came back down on all fours to charge forward into the pack of undead.

Despite not having a huge amount of room for a runup to gain momentum Alyx was able to bowl into the crowd of skeletons, crushing several before he burst out of the other side of the pack of undead. He did not however make it through unscathed, while the weaponless undead could not scratch through either his tough hide or fur with their bare hands the spear wielders struck several solid lows against Alyx, able to use the momentum of his charge against him. Some of the spears became embedded in his side, both robbing the skeleton warriors of their weapon and creating wounds that his regeneration could not close.

Turning to face the small horde of the undead once more, Alyx let loose a squonk of fury and brought his massive left forepaw down on the closest undead, crushing it in a single swipe, the skeletal remains clattering to the ground. The remaining undead surged forward despite the loss of their companion, clawing, biting, and stabbing at Alyx the Owlbear. The first two forms of attacks he was free to ignore due to his tough hide, but the spears stabbing at him were proving troublesome. You have to take the little hits to give the big ones, is a term often used in boxing and Alyx was definitely going to have to make use of the philosophy right now.

Keeping his head down so that his eyes wouldn’t be a prime target Alyx waded into the undead, swiping left and right as the spears stabbed into his sides. In a way he was lucky that the undead attacked him so mindlessly, a smarter opponent would have tried to take advantage of the long reach of a spear, Instead, Alyx was able to take out several skeletons for every spear that stabbed into his flesh.

Warmblood running down his fur and staining the ground as Alyx sapped out with his beak at the skeleton directly in front of him, the beak closing around the rib of the skeleton Alyx was able to literally shake the undead apart by furiously swinging his beaked maw from side to side.

The fight didn’t last much longer after that, the undead force having lost a good half of its numerical advantage it wasn’t a difficult matter to finish the rest off. Though Alyx did get another three spears stuck in him for his efforts bringing the total to seven. Ignoring the numerous notifications that had opped up every time he defeated a skeleton Alyx decided that the worst part of the fight had more to do with the fact that as an Owlbear he didn’t have the thumbs necessary to pull the spears out.

That did however allow him to try something else. Leoric said shifting to smaller forms could get rid of injuries by shedding the injured mass. So Alyx focused on the idea of his human form stepping out of his Owlbear form, using the uninjured parts of his body,

The Injured parts of Alyx’s owlbear form began to dissolve into motes of blue light, flittering away as he shrunk in size, back down to his normal human self as the spears themselves dropped to the ground with numerous clanks. The experience left him feeling drained, tired in a way that shapeshifting never had before. If he had to guess he lost a fair bit of resources by letting those blue motes of light escape, maybe that was his mana? No one had told him anything about magic yet but if people could cast magic then there had to be mana right?

Looking around for any more undead and finding a satisfactory zero remaining Alyx plopped himself down on a nearby log and took a look at his notifications.

…

…

…

“Fuck no, no undead, not now not ever.”

Well, that worked stupidly well. And it turns out normal skeletons basically can’t hurt me as an Owlbear, which means...I’m a dumbass for getting cursed with undeath in the first place. Fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Well at least we know what all that Squawking was about earlier,” Julius said as he knelt next to the small pile of corpses and tried to count just how many undead had been culled here.

Andrea meanwhile shook her head in disbelief,” You don’t think he’s calling them to him on purpose, do you? That’s crazy he’s practically guaranteed to get infected this way.”Julius shrugged in response to her question as he scanned the surrounding area for any lingering undead having counted more than twenty in the pile he could do a more thorough investigation later.

“Might already be infected, no reason not to pull this many if you think you can handle the injuries or the curse is no longer acting as a threat.” both Andrea and Julius glanced over at the path as another - Screee-ooonnnk- Echoed in this distance.

“Either way, this mission can already be considered a success considering the number of undead that have been defeated,” Julius muttered mostly to himself but Andrea shook her head, keen ears able to hear every word. “ It’s not a success until the priest is put down, you or I could have culled the lesser undead eventually.” Julius nodded and stood, making his way down the path once more. “ Well from the look of things Alyx should reach the temple soon so at the very least the path will be clear for us.”