“No, zombies are just parasitized corpses. The things you’re fighting right now are called the undead and they usually come about by either very nasty soul magic, which is something one must at least be at the Archmage level in the universal magical units to even barely use, or have a connection to an entity of the Eternal state of existence”

“Ralph!”

“These zombies, I presume, have been brought about by the means of raising the dead inside a modified law environment and it’s likely that you will become one too if you die here”

“That! Is! Why!”

“It would be somewhat unfair if I helped you right now, so, do your best!”

“RAAALLLPPHHH!!!”

“Run, Victor, run!”

***

The good and the bad are tightly interconnected. There wouldn’t be anything good if there was nothing bad in the world. In the first place, whether a thing is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is ultimately a subjective choice. I won’t be going into the extreme examples of things that could be seen as either good or bad as I’m sure everybody and anybody can understand such a simple thing.

Let’s develop this idea further: I say that understanding of the good deepens the more bad a person does or experience. Because if we say that if something good can’t be bad, then by understanding what is bad we can see what is good clearer. If we say that there exist things that are both good and bad, I shall say that there must be at least some difference between them, so understanding the bad aspects of those things can’t hurt us on our path of understanding the good.

Well, you can say that my logic is flawed and find many faults with this string of ideas but I can’t really do better with it as I don’t really know what good and bad truly mean and the best I can say is good things are the things I approve of and bad things are the things I disapprove of. But this definition is something that relies on my own, a simple human’s, judgment and, therefore is not trustworthy, so we have to use our instinctive understanding of the two concepts and play it by the ear. Anyway, back to the subject.

Developing this idea even further, we can say that happiness can only get deeper the more suffering and pain we experience and overcome. This old as humanity idea has probably been heard or talked about everywhere already, so I won’t be sitting on this for long. It’s just that the depth of a person’s perceived happiness and appreciation of life can only be measured by how deep one has descended into the abyss of despair and pain.

That is why I can say that right now I am a very happy man, as I’m currently being chased by an unending hoard of undead and experiencing all kinds of shades of despair and pain, both mental and physical. My resources are scarce, so I can only keep my eyes open and grab any opportunity that will present itself.

As for how this situation came to be, it all began mere two hours ago as I was exploring this underground outdimentional labyrinth.

***

*Two and a half hours earlier*

“Tremble at the difference in our power, insect! Fireball! Hahaha!”

Making a cool pose, I dispose of another zombie.

So far, I have encountered three zombies on my way and have swiftly dealt with them. The only way to kill them I have found out is severely damaging all of their bodies, leaving no part untouched. Fire is especially effective against them as they burn very easily and fire spreads so well through their bodies one could think they are covered in gasoline.

I was able to gain a few interesting things from the zombies, like small rusty daggers or pieces of jewellery the corpses had on them, so taking their unlives was worthwhile.

There hasn’t been anything worth seeing so far: just the same walls and caves with blue crystals sticking out of them. I tried to take a few of the crystals for myself but decided against it as I don’t want to carry too many things and could always grab one on the way back.

My needs for food and water are pretty modest, my regeneration keeping my body in good condition even without them, so I’m not afraid of running out of the resources any time soon. It’s not even cold or damp here and the air isn’t too bad either.

It seems like a brilliant idea to continue going down the corridors, totally.

I have to take my words of suspicion against Ralph back. He’s been treating me very well. Oh, look another zombie, how nice~ Let’s go kill it~

***

That was approximately how I came across a giant crowd of zombies. Or how Ralph has corrected me, the undead.

Did you know that despite the walking corpse variety of the undead that appear to be incredible dull and animalistic, there’re other types, like the kind that can control the primitive undead to an extent?

They would usually lure humans by placing some easily killable undead with a little loot and have the humans quickly kill them and follow the undead trail until they run into a giant horde and then get killed.

Well, only a complete idiot would fall for such a strategy, right? Haha, *sob sob sob*.

And, if you think that I sound way too calm for this situation, it’s because on the inside I’m panicking and freaking out a lot.

Wait, if it’s not on the inside… On the inside of the inside of my mind I’m panicking and freaking out a lot, is it? Strange. Mental Fortitude is really messing with me, eh? Oh, well, whatever.

“Roar!”

“Raaaah!”

“Wroom!”

“Fireball for you, fireball for you and another one for you!”

The three zo- undead that were closest to me go up in flames, spreading the fire to those behind them, creating a large chain reaction. It buys me a little time and I drop the spell matrix for my “Summer” spell under my feet, run a good hundred meters forward and turn around sharply.

The first layer of z- undead have more or less died and the fire went out but another wave of them is quick to rush forward. I’m strangely calm as I simply look at the coming wave and let them get just close enough so that there’s a large amount of them in the blast radius. And then I activate the spell remotely and a strong shockwave and a burst of heat touch my face, causing my eyes to close involuntarily.

Moans, screams and screeches fill the corridor and I turn around and dash as far as I can while my vision adjusts. Because the spell heated the air, it’s painful to breathe and I can’t run for long but turning around I see that there’re no undead left. This should give me a bit of time.

Now, let’s think of what to do.

“Can I exit the dungeon now?”

“No, it won’t let you out. A modified law environment isn’t easy to set up, at least not easy enough to let anybody come and go as they please. You have to beat the boss on this floor and then you can leave or go further down”

“Thought so. The boss is the monster controlling the undead right?”

“No, it’s just the weakest of the four heavenly kings!”

“What?”

“Just kidding. The undead is the boss”

“Fuck you Ralph”

“I can simply not tell you anything, you know?”

“Forgive this small one, for his insolence”

“Mm”

“…Now, these undead seem pretty dumb and disorganized. The boss shouldn’t have too much control over them, right? At least, it shouldn’t have any means of having them send and receive information instantly or too fast?”

“I wouldn’t say so. The closer they are to the boss, the more control it has over them. In the radius of around a hundred meters, it has enough control over them that they basically can act as its hands and feet. Well, it also depends on the amount of the undead and their individual strength though but here you can basically neglect these variables”

“Is the amount of undead here limited or can the Boss spawn more of them?”

“Consider it limited”

“And how many have I destroyed already, percentage-wise?”

“Between 2 and 62 percent”

“How many did it have at the beginning?”

“A thousand”

“Thank you”

“Always welcome”

I have already killed around a hundred of them with my summer spell I believe. I could only do it because I had sacrificed my extremely precious limited-edition spell, Summer and also had the advantage of them being fairly disorganized and stuck in a narrow corridor.

My other tactic is to use fireballs to kill individual undead quickly but it’s just not enough. I should’ve prepared more. Oh well, I can always lament over my choices later. The question is, what should I do? What can I do? Hm…

Let’s go closer to the exit first. The boss is supposedly at the center of the labyrinth and the exit should be farther away, so it will buy a bit more time for me as well as let the undead spread thinner.

Now that I have more breathing room I can feel the other problems that I’m facing, such as the uncomfortableness of my clothes or the pain in my legs and lungs. This experience has also forced my body to push itself and now that the adrenaline rush is over, my eyelids are getting heavier by the second.

I want to sleep, sigh, I just want to sleep peacefully. So tired.