After dodging the first attack from the unknown assailant, Cid looked up while holding Alexia in his arms. Through the smoke rising from the crater, he saw a twisted figure leap into the air and lunge at Christina, who had frozen for a moment at the sudden turn of events.
"Hmph. So you're after us?"
Coming back to her senses, Christina chose not to dodge. Instead, she immediately drew the sword at her waist and thrust it straight at the attacker.
It wasn't arrogance on her part.
The enemy was simply too weak.
Not physically weak, but technically.
In Christina's eyes, the opponent was incredibly powerful. The massive amount of Magical Power spilling from its body and its terrifying brute strength were both undeniable, yet there wasn't the slightest hint of technique behind its attacks.
Even the stupidest wild beast understood the basics of using its strength properly, but this thing was doing nothing more than recklessly unleashing all the terrifying power inside its body.
An opponent like that was ridiculously easy to deal with.
Just like now.
Christina held her sword between them, its tip pointed directly at the attacker's heart.
And judging from that leap, the enemy had clearly left itself no room to change direction.
That meant there were only two choices left.
Either forcefully stop its momentum and let itself be dragged into Christina's rhythm, or keep charging forward and allow the sword to pierce its heart.
The outcome had already been decided.
Anyone with even the slightest bit of intelligence would choose...
"Shhk!"
The sound of steel piercing flesh rang out.
The attacker's heart was impaled, the blade bursting through the clothes on its back.
Yet the enemy did not immediately lose its ability to fight.
Instead, it forced its way farther down the sword and continued lunging toward Christina.
"Are you insane?!"
Christina instinctively cried out at the horrifying sight.
Even the most vicious assassin wouldn't normally choose to trade their life for a single injury like this.
There was no time to think.
With the enemy already right in front of her and her sword stuck inside its body, Christina could only let go of the weapon and raise her arms to block.
What terrifying strength!
The instant they collided, Christina felt the monstrous force behind the attack.
She was driven backward and slammed onto the floor.
Christina had no doubt that both of her arms had been dislocated.
Only then did she finally get a clear look at the enemy's face.
It was deathly pale, almost like the face of a corpse.
But no corpse could possess such an enormous amount of terrifying Magical Power that it visibly spilled from its body.
The pale-faced creature pinned Christina to the floor.
It said nothing.
It simply opened its bloody mouth and bit down toward her.
This thing wasn't human.
It wasn't even an intelligent creature.
It was a monster.
"Boom!"
At the last possible instant, Christina jerked her head aside.
The creature's face smashed into the floor instead, blasting out a small crater as its mouth filled with chunks of stone and dust.
Damn.
It's a zombie.
And not just any zombie. It's a super zombie that can smash through doors.
Cid's eyes widened as he watched the whole thing unfold.
He was very familiar with this type of situation.
After all, he had watched plenty of zombie movies in his previous life.
Meanwhile, Christina had fallen into a situation with no apparent way out.
Even with its heart pierced, the monster showed no sign of slowing down.
It kept snapping its jaws at Christina over and over.
And because Christina's earlier carelessness had left her temporarily unable to exert any strength, all she could do was watch as that bloody mouth came toward her for a second time.
"Aaaah!!!"
At the critical moment, Kanade rushed in and kicked the monster hard in the waist.
The blow sent the zombie flying across the room and crashing into the wall.
"Crack!"
The pristine white wall collapsed under the impact.
A sharp snapping sound came from the zombie's body, and its torso folded grotesquely at the waist before it fell to the ground, letting out a chilling growl.
"Christina-sama, are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Thanks, Kanade."
Christina grabbed Kanade's hand and pulled herself up.
She looked toward the monster in the distance with lingering fear, then patted her chest in relief.
"What kind of monster is that? Why would something like this appear in the royal capital?"
"I think I know the answer."
Alexia got to her feet and walked over with a grim expression.
"The clothes he's wearing are the standard uniform of the Order of Knights. He was one of the guards my sister assigned to protect me while also keeping an eye on me..."
Alexia picked up the sword she had removed earlier and left beside her seat.
As she explained the zombie's identity, she turned toward the man who, only a few hours ago, had still been her guard.
Then...
She saw the monster on all fours, charging toward them like a wild beast.
"What the hell?!"
Its heart had been pierced.
Its waist had been broken only seconds earlier.
Yet now it was attacking them as though nothing had happened.
What kind of regeneration was this?
Realizing just how horrifying the situation was, Christina and Alexia immediately joined forces against the zombie.
The creature was extremely powerful, and after becoming a zombie, its physical abilities had increased even further.
But with Christina and Alexia working together, they still managed to subdue it fairly quickly.
Unfortunately, the worst possible outcome followed.
Piercing its heart did nothing.
Cutting off its limbs only caused new ones to grow back.
Slitting its throat was useless.
Even driving a sword straight through its brain failed to stop it.
The guard who had become a zombie continued attacking them as if nothing mattered except devouring the people in front of it.
"What do we do?"
Christina pinned the monster to the ground with her sword while locking down its limbs and turned toward Alexia.
They had indeed restrained the guard.
But in doing so, they had also trapped themselves.
The instant they let go, the creature would attack again.
And their stamina certainly wasn't infinite.
"This..."
"Move aside. Watch me."
Before Alexia could figure out an answer, Cid interrupted them while lifting a marble tabletop over his head.
Then he swung it down onto the zombie's skull.
"Boom!"
A heavy impact echoed through the room.
Blood seeped out from beneath the gap between the marble slab and the floor.
The four of them stared tensely at the headless corpse.
Under their watchful eyes, the body twitched several times.
Then it finally stopped moving.
"Phew..."
Everyone let out a breath at once.
Cid knew it.
Even this absurdly enhanced super zombie still had the classic zombie weakness.
Its brain...
"Wait, Christina-sama, Princess Alexia, look!"
Kanade suddenly interrupted Cid's thoughts.
She didn't say anything else.
Everyone simply followed her gaze toward the headless corpse.
The flesh around its severed neck was writhing.
"Let's get out of here."
"Mm-hmm! I completely agree with Cid for once. This monster is way too dangerous. We should find the Capital Guard or the Order of Knights and let them deal with it."
Cid raised his head and solemnly made the suggestion.
Kanade hurriedly nodded along.
For a weakling like her, this monster was far too terrifying.
Damn it.
It could break down doors, regenerate at absurd speed, had physical abilities around B+ or even A-, and possessed enough Magical Power to visibly spill out of its body.
Even without intelligence, and even with its physical defenses lowered, it was still ridiculously dangerous.
A ridiculously overpowered super zombie like this would be fine as some kind of gimmick monster, but if a movie tried to use these things as ordinary zombies, the audience would tear it apart.
"I don't object. But there's something I've been thinking about. I brought two guards with me. This one turned into a monster, so what happened to the other one?"
"More importantly, after all the noise we've made, why hasn't anyone come to investigate?"
Alexia nodded, not directly opposing the suggestion.
Instead, she raised several far more troubling questions.
Coincidentally, everyone present, even someone as hopeless as Kanade, became remarkably intelligent whenever their own life was at stake.
"There's more than one."
Cid gave them the answer.
Well, he had expected this.
Or rather, he had already guessed what the situation outside would look like.
Everyone knew zombies were like cockroaches.
Once you spotted the first one, an entire swarm was never far behind.
They quickened their pace and rushed through the corridor into the restaurant's main hall.
The luxurious atmosphere from earlier was gone.
A clearly stronger zombie dressed in a Knight's uniform was crouched over a living victim and devouring them.
Around it, ordinary zombies that had once been ordinary people were attacking the remaining survivors.
"Save them!"
Christina shouted and charged in without hesitation.
The others had no choice but to follow.
The good news was that the first zombie they encountered really had been an elite monster.
The bad news was that even the ordinary zombies possessed superhuman physical abilities, terrifying amounts of overflowing Magical Power, and regeneration strong enough to grow back severed limbs within seconds.
How the hell were they supposed to fight that?
Using the strategy they had worked out earlier, they fought a brutal battle for half an hour.
Finally, after smashing the last zombie's skull apart with a marble slab, Christina and Alexia collapsed onto the floor, completely exhausted.
Other than the four of them, no one else remained alive nearby.
"Where the hell did these monsters come from?! No, more importantly, how did a bunch of ordinary people turn into something this powerful?!"
Christina roared in frustration.
Smoke was rising outside, and screams could be heard in the distance.
Yet all she could do was lie helplessly on the floor.
If she went outside in her current condition, she wouldn't save anyone.
She would merely become an extra meal for the zombies.
"Well..."
Cid, who was also lying on the ground, actually understood part of the reason.
The zombies' bodily safety mechanisms had been forcibly released.
Their defense had dropped, but their physical abilities had increased dramatically.
The price was that they lost all rationality and became zombies, while their life force was squeezed dry to fuel their absurd regenerative abilities.
But that was all Cid knew.
He had no idea where the terrifying Magical Power spilling from them came from.
Nor did he understand what source of energy was sustaining these ordinary zombies for so long.
Still, there was at least some good news.
Cid rolled onto his side and looked toward the bodies piled up near the restaurant.
Those people had been bitten by zombies and bled to death.
Yet none of them had turned into zombies before they died.
That proved the condition wasn't transmitted through bites.
"At this point, discussing that is meaningless. We should focus on something else. Is this disaster happening all over the world, or only here? Who caused it? And... why haven't we turned into monsters?"
"The two guards my sister assigned to me showed absolutely no signs of anything being wrong before this happened. If anything, they were in better physical and mental condition than I was."
"The people around us were the same. There was nothing unusual before they transformed... Could it be that they become abnormally energetic shortly before turning? If that's true, then it would explain why everyone remained so upbeat even after being trapped inside the capital for several days."
Lying on the floor, Alexia and Christina exchanged questions and answers in exhausted voices.
Within just a few sentences, they had already identified the most obvious symptom before transformation.
Of course they were energetic.
If someone unlocked those limits themselves, that was one thing.
But if the human body's biological limiters were forcibly removed by an outside force, death was inevitable.
That sudden burst of energy was nothing more than their final flare of life before dying.
"As for who did this, do you even need to ask? Obviously, it was A..."
Cid instinctively prepared to answer based on zombie movies from his previous life.
Then he suddenly remembered that America in this world, thanks to the existence of supernatural forces, was actually a little better than the one from his previous life.
Netheril fit the role far better.
But he couldn't exactly slander a faction he himself had created.
So...
"It was definitely the Thirteen Nightblades."
The moment Cid blamed the Thirteen Nightblades, Christina and Alexia both turned toward him.
"Uh... I was joking."
"No, Cid. You might actually be right. If we think about it that way, then the Thirteen Nightblades sealing the city and giving away free supplies for the past few days suddenly makes sense."
"Christina, are you saying the supplies distributed by the Thirteen Nightblades over the past few days were laced with something that turns people into monsters?"
Alexia and Christina exchanged glances.
It was only a theory.
But the two of them had already accepted it as basically confirmed.
Otherwise, there was simply no explanation for why the Thirteen Nightblades would suddenly become so generous.
"Then which of us ate anything distributed by the Thirteen Nightblades? Everything I ate in the royal palace had been prepared three days in advance. The Thirteen Nightblades couldn't have tampered with it."
Alexia was the first to clear herself of suspicion.
Then she looked toward Christina.
"I would rather die than accept a single thing from the Thirteen Nightblades."
That one sentence immediately cleared Christina as well.
The two of them turned toward Kanade.
Kanade gave them a stiff smile.
"I almost ate some candy, but Cid snatched it away before I had a chance."
As she spoke, Kanade scrambled across the floor and hurried over to Christina and Alexia.
She had been exhausted enough to collapse just moments ago, yet she could suddenly move that fast.
Remarkable.
Feeling everyone's eyes fall on him, Cid smiled.
"Come to think of it, Cid has been performing a little too well today. He's been incredibly energetic."
Great.
That explains everything that seemed strange before.
Hearing Christina's low voice, Cid sighed inwardly.
"Let's get out of the city. We need to find a way to save Cid before he turns into a monster. The royal capital is already in complete chaos."
Alexia spoke calmly as she forced herself back onto her feet.
Her simple words carried unmistakable determination.
"I have no objec..."
Christina nodded.
But the next instant, a massive explosion sounded outside.
"That came from the direction of the city gates. If I remember correctly, large numbers of the Order of Knights and Capital Guard have been stationed there for the past few days."
Cid's simple remark instantly silenced everyone.
That meant, even setting aside the exhaustion of reaching the gates, they might have to fight dozens of monsters whose strength approached Princess Iris, perhaps even surpassed her.
"Let's get out of here first. There are too many people in the city center."
"But you might turn into..."
"It's all just speculation, isn't it?"
Cid interrupted Alexia and started walking.
Why does everything feel the same as usual?
Cid suddenly wondered as he looked around.
Large numbers of zombies were releasing huge amounts of Magical Power, and their deaths caused even more to burst into the air.
Yet the concentration of Magical Power around them hadn't increased at all.
If anything...
It seemed to have decreased.
Whatever.
Cid couldn't be bothered thinking about it anymore.