Volume 2, Chapter 18: Deadman Walking’s Parade③
The large building from which the undead overflowed was the base of one of the big adventurer guilds, 『Demon Ant’s Troops』.
『Demon Ant’s Troops』was one of the most influential guilds in Barreira City.
Their most notable advantage compared to the other guilds was their large number of members.
Though the majority of the member’s combat abilities weren’t that high, they were the only adventurer guild in all of Regios Kingdom with more than eighty members.
For this reason, they had a huge influence in Barreira City.
And now, those members of 『Demon Ant’s Troops』 were killed and turned into walking corpses with necromancy.
The flood of dead adventurers that came out from that building started attacking everyone who happened to pass by in front of them with the weapons in their hands.
That sudden turn of events instantly caused turmoil on the main street.
「W-What the…!」
「RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! THEY’RE NO LONGER SANE, NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT!」
The people whose bodies were caught by the undead adventurers were stabbed repeatedly.
Maybe because of their lack of intelligence, some of the undead went so far as biting their prey.
By this moment, Lambert’s focus had already moved from Robin Hood to 『Demon Ant’s Troops』’s undead.
He went straight into the building that was the base of 『Demon Ant’s Troops』.
「P-Please wake up, Edgar-san. It’s me!」
Despite being surrounded by undead, a female adventurer was crying desperately to a man who had already turned into undead.
Though the sword in her hand was clearly trembling from fear, seeing the man walking with an unsteady gait toward her had caused her to fall to her knees.
The man looked at the female adventurer with bloodshot eyes, pointing a pair of daggers at her as he ran toward the female adventurer.
The female adventurer had already shut her eyes, resigned to her fate. Suddenly, Lambert cut in between the two, parrying the man’s knives with his gauntlet and sending the latter flying with his kick.
That man was blown back, crashing against the undead behind him. The mass of undead and that man lay in a heap on the ground.
「…EH?」
The female adventurer who he just saved looked at the undead man who had been blown back by Lambert’s kick with a feeble gaze. Then, she sent an angry gaze to Lambert, who just saved her life.
「Give it up, he’s already dead. He’s just going to try to attack you. You can’t save him. You better leave this place right now. I have no time to care for every single one of you.」
It was a blunt and cold-hearted declaration.
But it was also the truth.
The culprit of this incident couldn’t be that far from the undead under their control.
Lambert knew that trying to save every single person in this kind of situation would only increase the number of the victims.
And then, a rain of arrows suddenly fell from the sky.
Every single one of the three arrows accurately pierced the knee joint of three undead, rendering them immobile.
When Lambert turned around, he saw the figure of a handsome man with bitter orange hair drawing with a bow in his hand. It was Robin Hood.
「Some foul mouth you got there, huh.」
He muttered with a bored tone as he readied his next arrow.
The next three arrows pierced the knee joints of another three undeads.
When it came to undead targets, the condition to stop the undead was categorized in accordance with the way its user used magic.
Sometimes crushing their head would do the job, sometimes it would keep crawling even after it lost one of its legs.
The best way to deal with undead was crushing the joints of their knees.
Anyhow, Robin Hood was probably the only one in this era who could aim at such a place of moving targets from an elevated location.
「…」
At that moment, Lambert’s gaze met Robin Hood’s eyes.
Lambert nodded a little and switched his focus to the undead adventurers.
It was only a moment, but both sides agreed to a ceasefire within just a short moment to focus on an even bigger problem before them.
From Lambert’s perspective, Robin Hood’s moral standard was simply too inconsistent.
Lambert was considering Robin Hood’s attack toward the member of Dancing Sword the other day.
He was flabbergasted when he heard that Robin Hood resented Earl Mondo for executing every member of Robin Hood’s guild—including Robin Hood himself—for their reckless actions, which invited numerous ogres to attack the city after they killed the Ogre King.
It was as plain as day that the one in the wrong was Robin Hood and Co.
But the danger level of the opponent in front of Lambert right now far surpassed that of Robin Hood.
By his estimation, the number of undead adventurers was already in the fifties.
Their potential damage alone was already far above that of Robin Hood.
That was why he felt that now wasn’t the right time to partake in an unnecessary quarrel.
―Thus, he decided to overlook Robin Hood.
That was Lambert’s conclusion.
Robin Hood’s main course of action was saving the people who got cornered by the undead from his elevated place.
And Lambert thanked Robin Hood for doing that.
With this, he could focus his attention on locating the culprit of this incident.
Because the damage would only increase if things kept going on as they were.
With this, Robin Hood’s life was spared for the time being.
「HAAAAAAAAH!」
His greatsword easily cut the undead in half.
There was no hesitation in Lambert’s movements.
Although they might be former humans, they were just mere undead now, a monster that would threaten the citizens.
He had long since thrown away his sentiment on the battlefield since the number of magicians who used necromancy in the era of the Eight Countries Unification War was simply too much to count.
Hesitation would create an opening, and an opening would mean death in that chaotic era.
Lambert had even personally beheaded his own subordinate who turned into undead.
「H-HELP! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!」
A middle-aged man crawled on the ground like his life depended on it, trying to escape from the undead.
He held something in his arms.
When that man’s figure entered Lambert’s line of sight, the latter suddenly leaped up and landed right in front of the former.
And then, Lambert’s greatsword slashed diagonally from below.
「ARGH! W-WH—」
That man’s body was sliced up in two, falling to the ground.
A second later, a black crystal fell on the ground and broke. As soon as it happened, the undead in the surrounding suddenly vomited a mixture of red and green liquid from their mouths. They then crumbled to the ground.
The splinter of the black crystal had vanished as if it evaporated into thin air.
Death Black Crystal… was the name of the crystal that had the ability to control a large number of undead.
It was mainly composed of its user’s mana.
A necromancer always created one such Death Black Crystal before they used necromancy, and then used said crystal to control undead.
As an undead, Lambert was extremely sensitive to the signs of the living.
For that reason, he could easily sniff out any sign of mana, the root of all living beings, and deduce whether his target was a living being or not from there.
Thus, after becoming an undead, Lambert could perceive masses of mana.
He noticed that there was something fishy about the man who tried to escape just now.
The man tried to act like a victim as he ran around within the effective range of the Death Back Crystal.
「…」
But something was amiss.
Lambert knew from experience that this man alone wouldn’t be able to massacre every member of 『Demon Ant’s Troops』.
By Lambert’s estimation, the man most likely raided the guild along with the other necromancers, and then took charge of controlling the undead in the area.
As if to support his theory, another scream came from a different part of the city.
There was only a few seconds difference between each of those screams.
And then, Lambert saw an arrow struck into a forked road.
「I’ll go over there. You take care of the other road. Not a bad solution for you, right?」
Robin Hood spoke to Lambert when the latter looked up at the former.
Sure enough, since the scale of the incident was too large, dividing their forces would reduce the damage.
Moreover, Robin Hood could also use that chance to get away from Lambert, preventing the latter from killing him after the incident had been taken care of.
He could also get away far more easily after he took care of his business.
「…」
Lambert turned his back to Robin Hood, taking the other road.
By the time Robin Hood’s feet landed on the ground, Lambert’s figure had already vanished from his line of sight.
「I guess I should use this chance to accomplish my goal as soon as possible, but… Well, I don’t think those noisy fellas would be pleased if I did that.」
Robin Hood muttered so as he looked in the direction where Lambert’s figure vanished.
Robin Hood whistling with his lips.
A while later, his trusted partner, the bluish-white warhorse Seraph, appeared from the deserted street.
Robin Hood rode on his horse’s back and drove it in the opposite direction of Lambert.
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