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A Corporate Slave Becomes a Villainous Nuisance in a Zombie Apocalypse Episode 20 Part 4. Even If You Are Flame, I Shall Burn "Aaaahhh!" I screamed first, ‌‌‌thrusting the rope I'd been gripping toward the source of the sound. "Insane! Insane! Insane!" This crazy zombie bastard—why were its ‌‌arms so impossibly long? I realized the arm was familiar at ‌‌‌the exact moment I lunged to sever the limb that was thrashing about as if searching for a lock, and I noticed the large hand attached to it. "Huh?" Before I could even hesitate, the owner of the arm seized my wrist. The ‌‌arm's ‌‌‌‌owner, bending at the waist, attempted to make eye contact through the window gap. "Miss?" "Uh..." It was the Grand Duke. "Please open the door for me, Miss." "Ah... yes... okay." I'd nearly sliced through the Grand Duke's forearm. I fumbled with the lock and opened the door in a panic. The Grand Duke, seeing the trap we'd set, casually swung his blade and swept it all away. "What is this? This cobweb?" "It's a trap we set up." "I see. That ‌‌explains why my legs felt prickly." "Good grief." "I'm serious." "Fine. But why did you break the window? Couldn't you have just knocked on the door?" ‌"I would have preferred such ‌‌‌a normal approach, but the Crown Prince here stopped me. He said I shouldn't touch the door carelessly." "Why?" "He said you would surely have set up cobwebs on the door." "..." "Praha knows you better than ‌expected, doesn't he? How enviable." With that, he immediately turned and supported the Crown Prince. A pungent smell emanated from the three people pouring in. "Your Highness!" "Your Highness!" Seeing the Crown Prince, pale and wan, supported by the Grand Duke, everyone sprang to their feet. "What happened?!" "Is the Crown Prince injured?!" Four people clustered together like a flock of birds, chattering away. Then the Crown Prince, who had been resting his forehead on the Grand Duke's shoulder, cracked open his eyes slightly. "I've got a cramp in my leg." Ah. "Please, come sit over here, Your Highness." "Yes, sit down and rest a moment. The Grand Duke and Dazling as well." "Were there many corpses in the Garden?" "Crown Prince, are you truly all right? Should I examine you?" "We didn't know what had happened...." "Sob." In an instant, the Cabin erupted into chaos. After enduring more than two hours of anxiety and restlessness in the darkness, Consomme burst into tears, and Mascarpone sniffled loudly. Everyone offered words of concern, yet strangely, I couldn't speak at all. Because for a moment, the Crown Prince's ashen ‌‌‌face looked exactly like a corpse. 'I thought he'd been bitten and turned into a zombie, damn it....' He was scaring people. Truth be told, the Crown Prince's condition looked far ‌‌‌‌from good. With his bangs drenched in sweat and ‌‌his eyes barely open, ‌‌‌‌he didn't look like someone ‌‌merely suffering from exhaustion. The Crown Prince, refusing Mascarpone's invitation to sit, spoke to the group. "We must leave immediately." "Immediately?" "Yes." ‌‌Then he fell silent, swaying. The Grand Duke, supporting the Crown Prince's forearm across his shoulder as he struggled to stand, explained what had happened in the Garden. "...There seemed to be roughly a hundred of them." "A hundred?!" "Yes. At first we managed to cut through them, but they swarmed faster than we could ‌‌‌slash, and it seemed we'd be completely surrounded if we continued." "Seemed...?" "So we gave up and fled, but then Praha said this was the only path to the Main Portal, and we had to break through it." And then? "Then he suddenly set the corpses on fire." "What?" "Before anyone could stop him, he fired off every remaining flaming arrow. Haha. That's one bold fellow." "...." "The lady was right. They died once we set them ablaze." The Grand Duke winked at me. Dazling's expression grew gloomy. As if recalling that nightmare from moments before. "If hell exists, ‌‌I imagine it looks something like that...." We could only gape. He set the corpses on fire? 'So that's why he can barely walk!' A normal person could barely manage two or three shots of magical flaming arrows, yet he ‌‌‌‌fired them all alone! "The problem is what comes next, though...." The ‌Grand Duke, wrinkling the bridge of his nose, spoke as if it were nothing serious. "The ‌‌‌‌Garden was filled with nothing but trees and grass, so when we fired off sparks everywhere, the entire Garden caught fire as well." "...." Are you saying our only escape route is now engulfed in flames?! I snapped my head toward the Crown Prince. The Crown ‌‌‌Prince, whose eyes met mine, spoke with absolute confidence. "Which is why we must hurry. Before it burns completely." Seriously?! "No, what is this... couldn't you have just escaped first...?!" "That would only delay our escape." So he wanted us to bolt out like a pheasant with its tail on fire, without even a moment to mentally ‌prepare?! "I apologize for not giving you time to prepare." "Heh...." The Crown Prince was essentially pushing his own people off a cliff. Yujein asked. "So all the corpses burned to death?" "No. Half are dead, and the other half are still burning while wandering around." "So about fifty remain. If we encounter them...." "You needn't worry about that. They're more likely to suffocate or burn to death before we meet them." The gardener hadn't watered in a while, so the fire spread quickly. And the wind is perfect for it too. Hahaha. "For that reason, let us ‌‌depart quickly." Even as the Grand Duke explained the situation to us, his eyes were diligently assessing everyone's condition. The moment his gaze settled on me, I was left dumbfounded. So right now, I have to sprint at full speed across a burning Garden? Before suffocating? It had only been a few hours since I'd prayed never to have to flee ‌like this with these people again.... "Won't we die if we enter the flames?" "What if sparks fly? What if we get burned?" Questions erupted from all directions. The Grand Duke answered while standing each person up before him one by ‌‌one, checking for injuries and whether they were in condition to run. "It hasn't spread that severely yet, so it should be fine. Let's move as quickly as possible. And burns from flying sparks... well, isn't that something we have ‌‌‌‌to accept?!" "...!" "Of course—a burned living person is better than an unburned dead person!" "Precisely, my lady!" Yujein, who refused the Grand Duke's offer to carry her, poured all her holy power into her ankle. Every ounce of ‌‌‌her ‌‌meager strength—barely enough to heal a cut finger—was absorbed into ‌her ankle. ‌‌It didn't look fine by any measure, but Yujein stood firm. The Grand Duke said nothing more. Now that I looked closer, the Grand Duke himself wasn't in great shape either. "Is anyone else having difficulty moving? Miss Mascarpone?" "I'm fine, Your Highness." "And you, Miss Consomme?" "I'm okay too." "Then let's head out." The Crown Prince ‌‌exhaled a long breath and shook his head like a dog, staggering for a moment before finding his footing. He swept back his disheveled hair and ‌turned to face us. "Cyprus and Dazling will take ‌‌the lead, and I'll follow from behind. When Cyprus signals, run at full ‌‌speed. Don't look back under any circumstances. Don't stop even if you're gasping for breath. If you stop, you die." "...." "No matter what sounds come from behind, the living must keep running." I swallowed hard and ‌‌‌nodded. Outside was chaos. Smoke and the acrid stench of burning permeated everything—how had I not noticed this before? I glanced ‌‌‌back at the Crown Prince following behind, looking decidedly uneasy, and headed toward the Garden entrance. 'The smell of ash....' A pungent, choking odor that assaulted the nostrils. Walls towering far ‌‌‌above human height, vines coiling around them, flowering shrubs with narrow trunks—everything was ablaze. Crack! Pop! Crack! I thought it was gunfire at first, but it was the sound of burning wood exploding. I'd assumed the smoke wouldn't accumulate too heavily outdoors, but the walls were impossibly tall. I covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve and asked. "Don't tell ‌‌me this is... the Maze Garden?" "Yes." "No...!" What ‌‌kind ‌‌‌of lunatic builds a maze in their own home! ‌‌‌‍"It's Mother's preference." "Mazes are excellent for cognitive development! A splendid choice! You do ‌‌know the way, right?!" "Yes." Well, that's a relief! I stared into the Garden's interior, where black smoke billowed upward in despair. Fortunately, it wasn't completely engulfed in flames. It was passable, barely. 'Think positive. If I mentally convince myself I'm experiencing a Maze Runner trial....' That doesn't help at all, damn it. Ugh. The real problem was the smoke. If it kept entering my lungs and accumulating, suffocation was only a matter of time. I had to sprint roughly twenty minutes' worth of distance before the smoke killed me. 'In my entire life, have I ‌‌‌ever run for twenty minutes....' Never.... The most I've ever done is run five minutes from my apartment ‌‌when I was about to miss the ‌‌subway. Our place ‌‌‌‌is right by the station.... Consomme and Mascarpone, who barely walk five minutes a day, looked even more distressed than I did. "Kyieeeek!" "Kaeek!" To make matters worse, I ‌‌‌could hear the screams of burning zombies from within the Garden. Is this... actually ‌‌a viable plan? By any reasonable standard? Scientifically? No sane person would ever attempt something like this. But before I could think further, the Grand Duke's signal came down. "Now!" My body, accustomed to following orders from my corporate days, ‌‌moved automatically at those words. While thinking internally, 'This? Me?' ♪Even if you are a raging fire, I will leap into you♪ * * * Even if you are a raging fire, I will leap into you.... Even if you are a raging fire.... A raging fire.... My older sister's favorite song kept echoing in my mind. 'I am literally the raging fire itself! Sob!' "Everyone, crouch as low as you can! Cover your nose and mouth with your clothes!" While running, I was supposed to crouch and cover my nose and mouth—instructions that made no sense even to me—yet I grabbed Consomme's wrist as she fell behind. "Gasp! Gasp! You go first!" "No time to talk—just run!" "I can't... I can't... I can't do this! You go!" "What nonsense!" There ‌was no such thing as "can't"! "Left!" At the front, the Grand Duke and Dazling were slicing through the necks of burning zombies, directing people toward safety. Thank goodness the Garden was made of stone walls—otherwise, we would have all been dead by now. Tears and snot streaming down my face, I forced my burning eyes open. "Left! And immediately right!" "Kyaaah!" "Watch out!" If my facial skin is completely cooked by the time we escape this place, what then? My eyes hurt. They're burning. Are my eyeballs cooked too? I had no idea how much time had passed. "Gasp...." The deeper we went, the harder it became to endure. The air was scorching. So hot that even the inside of my mouth burned. It felt like I was holding my face over the steam rising from a coffee pot. "Cough! Cough! Cough!" "I can't stand! I can't see!" "Crawl if you have to!" "I can't breathe!" I oriented myself by the agonized voices of people ‌‌‌‌‌ahead of me. Afraid of falling behind if I didn't hurry, afraid of being left alone in this burning Maze Garden. "Cough! Cough!" I forcibly dragged Consomme's arm as she begged me to leave her behind. The order of our group shifted several times as people stumbled and writhed in agony. Thud! Crack! "Ahhh!" Black ash and burning branches fell everywhere. I kicked away from ‌‌‌Consomme's slippered feet with my combat boots, pushing debris ‌‌‌aside, stumbling several times in the process. "Ugh..." I blinked away the tears streaming down my face. In that instant of clarity, a massive tree came crashing down directly above us. Pushing Consomme forward was a split-second decision. "Kyaaah!" Then came the thunderous crash. A ‌‌‌‌colossal tree now stood as a barrier between Consomme and me. Nuisance Man, who had been standing right in front of Consomme, spun around in shock. The massive tree. ‌‌‌‌It had split me from ‌‌those ahead of me. No one had stopped behind me. 'Am I the only one ‌‌left?' A chill ran through me in that moment. "Move!" Someone rushed over and tackled me, rolling us both away. [Imperial Villa Exterior - Maze Garden] - Yusara, Yujein, Crown Prince, Grand Duke, Dazling, Mascarpone, Consomme, ‌‌‌Nuisance Man (Survived)

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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our ‌‌‌official site: valirscans.org

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