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A Corporate Slave Becomes a Villainous Nuisance ‌‌‌‌in a Zombie Apocalypse Episode 59 A line appeared in the empty air as if carved by a blade. ‌‌A line that inspired dread merely by looking upon it. Watching that line slowly tear open while my stomach churned in isolation, I felt my insides roiling with nausea. "What is that?" "I have no idea..." Among people ‌‌‌‌tilting their ‌‌‌heads in bewilderment, instinctively tensing as they gazed upward at that line. Only I understood what it truly was. That's a zombie gate. I seized Praha's arm beside me. "We need to run." We have to escape. Before that line opens completely. Before the gate tears wide ‌‌and zombies pour through! "Now!" Praha didn't argue against my sudden insistence that we flee. The others, sensing something amiss, followed without complaint. We had to run. But where? "Praha, how far to the exit?" "About a third of the way back." "Then let's go! ‌‌‌Tangerine!" "Yes, Your Highness! Which path ‌‌‌should we take at the fork!" "..."It's already too late." Praha stopped ‌‌Tangerine, who had seized Yujein's wrist and was about to bolt. Praha was staring at the gate. The gate, gaping wide as if ready to disgorge something at any moment. A person's foot protruding from within it. "We'll have to hide for now." Praha, speaking in a low voice, led us toward the wall farthest from ‌‌‌‌the gate. Before we could finish moving, zombies began pouring from the fully opened gate in the empty air. "Huh..." "Wow." Tangerine, seeing zombies for the first time in reality, widened her eyes. Over the zombie—appearing to be a man in his thirties who had fallen first—other zombies cascaded down in succession. Pinned beneath them with limbs bent backward, the first zombie writhed while lying prone. With its broken waist, it rose upright and twisted its bent arm. "Grrrrgh...! Grrgh!" 'Yes. It's been a while.' A living corpse with one jaw caved in and a knee bent backward, turning its head side ‌to side. Cyprus pressed me and Yujein against the corner of the wall, unable to tear our eyes from the zombie. "As long as we make no sound, we should be fine. They have no vision, do they?" "But they have a sense of smell!" "I-I will!" I stopped Yujein, who was raising the holy relic to strike with lightning. "Lightning is out of the question." Look around us. Everything is stone. If we unleash lightning here, we'll be electrocuted too. 'That's what they said in Crisis Escape Number Two!' Even as I ‌‌thought this, the flood ‌‌‌of zombies filled the vast chamber at terrifying speed. "Kieeeek...." What do we do? Shouldn't we run now? 'But what ‌‌‌‌if they chase us?' A third of the labyrinth still remains. I can't ‌‌‌sprint through all that remaining distance. Especially not when I don't know what lies ahead. As I gnawed at my ‌‌lip, Praha exchanged hand signals with Tangerine before moving silently toward the zombies. Toward the one zombie that had fallen behind—the first to separate from the horde. "Grrk?" The zombie caught the scent and turned its head, only to have its throat slashed in an instant by Praha's serrated dagger. Crunch. The sickening sound of flesh and fabric tearing simultaneously. Without blinking, Praha severed the zombie's head from its body and hurled it forward. The stench of rotting blood spread, masking our scent. The severed head rolled across the ground, and ‌‌‌the zombies' heads turned to follow it. "Gruuulk." Praha and Tangerine wiped their blades clean on the rock where the holy relic had been embedded, then returned to us. Cyprus asked a question. "How long do you think we can hold out?" "It depends on how strong our body odor is." "Lucky we haven't bathed in days." Praha explained, looking at me and Yujein. "When all the zombies pour out, we'll lure them down the wrong path. The traps there will take care of them." It was ‌the best plan I could devise under the circumstances. The problem was. No matter how long we waited, the gate wouldn't close. "Gruuulk...." "Grrk... Grrk grrk...." Zombies pouring blood endlessly from their ‌‌gaping wounds. ‌They collided with each other, bones shattering and necks breaking, yet they rose to their feet and hunted for prey. We were trapped in the same room as the zombies with nothing but empty air between us. Relying solely on their lost sense of sight. Cyprus dispatched the zombie approaching us ‌‌‌‌and hurled it to the opposite side, speaking as he did. "At this rate, ‌‌‌this room will be packed with zombies." Praha seemed to feel the same, silently grasping his bow. The arrow he drew this time bore red feathers. An arrow that ‌‌vibrated lengthily, producing a bell-like ‌‌‌sound. "Grrrrgh...." Praha aimed at the forked path where the trap lay and drew the bowstring taut. Whoosh. Thunk. Ding- "Kraaagh!" "Gack!" As the arrow flew, the ringing bell sound caused the zombies' heads to snap toward it. "Kieeeek!" One began to charge, ‌‌‌then two, then three. Soon ‌‌‌‌all at once. Toward the ‌‌trap where acidic liquid poured from ‌‌‌‌the air upon entry, dissolving their entire bodies. Sizzzzle- "Kieeeek!" Sizzzzle- Soon the burning stench and ‌‌‌shrieks drew even more zombies toward it. Praha spoke. "We must go now." We moved forward in silence, leaving the horrific stench and noise behind. Down the correct path beside it. "Phew." "They keep pouring out." Tangerine, covering the ‌rear of our group, muttered wearily as she watched zombies still gushing from the gate. Roughly dozens of zombies must have died in the trap's acidic liquid. Yet that was nowhere near enough. "What on earth is that? Evil magic?!" "I'm ‌‌not certain." "Did this happen because we extracted the sacred relic?!" "W-well, it seems so." After I extracted the sacred relic, all the divine power that permeated the ‌‌labyrinth vanished. Yujein, her face drained of color, spoke. "This place is no longer the domain of the God of ‌‌Light...." "So as the divine power protecting us disappeared, an evil force invaded." "Then if we put the sacred object back in place?" "Would that even work? The rock is shattered." "...." "I'm regretting smearing blood on that rock." Praha spoke expressionlessly. Tangerine asked. "Then who exactly is commanding those zombies? The Anti-Imperial ‌‌Mage Organization?" "Does such an organization even exist?" Cyprus shrugged at my question. "What's certain is that someone has been watching us all along." "Then why didn't they attack when we were at Promé Castle?" "Perhaps they were waiting for the right moment." "Are they summoning every corpse in this area?" -And so concluded the conversation of our question-mark-headed murderers- No one had answers, only questions piling up. As we increased our distance from the room with zombies, our conversation grew longer. Tangerine slit the throats of zombies that followed us down the correct path. When their numbers grew too many, Praha lured ‌‌them down the wrong path as before. "The traps don't seem less threatening than before, do they?" "No. They've grown weaker ‌than at first." "It's because the God's power has been withdrawn. I think the labyrinth will soon stop functioning entirely...." "We must escape before that happens." Yujein trembled, gripping her wand tightly in both hands. I glanced at Yujein, who seemed increasingly anxious, then opened my palm to look at it. 'The divine power remaining in the labyrinth is weakening, but why ‌‌‌is mine unchanged?' The hourglass's sand continued to diminish steadily. Less than half remained now. 'I shouldn't have brought it up ‌‌and created anxiety. I'll just stay ‌‌quiet.' At this pace, we should be fine. With that thought, I clenched my fist. "My lady, are you anxious?" "Ah. Yujein." It's you who looks anxious, not me. I smiled without saying it aloud. "Well, it's certainly not comfortable, but ‌‌‌what can we do? At least they're not chasing us like they did at the Villa...." "Be careful!" Crash! Boom-boom-boom! "Aaah!" I fell ‌forward onto the ground without even a moment to see what happened. Instinctively, I raised my bag to shield my head. Thunk! An ‌‌‌‌arrow immediately embedded itself in my bag. If I hadn't had the bag, that arrow would've pierced my eye. "Yusara! Are you alright?!" "Y-yes! But what's happening?!" "It appears this passage was a trap all along!" "But the map showed this was the correct route!" Even ‌‌‌as I shouted, a critical warning ‌flashed through my ‌mind. One: luck cannot ‌‌last forever. "Damn!" "At least the trap has weakened—we're fortunate!" "Fortunate?! The ceiling is collapsing right now!" I barely rolled my body aside, dodging a fist-sized stone plummeting from above. ‌‌I couldn't even lift my head without risking an arrow through my skull. Tangerine, using her bag as a shield just like me to deflect the arrows, cried out: "Is everyone alright?!" "Yes!" ‌‌‌‌‌"We're fine!" The problem was that the commotion we'd caused had also reached the ears of the zombies lurking behind us. Patter-patter-patter! "Grrrrgh!" "Damn!" Now we had no choice but to run. "Just a bit further and there's ‌‌‌a fork in the path! We can lose them there!" "What if our luck runs out then too?!" "Let's not think about that yet!" All the torches our group had been carrying were extinguished in ‌‌‌the chaos. There ‌‌‌‌was no time to relight them now. "Aaaaah!" "Run!" "Yujein!" "That's Tangerine!" This is maddening! Running through this darkness without any visibility was incredibly difficult! What, you're asking why ‌‌‌I don't produce light from my palm? I clench my fists when I run! Patter-patter-patter! "Ugh!" "Gack!" "I'm fine! I've torn it off!" And finally, when the next fork in the path appeared. In the space where the narrow corridor abruptly widened. Light suddenly enveloped me. "...!" To be precise, it swept up me and several zombies that had been chasing from behind. My companions beside ‌‌‌me tried to grab me, but it was futile. "Yusara!" This light erupted from my hand. More specifically, from the hourglass in my palm. Regardless of my clenched fist. "No!" ‌The last thing I saw before the light consumed my vision was the contorted faces of my companions. I was summoned to a different ‌‌‌location. Thud! I struggled to ‌‌‌hold onto my fading consciousness as my body struck something, recalling ‌the next precaution ‌‌‌‌‌for the labyrinth. One. Ignore your missing companions. Now it was my turn to be ignored. Damn it all.... [Ancient Maze: Underground Tomb] - Yusara (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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