Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

The trip to the capital took the company sized group about the quarter of the day. It wasn't a short period, but it did feel rather long. The trip was rather uneventful, and as Brennan led them closer and closer to the capital, they felt a sort of hidden mental pressure that prolonged every second.

"It looks like it might rain…" Someone commented looking at the gray clouds in the sky. This was the biggest threat thus far, what if someone caught a cold?

That someone might catching a cold being the worst that could happen was a good thing and proved there was still hope for humanity. No one stupid enough to want to fight against a king protected by over a hundred individuals existed.

Plus, although the trip had been easy and uneventful, the pressure came from the fact that they knew that their destination was a battlefield. That was a place with no guarantees of survival, what awaited them were two armies! If they were lucky, only one would be hostile, but if they weren't, they could very well be besieged and killed.

"Stuart, how close are we?" Brennan asked from atop a mighty stallion.

"Your Majesty, we are near the capital…" Stuart replied slowly while double-checking his answer.

Stuart found it weird that they couldn't hear the sound of spells being cast and the screams and horrors of war.

"Did… Did they not battle today?" Stuart muttered. The time they were arriving at was not late enough for both sides to go to sleep.

Something else had to have happened.

"Hey! Hey! Is that a zombie?!" An adventurer suddenly exclaimed, causing most of the people present to bear their arms.

"Wait… A zombie?" Some of the people that put up their guards, however, quickly began to question if they heard things correctly. Why would there be a zombie out and about near the capital?

An arrow cut through the air and pierced the zombie of a man wearing armor. The knights under the royal company hurried over to the now dead target full of both apprehension and curiosity.

"It- It's a soldier!" A knight shouted back to the others who were a step too slow to investigate. Upon hearing the knight's words, everyone couldn't help but look at each other.

Were they all thinking the same thing? Their faces turned grim at the thought.

Brennan himself was not too slow on the uptake and quickly had a change of expression. He seemed both shocked and horrified!

"Let's hurry!" The group of adventurers didn't dare loiter, and they all hurried after Brennan and the knight company. They were the ones that had the best interest of the capital in mind, that was why they subconsciously sped up and went ahead.

Arguably however this was a mistake, this was a mistake because they were the first to spot the horrible state of the field ahead.

"What the…" The Bosque Kingdom definitely prided itself in its agriculture. Similarly, they prided themselves in their gardening and just anything plant related in general.

"Scorched… They scorched the earth…" The appalling sight of the ash covered ground and the occasional mounds of burnt bodies. The only signs of activity was the wind that spread the ashes and sprinkled their eyes with tears from irritation.

Brennan did not know what to even think at that moment. What the hell had happened?!

"Hm?" Tarin said with curiosity, this earthen mage spotted what appeared to be a man slowly getting up off the floor in the distance. The other present also noticed this moving figure.

"Hahaha…" The person was pale, very pale. Their body almost seemed to be full of cracks, they looked like a piece of porcelain that could break into pieces at any moment.

"So this is all I amount to…" Azrael said self-deprecatingly. His body was breaking apart slowly but surely. The shattered pieces dropped to the ground every few seconds or so.

"No, this was my fate" The moment he had the death orb implanted into him, this was the future that awaited him. Slowly going mad, growing more bloodthirsty, and finally, reaching a point of no return.

He had reached that point, he felt confident that this was his end.

"Damn it…" But he didn't want it to be the end. There were many things he wasn't able to accomplish.

"Clarys! Clarys!" Azrael suddenly shouted.

"I'm- I'm sorry! Please… help me…" Tears streamed down Azrael's face, causing the dry surface to start slowly falling. His mind was stuck between this wretched state of hatred and regret.

From a young age he was jealous of the talent of Clarys, he felt stifled around her, constricted. She received all the attention and was taught levels above what was taught in their public academy. What gave her the right to learn these things? Why were they being treated so differently?

Clarys quickly became famous for her healing abilities, and she shone brightly. But the more she shone, the darker the shadow she cast onto others. The darker the shadow, the more Azrael was forced to embrace his position in the dark of others.

Azrael… he was a pitiful child… in the past and in the present he was a pitiful child.

More cracks ran through his body and more pieces fell with each new stroke. They landed on the ground and disintegrated into dust.

"Wh- Why?" Azrael's voice quivered as he moved his trembling hands to point towards  a familiar figure. It wasn't long before this simple movement caused his arm to fragment faster and begin to crumble.

"Why what?" A new voice spoke and asked from within the fields of ash.

Hearing this voice caused Azrael's emotional state to worsen and his rage to rise, and-

"Sigh... " Azrael had to accept his defeat this time.

"You've beat me" He was supposed to do two simple things.

One, was to ensure that their troops didn't lose the war. The ways to do this varied, but basically he just had to kill any key opposing figures in the midst of battle. Their deaths would seem natural under the circumstances, and everyone would be none the wiser.

The other was to directly intervene if there were any variables. Samuel was a variable and he had intervened, but… he had killed even a good chunk of the people on his side. Adding his death into the equation, this was a catastrophic failure.

The amount of resources his organization spent on him were not little. For him to die in such a shabby battlefield... The upper echelons would be more disappointed in him than they already were.

Upon thinking of this, Azrael decided that he was better off dead.

"Kill me" He had no hopes of surviving anyway. Azrael was slowly losing his senses with each passing second, and death would come soon after that. He didn't want to continue witnessing his life slowly fading whilst his body crumbled.

Samuel who was in a much better state than Azrael considered Azrael's suggestion but... Samuel shook his head. He firmly declined Azrael's generous offer.

"You can slowly wilt away" He had killed so many... Even now, the zombies he let loose were causing problems. Samuel didn't say anything else. He had the wind pick up Duke Lansworth and set off into the sky alongside him.

He was heading to other sides of the capital. The scorched earth didn't account for the entire battlefield. There were still skirmishes on the other sides of the capital, but most importantly as stated there were still zombies. The capital could end up getting invaded by zombies!

Samuel taking directly to the skies caused the onlookers to be rendered speechless.

"Where is he going?" Someone asked.

The archer Zhang exhibited his skills looked out towards the direction Samuel flew off to. It was another section of the battlefield less affected by the explosion of corpses.

"It's a zombie outbreak!" Zombie outbreak seldom happen in the outside world because they required lots of deathly energy to be present. Even if this circumstance held true, someone had to first bring the zombie that would spread the permeating death, and they couldn't be just anyone.

Regular zombies weren't capable of spreading like the plague, only a lich of sorts could make it happen. Azrael was akin to a human lich.

After these conditions were met, there was room for a zombie outbreak, but the outbreak was guaranteed to fail even if these conditions were ticked. That was because the death energy would be quickly spent. The zombies still running about were doing so on borrowed time.

"We should go help!' W decided that now was the time to face the zombies, not cower! A king needed charisma to maintain his throne, but he also needed to show results.

Surviving this battle would be easy with the opponents as zombies, and getting some good results was also almost guaranteed. W could not urge Brennan enough to go join them!

Fortunately for W, Brennan felt the same. He quickly ordered his robust stallion to dash forward through the ashy fields. It left a cloud of ash and dust in its wake, coupled with Brennan's gallant armored figure, it was a striking scene.

The adventurers who were following were shocked and others were awed, but those in horses all quickly chased after the king. They couldn't lose him in battle! No matter how slim the chances, the king couldn't be harmed!

A fearsome group of riders charged from the ashy field to the bloody red greenery, where they helped further paint the area in its telltale red color.

"Men! Don't let a single zombie slip by!" Brennan declared raising his sword into the air with conviction.

"YEAH!!!" "WOO!!!" The adventurers and knights readily agreed and quickly got into the right zombie slaying mood. A specific genre of music popped into their heads as they ripped and teared the enemies in front of them.

Samuel who was also present was however the most impressive, or would have been if he had done more than take a causal swipe at the zombies.. The Duke's health was a priority, so he could only dash off after briefly lending a hand.