The Wandering Inn_Volume 1, page 526
—-
“You! Wood-armor. Yes, you. Get the tents set up. Get as many hands as you need, but until they’re up, you lot don’t sleep!”
Quallet barked orders as his weary and sore company rested for the night. He made them set up camp, pass around food, and then let them pass out in their tents. Quallet slept easily, woke up the next day and began it all over again.
Train them, march them, feed them, and then let them rest. On the second day, Quallet began to lecture his company on their duties and had a nasty surprise.
“You mean you don’t know what Gravetender’s Fist does?”
He stared at the group of Humans in disbelief. They looked ashamed, but it was true. To everyone’s astonishment, it seemed that while the Humans had understood what being in a mercenary company meant, they hadn’t known what a suppression company—which was what they were in—did.
Quallet’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the rows of faces, trying to see if they were playing a prank on him. But it didn’t look like they were. The other species were giving the Humans very odd looks too.
Greener than he’d thought. Or maybe from another continent? But why would they be stranded all the way out here, then? Either way, Quallet amended his time-adhered to speech.
“If you signed up without knowing exactly what Gravetender’s Fist does, well, you should have figured it out from the name. Alone. Grave tending. Gravetender. It’s not exactly hard to see the connection. Understand?”
Blank looks. Quallet couldn’t believe this.
“The undead! The restless souls that rise from unburied corpses and in places of power! Have you never seen one before?”
They hadn’t. Xor had to actually rub at his head’s eyes with his hands and Raeh looked incredulous. The other Lizardfolk were staring at the Humans as if they were idiots. The Centaurs were making a joke of the entire thing as they laughed amongst themselves.
“The dead rise. Zombies, skeletons, ghouls…they get worse with time and depending on the corpse and amount of death. A [Necromancer] can raise them and command them, but undead will spawn naturally from unburied corpses. That might not be a problem in a quiet village where the dead can be laid to rest—or cremated—but this is Baleros. A place where war is always present! We’re headed towards a battlefield where two companies—with thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers—are fighting each day! What do you think will happen to all those bodies?”
“They rise?”
How could anyone ask that like a question? Quallet scowled.
“Of course they do. And they’re not only a nuisance, but a danger. Leave a battlefield full of thousands of corpses alone for a short period and you’ll get ghouls and worse popping up within days. They’ll attack soldiers, spread disease—and that’s where we come in.”
He nodded to Raeh and the man took over.
“Gravetender’s Fist. We are a suppression company. That’s not like a regular company for you new recruits. Suppression companies specialize in one kind of fighting. Some kill Goblins or monsters that make a nuisance of themselves. Others, like our company, kill the undead on the battlefield.”
There were murmurs at that. Quallet watched the Humans warily. If they hadn’t known—how could they not know? But now he had to worry about them deserting too. He spoke crisply, trying to dismiss their sudden dismay.
“I said it was better work than fighting, didn’t I? You’ll be up against zombies and the like mostly. Nothing dangerous. A rotting corpse might be a threat, but it’s better than a veteran with a magical blade. Each night when the fighting stops we’ll go into the battlefield, between the armies often, and handle the dead. The soldiers fighting don’t want to do it—they’re tired, and if both armies are sending troops out it’ll be a night battle against the undead and each other. So that’s why companies like this one are hired.”
“Clean up duty.”
Someone in the crowd joked. Quallet nodded, ignoring the levity.
“We’ll be collecting corpses, burning them, and putting down any undead that decide to get up. It will be dirty work, quick, and dangerous if you don’t watch each other’s back. But the worst you’ll face out there is a Ghoul, and that’s only if you’re unlucky. It beats dying with an arrow in your neck when the real fighting starts in the mornings, mark me.”
The Humans stirred uneasily, as did some others in his company. Quallet raised his voice.
“That’s why we’re practicing! Now, your duties are simple. You’ll be working in teams, spread out to cover ground. If you find a body—you bring it over. Yes, they’ll be rotting, yes it will smell. And you will stab it through the head before you come, in case it’s rising. [Sergeant] Xor’s done this work a hundred times. He’ll instruct you. Xor, show them how to move with Raeh watching your back…”
—-
They met the first group of undead on the road, a day before reaching the battleground. The shambling zombies must have missed the armies somehow, and they were roaming about aimlessly. It was a perfect opportunity, one Quallet had hoped for. He took command and ordered his company to engage them. Not all of course; it was only about thirty zombies, so Quallet took exactly that number out and had them fight.
They were all frightened, most close to wetting themselves as the zombies approached. But Quallet had chosen well, and the Centaur with white fur and the Lizardgirl with magic killed their zombie quickly and efficiently. Watched by Quallet, Xor, and Raeh, the other raw soldiers fought and killed their zombies, hacking away, running back, screaming—
Learning to fight. It was messy, horrible to watch from the eye of an experienced veteran, but it was the first step to forging his company into a fighting force. Quallet nodded approvingly as one young man killed a zombie with an axe.
“A good first step.”
He was one of the odd Humans, the ones with weird clothing. This one was pale-skinned and had odd features. Narrower eyes, black hair—he was a bit short as well and he had an expensive-looking long-sleeved shirt and pants on. They looked like fine material, but they were now covered in guts and gore underneath the battered leather armor he was wearing. Quallet didn’t know the young man’s story, and he didn’t care what his name was.
He’d heard others call the young man Ken, though. Ken…although one of the young women had called him something else. What was it? Ken…Ken…something.
—-
Kenjiro Murata stumbled away as the zombie he’d killed sunk to the ground, its misshapen head collapsing inwards as it struck the ground. It couldn’t really be called a head at all, in fact. Kenjiro, or ‘Ken’ as the others called him, had bashed it so many times with the axe he’d been given that the rotting bone and flesh around the skull had caved in.
He stared at the corpse as it fell, stared at the horrible innards of its head, smelled the rotting flesh, saw some things wriggling in the decomposing corpse’s open mouth. Ken turned, about to vomit, when he heard a familiar voice crying out.
“No! No!”
He ran towards the voice, leaving the dead zombie behind. Ken saw a girl with short black hair, wearing a battered piece of armor awkwardly over her jeans and t-shirt, backing away from another dead zombie.
It had a spear lodged in its belly. But it was still trying to move forwards. The girl backed away, screaming, and then shouting at the undead corpse in a language no one but Kenjiro understood.
“やめて. やめてください!”
Her voice was shrill, panicked. There was something insane about what she’d said. Stop. Please, stop. She’d said it to a zombie, but she probably couldn’t believe what was happening. Ken still couldn’t himself.
“Aiko-san!”
He ran over. The axe was in his hands. Ken smashed the zombie in the head, feeling a sickening connection. It fell over, and the girl turned away, covering her face in her hands. Ken stepped back, shaking as the second zombie he’d killed fell, twitching and making a gurgling sound. He looked hesitantly at the girl.
Aiko Nonomura.
She was crying, sobbing, actually, with fear and horror. Ken opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. He didn’t know what to say, not to Aiko. He wouldn’t have known what to tell himself.
He was in another world, with magic and monsters. And the undead. He was a soldier, and so was she.
They hadn’t known what they were signing up for at all.
Aiko kept crying as the angry [Captain] shouted at the people around them. Ken saw other people, some Humans like him, others wearing strange armor, Dullahans, fighting next to scaly lizard-people as galloping Centaurs ran by, spearing zombies and hacking them apart.
“Aiko-san, are you okay? 大丈夫ですか?”
Ken had a hard time speaking English, so he switched back to his native tongue, feeling oddly formal. He knew Aiko of course, but she wasn’t someone he knew.
She wasn’t a childhood friend, more like a classmate that Ken knew from sharing the same class with for multiple years throughout their junior and senior high school time. They hadn’t spoken much. It was a fluke that had put them together in the airport on that fateful day when they’d vanished from their world into this one.
Now they were alone, and Aiko was the only one who understood him.
“Yes. Yes, I—”
She spoke in English, speaking to Ken and also to the Lizardgirl who’d stopped to see if they were alright. The scaly, frilled head nodded and the Lizardgirl walked on, conjuring a ball of fire to throw at a zombie. Ken watched her with amazement in his heart, and then looked at Aiko.
“Are you okay? Hurt?”
She shook her head, but Aiko was clearly far from alright. She was pale, and as she looked back at the zombie, Aiko’s face turned dead white. She stepped back and put a hand to her mouth.
But she didn’t throw up. Instead, Aiko looked at Ken, a mortal horror in her eyes. He recognized it, because it was the same terrible feeling in him.
Zombies were real. Magic was real. They were in a fantasy world. Only it wasn’t wonderful. It was just as bad as any anime, only worse. Because Ken could smell the rotting corpses. He could feel every insect bite on his body, feel the heat of Baleros’ winter, and know that he had killed two people today.
Maybe they were already dead. But the sensation of breaking flesh and bone was—it was too much.
“悪因悪果.”
Aiko gave word to the feeling in Ken’s stomach. He looked at her. She’d said—well, he couldn’t process it in English, only in his native language. It was an expression. It meant, roughly, evil sown is evil reaped. Those who do bad things have bad things happen to them. He shook his head.
“ううん…”
She stared at him. Ken felt compelled to explain himself. He looked at Aiko, hesitated, and then spoke rapidly in Japanese.
“If this were karma, surely we’d be punished in some other way. No, this is just reality. It is harsh, but we must survive.”
Ever since they’d come to this world, they’d had to survive. They’d sold their backpacks and luggage, found food and shelter for a few days, but like the others, like everyone from this world, they’d run out of money in an instant. This had been the only work they could take, the only work they could do.
“It is too cruel. I cannot do this.”
Aiko’s eyes were still brimming with tears. She looked at the corpse, gagged. Ken tried to look, and failed. He spoke to Aiko, trying to suppress the feeling in his stomach.
“They are dead, Aiko. If they were alive, I would feel guilty. But they are dead and we are…warriors now.”
He had the class. He was a Level 1 [Warrior]. A voice in his head had told him he had the class last night, and a Skill—[Lesser Stamina]. Perhaps that was why his arms weren’t burning despite chopping at two zombies with the axe?
“I know! I know, but I cannot—Kenjiro-san, why are we here?”
Aiko was distraught. She stared at the zombies, and Ken had nothing he could tell her. He didn’t know. One second they’d been in the Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne, standing around and making awkward conversation as the rest of their group went off to buy souvenirs. Ken and Aiko had been forced to watch everyone’s luggage because they’d lost the straw pick. Some other people had been walking by, and Ken had seen a flash—
The next moment, he’d been standing in a jungle with Aiko and a group of over a hundred confused people, spread out across a mile’s landscape. That had been their first moments in Baleros.
It hadn’t gotten much better since then.
Movement. Something approached out of the corner of Ken’s eye and he whirled, holding his axe like Quallet had taught him. But it wasn’t a zombie.
“Whoa. Careful.”
Someone was coming towards them. Another Human. This young man looked older than both Ken and Aiko, who were both freshmen in university. The tall, black-skinned young man holding a mace and wearing rusted chainmail grinned at them, sweating heavily. There was something stuck on one side of the mace. Ken stared at it, and then at the young man.
“Luan-san?”
The young man grinned and Ken knew he’d gotten the name right.
“Yes, and you’re…Ken. Kenjiro, right?”
He didn’t use honorifics. He wasn’t Japanese, but from somewhere else. No one from Japan had been taken to the other world that Kenjiro had seen. Ken nodded.
“I am…and this is Aiko-san.”
Aiko bowed slightly, and Luan grinned at her. There was so much absurdity to the moment, as the two Japanese students introduced themselves over the corpse of a zombie. But it was normal, so they clung to that.
Luan eyed the dead zombie and then Ken and Aiko.
“I saw you two fighting. Are you alright?”
How could you answer that? Ken hesitated, and then fell back on politeness.
“I am fine.”
“Yes, I am okay. Thank you very much.”
Aiko spoke with slightly accented English, stumbling a bit over the words. Neither she nor Ken were native speakers, although they’d done well in English class. Luan’s eyes flickered to them, and he nodded without addressing their blatant lie.
“I am glad you two are okay. You should stick with me and the others.”
He pointed, and Ken saw some of the other people he recognized, standing pale and sweaty a good distance away from the last zombies as they were put to rest. He followed Luan with Aiko and they heard Quallet bellowing at them.
“Good! We’ll have a break to drink and clean yourselves off, and then we’ll tell you what you did right—and what you did wrong!”
“I hate that guy.”
Luan made a face as he led Ken towards the others. Ken privately agreed, although he wouldn’t have said as much out loud. He nodded awkwardly towards the others as he heard one of them, an American named Johanas, talking loudly.
“We did it! We killed those fucking zombies. I mean, we did it. With swords and axes, like a fucking video game. Does this mean we’ll level up? What hell, man. What the hell is going on?”
That seemed to be the general consensus of the group. Everyone, even the people who hadn’t fought, were pale and shaken. Ken understood.
They’d known they were enlisting to be soldiers, but they hadn’t expected this. Somehow, Ken had thought it wouldn’t be…wouldn’t be…wouldn’t be real. He’d still clung to a hope that this was all a dream, and that having a world with classes and levels and people with Skills meant this was a game, or some kind of dream you could wake up from.
But it was all real. And from the looks on the other’s faces, they were beginning to realize this as well. Ken and Aiko stood around with the others, listening to them speak. Everyone was speaking in English, as it was the tongue all of them had in common.
“This is some crazy shit, huh?”
Someone was talking to him. Ken stared at the young man with blonde hair who was speaking, and tried to make sense of what he’d said. Crazy…oh, he was saying this was insane. Ken nodded.
“I think…this is very crazy, yes.”
“I thought this would be different. I thought since we had classes and levels, we wouldn’t actually kill people. Or it wouldn’t be that real. But this is totally like…like Sword Art Online, you know? Sort of like that, don’t you think?”
What had he said? Ken was trying to keep up. He hesitated.
“Oh? Yes? Maybe. I do not know. I am sorry…”
Ken saw the other young man blink in surprise.
“Sorry? No, it’s cool. I mean…”
He trailed off and the conversation ended there. Aiko edged towards Ken and whispered to him.
“What did he mean? What is…”
She hesitated and spoke the words awkwardly in English.
“…‘Sword Art Online?’”
“I think it is an anime.”
“Oh. Did you watch it? Do you know what it is about?”
“No.”
They both fell silent. It wasn’t as if Ken didn’t watch any anime, and he’d certainly read a few manga over the years. But he was in college now, and watching anime was a bit…well, there was more to do than just that.
He watched the young man with blonde hair move back towards the others. The others like him. It wasn’t that the group of Humans who’d come from another world weren’t all on the same boat, but they were different.
They’d all been in the Melbourne Airport when taken, and so they were all sorts of nationalities. Some big groups of travelers had been caught up, while individual travelers had been seized as well, or parts of groups like Ken and Aiko.
Most of them were either Australian or American, with a heavier emphasis on American, since a huge tour group had been coming through. Other nationalities had come as well of course, but they were fragmented.
Some had already left. In the first moments of confusion when Aiko had screamed and people had cried out and come running, Ken had seen all kinds of faces. But when it had been established that no one know what was happing or what was going on, people began forming their own groups, usually based on shared nationality or some other identity.
