Golden Experience

Chapter 28: “Bonus Stage”

“Zoooombiiiies… I never saw that coming…”

Blanc hung her head while waiting to respawn. But really, considering she was a Skeleton, it stood to reason that there could be Zombies too. Or really, zombies were more humanlike than skeletons were.

“Don’t we both belong to the ‘They’re already dead!’ group? Maybe I could think of them as… friends… Nah, totally no way. Well, whatever, no need to get down! If they’re not friends, then I can just burn them up!”

Blanc swore that this time she would learn her lesson and not let her guard down as she set out.

At the place where the natural cave wall transitioned into man-made wall, the zombie from before… Well, she wasn’t exactly sure if it was the same one or not, but a zombie was shuffling around there. While she did jump at first, she remembered her lessons and, without letting herself stay frozen stiff for too long, fired off a [Flare Arrow] to start.

She wasn’t sure if it was maybe because of gases that were let off from decomposition, but the zombie burned really well. Even though they were way bigger than the ants were, they took a lot less time to burn up.

“Magic sure is strong… Or like, I dunno if [Flare Arrow] is normally better or if all magic is just as good. Ah, I did put all my points in INT. So maybe it’s my magic that’s good…”

But if [Flare Arrow] was an instant kill right now, then she didn’t need to go out of her way to try out other spells. If she ended up not killing something in one hit, then she might suffer additional mental trauma, not to mention that it’d be a waste of MP. [Flare Arrow] was producing results, so [Flare Arrow] was fine. For any weapon at all, reliability was paramount.

The Zombie dropped something… although honestly, she had absolutely no idea if the burnt bottom half of a Zombie had any value whatsoever. Not to mention she didn’t want to touch it at all if she could help it, so she decided to just leave it there. Unfortunately for her…

“Waaah, there’s another one!!!”

Another Zombie appeared and began eating the charred remains of the previous one. Since it looked more or less human, the speed at which it consumed the corpse made her feel sick to her stomach.

“So I still get traumatized either way…”

As her face paled, she fired a [Flare Arrow] at its defenseless head.

“Well, not like my face actually changed color—it’s already white after all.”

However, due to the sound of the spell and the smell of burnt meat, more and more zombies ended up coming to Blanc’s location.

“There was an old movie that had a scene just like this! Umm, [Thunderbolt]!”

Brilliant lightning gathered in Blanc’s hand, then instantaneously stabbed through a Zombie. When it did, the Zombie’s entire body immediately lit up with electricity, then its scorched remains collapsed to the ground. Apparently [Thunderbolt] could also defeat things in one hit.

“[Ice Bullet]! [Water Shot]! [Air Cutter]!”

Casting spells one after another, she took care of the Zombies in short order. Given Blanc’s high INT, it didn’t matter which spell she used, they could all one-shot a Zombie. The only difference between them was how the dead body looked afterward.

“No wait, they’re Zombies, so aren’t they already dead bodies…?”

At least as far as Blanc could see, the Zombies she defeated and the ones standing and walking around were the same. And why was that? Because any Zombies she beat would immediately get swarmed by more Zombies.

“Welp, I guess it’s just that kind of game. Or actually like, what the hell, how many are there?! They just keep coming!”

She had already fired off five spells in a row, so she couldn’t attack again for a little bit. She still needed to wait another 20 seconds until [Flare Arrow] was ready, which was the first spell she had launched. She had no choice but to fall back and stall while her spells cooled down, then continue defeating enemies one at a time. Luckily, the cavern behind her wasn’t too spacious. Only two shambling Zombies would be able to attack her at the same time.

Without taking her eyes off the Zombies swarming around the corpses, Blanc slowly moved backward. Regardless of how many Zombies there were, Blanc also continued to produce more corpses. There was still some time before the feasting would end.

“…Hm, I guess I’ll use [Air Cutter] first.”

Another corpse fell to the ground. Paying no attention to Blanc, who had just attacked them, the Zombies dove greedily for the new meal. As long as there was bait somewhere, it seemed like they wouldn’t choose to attack Blanc.

“And my cooldown’s up. [Flare Arrow]!”

At her current pace, she believed she could keep casting spells in between waiting for cooldowns without problem. She was more worried about her MP running out. If she waited a bit more between each spell, her natural MP regen should be able to keep up, but in terms of making sure there was always something for the Zombies to devour, it would be too slow.

“This feels just as horrifying as watching a horde of ants swarm at me, except this way takes a really long time…”

Even still, she couldn’t relax given what was going on here. In a dimly lit cave, endless dead bodies were greedily consuming other dead bodies, while slightly separated from them, a lone humanoid skeleton observed it all happening. No matter how you looked at it, this was a scene from Hell.

“So what do I do… I think I’m just royally fucked here… This game has gotta be aimed at the really, really hardcore gamers. I’ve just gotten super lucky so far, otherwise I feel like I’d have gotten completely fucked a long time ago.”

Firing off [Flare Arrows] as necessary, she tried to think of some way out of this. If everything continued the way she foresaw, nothing would improve. In that case, even if her overall situation got worse, it might be best to prioritize her MP regen; as long as she had MP left, she’d at least be able to do something, even if it ended up being pointless.

Finally, there was only one corpse left for them to eat. Her MP hadn’t fully recovered, but she had enough to fight. Once they ate that body, what would the remaining Zombies do? She should wait to see that first before she decided what she would do.

Having finished devouring the final corpse, the Zombies all stood up. They looked over at Blanc, but…

“Huh? They aren’t coming to attack me.”

They shuffled around aimlessly at the invisible line where the natural cave wall turned into the manmade wall. Occasionally one would see Blanc, but as soon as it took a single step toward her, it would immediately stop and go back to shambling.

“They can’t leave the ruins or something? Is that it?”

She slowly and quietly approached the Zombies. More of them noticed her now, but they still couldn’t seem to attack her.

“They really can’t come over here. Huh? Could this be…?”

She had stumbled onto a bonus stage.

Blanc timed a rotation based on her natural MP regen and began slaughtering the Zombies.