51 Chapter 51: Dance of the Dead

"You think these zombies can kill me?" Miyazawa Miyako sneered as she glanced around. The hordes of undead had spread out to surround her, but she showed no trace of fear. I didn't know what the heroes went through during the past six months, but evidently it had toughened them up. That, or they still treated this whole thing as a fucking game.

I shrugged.

"Worth a try, I guess?"

"Oh, just kill yourself!"

I shook my head at Miyazawa's curse. The zombies stirred, and then lunged at her. Miyazawa scoffed before she danced and weaved through the massed hordes, slicing and striking with her rapier. Her pinpoint accuracy allowed her to strike at their vitals, but since they were already dead, her attacks had little effect.

"!"

They were zombies, after all. Stabbing them in the heart or piercing their kidneys weren't going to put them down permanently. Even if she succeeded in amputating or severing their limbs, the zombies continued to drag themselves relentlessly after her. Moaning, they grabbed or scrabbled at her dainty feet, forcing her to evade.

"How persistent!"

With lightning-quick strikes, she dismembered a few zombies, ensuring they wouldn't get up ever again. Spinning around, she delivered a series of elegant strikes that kept a few more at bay while flaying others alive. Or dead.

Her speed and agility remained undiminished. No matter how many zombies threw themselves at her, Miyazawa was able to cut them down or keep them at bay. As expected of a hero…her stamina seemed limitless. At this rate, I would run out of zombies before I could beat her.

However, I had no intention of turning this into a battle of attrition. I never counted on my zombies to beat a hero in their current state.

"Thousand Astral Graves!"

The thousand and eight gravestones burst out of the ground, shielding us from the sun and casting shadows over the clearing. All around Miyazawa, the zombies crackled and transformed, growing and mutating.

"W…what is this?!"

Miyazawa's jaw dropped as she witnessed the changes and enhancements. Several of the zombies had grown to several times their size. She glared at them and backed away, but her rapier was still raised defiantly.

The first zombie lunged at her, followed by the rest. Miyazawa dodged them, but just barely. The enhanced zombie's fist struck the ground, smashing a crater and sending shards of rock and earth flying into the air.

"Guh!"

Miyazawa shielded herself from the rubble, and then gracefully landed several meters away. Spinning around, she jumped back, staying light on her toes as a second zombie pulverized the ground where she had landed.

"…strong!"

"I don't know what you did, but your zombies certainly are a lot stronger now. But…so what? All that power is useless if they can't hit me!"

I merely smiled back.

"…!"

Miyazawa realized that something was amiss and her eyes narrowed as she focused on me. Gritting her teeth, she charged at me, only to stop and jump back when another zombie lunged at her. She kept her distance and safely evaded them.

But not for long.

"Ah…?!"

A zombie finally succeeded in tackling her, knocking her to the ground and pinning her.

"N…no! How…?! This is impossible!"

Miyazawa struggled, trying to lift her rapier up and slash the zombie, but it firmly pinned her to the ground with its superior strength. Even as she kicked and flailed, and actually managed to almost dislodge the zombie from holding her arms, more of the zombies piled on top of her, grabbing her legs, biting her shoulder and tearing chunks of flesh from her neck.

"AAAAAAAH!"

Miyazawa kicked and screamed, but she was ruthlessly held down and fed upon. Mana swirled around her as she attempted to cast spells to blast them off, but the sheer number of zombies throwing themselves on top of her as well as their increased magical resistance nullified most of the damage. Even if they were scratched and flayed by the wind spells or thrashing rapier, their enhanced bulk and lack of a sense of pain allowed them to relentlessly tear at her.

"How…?! How?! What the hell are these…these monsters?!"

I said nothing. Thousand Astral Graves didn't just enhance the strength of my zombies, but also their speed, both movement speed and reaction speed. And their intelligence as well. As such, my zombies suddenly jumped back when a tornado of mana exploded out of Miyazawa's body. Most of the zombies reacted fast enough and evaded the attack, but the few unfortunate to be close enough were ripped into shreds.

"I'll kill you!"

Miyazawa was wailing as she clutched her wounds, blood streaming from her fingers. She glared at me and slowly lowered her rapier, the once pristine silver hilt now stained with blood. A whirlwind whipped around the thin blade, as she pointed it at me.

However, she wasn't given any time to fire it off. My zombies had clustered around her, pouncing and distracting her. Miyazawa gracefully jumped and dodged, spinning around and falling into her confident rhythm. Staying light on her toes, she hopped, spun, whirled and danced about, staying one step ahead of the zombies. Even as she elegantly evaded every single one of their attacks, perspiration dripped down her face.

It wasn't just from her wounds. The increased speed and ferocity of my zombies had made it difficult for Miyazawa to dodge easily and it was all she could do just to stay ahead of them. She knew that just one small mistake, one slight slip or misstep, would lead to her death. Gritting her teeth, she continued to dance desperately, keeping out of reach of her predatory partners, who were all scrambling after her like obsessive fans.

"!"

One of the zombies had enough and unleashed a freezing blast of mana. The ice rapidly spread across the ground and caught Miyazawa's feet just as she landed. She froze – not literally – when she tried to move, only to find herself rooted to the ground.

"…no!"

With a cry, she tugged at her legs to break free of the ice, but that split second of inaction was more than enough. A mountain of zombies tackled her, knocking her down and breaking her feet from the tremendous impact.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Wailing in agony and despair, Miyazawa flailed and fought desperately, but wise to her spells, my zombies disarmed her. Literally. One of them tore off Miyazawa's sword arm and chewed on it, spitting the silver rapier out and sending it bouncing off the ground. The rest ripped into Miyazawa in a frenzy, allowing their bloodlust to consume them.

"No! NOOOO!"

Miyazawa attempted to cast that same hurricane spell that had tossed the zombies off her earlier, but the catastrophic injury and massive loss of blood had disrupted her focus, not to mention the excruciating pain she must be feeling right now. With so many factors disrupting her concentration, it was impossible for her to cast her spell to blow the horde of undead away. Even with the strength of a hero, she couldn't win against the sheer number of zombies piling on top of her.

I strode forward and picked up Miyazawa's rapier. Raising my head, I glanced in the direction of my poor victim. Miraculously, Miyazawa was still alive despite my zombies tearing into her mercilessly. Her eyes lolled back and she stared at me pleadingly.

I glanced away in disgust. If our positions were swapped, she wouldn't think twice about finishing me off. I didn't understand why my former classmates harbored such an irrational hatred against me but they were more than happy to kill me over the most ridiculous of reasons.

There was no reason why I should show mercy to them.

"Take her eyes," I commanded softly.

My zombies obliged happily, yanking Miyazawa's eyeballs brutally out of her sockets and savoring them like delicacies. Miyazawa screamed and hollered, tears gushing out of her empty sockets and mixing with blood.

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I ignored her.

I shut out her cries of pain, even as I did my best to push the memory of her haunting, pleading gaze out of my mind.

*

I caught up with Daniel's armored company less than an hour after Miyazawa's demise. My zombies quietly followed through the forest, having depowered and turned back to their original forms now that Thousand Astral Graves were no longer in effect.

"Major!"

"Hey, Daniel," I greeted him wearily, in no mood for military formality. "How's the mission? Have we achieved our objective?"

"Yes, sir!"

Daniel saluted and pointed toward the mountain. The Magna 108th tanks were still firing, blasting the mountain pass to smithereens. Even from this distance I could see human soldiers getting disintegrated or falling to their deaths. The armored company had really thinned them out while not receiving any casualties in return.

It was only natural. The tanks were too far away, out of reach of any arrows or spells. Even if the humans' arrows could reach, they wouldn't be able to pierce the thick metallic armor of the tank. The only thing we had to worry about was magic.

Fortunately, other than the heroes, it didn't seem like the humans had any strong magic users. A group of spell casters had tried to launch a bunch of fireballs across the distance to destroy the tanks, but most of the fiery projectiles had fallen short, obliterating large swathes of the forest instead. The tanks had swiveled around and taken them out instantly, and by now the sporadic casting of spells had diminished greatly because the magicians realized they were making themselves out to be prime targets for retaliation.

"They're in full retreat."

Even without Daniel telling me that, I could see the humans struggling to go back the way they came from. It was a one-sided slaughter. Trapped in the depths of despair, the human army had fallen into a panic and they were clashing or colliding against each other in their desperate attempts to escape the bombardment. More than a few had been sent tumbling off the mountain in this way, shoved off the narrow trail by their own comrades.

Glancing at the trail, I saw that we were also pretty close to Elia's position. Grabbing a magical receiver, I activated a communication spell to check on her.

"Elia, how are things going over there?"

"Eh? Major?"

Elia sounded distracted, and I could hear sporadic gunfire over the magic radio. A sudden burst of automatic fire – most likely from the heavy weapon teams – almost sent me tumbling back from shock, the deafening sound almost rupturing my eardrums.

"Yeah, it's me. I've dealt with the Evelyn's Chosen."

"As expected of the Major!" Elia sounded elated at the news. "That's great!"

"Not really." I felt drained after the battle. Even though I had somehow defeated Miyazawa Miyako, it had been a taxing battle. Her dancing ability had made it difficult for me to defeat her directly in battle, and I resorted to throwing lots of undead bodies at her to finally wear her down. If I didn't have the ability to summon and enhance zombies…

…yeah, best not to think about that.

"Anyway, how are you doing over there?"

"Ah…! That's right! We're holding the position. The enemy has tried to retreat toward our position, but we've mowed them down. They keep coming, but Lieutenant Dressia and his tanks have provided invaluable fire support."

"You're welcome!" Daniel shouted from atop his tank. I arched an eyebrow at him.

"Sure, sure, thank you." Elia sounded annoyed over the receiver. I could almost imagine her sticking her tongue out on the other side.

Evidently the infantry and armored companies had some sort of bitter rivalry between them. I wondered if it would be a good idea to egg them on. Friendly competition was fine, important even for a regiment to stop stagnating and strive for improvement, but I didn't want it to be overly excessive to the point it affected the regimental cohesion and cooperation.

"Ah, speaking of which…it looks like the enemy wishes to surrender."

When Elia mentioned that, I glanced at the mountain pass. My glasses automatically magnified the image, allowing me to see the human soldiers in the pass in greater detail. Like Elia mentioned, the human soldiers had thrown down their weapons and raised their hands. If they had a white flag, they would probably wave it…except that Restia probably didn't know the significance of the white flag because they were from a completely different culture. Hell, come to think of it, Japan probably didn't have the white flag as surrender thing as well.

"Hold fire," I barked. Immediately, the tanks began to cease firing. On the other side of the receiver, Elia's infantry company stopped shooting and a strained silence filled the air. "Captain Kratz, take the humans into custody. Treat them as prisoners-of-war. You know the procedures, right? Disarm them and keep them under heavy watch. I'll be there as soon as I can to handle the negotiations, so identify the surviving commander."

"Yes, sir!"

"I'm counting on you." Clicking off the receiver, I turned and gestured for Daniel to come. "Do a maintenance and personnel check, and then get ready to move out. We'll be heading to Sakaguchi's position in about thirty minutes, to back up Queen Scarlet and her forces. Get whatever rest you need, hydrate yourselves…you know the drill."

"Yes, sir!" Daniel saluted, and then glanced at a couple of his tanks. "I'll still post a squadron of tanks to cover the mountain pass in case this whole thing is a trick."

"Ah, yeah. Sure, do that. I'll be counting on you."

How naïve. My inexperience was showing…just because the enemy appeared to surrender didn't mean they actually did. I should take into account the possibility that this was a ruse to cause us to let our guard down. That said, we had obliterated almost 70% of their forces, so the surviving humans had to be utterly demoralized and broken.

As Daniel indirectly pointed out, however, there was no point taking those chances. I nodded at Daniel, and then dashed toward Elia's position. Even though the infantry company wasn't that far from the armored company's current position, it took me about ten minutes to get there even when I summoned Matsukaze and rode on him.

"Sir!"

The moment the infantry company came within sight, Elia saluted. I jumped off Matsukaze and dismissed him before heading toward her. Kneeling before Elia and Gio was a single elderly man who had the rank pins of a major.

"Major…?"

"Kracauer," the human officer replied. "Major Kracauer, of the Legnica 82nd regiment."

I nodded. "Are you currently the highest-ranked commander of your regiment?"

"By virtue of being the highest-ranked survivor, yes." Kracauer looked at me bitterly. "You got us good. And…if the tanks were still firing on our position, I assume that the hero Miyazawa-sama has failed to destroy them."

"Miyazawa Miyako is dead," I told him coldly. Kracauer didn't look surprised, merely resigned. He clearly didn't have any blind faith in the heroes as some sort of godlike beings that would never fail, which was probably why he was still alive.

"We surrender," he said simply and bowed his head humbly. "I know I am in no position to make requests, but I still ask you to spare the lives of my men. Take my head if you must, but at least refrain from killing the rest of my soldiers."

"There's no benefit to killing you," I replied. "And I accept your surrender…of course, as you already know, we have to begin discussing those terms of surrender."

Kracauer looked up, relieved. "Of course. Please name your conditions."

"Yeah." I turned to Elia. "Captain Kratz, escort our prisoner to somewhere more comfortable so that we can better negotiate the enemy's terms of surrender."

"Yes, sir!"

I watched Elia lead Kracauer away before I glanced at the surviving human soldiers, who were trickling through the mountain pass and shepherded into a kneeling cluster under the watchful eye of my soldiers.

Reality was completely different from a game. In a strategy game – especially the military science fiction real-time strategy games that I played – made it seem so easy. The objective was to kill all enemies. Once every single enemy unit was dead, then the game ended and the player achieved victory. There was nothing to negotiate, no prisoners or logistics to worry about, such as concerns of how to feed an extra few thousand men or transport them, or even medical care for the wounded and dying. And there were a lot of wounded and dying.

In reality, the battle didn't end with a complete annihilation of the other force. It was never as simple or clear-cut as that. The moment the enemy lost too many men and found themselves unable to retreat, they would surrender. Only fanatics would fight to the last man, and not every soldier in an army was fanatical enough to die for their nation's cause.

Pursing my lips, I fought down my dismay. It would be much easier to kill every single enemy soldier and leave their corpses where they were. However, I was not a ruthless and coldblooded mass murderer. I was a formerly normal high school student from peaceful Japan.

"Damn it."

Clenching my fists, I turned and went after Elia and Kracauer. I had already formulated a plan. Send the infantry company back to Haemorage on foot, escorting the mass of prisoners. The APCs would provide fire support and discourage any of them from attempting to flee or quelling their desire to resist. Then I would rejoin Daniel's tank company and proceed to Sakaguchi's position to crush them once and for all.

Yeah, let's leave the hard part to Elia.

Eager to delegate the logistics of moving thousands of prisoners-of-war through the longer route (now that we had destroyed the mountain pass) to Elia, I headed toward them. Gio caught my expression and groaned, the veteran sergeant already guessing my intentions.

Well, sucks to be ranked lower than me, I guess?