Looking up as she walked down highway five, the sun was already a quarter of the way between the horizon and directly above her. There were a few clouds, but otherwise it was a completely clear day. As they left Mountain View, Nat was not surprised when Bryden and Ash both came out to travel with her. Today was originally gonna be Shadow and Ash's day to travel with, but with Bryden now being healed he wanted to travel with. The past few days healing and resting had apparently left him a little stir crazy, and he wanted to help and pull his weight. Smiling at the eager to please wolf, she had him take point while they moved into the ditch and headed along the road. They did not stop anywhere in town, as everywhere here was boarded up to prevent any incursions while they were all at the school. Instead, they just moved down the road, keeping an eye and ear out for anything nearby.

     After reaching a couple kilometers outside of the town, the farm houses started to no longer be boarded up. The group treated the ones with open doors warily, but found no trace of any monsters inside. Food, plant life, and tools such as hammers and knives were both looted than immediately replaced. After now having interacted with the local people, she did not want to cause any more damage or pain towards them. Her biggest regret so far was turning into breaking into the office of that campsite the couple of days prior. She had no interaction with the owners, nor had she heard anything bad. But as soon as the world took a downward spiral, she used an axe to take what she wanted. Thus, she made it a rule to not break people's personal property unless it was for self defense. Not making use of her surroundings when it was life or death just because she did not want to break other peoples belongings seemed like a dumb reason to lose her life.

     That thought lead her down a rabbit hole as she walked. What happens to all of the canines bonded to me when I die? Would they all get ejected from the Soulscape? Would they perish alongside her? While this caused her a little bit of anxiety thinking about, she pushed it off to the side. Mainly because there was no way to test that without either her dying or another person who was bonded with animals dying. Pulling out a notebook, she started writing down a list of all the questions she has had about the Soulscape and how it works while they walked. She filled up a number of pages, with both the questions and either the answers to them, or room for the answer to be written in later. She knew that she had forgotten a lot of the questions she had about, and felt like she had asked herself the same questions she had before hand repeatedly.

     While she was writing in her notebook, Bryden stopped in place. Noticing him stop, Nat quickly dropped down and put her notebook away. They were nearing up to a farm, and it had the front door open. There were a couple cows and a bull in the field, which was dotted with small puddles of black. Noticing that there were a couple of corpses of cattle lying around, they had been attacked but either killed or ran off their aggressors. Moving up to the enclosure slowly, Nat got a couple of the dead cows stored inside with the help of Shadow. Moving up to the ones still alive, she tried to get them to enter her Soulscape. Not only did they not try and enter, they backed away from her. Their eyes glistened with fear, they all moved behind the bull, which took up a defensive posture in front of the herd. It was not their standard reaction to a human approaching. It was their default reaction to being approached by a predator.

     Looking behind her, she saw that Bryden and Ash were still waiting by the road, ready to run in should a group of monsters come out. Looking back at the fear filled cattle, she noticed that all of their attention and fear was focused on her. Did she give off a similar feel as a wolf to animals? Did they not want to bond with her because they sensed the wolves? Not wanting to scare the cows to badly, she backed away and left towards the house. She saw the cattle visibly relax as she left them, confirming some of her suspicions. Bryden and Ash rejoined her in front of the house, and moved inside with her in their travelling formation. Entering the house, they found more dried up black puddles, showing that it had been a while since some goblins had died here.

     Upon entering the kitchen, they came across the corpse of the farmer who had lived here previously. Multiple dried puddles of ick both surrounded and covered him, causing the body to be soaked in the ilk. Most of the skin covering it had also discoloured to a grey-black combination. As they neared towards him to see what was going on, suddenly, it started to get up! "Back off, do not bite him or let him bite you!" the body stood up and swayed, his guts hanging out from the open hole in his stomach area. What was this world she was living in. First goblins go through and kill most of the people she had known for the last few years, and now people who should be dead are getting up? Their was only one reason why something dead could stand like it was alive, and that was because it became undead. Black mist rolled off the rotting corpse that started shuffling towards her.

     Taking a few steps back into the hall to make some space, Natalie got Shadow to bring out the fire axe. Hefting it up, she waited behind a corner as she heard what she currently dubbed as a zombie shuffle closer. As soon as it came out from behind the corner, Nat swung the fire axe straight down on its head. The head squelched out some grey matter as the body collapsed into a heap on the floor. Bits of blood pooled out from the body, but what was most disturbing was that the blood was mixed, being both black and red. Almost like a really dark candy cane. Taking a few steps back, she collapsed against a wall and took stock of what she had just seen. There was a dead body that got up and came at her. The black mist was there even as it was moving. And the body had been covered by the black ilk that was goblin blood. Did that mean that any corpse could become a zombie if it was exposed to the black blood?

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Lachlan, Coen, Adam, John, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 25 patrons, which I will then open up an official discord for everyone to come and discuss the story in and hang out!