Seven ghoulish creatures charged towards Stephen. He had previously speculated that the party could handle that many without suffering injuries. That was with the whole party and against a weaker variant. 

Barely any of the explosive powder remained. He pulled out a small handgun from his waist. It was the only other weapon he had pocketed from the armory. 

Stephen's vision flickered and shook. There was also a wobble to his gait. Yet, his senses remained intact. Just like with the mid level boss, Stephen could make out the movements of the zombies. It was like glimpsing into the future. 

The problem was his reaction though. He had to keep his sluggish body going. It was imperative that he position himself in a way that only allowed one or two to make movements against himself at a time. 

The first creature lunged forward without abandon. It was greedy to claim the kill. Stephen could almost read the desire in the lifeless eyes. It wasn’t bloodlust, hunger, or instinctual desire to spread the curse. No, it was as if it realized that there was a hole in the hierarchy. It wanted to evolve into a stronger being. 

The other zombies growled and snapped at each other. The greed was present in their gaze as well.

‘Fuckers.’

Stephen tightened the grip on the trigger of his handgun. The spell “Iron Bullet” buzzed inside the weapon. It sounded like a purr to Stephen’s ears. It was further enhanced with the ‘Generic Explosion Concept.’ 

Although Stephen only had a limited supply of such enchanted bullets, they held the concept of an explosion inside them. It wasn’t quite as potent as the explosive powder. Still, when two bullets skewered the eye of the first zombie its head exploded into a spectacle of gore. 

In the opening, a second creature jumped forward. Stephen pushed his body to the left and dodged it. It crashed into the floor behind Stephen. Ignoring it, two more bullets impaled themselves into the skull of the third. However, another one of the ghoulish creatures used the opportunity to narrow the distance. 

Its jaws clamped down on Stephen’s shoulder. Although the zombies were basically annoying mosquitos when compared to the boss, in numbers their existence was just as much of a death sentence. One mistake was all it took.  

Stephen slammed his knife into the nape of the zombie’s neck. He didn’t do it just once but several times, bringing the blade in and out. 

‘It's not over. Just four left.’ 

Stephen could taste his own blood on his lips. The human races on the World of  Paradise had been battling demons for several centuries. Like Gawain said, paladins, priests, clerics, and the like often saw combat with the undead. These things had been studied.

If the curse didn’t accumulate inside Stephen’s body, he could deal with it after his Status opened up. 

Stephen fired several more rounds. Two more fell dead. Unfortunately, when the creature bit into his shoulder, it had also limited his range of motion. He was unable to dodge when another came at him from the side. Its teeth fastened around the side just above the waistline. 

Although the pain of its digging into his flesh was unbearable, Stephen ignored it and continued to fire bullets. He missed one, but killed another.

The one he missed lunged forward. It bit into his arm that held his gun. He slammed his knife into the side of its head. With his other free, he shot the final zombie that was still ripping into his side. The battle had finally come to a close.

 

Stephen’s body became heavy, his thinking slowed, and all of his senses dulled. His head felt like it had been split open. He groaned and analyzed the state of his body.

Pain was a construct. The scientists of the State had said that often. Of course, they said such things while experimenting and inflicting great agony on human subjects. 

‘Pain is gain.’

‘Pain is character growth.’

‘Pain is weakness leaving the body.’

There was the scientific basis that pain was a necessary biological stimulus. However, the State with their knowledge could bypass that and create soldiers immune to pain without losing that functionality. Multiple methods were devised. The most well researched was stimuli substitution, where the pain signals were replaced with neutral signals that only contained information.  

Those were failed experiments, or rather they were seen as suboptimal. Due to principles that were admittingly unknown and still being studied by the State, pain seemed to provide a tangible buff that couldn’t be shown in one’s Status page. The prominent theories speculated that it was related to the higher laws — specifically they pointed to the flow of karma and threads of casualties. 

Perhaps, it was just an excuse to run countless tests though. 

‘Fuck, it hurts.’ 

Whatever the case, Stephen blocked out his pain receptors and began to dig his knife into his wounds. He cut out any outer tissue. He then sprinkled a very minute amount of powder onto the open wounds. The flesh sizzled as it cauterized.

Stephen then limped to the armory. If Stephen was human then he would have undoubtedly died. Still, when he thought of all the experiments that were done to his body, he found it hard to be appreciative.

While moving, he even wondered if he was in fact still alive.

‘What if I’ve become a conscious zombie?’

The thought gave Stephen a chuckle. Of course, unsurprisingly, his facial muscles were stiff and there were no auditory sounds escaping his lips. He wore his deadpan expression as he arrived into the room. 

He ignored the monster cores and the various notifications and made his way into the room. He could feel that his Status had unlocked and that was the important part.  

The three women were groaning and alive. He walked past them and grabbed various health potions. He gulped down a few and poured several of them across his body.

It wasn’t an instantaneous reaction, yet it would still heal his body overtime. This process would further be amplified by the energy that Stephen could now feel and access. He would have to delay his cultivation and focus on recovery though. 

‘I shouldn’t have to worry about the curse of the lower level infected.’ Stephen intuitively felt this. He just had to keep rotating the energy in his body until the impurities were purged.

After stablazing his own condition, Stephen made it to where Alex’s mangled corpse laid. Without a doubt, the delinquent had died. Stephen lightly tapped the corpse with his foot without remorse.

Stephen crouched down. Something at the back of his head was supplying him with information. He placed his hand on Alex’s chest. There was some black energy swirling in his body. It was the most pure energy that he ever felt. 

This pretty much confirmed that the slaughter that Stephen had seen on the surface was indeed caused by the Demon Lord. The childlike laughter that Stephen had heard was either the Demon Lord herself or one of her top subordinates. Either way, it interfered with the events that just happened.

‘Total party wipe… was there no way to have actually survived?’ 

Stephen’s thoughts turned. 

‘Gawain is probably fine… or atleast alive.’ 

Stephen sighed and pulled out several of the remaining health potions and poured it onto Alex’s corpse. It greedily sucked it all up. 

“Hey.”

He should be fine now. Stephen could hear the other three begin to stand up and so he just waited above Alex’s body.

“Bastard, why don’t you wake up already?”

Images continued to flash in the back of Stephen’s consciousness. It was like his life was flashing before his eyes. The images were limited to his childhood; in particular, he saw scenes with Alex in them. 

‘I don’t think I died…’

Stephen couldn’t be sure of that fact after seeing Alex’s hand twitch. He tipped a bottle and then another towards Alex’s mouth, forcing him to drink every droplet. They wouldn’t have any medical supplies remaining, but Stephen could see the man’s bone snap back into place. The cuts and lacerations sealed up. 

The health potions didn’t have that amazing of an effect. More than likely, Alex was no longer human. He probably wasn’t a zombie though. Perhaps, he was turned into a demonspawn. 

Alex's eyes fluttered upon. 

“Miss me already, bitch?”

“Nah, I just didn’t want to die myself. Haha.” Stephen lied. His standard fake-smile was plastered on his face. 

“Fucker,” Alex stretched his hand out, “Help me up and wipe your eyes dumbass.”

Stephen pulled him up. Alex dusted himself off like nothing happened and then snorted at Stephen.

“Hmph. To think you would cry tears of blood for me. Fuck, am I actually just that awesome. Hmm. I guess I can’t blame you. ”

‘I didn’t cry…’ 

Still, Stephen wiped the blood from his face. He probably looked worse than Alex, who seemed to make a complete recovery. 

The three women, who didn’t have memory of the previous events, questioned Alex and Stephen. Alex couldn’t offer any intelligible insight and Stephen chose not to volunteer such information at the time. 

In the end, the party waited in the room and collected themselves. They were mostly waiting to see if Gawain would show up, but he didn’t. 

During that time, Stephen sorted through various notifications and the various gear that the chests offered up. In the end, he didn’t know if it was all worth it. He was too tired. He just knew that they were at least alive.

 

Examining the details of the loot made it clear that a Dungeon Master was involved. It was highly likely it was the owner of the child-like laughter. It would explain why some details seemed half-assed. 

‘What the fuck is all this? This wasn't supposed to happen... Why do I have to do all this extra work?’ He could almost hear that child-like entity groaning.  

Nonetheless, Stephen was pretty sure he knew what ‘bad ending’ meant now.