6

THE ZOMBIE ORC

After the war, each country underwent a reduction of its armed forces.

Both the winning and losing armies alike greatly pared down their forces to an agreed level, so as to reduce the chances of a further war occurring in the future. Still, the agreed level was set at very different parameters for the victors as opposed to the losers.

The Shiwanashi Forest army was more of a self-defense force, set up to protect against a random orc uprising or an invasion by the humans.

The army was split into two battalions, one meant to combat the orcs, the other, the humans.

The army was around 1,200 heads strong.

The First Battalion was made up of mostly archers and came in at around seven hundred soldiers.

The Second Battalion was made up of mainly magic wielders and numbered roughly five hundred.

Those who stayed in the army after the war were mostly the ones born into military families, who couldn’t do anything else but fight. This was true for all races, though, not just the elf army. However, about half the armed forces were made up of members of the military elite who were headhunted for their combat skills after the war and drafted into the new self-defense force almost as a matter of course.

Essentially, this meant that the surviving armies of each nation were made up of the best possible soldiers who had survived to peacetime.

With their extra-long life spans, the elves didn’t concern themselves as much with fostering “the next generation” as humans did. There were almost no new recruits to the elf army, only veterans who had made it to the end of the war using their superior skills.

The Second Battalion, of course, contained five hundred of only the very best magical soldiers the elf kingdom had to offer.

Surely five hundred seasoned magic wielders was overkill, considering their opponents were merely a bunch of rotting zombies.

Whether or not a lich was really lurking in the woods, a hundred soldiers ought to have been more than enough for such an operation as this one.

But the elf army was nothing if not hypervigilant, even now. They knew how foolish it was to underestimate their enemies. They had learned from bitter experience. All felt that caution was warranted.

Now arriving at the site of the zombie outbreak, Second Battalion General Calendula immediately mobilized the scouting parties to sweep the area.

The sweep involved ten scouting platoons working in tandem.

The platoons spread out in a wide radius with the main platoon in the center. Every three hundred feet or so, they would pause to scratch magic sigils into the dirt.

These magic sigils could detect the movement of an enemy within 150 feet of their range. The effects would only last for a few minutes.

The army used the magic sigils to make sure the way ahead was clear. If all remained still, they would proceed another 150 feet and recall the sweep platoons.

The sweep platoons would reconvene with the main army before splitting up again and moving out to cast further detection sigils.

This process would be repeated until they had discovered an enemy.

“Report, Arrow Three. Enemy sighted. Five zombies, three skeletons.”

“Take them down.”

As soon as an enemy was detected, the sweep platoon became a strike force, working in tandem with the main force to surround the enemy target and crush each one.

This maneuver was called the Elf Arrow and was a traditional elven battle tactic continued for generations.

“Report, Arrow Six. Enemy general sighted. It’s a lich. Plus, over a hundred zombies and skeletons!”

“All right. Eliminate the lich, then take out the rest of the undead.”

The Elf Arrow had its drawbacks, though.

And the enemy had exploited its weaknesses on too many occasions to count, even using the fingers of both hands.

Still, it was considered the best course of action for a zombie eradication mission.

“Lady Thunder Sonia! We are grateful for your assistance.”

“Yep, yep, you can count on me. I’ve taken out many a lich in my day! No sweat!”

Thunder Sonia’s confident tone rang out clearly through the forest.

The rousing words of the Elf Hero raised the spirits of the entire army.

The past three years had been largely devoid of this sort of large-scale battalion operation.

But they felt confident—and calm. After all, they were fighting nothing more threatening than a bunch of jelly-brained zombies. And they were the army’s elite, the ones who had survived the long war all the way to the end.

Plus, they had Thunder Sonia in their corner. Even if things did go south, the Elf Hero would be there to cover their butts.

Victory was assured.

There was no fear in their hearts. The pounding…was from excitement.

Yes, a zombie cleanup operation… It was more like a parade.

“All troops! Commence the attack!”

“Yaaargh!!!”

Letting forth an almighty war cry, the elf army launched their attack.

The odds were stacked in their favor.

They had the forces and the skill. Their commanding officer was excellent at leadership and would make no careless mistakes. Morale was high, and everyone was keeping a cool and steady head. They were familiar with the undead’s many weaknesses, as well. And they had honed their strategy to exploit those weaknesses.

There was practically no chance that they would lose.

Sadly, they had made one fatal miscalculation…

You see, they had forgotten whose corpses littered the floor of the Shiwanashi Forest, just before the end of the war…

At the same time…

In a dark corner of the Shiwanashi Forest…

While the elf army continued their quiet sweep…there was a change under the silent canopy of the trees.

The soil was beginning to rise, chunks flying into the air.

Something was emerging from the ground beneath.

The something dragged itself out of the dirt, soggy mud splattering all around as it straightened up.

It stood ten feet tall.

Tall enough to dwarf even an ogre.

It was humanoid in shape, and where its eyes should have been, there was a blazing red glow.

It was a zombie.

Having risen, the zombie stood in its dirt hole and gazed around, pausing as it noticed something off in the distance.

“Rawrgh! See that, soldiers?”

The creature’s voice echoed around Shiwanashi Forest.

It was a low, raspy, guttural voice that sounded as though it was emanating from the depths of hell.

“I see them clearly! The foul army of the elves! Those skulking rats, whose approach took us by surprise on that fateful day!”

In life, the undead creature must have been an imposing, colossal figure.

At nearly ten feet tall, it was as tall as any giant, and its sinewy muscles, although sloughing off the bone now, still looked as strong as steel. Its arms and legs were as thick around as tree trunks.

It was missing its left arm from the elbow down, but its right arm was whole, and in its right hand, it gripped a giant steel war hammer. The weapon was roughly hewn and looked like nothing so much as a huge chunk of raw iron ore.

Clad in rusted armor, the zombie threw back its head and roared with laughter.

“Rargh! Behold! Behold! What a glorious sight! Don’t you agree, comrades?”

All of a sudden, there was a movement in the shadows, and the woods behind the great zombie were at once thick with a veritable horde of other zombies.

And not just a few dozen zombies, either. There were hundreds. An entire army of the undead, standing in formation behind their leader.

Many of them had no eyes.

And yet a red glow burned in the empty sockets, providing them with sight.

They were all facing the same direction. With their acute night vision, they were able to see the elf army as clear as day.

“Is this not cause for laughter? For celebration! The fates have afforded us this one chance at vindication, this sole opportunity to settle the old score!”

The great zombie raised its war hammer high in the air.

Slowly, the zombie horde raised their own weapons high as well.

Bent, rusted, and twisted swords and axes. These were specialized weapons of war, weapons that had been left buried underground for years. And yet every blade emitted a fiery-red glow.

“…And let us offer up our gratitude! Gratitude to the wise and venerable Gandaguza, who has given us this second chance!”

The surrounding horde of zombies did not speak.

Zombies are, essentially, incapable of speech. The most they can manage are groaning, guttural noises.

In fact, the only zombies capable of coherent speech were those who were either higher beings or those who had been specially trained…

“And let us repent! Repent our inhospitality toward Gandaguza, our arrogance in ignoring his words!”

The zombie horde understood well.

They knew they should proceed covertly.

They knew they should begin moving through the forest slowly and steadily, silently closing in on their enemy.

Just like how the elf army had sneaked up on them, on that fateful day in the past…

The zombies’ minds had already rotted away to mush, and they had no brain activity to speak of. However, their bodies thirsted for revenge over the indignities they had been dealt.

With their broken necks, their pierced hearts, their perforated lungs, somehow…they knew.

They knew their time had come.

“Advance, soldiers! Together, let us crush these foul elves!”

The horde of shambling undead began to shuffle forward, following the orders of the zombie giant.

They advanced slowly. And above all…quietly.

The first one to notice something odd was a scout who had retreated to the back of the group to recharge his magical powers.

The scout’s long ears picked up the sound of footsteps behind him.

But…he was the last of the company. None of his fellow soldiers remained behind him. He was supposed to be the last one.

Could it be reinforcements, coming from Shiwanashi Forest Town?

Or perhaps a messenger, bringing vital news?

Thinking that it must be either one or the other, the elf turned around. That’s when he saw it. A zombie orc, its rotten body moving at unnatural speed as it advanced upon him.

The scout was a veteran, with fifty years of battle experience under his belt.

The zombie orc was one of the rare assassin types, and its rotten skin was a mottled color somewhat close to yellow. The scout quickly noted this.

He also realized, in the space of a split second, that the zombie orc intended to stab him through the throat with the shortsword it was brandishing. There was no time to dodge the attack, either.

“Rear atta—”

The scout wanted to at least warn the others, perform one last noble act of duty before he was slain, but the words died in his throat.

The sharp sword severed his vocal cords, and in place of a shout, only blood burbled out.

Fatally wounded, the elf still tried to get ahold of the situation, to somehow understand how this had happened.

Where had the zombie orc come from? Where had it been hiding?

“…!”

Unable to fight death, the elf rolled its eyes wildly, trying to grasp some kind of clue.

Then he saw it.

Behind the zombie orc.

A veritable horde of undead.

One of their number held aloft a single standard. The material was tattered and torn, the flag itself almost unrecognizable.

But he had seen that flag somewhere before. He was sure of it.

It was the standard of the orc general, the one who had fallen in the Shiwanashi Forest…

“Guh…”

But that was as much as he remembered. The next moment, the assassin’s shortsword cleaved through his brain stem, and the elf’s thoughts were silenced forever.

“Enemy forces to the rear?! How many?!”

“…There have to be at least a thousand, sir!”

“Any casualties?!”

“Half the scouts are dead, sir… We’ve incurred heavy losses already.”

General Calendula was incredulous. He could barely believe the report.

A horde of zombies at their rear. It was like they came out of nowhere.

By the time anyone realized anything was wrong, half of the scouting parties had already been exterminated while they were hanging back and waiting for their magical powers to recharge. Now they would never be returning.

So far, they had ascertained that the lich-led zombie horde they were hunting up ahead numbered at least three hundred. Calendula had already been debating with himself whether to single out the lich or try to annihilate the entire horde without losing too many soldiers, when the messenger had stopped them with this terrifying report.

They had been taken completely by surprise, and now all advantage was lost.

General Calendula had been convinced that their scouting parties would pick up on any threats ahead. It hadn’t occurred to him to cover the rear.

“But where? Where did they spring from?!”

“We don’t know; that’s the thing… They just appeared!”

“Dammit!”

General Calendula was completely rattled.

The enemy forces were too great in number. Their point of origin was unknown. They had launched a successful surprise attack and caused huge losses among the elf soldiers.

The only thing to do in a situation like this was retreat. Without hesitation. They needed to abandon their dignity and flee.

“…”

Retreat…

Yes, that was the decision General Calendula came to. And yet his sixth sense was screaming at him to reconsider. As if further danger lay in that direction…

As if attempting to retreat would lead to the annihilation of the entire company.

“…It’s like it’s happening all over again…”

Calendula was lost in a memory. A memory from around one hundred years ago.

It happened while Calendula was just a commander, not a general as he was now.

His father, General Catalpa, had been caught in a similar sort of trap.

General Catalpa was said to have a mind that moved at lightning speed, enabling him to make decisions faster than any other leader.

So when ensnared by the enemy, he issued an immediate order to retreat.

As a result, his troops were surrounded, and all perished.

Calendula had seen the whole thing go down from his vantage point on a nearby hill.

So he knew. He knew that his father, Catalpa, had been correct when he gave the order to withdraw.

He had made the correct decision, based on all available information at the time.

But it was almost like the enemy had known what Catalpa was about to do, and they sprang into action accordingly. As Calendula watched from above, he screamed down to his father’s army. “No! Don’t run that way!”

Boxed in by the enemy, Catalpa’s troops were left with nowhere to flee. They were all wiped out, down to the very last soldier.

This situation, the one Calendula found himself in…felt just like it did that day, one hundred years ago.

They had to retreat.

But if they ran in the wrong direction, it could spell annihilation for them all.

Where, then? Which way should he retreat?

Standard battle protocol would dictate focusing the attack on the lich up ahead as planned, leaving a smaller company of soldiers to fight the horde that had sneaked up behind them. Once the lich had been taken out, they could then cut a path directly through the weakened zombie army to freedom.

Identify and slay the lich as a matter of priority. This was the standard method used to exterminate a horde of undead.

But they had been attacked from the rear. Did this mean the lich that had been spotted up ahead was only a decoy?

Was the lich in front of them? Or was it behind?

They needed to flee in the direction of the true lich.

If they got it wrong, their defeat would be a certainty.

The presence of a lich meant that the undead horde was essentially immortal, able to be revived over and over again. Attempting to break through them would be an exercise in futility. They would be caught up in an endless battle and incur serious damage to their army, if they even managed to escape at all.

Just like what had happened to General Catalpa.

“…”

Calendula thought hard.

Who was commanding this horde of undead?

The undead army was being commanded by a lich, obviously. But wasn’t the lich meant to be ahead of them…?

Calendula needed to give the order to retreat, without any further hesitation. But he still didn’t have enough information. He could not give an order blindly.

“General! We need your orders!”

Calendula could not act.

Time was so precious. If he didn’t make a move now, they would miss their window of opportunity and lose the chance to flee at all.

He had to give some sort of order, even if there was a chance it was the wrong one.

Calendula knew that. But for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“Hey! Cally!”

General Calendula heard someone calling out to him.

There was only one who would refer to a general like him by such a childish nickname.

He turned to see the mage standing there. Long golden hair blowing in the wind, clad in a dark-green robe. A female elf.

“Lady Sonia…”

“I’m guessing the zombies were hiding in shallow graves when we passed by! Then once they were sure we’d gone ahead, they sprang up! It’s just like what happened with your dad! Pretty crafty bunch of stiffs, aren’t they?!”

The sight of Thunder Sonia made Calendula heave an internal sigh of relief.

The Elf Hero was here.

Beside her stood her bodyguard and grandnephew, Aconitum.

He never said much as a rule, and he was silent now, seemingly deep in thought. There was a look of apprehension on his face.

He was a civil official and had no experience on the battlefield. No doubt, he had never found himself in a pinch like this one before.

“I know! Believe me, I know! But there’s nowhere to flee…”

“Stop overthinking it! Tsk, you wanna play right into the enemy’s hands, sonny boy?!”

“But…I cannot risk a repeat of what happened to my father!”

“Foolish child! Have you forgotten whose presence you stand in?!”

Thunder Sonia puffed up her modest chest. Calendula blinked at her, suddenly remembering.

Yes, of course. Thunder Sonia was here.

The Great Elf Sorceress, Thunder Sonia, to be precise.

The witch of a thousand spells. The archmage who had brought about the end of the war.

The Elf Hero. The most powerful magic caster in all of elf history.

“I’ll open up a path for us! And act as rear guard! Fear not! I’ll make sure you make it safely back home!”

“…”

“Hey! Didn’t you just get married to a cute girl? You’ve gotta get back to her, right? And you can’t possibly go dying on the battlefield in peacetime, now, can you? You’ve gotta make it back! You’ve gotta take all your troops back! Their lives are in your hands, understand?!”

Calendula felt his chest swell with emotion in response to Sonia’s rousing speech.

Yes, she was right. She had always been right, ever since he was a child.

She thought of all the elves as her family and knew the names of each one. When the situation looked bleak, Sonia would take it upon herself to step forward and protect them all, even at great risk to herself.

That’s why she was the Elf Hero. That’s why everyone always listened to what she had to say.

“You got that, General Cally? I’m waiting!”

“Yes! Yes, Lady Sonia! I, Calendula, shall lead the troops and withdraw!”

“Good! Well said! Then stand back! I shall cut us a path to freedom!”

This still didn’t solve the issue of exactly which direction they ought to break in, but Calendula had made up his mind about one thing.

If the Elf Hero was willing to stick her neck out and fight for them all, then Calendula would fight, too, no matter which direction they ended up taking.

And thus, he finally came to a conclusion. They would break in the direction of home.

“Everyone, about-face! We break through the zombie horde to the rear!”

“Yessir!”

The soldiers began running.

Calendula had given his order. Now there would be no further hesitation. If there was a lich to be found among the horde who had sneaked up behind them, then they would slay it. If it transpired that the lich was actually located farther ahead in the forest, then they would simply return another day with more people and hunt it anew.

Many of the company would die. Calendula would be held responsible for the losses and demoted for sure.

He might even be forced to retire from military service altogether.

But even so, at least this way they would be able to avoid complete annihilation. If they could get most of their soldiers back to the town and warn everybody else, then Calendula would consider that a victory.

A victory for the elves.

He adamantly refused to lose to a bunch of rotting zombies.

“Begin the retreat!”

The sound of elven war cries echoed around the forest in response.

As soon as the withdrawal operation began, General Calendula noticed what set these zombies apart.

Yes, they were all undead.

Skeletons, zombies, wraiths…

No major-level evil creatures like vampires or headless horsemen, but that wasn’t so unusual for an army commanded by a lich.

The lich, itself, was a major-level evil undead, but its regenerative powers only worked on creatures below its own level…zombies, skeletons, and the like.

But that wasn’t the issue here.

The skeletons, the zombies…were all corpses, but in life, they had one thing in common.

Their race.

“…They’re all orcs…”

Calendula muttered under his breath as he stood on the front line, tossing fireball attacks at the oncoming zombie army.

Zombie orcs. Walking orc skeletons.

The zombie army was made up almost completely of raised orc corpses.

Even the wraiths that came fluttering through the night air resembled orcs.

But none of this was really so strange, after all.

This was the Shiwanashi Forest. The site of the final bloody confrontation between the orcs and the elves. The ground was littered with orc corpses. If zombies were being summoned to action here, it stood to reason that those zombies would have been orcs in life.

But Calendula was filled with dread.

The Shiwanashi Forest…

An enemy attack force that came out of nowhere and ambushed them to the rear. It was all just too sophisticated for a zombie horde…

And when Calendula looked really closely, he noticed that all the orc zombies were clad in the same type of armor.

The armor was rusted and filthy, and hard to identify, but it was unmistakably the same type. Their weapons, as well…all seemed to belong to the same grade…

Calendula had seen this raiment, those weapons, before.

It happened over three years ago, but he hadn’t forgotten a single second.

“Hey! Cally! Looks like we can break through right here!”

Fighting by his side was Thunder Sonia. But she didn’t seem to have noticed what Calendula had.

She was unleashing powerful magical attacks, far more devastating than any other’s. In no time at all, she cut a channel through the enemy ranks and was leading their army through.

With each wave of her staff, she unleashed powerful bolts of lightning, her namesake thunder magic in full effect. The bolts hit the zombies, turning them to instant charcoal, powdering the bones of the skeletons, and evaporating the wraiths into puffs of black smoke.

Yes, Thunder Sonia was living up to her title of Elf Hero, all right. But Calendula knew that this ancient woman was missing something important.

“Uh…Grannywitch… I’ve got a bad feeling about…”

“Did you just call me Grannywitch?! You impudent runt! Want me to tell all your soldiers about how long it took you to stop wetting the bed when you were a boy? Huh?! ’Cause I will! Watch yourself!”

“S-sorry… But, Lady Sonia… I really do have a bad feeling about this! We need to proceed with caution!”

“Hmph! It’s just a zombie horde! For me, this is nothing! Add another ten thousand to the number, and I still wouldn’t even break a sweat! Right, Aconitum?”

“Um… I think things are bad enough as they are…”

The grandnephew seemed to be having trouble catching his breath.

Usually, Calendula would have scoffed at this pathetic display and wondered aloud how he’d managed to survive to the end of the war despite being such a weakling.

But to be honest, Calendula was quite out of breath as well.

Still, that was to be expected. They were up against an army made up of orc zombies and orc skeletons.

Sure, they were technically just a horde of shambling undead. But in life, these guys had been orcs. And they still retained some of their orcish power and vigor.

In a one-on-one battle, it would be easy enough to dispatch any of them using the traditional elven hit-and-dash tactic, but there were just too many of them.

They would have to use all their strength to push through the never-ending onslaught of undead.

In the past, a fight against the orcs would lead to the orcish numbers dwindling the longer the battle went on, whether or not the orcs were winning or losing.

This was truer than ever in battles containing many beautiful female elf soldiers. The orcs would begin to disappear from the battle, starting with the victorious ones.

They would fight one-on-one, win, and then drag their female opponents back to their hideouts to be enjoyed as war spoils.

So the best battle strategy against the orcs was said to involve drawing out the battle for as long as possible.

Of course, the taken elf women would naturally go on to bear orc children if left to the mercy of their orc captors, so a rescue mission would need to be launched to recover them, preferably before they were violated. But in essence, a longer, more drawn out battle would prove advantageous to the opposing party, in terms of sheer numbers of soldiers on the field.

But against zombie soldiers, thinning the herd, reducing the number of enemies… That was looking like an impossibility.

Yes, they were fighting orcs. Orcs using orcish tactics. But the standard anti-orc strategies would be of no use this time.

Because the fallen zombies would only rise to fight again, returning to the fray.

All because of the influence of the evil lich.

Calendula had never fought such an exhausting battle before.

The orcs had lost the great war, true. But it wasn’t because they were weak.

No, it was because they were so strong. The strongest orc soldiers would withdraw from the front line of battle in order to drag away women for their purposes. But they would fight to the last soldier.

Now they were zombies. Their strength as soldiers had decreased.

Despite this, they were still fighting on. And they had the number advantage.

At this rate, if it took too much time for the elves to break through, then…

“Hah! Cally! Forget about your deadly premonitions and bad hunches! You were actually right! Look over there!”

Thunder Sonia was suddenly shouting, her face lit up with glee.

Calendula turned to look. Thunder Sonia was pointing to the center of the orc zombie horde.

It was immediately obvious what she was pointing at. A single, distinctive undead.

It was wrapped in a tattered black cloak and hobbling along while leaning on a long staff. A hunchbacked figure of a zombie.

Its eyes blazed with a red glow, and unspeakable green slime dripped from its hanging mouth.

The rasping sound emitting from the ragged hole in its throat… Was it just the wind blowing through? Or was it the zombie itself, uttering curses toward someone?

Its face was hideous, terrible, revolting.

And…familiar.

“…It’s the Great Chief Warlord! Gandaguza!”

Yes…it was the Great Chief Warlord of the orcs, Gandaguza himself.

The powerful orc mage, adjutant to the protector of the orcs’ interests in the Shiwanashi Forest, Orc General Baraben himself.

Gandaguza had met his end…right here, in the forest.

Yes, in the final battle for the Shiwanashi Forest, fought between the elves and the orcs.

“So it’s him… Well, I guess if any orc was ever going to turn into a lich after death, it would be Gandaguza. Well anyway, all we have to do is cut him down, and then we can put this whole thing to bed. Leave it to me!”

Lichs were a variety of undead that came about when someone very old, and very magical, died with hatred in their hearts.

Calendula, and Thunder Sonia, too, had both fought against Gandaguza. They knew he was more than powerful enough to have transformed into a vengeful lich.

His magical skill and acuity more than qualified him to be an orc general, to hold a position of utmost respect.

However, while Calendula and Sonia were unaware of this fact, an orc mage actually carried low status in orcish society. To become a mage, after all, one had to go through thirty years of sexlessness and remain a virgin.

The orc mages gave up their youth in service of the country, which was a sacrifice respected by all orcs. That said, however, there was still a horrible stigma attached to being a thirty-year-old virgin. No orc mage could shake it.

“…”

Thunder Sonia was just gearing up to approach Gandaguza when, all of sudden, he stopped uttering his foul curses and lifted his head, gazing this way.

He saw Sonia. And spoke her name.

“The elf witch… Thunder Sonia…”

“Hmm?”

He was…grinning.

The orc zombie was gazing right at Thunder Sonia with his glowing eyes, and…grinning.

“Gu-gu-gu-gu! S-s-so you saw through our sorcery…and sniffed out our trap…”

The foul voice that burbled from his rotten throat sounded thick and soupy with decay.

It was like a voice from a bottomless swamp. It struck a visceral fear into the hearts of all who heard it.

“Hmph, yeah, well, like we’d ever actually fall for a silly trick like that thought up by a rotten old corpse like you!”

Thunder Sonia whirled around.

Aconitum and Calendula were both nodding and smiling at her, as if to say, Yes! That’s the spirit!

Okay, so they hadn’t noticed anything until it was too late, and there was really no denying that the zombie mage had trapped them with a quite ingenious trick. But if their leader Sonia wanted to bluff, then they were going to back her up.

Anything to prevent the morale of the troops from plummeting to despair.

It was peacetime, after all. Only their butts were on the line.

“It’s time to pay the land taxes you owe on that grave of yours, Gandaguza. We can send the bill to you in the underworld.”

“Gu-gu-gu-gu! Foolish wench, Thunder Sonia!”

“Hey! Who are you calling foolish?! Watch your foul tongue!”

Then Thunder Sonia paused and whipped her head around. “Right, men?” she trilled.

She had been counting on her two lackeys to back her up again, but not this time. They were busy dealing with the horde of zombies that was closing in. This left Sonia to turn back around and deal with the undead Gandaguza all by herself.

“Gu-gu-gu! You really thought you could fight your way out of my trap?”

“Oh yeah, with ease! Remember who you’re talking to, you shambling zombie! I am Thunder Sonia, archmage of the elves!”

“Fool!”

Gandaguza struck the earth with his staff.

“What the…?”

Thunder Sonia trembled for a moment, believing that the lich had cast some sort of magic. But there was no sign of any spell.

The next moment, however, she began to feel a strange aura.

It was like the air had grown heavy all of a sudden. Almost as if some sort of immense, powerful presence was coming this way. Goose bumps sprang up along Sonia’s arms. Her hand tightened around her staff.

“Youuu…”

A voice boomed out across the forest, drowning out the groaning of the zombies.

The zombie horde fell eerily silent. Now there was only the sound of squelching footsteps.

The owner of the booming voice was coming this way, toward Thunder Sonia, tree trunks snapping beneath its feet like twigs.

“Thunderrr Soniaaa!”

The bloodcurdling voice burst forth from its rotten larynx with a rasping gurgle.

Then, as the trees just in front of it were uprooted and shoved aside, it appeared in sight. A single orc zombie.

Yes, it was clearly an orc. But the size of it…was humongous.

It had to be at least ten feet tall. Horribly rotten but still clearly filled with power. It advanced with quick, jerky, energetic movements.

Its metal armor was decorated with distinctive spikes. It carried a colossal, heavy-looking steel war hammer like the kind wielded by the ogres.

Everything about this horrible orc’s appearance was at once immediately familiar to Thunder Sonia.

“Clan Chief General Baraben…!”

Yes, this was the general who had united all the clans of the Shiwanashi Forest.

He had been in charge of the final line of defense and had been the last of the orcs to be defeated by the elves.

All orcs knew, loved, and respected him for his bravery and prowess in battle.

The level of respect he was afforded by the people ranked him second only to the Orc King.

“Raaagh! I’ll cut you down and make amends for my humiliating defeat!”

The giant howled.

His voice was so loud that it shook the earth and sent shock waves rippling through the leaves of the trees.

The red glow in the eye sockets of the zombie horde suddenly began to glow five times as brightly.

“Gu-gu-gu! This is the end, Thunder Sonia!”

“Oh, who cares?! So what, an orc general came to join the party? The more the merrier, you gargantuan oaf!”

Thunder Sonia stuck out her tongue and waved her staff.

Thunder Strike!!!

As she swung the staff in a wide arc, she unleashed her patented, silently cast magical technique.

Twelve bolts of pure, concentrated lightning appeared in a flash, hurtling toward General Baraben.

As they struck their target, there was a colossal bang, and everything went white.

Then the shock wave spread out, mowing down everything in the vicinity.

The air crackled with electricity, and Thunder Sonia’s hair stood on end.

“How do you like that? Did it in one strike, didn’t I?”

Zombies were vulnerable to fire.

But lightning did the trick as well. Thunder Sonia’s magic attacks were powerful enough to turn a sixty-five-foot-long zombified dragon into charcoal in the blink of an eye.

Her thunder and lightning magic powers were known throughout the entire world.

“Graaagh!”

“…Whoa!”

The war hammer came out of nowhere, aiming for her head, but Thunder Sonia dodged it just in the nick of time.

The war hammer came down hard on the patch of ground where Thunder Sonia had been, sending mud splattering upward.

“What the…?”

Thunder Sonia gazed at the mud crater in disbelief. Then, as the dust from her attack settled, she could make out the figure of General Baraben, looking completely unscathed.

Gandaguza, too, was unharmed by her attack.

“Gu-gu-gu! Magic doesn’t work on lichs!”

Indeed, lichs are highly magical beings themselves.

And on top of that, Gandaguza had also mastered high-level magical barrier spells to be used specially against the elves in warfare.

So it went without saying that Sonia’s Thunder Strike had zero effect on them.

General Baraben had been surrounded by the protective influence of a barrier spell as well. And he was also clad in heavy-duty armor. Yes…the armor. The armor that was seemingly painted with yellow and red paint…

“Resistant paint, eh?”

“Gu-gu-gu!”

Gandaguza gurgled with glee.

It was dwarven-made, attack-resistant paint that had been slapped with a thick coating on the armor.

Each color of this special paint had different properties. The red paint had flame-resistant properties. The yellow paint repelled Thunder Strikes, the blue was for extreme cold, like ice magic attacks, and the green was for earth magic attacks.

The exact composition of the paint was kept a closely guarded secret, known only to the dwarves themselves.

The dwarves distributed the paint to their allies in the war. As far as Thunder Sonia recalled, the Alliance of Four had been doing pretty well during the war, after they first started to use the paint.

The human prince, Nazar, wore shining armor daubed with beautiful bright-blue, red, and yellow paint when he cut down scores of demon knights. It was all anyone could talk about for ages after.

But still… It was paint.

Anyone could slap some paint on.

Soon, the formula for the paint was stolen by the enemy, and before long the orcs and the demons were all using it.

After that, the resistant paint became a common sight during battle, slapped on to the armor of the soldiers on both sides.

“Guh…”

Thunder Sonia groaned.

Zombies were, obviously, impervious to cold and the effects of the dirt and soil. Ice magic and earth magic would be of no use. She already knew that.

But now fire magic and thunder magic were rendered useless as well…

“This…this isn’t good.”

Beads of cold sweat slid down Thunder Sonia’s brow.