It was the job of the foot soldiers to prevent that from happening. Lined up in three rows, they plunged the butt ends of their lances into the ground, creating a three-tiered wall of spears.

Normal horses might have feared the pointy barrier, but the pale and evil mounts of these riders did not. Irritated by the obstacle in their way, the dullahans brandished their weapons. The spears were quickly cut down at the shafts, and next, the spearmens’ heads began to go flying…

“Yaaaah! All in, troops!”

That was when the dwarven shield breakers appeared. The hooks they carried caught the dullahans’ shields and pulled them away, whereupon the dwarves’ battle-axes came into play.

Ax and war hammer swung, crushing and smashing. Fearless, undaunted, wave upon wave broke forth, shoring up the battle line. The meaning of the term dwarf fortress became clearly evident.

Can we win?

Who could blame the prince for the passing thought? If all went well, there was no doubt. Yes, the forces of Order might be considered to have the upper hand to this point.

But oh, wait and behold.

The Dark Gods chanted their spells, and a fell wind began to blow over the battlefield. The soldiers who encountered the miasma found that their flesh and organs rotted and dropped away even as they lived; they collapsed writhing to the ground. There was no question: they were being turned into the undead.

When bitten by a zombie, eaten by a ghoul, or when one’s soul is frozen by a wight, it’s as if one becomes their own tormentor. Those who die in battle should rightly return to the earth, but instead they were being incorporated into the enemy ranks as undead warriors.

The longer the battle went on, the more the forces of Chaos would consume and grow. A true “dawn of the dead” might not be so far away…

“Stay steady! Those aren’t the men you know! Destroy them, and give your comrades-in-arms back their bodies!” the prince shouted, but the beginnings of panic were written on his face.

Ranged to the right and left of the prince were his handpicked knights. If they could only break through and surround the Dark Gods, the situation might be salvaged…

But how many knights would have to die to achieve that? Would they, too, become undead?

The answers to those questions would affect more than just this battle. When the fighting was over, how would he find new people? How could the land be made fertile again? How could the towns be brought back?

They might win the battle, but could they really save the world?

“……”

Stop.

Even the gods didn’t control the pips on the dice, much less a mortal.

The prince gave a violent tug on his horse’s reins. He would start with what was in front of him. It bothered him, deeply disturbed him, to know that he could not finish this through his own wisdom and talent alone.

The course of this battle depended on six people who were far away.

The adventurers delving the Dungeon of the Dead.

*

High Priestess opened her eyes when she heard the leader say it was about time to go.

No—opened her eyes wasn’t quite the right expression. It had been a long time since she had seen anything but darkness.

Things have probably started up above, the leader murmured, inspecting a weapon.

The overflowing miasma, the sensation of the cold flagstone, the crushing sense of menace. She could remember the break they took in the hallway between burial chambers like it was yesterday.

She heard the faint, familiar clacking of the leader’s armor. No doubt he was inspecting his cleaver, just like usual.

“Are you all right?”

High Priestess was pulled back to herself when someone suddenly spoke to her.

It was Female Wizard. She was the daughter of a well-to-do family, and her gentle voice reflected her breeding.

“Yes, fine,” High Priestess replied with alacrity, so as not to worry her solicitous companion. She rose.

“Well, if you need anything, let me know. That boy doesn’t understand the first thing about what a girl wants.”

High Priestess dismissed Female Wizard’s customary condescension toward the leader. The way the wizard responded by pouting, her cheeks puffed out, made her seem infantile and unreliable.

But as the leader of the back row, with command over the use of spells, everyone trusted her. High Priestess included, of course. And she was genuinely grateful that Female Wizard was willing to watch over her. She could overlook a little bit of peevish behavior…

“Well, she does have to decide whether to go forward or back, after all. It won’t do to stray far from the elevator.”

This quiet advice must have been offered by Bugman Monk. It wasn’t unusual to have two religious types in a single party. Bugman Monk always spoke carefully, perhaps because he was the oldest and most experienced member of the group. “In the fight that’s about to start, anyone who’s less than totally prepared would only be a burden.”

High Priestess didn’t wholly approve of his brusque tone, but they had known each other a long time. She smiled faintly.

She could hear a rustle as the bugman unrolled the map he had made and traced a path with one long claw.

“We’re about halfway along. We can continue down to the tenth floor or go back. I don’t mind either way.”

“Since we’ve been conservin’ our spells so carefully, we should still have a li’l leeway, right?” Half-Elf Thief sounded like the darkness of the labyrinth didn’t bother him at all. Uncharacteristically for a thief, he was standing on the front row, but he gave no indication of being tired. Or perhaps, like High Priestess, he was just hiding it.

Still, his cheerful tone lifted her own spirits, and for that, she was grateful.

“Then ’gain, vitality and endurance are different things. Won’t do us no good if our hearts ain’t in it. How ’bout a little more rest?”

“What’s this? Tired already? Hee-hee!” Female Warrior laughed meaningfully and playfully jabbed at Half-Elf Thief with her spear.

In conventional terms, Female Warrior was probably the most attractive of the three women in the party, and it was because of the tragedy in her past. High Priestess knew this, because she had experienced something similar. What was more, High Priestess thought Female Warrior incredible, because she never let her past show through.

“Well, that just won’t do,” Female Warrior was saying. “Don’t you want the girls to like you?”

“Aww, shaddup.”

So when Female Warrior whispered, “Right?” to her, High Priestess had to giggle.

It had taken time, but now they were all fast friends. They could never have survived the adventure that led them to this point if even one of them had not been there.

“What about you?”

“Wha?”

High Priestess cocked her head at the unexpected voice. The leader, who had been silently listening to their collective discussion, had suddenly turned the talk to her. “What about you?”

“I, uh…”

It was always this way. He looked lackadaisical, but he was considerate toward all of them. He would never make a decision based on just one person’s input but would make certain he had heard from everyone.

If not…how could I ever have followed him this far?

She had been able to reach this point precisely because of her companions. They had waited until she could rejoin them. Just as even now, they waited to hear her words.

“Let me see… There may not be a next time.” Thus, she had grown able to confidently offer her own opinion. “Personally, I want to finish this now.”

When he spoke, the party looked at one another and all nodded. Then let’s go.

“A final showdown with the Big Bad, huh? I like it. Can’t wait!”

“Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! If that Demon Lord comes at me, I’ll chop him into tiny pieces!”

“Great. Then if we lose, it’s your fault.”

“Aw…”

“It’ll be all right. We all trust one another.”

We’d damn well better. The leader gave Female Wizard a wry smile and started walking.

High Priestess followed after him, clutching the scales and sword between her still-developing breasts.

She didn’t know how many of them would survive or how badly they would be hurt in this fight.

Every single one of those doing battle above might die.

But…

The world would be saved. Of that, she was sure.

Life Path

Bloodline, Experience, and Encounters

It had been three days since his older sister had ceased to exist. That was why he decided to move.

His sister had told him absolutely not to move from where he was, but she was no longer his sister, any more than a hunk of steak was a living cow. No more than sausage was a pig, or an egg was a chick, or a chick a full-grown chicken. A chicken was neither its meat nor its egg.

The boy, only just turned ten, crawled carefully out from between the floorboards where he had been hiding. His pants were wet with his own excrement and unpleasantly itchy, but it was nothing he couldn’t endure.

More pressing was the pain of his stiff joints, and the agonizing effort of trying to keep the floorboards from squeaking. The clamor of the invaders was more distant now, thankfully, but still, there was no substitute for caution.

His sister had told him that he was always hungry, yet strangely, he didn’t notice the emptiness of his stomach now. Perhaps it was the mud he had stuffed into his mouth to prevent his stomach from growling at the charred aroma of those he had once loved. She had taught him that the soil here was edible, and that in times of famine, people sometimes ate it.

His throat was as prickly and dry as the days in high summer when he had played until noon; his head thundered with pain, his temples throbbing to the beat of his heart with a great, deep ache as if they were being struck repeatedly.

He didn’t bother to glance around the room as he scuttled over the floor toward the kitchen. A soup pot had been overturned, and a kitchen knife was missing. The water jug was shattered, but the bottom of it was still intact.

He leaned over it like a dog, slurping down all he could before he had to come up for breath. If he had known that simple water could be so delicious, he would never have begged his sister to add sugar to his drinks.

Then, finally, he sat down on the floor, not even taking the time to wipe his mouth as he looked around the inside of the house.

The dresser was in splinters, a violent mess, his sister’s clothes pulled out and scattered everywhere. Among the debris, he spotted the ribbon he had given her for her birthday. There were marks from little bare feet trampling all over it.

Their father’s bow, which had hung on the wall, was broken; their mother’s medicine bag had been torn apart and then thrown aside.

When was it that our parents disappeared?

He tried to remember what their mother and father had looked like, but as usual, he could summon only hazy images. His father, a ranger, and his mother, a medicine woman, had (so he was told) died in an epidemic before he was old enough to really remember them. His mother, insistent on caring for others, had caught the disease herself; and his father, who had been in the wilderness looking for something savory, had likewise fallen ill.

After that, it was his older sister who raised him.

And he had watched until the very end what had happened to her.