Corpse Fiend
Our big group, consisting of eleven people and one machine—my vending machine self, Lammis, Hulemy, Captain Kerioyl, Shui, the red-and-white twins, the Band of Gluttons, and Mishuel—is on the hunt. We also have the hooded buar cart with us.
We leave the settlement feeling optimistic that, with so many people, Lammis will never be scared.
“This place is as frightening as always,” says the captain.
“I just remembered something I have to do, so let’s go home, White.”
“Yeah, Red.”
“I forgot something at the inn!”
The Menagerie of Fools members all make an about-face and attempt to go back before the captain catches them. They’re probably doing it half jokingly, but they’re still pretty serious about it, too. It goes to show how atmospheric our surroundings are.
This barren wasteland, devoid of a single blade of grass, is littered with gravestones. Not clean-looking ones, either. I haven’t seen any that have retained their original shape.
There are dead, leafless trees in all directions, but looped, thick straw ropes bundle up the ends of their branches, swaying in the wind.
…It’s got the aesthetic. Old armor and weapons, perhaps the remains of hunters, also lie on the ground, racking up even more spooky points for this area.
Thunder cracks occasionally, too, and I have to give credit to the lightning’s performance as well.
Anyway, while I mentally critique the place, I assess the members of the reconnaissance team. The only calm ones are Captain Kerioyl, Hulemy, and the Band of Gluttons.
“Why did they put gravestones outside the settlement?”
“Hmm, yeah, Mikenne. Why is that?”
“Mikenne, Short, you don’t know, either, huh? I bet they did it on a whim.”
“Maybe… But if you left grave offerings, they’d just go to waste. The monsters would eat them.”
The Band of Gluttons certainly don’t seem to have the same sense of fear humans do. They’re not scared at all. In this sort of situation, they’re extremely reliable.
“Apparently, if you die in this part of the dungeon, your very own grave appears all on its own. They’re even nice enough to automatically carve your name into it.”
Hulemy isn’t bothered, either. She strides over to a gravestone, relaxed enough to wipe off the dust and look at the name on it with intense interest.
Mishuel’s smile is firmly stuck to his face, and it’s not budging. One might be impressed at how unruffled and calm he seems at a glance, but his pupils are dilated, and he’s staring at a single fixed point. Is he actually petrified with fear?
Lammis, carrying me on her back, keeps her eyes on the ground, keeping any damage to her mental state to a minimum.
“You’re all overreacting,” says the captain. “It’s a little bit chilly out here, but that’s it. Real people are way scarier than some dumb corpses or monsters. Don’t let the atmosphere get the better of you.”
The Fools clench their jaws and firm their resolve, though their faces are still pale with terror.
Mishuel snaps out of it and clears his throat, once again donning his cool, composed smile.
They were unnerved for a bit, but they’ve gone right back to normal, so it probably won’t be an issue. Lammis is still staring at the ground, so we can’t expect anything from her in combat, but if she’s just in charge of carrying stuff, she’ll be fine. I hope.
Captain Kerioyl sighs. “Well anyway, let’s not worry so much about the destination today.” He takes off his hat, an unusual gesture, and scratches his head. He’s probably annoyed by the many difficulties he sees us having in the future, and I can’t say I blame him.
If the Band of Gluttons turn out to be the most reliable in this situation, I’d want to sigh about it, too.
We wander about, mostly at random at the captain’s instructions. The enemy-encounter rate is fairly high. Just strolling around for thirty minutes, we run into over ten monsters to fight.
And just as I’m reflecting on it, more appear.
The ground swells, and a white-boned arm comes out of it, its flesh appearing to be in the middle of some very important rotting.
Other arms and skulls, already dry bones, push their way out of the earth as well, following the rules and coming out close to gravestones.
It looks like zombies—or rather, corpse fiends and skeleton fiends—but four are destroyed with ranged attacks before Lammis can take a breath, and before the other four bring themselves all the way up out of the ground, the Band of Gluttons close in and crush them with fang and claw. It would seem our great army is invincible.
I understand it’s an efficient way to defeat them, but I feel a little bad for them.
Despite their earlier fear, the Menagerie of Fools move crisply and accurately during battle. Mishuel does, too—when a battle starts, he activates his hot-guy mode without issue.
Which just leaves Lammis. When enemies appear, she holds her breath and freezes, but she doesn’t cry out or try to run. Personally, I think she’s come quite a long way.
Enemies continue to go down pretty easily after that, but Lammis seems to be concentrating fully on carrying me and never takes part in a battle.
The party returns to the settlement before night falls and quickly withdraws into the inn.
As always, I sit outside, staring idly at a night sky with no visible stars in it.
After learning the monsters here wouldn’t do me any harm, I’ve been treating myself to bouts of monster watching at night during my spare time. Moodwise, it feels like sitting in an expensive chair, wineglass in hand, watching a horror film.
Never learning their lessons, the monsters wander through the settlement again tonight, peering into windows with light coming from them. After observing for a few days, I realize that despite their unchanging expressions, it’s started to look to me like they’re staring into the rooms with envy for some reason.
Rumor has it that these monsters, unlike normal ones, are based on people who have died. Maybe I can’t discount the idea as nonsense.
“Ahhh, ah, ah, ahhhhh.”
While I’m ruminating, I hear a voice from very close by, so I immediately look ahead.
It must have closed the distance quickly before I knew it. Now I’m face-to-rotting-face with an honest-to-goodness zombie, flesh peeling and one eyeball about to fall out.
Ah, yeah, okay, it being this close is a little rough. It’s illuminated by the light emitted from my body, too, and its crisp shadow adds to its impact.
Instinctively, I try to cry out, but I end up saying, “Insert coins.” I hate this body for having nothing but canned phrases to say at times like this.
Hearing the voice come from my body saying something that doesn’t fit the situation makes my shock and fear subside. To think saying it would calm me down…
Since I’m calmed down again, I’ll take a good look at it. The thing in front of me has got to be a corpse fiend. It’s short in stature, so it’s probably a child.
Maybe because I’m an unusual sight, it says “Ah, ah” and looks at me with its remaining eye. If it’s true that they’re based on people, does that mean this corpse fiend lost its life at a young age and turned into a monster?
Just the thought makes the concept of corpse fiends a whole lot less terrifying. It doesn’t want to cause me any harm. If it’s just staring at me with childlike curiosity, then there’s no reason to be mean to it.
Okay, stop that. Get your dirty hands off me. Fingerprints are the least of my worries when rotten flesh is sticking to me. Oh, fine, then I’ll give you this.
I don’t know whether it can drink, but I drop orange juice, a favorite of the twin-tailed rich girl, into my compartment.
It reacts to the clanking of the can falling, but can it not understand what it is? In that case, I’ll try flinging the orange juice out with Force Field.
It rolls past the young corpse fiend. After reacting to it and turning around, it heads for the juice, its body swaying back and forth with an uneasy stride.
They must be the type that gets overly distracted at noise, which is common in zombie films.
It grabs the can of orange juice with both hands. As I watch over it and wonder what it will do about the lid, it bites into the can. Its teeth easily pierce the aluminum, and orange liquid comes out from between them, dripping onto the child corpse fiend’s body.
It continues to chew, aluminum can and all, until it seems satisfied and goes away, disappearing into the darkness. That was an unexpected encounter, but I’ll probably never meet it again. It’s been an odd night, but strangely, I didn’t mind it.
Our second day of searching comes to an end, and I sit outside watching the twilight.
Like yesterday, Lammis didn’t take part in any battles, but she managed to keep her eyes looking forward and properly watching the battle. Yeah, that’s the way.
“Ahh, ahhhhh.”
The corpse fiends and soul fiends are springing up again. It’s like they only come to every day for a wandering nighttime walk.
As I watch the monsters go by, one walks straight over to me right from the beginning. Could it be the same young corpse fiend as yesterday?
Its rotting face and pulled-out hairstyle look the same, but there’s no proof. It would be easier to identify if there was some sort of defining feature, but it’s hard to tell the rotted faces apart. I guess I’ll know if it’s the same corpse fiend if I give it orange juice.
Like yesterday, I fling some orange juice outside my Force Field. It picks it up, chews up the whole thing again, and leaves seeming satisfied. Wait, did it get attached to me? No, that can’t be right.
Night number three…and the young corpse fiend is here again.
Did it acquire a taste for it, like many kids do? Maybe in that rotting body, even after turning into a monster, traces of its childlike habits and instincts remain.
Maybe this sort of thing is pointless, but I give the kid orange juice again. Even I’m not sure what I want to do, but interacting with this kid is on its way to being something I look forward to in the middle of the night.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth days pass. The search is going smoothly, and today, for the first time, we’ll be spending the night outside the settlement. Of course, we’re only a ten-minute walk away, so if something happens, retreating won’t be an issue.
I feel sorry for the young corpse fiend—it’s come back every night since I first encountered it. I won’t be able to give it orange juice today. Well, it’ll have to bear with it until we get back tomorrow.
“Boxxo, let me sleep next to you tonight.”
Everyone has formed a ring around the fire, but I’ve been placed a little farther away to avoid the open flame. As I sit there, Lammis, wrapped in a blanket, snuggles up against me.
She did a good job making it through the scariness all day long. I’ll gladly sleep right here next to you. You’ll be in my care, so don’t worry.
“Welcome.”
“Thanks, Boxxo.”
The extreme tension must have worn away the last of her stamina, and sleep takes her in a matter of moments. Good job today, Lammis. Let’s work hard again tomorrow—together.
I’ll have to remain alert of our surroundings in order to protect the soundly sleeping Lammis from danger. The night watch today includes Mikenne and Short from the Band of Gluttons, a levelheaded combination. The red-and-white twins round out the lineup.
They’ve got enemy detection and response down pat, so I could rest easy knowing they have things under control, but there’s no telling what could happen in this world. It wouldn’t hurt to have one extra person on the lookout.
Nobody seemed to have the heart to cook out in a place like this, so everyone bought their meals from me. It was a pretty good haul.
Midnight approaches, and as even the lookouts start to lose focus a bit, I hear a soft noise.
“Ah…ahhh…”
A corpse fiend? There’s only one, but its voice is steadily getting louder. It seems to be heading this way.
“Red, should we wake the others?”
“If it’s only one, we should be fine, White.”
The two from the Gluttons remain alert; it seems the red-and-white twins will deal with the noise drifting over from my direction.
They come up next to me, and I increase my light so we can see the enemy better.
What appears from the darkness is a small corpse fiend… Wait, it’s that one!
“A child? I feel sorry for it, but it’s time to rest in peace!”
“TOO BAD!” I shout at maximum volume in order to stop Red, who leaped out, but he thrusts his spear into the young corpse fiend’s stomach without turning back.
“What, Boxxo? Why did you suddenly shout like that?”
Red looks at me, confused, not knowing what I meant, but that doesn’t matter. That child corpse fiend, was it the one—the one who always came to me at night?
“What? Something’s stuck to my spear. Wait, this is the container for one of Boxxo’s drinks, isn’t it? Where did it get this?”
Without a doubt, the thing his spear has pierced is the fragment of an orange juice can.
I know it wouldn’t make sense to get mad at Red. For him, the child corpse fiend was just another monster. He should be praised for dealing with it so swiftly, not criticized.
Of course I know that…but when I see it fall on its face, hand stretched toward me, I feel my wiring almost short-circuit.
This kid probably found me and came to get juice like it always did. But that’s just my assumption—it could have actually come here to attack people.
That’s right. Anyway, it’s past the time that kid usually comes. This one is probably a normal monster, and its instincts are to attack people—
“Red, is it holding something in its hand?”
I look over after White’s remark and see that the young corpse fiend’s hand, outstretched toward me, is gripping a coin.
“Could it have come to buy something? No, that’s impossible. Right…?”
“I don’t know if it was this one, but there’s been one watching us from a distance for a while now. It wasn’t bothering us, so we ignored it.”
Mikenne interrupted their conversation. He’s nocturnal and has night vision, so there’s no reason not to believe him.
In other words, this kid mimicked the process of buying something with a coin and came to try to put the coin into me…
You idiot… Kids shouldn’t have to worry about that. Besides, that’s a copper coin you’re holding. It’s not enough…
Even after Red and White lose interest, I can’t look away from the child.
I change into a coin-operated vacuum. After some struggle, I suck up its copper coin, then revert to my usual vending machine form and add orange juice to my stock.
You liked this, right? You want the usual, don’t you?
I change the orange juice so that its price is one copper coin, then drop it and roll it over to the corpse fiend.
Then, I offer my first and last words of gratitude to the child.
“Thank you.”
