Night was fast approaching, and the adventurers were eager to find a place to stay the night that wouldn't be infested with skeletons. It seemed they were in luck; it appeared that the town at the bottom of the path had not been destroyed by the Calamity, or it had been rebuilt. Either way, it was there, and if civilization had survived, there had to be some way of keeping away the monsters.

"I am not sure about this," Hubert remarked. "Who's to say there won't be more assassins in this town?"

"Either we go into the town where there might be assassins who will try to kill us, or we stay outside where there will be monsters who will try to kill us," Edelgard said. "I think the town is our safest bet."

"As you command, my lady," Hubert conceded.

"Thank goodness. I'd give anything for a hot bath," Dorothea remarked. At that, everyone heartily agreed.

As they drew closer to the town, though, a few things started to make little sense. All of the town's buildings had their lights out, for instance. "I am thinking something is being wrong here," Petra commented.

"I think you are right," Dimitri agreed.

"Eh, I'm sure there's nothing to be worried about," Raphael said nonchalantly. "See, there's some people coming to greet us!"

Dimitri couldn't help but think those people were walking rather strangely, though. As they got closer, they started to look less like people and more like...corpses.

Oh no.

"Monsters!" Dimitri shouted, and drew his spear, just as one of the creatures let out a shriek. Somehow, the shriek paralyzed him. He could hardly move as the dead shambled toward him.

"ReDeads!" Link realized, and drew his sword, but he was quickly paralyzed as well. Lysithea, Bernadetta, and Ashe screamed in panic.

The dead kept coming. The members of the party with ranged attacks shot them at the approaching dead, but it didn't do much good. Miasma didn't affect them, and they didn't seem to be bothered by arrows or Nosferatu spells. Dorothea's Thunder spell didn't seem to do much good either. Only Annette had a spell that seemed capable of bringing the ReDeads down, namely Fire, but there were just too many of them.

With more and more of the adventurers being bombarded with undead screams, it looked as if the mission to save Hyrule had ended before it begun.

But as the ReDeads closed in on the party, suddenly a barrage of burning arrows flew towards them and hit them. The reanimated corpses lit up like dried leaves, and burned away quickly.

The monsters turned to see where their assailant came from, only for the frontrunners to be mobbed by chickens that began tearing them to pieces. The sight was distracting to almost all of the adventurers.

Almost all. "Annette, set a fire!" Link ordered. Annette quickly snapped out of her trance and complied. "Everyone, fire is our only way of putting these ReDeads down! Grab a torch, or a Boko weapon, anything that burns!"

With a weapon effective against the ReDeads, the adventurers were able to take some out. However, their screams were still paralyzing, and they managed to get hits in with what weapons they had. Raphael got stabbed in the arm with a pitchfork. Caspar got hit in the ribs with a shovel. Felix got an injury on his leg from a hand plow.

That said, with the aid of the archer and the chickens, they eventually brought down the ReDeads attacking them.

"Search the town. There may be more," Link ordered.

There were indeed more ReDeads, and the party spent over two hours hunting them all down. Felix and Ingrid happened upon Dimitri once the job was almost done.

"The corpses couldn't be more than a few days old," Ingrid said. "Whatever was done here was done recently."

Felix looked at Dimitri's shocked expression. "What?"

Dimitri pointed out a ReDead infant. "That baby couldn't have been even a year old when it was turned into a monster."

Felix looked at the undead baby and felt shock and revulsion, which quickly turned into anger. "Is this what the boar feels every minute of every day?" he thought.

Dimitri lit the little ReDead with his half-burned Boko spear. "Whoever is responsible for this atrocity shall pay."

Felix, even knowing the danger of that path, couldn't help but agree. "Ganon will suffer for this."

"Ganon is trapped in the castle," Dimitri said. "This was recent work. A person did this."

Ingrid didn't want to believe that. "How do you know it wasn't a magical accident, or a disease, or something?"

Dimitri shook his head. "I'm looking at a spell circle." He pointed out a spell circle on the floor. "This was done by design, within this house, by a person. And whoever it was must pay."

Felix and Ingrid just looked at the circle in disgust. "Agreed."

Rhea was horrified at what she heard. Astor had turned an entire town into monsters, not even sparing the children, solely to try to kill Link? Looking at Seteth and Jeralt, both were as horrified as she was, and Byleth just seemed shocked.

"I must say, Astor does sound truly monstrous," Seteth commented.

"He was," Felix said.

"It may be that he was more evil than Calamity Ganon," Linhardt added. "At least Calamity Ganon had the excuse that destruction was its nature. Astor could have chosen to be anything, and he chose to try to unleash Ganon upon the world."

"I do have to ask about the chickens," Jeralt said.

"Cuccos," Link corrected. "They were cuccos, not chickens. They look like chickens, but they can fly. And they're vicious attack animals."

Jeralt shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

"And the archer?" Rhea asked.

"We didn't meet her properly until much later," Claude said. "She just stopped by to help. Her goal was to go up the mountain we just went down."

Rhea nodded. "So, what next?"

"It turned out that even once night fell, monsters other than the ReDeads stayed away from the town," Edelgard said. "It didn't feel right sleeping in the victims' beds, but we did anyway. We didn't know when we would find a place as safe next."

"We stayed in that ghost town for a week," Claude confirmed. "Link decided it was time for training."