Chapter 5:

Corpsefire

Izuku stopped staring long enough to wade through the electrocuted bodies and sift through the belongings of the dead.

Most of the swords and shields were word out by rust and general lack of care. The same was true of the leather armor they were, not that he particularly wanted to wear the clothes of these sulfuric-smelling creatures. He did find one such fallen with a complete set of leather clothes a few sizes too large for him who seemed to have actually taken pride in his things. It still smelled like rotten eggs, but the leather cap, gloves and shirt were remarkably well maintained. That or they were only recently pillaged from the Fallen's victim.

Noting the milder odor of rotten eggs coming from them, Izuku assumed the latter.

Aside from that all Izuku found amongst the dead that was of value came from their coin purses.

"Why do they carry money?" He asked as he pilfered through the gold coins.

"Greed and the love of precious metals and gems is a sin, and they love all sins. They need not eat to survive or fornicate to reproduce, yet they devour and rape all the same. Such is that nature of demons." Isendra had told him.

Izuku, despite his experience in regretting such statements from the woman, doubted that explanation. Maybe it was merely his sensibilities preventing him from truly regarding these beings as gibbering beasts, but the love of money seemed to indicate at least some form of sentience, as if the use of weapons alone didn't do that. More that merely being a bird-like obsession with all things shiny or expression of abstract evil in their being, were they capable of bartering and trading, at least with one another? If he could find some kind of ring of invisibility - preferably sans the ancient dark lord soul and volcano - he would love nothing more than to sneak into a fallen hideout like this and watch their behavior like a zoologist watching apes.

"Let us continue on our way. And be more cautious." Isendra commanded.

Izuku hurried to stuff all of his finds into the large sack and rushed back to her side.

He returned to his position of holding her by her belt as they continued deeper into the cave. The rest of their adventure was not worthy of the word. Isendra seemingly waved the little red demons out of existence one by one with those majestic fireballs of hers, only switching to ice when another gargantuan beast reared its ugly head or the wide area lightning spell when they entered a room with just a few too many of the bastards. It almost seemed like a regular nine to five for her, almost boring. Routine and tedium.

The first time they came across an honest to god zombie stalking towards them Izuku nearly panicked, even forgetting to keep hold of Isendra's belt and temporarily falling behind her as she advanced on it in return. It too was obliterated into pieces by a firebolt, and she seemed to be oblivious to his disappearance from her senses until he caught back up. When he did she turned to stare at him questioningly, but he merely shook his head and motioned towards a steep step they had walked over just a moment before.

His insinuated excuse that he had merely tripped satisfied her and they continued on their way. He didn't bother trying to search that first zombie for anything of value, her obliterating it made such a search rather pointless.

Nothing else in the cave gave her any difficulty whatsoever, and Izuku knew then that her taking him along was charity and that his service as a pack mule was barely even a time saver for her.

Strangely enough, the shambling zombies had better cared-for equipment than the fallen. This was mostly because their short swords and daggers were still strapped to their beltline and unmolested. They clearly lacked what little sentience the fallen had that was required to wield a weapon. Even when they were obliterated by a firebolt their weapons and coin purses were still usually in tact, and when they weren't Isendra would wait patiently and down another one of those red vials or else the ones with blue liquid while he did his job in scrounging up the gold coins, one by one.

He was starting to feel like a petty pickpocket with all the leather bags of coins he was collecting. The worst was when he picked up a severed hand of one of the shambling corpses with a rather nice ring on it. Isendra "oohed" over it and he knew it was too valuable to leave behind, so he bit his tongue and pried it off. This was all exactly what he signed up for, so he didn't complain.

"I think we've been here before." Izuku commented when he saw a particularly penis-shaped stalagmite he recognized from before.

Most people would probably just describe it as mushroom shaped and call it a day. But nope, that was definitely a penis. It even had that little indent at the middle and everything.

"You are correct, and yet this place is not yet cleansed. We must have missed a side chamber or else a fallen cowering in a nook we hadn't quite spotted." Isendra noted as the wall behind her shifted to a blue glow. "We may yet have to scour every cranny. It will be slow work, and very time consuming. But we must not let a single one..."

"GET DOWN!" Izuku yelled as a glowing blue creature phased through the wall behind her.

She ducked just in time to avoid her head being taken off by two clawed hands of yet another zombie, btu a very different one to what they had seen before.

Isendra rolled away from the assailant to his side and assumed her attack position. The firebolt flew from her hands almost before they came together and this time, unliked all the other times she had thrown one, it erupted into a maelstrom around the glowing blue zombie. Said maelstrom of flames then parted like the read sea as the fiery undead ripped the spell apart with his bare hands and continued advancing on them.

"Get back Izuku!" Isendra ordered.

He obeyed, backing away to exactly the kind of nook they had discussed a fallen hiding in just moments earlier.

The blue zombie, which he was almost willing to call radioactive in appearance, focused its entire attention on Isendra as she backed away from it. Er slow backwards walk, as they had both done with previous zombies in that damned cave, almost got her killed as this one was a bit faster than the ones they had encountered so far. It was still exceptionally slow, being a tortious to the snails that were the other undead, but the speed difference was enough to catch Isendra flat-footed as she stumbled backwards away from the creature.

When it swiped with two flaming hands, flames that Izuku could tell it was producing as opposed to suffering from, she had already fallen out of its range and did yet another roll away.

The gale of ice she threw back at the fiery abomination was the largest he had seen from her to date, and coated not only it but every stalactite above in solid ice. As was her style she followed the gale with yet another firebolt, this one aimed at the ceiling. The hail of ice-covered blades of stone pelted the fiery corpse like rain of giant arrows and yet Isendra stilled backed away further as if expecting the onslaught to be insufficient. She was correct.

As it had with the cave wall before it simply phased through the mound of stone and ice it found itself in, though it had clearly been injured by Isendra's quick thinking based on the thick, puss-filled wounds from its shoulders and abdomen. Isendra tried for another firebolt and this time it worked, exploding against the creatures chest like it had with the many other zombies and cauterized its wounds. Not that it could bleed to death, of course.

After the fireball hit the being one again erupted in flames of its' own and Izuku realized what its quirk, erm, magical ability was. Elemental adaptation of some kind along with some kind of spectral ability. Powerful, but easily exploited and Isendra was smart enough to do exactly that, alternating between a weak fireball and ice gale as soon as the undead changed.

Then it just completely nuked their preconceptions by lunging at her with both claws while arcing lightning off of its body.

Okay, so it's elemental adaptation was random? Or else controlled, but being undead Izuku doubted it could consciously decide what element it attacked with, else it wouldn't have banged its head against the first and ice wall for so long and allowed Isendra to wipe the floor with it for so long.

The lunge itself missed, but the long arcs of lightning got her and sent her to the ground twitching as her body was racked with the seizure-like effects of being electrocuted. She didn't even scream as she fell, but he knew all the same that she was still conscious and alive.

Izuku felt panic rise up in his chest as the electric blue zombie bared down on the now disabled Isendra, and that panic drove him to drop the pack and dump its contents onto the ground. He pushed aside the newly acquired sabers and daggers, opting instead for the bow Kashya had trained him with and the pitifully small arrows he had spent so many hours practicing with.

She had said they were meek and only useful for practice. She had said that they, and by extension he, would not be strong enough to kill. But he notched arrow and aimed all the same. He focused on what Kashya had taught him. He took a deep breath and slowly released it, waiting for his body to steady and be still by the exhale before releasing.

His shot landed right at the base of the zombie's skull, or top of its' neck if you prefer, and pierced right through it leaving nothing but the fletching visible to Izuku. The blow stopped the shambling corpse ion its track and for a single second Izuku thought he might have taken it down as it swayed in place.

Then it turned around and looked directly at him, foregoing the usual human movement of searching for him with its eyes.

Oh...

Oh, shit!

Izuku only then realized that he was crouched in a nook, in a cave, at a back wall with no exit save for the one behind the undead abomination now bearing down on him. He was as good as dead. So he did what any cornered animal would do. He lashed out.

The small quiver he had brought with him was quickly emptied into the glowing monstrosities neck, each arrow lodging in the jugular or Adam's apple. All ten of his arrows jutted out from his throat almost comically, and yet it continued its' slow advance towards him. Izuku couldn't fathom how its brain was still sending commands to the rest of its body when its spine was clearly severed from the base of its skull, and yet his brain still tried to fathom it all the same thus losing him precious seconds he didn't have.

Throwing the bow aside he picked up one of the short swords he'd recently acquired at held it at length pathetically. He had no training with the weapon, and the best he expected to do was swing it like the wood-chopping axe he had become adept at, for what little good that would do. And yet, he set his mind to do exactly that.

"AAAAAAHH!" He screamed in what he hoped was an intimidating war cry and charged.

Fire erupted from behind the creature as a firebolt struck it square in the back, bringing it to its knees. Izuku charged on anyways and brough the short sword upon its neck with all the force his newly hardened body could muster and removed it from the creature's shoulders, the near dozen arrows already having severed most of the bone and connective tissue keeping it there.

Izuku knew the creature had died from the fireball, both in the back of his mind and in the forefront, and yet the triumphant whoop escaping his throat as the foe slumped to its side and ceased movement felt deserved all the same.

The adrenalin rushing through his body was making him shake like a hypothermia victim and no amount of deep breathing could stop it. It was so wholly different of a physical and emotional reaction to the fallen he had killed months go that it scared him, and yet that fear didn't alleviate the raw energetic excitement flowing through him. He could run a marathon and kickbox a bear in that very moment and not even feel winded from it.

"It's okay Izuku. Take as long as you need." He heard Isendra say from near him, but he didn't look at her.

He instead focused on his breathing and lowered himself to the ground. On his hands and knees he tried to regain control of his body and mind. breath in. Breath out. do it again. And again. He didn't know how long he stayed like that but when he was finally calmed he looked up to see Isendra examining an entire bandolier of potion vials she had taken off of the fallen undead, opening and sniffing them like perfumes.

So she'd already had enough time to strip the glowing one of valuables without him. Some pack mule he turned out to be.

"I think I'm fine." He told her as he stood up on shaky legs.

"No, you are not. But you will be in time. Either way, you did an excellent job this evening." Isendra said consolingly as she put the bandolier down. "This place is cleansed. Let us patch ourselves up, pack our misbegotten prizes and be on our way. Pass me a mana and healing potion, would you?"

Izuku let out another deep breath and turned to the pile of crap he had poured onto the ground minutes earlier. Thankfully he had been somewhat organized in his looting and kept the potion vials in the side pockets while throwing everything else in the main cavity so he hadn't trashed any of them on the ground in his earlier panic. Digging into said side cavities he found one of both red and blue vials and walked them over to her.

"Thank you. Take all of this back to the pack and get everything back in. Maybe drink a little mana potion as well." She instructed. "Coming down from a fight or flight can leave anybody exhausted, and mana potions serve as a good stamina boost. Or so married couples have told me."

Izuku suspected that last bit was a joke, but it went right over his head and he knew it was in poor manners to ruin a joke by asking for an explanation, so he let it go. Either way he took the bandolier and shuffled back over to the pack. Stuffing all of the blades, leather clothing and bags of coins took much less time than he expected and a few minutes later he rested against the bag with one of the blue vials in hand. As soon as he did so he all of a sudden felt like he had gone through with that marathon run and fist fight with a bear and the exhaustion hit him all at once.

Isendra was laying against a rock wall with her eyes closed doing some controlled breathing exercise or another.

If this was how he was feeling after that one fight he could only imagine how she felt after bulldozing the entire cave of demons and zombies by herself. And they still had a few hours walking to get back to the encampment to do before they could sleep. It would be sleep well earned.

Removing the cork from the small blue bottle he pinched his nose before taking a long sip from it. He was surprised to find it didn't taste awful. He wouldn't call it pleasant either, just strange. It almost tasted like the blue Crocoade electrolyte drink if it were watered down and had the tingly sensation of mint. He liked it.

The full body burning sensation that followed, on the other hand, he did not like. The same burning sensation he had felt since that first night in the meadow returned with a vengeance and his bones were suddenly made of molten lead surround by red hoy coals for flesh.

He screamed and thrashed and the stone ground as the burning sensation overtook all sensation and thought from he body. He both heard and felt Isendra's concern and closeness but couldn't make sense of her words or touch before blackness overtook him.

This story was ghostwritten by NonsensicalRants as commissioned by MagikUser. You can hire NonsensicalRants to write your stories as well, all you have to do is provide him with a rough outline and contact him on his patron.

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