Was it when they realized that dropping their weapons meant they wouldn't be attacked? Or when someone noticed the shattered bones being carried off by strange giant rats, while the skeleton soldiers kept coming? At some point, the rout swept through like a gale, engulfing every living soul still standing.
The captain scrambled to rally the remnants of his men. The defeated soldiers retreated in disarray under the officers' commands, each straining every muscle to outrun the dead—the sole consolation for the living being that corpses moved stiffly and slowly, incapable of sprinting.
"Sir, are we heading the right way?" the adjutant caught up to ask. "This direction isn't—"
"We're not wrong," the captain cut him off. "This is the nearest city."
It was indeed the nearest city, but theoretically, heading north was the most correct route. North lay Major Benson's headquarters. That garrison possessed ample supplies, weapons, and soldiers—the ideal place to report the situation directly and trigger the fastest military response.
"We need a doctor," the captain added.
The garrison had its own military doctors, didn't it? The adjutant remained skeptical, but having served his commander for years, he knew when to keep quiet. He nodded, offering no further objection.
The captain indeed had other considerations, yet he could share them with no one.
Major Benson was not only the commander of the southeastern garrison of Erian but also the younger brother of the Governor of Tasmarin Province. Both were staunch supporters of General Syril—in other words, unapologetic hawks whose very purpose in life seemed to be rooting out non-humans and annihilating them. Consider this incident: the Purge Blade cannon had fallen into alien hands, and the Wither Gas had inexplicably spread among the human forces, causing the horrific transformation of soldiers into corpses. Every aspect of this affair was bound to set their nerves on edge.
The captain feared that if he returned with his remnants, he would receive not treatment or answers, but punishment.
He suspected the blame for defeat would fall squarely on his shoulders—or worse, that every soldier exposed to the Wither Gas would be disposed of by those obsessively pure-minded.
They reached Red Gum County before nightfall, where guards opened the gates in surprise. The county magistrate asked no questions, arranging proper lodging for the army. Since the founding of the Erian Empire and the expulsion of humanity's formidable foes, the military had enjoyed a privileged status.
The captain ordered the bitten men isolated. The emergence of a new wave of the undead among the residents of Antler Town fueled his worst suspicions. He hoped he was wrong.
Then came the report.
The previous one hadn't been submitted in time, and drafting this new one proved even more difficult than the last. The captain described the events in the most objective, neutral language possible, carefully avoiding explicit criticism of the weaponry. What exactly did you provide us? Why leave us exposed to danger without any knowledge? He couldn't confront his superiors with such questions, though he desperately wanted to.
The report was painstaking to write. The captain finished it as quickly as he could and had the messenger deliver it to Lieutenant Colonel Benson at the northern garrison. A rough trail, impassable to large forces, connected Red Gum County to the garrison. If the courier moved swiftly, he could make the round trip in a day.
That night, the captain slept fitfully. He awoke several times, haunted by visions of the undead, of his family back home, of his family turning into the undead.
The next day, the courier did not arrive. Two of the bitten had become zombies; the guards had killed them. Other bitten individuals gradually fell into comas. By dusk, the captain could wait no longer and dispatched several scouts to the northern outpost.
The scouts returned the following morning, one man missing, the others wounded. They reported a new checkpoint had been erected on the only route between Red Gum County and the outpost. Guards barred all passage without explanation. A dispute erupted when someone attempted to force passage; crossbow bolts pierced him instantly.
"We tried detours elsewhere, but new obstacles seem to have been erected everywhere. We don't know how far they extend—impossible to cross," the scout reported.
The captain felt a wave of absurdity wash over him, followed by a chill that ran through his body.
Had Major Benson lost his mind? Did he intend to lock everyone in on this side? How could that be possible? But upon reflection, the possibility seemed plausible. Like Antler Town, Red Gum County lay in a remote corner of Eryan—the sea to the south, a vast desert to the west, and the Druids' domain to the east. If Benson had informed his brother, the Governor, and acted under Tasmalin's orders, the southeastern corner of the map could indeed be "cut off."
They'd abandoned the residents of Red Gum County and Antler Town, along with these defeated soldiers, on this side—trapped with the Wither Gas, the Cleansing Blade cannons, and those extremely dangerous monsters that could manipulate trees and corpses. It wasn't just the soldiers they'd discarded. To prevent the contamination from spreading, anyone who'd come into contact with the soldiers—even those merely potentially infected—had been left here too.
They were abandoned.
What news could be more terrifying than this?
There was.
A "skinny madman biting everyone" appeared in Red Gum County. When they brought this corpse in military uniform before the captain, he recognized a familiar face. It was a young officer, full of duty, who would never conceal his own bite wound. This young man hadn't been quarantined. He'd suddenly collapsed asleep on the street, taken in for the night by kind souls who mistook him for a drunk. The result, everyone had seen.
How had this man been infected? When?
The captain once again inspected the troops. All officers were ordered to account for their men. Some missing soldiers were found on their bunks, in a deep, unresponsive sleep—colleagues had previously dismissed it as mere exhaustion. After the horrors of Antler Town, it wasn't hard to understand why the soldiers collapsed into exhaustion.
But days later, they remained unresponsive no matter how vigorously shaken, their skin beginning to wrinkle from dryness... This was far from normal.
Perhaps during that night spent sleeping on the Withered Land, the influence of the Wither Gas had seeped into every soldier's body. It lay dormant, quietly lurking, only erupting when its hosts were exhausted. Who could have known? The higher-ups never mentioned what those weapons might truly inflict upon those actually facing danger. Or perhaps it was simply an oversight by the clerks—those who sat in offices, moving fingers on keyboards, never considering how a single mistake could burden soldiers thousands of miles away.
Terrifying rumors spread through the ranks, and the captain struggled to suppress them, feeling utterly drained. He racked his brain for solutions, but before any clarity emerged, drowsiness washed over him. He jolted upright, heart pounding wildly, and strode to the mirror. The gaunt face staring back made him cry out in shock.
"Sir?"
The adjutant entered at the sound, scanned the room, found nothing amiss, then turned back to watch him warily. The captain looked back at the mirror. He appeared haggard, with deep dark circles under his eyes, but not the withered pallor of the living dead. He simply hadn't rested properly in far too long. He worried about too many things, fearing he might never wake from sleep—worst of all, the longer he insisted on staying awake, the higher the chance he might never wake at all.
The adjutant withdrew with concern, leaving the captain alone once more, desperately pondering a way out of this predicament.
"Need help?"
The captain drew his sword and spun around, the blade passing through the waist of a translucent figure before his eyes. The faceless specter hovered in midair like a nightmare.
"I might already be asleep," the captain murmured. "Or perhaps I've gone mad."
"Neither," the specter replied. "You released poison gas upon our forest and were chased by skeletons and zombies until you fled in panic. By all logic, you shouldn't be overly surprised by the appearance of a ghost."
But I've never seen faceless specters in the textbooks, the captain thought. Then again, how reliable are textbooks? They say druids who control plants protect nature, and necromancers who command the dead are their sworn enemies. Yet his experiences told a different story. Countless descriptions of ghosts and specters flashed through his mind, along with methods to vanquish them. Right now, he could do nothing.
He swung his sword again on impulse, watching it pierce the specter once more. The captain gave a wry smile and sheathed his blade.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I've come to offer assistance," the specter replied.
The captain snorted. "Why would you aid the enemy?"
"Because you're cornered, and you're slightly more useful to me alive than dead," the ghost replied. "To be precise, I offer a choice."
Had he been twenty years younger, the captain would have angrily refused. Had this happened a decade ago, he would have negotiated with ambition and arrogance, convinced he could use it to advance his position. At forty-five, the captain merely sighed. "What choice?" Let me make this clear: I graduated top honors from the Erian Military Academy. Don't waste our time with childish tricks."
Tasha smiled silently. She liked the deep weariness in this officer's eyes.
A mentally exhausted negotiator meant greater gains.
By the third dawn after the defeated human forces reached Red Eucalyptus County, the Undercity's tentacles had already reached here. Before this, the Ghost had slowly followed, gathering intelligence in its invisible state—this pursuit revealed to Tasha that the Ghost's range of activity was still tied to the Undercity. The farther it strayed, the greater the strain, the slower its movement; much greater distance would likely cause it to dissipate.
Regardless, she witnessed their plight.
Had headquarters sealed off this area? A specter monitored the nearest checkpoint, its fortifications built for defense rather than offense. For now, Tasha needn't fear nuclear strikes wiping out the undead. If that happened, these abandoned souls would be practically handed to her on a silver platter.
With the enemy's tacit support, Tasha secured a ceasefire and temporary control over human territories—county by county, town by town—under two conditions: mutual non-aggression and suspending the transformation of infected individuals into zombies.
Indeed, Tasha couldn't sustain the war anyway.
The dungeon's magic reserves were depleted.
War was an absolute money pit. Even with recyclable skeleton soldiers, the costs were staggering. Converting skeletons and zombies, sustaining the Amazons with natural energy, covering all expenses when dungeon dwellers couldn't surface for food, expanding the dungeon and installing trap doors, repairing Wolfhead's body... Each demanded magic. Their massive consumption drained reserves at an alarming rate. If the fighting didn't end soon, Tashan would have to shut her doors, play dead, and focus solely on farming.
Moreover, the concern that had plagued her upon awakening had become reality. The further they ventured from the dungeon's core, the fewer magic stones they unearthed. At this distance from Antler Town, they were nearly impossible to find. All magic relied on slime production, and even creating more slimes required a cycle for magic generation.
Thanks to the humans' ignorance of the dungeon's true state, Tasha successfully maintained the victor's posture, even securing some extra benefits after achieving her goal.
"Excellent!" Victor exclaimed happily. "Truly a dungeon worthy of my tutelage!"
"...Heh," Tasha replied.
A demonic contract materialized midair, written entirely in Universal Script with apparent sincerity. "Giving you my soul after death—that's fitting," the Captain read aloud, chuckling wryly. "We never knew what happens after death anyway."
He picked up the pen and signed his name: Harriet. The golden contract flashed briefly, then...
...remained unresponsive.