Episode 8: Grave Under (5)

"H-Huh...?!" As Landon heard the familiar voice in the distance, his eyes opened wide in shock, momentarily stunned in his place. "I-Isn't this..."

As the sounds of gunfire rang out in the area, the blonde-haired man abruptly turned his head over towards the direction of the noise. There, he was greeted by the sight of a black-haired man who was shooting out a constant stream of bullets over towards the horde of zombies before him.

"L-Lazy Eyes...?!" As Landon laid eyes on Jace, his expression grew dumbfounded. "H-How are you...?!"

"There's no time for questions!" Whilst busily sending out attack after attack over towards the undead horde swarming around him, Jace cried out. "Hurry! Get up and start running!"

"E-Eh...?!" Following his cry, Landon was snapped out of his confused state of mind, now returning his attention back to the front of him, where he noticed a zombie was steadily crawling up towards him. "O-Oh... R-Right...!"

At that second, Landon hurriedly kicked the zombie away from him.

"Grr...!" However, despite using all his strength to kick the zombie away, it still persisted in crawling up towards him.

"U-Ugh... These guys are way too much!" Landon frowned, using the small window of opportunity to recover himself, swiftly standing up from the ground in the next moment. "If only I had mana..."

"Landon, run towards a tree and climb it!" Whilst the blonde-haired man was feeling annoyed at the situation, Jace's scream echoed in his ears. "I'll catch up with you then!"

"H-Huh?" Turning his attention back towards Jace who was fervently attacking and grabbing the attention of the zombies in the area, Landon stared at him in confusion. "C-Climb a tree...?!"

"Just do it! There's no time!" Jace shouted out in a hurry, barely dodging an attack from an incoming monster. "Hurry!"

"Right...!" Despite having trouble comprehending the current situation, Landon abruptly nodded his head, choosing to believe in Jace. "I-I'll see you later then...!"

Without wasting any more time, Landon began darting through the dark forest, leaving behind the young man to fend off against the horde of zombies by himself.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Run towards a tree and climb it..." As the sounds of bullets persistently rang out in the air, Landon began scrutinizing the area around him, in search of a tree in the forest. "What kind of tree am I supposed to climb? Do I just choose any? Argh! I don't know!"

"Grrr..."

"Raghh!!"

"Ugh... There are still some zombies chasing after me..." Upon taking notice that there were still a few stray zombies tailing after him, Landon frowned. "Bah...! Whatever! I'll just choose a random tree and climb it!"

Abruptly using both of his hands to slap his own face in the next second, Landon's eyes began focusing on a single tree in the distance. At that moment, he began picking up his pace, quickly arriving at the tree soon after.

"Okay...! So now I just need to climb it and..." As Landon began pondering on how to climb up the tree, the gunshot noises in the distance continued to ring out in the area, causing the blonde-haired man to feel pressured. "...argh! I'll just climb it!"

No longer feeling hesitant, Landon took a deep breath, soon bending his knees in the next second. Then, he immediately jumped up as high as he could in order to latch himself onto the bark of the tree.

Soon after, without wasting a single second, the blonde-haired man began climbing up the tree. Before he knew it, Landon found himself grabbing onto a nearby tree branch, quickly pulling himself upwards onto it in the next second.

"Hah... Hah..." As his body momentarily rested on the branch, Landon anxiously glanced at the area below him, taking notice that the few zombies that had been chasing after him were no longer paying any mind to him. "These guys can't climb...?"

Before Landon had any time to process the situation, the loud gunshot noises in the distance continued, reminding him of another issue at hand.

"A-Ah... Jace!" Abruptly turning his head towards the direction of the sound in the next moment, his eyes were greeted by the sight of a black-haired man who was hurriedly rushing through the dark forest, seemingly headed towards the same tree that Landon was at. "Is he alright...?!"

As his eyes squinted at the young man before him, Landon noticed that the large number of zombies that had been swarming around Jace just moments ago were no longer chasing after him.

"What the...?" At the realization, the blonde-haired man rubbed his eyes. However, just as he did so, he quickly took notice that Jace was now nowhere to be seen in his field of vision. "H-Huh...?! Where did he go?!"

"...hah...hah..." Before Landon could even begin searching for Jace, faint panting noises rang out in his ears from nearby him. "I'm right next to you..." Without realizing it, the young man was already on the same level as Landon.

"J-Jace...!" Landon cried out. "You're alright!"

"Shh..." As soon as the blonde-haired man raised his voice in excitement, Jace hurriedly lifted up his finger against his lips. "Keep it down, will you? Don't give out our location to them."

"O-Oops!" he coughed. "My bad..."

"It's fine..." With a tired sigh, Jace began leaning his back against the tree. "The majority of those zombies won't know where we are so long as we don't make any noise. So we're safe for now."

"Huh... So those guys really can't climb a tree?" Landon scratched his head. "Hey, wait! That's beside the point! Why are you here??? No wait... The better question would be... How are you here???"

"Ah... Well... It's quite a long story..." Jace hesitantly answered, his expression complicated. "I guess you can call it instinct...?"

"...huh?" Landon blinked at Jace's words. "Instinct? What do you mean?"

"..."

As the faint sounds of incoherent screeches rang out from below them, Jace remained silent, not giving an answer to Landon's question.

"From the looks of things..." Instead, he only silently stared at Landon, observing the visible wounds on his body. "This nightmare really is true..." At the realization, his expression became even more complicated.

"Hey, earth to Jace!" Whilst the young man was in deep thought, Landon waved his hand in front of him. "Just what's going on??? How did you get here???"

"Sorry..." Still feeling troubled by his nightmare, Jace took a deep breath, now properly looking at the blonde-haired man before him. "I'll... Explain things later. For now, there's a more pressing matter at hand. Just how did things escalate to this point?"

"Huh...?" Landon tilted his head, taken aback by Jace's abrupt change of subject. "Well... To put things simply... Err... Some lich appeared out of nowhere and started buffing these guys like crazy..." he scratched his head, helplessly explaining. "We ended up getting overwhelmed, and one thing led to another, I got separated from my groupmates and ended up here..."

"...what?" As soon as Jace heard the mention of 'lich', his eyes opened wide in shock. "...a lich appeared? In... A B-ranked dungeon???"

"Y-Yeah..." Landon nodded his head, affirming that Jace did not hear wrong. "Is something the matter?"

"Ugh..." he frowned in reply, his expression growing troubled by the minute. "Well, simply put, a lich is an A-ranked boss monster."

"H-Huh...?" Landon blinked. "A lich is a what? An A-ranked boss monster?!"

"Shh...!" Jace abruptly covered Landon's mouth.

"Oops... Sorry..." Landon took a deep breath, calming himself down. "S-So... What does this mean? An A-ranked boss appearing in a B-ranked dungeon... Just... How is that possible?"

"This is due to an anomaly," Jace stated, beginning to search through his inventory in the next moment.

"A-An anomaly...?"

"It's well, a term used when a higher-ranked monster randomly appears outside of their designated rank bracket," Jace explained, passing over a mana potion to Landon. "For example, the lich you mentioned."

"T-That can happen...?" Listening in on Jace's explanation, Landon was taken aback. "Then... What do we do?"

"...well, I don't know..." Jace shook his head helplessly.

"Y-You don't know...?!"

"..." Jace bit his lips, remaining quiet once again. "I'm... Not entirely sure about being able to take on the boss and its horde given our current strength..."

An anomaly was a big cause for concern. It was an incredibly rare phenomenon where not even the lowest-ranked gates were spared from it. Its cause was unknown, but there were a lot of studies based on anomalies over the past years.

The most prominent one of them all was that the monsters appearing outside of their designated ranked zone were almost exclusively boss monsters, oftentimes replacing the original boss of the dungeon.

As such, when an anomaly randomly occurred, it was almost impossible to avoid it. In other words, if they wished to survive this dungeon, the lich needed to be defeated.

However, that was a problem in itself. After all, given Jace's current circumstance, he couldn't ever imagine handling the situation as a Synergist. Let alone being able to fight the lich, he couldn't even take down a single buffed-up zombie.

"...so... With just the two of us... We won't be able to make it out of this predicament," he frowned. If Jace was still a Marksman-class hunter, the chances of success would've increased tenfold.

"Well... You said if it's just the two of us, right?" Landon asked. "What if we get the rest of the party members to help out?"

"...that's a possibility," Jace stated. "But, do you know where the rest of your party is?"

"E-Err... I'm pretty sure I was the only one that ran into the forest..." Landon fell into deep thought, recalling his memories. "I think they should still be in the graveyard. Maybe in a mausoleum? I mean, they were discussing something about heading there for shelter."

"A mausoleum?" Jace thought to himself. "Hmm... Well, given the current situation, I guess that would've made the most sense. But, wasn't there someone on your team who could've prevented the horde from growing this much?"

"A-Ah... W-Well..." Landon gulped, his expression suddenly filled with fear as he finally processed what had happened earlier. "T-The lich... K-Killed two people... And our Magician was one of them..."

"...dammit," he frowned. "That's the worst possible scenario."

"What do we do?"

"Well, like I said, with just the two of us, it's basically impossible," Jace stated. "If we want to even remotely have a chance at survival, we'll have to group up with the rest of your party. Granted... They aren't dead."

"Ugh..." Landon gulped. "It hasn't been that long since I ran away and met up with you. So... The rest of the party should still be alive! There's still time!"

"That's one thing. But..." As Jace's sentence began trailing off, his attention slowly moved towards the endless growing horde of zombies in the area. "I don't think time's on our side here..."