PUDDING

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"W-What did you just say?" The class let their confusement be heard, staring at Ivan's masked clad face with disbelief. The demure book loving girl that clung to Kouki's group for as long as they knew was just denounced as a murderous manipulator by the guy right in front of them.

While most of the class wasn't familiar with Eri she hadn't particularly rubbed them off as a murderer. She was just the shadow that followed Suzu Taniguchi around as her best friend. That girl had in fact been the first one to use physical force to disprove Ivan's claim.

Suzu jumped out of her seat and appeared in front of Ivan in less than two seconds, a testament of how hard she had trained in the dungeon. Sensing what she was about to do Ivan allowed the girl to grip him by the collar, tilting his head downward slightly to meet her glare.

"Who the hell do you think you are to make such baseless claims?!" The rest of the class stared on as the sunshine of the group showed a look they had never seen before. Was it anger, grief, perhaps delusion? Well, it was most certainly all of the above in Ivan's eyes.

BZZZ!

He allowed the girl to grip his collar in respect to her despair, he pitied her for having learned the betrayal of her best friend. But being accused of making things up was another matter, it was an insult to his reputation.

Suzu startled back as the coils of red lightning flared around Ivan's body. She held both of her fists up in fighting position as he readjusted his collar after the wrinkles she gave it.

"Baseless?' Are you a detective? I merely conducted my observation after an extensive observation as a request from Hajime. We can verify it right now if you don't believe me." With a wave of his hand a portal appeared right beside Ivan.

His nonchalant attitude had peeved Suzu off but right now was not the right time to worry about it as a body jumped out of the portal and laid cold on the floor.

PLOP!

The class stared at it for a second, noting that the body was deftly clad in steel armor. It was a knight, a pretty high ranking one at that too. They held their breath in as the body did nothing but lay face forward into the wooden floorboards.

But then, it got up—

"...Ugh, my head…" It massaged the back of its head with its right arm, its voice not missing a single beat.

"... There's no way it's a zombie. Right?" A boy looked at his classmates for confirmation, only seeing the horror on their faces as they lost all color.

"Hm? What's wrong guy—?" His words were cut off as he stared at the end of the right arm that reappeared from the thing's head. No gauntlet adorned the knight's hand, in fact nothing was there at all.

No hand to speak of. Instead all that stood in its place was blood. Red goop sludged out of the limb's hole like juice from a slushy. Along with it were maggots and insects that inhabited the corpse and had been breeding inside of it.

The knight– no, the monster. No way it was human, no human would be capable of withstanding the writhing of maggots and be able to walk around without an appendage leaking that much blood.

The monster seemed to notice that its cover had been blown, and before it was able to scream for its comrades help it felt its face contort and its mouth hole close.

Ivan bound the monster with magic depriving cuffs, including its feet and one around its neck for safekeeping.

"Alright, if you guys don't believe me how about you go ahead and touch its chest. Tell me if it has a heartbeat." The faceplate on Ivan's mask slightly lifted to reveal his mischievous grin.

"B-But how do we know you didn't do this yourself?" Their question was well founded as the possibility that the monster was a prop Ivan made using ancient magic was not exactly zero.

"If it'd satisfy you, how about we go around the Kingdom and bind all the guards we come across, I guarantee you two in three will have no heartbeat like our friend here." His confidence caught the students off guard.

They glanced at each other for a moment before turning to Aiko.

"I-I don't wanna believe it either… But Paracelsus has evidence… Eri-san is the only one that I could think of capable of doing this. She has the talent, she has the class, and she even fled when we asked everyone to gather here… I'm sorry students, but I believe Paracelsus is correct…"

Aiko spoke with a heavy heart, Suzu slumped to her knees in defeat, and the rest of the class all held glum looks on their faces. Aiko was the last hope they had that everyone in their class had remained human despite everything that transpired, and yet here they had no choice but to look at the evidence.

The knight squirmed on the floor, the blood creating a pool as it swung its appendages everywhere.

"I've come to let you all know this, now that I've confirmed she has a hold of the Kingdom I intend to take her out. As long as her spell is in effect the Kingdom will forever be under her control. I know not of her motive unfortunately, though that can wait until I catch her. For now my priority is making sure she doesn't unleash an undead army against me. And if she isn't willing to comply, well…"

They knew the severity of Ivan's words, but no one dared to speak up for the girl anyone barely knew. Suzu perhaps would've but seeing as how she was still in shock she was incapable of responding.

"She's nearby, I know it. The odds of her abandoning her deadman army in the wake of this terror is low. This couldn't have been done instantaneously, she'd be too reluctant to start from scratch. Not to mention the safest place for her to be would be in the Kingdom as she has an endless supply of dead bodies to put in front of her."

Ivan took a look around the room, no one seemed to oppose him. In fact the one most likely to oppose him had ran out of the room already.

He already had an idea where Eri could be hiding, the lack of guards around the dorm and city plus their focus on protecting the king was the perfect masquerade for her. If he had to bet the king was truly under her control already and she was likely relaxing in his personal bedchamber, waiting for the storm to die down.

In fact the knight he had kidnapped was busy skulking around the area, odds were he was a spy sent to document what happened at the Holy Church headquarters and report back to her so she could determine if it was safe to go outside.

"Well, that's all I had to say. Let me know if you guys decide to get off your asses or anything~! Ciao!" A bright light flared in the room as the class alongside Aiko shielded their eyes from the blast. A second later and Ivan along with the knight had disappeared, all that remained was the pool of blood the knight left trying to struggle out of the restraints.

"....."

The class had no idea where to go from here. Should they try to catch Eri themselves? Should they stay inside the dorms until Ivan took care of everything? The heroes stood silent in their defeat, not noticing the three figures that had snuck out of the room.

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"...How did they take it?" Yue spoke out as she rubbed Ivan's shoulders, standing on her toes as she struggled to reach. To help her out Ivan went ahead and sat on the bed of the inn they were in.

He stared across the room at the other bed, then to his left only to see another bed. The group had grown so much larger than what it had been when they first began. Even three beds was barely enough to fit everyone, if Felis hadn't been as flat as she was then it wouldn't have been possible to squeeze everyone in one room.

As for why they were staying at some third rate inn, well to not arouse suspicion the girls decided it'd be best to rent an unpopular room. This was the only room that had more than two beds so they were going to take what they could get. As for getting another room, no one wanted to be separated in this city of zombies.

"Well, they all froze like I thought they would. One ran out before I could say much, and only three other people got their heads out of the clouds before I left." With that Ivan laid back, nestling his head onto Yue's thighs, sighing in content the moment she began brushing his hair almost instantaneously.

"Hmph! Then nothing's changed~! They weren't reliable in the first place!" Felis stood atop the bed with her bare feet, her chest puffed out as she spoke ill of the wannabe heroes.

"I must agree with Felis, master~! Those folks are simply too accustomed to their old life. Such naivety would only hinder us in our goals." Tio affirmed Felis' words, she had attempted to climb into bed with Yue and Ivan but after Yue knocked her off out of annoyance she just stared from afar with wanting.

"I know, I know. I never expected much from them in the first place, if they wanna sit indoors and wait for me to open a portal back to our old world then so be it, the most I want them to do is to not interfere with our plans."

The group nodded according to Ivan's words, showing the resolve in their glimmering eyes.

"Tomorrow we assault the Kingdom, all to eradicate Eri Nakamura and bring 'peace' back to this Kingdom. I would have liked the princess to be present to take over after the king's death but we don't have much time. If we wait any long there's a good chance Eri would run away. I'll leave the management of the kingdom to Aiko, I doubt she'd leave the people in distress without leaders. Though I do feel guilty about dumping all this work on her, hopefully it would serve as a good enough distraction from her troubles."

With that they reaffirmed their feelings, shutting their eyes early in preparation for tomorrow. The lights dimmed, and Ivan snuggled closer to Yue, who straddled his chest like a koala. All would have been said and done if not for the rustling of the sheets, as well as the several new sources of heat that attached to his body.

'What was the point of getting all these beds if we were gonna sleep together…' Ivan sighed inwardly before fading away into dreamland with a smile adorning his face.

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Hey guys, Ardo here. Haven't wrote anything in three weeks so I'm quite rusty. Felt really discontent writing this one. Thankfully I've built a large stockpile of chapters so you guys weren't affected. I have a lot to say in my Author's Notes chapter once this story is over. Yep, after the final chapter I'll release a chapter with a lot of my feelings and stuff regarding my first entry into writing. I've learned a lot, regretted a lot, and felt burnt out a lot. In fact I think that's what I'm feeling right now, burnt out. I also got a job, so that's a big change to my life. An actual job this time.

Anyways, I'll save it all for the final chapter. Note that because I want to get started on a new series that things will be sped up. Also, join the discord as I'm going to run a pole to see what story you would like to see next. I have two ideas I want to put out but I want your input, that's something i feel like i didn't do enough with this fic.

Have a great evening, and see you all later. Thanks for reading.

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