INVASION

The night was festive in Cine Village. The celebration was for the defeat of the plant monster that was slain by Ahli and Sharon. Everybody was in a festive mood, but not for Ahli.

"Why do we have to join the party?"

"Can't help it. They haven't given us the reward money and it's almost dark. Or do you prefer to walk in the dark?"

Sharon was right, he preferred not to be in the wilderness at night. Rule number 1 of a fantasy story, trouble always comes at night. The Battle of Yakul was one of them. And hopefully, there will not be any more battles that day. He was tired and preferred just to sleep. But that is something that will not happen soon for him as people in the village came all the time to the table that he sat on, bringing him drinks after drinks.

Ahli took a sip each time, showing how weak he was in drinking to those men. It was a good way of avoiding getting drunk. Unfortunately, Sharon was the one those men went to as she was being offered twice the number that was offered to Ahli.

Luckily, Sharon was tough. She could chug every one of the glasses and stay sober. Even Ahli was impressed looking at that.

"How many glasses you had?"

"Huh, not many." Ahli raised his eyebrows, as he saw there were at least 10 glasses on the table, and a lot had come and gone. If this was considered as not many, he could not imagine what many might be.

The night became late and more people got drunk. As the merry sound became calmer, many people had left the party place and some that stayed still sang to their hearts content. Ahli was sitting watching those people. In front of him, Sharon finally fell asleep. She had quite the feast.

TENG TENG TENG TENG

The bell at the village wall rang loudly, making everyone who was still at the party pay attention to it.

"Ghouls! Ghouls are coming!"

[Ghoul? Zombies?]

Ahli quickly moved to Sharon's side and shook her body, trying to wake her up while calling her name.

"Sharon! Sharon, wake up!"

She did not budge. Ahli quickly looked around him, looking for any sort of liquid. He found a glass of ale that was still full. He quickly splashed it on Sharon. She woke up surprised, jumping from her position.

"Ah, what the hell Ahli?" She sniffed her face and soon after her expression changed from confused to anger.

"DID YOU JUST THROW ALE AT ME?"

"I'm so sorry. We got a situation here. Ghouls."

Even though she was upset before, she quickly showed her serious face and grabbed her sword, rushing toward the village wall, where everyone had gathered. Ahli quickly followed.

They both climbed the stairs to reach the top of the wall. From there, they looked toward the field outside of the village, there was nothing.

"Over there." Sharon pointed to the end of the field, by the edge of the forest.

There were shadows slowly appearing under the moonlight. First was two, then a couple more could be seen. Then as the cloud suddenly became clear, almost a hundred zombies were seen moving toward the village.

"Everybody! Prepare the fire and bow!" Ordered one man who looked to be in his 40s. Ahli remembered that he was the village chief, and as he recalled, his name was Mr. Bagik.

After Mr. Bagik gave the order, men of the village with bows and arrows rushed to the top of the wall. Some of them were preparing at the village gate.

"Open the gate!"

With his order, the men who gathered at the gate rushed outside with some who followed. They prepared multiple fire stoves. Each one of them dipped their arrow into the fire stove and lined up in position, preparing to release the zombies. Ahli saw how the ones on the wall also did the same thing.

"READY!"

Ahli was impressed how everyone was in full concentration even though they were fully drunk not long ago.

"RELEASE!"

With that one command, a barrage of fiery arrows flew piercing the night sky. Most of them landed on the zombies, making the front line of that army crumble.

"READY!"

Without break, the men at the village were already prepared to send the second barrage. As they were waiting, suddenly the weather changed. Rain slowly started to pour. Panic quickly ensued in the people of Cine.

"COVER THE FIRE!"

They acted as quickly as they could responding to the order, however, some of them were too late as the rain turned big suddenly and turn off the fire they had.

"HURRY! TURN THE FIRE ON AGAIN! OTHER, PREPARE TO RELEASE!"

Everyone acted as fast as they could, but, the rain seemed to hinder their effort.

"PREPARE FOR CLOSE COMBAT!"

As with this order, everyone gathered at the gate. Ahli and Sharon joined them. With the gate opened, everyone there deployed toward the field. The ones in the front rushed toward the zombies with their swords prepared, with others following. As they got closer, a fierce battle quickly ensued.

Ahli was running toward the zombies as well, even though he felt scared. It was really different even though video games made the visual super realistic, but when he faced them for real, it was a nightmare scene.

[It's just like the video game. Just like the video game. Nothing else.]

His encouragement paid off a little as it boosted his fighting spirit. With the first zombie in front of him charging at him, he moved as low as possible with little visuality because of the rain. He slashed its belly and it did not fall.

The zombie pushed him to the ground and started to aim for his head, trying to take a bite of it. Ahli held on but it was hard to push back the zombie as it was way stronger than him. With every bite, its mouth approached his face.

SLASH!

With one swing, he was saved. Sharon arrived on time to cut the head of the zombie. Ahli kicked the body away from him and was helped by Sharon to stand.

"Thanks."

"You can't go alone against them. They are crazy strong, you know."

"You're saying this now?"

Another zombie came at them, which quickly slashed at its leg by Ahli and hit at the mouth by Sharon. It fell into pieces. The tide of the battle was in favor of the villagers as many of the zombies were defeated.

"KEEP ON CHARGING!"

What was unexpected to them at that moment was what came after.

"GHOULS AT GATE! GHOULS AT GATE!"

Ahli looked in the gate's direction and it was overrun by zombies. Most of the men quickly ran back, leaving only a few at the front zone, with one of them being Mr. Bagik. He still fought valiantly, however, he was facing three zombies at once and one of them was able to land a strike at him.

Ahli and Sharon were able to interfere with the battle on time and they helped him stand. They moved away from the front line and gathered along the remaining men that were still in the front line. They formed a circle, to hold the advancement of the front line zombie as well as to protect in case of incoming from the ones at the gate.

"Sharon, if this keeps on going, we surely lose."

Sharon quickly realized where Ahli was going with his words.

"No. You've promised to me."

"I know. but you see it as well right? We won't win if it's like this. We need to break the zombies by the middle and reach the necromancer. It must be at the back."

Sharon thought for a while and then she said, "Okay. I'll back you up."

"Great. Before that," Ahli suddenly shouted at everyone. "EVERYONE! I'M SORRY FOR NOT BEING HONEST!"

With everyone looking at him in a confused state, Ahli ran toward the zombie's front line, followed by Sharon. Mr. Bajik tried to stop them, but he was too late.

As Ahli closed his distance, he touched the gem of the deck box and yelled, "CARTA, Activate system!"

And thus, in front of everyone who was still surprised, he added another surprise.