When Koda got back to the surface, he was relieved to see Old Bram still outside talking to that woman.
But his heart was still racing, he couldn’t stay here.
If Old Bram was truly feeding a terrifying creature with the villagers, it was only a matter of time before the creature recovered and turned the entire village into a hivemind of zombies.
This was it.
He had discovered the truth behind the zombie apocalypse that was to come.
Not wasting his time, he didn’t bother staying inside of the Butchery and left to find Riley.
He knew what he needed to do, in order to stop the villagers from turning into zombies, he needed to slay that nightmare creature.
The thing is, he had never fought anyone before, let alone an abomination like that.
Grimacing, he picked up his pace, brushing past many animalistic villagers and many half dead people, he burst through the door of Riley’s house.
The other boy quickly turned to face him, slightly startled.
“Holy shit, what’s got you acting like THIS?” He asked, breathing heavily.
Koda caught his breath and tried to explain.
“There’s… a big nightmare creature under the village, Old Bram is feeding people meat infected by the creature and turning them into zombies for the creature to feed on!
We need… we need to kill it!” He said, breathing heavily.
Riley’s eyes widened.
“Huh?
That makes a lot of sense actually.
Explains the disappearances and the quality of the meat.” He said thoughtfully, scratching his chin.
Koda got closer and grabbed the boy’s shoulders.
“This is serious!
You… we… we’re probably infected too!
I have eaten that before, right?
Oh my lord…” he suddenly realised, staring down at his stomach in horror.
Riley motioned for him to calm down.
“Chill, you’re okay.
You really are acting strange, you were so confident before because of your immunity to diseases and ability to eat anything no matter the quality.
And now?
Now you’re so paranoid?
It’s me who should be worried, damn it!” He said, raising his voice towards the end.
“Immunity to disease?
Ability to eat anything?” Koda repeated, finally realising something.
His singular attribute, [Strong Gut] must give him some sort of immunity to these things, right?
Summoning the runes, Koda quickly searched for the line describing his attributes and found it.
*** [Strong Gut] Attribute Description : Your gut is abnormally strong and resistant to infections.
*** His eyes widened.
‘That… makes a lot of sense, no wonder I’m not already a zombie.’ He thought, looking at Riley.
Riley shook his head.
“And you want to kill that thing..?
Then what?
Then all the surrounding Nightmare Creatures will come and finish us off, we stand no chance against a horde of zombies and a very scary creature.” He said, but Koda could see the sparks of excitement in his eyes.
“If the thing needs to feed off starving humans to survive, it surely can’t be too powerful, right?” Koda tried.
Riley shook his head again.
“You can try, but if I try to help, I’ll only worsen my condition.” He said with a bit of sadness in his tone.
Koda raised an eyebrow.
“Your condition?” “Yeah, I’m infected too.
Using my Aspect will only make the infection spread faster thanks to my stupid flaw.” Now, both of Koda’s eyebrows are raised.
“Flaw?
What is your flaw?” He knew this wasn’t something that people just tell others, but Riley seemed like the type to not mind.
“Using my Aspect causes any illnesses or infections to worsen within my body.
Very bad for this situation, thankfully using it to purify my food doesn’t cause much of a change.
If I were to eat more of that meat, that’d make it far worse.” He answered with a somber expression.
That’s when Koda realised something.
He didn’t have a flaw, nor did he have an aspect ability.
All his aspect actually did for him was make his digestion easier and seemingly allow him to eat inedible things, which was kind of an ability in of itself.
So, he figured he’d get his ability once he completed the nightmare and solved the zombie problem.
Which didn’t really seem possible.
Everyone was already infected, EVERYONE.
There was no one who could help him other than himself and the only way out was to kill everyone and destroy the village.
But could Koda do that?
No.
Not alone at least.
“Is everyone in the village infected?” Koda finally asked in a somber tone.
Riley sighed.
“Those who refused to eat the meat died of starvation.” He looked at Koda with a knowing expression.
Koda sighed.
“So, what are you gonna do?” Riley asked with a gentle smile on his thin face.
“Scorched earth?” He replied, not sure if he even knew what that meant.
Riley raised an eyebrow.
“What does that mean?” Koda thought for a second before replying.
“I don’t really know, but I feel like the only way that good can prevail is to destroy everything.
That way, nobody will become a brainless zombie for the rest of eternity.” “So… what you mean by scorched earth is the entire destruction of our village?” Riley asked with a dry chuckle.
“…Sure, that way they can die as humans instead of being subjected to an eternity of being a puppet to an abomination.” Koda replied, looking out the window.
Riley didn’t respond, he just stared down at his pale hands.
“And I can begin by confronting Old Bram about his basement and what he is doing to the villagers.” Koda said, disgust in his expression.
Looking back at Riley, who was still staring at his palms, Koda took one last deep breath before leaving.
The moment Koda left, he noticed that the villagers had grown even more erratic.
There was barely any humanity left in their eyes and they were beyond help.
He moved quickly, not staring for too long as to not get their attention.
After a moment Koda had returned to where he had first started the nightmare, standing a few meters away from Old Bram’s butchery.