Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1330: A New Party



In desperate times, humans tended to slacken their sense of morality and their reason. However, it was also a common fact that they tended to inflate their suspension of disbelief in such times. Their minds opened up to many new possibilities that might have seemed absurd before.

Nothing encapsulated this idea better than the reception of the giant snowman waving its large wooden fingers forlornly at the twelve thousand men and women within the ruined city. Some waved back while some only watched as their children smiled and giggled at the guardian beast's emotional gesture.

The great snowman then harnessed a great portion of its mana and conjured mounds of cold snow and great, solid blocks of ice which circled the decrepit, broken city and covered it in a protective, domed shape. The humans inhabiting the city would now be safe and well-cared for with the supplies they had been given.

"Look at him. The great, stupid idiot is indulging," a beast that looked a lot like a pale goblin with an ice blue beard said to Azila. It spat on the ground, and a chunk of it turned to ice. "I wouldn't celebrate humans tolerating us just because there's been a crisis too dangerous for them to handle while taking care of their weaker folk."

The Great Mane Mountain Ape chuckled.

"Perhaps after this - if Aigas does survive - we can go back to the times when a visit from a guardian beast was met with celebration and reverence. Youths like him" - Azila pointed at the snowman adding some finishing touches to the dome around the city - "have never known what a cordial relationship with humans feels like until now."

"I'll bet," a young man with spiky white hair and striking red eyes chimed in. "I saw him giving heartfelt goodbye to his snowlings before we left. He must have a soft spot for any sort of 'weaker folk'."

The pale goblin regarded Grim with narrow, suspicious eyes. It regarded Yuyui, who was standing next to him, looking to be lost in her thoughts with even more suspicion.

It had taken a lot to convince the goblin to join the cause. He was the one who ruled over the Urja Sacred Forest which the party of Unlimited Stars and guardian beasts had visited earlier. Karima had made a good case for why this goblin was supposed to join them to save Aigas from the Cavern, but his misgivings had mostly been about Yuyui, Grim and the Stark Troops. He felt the humans were too weak to join the ranks of beasts of their calibre.

A timely attack by a group of Cavern had tipped the goblin's decision in favour of allying with the group, though. He was joined by some of his more powerful companions, one of which was the giant snowman.

The party had decisively split up from then. Karima took some of the goblin's other companions in another direction in order to cover more ground. The guardian beast was confident that Azila could handle negotiations with other guardian beasts on his own, with the goblin and the humans' help.

So far, Grim, Yuyui, the Stark Troops, Azila, the snowman and Hauza the ice goblin had not managed to persuade other groups of guardian beasts to join them because they had met many groups of humans in need on the way. Azila and the snowman were more inclined to help, which was why the party had stopped to create a safe space for the thousands they had rescued up until now. They couldn't continue on with their objective with such a mass of potential victims around. The dome the snowman had built could weather many high- powered attacks, but its greatest feature was stealth. Anyone who had not watched as it was created wouldn't be able to see or sense it.

"Looks like he's done. Shall we move on?" Grim said as the snowman floated towards them while clapping away snow from its fingers.

"Yes. I imagine Karima has already recruited a few more guardian beasts by now. We need to pick up our pace," Azila said. "I think there's another Sacred forest north-east of here, not too far. I'd say about seven hundred kilometres give or take. Is that enough detail?"

Grim scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"I think so," he said and started turning on the spot, trying to identify which way was north- east. "That should be it, right?"

Hauza scoffed and spat. Grim turned to him, frowning.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," the ice goblin said scathingly. "I'm just reminded that the... quality of this trip wouldn't change if you human folk weren't here. You can't even read basic cardinal directions. How can I take you seriously?"

Grim rolled his eyes.

"I got the right direction, alright?" he said sharply. "Now let's go. Yuyui?"

The lime-haired girl looked as though she had been torn out of a nap. "Hmm?" she said before shaking her head. "Right. Everyone gather around me."

Grim gave her a suspicious look before telling the snowman, Hauza and Azila to do the same.

As soon as everyone pooled together - the twenty and some Stark Troops around Yuyui and the beasts close to Grim - the male Unlimited Star's Granted Star Armament was suddenly suffused with a soft glow from the stars running across its dark surface. Then, with a thought, he expanded his senses and activated one of his armour's Starmations, the Granted Warp.

Granted Warp was an ability afforded by the special armour the Stark-Soul Order members wore. It allowed its user to instantly teleport wherever their senses could reach - whatever sense was used, magical or otherwise, did not matter.

The party vanished and appeared somewhere several kilometres away, and then vanished again and again and again until Grim judged that they were close to where Azila had said this Sacred Forest he knew would be.

The area that made their last stop was rather rocky but beautiful. The treacherous chaos of what was happening on Aigas had yet to sully its beauty. The Sacred Forest Azila had mentioned was less than a kilometre away. It began in a crescent from three bald hills up ahead, avoiding their erect masses.

The party wasted no time in traversing over to the Sacred Forest. During their march, Grim walked over to Yuyui who once again looked distant. There were wrinkles of worry over her

face.

"You still thinking about that bad feeling you had earlier?" Grim asked her.

Her face contorted into something like a croissant.

"I can't help it," she said.

"Do you really think it's got something to do with those twelve women?"

"Nothing is impossible with the current state of Aigas," Yuyui said and she looked at the drapes of time made permanent by Boron's powers. "The connection I felt is almost certainly related to the powers of my Class."

Grim nodded.

"You scared?

Yuyui didn't answer immediately. This concerned him a little.

"I've always wondered what the people who made my eyes are actually like - what made them turn into monsters in the end, and if they can be redeemed," she said. "The only thing I'd fear about them - since they started as a band trying to save women from unjust treatment - is if they had been lying to themselves about their righteous intentions from the very

beginning."

[Author's Note]

This is the perspective we will be focusing on for a little while. Please bear with me in these Skullius-starved times. XOXO