Zeroth Moment: My Cheat Skill Is Stupid, So I'll Just Ignore It

Shaking himself, Topher cupped his hands and summoned a Mage Light. "It'll take me down to 4, but it's better than being blind. Extra MP don't do me any good if we get eaten by something we can't see."

As the light illuminated the space around them, Hana stepped away a little, examining the shrouded figures warily. "Are we... safe here, Bailey-san? You said you came through this area previously, but..."

Topher shrugged, still a little dazed from his most recent shock. "As far as I can tell. I wouldn't jostle 'em too much, but they seem oblivious for the most part. I pulled the sheet off one once, and it didn't notice to any degree I could figure."

Zanasha shuddered. "You are very brave, Topher."

"No, I'm just clumsy," Topher demurred. "I tripped." Sweetheart, if you think I'm cool, let's go ahead and disabuse you of any such notions now and save time. "If it had been hostile, I'd probably be dead now."

The half-orc grinned and clapped Topher on the shoulder; he restrained himself from jumping out of his skin with difficulty. "He blushes! Are all the people from your world so self-deprecating?"

"No," responded Topher and Hana simultaneously; Topher grimaced. "Most of the people from our world are assholes. I'm an F-Ranker, so I try to stay humble as much as I can; helps prevent disappointment."

Zanasha cocked her head thoughtfully, but didn't respond; Topher slowly let out a breath, trying to keep himself from freaking out. Breathe, old man. What's wrong with you?

"Zee." Hana had gingerly lifted up the corner of one of the shrouds with extreme care, and was beckoning the half-orc over. "Come take a look at this."

The other woman trotted over, peering under the shroud, then stepped back and shook her head. "I do not know what it means, Hana-chan. Have you ever seen such a thing before?"

"Once," Hana murmured, frowning. "Bailey-san, would you mind looking as well?"

Topher hesitated, but decided there couldn't be any harm in it; if the thing was going to wake up and eat their brains, it probably would have by now. He stumped over, bending creakily to see under Hana's upraised hand. The zombie was much the same as the previous one he'd seen -- vaguely elven, impossibly well-preserved, and uncomfortably energetic for a corpse. He shivered. "What am I supposed to be looking at, exactly?"

"Down at the base of the skull," Hana whispered. "Near the headrest of the support."

Topher blinked. Holy shit. How did I miss that? Sure enough, something was strange at the top of the creature's neck, almost hidden in its brittle, wispy hair; a shimmering cord of light, translucent and insubstantial, that appeared to be flowing into or out of the creature's head. "Uh."

The Japanese girl nodded. "So, you see it too."

"Yeah, but hell if I know what it means. You said you'd seen it before?" Topher squinted at the cord; it seemed to vaguely pulse, almost like something organic.

"In a movie from America," the young woman affirmed. "With... I do not remember the names of the actors. Black leather trenchcoats and sunglasses."

"Oh, The Matrix," Topher nodded. Then the ramifications of what the woman was saying reached him, and his face twisted in confusion. "You're implying that these zombies are in Virtual Reality?!"

Hana let the shroud fall back. "It's only a guess, Bailey-san. But can you think of any other reason they aren't attacking us? Or why such a thing would be entering their heads?"

Topher threw up his hands. "Who knows?! There could be a million reasons. Maybe the whole thing was some kind of hive-mind back when they were all alive, and it's just still turned on. Or maybe they all had their brains sucked out when they died, and nobody came to clean up the mess. Maybe something so weird we can't even guess at it. It could be anything."

Hana paused, then nodded. "You are correct, of course. Please forgive my presumption."

Not another one, Topher groaned. "I'm just saying we should keep an open mind, okay? No need to get so formal."

"You will have to excuse Hana-chan," Zanasha cut in, smirking. "She is addicted to formality."

"Zee!" The other woman swatted at the half-orc playfully, then crossed her arms and sighed. "We should keep exploring. It looks like this place goes deeper, towards that light."

Topher winced, but nodded. "I'd rather we all just got the hell out of here, but if you're sure that's not an option..." he left it hanging hopefully.

The Japanese girl shook her head again, her wavy curls bouncing artfully off her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Bailey-san. I have to do my best to gather as much information as possible; it could be the key to understanding the phenomenon around Wanbourne."

"I don't see how," Topher growled, frustrated. "None of this already makes sense. Dead people on the surface come back to life, but you guys were in a room full of skeletons when you fell down here, right? So why do some corpses reanimate, and not others?"

"Perhaps those killed by the creature we saw are unable," hazarded Zanasha. "Or there is a minimum level of damage or decomposition for the reanimation process."

Topher shook his head. "Still too much we don't know. Can you even prevent the reanimation? If so, how? Does burning the body work? What about cutting off the head?" He rolled his eyes. "Too many unknowns, if you ask me."

"Not all of the questions you ask are unanswerable, Bailey-san," demurred Hana quietly. "I have done some research into the subject. Burning and dismemberment do not prevent the effect; even stripping all the flesh off a corpse won't prevent reanimation. The corpse grows new tissue when the effect takes hold." The look in her eyes implied she'd seen it happen, and Topher shuddered again. "But the effect only happens once. Once a reanimated corpse is destroyed, it stays dead."

Topher crossed his arms, scowling. "So what, then?"

"I don't know." Her eyes flicked towards the glow in the distance. "But we might find out if we continue exploring."

"We might also get killed," Topher groused, but he knew when he was beaten. "But lead on."

They walked for a few hours, heading deeper into the mass of shrouded figures; the space seemed to expand and contract weirdly around them in a way that made Topher sweat. He was uncomfortably reminded of trays of chicken eggs and empty jail cells. Probably some kind of infinite dungeon we'll die of old age before we escape. Just my luck.

They took care not to disturb the figures, but the rows of zombies all seemed to be the same; none of them stirred or moved beyond the occasional twitch and groan. Eventually, Zanasha called a halt, judging Hana too tired to continue. "We must make camp, Hana-chan. You are in danger of collapsing from exhaustion."

"I'm fine," the other girl protested, not entirely convincingly due to a yawn which erupted at the end of her sentence. "Anyway, you haven't slept either."

"I possess the Sentinel Skill, Hana-chan," Zanasha pointed out gently, in a way that seemed like she'd said it many times before. "I can go without sleep as long as is needed. You, on the other hand, have no such excuse."

Topher looked around; there was a spot not too far away beneath a section of raised walkway without any zombies. He pointed. "Over there's probably our best bet." Making his way to the area, he looked around for hazards, then unpacked his bedroll. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noted Hana doing the same, which was a relief; he'd been prepared to offer her his bedroll and sleep on the stone floor, but that didn't mean he wanted to do that. Remove Fatigue only went so far.

Zanasha stood between the bedrolls, holding her sword at parade rest; she nodded at Topher. "I will keep watch. Worry not; nothing will disturb you."

You can disturb me all you want, thought Topher dreamily, then shook himself. Must be out of my mind.

He slept, but not well; his body was flooded with adrenaline at her nearness, to such a degree that he forgot all about the zombies surrounding them. When he finally awoke, dazed and groggy, he thought at first that he hadn't slept at all, but his MP and HP were fully restored; apparently I just feel like I tossed and turned all night. He shrugged out of his bedroll, slipped on his boots, and started to do his exercises before remembering he wasn't alone.

Turning, he noticed at once that Zanasha and Hana had swapped positions; the half-orc was in Hana's bedroll, a pile of armor next to her, and dead to the world as far as he could see. Hana, sitting with her knees drawn up in front of a small flame that emerged from a squat cylinder; at first it looked like a can of Sterno, but upon further inspection, he realized it was an alchemical contraption made to imitate a can of Sterno. In the feeble light it cast, the girl looked very small and alert; Topher sighed and crawled over to sit next to her. "Thought she didn't need sleep?" he whispered.

"The Sentinel Skill only lets you delay sleep," the young woman corrected gently. "She still needs it as much as we do, no matter how much she pretends she's invincible." Her eyes flicked to the half-orc's sleeping form, then looked away to continue scanning the darkness for threats. "I assume you require sleep to regain your MP."

"Lil bit," Topher agreed. "But I can help if you're still tired. Elg Solmi Suu Inush." He watched as the Japanese girl straightened up slightly, the dullness receding from her eyes as his Remove Fatigue spell took hold. "Doesn't make up for sleep entirely, but it's better than nothing."

Hana's eyes blinking downwards for a moment. "You are very generous. But perhaps you should save your MP."

Yeah, being at 95/96 is a real danger, Topher snorted to himself. "It'll be fine. I can cast that on all three of us and make food besides, and still have more than enough MP to not make a difference against whatever ridiculous Level Zillion monster we get killed by."

The girl sighed. "You believe me foolish."

"Nothing personal, lady," Topher pointed out, "but if Level 50 guys are afraid to come down here, it doesn't seem smart of us to do it." Not that you made good decisions coming down here by yourself at Level 11, he thought to himself sourly. "Whatever reason you have for being here, I'm sure it's a good one, but it hardly seems worth your life."

"Not just my life," the girl murmured. She seemed to come to a decision; after a second, she faced him squarely. "I apologize, Bailey-san, but I must ask. How can I know you are truly from our world? You are not Japanese."

"Tell me about it," Topher chuckled. "But wasn't there a guy from your batch from Africa, or something?"

She nodded absently. "Yes. Yes, you are right." Her eyes swiveled back to him. "But that does not answer my question."

"Hmm. Let me think." Topher leaned back, trying to do math in his head; if the girl had been summoned ten years ago... "I guess if knowing The Matrix wasn't enough, you wouldn't be convinced by Star Wars or anything like that. Just ask me questions, I guess. Stuff only somebody from Earth would know."

"Very well." She stared into the tiny flame before her for a moment. "What was the name of our planet's moon?"

"'The Moon'," Topher responded promptly. "Sea of Tranquility, Buzz Aldrin, yada yada yada."

She smiled. "It actually has a name, you know -- it is 'Luna'. But I suppose it would be more suspicious if you knew that than otherwise." She shifted slightly. "What restaurants do our countries share?"

"McDonald's, I guess. And KFC? Apparently it's a big thing in your country, or so one of the kids I was summoned with said." Topher smiled, remembering how Ichirou-but-really-Cailu had been caught out by that fact. "Probably a few others. I don't know much about Japanese culture, though, other than the fact that you guys make all our TVs."

The girl smiled again. "Americans. I can definitely believe that you are American, whatever else you say." She sighed. "I don't suppose you can tell me any pleasant facts from the future, then?"

Topher pondered, then shook his head. "Not really. Everything's the same, but worse, with fancier gadgets. But we haven't blown the planet up yet, so that's something; even you folks from 2013 might be glad to hear that."

Hana froze; Topher blinked. What'd I say?

After a moment, Hana spoke; her breath was a mere whisper. "You are not from 2033?"