My New Life As A Kid Goddess: Book 3 - Kingdom Goddess Arc 2

Arc 2: Kingdom Goddess - Chapter 40

As the summer waned and the Autumn began the leaves on the trees changed into a multitude of colors. Reds, oranges, and yellows mixed in together with the leftover greens to form a kaleidoscope in the forest. The ground became cluttered with the leaves that had already fallen and made for crunchy steps on dry days and a mushy slippery mess on days when it rained.

Today it was a dry day, the weakening sun above in the sky shining down its brilliant light. The warmth was not completely gone from the day and anyone out wandering the world was sure to need a healthy water pouch to stay hydrated. The towering Henjuk Mountains had their snow caps growing ever bigger by the day which heralded the coming cold.

It was here in the southern end of the piney Goudihev Forest that the village of Bellumisa stood. Its population was around one-hundred but all of them fierce warriors in their own right. They lived off the land more so than other villages and were quite competent hunters, some would say unnaturally so. Regardless of the validity of the claims made against them one thing was true: here in these lands the unnatural was something one had to be ready to deal with. Strange things happened everyday if one had the wits to notice.

A young man of twenty-two was walking through the tall pines along an old game trail. His name was Remus Illice and he was a proud hunter, out in the woods daily to bring home food for his village. He was wearing thick leather armor and carried a tall spear of fine quality despite its low cost materials of iron and wood. His garb consisted of your average peasant's shirt and slacks with a large belt fitted with hunting tools such as a large dagger and various pouches. His hair was long and butter colored while his yellow eyes blended with his pale skin.

While he walked he noticed with disappointed how little wildlife was in the area. It was rare to see animals in this particular neck of the woods for reasons he was more than aware of. Just up ahead was an old battlefield from a war long since past and the activity there as of late had driven the animals away. This was his mission at the moment: to investigate what manner of movement disturbed the old bones of the fallen.

He was not alone as his comrade in arms walked about one hundred feet behind him. An older man in his late thirties by the name of Geminio Robin who was dressed similarly, though armed with a short sword instead of of a spear. His hair was also quite long with deep red color and his eyes shone a bright sea blue

Geminio called forward to his younger companion.

"We're nearly there. Do you see any of them yet?"

"Not yet brother" Remus replied. "I'm sure we will soon." He then muttered under his breath. "If any of the bastards are about..."

The sound of crunching bone startled Remus as he took another step through the undergrowth. Looking down he saw the skull of a human exposed in the dirt. It nearly caused him to jump out of his skin at first, though of course this was just a skull and couldn't move.

No it was the ones that moved that were the problem. The skeletons of warriors from hundreds of years ago that scrabbled up out of their shallow graves and wandered the battlefield of centuries past, their bony fingers still clutching their rusted weapons as their garb hung rotting from their frames. The walking dead.

This was the plague to be inflicted upon his village for the last fortnight: a cursed army rising from the earth to blight the land with unholy terror. The animals of the forest fled as they should, though the village still remained in hopes they could destroy the menace. The skeletons couldn't move quickly and had no intelligence to speak of, only wildly striking out at anything that passed too closely, thus it was the decision of the elders to try and eliminate the threat instead of flee.