Assassing Among Heroes Chapter 28 preview

Along with being a history nut, I’m an avid enjoyer of video games. Single-player mind you, no MMOs for me, but I’ve played all kinds of them, adventure, action, indie, puzzle, even a few horror games. A common foe that I’ve encountered in my digital adventures were undead, of all shapes and sizes. Depictions of zombies and undead have given me a pretty good idea of what to expect.

But nothing’s prepared me for the real thing. The smell hits my nostrils, even filtered through my mask. Garbage, feces, spoiled milk, and sewage are all mixed up together. Their forms simply compound the effect. Skin hangs off their limbs and bones, sometimes to the point where it’s one second away from tearing off. Their eyes are milky white, some bulging so much they look like they’re about to come out of their sockets.

My mind flashes back to when I first met him in one of those rooms, surrounded by corpses with missing lungs and hearts, taunting me with that severed arm. I allow the horror and revulsion to rise up but I dare not react.

What on Earth did he do to these people!?

One resident to my left lets out a screech and flings himself toward me with swinging arms. With a flash, my Concealment activates, I sidestep and carve through his rotted neck. A spurt of blood - foul, tar-black - coats the dagger and the repulsive odor stings my nose so hard I hold down a hiss. It stumbles and tries to retaliate but I slash it again and kick its sides. I barely have time to see if it worked before the other zombies let out a guttural cacophony of screeches and start advancing. They can’t see me, so I have the advantage -

“GRAAAH!”

- but they can see Shiki!

Just as I stab through another zombie’s skull, I take a quick peek behind and see…Shiki slicing through a neck so cleanly the head flies off. A female resident leaps at her, but she then twirls and slices again, bisecting her by the waist.

That’s gotta be her Quirk - shit, no time to gawk!

I swiftly return my attention to my own walking husks and look up at the scum responsible for this whole thing. Araya is still at the back of the corridor with a hand on his rough chin, taking in the sight as one would look at a museum piece.

Something you look at while munching on snacks. This ibn kalb, who turned this whole building into a corpse farm. And he treats it like a show.

He dies tonight.

Holstering the dagger, I  whip out two other knives and throw them at two other zombies, hard. The first one gets the blade lodged right between the eyes, while the other gets lodged in his fat, bulbous neck. I break into a sprint, my finger twitches and the knives fly back to my palms, tearing the two’s flesh and drowning them in their own blood. One last zombie remains, an older woman with tattered clothes, and when she breaks into her own mad dash, I shove a knife right into her face and kick her in Araya’s direction. It doesn’t send her far, but nonetheless, the priest-garbed man snaps his hand up and she explodes on sight, leaving bits of her entrails on the floor.

I lunge at him, but just as the blade approaches his throat, he vanishes in a blur and reappears to my right. I pull my arm back just in time to avoid piercing the wall, and I quickly turn around. His hand is back resting on his chin, eyeing Shiki who has just cut down another zombie.

“Hmm…I may have expected too much. The brain is not complex enough to discern threats at their current stage.”

He takes a little glance in my direction and I tense up. How is he able to know where I am? The shadows over his eyes make it a bit difficult to read him, but I can tell he can’t really see me. Is it some kind of sensory Quirk? Then how can he phase through the building? And how are these zombies related!?

“Perhaps a different method will suffice.” With those words, he phases down through the floor and vanishes from sight.

Shit. No time to waste. I glance toward the entrance of the stairwell; it’s obviously a trap, but I’ve got no choice. I run to Shiki who gives me a quick nod.

“He’s gone below, but I don’t know which floor. We’ll have to look one by one and strike the moment we see him.”

She looks down on the floor, covered with the rubble from our earlier descent. “I can cut up the floor like this one. If he can move through the walls then it won’t matter much how we go down.”

…that’s a valid point. “True, but I don’t want to risk this building collapsing on us. Not to mention whatever he is doing that’s keeping this building hidden. If the neighbors suddenly wake up and start calling the police, he’ll run away and I’ll be back to square one.”

Her expression briefly scrunches up, but she then nods in agreement. “Then we take the stairs?” I move to reply, but she cuts me off. “I’ll take lead.” With that, she turns and heads toward the stairwell door. Maybe I should check the rooms first? No, too enclosed, and I don’t know what Araya put in there to make the poor people turn into…those. I glance one last time at the ruined hallway. The rotted, saggy corpses lie in pools of black liquid, spurting from their necks and heads. Or in Shiki’s case, their lower bodies.

Disgusting. Everything about this mess is horrid.

I move after my newest associate and start heading down the stairwell. The metallic steps clang with each step and I wince at every one. Maybe I should have let Shiki cut open the floor. No, that would still be loud. But what if -

The air shifts.