Book 3: Chapter 50: Patch 9.0: The Catacombs' Secret

“Shogun, bro, I swear if you try licking me later,” Rao says after having watched Shogun tear the limbs off of a shambling corpse.

Shogun looks at his owner, rolls his eyes, and then looks at Rock whom is chewing on the bone of an arm that still has some zombie flesh hanging off of it.

Rock looks at Shogun, slides the bone a bit out of her mouth so that there’s enough space for Shogun to bite onto it as well, and offers it to him.

With the latest wave of trash mobs defeated, Rock and Shogun proceed onward while each chewing on the ends of the same bone.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Rao tells Oleander.

Oleander turns around and looks at Rao.

The small deer boy is covered in chunks of flesh, black and brown goo, and there’s even a disembodied finger wiggling around on the top of his head that he hasn’t noticed. “I don’t want to hear that from you,” Oleander tells Rao.

Rao covers up his mouth and looks away.

Dealing with the undead is a very messy job.

Back in the room that Fenrir and Cassiel are hiding in, they have slipped their armor and weapons back on.

The undead outside of the room originally went away after they didn’t make much noise, but after their fun on the bed and the noises made as a result of it, the dead are back to banging on and clawing at their door.

“So, do you think this place counts as a dungeon?” Fenrir asks.

“I’m not sure. You could probably say that it does, but I don’t know why that boss was aboveground instead of somewhere down here. Doesn’t make much sense either since he was a completely different type of monster from the ones down here,” Cassiel answers.

“Maybe he was like, a roaming boss that decided to just hang around there to catch unsuspecting players?”

“Maybe.”

“By the way, that new sword of yours. It looks like a pretty… I don’t know how to explain it, but it looks holy. It looks like the kind of sword designed specifically for cutting through demons and zombies and all that. Maybe we should try it out? Can’t stay in this room forever.”

Cassiel unsheaths her new blade and looks it over. Its holy appearance was part of the reason why she wanted it so badly, so it wouldn’t be impossible for it to have some holy attributes to it as well. “Being an angel would be useful right now.”

“I’m guessing those angels have got some good anti-undead magic and all that?”

“Yeah. These monsters wouldn’t stand a chance against even a single angel, and an archangel could solo most undead or demonic bosses on their own unless they were raid bosses.”

“We’ve got to figure out how to get you your wings and halo.”

“Good luck,” Cassiel says with a sigh. “Being an angel would be so cool… but I won’t be able to become one unless I somehow got back into Livia’s grace.”

“Well, you’re already an angel to me, so now we’ve just got to come up with our own way to get you your wings and halo.”

Cassiel wants to call him a bastard for how impossible that is, but instead, she nods and says, “I – I believe you.”

Fenrir looks at her with a grin and hugs her. “You’re so cute when you’re like this.”

Cassiel, blushing up a storm against his chest, hugs him back. “Sh—be quiet… and are you back to full health yet?”

Fenrir blinks his eyes a few times and looks around. He can’t see any more spots of darkness in his vision. “Good to go. I think,” he answers and stretches. “So, we open up the door and kill them as they come in? You with your sword and me with my feral?”

“Yeah, we’ll let them come in two at a time. We should be fine as long as we’re quick.”

“You know, while I’m feral, I might give in and bite some of them. Don’t judge me for that because I doubt I’m going to enjoy the taste.”

“I am not kissing you if you do.”

Fenrir chuckles. “That’s fair. Alright, you ready?” he asks while removing the furniture up against the door.

Cassiel steps closer to the door with her new sword in her hands, the blade beginning to glow with holy energy as she gets closer to the undead.

Both Fenrir and Cassiel are excited to see her sword in action when they see it glowing.

Fenrir can already feel his feral urges building up within him just knowing that he’s about to be in danger, and by letting those urges take hold of him, his arms and legs both transform.

It’s Cassiel’s first time really seeing him like this – or at least, paying attention to him while he’s like this. She notices that not only are his calves and forearms transformed into a more bestial appearance, but his ears and tail are both longer and bushier as well.

She’s torn between wanting to hug and cuddle with his tail, and being excited from how animalistic he seems.

This is when she realizes that Nell has to be rubbing off on her.

“Let’s go,” Fenrir says, looking back at her.

If his appearance so far wasn’t enough to excite her, seeing how much larger and sharper his teeth are now is definitely enough.

Cassiel nods, and so Fenrir opens the door.

Two corpses half-flesh and half-bone push and squeeze against each other to fit through the doorway which gives Cassiel enough time to stab her sword through their heads.

Golden light escapes through the wounds that she made, and each of the zombies drops dead for the final time.

Her sword is glowing even brighter now that it is exposed directly to the undead.

“Definitely looks like some sort of bonus there,” Fenrir says. When he looks over at Cassiel, he sees her smiling and ready to get plenty of practice with her new sword.

Another zombie comes inside the room which is instantly killed by a stab to the head by Cassiel.

“Wow, somebody who actually goes for their heads. You should act in a zombie movie,” Fenrir teases.

“There wouldn’t be a movie if I was in it because I’d actually use common sense, and then it’d be over before it could start,” Cassiel says, smirking back at him.

“Well, just let me know when I can join in on the fun,” he says as the fifth zombie gets its brains stabbed.

“Promise not to bite them?” Cassiel asks as a zombie approaches.

“Alright, I promise not to bite them.”

With a smile, Cassiel thrusts her blade into the chest of the latest zombie, positions it so that it’s between her and Fenrir, and then kicks it backward towards him!

“Have fun,” Cassiel says as the zombie almost falls into Fenrir.

Fenrir, using the deadly claws protruding from his fingers, stabs them right through the zombie’s head. “This is too easy. I’m starting to think we could have handled them out in the hall. But, then we wouldn’t have come in here and had some fun.”

Cassiel blushes as she stabs the next zombie. “D-don’t bring that up right now,” she says.

While the flow of undead is manageable at first, the sound of their fighting only attracts even more undead from the tunnel outside their room.

Their problems only increase from there.

There was little to deal with other than zombies and skeletons at first, but as the fight continues, more powerful variants of undead begin showing up. Ghouls wielding large clubs made of either wood or bone, hybrid zombies with tentacles for arms capable of lashing into the room from the tunnel, and small, maggot-like insects that can easily get into the room while the two are distracted fighting are but some of the new threats the couple is facing.

“F-Fen,” Cassiel says, chopping away at the undead pouring into the room. She’s starting to understand that going for the head isn’t exactly an easy thing to do when faced with dozens of monsters wanting to kill her.

Her holy blade helps by dealing more damage than a regular blade would, but Fenrir doesn’t have the same luxury. His most effective weapons right now are his claws that are slashing away at his enemies. “This might have been a bad idea after all,” Fenrir grunts before one of those maggots latches onto his leg like a leech.

They start feeling as if all hope is lost, but then Rock’s barking reaches them.

“Fenny! Cass Cass!” Oleander shouts from the tunnel.

“Finally,” Cassiel says.

“Bro! We’re coming!” Rao shouts.

Cassiel rolls her eyes.

“In here!” Fenrir shouts. “You know! The room with all the zombies going into it!”

“Fen! Your dog is totally overpowered down here! Everything just keeps on trying to bite her and breaks their teeth on her!” Oleander shouts.

Fenrir is proud that Rock is doing a good job fighting against the undead when he hears that. However, more than being proud, he’s pissed off that a bunch of zombies has been trying to bite her.

“F-Fen?” Cassiel asks, looking over at her boyfriend and seeing just how pissed off he looks.