《Beyond the Horizon》


 1-1. Zombies

    I''m sure all of you have already at least heard of the term "zombies" already¡ªwell, at least most of you¡ªbut I doubt there are many zombies that have intellect and can talk out there.


    Of course I wasn''t one of those exceptional ones. Yes, I "wasn''t" . . . until that day.


    I started off as an ordinary undead like all other undead''s. I walked around with my back hunched down and my arms hanging freely while grumbling incomprehensive words.


    Quite a relaxing period of my life, I must say. All I did was walking around slowly all days and all nights. I never had to bother worrying about life since I had none. To begin with, I didn''t even have a brain to think.


    So I guess we could call it a stress-free life that all humans yearn for. Awesome isn''t it?


    Same as all other types of blessings, it didn''t last long, however. I can''t really tell how long had I been living as a common zombie like that, but I do have some fragments of memories seeing eras changed. I probably have lived a very long time already¡ª


    Anyway, let''s go back to that day.


    I was dragging my zombie legs, idly taking a stroll around the area as usual. Though the guy walking next to me¡ªalso a zombie, of course¡ªwas being noisy as hell.


    I couldn''t understand him, but judging from the way he grumbled so rudely, I bet he was complaining about the food he ate this morning. Us zombies eat anything and everything we can find, so once or twice, we would run into crappy trash and have a terrible breakfast . . . even though we basically can''t taste anything.


    We were spening our zombie time like how zombies should, when a huge explosion broke out nearby, blowing almost all of us away.


    My living habitat was a deserted area, which you may make a guess about its origin being the aftermath of some kind of great wars. Aside from some wild plant life, there were only us undead''s. That''s why the appearance of an explosion was quite out of place.


    If it was a natural disaster then sure, you beat me . . . but before being blown miles away, I caught the silhouette of two bastards fighting each other like mad bulls in the corner of my rottening eyes.


    Hey! I know we''re zombies, we don''t feel pain and we''re mean to living beings . . . but randomly making an explosion and blowing us away without warning like that is just rude as heck, don''t you think?


    Oh well, I could complain but it wasn''t going to change the fact that they blew me miles away so I shut up and let the wind carry me through the distance.


    I wasn''t sure what happened to Bob¡ªthe guy walking next to me while complaining about his breakfast this morning¡ªand other zombies, but in my case, I landed in front of a cave in the middle of a forest which I had no knowledge about. Well, of course. I was a lowly undead after all.


    You know, one thing about us zombies that some humans can''t stand on equal grounds with is persistence.


    We''ll keep moving forward no matter what kind of danger awaits us. It sounds dumb but hey, at least we''re braver than a bunch of you humans.


    For that reason, I slowly picked myself up from the ground and continued to walk slowly, dragging my rotten zombie legs on the earth surface step by step.


    Just like that, I entered the cave before me while grumbling about my broken arm.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    It broke when I landed after being blown away by that god damn explosion.


    Inside the cave, it was quite dark, but zombies don''t look, we sense. However, I didn''t have any awareness or consciousness of my own, so I was just randomly walking deeper and deeper into the cave.


    I kept walking for who-knows-how-long and finally something happened.


    Quite unfortunate, but at the same lucky, that''s how I felt about the event happened to me that time, and I still do feel the same way about it even now.


    The event was . . . I fell into a pit-fall trap.


    I wasn''t conscious¡ªbecause I was a zombie¡ªso I wasn''t sure if it was a pit-fall trap or was it just the floor breaking into pieces, though.


    In any case, I fell again, and this time, I broke one of my legs.


    Damn it.


    Moving on.


    Like I said earlier, zombies are kings of persistence. Even with one broken arm and one broken leg, I continued to drag my body forward . . . of course without any sense of pain or any self-awareness at all.


    Until I tripped on something and fell down again. Thank god this time I didn''t break any more limb.


    Then I sensed a dead corpse¡ªmy favorite snack¡ªnearby. In fact, I tripped on that corpse and fell like an idiot.


    So for my vengence, I turned back and began consuming the corpse slowly.


    I don''t know how long it took me, but after quite a while I was able to gulp the brain down smoothly. The brain is always the best thing for us zombies to have as meals. Humans have legends about zombies eating so many brains that they came back to life once again.


    I must say, that legend isn''t wrong . . . but it''s not one hundred percent right either.


    Zombies can indeed regain self-awareness if they eat a lot of brains, but not any kind of brain will do. Only the brains of especially powerful beings can bring life back to zombies'' empty head.


    . . . and of course, the corpse I gnawed on was some kind of high-class being of its own when it was still alive and kicking. I only realized after I ate the brain¡ªyes, I realized.


    As you could guess, I gained some consciousness after eating the brain of that corpse.


    Not only consciousness, but also its knowledge was passed on to me.


    Only knowledge was given to me, though. There wasn''t any personal memory such as wedding anniversary date. General knowledge about the world only, for example how to use this magic or that magic, what is this beast, what is that herb, etc.


    . . . but that wasn''t the only factor that changed my life.


    As I went deeper into the underground cave with some blurry consciousness, I found a mine¡ªbut an almost empty one.


    Why did I say almost? Well, because there were only a couple tens of crystals left lying here and there on the ground. Judging from the traces of mining left behind, this place used to be full of these blue-colored crystals, but for some reasons the miners left in such a hurry that they abandoned more than twenty of them left. Each of the crystals was as big as a person''s fist.


    As a zombie with only about one-fifth of a human''s consciousness, I instinctively threw a crystal in my mouth and swallowed it whole.


    I don''t know how zombies'' digestive system works, but after swallowing one I couldn''t eat anymore. I actually felt full for the first time in my whole zombie life.


    The result of that was, I fell into a semi-hibernation for a few days, then woke up and ate another crystal . . . then repeated the cycle all over again.


    After who-knows-how-long, I finished consuming all of the crystals left behind inside that empty mine.


    Then . . . when I woke from the last hibernation¡ªalso the longest, it took a couple weeks¡ªI realized I could think and act out of my own self-consciousness.


    I became fully aware of my surrounding and myself.


    However, my behaviors were still awkward because I wasn''t fully "released" yet. At least that''s what it felt like to me at the time.


    I tried moving my body by my own will and figured out that I had no physical limitation like humans do, which means I could perform abnormal movements without feeling any type of pain.


    I was conscious . . . but not alive.


    At that point, I began to utilize the knowledge I obtained from the dead corpse''s brain. I learned how to swing my arm and performed a punch on the wall.


    Without any limitation on my physical body, my punch hit really hard it cracked the wall a bit. . . but my fist was also crushed. I felt no pain, though. I had some sort of self-awareness, but I still was just a zombie.


    Seeing my fist like that, I learned that breaking out wasn''t the way to do it, so I stopped and tried my best to think.


    That led to climbing back up where I previously came from.


    I''m not going to lie, it took me three days standing there thinking to come to that solution. Your brain sure feels really slow when you''re a zombie.


    I had superhuman strength, so climbing out wasn''t a big problem.


    The real problem was what I met at the entrance of the cave.

 1-2. We met again

    When I sluggishly crawled back to the cave entrance in this weird half-awake state, I ran into someone I deemed familiar . . . but not very surely, though.


    ". . ." I stared at the creature sitting at the entrance of the cave with his back against the wall while he gasped for breaths, blood was coming out from his mouth.


    I began to use the knowledge I obtain from eating the brain of the corpse earlier again and figured out that this creature is called a human, and it was a male. His state was quite bad as he lost an arm and an eye.


    Also from the knowledge I obtained, I also understood by seeing his blond hair that he was a man with Northern origin. By Northern I meant the Northern lands of this continent of course.


    "Huh," the man spotted me approaching him slowly from winthin the shadows of the cave''s interior. "Who are you!?" He shouted.


    At the time, my awareness towards languages was still very dull, so I only understood one or two words he spoke, but generally I got the idea that he was wary of my existence. He was injured heavily and couldn''t do anything against me, however.


    ". . . me?" I used all I got to utter out a simple word with a strange accent. I haven''t used my tongue for all these years after all.


    The man got even more vigilant towards me as he gripped his sword with his only arm and slowly stood up, murmuring. "A zombie with newly formed consciousness? Strange. . ."


    Without even saying anything, the man randomly swung his sword, creating a cutting force rushing towards me despite the distance between us. My sleepy consciousness somehow instantly recognized this phenomenon as a Sword Skill, also everything regarding the skill was transmitted to me as pure information.


    "!!!"


    It seemed like the brain I ate belonged to a skilled warrior, as I could use his diverse knowledge about combat to instinctively move my body and dodged the sword skill.


    At the same time, by judging the situation using those combat experience, I deemed it possible to make a counterattack using a quite similar skill, but with just my fist.


    "Gaah!!"


    Surprised by the fact that I could dodge his sword skill so skillfully, the man''s movement got interrupted for a biref second. Thanks to this margin, I successfully delivered a strike on his chest, sending a shockwave that shook all his internal organs away from their original positions. Of course, my other fist was crushed when I punched the wall, so I wasn''t using that one.


    The man was standing quite near the wall he leaned his back against earlier so when I blew him away with my strike, his back crashed into the wall, rendering him unconscious instantly.


    "It . . . hard . . ." I murmured in a strange accent just like earlier.


    It wasn''t his bone that was hard, but the control of the skill I just used was. While it''s true that I obtained all the information on the skill from the brain I consumed earlier, theory and practical use weren''t the same thing. I learned that it was going to take time to get used to fighting while using all these skills and magic I possessed.


    In the first place, I had no idea if I could even use magic as a zombie. Within my understanding, one needs a proper body to be able to lead mana around, manipulating it to your liking and from there become able to use magic.


    Just a simple Martial Skill I used just now already posed quite some challenge to control. Had the man not been heavily injured, the blow wouldn''t have had enough force to harm him in anyway possible. I was aware that the skill Heavy Strike I used just now lacked nearly half the force needed to match what the skill really is¡ªhowever my superhuman strength was enough to make up for it somehow.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    When I checked, the man was already dead.


    As I looked more closely, my mind had a spark.


    I sat there wondering about why did this guy look so familiar for a while and finally recalled him being one of the two rude buddies who blew me and Bob away a couple weeks ago¡ªthe name Bob was utterly random, by the way.


    Have they been fighting all this time?, I thought as I began to consume his corpse exactly how a zombie would normally. It was like a conditioned reflex to me almost.


    Half-way through, I realized that I wasn''t gaining anything good from eating his corpse, so I stopped and broke the skull from his spine, removing the brain from within the cranium.


    . . . and of course, I gulped the brain down.


    Slowly, my mind began to digest all the knowledge he stored in his brain. Some were overlapping with what I obtained from the previous corpse, some were brand new. I took my time and sat inside the cave, digging through all the information and knowledge I had with me at the time.


    Before I even noticed, my self-awareness rose one step higher than earlier. Seemed like the man I just killed was also someone of the high-class being. Probably Lord-class, I made a guess.


    After absorbing knowledge from two brains of two powerful creatures, my understanding about the world became a lot clearer.


    For example the thing about "class" I just mentioned.


    In this world, living being''s strength is ranked into Common, Unique, Lord, Mythical, and Divine class. However, before even judging these more conclusive ranks, creatures decide their leaders and higher-ups through their own racial hierarchy.


    For example Goblins. These monsters are born as normal Goblins, then through time, depends on the type of energy that they absorbed, they''ll evolve into Hobgoblins. After that are Ogres, and later on, a minority of goblins can even reach Gargantuas. Of course, there are unique individuals with mutations and exceptions.


    Then at their fifth evolution, which is beyond Gargantua, they''ll reach Unique class as they break free from Common class. For goblins, they can evolve into things like Cyclops or Minotaurs, etc. beyond Gargantua.


    From Unique class and beyond, there is no fixed rule on how many evolutions a creature needs before reaching the next classification.


    Some can go straight to Lord class one evolution after Unique, some can be stuck at Unique for several evolutions before becoming Lords. Same thing applies for Mythical and Divine class. Though, nobody knows what lies beyond Divine class.


    That being said, not all creatures are born Common class. Dragons are Unique class the moment they leave their mother''s womb. Some Dragon individuals are even Lord or Mythical class by default. Of course, Divine class is also not an exception. Some supreme beings are just extremely strong since birth.


    For a creature that was originally Common class like me, absorbing two brains of two other creatures of Lord class or higher put me through a big leap in evolution.


    At that time, I didn''t know even with the knowledge I had . . . but later on, the me in the future actually figured out that my half-awake state as a zombie right now is called a Zombie Duke. Of course, not fully a Zombie Duke yet, but an early stage of becoming one.


    Incidentally, for zombies, the first four evolutions are Zombie, Zombie Knight, Zombie Baron, and Zombie Duke.


    I was quite close to stepping into Unique class, but the energy from the two corpses wasn''t enough to push me that far.


    Speaking of energy, each kind of creature has a specific place called their Core¡ªwhere they store all of their most fundamental life force. By eating these parts, other creatures can absorb the energy, making themselves stronger.


    In humans case, their Core is actually split into their brain and their heart . . . but their heart is worthless to zombies. However, their brains have nothing worth absorbing for other creatures. This is not explanable, as it''s a set rule of the world. Us dwellers can only accept it and obey in order to get stronger.


    Back to me sitting absentmindedly inside the cave.


    I really did take my time and sit there processing all the knowledge I obtained recently. Took me five days straight to fully integrate all of them into my mind¡ªnot sure if I had a brain, though . . .


    During that period of five days, I learned everything about the world that was mentioned in the knowledge I obtained from those two unfortunate corpses. Everything was so new and interesting, I couldn''t even stop myself from wanting to know more. I''ve never known about any of these things while being a zombie.


    "Enough . . . sitting," I mumbled to myself as I finally stood up and decided to go look for more brains. I really wanted to know more and more and more.


    When I looked again, my fist that was crushed by punching the wall had already healed since long.

 1-3. Humans are noisy

    A few minutes after the Zombie Duke left the cave, a group of humans emerged from within the shadows of the forest.


    "Is this the place?" An adult male with a well-trimmed mustache spoke as he looked towards the cave.


    One of his companions closed her eyes and chanted some kind of magic before nodding to his words. "It indeed is the last place that criminal stopped at. I''m also quite sure he never moved beyond this spot."


    "I see," he said. "Then shall we proceed to apprehend him?"


    The other five people in this group of six nodded firmly at his words as they began to carefully move towards the cave¡ªwhere all the traces of the criminal stopped.


    "Hm?"


    "Huh . . ."


    However, the only thing they found inside the cave was half of the criminal corpse with the skeleton intact, except for the cranium. The upper half of the corpse was without any flesh, the skull was half-broken and there was no brain.


    The woman that spoke earlier turned her face away with a frown while another one ran off to a bush and released her mental shock through her mouth. The last of the three women of the group was different, however. She just blankly looked at the mess of a corpse over there with a nonchalant look¡ªwhich defined the thickness of her experience on the battlefields.


    "Did the Knight Captain do this . . ." the man with the mustache murmured to himself, but the surrounding was so quiet that other members of the group also heard his mumbling¡ªor maybe he actually let them hear on purpose . . . no one knows, excluding himself.


    Upon having those words coming from their leader entered their ears, the team members all had their blood run cold. The image of the Knight Captain in their hearts was a refined and dignified figure of justice. It''s safe to say that it was nowhere near to be this messed up. Thus, the team fell into even deeper silence.


    Glancing at his subordinates, the mustache man heaved a sigh. "Well, the brain is gone. It could be a zombie, no?" His tone was strange.


    "R-Right . . . here, you can see a teeth-mark . . ." One of the other two men aside from the leader spoke while pointing at one spot on the corpse. That instant, a shadow of displeasure cast on the face of the leader, but it immediately vanished as he also nodded to those words.


    The third man¡ªtheir only Priest¡ªquietly let out a big sigh of relief as he now doesn''t have to follow this hunt any further. While it''s true that his talent in Exorcism is unique, he''s not the kind of man that finds excitement in combat. He''s simply just happy because this S-rank criminal had already been dead before they came. Though, as a Priest from the Central-branch of the Holy Church of Aesthea, he still offered a prayer in his heart to the soul of the criminal.


    The criminal was, in fact, one of the most dangerous ones being secretly imprisoned within the Underground Magic Prison of Traz''kha in Arland Kingdom¡ªone of the three biggest countries within Northern territories.


    Aside from his status being that of Lord class, another reason why he was locked up inside Traz''kha was because he stole a secret forbidden scroll from the Holy Church of Aesthea. Though he never succeeded in mastering the technique written inside the scroll, he memorized it while no Court Magician within the country was strong enough to erase his memory.


    Unfortunately¡ªcould also be fortunately, or both¡ªa certain zombie stole all his knowledge.


    After a performing an overall survey on the vicinity of the cave, the group of humans left empty-handed.


    ...


    As I walked through the dense forest, I also tried to review all the new things I''ve learned.


    "This . . . be . . . Aqua grass . . . dehydration . . . cure . . ."Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡ªor other things along those lines I kept mumbling and talking to myself. My human language was still very strange. Pronunciation was a pain in the arse because of my zombie tongue, conjugation and grammar structures were off by miles because of my only-functioning-in-half zombie mind.


    Now that I looked back on that time, it really felt like I was a four year old child or something of the sort.


    I spent some idle time walking while pointing at this and that, verifying the knowledge I obtained. Hardworker wasn''t I? Well, when something was so interesting for you to learn, you just don''t really feel like you''re doing anything tough, even if you''re a zombie.


    Then I spotted a river.


    I was not thirsty¡ªnor could I ever become thirsty¡ªbut I was curious, so I decided to to take a detour and walked towards the river instead of heading deeper into the dense forest. Though the gigantic trees were also cool things I wanted to study more about.


    "This is . . . myself . . ." I began mumbling to myself again as I looked into the reflection of myself in the river. The water was extremely clean, to the point of being completely transparent. I could clearly see fishes swimming happily inside the current. Upon seeing that, a question suddenly popped into my head like a kid.


    Does this count as the fishes are flying, but just within a different persepective of environment than birds or other avian reptiles?


    It was an interesting question that I wouldn''t be able to obtain an answer much later until I visited a special place.


    Back to my reflection on the water surface.


    It was the image of a young man with bright blue eyes and pure white hair. It wasn''t grey-ish white seen on elderly humans, but a bright white like that of clouds. The length of my hair was long enough to touch my shoulders. My facial features were normal, nothing too special.


    I also noticed my clothing. Both my shirt and pants were all tattered with cuts and tears. They were also really dirty, but I paid no mind to those details. Incidentally, I''ve been walking bare-footed all this time, but my feet were never damaged¡ªor maybe they did but I just simply feel no pain.


    My true color is a walking dead corpse after all.


    All in all, I looked like a young male human, however my skin color was as expected, very pale. In the end it was probably more appropriate to keep calling me a walking corpse rather than a pale young man.


    While I was messing with the water, my ears picked up noises of a ruckus nearby. The direction from where the noises were coming was on the other side of the river, also a dense forest of the same kind with the one I''ve been walking through up until now.


    My senses somehow detected the so-called "presences" of the creatures causing the noises.


    "Humans," I murmured quietly.


    I quickly used the water inside the river to wash away all the blood on my hands and face, the blood stains on my clothes couldn''t be helped so I didn''t care.


    Then I stood up and jumped over the river.


    It was rather an easy task, even thought the river''s width was around seven meters.


    As I approached the noisy place, I subconsciously began to erase my presence and applied the skill Sneak Through. The skill itself wasn''t something you just need to activate and you''ll be hidden from others'' awareness, but it was a set of movements that could help you do the sneaking as effectively as possible.


    Of course, it was my first time trying it out after obtaining it from the blond guy''s brain so I couldn''t perform it well. If I have to say, then it was only fifty-percent effective because of my clumsy movements. However, the technique to erase one''s presence was a bit simpler so it made up for the errors in using the skill Sneak Through.


    Even though I said that, the two skills combined could only reach the bare minimum of effectiveness to hide from the Common class humans I was peeping at.


    The reason I hid was because I wanted to observe them and learn more things.


    If I simply jumped out and looked at them in the eyes, they would just start attacking me and I would murder them too easily. Well, if that happened I could gulp their brains down and get the knowledge anyway, but I was one hell of a curious zombie. I wanted to observe them alive because it seemed interesting. It wasn''t like I got to see a group of humans quarreling every single day when I was still a normal zombie.


    My hearing was perfectly clear even at a distance, but I wanted to practice using some skills I had so I activated skill Eavesdrop anyway. It was a bit weird at first, but after a few minutes I began to get the gist of the skill.


    "I SAID, I was the one who caught her! That''s why I''m going first!" The man with most rude-looking body figure among the twenty or so man group yelled loudly at another man.


    I''ve only begun to get exposed to human language for a couple of hours so as usual, I could only understand around sixty-percent of what he was saying, but through reading his expression and behaviors, I could somewhat guess what he was yelling.


    "FACK YA! Ya shittin'' me or wah? I was the one reported this t''ya!"


    Then another man, looked to be same age with the previous man, yelled back in a strange voice that I one-hundred percent couldn''t understand anything he said.


    I tried to search my knowledge bank and realized that he was speaking in a heavy dialect of a countryside area in this place called Arland Kingdom.


    After that the two men kept yelling and shouting at each other under the noisy encouragement for the two of them to fight of their other companions. The men that were sitting around the two raised their voices even louder as they began drinking a lot of alcoholic drinks.


    Humans sure are noisy, I thought as watched the quarrel.