He Was Almost Absorbed By The System - Part Two

Chapter One Hundred And Seventy Five - Zombie Apocalypse

Kyan spooned the unpleasant, acrid soup into his butler's mouth, ignoring the fact that the stoic man's facade had fallen into one of sheer disgust. However, the Butler was too much of a professional man to complain about the thick and swamp green mixture and Kyan had become too much the young master to apologise for his cooking. Eventually, the already unwell man began to change to a shade of green that was similar to the soup, so Kyan stopped forcing him to drink it, instead passing him a glass of tepid water with a slice of citrus to help wash away the dire flavours. The butler thanked him, which he waved away, before urging the man to rest and taking away the leftovers upon the tray.

In truth, the mess of a soup was not the results of a failed chef, but was indeed a potion that Kyan and Yin had produced from otherworldly herbs. They had already received the results that the soup would happen to destroy the corpse dust from within a man's body and not harm the body itself, however the concoction was not for the faint of heart. Kyan, himself, had had to down the unpleasant mixture, as he had found traces of corpse dust in his own saliva this morrow and rather than take the chance that it was indeed harmless, he had partook his potion. As a result, he had spent much time retching above the chamberpot. Fortunately, he had not emptied his guts or he would have had to have taken more as a safety precaution.

With a sigh, he dumped the mess down the kitchen sink and hoped it would not cause a blockage within the drains. He yawned. He had inadvertently spent the entire night concocting the potion, losing track of time as he had worked upon it. It was not too much different from the one Leif had taught him to create, just that he needed to remove a couple of herbs that would be too poisonous for human consumption and replace them with others that could substitute yet not down a man. There was still traces of poison, like many medicines, but though they might feel weak for a day or so, they would not die.

Yawning again, he thought to seek his bed and laze away for half a day, but Yin raised an alarm at that moment.

*The spy eggs have caught a strange movement close to where your factory is located.*

He groaned softly, but stilled his irritation and gave a quick nod. "Alright," he replied. "Let us see what they have picked up. I do hope it is not another false warning." Yin ignored his veiled threat. Indeed the visual it had caught last week just happened to be a rat, but it was a really ugly and really large rat!

Kyan dragged his tired body up the stairs, slapping his still slightly thick and soft waist and inwardly complaining that these last few pounds seemed impossible to shift. He was not great of height, a couple of inches below the average of a man in this world, so each pound seemed to thicken his figure that much more. He should not complain, he had been in bodies in far worse condition than this and at least he had the chance to shed much of the weight as the System was no longer there to warn him about falling out of character. One such life, he had eaten himself to death. That was particularly unpleasant. He had not wanted to eat at all in his next life and had an obvious aversion to sweets for several lifetimes after. Now he minded much, much less, but only should the one to produce them be his lover.

Thinking of it now, his body longed for the coconut cream cheese cake that Aidan had last made when he was known as Adam and Kyan was known as Owen. He sighed and ignored his gurgling stomach to light the projector in his workshop, that he might see what Yin had seen though the eggs. The cogs and dials began to whirl and a small amount of steam spiralled upwards. It was a noisy contraption, but he supposed that was a mute point as there would be no sound from the film regardless. He waited while the images were recorded upon the film inside it, before the film then played what Yin had seen. The images flickered as they came together and reproduced its vision.

At first, he thought that it was just a crowd of people spilling forth into the shot and was about to complain, but then he noticed the discrepancies. These men and women were shuffling strangely, some had heads tilting off to one side, some had useless, hanging limbs and although he could not clearly see it, he imagined that their eyes were unseeing or unfocused for the most part. He gulped as he saw in the grey and white pictures that many sported clear wounds, one such man even had a portion of his side removed as if it had been cut or torn away. He shuddered.

"They resemble zombies," he thought aloud. As Owen, he had hated horror movies and zombies especially, though there was no rational reason for his hatred and fear. Corpses, corpses he could handle. They were just dead, unmoving beings. He'd created many himself as an assassin, a soldier, a psychopath and a drunk driver, though many of those he had repeatedly had to tell himself, these people were just data. He no longer accepted such an excuse from himself.

It was far more disgusting to see a half rotted corpse, infested say by maggots and with skin and flesh no longer whole and covering bone, but to an extent, he could even deal with those. But were one to rise upon its own and move, then the Kyan as he was now, would definitely make a break for it. He pointed at the screen.

"Please, in gods name," he found himself begging Yin, "tell me that this is not real!"

*Apologies to host. The image is quite real.*

"Walking corpses are not a kin to this world are they?" Kyan asked. He had heard rumours once when he lived in an oriental-like cultivation world that such existed there, usually the unsatisfied remnants of pitiful men and women who died with remorse or who had their graves disturbed. He was not certain, he had been a lowly cannon fodder who died as he had provoked the protagonists wrath before he had even formed his inner core. That had been a mission failure, but yet not a failure overall as the two protagonists found each other regardless. The System had still punished him for his part.

*Walking corpses should not be found in this world.* Yin confirmed.

"So the corruption comes in the form of zombies?" He groaned aloud. "A damned zombie apocalypse. No wonder the world is due to collapse!" Whether he wanted to understand or not, he had been in worlds that had fiction novels, films and games regarding zombie apocalypse and none of what those contained anything good. Zombies produced more zombies by biting and scratching the living. This sort of corruption would be almost impossible to deal with. No wonder that emotionally he had felt out of sorts these days! Living life after life with inevitably hone a sixth sense that detects trouble or danger to self and this time, his instincts had been on the money.

But what of Aidan? He was out there somewhere, he could be in danger in the future or even right now! He did not want to imagine his lover hurt or dying. The pain had been enough when he had lost Adam to cancer. Him becoming a zombie...

Kyan hesitated, his thoughts on pause as a certain memory came into his mind. "Yin," he asked, though he felt that he already had the answer to his question. "What would occur if one of the outsiders becomes infected by the corruption?"

*Yin does not have the relevant information to provide an answer. However, Yin theorises that should the corruption infect the soul of an Outsider, there may be irreparable damage, death or even complete destruction. Yin recommends saving all Outsiders before this theory is tested.*

Kyan nodded, he thought so too.