If the original host had greased the right palms, Field might yet reap some benefits.
"Hah! Baron Oxhorn and his son are famously—*ahem*—forgive my loose tongue." Steward Caul snapped his mouth shut. Mocking nobles to another noble's face? Suicide—even if this one was famously spineless.
*My own big mouth ruined me years ago,* Caul recalled bitterly. *Caught a lord mid-affair. Cost me my career. Exile to the North.*
Field pressed for details—then froze. On his mental map, crimson skull icons materialized, hurtling toward their caravan.
"Could it be... a welcoming party?" He knew better. Skull markers meant trouble. "Fetch Sir Connor!" he ordered a footman.
"Pah! With respect, the baron frets like a startled hare!" Sir Connor scoffed when the flustered footman relayed the warning. "We're behind Bullion Keep's walls—the empire's strongest defense! If danger lurks here, I'll eat every last dung-cake my steed drops!"
In Connor's eyes, Field embodied *desperation's final twitch*.
"Tell your master," the knight sneered, "fleeing to Nightfall is legally binding—family-sanctioned. Turning back now? Shameful for a noble."
The footman returned, cowed by Connor's bluster. Field merely hummed, slowing the wagons.
Connor trotted ahead, grumbling: "Coward. Can't fathom how the earl sired such milksop—"
His insult died mid-sentence.
Field's "welcoming party" had arrived.
A guttural groan tore through the air.
"Ah," Field murmured. "Someone's dining on dung tonight."
Through panicked shouts, Field pushed past cowering slaves. Fifty paces ahead, figures in tattered farmers' clothes charged—gray eyes vacant, skin sloughing off bone. Ahead of them sprinted a dozen living humans. Even at this distance, the reek of decay hit them like a fist.
Rotwalkers. The North's signature product.
"What madness? We're not even *in* the North yet!" Sir Connor spat, fury warring with dread. *So close to dumping this fool at Nightfall's edge...* "Mount up! Lances ready!"
Worse—he'd mocked Field moments ago. The humiliation burned.
Hefting his lance, Connor spurred his horse. Duty called; refusal meant social oblivion.
Twenty knights formed a crescent, galloping up a slope to gain momentum before plunging down toward the shambling horde.
"Better to trust one's own blade." Field's pulse raced as he studied the clawing corpses. "Slaves! Chain the wagons! Any man with guts—grab tools and fight with me! Rewards for valor!"
The slaves cowered behind carts, trembling or praying.
"Forget those cowards!" Caul trembled like a plucked bowstring, near-soiling himself. He clutched Field's sleeve. "Run, my lord! A... *strategic withdrawal*! Leave this rabble—replaceable as dirt!"
Field peeled Caul's fingers away. "If *this* terrifies you, you've no place in the North."
*I didn't choose this! The earl ordered me!* Caul wished he could vanish, his face purpling with rage.
"Eh? Enemies?" Ashina leapt from the carriage. Days of rest had banished her sallow, emaciated look. Flesh had returned where it should—plump and fair. Were it not for the slave brand and maid's attire, she might have passed for a noble's daughter.
"Milord, I... I'll protect you!"
Clenching small, pink fists, Ashina stood guard before Field, trembling like a kitten caught in a winter's gale.
"That won't be necessary." Field fought back both amusement and warmth at the sight of Ashina's wolf ears pinned flat in alarm. At least the bread and meat hadn't gone to waste.
*Unlike some wretched ingrates who ate my food yet hold grudges.*
"Help us!" The lead peasant spotted salvation and scrambled toward them, wailing for his parents—trailing a horde of corpses in his wake.
"For glory!"
At the perfect moment, Connor's cavalry charged. Bellowing their cry, they lowered three-meter lances and crashed into the clawing undead.
*Thwack! Squelch!*
A sickening chorus of piercing flesh rang out. Seven or eight zombies were hurled backward like sacks of rags, crashing to earth. Rancid, purple-black blood gushed freely, soaking the ground into a viscous mire.
This was but the appetizer. After the lance charge, the cavalry wheeled about, wielding flails and sabers from horseback. Blood bloomed in the air as rotting corpses fell like wheat before the scythe. Some were trampled, chests caved in by iron-shod hooves—a slaughterhouse scene.
The stragglers mindlessly slammed into Field's wagon barricade. Their decayed brains rendered tactics meaningless; they clawed and gnawed at the wooden wheels.
"Mama!" Slaves shoved each other in panic, trapped within the ring of carts with no escape.
The steward fared little better—his bladder failed him, soaking his trousers.
"Damn it, spineless cowards."
Though frightened himself, Field's reaction was tempered by his pre-transmigration diet of apocalypse novels and zombie films. "Seems I must handle this myself."
Without a single soldier at his command, Field assessed the nimble but witless corpses. Their fearless, clumsy advance *could* be countered. This body, after all, held some basic combat training.
With a sharp exhale, Field thrust his longsword into a zombie's neck as it shoved against a cart. A vicious twist—the head lolled like lightning-struck kindling against its chest.
*Gag—*
The stench of rot and fermented filth assaulted his nostrils, threatening to purge his stomach. Yet beneath the revulsion, exhilaration sparked. In his soul, a warrior's blood surged through Field's veins.