After so little time together, their deaths meant nothing to me. Just some strangers losing their lives before my eyes. They were not the first and will not be the last.

  From the start, I intended to use them if the need arose. Though I had to admit that the more time I spent with them, the more I hoped they would survive. Even the annoying honey trap was getting somewhat enjoyable with time. First time, she said. Could have tried with a better lie.

  Even after seeing how green they were, I could not just kill them off for nothing. Leaving them out in the wild was also a harsh action. After all, I made a promise. I rarely did, but I would always keep them. That was why I always created a loophole that allowed me to break them.

  Thinking about it now, it might have been better if I had disappeared one night without prior notice. At least in that possibility, I would not be killing them myself…

  They were close to their destination… Their hope and cheerfulness made me believe so. Yet, why did everything have to fall apart at the end?

  When we fought off the Princess, I found the ticket for the starting point of my own endeavor. I finally found a way to get what I wanted. But for that, she had to be alive.

  I did my best to incapacitate her. With my abilities, she could put up a fight, but the moment she exhausted herself, she would have been at my mercy.

  If it were just the two of us, I could have attempted to communicate with her again. No, if I were by myself, things would have gone way differently. I would have brought the soldiers’ heads as a gift, showing my cordial attitude and trying to speak with her peacefully.

  The point is, due to the circumstances, I had to wound her enough to make her retreat, but not before whispering something to her. She also had to have enough energy to retreat safely from the battlefield.

  Princesses are immature and do not know when to give up. That was their biggest flaw in my eyes. Glass cannons – deadly, but fragile

  For what I was trying to do, Roosevelt had to die, though. I did not want him to, but… He put too much trust in me. And his actions, his goal for fighting her, were the opposite of mine. He was the more active of the two of us, annoying the Princess and taking most of her attention.

  She was always wary of my presence, but Roosevelt did not know when to stop. He paid by losing his life, whereas I pretended to do something. Watching, with my gun pointed at her.

  When he died, I felt nothing. Or rather, compared to what I experienced seconds after his death, anything resembling remorse disappeared entirely. If I had any to begin with.

  The damn soldiers! They almost killed her! But the worst one was Mary! When the soldiers were done, she emptied her entire magazine on the Princess!

  Princesses are fragile! They are not known for taking hits! All my actions might have been useless because of them! I would have killed them without a second thought if she were to die!

  I went to check on her, my rage almost awakening my inner demons. She was barely breathing. Her young-looking body was bleeding profusely from the numerous gunshots. Most of the bullets pierced her and went out of her, but a few probably were inside her. There was a high likelihood that she had sustained major inner damage and it was unknown how long she would be alive with medical intervention, let alone without it.

  The only thing that stopped me from killing the humans was her fierce gaze. Even at death’s door, she exuded such defiance. Such refusal to her untimely demise. Her eyes were filled with bloodlust as she looked at me while I was getting closer to her.

  She even had the strength to attack me, but her movements were nothing compared to the first time she dashed at us. I grabbed her feeble attacking arm, pinned the other to the floor and made sure to prevent her legs from struggling – a sight that she was still alive and a threat.

  Afterwards, I went closer to her ear. I was still wary of her. A wounded cornered prey might still try to wound the beast hunting it and call it a win.

  I did not know whether to call it luck or not that nothing hit her heart or brain. She had to endure her state until the blood loss got her or she gave up to the shock.

  “I am on your side. I am one of you,” I whispered to her.

  She looked dumbfounded yet still with hostility. I could not blame her. What would I have thought after hearing my words in her place?

  Something of the lines of: ‘On my side? Really? Then why, the hell, did you fight and overpower me? Because of YOU, those lowlifes are about to kill ME! You, bastard!’

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  There was no time to waste words to win her trust. I had to act fast. Her fierce gaze was weakening. She was not long for this world. Yet, I needed to guarantee my goal.

  “You can talk, right? I myself, a lower being than you, can. Therefore, you also must be able to. If the others come, they will kill you. I never had any intention of fighting you.”

  We stared into each other’s eyes.

  “How do you know… we can talk?” she said in a low voice, the vitality in her eyes getting dimmer with every passing second.

  “I already said I am one of you. We will talk later. The first thing we need to do is make sure you survive. I do not want the Queen chasing us… chasing me.”

  “You even know… Cough … is here?”

  “I could feel… a strong commanding presence somewhere nearby.”

  “Is that… so?”

  “The moment when you screamed for help, her presence, her authority became so vivid.”

  “…”

  That was why I had to act fast – to ensure the rest of the human group was out of this place before she came with the real deal of zombies. Or if she were to rush and find us herself. Either way, it would have been a massacre. I doubtеd that if the Princess died, the Queen would let us have a painless death.

  Normally, the one under me would have been a goner. Even more so in here, as the Continent's medicine often did more harm than good. I had a way to prolong her life. Whether she would wake up or not would be entirely up to her will, though.

  I took something out of me. Rather, I did not want to show the container – she only saw the object that I was about to use on her.

  “I will inject you with this. It will help you survive these wounds. It will give you enough time to heal yourself. Could you tell the Queen not to kill me? I have something to talk with her about.”

  She did not reply to me. The shine in her eyes was almost gone. Neither she nor I had time to wait for her to think things through. I injected her with the antifibrinolytic single-use auto-injector, hid the now-empty canister inside me and prepared to leave her. Before I got up, I gave her a single advice.

  “Pretend to be death.”

  I started to feel less hostile pressure from her.

  The drug I used on her was not normal. In fact, I was gifted it a few days after the results of it were considered safe for use. Numerous test results proved that the pros outweighed the cons by an overwhelming margin.

  Its market price was equivalent or higher than the annual wage of a well-off red rank, but it was worth the cost.

  I did not know the details of how it was created or the theory behind the mechanism, but it was like a semi-second chance. I was told it stops all bleeding, internal or external, in seconds. It mimicked the rapid healing when an infected corpse turns into a zombie, but the subject remains human. However, there was a likelihood of entering a state of force coma, depending on the damage taken before using it.

  If that happened when one was alone, they would not react, regardless of the pain or threat to life. The drug had a relatively long duration, lasting around a week for the usual dose. Given her small frame, it would be longer than that.

  Waking from the forced coma was also not guaranteed. The body might not have had the time to heal during its effects or the host might have already died from the shock, the body being forced to act like a live one during the time.

  Even so, if the subject was in one piece, it should start acting. But it would be a zombie, not a human. I had no idea what would happen if a zombie were to die after getting injected. I suppose it would stay a corpse. I wish I had asked them more about this thing back then.

  Depending on the subject that the drug was used on, a second dosage was possible upon waking up. For most humans, a rest of at least 30 days was required or the likelihood of consequences increased drastically.

  I doubted I would see this type of medication again anytime soon. Maybe when I went back to HQ… No, even then, I might not receive another one.

  After leaving the Princess, the survivors from the human part, including me, attempted to leave this place and return to the surface. A verbal fight had to occur before that. Roosevelt’s death was not taken lightly.

  Mary finally managed to expose some of her hidden emotions. The “ugly” side of the “Goddess Mary”. That was good. Her fa?ade was getting boring – always pretending to be good, to help others, to be selfless and so on. I dismissed her, barely keeping my calm. I was still mad with her.

  What surprised me the most was the Tank that came after us. What was a behemoth like that thing doing in here? Was he making the cave or what? As things were going, we would die. I had to slow it down. Therefore, I decided to stay.

  I made it attack me near the walls, dodged and repeated. Soon after, the cave’s ceiling gave in. The Tank was buried underneath, allowing the required time for the rest to escape.

  Killing it would have taken too much time and I opted to retreat before more zombies came and cornered me. Yet the time I bought was not enough. It was again near us before we managed to get out. After losing more people…

  This time, Lily decided to die… to sacrifice herself in the hope of our safe escape.

  The death of Roosevelt and the meaningless sacrifices Leo and Rich had already made had taken a heavy toll on Mary. I feared that losing and Lily would have broken her completely.

  A mostly correct fear.

  I did think she might kill it. I really did. But not the Queen that was close by. Not after she was exhausted from the Tank. This would have ended in one way, regardless of the fight she was to put up.

  Maybe with my help, we could have taken down both of them or at least forced them to retreat. But that would have closed the path to my destination. It would have gone against my goals for taking this journey. I… decided to take Mary and to run.

  I intended for Mary to go with the soldiers while I attempted to communicate with the Queen. Both for myself and to buy her time. I became too big a trauma for her. She must have hated me, regretting the moment she proposed that I travel with her. The further away I was, the better.

  Yet the soldiers decided to make my plan useless. That was the last time they would screw up my plans. I! Will! Kill! Them!

  But that was for later. I had a bigger problem to deal with. I… had to kill someone I did not want to and I had to get over it before the zombies returned. And she just… gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. Leaving her back wide open… At my merciless mercy…

  I had changed, but my core stayed the same. This was why I must finish this journey. This was why I chose to sacrifice her for my own gain. This was why she should not have trusted me. This was why this was the end for her.