“Why does it come out like this…,” Cheri groaned.

The mood maker of Tree Roses party now made a gloomy face as she sobbed and hid her lifeless face between her knees. Her back leaned onto the hard and cold bars of the cage as she could feel the vibration from being transported through her back and buttocks.

They didn’t know where they were carrying to or why the undead covered in vines had appeared. All they had known was that the undead had given them an edible-looking chunk of grilled meat and some ragged clothes.

“Mina, that undead might not actually want to kill us, right? That can happen, right? That’s why it had left us this edible-looking meat after all,” Cheri asked.

She did her best to be optimistic as much as she could and forced a smile toward Mina who was also having a gloomy face, but she had failed to conceal her true emotion as fear and nervousness could be felt from her watering eyes.

“I don’t mind using the clothes to clean our legs, but don’t you think this edible-looking thing is dangerous? It must be poisoned.”

“P-Poison!?

Cheri looked back and forth between the thing that the undead had given to them and Mina’s face. In front of her, there was a chunk of grilled meat placed on top of a ragged cloth. They didn’t know what kind of meat this was, but it looked and smelled like goat meat if they were to guess.

“...I don’t want to think about this, but what if this meat is from a human? It’s just too scary to eat something you don’t know where it comes from.”

“H-Human meat!?,” Cheri’s face became pale, “D-Do you mean they grill our friends and feed them to us? U-Uuu…”

Her stomach got upset as soon as she imagined the gruesome scene of her acquaintances being slaughtered and turned into this grilled meat. Even though she still didn’t put the mysterious meat into her mouth, she had already imagined just how disgusting it would be if she ate it.

Her eyes spun into circles as she sought help from her close friend. She grabbed Mina’s shoulder with her weak, shaking hands as she made a crying face while looking at Mina’s eyes.

But Mina only returned Cheri with the same crying face as she also felt as hopeless as her.

“M-Mina, what will happen to us?”

“...I don’t know. They may just slaughter us, or they may also feed us until we are fat before slaughtering us, or they may just bring us to their boss to decide who will they slaughter first.”

“Why are there only options where we are slaughtered!?”

“Isn’t that normal? Since we are already doomed anyway…”

Mina sighed as she pulled her friend to hug. In return, Cheri also hugged Mina back while burying her face between Mina’s breast.

“I hope a prince riding on a white horse will come to save us…,” Cheri muttered.

“Isn’t that too much of a story? There is no way an unknown prince will come to help us anyway since we are in the middle of a forest with a horde of goblins and a fearful undead,” Mina objected.

“...Any handsome man is fine. Just one is alright,” Cheri said as she wiped her tear on Mina’s breast.

“But I prefer to see big sis Hilda being safe and alive…”

Both of them went into a long silence and the cage continued to shake during the transportation.

“...Is big sis Hilda still alive?,” Cheri asked, trying hard to break the ice.

“Who knows…”

Both of them clung to each other, not saying a single word as all they could hear was their breathing sounds and their heartbeats.

Soon the cage finally stopped as the vibration that they could feel from the iron bars suddenly disappeared. A portion of the tattered cloth covering the cage was lifted up and they could see vines fidgeting around the cage’s lock as if trying to open it.

Mina’s hands grabbed onto Cheri’s as she exerted her force onto them due to her nervousness.

“Cheri, I’m scared...”

“...I’m also scared, Mina.”

And a moment later, the lock was cracked open as it dropped onto the ground with a thud. The two girls held their breath as the cage door slowly opened, revealing the bright light in front of them.

Cheri held Mina’s hands back as she made up her mind.

“Let’s go, Mina. No matter what kind of hell was awaiting us, I will go through it together with you. And also, I’m sure that big sis Hilda must be there, waiting for us...”

“...Mmm.”

They held each other’s hand tightly as the two girls walked out of the cage on their own trembling legs. The bright sunlight bathed the girls as they strained their eyes to look at their surroundings.

““W-What is this!?””

In front of them, an army of undead beasts covered in vines was gathering around in a wide arc with the girls at the center. The green flames flickering in their hollow eyes were glaring at the girls like a predator looking at its preys.

“W-What should we do, Cheri?”

“I-I don’t know, Mina.”

The girls were nervous and dumbfounded. At first, they thought that these fearful undead beasts would jump at them and tore their limbs into small pieces, but they didn’t.

Unlike other undead they had ever seen as an adventurer, these undead beasts were calmer and more collected than even humans. They didn’t do anything beside glaring at the girls.

Then a deer undead walked out from among the crowd as it slowly approached the girls.

Cheri and Mina gulped. They could tell from the majestic aura alone that this deer undead was different from the others. This must be the leader of the other undead in this place for sure!

And like the surrounding undead, the deer behaved too calm and collected as an undead should be. It stopped in front of the girls. And with its head still high and pride, it suddenly turned its head sideways as if beckoning the girls to follow it before it turned on its heel.

The girls looked at each other and decided to follow after the deer. They walked while still holding their fear and nervousness in their heart as the undead beasts slowly made way for the three of them to pass.

Dozens of steps had passed and they had finally arrived at an opening. There the girls saw ten bodies of humans lying down on the floor. Next to each of them was a deep hole that can fit each body inside.

““Big sis, Hilda!,”” the girls cried out as they ran toward the only girl body on the ground with tears in their eyes.

However, their face became pale and ugly as soon as they saw the state of her friend. They collapsed on the ground as tears streaked down their cheek and dripped on the soft soil.

“What happened to you, big sis? What did they do to you?,” Mina cried when she saw Hilda’s neck turned black and blue due to being squeezed to death.

In contrast, Cheri glared dagger at the deer.

“Why did all of this happen? Why do you only keep us alive? So, you all want to make us suffer and torture us to death, don’t you? If you want to kill, just kill us already!,” she shouted toward the deer.

Having no one around to put the fault to, Cheri blamed the deer one-sidedly as she threw her trembling punches at the deer.

However, the deer didn’t budge an inch as it stood still to receive all of the punches threw at it.

Before long, Cheri had run out of her remaining stamina as she collapsed on the ground, holding onto the leaves on the deer’s leg.

“Why did you do this to big sis Hilda? She is a good girl…*sob* She doesn’t deserve this! *sob*”

Not answering to the girls, the deer took a step forward as it slowly approached Hilda’s body while leaving Cheri lying on the ground behind.

Mina raised her head from Hilda’s corpse as she saw the deer stood right next to her. A vine on its back extended toward Hilda and Mina as it hovered in the air like a flying snake.

“!?!,” Mina held her breath, preparing to accept her fate.

“S-Stop!,” Cheri cried out from behind, “Don’t you dare touching Mina!”

But the vine didn’t reach Mina at all. Instead, small white flowers started to bud and bloom along the vine as it turned out into a magnificent white bouquet. Then another vine grew out and cut the bouquet down in a swing as it caught the bouquet before it fell on the ground and gently put it on Hilda’s corpse.

Then the deer turned on its heel and continued to place a bouquet on each body on the ground, not caring about the presence of the girls that it had left behind.

The two girls were flabbergasted, not understanding the train of the event as they could only curiously watch the scene in front of their eyes.

Then after noticing the mutual link between the bodies, the bouquet, and the holes, Mina turned to face Cheri as she asked her.

“Cheri, is this perhaps… a funeral?”

.

.

.

The girls had received flower bouquet from the deer as they put them on each body before returned to stay by Hilda’s side.

The other undead beasts lined up and came to put the flowers on the corpses one by one. Soon, every corpse was covered in white flowers as they looked like a big fluffy blanket from afar.

“Mina, why do all of these undead beasts set up a funeral for big sis Hilda and the others?”

Mina shook her head, “I also have no idea.”

Cheri looked inside the crowd of undead beasts as she saw the deer stood there with a bull.

“They are truly mysterious…,” she murmured.

Just what are they? How are they involved in this incident? Who exactly is the one that killed big sis Hilda? Questions after questions flooded into Cheri’s mind as she tried hard to find the answers only to catch thin air.

“What if… these undead beasts are on our side and the one who killed our friends are the goblins… But why are they on the opposite side and why do they make a funeral for us? This doesn’t make sense at all.”

However, one of her questions was suddenly answered at the moment. Dark blades coming out from everywhere among the crowd of the undead beasts as their skull started flying into the air like using a knife to scrape kernels out of a corn stalk.

In the middle of the crowd, a black goblin sat on the headless body of the deer as the knife in its hand beheaded the deer in a single swing.

The deer skull was sent flying as it drew a curve in the air and dropped on the ground next to Cheri and Mina. The green flame flickering in its hollow eyes looked at the girls as the girls also looked back at it in fear of the sudden event.

““Eiiiiiiiiiii !!!””