After walking for about a thousand meters, Logan Bennett saw a steep rock wall ahead in the distance. The wall was only seven or eight meters high, its top covered with forsythia flowers. Thick vines hung down along the rock face, almost covering two-thirds of it.

　　"It's the Grass Curtain Cave!" Logan Bennett's pupils contracted.

　　Grass Curtain Cave was a name Logan Bennett had come up with himself. For the sake of enchanting and daily life, he frequented Echo Valley. Once, during a torrential downpour, he accidentally discovered a cave in the cliff.

　　The cave was about one and a half meters above the ground, its entrance almost completely blocked by forsythia branches. As long as a bonfire was lit inside, it was warm, comfortable, and hidden—a nearly perfect hiding place.

　　'If it were me, I would definitely hide here.'

　　Logan Bennett grew increasingly uneasy. He found a boulder about forty meters from the cave entrance, then crouched in the grass behind it, hiding. His eyes stared intently at the cave entrance through the gaps in the grass, beginning a patient wait.

　　"Who could it be?" Logan Bennett wondered, though deep down, he still harbored a faint sense of anticipation.

　　Five years of monotonous days had already passed. For five years, he had been treated as a slave by a damned necromancer, exploited to the bone.

　　He constantly wanted to change this situation, but he also knew very well that relying on his own strength alone was almost impossible. Now, with such a variable appearing in the valley, there might be danger, but it could also be his chance to change his fate!

　　Time ticked by, and after about twenty minutes, Logan Bennett's ears twitched slightly—he heard a very faint sound, as if someone was speaking.

　　Logan Bennett's heart suddenly leapt, extremely excited: "There really is someone!"

　　As he hesitated, the voices sounded again, clearer than before, but still indistinct.

　　Following the sound, Logan Bennett saw two men emerge from the woods about fifty or sixty meters ahead. Both held thick wooden sticks as tall as their brows, and one of them carried the carcass of a half-grown wild boar on his back.

　　Both men were very sturdy. One was short and stocky, with a full beard and a huge scar slashing diagonally across his face, almost splitting it in two. The other was quite tall—at least a head taller than Logan Bennett—with brilliant brown-gold hair, a calm demeanor, and sharp eyes like an eagle's.

　　"I'm not exactly weak, but these two are even more robust than me, and they can hunt giant beasts like wild boars. They must be professional warriors... Hmm—could they be the ones who went to subdue Fumiya half a month ago?"

　　Just then, the short, stocky man suddenly shouted, "Goddess's horse blanket, how much longer do I have to keep living this sneaky life!"

　　His voice was loud and grating, like a broken gong—very unpleasant.

　　"Shh—keep it down—I still want to live a few more days," the tall man said in a deep, mellow voice.

　　"If I'd known that mage was so powerful, I wouldn't have taken this job. Hey—now all our brothers are dead, and we're trapped in this damned place. We can't even get a drop of horse piss. What rotten luck." After that, the rough-voiced man started cursing, spouting a string of profanities like 'goddess's crap,' 'rapist,' 'holy light sewer,' and so on.

　　"Alright, alright, as long as we're alive, there's always a way," the tall man kept trying to calm him down, finally managing to settle the short, stocky man.

　　Behind the boulder, Logan Bennett had already made up his mind. He pointed at the two men in the distance and made a gesture to the zombie that always followed him closely.

　　'Go. Kill them!'

Chapter 005: Bargaining with a Tiger (Part 1)

　　Zombies are the product of necromancy. It is said that a freshly raised, intact corpse can retain eighty to ninety percent of its original physical strength.

　　At the same time, they ignore pain and have no emotional fluctuations. Once given an order, they will not stop until death. Even if their heads are chopped off and their bodies separated, both parts can still carry out commands and continue attacking the enemy.

　　To truly defeat a zombie, both superb combat skills and a strong mind are indispensable.

　　In short, for ordinary people, zombies are almost unbeatable opponents.

　　The two zombies paid no attention to the obstacles of forest grass and branches, bounding and leaping toward the two men not far away.

　　The blond man was the first to notice something was wrong. He immediately raised his wooden stick. "Careful, something's coming—fast and hard. It might be a full-grown mangy wild boar!"

　　The short, stocky man threw the wild boar carcass off his back, spat into his hands, and cursed, "Goddess's horse blanket—if I had a knife, I wouldn't care if it was a wild boar or a sea boar. Even if the pig god came, I'd cut it down with one stroke!"

　　Through the gaps in the grass, Logan Bennett saw the two men had already moved to stand on either side of a tree as thick as a man's waist, each holding a hardwood stick as thick as an arm, standing back to back against the tree.

　　He nodded to himself. "Calm and unhurried in the face of danger—not bad at all."

　　Soon, the two zombies leapt out of the dense grass, revealing themselves.