April 9, light rain.
I had already reached the site of the Corpse King contest today. Aside from me, there were seven Corpse Kings participating. The Strength Corpse King and the little girl—since the little girl's ability was to exchange her mass and energy, I would refer to her as the Energy Corpse King from here on—were already under my control.
The abilities of the other five Corpse Kings were unknown.
Actually, there had originally been another Corpse King with the ability of speed participating. Unfortunately, his luck had been poor, and the Strength Corpse King had already smashed him to death.
I disguised myself as a Corpse King and entered the Corpse King contest. As agreed, the eight of us would compete in a coastal city. The last one left standing would be the true Corpse King.
Unexpectedly, only three of the Corpse Kings had human forms—not counting me. The other four were various animals: a whale, a tiger, a lizard, and an eagle.
The Whale Corpse King had grown four legs, the Tiger Corpse King was as tall as a two-story building, the Lizard Corpse King looked exactly like a dinosaur from ancient times, and the Eagle Corpse King's body had not changed.
That's right. It wasn't only humans who could become zombies; animals could as well.
However, these animal zombies had only a very simple intelligence and could speak only very simple words, far inferior to humans.
Even so, it was terrifying. How many tens of thousands of years of evolution had been shortened to reach this level? Could it be that what the will of the zombie planet had said was true—that zombification really was a shortcut to evolution?
To be on the safe side, I first sent the Strength Corpse King and the Energy Corpse