Who Will Play the Zombies

Drogo made an enormous wolf-hair brush to write the name above the entrance to the film studio.

Though the bristles had been plucked from gnollmen and differed quite a bit from weasel hair, they were both wolf-related, so they would do.

He hadn't expected that after coming to Twin Towers City for so long, the first time he returned to his original size would be to inscribe a sign.

He dipped the brush into a bucket of paint. It had been a long time since he had used a brush, so he practiced on the ground first.

The highest good is like water; great virtue carries all things; Heaven rewards diligence...

He wrote out the phrases middle-aged entrepreneurs loved hanging in their offices. The feel was still decent.

By a remarkable coincidence, draconic script was also a square-shaped ideographic writing system, and writing it gave him a familiar sense of Chinese characters.

Holding his breath and focusing, he wrote a line across the wall.

"What does that mean?" Aisha called up at Drogo.

"Vertical Shop Film City."

Naturally, it was another incomprehensible name. What a surprise.

Aisha cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Can't you give it a nicer name?"

"You wouldn't understand. It's called a sense of ceremony."

Drogo abruptly shrank down. After getting used to being small, he found his original size inconvenient instead. He could barely fit anywhere.

With the sign finished, it was time to inspect the results of the film city.

It should have taken a while longer to complete according to the plan, but the murlocs had been a huge help.

Originally, only the drow were responsible for design, while the goblins and orcs handled construction. But after the murlocs saw them working, they shouted something about "For the Sea Mother!" and rushed over to haul bricks.

They made up for their lack of intelligence with sheer labor.

They worked sixteen hours a day, took no days off, required no pay, and did not even need meals provided.

Even Drogo felt guilty seeing how hard they worked. No wonder rulers in the past loved religion. This kind of exploitation was practically catching up to slavery, yet those being exploited remained grateful.

To keep the murlocs from working themselves to death at the construction site, Aisha ultimately played the Sea Mother once more. Of course, this time the shrimp head had been treated, so it did not smell fishy.

In the Sea Mother's name, she ordered them to eat with the orcs and increase their daily rest time.

The set for Holy Mountain Journey mainly consisted of three areas: a full-scale replica station, an outdoor railway and train, and the most important interior train set.

The reason for building the station at full scale was to prepare for the future. Once the entire island was completed, Drogo planned to turn every filmed set into an amusement park.

Visitors would be able to experience being chased by hordes of zombies through the station. Just thinking about it was thrilling.

The train on the tracks was only a shell. Steam trains were still cutting-edge technology, after all, and not easy to acquire. During filming, a team of orcs would run inside it while pushing the cars.

The primary interior set consisted of several separate carriages whose sides could be removed, making it easier for the camera to move.

The most technically sophisticated part was the magical crystal screen wall outside the individual carriages, which would let Flynn project illusions to imitate the scenery outside the windows while the train was moving.

All the carriages were placed inside a cave, with light sources controlled through illumination spells to simulate the darkness of passing through tunnels.

It was even more complete than Drogo had imagined.

That left only one problem: who would play the zombies?

In the original work, the zombie actors had been specially selected extras who underwent lengthy training.

Professional dance teachers designed their movements, distinguishing between zombies of different builds, ages, genders, and mutation states.

Stick Nation might be a little absurd, but its serious attitude toward artistic works was worth learning from.

At the very least, celebrities there did not earn 2.08 million a day.

Drogo, however, did not have such favorable conditions.

There was no one to design the movements, and zombie makeup was another issue.

The current makeup techniques and props were not up to standard, which was understandable. In a world without even shampoo, where would so many kinds of cosmetics come from?

He had thought of two possible solutions, but both had problems.

They could use illusions to cover the actors, but that was manageable only with small numbers. For scenes with massive hordes of zombies on screen, even Flynn could not guarantee success.

Or they could simply find a few necromancers and summon real zombies. It would be absolutely authentic, but the actors' safety would be difficult to guarantee. Even if no accidents happened, psychological trauma was still trauma, and there were children among the actors.

What should they do?

Drogo, Aisha, Flynn, and Yuno sat around a table, staring at one another.

"Tell me, everyone. Any ideas?"

Silence.

Magic cinema was something none of them had ever done before. No one had any experience.

Just as Drogo was preparing to remove the large-scale zombie horde scenes from the script, Yuno timidly raised his hand.

"I know some people who might be suitable."

Yuno led Drogo through the refugee settlement.

The sight here was completely different from the mixed district and the slums. The latter were merely filthy and chaotic, while this place was far more hopeless.

A few wooden sticks propped up with a piece of cloth thrown over them could serve as a home. The people inside wore clothes like torn burlap sacks, their faces gaunt and wasted. Every few meters, someone lay collapsed by the roadside.

Everyone waited quietly for death.

"You know this place surprisingly well?" Drogo asked curiously. Yuno had been an outstanding student from childhood to adulthood, completely out of place with the atmosphere of a refugee settlement.

"I rented a place here," Yuno said, with nothing to hide. "The prices are only a fraction of the school dormitories'. Sometimes poverty is even more terrifying than death. They said the illnesses people here have are contagious, but that isn't true. Otherwise, shouldn't I have died long ago?"

He led Drogo to the deepest part of the settlement. A large crowd sat on the ground like clay sculptures, utterly lifeless.

Their skin was deathly pale, their veins bulged, and their eyes were cloudy gray. They looked exactly like a pack of zombies.

"This is the final stage of Steam Curse. That's what the church calls this disease," Yuno explained. "They were all the most hardworking laborers. The more they came into contact with steam engines, the more likely they were to develop it. But I don't believe that. Someone must be behind it. They don't want to see steam engines develop."

Could it be that, just like magic, technological development in this world was also being restricted?

But that was not something Drogo needed to consider for now.

"Are you sure they can be actors?"

"Of course. As long as you pay them. Even if they have no use for the money themselves anymore, their families still need it."

"No, I mean, can they perform the movements required by the script?"

"This is Lucky Elixir." Yuno took a small bottle from his bag. "It's what they need most. Drinking it at this stage will not make them better, but it can greatly ease their pain."

"So you're going to..."

"Let you see what they can do."

Yuno raised the bottle and removed its cap. The fragile "clay sculptures" stirred. One after another, they stood and shuffled toward Yuno.

Their steps grew faster and faster, but their limbs were already hard to control. Struggling and crawling, they surged toward him in bizarre, twisted postures.

Drogo knew these lives, nearly extinguished, posed no threat to him, but he still felt a little nervous.

He seemed to see a zombie horde—a living zombie horde.