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Locktural, once shrouded in darkness, was suddenly woken by a beam of golden light. Celebrating, a priest among the ruins of the church marveled at that beautiful vision:

"I-IT MUST BE THE MESSIAH, ACCOMPANIED BY THE LIGHT.. HIC HIC… Ugh, damn it, they came right when I've got a headache."

It was absurd! The gods could've given a heads-up. After all, all he was waiting for… was to keep on waiting!

As the last guardian of Locktural's cathedral, he would protect the holy relics and enjoy the cellar, not holy in the slightest, waiting for help.

The other priests had long since abandoned their posts (or been dismissed). The knights all died trying to flee into the forests. And the devotees… those he'd rather not think about.

He was miserable with no one left to boss around.

When the light spread in every direction, the reverend had just woken up on the floor, spitting and grumbling, after accidentally drinking from the bottle he used as a chamber pot. A golden taste infected his mouth as he admired the light, also golden, on the horizon.

"The divine is so beautiful...W-wait, I'ts just a S.O.S. SPELL!” He stamped his feet on the ground. “Bastards, I can’t help anyone. Gods forgive me, but they know my condition.”

The priest turned away, until one last un-inebriated neuron pulled him back:

“Someone could be casting it not to find help… but to find who… WHO NEEDS HELP! HERE I NEED HELP!”

There was no answer. The light was starting to waver in flickers.

"What do I do? From this far, not even the gods would hear me… OH! OF COURSE, A RESPONSE S.O.S. SPELL."

Luckily he had his magic ring on him. Truth is, he'd gotten so fat he couldn't even take it off anymore.

“Lord of the heavens… Hic... Hic....”

Between hiccups and the occasional curse, the reverend cast the spell, which, kind of weak and limp, connected to that tower of light.

There was just one more detail.

From the black clouds, the magic static kept building up. Bolt after bolt being pulled together. A hurricane, serving as a funnel, gathered all the force of the red bolts, creating a true giant magic missile in the shape of blazing wrath.

Death. That was what was building up in the clouds. And the master and his fairy knew it.

…

Or should have known.

The two were...celebrating?

“Yay, boss! We found the sword!” Atlas screamed as they spun around together in joy.

It was too late to defend. The bolt, homed in by the hooded one’s buildup of magic, hit dead-on.

BOOOOOM!

A cursed explosion consumed the tower, turning the bricks into dust and gravel.

“Damn, that explosion was nasty,” the master stated, watching from afar.

"Must've been deadly, right?" answered Atlas, sitting on his shoulder.

Wait… WHAT?

“H-HOW DID WE GET HERE?” 

“I-I must have dodged,” the master said, scratching his helm. “Oh right, while I was killing those monsters on the way here, I think I ended up learning something."

“Let me check,” Atlas touched his chest, closing her eyes. The information came out of her vocal cords automatically: “PASSIVE: EMERGENCY TELEPORT. HIGH-RANK MAGIC. SHOULD THE USER BE HIT BY A HIGH-TIER TAKING THEIR VITALITY FROM 100 STRAIGHT TO ZERO, AN EMERGENCY TELEPORT OF 100 METERS IS PERFORMED AUTOMATICALLY. COOLDOWN TIME: 1 YEAR.”

After the analysis, the master nodded his head:

“Nice." he smiled…probably.

“How are you treating this so casually!? We almost died!”

“Ah, get off my back… literally, get off,” she was yanking hard at the metal plates of his back. "I didn't pay attention to the skill tree while killing all those monsters on the way in… and speaking of monsters."

From every house, building and hole zombified aberrations slowly began to approach.

"Forget everything I said. The passive was so good it sent us right into a street full of zombies!"

"Your light show must have triggered their predatory senses!" Atlas complained.

“Shh, just enter the pocket. It’s time to do cool stuff,” he said, stretching, while hundreds of zombies piled up.

In a quick and carefree motion, the master set off, simply jumping, heading for one of the rooftops.

"EAT DUST. I HAVE THE POWER OF PARKOUR," his war cry rang through the air as he leapt onto a crooked pole fixed to a building beside them.

He spun around the pole several times, his arms holding on until he launched himself hundreds of meters forward.

Mid-air, he already had his right hand stretched out, taking a superhero pose:

“To infinity and beyond!”

Excited, Atlas poked her face out of the pocket:

“Amazing. It’s like I could fly!”

“You can fly, Atlas,” the master pointed out, clearly having his mood killed.

“But not at this speed!” she stated. “Hey, isn’t that like a bunch of zombies?”

Indeed, where she pointed, it was a mountain of zombies clustering together. Coincidentally, it was exactly where they were going to land.

“Shit! Since when do these bastards know how to calculate a trajectory?” he questioned, pointing his hand at the pile. “Ice Column!”

He pointed at a forgotten well in the middle of the zombies, and from inside it a freezing-type magic circle opened up, expelling an enormous column of ice.

He had a new foothold for a new long jump.

“I’M A GENI–”

There was just one problem. It was a column of ice. Wet ice. A slip sent him tumbling backward, in free fall, toward the arms of the zombies.

“S-shit!” the master said, going for one last move. In a mid-air spin, he pointed his arms downward, shouting: “Flaming Hands… TIMES 100X!”

His mana usage spiked, his body encased by a strong energy. From his arms, jets of fire burst out, roasting the zombies while launching him upward.

In the day's first true miracle, the rocket-knight and his fairy taillight were thrown through a hole in the roof of the church ruins, landing beautifully on his feet.

"Aha! Fate is on our side, Atlas! We made it!"

Atlas didn't answer, catatonic there in the pocket.

"You came from the sky?" the reverend asked, unsure himself if he meant it literally.

Imposing, the knight walked up to the bald priest:

“…”

He hadn’t really planned out what to say.

“Hello, hello and hello...Sir...Hero...Hero Sir?” greeted the reverend, following his dogmas.

The city was protected by the Church of the Three Hellos. They basically claimed they could speak with the Creator (their God) and all other lesser gods. Their scriptures claimed that the first words they received from the Creator were "Hello, hello, hello."

And, yes, the church’s name was pretty self-explanatory.

“Hello, hello... and, uh, hello. I’ve come for the sword!”

“The sword… Well, before that, I’m Fre—”

“I know exactly who you are!"

He had no idea whatsoever. But he clearly figured that didn’t matter.

“Oh, you do? Then you really are one of the holy knights?”

…

Explain or not explain?

Nah, I’ll just skip this dialogue, the master thought.

“Yes!” A simple, lying answer. “The name is not important. Oh...and my white garments got a little dirty on the way here." 

The lies were bad, but the flying entrance, with all that light and sound, had left a strong impression on the priest:

“But, where are the others? The army must be arriving, given the size of the problem.”

Others? Right, of course. If he were a holy knight, which he wasn’t, he’d be commanding an army, which in this case also didn’t exist.

“I’m just a messenger. I came ahead to announce our arrival. And as I said, to check on the Opening Compass.”

“O-of course. Forgive me for my ignorance."

"Who'd have thought. The desperate man believed he'd be saved. Classic," Atlas whispered from the pocket.

"Come, follow me. We left the sacred sword in the catacombs...because it shines too much, won't let me sleep."

And down they went!

When the door opened, they were greeted by the fantastical glow of the sword:

“Incredible! Perfect, in every sense,” the fairy flew out of the hooded one’s pocket, startling the reverend, who hadn’t seen her.

The sword was set in a block of rectangular purple stone.

“Looks like the sword’s mana condensed the stone around it over time,” Atlas analyzed.

“The sword was drawing far too many bolts. The deaths were many, but we managed to bring it here. For years it was known to us that, if excavated properly, it could be moved… there just was no need before this damned curse.”

The master coldly analyzed the hilt that shone immensely.

“Well... Let my assistant analyze it while we talk.”

"Assistant… hehehe," Atlas blushed while collecting data on the sword.

"We expected to find the city in a bad state, but the situation is...worse. Where are the other survivors?"

"There are no others. I-I had...The church had to make choices for Locktural's best interests."

The priest fixed his gaze on his lying reflection in the knight's helmet:

"With the help of my other disciples, we used a spell with an infection modification at its core. Transformation spell: Undead,"

Atlas stopped her analysis, astonished. Her master's disapproving glare cut through the helm.

"What? The people were all starving, with stupid, rebellious thoughts! In undead form they couldn't organize against us. Against the church. Against me and...They wouldn't be hungry!"

They wouldn’t be hungry anymore. It was a half-truth. Not that it's well understood, but the undead don't die of hunger. They have a maybe unnatural resistance to it. 

However...

"They feel hunger. Their corrupted mind carries a compulsion for the life that left them. Until the very end, they'll hunt everything they see without even being able to digest the flesh. A monstrous life. If that can even be called living…"

The reverend grew enraged at the knight's criticism.

“Y-You don’t understand what I went through! And now that you’ve arrived, you can cure all the undead! The cure has been known for decades.”

"Indeed, but you can only cure recent undead. A few months at most. It's already been a year since the curse was cast," Atlas answered.

“A-A YEAR? YOU’RE MAD! Yes, yes, you must be… I would know if that much time had passed… I-I would know!”

The maddened, drunken reverend had lost track of his calendar. He had murdered thousands without even realizing it.

“I told you all of this wasn’t entirely our fault,” Atlas commented, before facepalming “I-I said too much, didn’t I?”

For the first time in months, the priest’s brain, fogged by mists of alcohol, cleared, fixing on the fairy’s words.

“You bear fault for this curse? W-who are you? Answer me now!"

The reverend got his answer physically — a shove that sent him to the ground.

“Alright, enough fun. Time to be a villain,” a purplish magic circle appeared in front of Master’s hand. “Death’s Imprisonment.”

All coffins burst open from the inside. The reverend was morbidly embraced by his predecessors, who came crawling in droves. Amid the bones he realized he was completely immobilized.

"Necromancy? DEMONS! FALSE SAVIORS! I KNEW IT, I'LL—", the reverend's mouth was covered by a bodiless skeletal hand.

"That's your punishment for infecting our access to the city," Ignoring the cries, the master returned to his dear assistant. "Atlas, what's the sword's strength percentage?"

"Twenty. Our plan worked, but the reverend's move saved the sword from coming loose. S-sorry..." she said, feeling a malicious aura coming from the master.

"Haha...Looks like it's time for the…

…big guns."