by Ennki Hakari
“Don’t joke around like that, Chiyome!”
The tips of Ariane’s ears burned, but Chiyome looked puzzled at her outburst.
“If it’s an issue for you, I can do it instead. It doesn’t bother me.”
Ariane felt her entire face flush. “Th-that’s ridiculous! I mean, the very idea…”
Chiyome shrugged. She told Ariane she was going to head into the woods to look for more food.
Once Ariane was alone, she let out a loud sigh, her shoulders slumping. She slapped the motionless Arc several times on the cheek with her open palm.
“C’mon, wake up already!”
Arc grimaced, groaning, and still looking as though he was lost in a nightmare. Ariane continued slapping him, yelling incoherently, until she ran out of energy.
Chapter 3:
A Favor for the Mountain People
When I came to, I had absolutely no idea where I was.
I sat atop a rock in the middle of a forest, the ground a thick carpet of grass and leaves.
The sun was high in the sky—just past noon, maybe?—and the only sound was a gentle breeze rustling through the trees. The wind carried the scents of fresh grass and damp earth, the aromas mingling briefly before rushing away again.
I stood up and looked across the unfamiliar scene in front of me, trying to remember what brought me here. That’s when I noticed my attire.
I was draped from head to toe in a pitch-black cloak, and wore gauntlets inscribed with ominous symbols. In one hand, I held a large staff that could only be described as sinister-looking. I was pretty much the textbook image of a Magus.
While I tried to come to grips with my appearance, my body suddenly began moving on its own.
A black flame appeared at the tip of my staff, shooting into the forest and reducing a nearby tree to a charred husk. The tree shattered as it hit the ground, filling the air with soot.
My hand raised the staff into the air, as if satisfied with the black flame’s power. I heard a laugh—mine?—from somewhere far-off.
I used the black flame again and again, burning all the trees in the area before finally leaving the empty clearing and heading into the forest.
Everywhere I looked, I saw dense undergrowth and thick foliage. There was no path to lead me, yet I continued marching purposefully through the woods until I came upon a simple dirt road. The trees were trimmed on either side, giving me a clear view.
I raised my staff again and summoned a black ball of energy. It grew larger and larger until it surrounded me. It only lasted for a second, however. Then the black sphere quickly shrank again and faded away. When it did, I found myself in a slightly different place.
Looking over my shoulder, I understood what had happened.
About ten meters back, I could see the trees and shrubs where I’d left the forest. The spot was marked by broken twigs and crushed-grass footprints.
Apparently, I’d used some sort of teleportation magic.
Seemingly satisfied with this method of transportation, I continued teleporting at a quick clip through the forest, following the road.
After some time, the trees grew sparser, and I got a clear look into the distance.
The road stretched beyond the forest, merging with a path that wound among a series of rolling hills. I looked up to find the sun on its downward journey, slightly lower in the sky. I turned onto this new, serpentine road and began teleporting along it, moving between the hills.
I soon encountered an extravagant carriage stopped on the side of the road. It seemed wholly out of place in this tranquil scene, and the sight of it filled me with dread.
Multiple arrows had been shot into the carriage—and the man sitting in the driver’s seat. One of the four carriage horses had collapsed, likely due to the arrow in its neck. It bled everywhere, still hitched to the carriage.
Even more noteworthy, however, were the men fighting all around the carriage.
One side consisted of soldiers on horseback, wearing light armor and armed with swords and small bucklers marked with the same crest. Their backs faced the carriage as they fought. They were clearly guards in service to some important noble.
The other side were rough-looking men who shouted obscenities as they tried to surround the guards. There was no uniformity in their weapons or armor, suggesting they were bandits.
There were over twice as many bandits as guards, and the bandits seemed to be winning through sheer force. The situation was already beyond saving, the guards dropping one by one. If I didn’t intervene, the bandits would reach the carriage in a matter of minutes.
I readied my staff, and was quickly engulfed in a massive black ball.
A moment later, I stood about a hundred meters from the carriage and the battle. No one seemed to have noticed my presence.
I raised my staff again, calling forth a black flame and shooting a volley of fireballs toward the bandits. My aim was true, and each fireball struck its intended target, engulfing several men in flames and leaving nothing but ash and bone.
“Gyaaaaaaaaugh!!!”
I watched, thoroughly pleased with myself, as the remaining bandits—hot-blooded and aggressive only moments before—looked around wide-eyed and terrified as their comrades screamed in agony. The guards were also uncertain as to what was going on.
One bandit finally caught sight of me. He pointed in my direction. “That’s the one! That Mage over there!”
Several other bandits turned in response, raised their weapons, and charged toward me. However, nearly all of them fell to my flame attacks before they even got close, leaving nothing but a pile of blackened bones on the earth in front of me.
I approached the carriage, vaporizing the remaining bandits along the way.
The devastation and destruction I wrought were indescribable, yet for some reason had little impact on me.
One bandit called to a hulking man nearby. “We better get outta here, boss! That guy’s somethin’ else!” He shot me a quick glance before turning tail and running.
I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and shot another black fireball. It hit the bandit square in the back, and quickly enveloped him, eliciting a bloodcurdling scream that lasted until his lungs burnt through. He silently writhed on the ground, crumbling to ash.
“Damn you, you evil mana-sucking son of a—”
The boss screamed all manner of obscenities in my direction, although his voice quaked with fear. Either out of anger at his own weakness, or possibly sheer desperation, he lifted his axe and threw it at me. It grazed my pitch-black cloak before hitting the ground behind me with a thud. My hood fell back, revealing my face for all to see.
Everything went silent for a moment as the survivors around me held their collective breath.
***
As soon as my muscles tensed, everyone suddenly began moving again, like coiled springs finally releasing.
The bandits let out screeches of terror and scattered in fear, like children who’d spotted a spider. Meanwhile, the guards surrounding the carriage began issuing orders and firing arrows in my direction.
Several arrows struck my side—or would have, at least, if it weren’t for my cloak. The garment stopped the arrows in their tracks, sending each one tumbling harmlessly to the ground with a hollow thunk.
Despite having saved the guards, this was how they repaid me.
“Why’d you do that?”
They met my question with blank, wide-eyed stares.
One guard—perhaps their captain—called to the others. “I want two men here with me to keep him from pursuing us. The rest of you, take the carriage and get out of here!”
Two guards drew their swords. Another released the dead horse from its harness, while a fourth hopped into the driver’s seat.
No sooner did I step forward than the captain of the guards rode close and raised his sword. “Not one more step! You two, on his flanks!”
As the words left his mouth, the captain drove his spurs
into his horse’s sides and charged at me, sunlight glinting off his sword.
I teleported away, throwing the captain off balance. However, that left my back open to the two guards looping around the sides. I dodged one man’s blows, and deflected the other’s sword with my staff. I turned around just in time to find the captain’s blade swinging down at me.
His sword caught my staff with a loud clang and sent a shower of sparks into the air.
“I’ll kill you, hell spawn!”
The captain yelled epithets at me, a vein bulging in his forehead, as he tried to push his sword into me. His hateful face grew ever-closer to mine as he put all his weight behind his blade. Finally, I could see myself reflected in his pupils. The image was that of a hairless, skinless skeleton. Red flame flickered deep within its empty skull, behind its eye sockets.
I was caught off guard by my own appearance. I swung my staff, knocking the captain away, and brought a hand to my face. All I felt under my trembling fingertips was cold, hard bone—not a hint of the soft, warm sensation of flesh.
“Back to the ground with you, undead scum!”
Taking advantage of my momentary lapse in focus, the captain came charging back in with his sword.
“I’m done with you.”
I’d grown annoyed by his presence. With a swing of my staff, I engulfed the man in a ball of black flame. Within moments, nothing was left of him but ash.
“You bastard!”
“For the captain!”
The two remaining men were enraged. They charged at me, swords lowered. I barely managed to get out of the way before reducing them to ashes as well. The crackle of fire echoed across the hills.
I looked around, feeling nothing in particular. The carriage was gone. I turned my gaze back toward the winding road; off in the distance, I saw it speeding away. I lost sight of it as it rounded a hill.
I sighed heavily and examined my staff.
Despite having just massacred numerous people, I didn’t really feel anything, aside from an odd, indescribable emotion smoldering deep within my heart, which soon passed.
The next thing I knew, I was back at the crossroads, where the path I’d taken out of the forest met the main road.
The sun was at the horizon, the sky bathed in deep lavender as night fell. I sat on a nearby rock, looking up into the emptiness.
I’d come to terms with my appearance, and was trying to figure out my next steps, when suddenly, several lights appeared on the hillside. It took me a few moments to realize they were heading straight toward me.
By the time I understood what was going on, I faced a legion of over a hundred soldiers, their spear tips reflecting the setting sun’s blood-red glow.
These men were outfitted with heavier, more extravagant armor than the guards I’d just encountered, and with capes that fluttered in the wind. The capes were probably white, but the setting sun bathed them in crimson, reminding me of Rome’s armies.
A man wearing a suit of armor even more extravagant than the others urged his horse forward, raised his hand into the sky, and brought it down in a broad sweep. On his signal, the soldiers lowered their spears and charged. The air filled with the thunder of hooves, the ground shaking underneath me.
I had no time to teleport out of the situation.
I shot fireball after fireball at the oncoming army, but it was like throwing pebbles at a wave—there were simply too many soldiers. The ones I did hit—men and horses alike—stopped dead in their tracks, burnt to the bone.
Several men drew close and hurled their spears at me. They pierced straight through my cloak and scratched my bones with an awful scraping sound.
I turned my back on the oncoming army and ran away, all too aware of how near the horsemen were. More spears struck me from behind.
Had I been made of actual flesh and blood, I would certainly have been mortally wounded. However, I hardly even felt any pain.
I yanked a spear out and held it up, throwing it like a javelin at a knight who rode in front of me. It traveled clean through his horse and struck him, sending his body to the ground.
That still left a legion of soldiers rushing after me, spears extended.
“This sucks,” I muttered to myself.
I stabbed my staff’s tip into the earth. A shadow formed around my feet and slowly expanded, swallowing the corpses of the knight and horse I’d just killed. Blood and entrails poured from their wounds; then they were lifted into the air as if by marionette strings. The other dead knights, no more than scorched skeletons, picked up their spears and ran to meet the oncoming men who’d once been their comrades.
Even this horrifying sight wasn’t enough to stop the wave of soldiers, although uncertainty and fear were evident in their faces.
The newly-revived skeleton soldiers, wrapped in shadowy tendrils, threw their spears into the ranks they’d once marched with. The spear points tore through stomachs and chests, spraying gore onto the battlefield. Screams of pure agony filled the air as weapons clanged, turning the once-tranquil hillside into a living hell. The scents of steel, rust, and blood mingled together.
When the last life was snuffed out, over a hundred mindless skeleton knights stood stock-still, their long shadows draped across the earth like grave markers. There were no voices, no cheers. The hillside was silent, save for the flutter of capes in the wind as the ghastly army stood at rigid attention.
Standing in the center, I adjusted my hood, covering my skull and the red flame that flickered within. I pulled my staff from the earth and raised it to the sky.
The skeletal soldiers formed ranks and began to march silently along the road, a silent procession of the dead.
The sun had sunk below the horizon, drenching the entire region in darkness. The only sound was the scratching of burnt bone on cobblestone.
After that, everything went fuzzy.
***
When I opened my eyes, I saw foliage through the remains of a roof that had long ago fallen into ruin. Spots of sunlight made their way through the dense leaf cover, illuminating my resting body.
I felt as though I’d just woken from a bad dream, but I couldn’t recall any details. I took a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling, hoping to expel the dark feeling from my chest.
Now that I was fully awake, the memory of what happened after I entered the hot spring came flooding back. I looked around, my head suddenly heavy, as if it were stuffed with cotton.
I lay on a stone countertop next to what had once been a hearth. It looked like this room had been a kitchen at some point. One of the pelts we’d used back when we were camping was draped over me like a blanket.
As far as I could tell, I was in the ruins of the shrine we found near the mountain’s peak. The walls were mostly bare, what few decorations there once were having falling away long ago. Grass grew through gaps in the stone floor, making the boundary between indoors and outdoors rather vague. All the same, the building still appeared sturdy.
Also on the countertop, by my side, slept a small, grass-colored fur ball. I heard it snoring lightly as its cotton-like tail swayed back and forth. It opened its eyes and blinked a few times, perhaps startled by my movements, and looked up at me. Then it started mewing excitedly.
“Kyiiii! Kyiiiiiiiii!!!”
Ponta hopped over to my face and gave it a few licks with its tiny tongue.
“Hey, hey! Cut it out! That tickles!”
I pulled the overly excited fox away and caught a glimpse of myself reflected in its pupils.
“Huh. I guess I changed back.”
The hot spring had returned me to flesh and blood, but now I was in my skeleton body again. I was just as naked as I’d been when I entered the hot spring in the first place—assuming, of course, that skeletons could be naked. There was really no shame in being naked as a skeleton. All the same, I wanted my suit of armor.
Casting my gaze around the room, I locked eyes with Ariane, who’d just entered. She gaped at the sight of me, and
dropped some leafy greens as she rushed over, practically yelling in my face.
“Arc, you’re awake?!”
A tear glinted in the corner of her eye. I scratched the back of my skull in embarrassment. The way she was looking at me left me taken aback. They must have really been worried about me.
“Uh, y-yeah. I just woke up a few moments ago. How long was I unconscious?”
“Let’s see…” Ariane counted on her fingers. “This morning marks the seventh day since you passed out at the spring. We were just about to send Chiyome back to the village for help, or possibly ask the Dragon Lord to take us there himself.”
“I was out for seven days?!”
It seemed as though hardly even an hour had passed. I felt a little like Urashima Taro, from the fairytales I’d heard as a kid.
“Arc! You finally woke up!” Chiyome was dressed in her usual ninja garb. She carried a simple basket of fruit and herbs similar to the ones Ariane had dropped earlier. The cat ears on her head twitched.
“I’m sorry for worrying you so much,” I said.
Ariane crossed her arms. “You should be sorry! We had no idea whether your heart was even beating, considering that you’re a skeleton. For all we knew, you were dead!”
I couldn’t really argue with that. If they’d actually mistaken me for dead, though, they would have held a funeral and buried me.
“Thank you for waiting all this time. But how did you know I was alive? Personally, I would have given up after the second day.”
Ariane’s golden eyes wavered, and she looked away. “It’s…it’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
I was confused by her reply, but I didn’t press her.
“Anyway…” Ariane continued. “Y’know how you’ve been saying you’re human this whole time, Arc? Well, when the spring lifted your curse, you definitely didn’t have a human body.”
The bizarre reflection I’d seen in the hot spring came surging back to me. The face in the water definitely hadn’t been mine from the real world. But it felt familiar all the same. It was the character I’d used in the game before switching to my skeleton avatar. I’d been playing as a dark elf, with long, pointed ears, brown skin, crimson eyes, and black hair. However, I looked nothing like this world’s dark elves.