Skeleton Knight in Another World Vol. 4

by Ennki Hakari

  Ariane stared at me, awaiting some sort of explanation.

  I averted my gaze and scratched my chin, unsure how to respond. “I honestly thought I was human.”

  I knew there was no way they’d believe me if I told them what was actually going on. So, I decided to leave it at that.

  Ariane and Chiyome exchanged a glance and then shrugged in unison. I was grateful that they apparently weren’t going to pursue this further.

  I looked down at my body and sighed.

  Ariane’s eyes remained fixed on me as she muttered to Chiyome. “Judging by the ears alone, I would have said he was an elf, but I’ve never seen an elf like that.”

  Here I was, a knight who was actually a skeleton… Who’d been cursed… Who was originally a dark elf, but the person inside that dark elf was actually a human gamer… It felt like when you buy something, only to find it wrapped in layer upon layer of packaging. I shook my head, trying to dispel the frustration welling up inside.

  There were more important issues at hand.

  “Why did I pass out in the hot spring?”

  I remembered being overcome with emotion right before I lost consciousness. It was something I’d never felt before, like a tornado running rampant through my skull. That feeling had been amplified by the fact that I’d rarely felt any emotion since becoming a skeleton.

  “It was likely a side effect of the curse.” I was surprised to hear a vaguely familiar voice coming from above.

  Ariane, Chiyome, and I turned. A man I’d never seen before stood atop a wall, looking down at us.

  “Kyiii!” Ponta didn’t seem the least bit alarmed by this newcomer. Rather, it was excited, mewing and wagging its massive tail.

  The man hopped down, landing lightly on the ground. He stood with his hands on his hips, an imposing figure.

  Ariane answered my unspoken question. “This is Villiers Fim, the Dragon Lord. He can take the form of a man when he chooses.”

  “Wow…”

  I still had a lot of questions.

  The person in front of me had two arms, and two legs, and definitely looked humanoid. He clearly wasn’t the same thirty-meter Dragon Lord I’d fought. But I wasn’t sure I could call him human, either. Blue-gray scales covered his skin, and he still had a dragon’s head. Sharp, pointed teeth poked from his mouth, and horns stuck out of his head, stretching behind him. Small, neatly folded wings lay flat against his back. He was dressed from head to toe in armor the color of his scales, and I noticed a large tail extending from his lower back to the floor.

  The Dragon Lord’s most notable characteristic in human form, however, was his height. He was a giant, standing at least four meters tall.

  I really wasn’t sold on the idea of calling this a “human form,” when “giant lizard-man” seemed just as fitting. However, I kept those thoughts to myself as I turned to face Villiers Fim.

  I had more important things than his appearance to worry about, such as what was going on with my body. “What did you mean by ‘side effect’?”

  Villiers Fim fixed his reptilian eyes on me. “From what I can tell, your body is not originally from this world, and was brought here from another. The spring’s power temporarily returned you to your true form. What you experienced was the emotional shock of that transition. Why your transformation was temporary, however, even I do not know.”

  His words echoed in my mind. “From another world…”

  “Correct. But you must already know that. You are a Wanderer, no?”

  I cocked my head to the side, not sure I understood what he had said.

  “A Wanderer, as the word implies, is someone who comes here from…elsewhere. From time to time, even people of unknown species appear.”

  I glanced at Ariane and Chiyome. Judging from their faces, this was news to them as well.

  Ariane spoke. “These…other places you speak of…are you referring to other continents?”

  “I speak of other worlds. Hanzo, the man who made this mountaintop his home, was also a Wanderer.”

  Chiyome gasped. “Hanzo?!”

  Villiers Fim’s mouth curved in a crooked attempt at a smile, perhaps charmed by the pure innocence of Chiyome’s reaction. “Wanderers are hardly rare. I’ve even heard that the humans who inhabit these lands are all descendants of Wanderers.”

  “That’s certainly…interesting.” I thought back to the human settlements I’d visited since arriving.

  There were actually very few humans here, compared to my world. However, compared to the elven villages’ population, there were far more humans. Considering the humans’ numbers, and how long it would take to clear forests, establish farmland, and build settlements, their ancestors must have arrived ages ago.

  That meant that, in addition to myself, the Wanderers included the founder of Chiyome’s clan and the Great Canada Forest’s founding elder.

  There might even have been others out there like me who suddenly found themselves in this world.

  “Are Wanderers always people?”

  “No, not always. All manner of things, including monsters, wind up wandering through here.”

  That meant that monsters could appear randomly in this world any time—a rather alarming thought.

  While my mind ran wild with this new information’s implications, Ariane spoke up again. “Sir Villiers Fim, I understand that you say Arc’s body was from another world. Previously, you mentioned that the spring’s power placed a great spiritual burden on Arc when he tried to reclaim his body from this…other world. But you also said that he must partake regularly in the power of the spring. If he enters it again, will the same thing happen?”

  Ariane’s question brought me back to the matter at hand. “I’ve been wondering about that, too.” Ariane’s eyes narrowed at me, nonplussed by my casual demeanor. I looked up intently at the giant dragon man, desperately trying to ignore Ariane’s intense glare.

  After basking in the hot spring near the Lord Crown—a spring said to have the power to lift any curse—

  I not only returned to flesh and blood, but found my head overcome with such intense emotion that I felt as though it would split in two. Then I lost consciousness for six days. I might have gotten my body back temporarily, but I was now a simple skeleton once again. Even if I could reclaim my body by bathing in the spring, it wasn’t worth passing out for another seven days. The situation almost felt like dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean, unable to drink a drop of water.

  Villiers Fim scratched his chin. “The place where your body is, and the world where you come from, are not exactly the same. However, this difference is not worth dwelling upon just yet. Unless I am mistaken, you also find yourself lacking strong emotion as a skeleton, yes?”

  I thought back on everything I’d experienced since coming here. He was right. Every day since waking up in this world had been filled with one surprise after another, yet I’d never found myself particularly moved by sadness or joy.

  To be sure, I considered the treatment of the elves and mountain people atrocious, and didn’t hesitate to offer assistance, but not out of righteous indignation.

  I’d figured that my rather indifferent demeanor was the result of thinking that this world was all just a game, or possibly a dream, and that there were no real consequences to my actions.

  “Now that I think about it, you’re right.”

  “I believe that the emotions you should have been feeling were suppressed, and when you returned to your body, they came flooding back like a tidal wave. That nearly unbearable burden caused you to lose consciousness.”

  That made a certain kind of sense, at least. But why?

  “Why are you so familiar with this rather unique situation?” Thanks to their incredibly long lifespans, Dragon Lords were immensely wise. I hoped Villiers Fim would have a satisfactory answer.

  The Dragon Lord’s reptilian mouth curved into a smile again. “Many people confuse Dragon Lords with the other dragons that inhabit these mounta
ins. We are, in fact, a completely different species. You see, we are akin to spirits that have been granted living bodies.”

  I couldn’t help but look over at Ponta, who was in the middle of a large yawn, apparently quite bored with this conversation.

  “Kyii?”

  Villiers Fim dismissed my implication with a flick of his hand. “Spirit creatures, as their name suggests, are created by a spirit and an animal coming together as one. We Dragon Lords have created our bodies here in this world of our own will. This humanoid form is just one example of our abilities. Though, of course, it’s quite a challenge for us Dragon Lords to constrict our spirits into such a small form.” He puffed his chest out in pride. “The relationship between your skeleton and flesh is not all that different from the relationship between our spirits and physical vessels.”

  I was surprised to learn that Dragon Lords had a spiritual side. Sadly, I didn’t see myself reaching that level of enlightenment any time soon. Still, I could think of worse ways to exist than as a spirit living inside a skeleton.

  “So, what it all boils down to is that I’m not only unable to enjoy this wonderful hot spring, but also, any of the water’s positive effects will be temporary at best.”

  Ariane shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe I was going on about bathing again. This was a pretty big deal to me, though.

  “Ah, but that’s not true at all,” Villers Fim explained. “If you don’t enter the spring regularly, and experience at least some emotional release, then you will never again be able to return to your true body. It’s nothing short of a miracle that you could return to your natural form at all.”

  It felt as though a lightbulb switched on inside my mind as I finally realized what he was saying.

  I’d lived in this world as a skeleton for less than a month, and all the emotion I’d experienced in that time had been building inside me. The shock of two months, or even a year, of accumulated emotion might be so severe that it destroyed me.

  On the one hand, not having to experience emotion certainly made navigating this rather tragic world much easier. But that left me with a debt that I would always have to pay after the fact. It was a curse in every sense of the word.

  I could never have imagined that the curse I decided to create for myself back in the game would affect me like this.

  “I guess I’ll need to test the hot spring’s limits.”

  I wasn’t just saying that because I wanted another soak in an exquisite bath—the best I’d ever encountered. No, the hot spring’s powers could greatly impact how I proceeded forward. More research was needed.

  ***

  I made my way out to the hot spring. Steaming water still poured endlessly from cracks in the stone, running down cooling rock channels before splashing into the bath itself. Excess water flowed over the sides and off the cliff. It was truly a sight to behold.

  A four-meter-tall giant covered in blue-gray scales sat in the bath, his back against the stones.

  Apparently, Villiers Fim enjoyed the hot spring in his human form. With each breath, tendrils of steam rose from the water’s surface and spiraled away. Sitting in the bath and soaking, he looked truly relaxed, like the monkeys that frequented the famed Jigokudani hot spring.

  Without opening his eyes, the Dragon Lord spoke. “Are you just going to keep standing there?”

  I was lingering at the edge of the water, dipping my toe in and watching the flesh return before yanking it back. I lost count of how many times I repeated that. The shock of what had happened earlier made me pretty hesitant.

  But I couldn’t stand around like this forever. I made up my mind and fixed my eyes on the water’s surface. This time, I’d only face the past seven days’ emotions—days when I hadn’t even been conscious. The burden would be infinitely smaller than last time.

  “Here goes nooooothing!”

  My skeletal frame dropped into the water with a sploosh.

  I stayed underwater with my eyes firmly closed, my body tensing as I waited for shock to wash over me. When nothing happened, I poked my head above the surface and looked around.

  I felt a tingling sensation throughout my body, starting deep within and slowly spreading, but none of the overwhelming emotion I’d felt last time. I relaxed in the warm water and let out a deep sigh.

  “Haaaaaah.”

  I would definitely need to take a dip here on a regular basis.

  As long as I could release my pent-up emotions before they had a chance to get out of hand, using the hot spring wouldn’t be such a big ordeal. I could bathe daily if I wanted, as I had in my old life. Maybe even twice a day.

  I washed my face with a handful of warm water. Back in my flesh-and-blood body, at least for the moment, memories of my actions returned. From regret over having taken lives to the warm, fuzzy feeling of soaking in a bath, the feelings were all complicated, yet oddly comfortable at the same time.

  I let the water soak into my skin while thinking about my next steps.

  I’d achieved my goal of restoring my real body, even if it wasn’t the body I’d expected. I tugged gently at my elongated ears as I scrutinized the face that looked back at me from the water’s surface, testing out different expressions.

  I wanted to see just how long the hot spring’s effects lasted.

  I lifted myself out of the water and sat on the stone edge of the bath, leaving only my legs submerged.

  My dark elf avatar, the one I’d used before switching to the skeleton, had quite a nice body—rippling muscles covered in beautiful brown skin. However, only a short time after leaving the water, my upper body became semi-transparent. A few moments after that, my bones showed as my skin faded away.

  The parts of my legs that were still in the water retained their form, giving me the appearance of a skeleton wearing flesh socks—a pretty shocking sight for anyone who might pass by.

  Apparently, after I left the water, it only took about ten minutes for my skeletal form to return.

  I dropped back into the bath and started paddling, flesh reappearing on my body as I swam. I scooped up some water with my hands and drank it. It was flavorless, but slid easily down my throat, sending a pleasant warmth into my stomach.

  I returned to the bath’s stone edge and sat.

  This time, I retained my body long after the ten-minute mark.

  I looked over at the Dragon Lord, who sat a little farther off, occasionally splashing his long tail against the water’s surface.

  “Does this mean the curse has been completely lifted?”

  Villiers Fim looked at me and shook his head. “I don’t know the specifics, but from what I’ve seen of your curse, I don’t believe you’ve returned to your true form yet. Just how did you become cursed, anyway?”

  I was grateful that the way he posed this question made it sound rhetorical. I had no idea how to answer.

  I’d already been a skeleton when I came to this world. The curse had traveled with me. If I wanted straight answers, I’d have to ask the gods themselves.

  Thinking over the problem raised more philosophical issues, such as how and why I was alive at all.

  “Villiers Fim,” I said, “I would like your permission to make this abandoned shrine my own.”

  “Do as you please. This place was built by the cat clan leader Hanzo, anyway. As long as you don’t get any funny ideas about taking over my home in the forest, I don’t mind.” The Dragon Lord closed his eyes, dunked his head under the water, and blew bubbles up to the surface.

  “Thank you.”

  I climbed out of the hot spring and made my way to a small building behind the shrine, where I’d left my armor. Halfway through getting dressed, I stopped and looked down at myself.

  “I guess I don’t really need to put on my full armor.”

  I decided to wear only the bottom half, which would make it easier to monitor how long the hot spring’s effects lasted. I flexed my upper body’s well-toned muscles; I could see my blood vessels pulse.
<
br />   “I wish I could get a good look at my whole body.”

  I added a full-length mirror to the list of items I wanted to buy for the home I was already building in my head.

  I made my way back to the shrine, where I assumed Ariane and Chiyome were waiting. I found them talking in the large, grass-covered space between the shrine and the building where I’d stored my armor.

  “Ah, Ariane. Sorry for the wait.”

  Ariane turned, looking taken aback. “Arc, your…your curse was lifted? How are you feeling?”

  “I don’t seem to be having any problems. According to Villiers Fim, the effect is still temporary, but I drank some spring water to see how long it will last.”

  I struck a bodybuilder’s pose, flexing the muscles in my upper body.

  Ariane made a strange face. “Why are you posing like that?”

  I flexed my pectorals as I responded. “I, uh, well, I’m just happy to finally have muscles, and I wanted to show them off. Is that strange?”

  “Eww! Cut it out. You remind me of my grandpa. I’m embarrassed for both of us.”

  My shoulders slumped at Ariane’s scathing critique. Just then, Ponta came gliding toward me on a gust of magical wind.

  “Kyiii!”

  The fox flew straight to the top of my head, its cotton tail tickling my face as it swished back and forth.

  Ariane watched with curiosity. “It makes a lot more sense that a spirit creature like Ponta would be so fond of you, now that I know you’re an elf. Hey, Arc, can you see this?”

  She blew onto her hand and stretched it toward me. A faintly glowing ball of light, similar to the one that I saw while we were in Lamburt, sat in her open palm.

  I squinted my eyes and focused. “It’s faint, but I see a glowing ball. Why?”

  Ariane nodded, allowing the light to fade away. “Just as I thought. You can see spirits.”

  That faint ball of light was a spirit? “But I couldn’t sense the stench of the undead, or see the mana that fills the Great Canada Forest.” I remembered hearing that elves could see the flow of mana—which apparently filled the Great Canada Forest—in addition to seeing spirits. Ariane might have been convinced, but I still had some questions.