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The double doors burst open and a squad of armored Royal Knights holding magic resistance shields marched right in just to be flabbergasted by the whole mob of tense magic scholars eyeing me down with furrowed eyebrows. They marched around the perimeter and contained everyone there, even snatching the tome that man had in his possession. It was for the best, I’d imagine.

Right as the knights came near me, I rose my tome towards the frozen man and freed him of my spell. He fell to the ground and gasped for breath. Once he caught enough air, he began whining all over again.

“Give me my tome back!” the man yelled at a nearby knight. They shook their heads unsurprisingly. He was carrying a murderous weapon in his pocket, after all. It was almost like he planned to use it.

When he saw he wasn’t getting his tome back, that same man stayed at his knees and beat his fists again the cobblestone flooring. “Dammit! It’s all because of you!” He wasn’t staring at Father nor myself, but I could feel his hatred piercing through my soul. My instincts forced me back to Lio.

Since the Royal Knights had tamed the wild crowd, it was finally safe for a special man to make his appearance. Yes, it was the Prince of Kori Soaro: Arcite Sorto. He was pretty much king at this point, given how much more work he was doing when compared to his father. King Arveragus Sorto was a slacker who dug his head into the ground whenever a dilemma arose, but I reckon he’d be ready to jump up and get to work when it concerned his reputation. He was obsessed with how people perceived him, which was ironic to say the least. And his laziness forced his son to take up the throne to keep this nation alive.

What walked through doors and guarded by powerful looking knights in shiny silver armor was Prince Arcite himself. He wore a pure white robe the contrasted his coal black pants and boots. His purple cloak swayed with his body and the look on his face was concerning, for a lack of better words. The boy, barely eighteen if I remember correctly, had dark circles under his yellow eyes and his dirty blond hair was a mess. Yet here he was, striving to solve another one of Kori Soaro’s issues in the place of his irresponsible father.

“Silence!” Prince Arcite yelled with a high pitched voice that caught me off guard. He still sounded very young.

The man in front of me pouting quickly shut his mouth, and the entire room turned to their prince. I was no longer in the spotlight, thank goodness.

Arcite, with his knights in tow, sauntered up to the stage and stood behind the podium. I could see he was scanning all around us, then groaned. “Why must you all fight? This is no contest, I’ve called you all here to find a solution to a dire dilemma that concerns you, your family, and even your grandchildren if this problem persists. Isn’t saving your families and your homes enough to band together?”

Arcite had quite the silver tongue, articulating his words with finesse and grace while his hands were animated with each word. I’d originally thought his voice was too high for a person like him, but it seemed to help him with public speaking. He was gifted with a high yet light and silk voice that spoke to the hearts rather than the ears. I listened as he poured his heart out to the crowd furthermore.

“I’ll be blunt with all of you and explain the exact scale of this issue, just so you all know just how serious to be.” Prince Arcite cleared his throat and stepped away from the podium just to take in a large gulp of air. He stepped forward and slammed his fists on the podium. “I told you all in letters that a new type of undead are roaming free in the city, but there is more to that. Not only are they terrorizing the residences, but adventurers hired to hunt them mysteriously go missing, then are found days later as those same undead monsters. They are spreading more rapidly than I could possibly imagine, and we’ll soon not be able to contain them in their dungeons. That is why I call all of you together to help out, so that we can find a way to stop them and prevent the horde from spilling out into the city.”

Thousands would likely perish if hordes of undead were to flood into the streets. That thought made my mouth drop in terror.

“It’s worse than I thought,” I whispered. My father reciprocated.

“Yeah, way worse.”

Father pulled me forward and embraced me in a hug as we listened to Prince Arcite carry on with his speech. “Please, now is the time that we all share any research we gathered to come up with solutions or hypotheses at least.” And thus the Prince of Kori Soaro beckoned all the researchers forth to share what they have with everyone. Father, who was still hugging me tight, leaned in and whispered in my ear.

“Now’s our time to share what we have with Prince Arcite. You can tell him what you told me.”

Recalling what I would say, I hesitantly nodded my head. Even if it was irrelevant, I still needed to tell him just so that he’s aware of such a powerful dungeon master who was also an expert in the topic of the undead.

But was it really okay for me—a nobody—to talk with Arcite? I wasn’t anyone special, like Father or Lio, so I wasn’t even sure that my words would be heard. In the event that does happen, at least I’d be guiltless, not regretting being quiet at this very moment. That was the only thing pushing me forward with Father and Lio as we went along with everyone else to convene in a circle along Prince Arcite.

Everyone wore similar white robes to Father, indicating their status as scholars, and each and every one of them have studied magic to a certain extent, and it all showed in their confident auras. They were all skilled in their own right, leaving Lio and I to stand out in our mage outfits. We were red and blue dots in a sea of white.

What proceeded was a seminar-like meeting that the Prince of Kori Soaro conducted. How it went was that he would propose info he already knew of the undead, and we’d all pitch in from there. People would raise their hands, and he would pick who would talk next. It was a structured and basic meeting, from my understanding. I was glad it wasn’t a debate format, but a collection of research from all over the land. There were people from all over Kori Soaro like Chautington, the small town of Beckett, and even Austen way out to the west near the Curuni border. Despite the diversity, there was an overwhelming presence of Galligar researchers that tipped that tide of diversity in favor of this city.

The meeting began, and Arcite articulated his info, which was interesting yet not very groundbreaking. He told all of us about the slowed down decaying process of slain undead, and the evaporation of blood in their system. He hypothesized that could be the reason why these human-like undead had no blood. And these new undead were confirmed to be capable of speaking, which is so uncharacteristic of regular undead. It was like they were in an inbetween state of death and life, much like normal reanimated corpses, but leaning towards the spectrum of the living.

Everyone then posed their research one by one, with varying degrees of usefulness. Most of the research posed, however, were of the behavior of the undead and how they operated. I never really took notice of how they moved or operated in a group. From what these scholars gathered, they hunted like ravenous wolves going in a frenzy, each one of them strategically aiming for keypoints like the ankles, knees, or neck to immobilize their targets first. Obviously, these scholars didn’t just observe these monsters hunt a human and jot down what they saw, they deliberately used dummies made of hay and beef. Every single time, these monsters would aim for the neck or lower legs to stop their targets in their tracks.

Father’s research was quite different. I didn’t think he ever had an interest in finding out how these undead monsters operated, but he instead strove to uncover how they came to being in the first place. What were their origins, how did they deviate from their slow and fragile counterparts? His research may have found an answer to those questions and potentially pinpoint a culprit at large.

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Father shot his hand up and waited as calm as he could be with a serene smile on his face, while Prince Arcite made his way from one hand to the other with open ears to hear them out.

“We hypothesize, from the experiment done with interactions between your average undead and these new ones, that they are some sort of mutation or a new breed of undead. They share the same goals and desires, yet have different capabilities or instincts which makes me think they’re cut from different cloths. Most likely the same origins, but different methods of how their origins came about,” a scholar across from Father attempted to explain to Arcite, yet he seemed to have trouble articulating his results.

Arcite tilted his head. I didn’t think he understood that scholar’s rapid-fire explanation of his research, even I had trouble keeping up with it. “Uh, if I understand correctly, your research uncovers the fact that both versions of the undead are connected, right? Just different breeds, like that of dogs?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Much like how a Labrador and a Pitbull share ancestors yet came into being through different methods, so too do these undead monsters related to one another in such a fashion.”

“Hmm…” Arcite placed a thumb on his chin and would not stop humming. The moment he did, though, he placed his hands on his hips and glared with a tint of disappointment in his eyes. “That’s fairly obvious to say that the two are connected, no? I mean, they’re both undead, so they obviously both had to have an origin of being alive first. Still, I appreciate the insight you’re giving nonetheless.”

Yikes, shot down! I kind of felt bad for that scholar, who hung his head down in shame, crumpling up his research papers and walking out of the room. Arcite’s eyes followed him as he stomped to the doors and slipped out… not before slamming them shut as hard as his skinny arms could.

The Prince bit his lower lip and shook his head, huffing air out from his nostrils dramatically. “What a shame,” he said.

He scanned all around us, giving a sidelong glance to hands that fell back down after his critique of the previous research study. What filled the air was an intensity I couldn’t bear to describe. No one else wanted to raise their hands anymore, afraid of what he might nitpick from their research. After all, if the Prince of Kori Soaro deemed the research to be invalid, then it loses all credibility in the academic scene. They didn’t want Arcite to rip out their credibility as academic scholars in a growing field of potential. But Father still had his hands raised high.

“Yes, you over there.” Arcite pointed right at my father, and I noticed his chest rise at its highest then descend to its depths. Father gestured to me and pulled out his research from his pocket.

“Your Highness, my research involves the true origins of these new undead. I hope you don’t mind me going through it with you?”

“Go ahead. That is why we’re all here.”

“Right. The experiment I underwent was very unusual, to say the least. I really wanted to know how these undead monsters even were able to walk or eat, or even talk like normal humans in some cases, which was what led me to experiment on a dead corpse to see if I can replicate this phenomenon.” Father took in a gulp of air and licked his finger, unfolding the pages in front of him. “I had a hypothesis that magic had to do with it, since we already know that it's the corruptible aura of the dungeon master that creates regular undead, so I tried injecting magic into the corpse to get it to move.”

“And how’d you do that?” The Prince raised an eyebrow and placed his hands on his hips again.

“I’m getting to that, Your Highness. After experimenting with varying quantities of magic energy put into a Flux spell on the corpse, it became clear that I needed much more, which led me to hire six other displacement mages to line up and create a chain of magic energy through the use of Accelerate. Then that last person in the chain would harness all of that energy into a focused Flux spell. It drained all of our magic energy, but the corpse was able to get up and move for a few seconds.”

“And who was controlling it?” The Prince seemed genuinely intrigued by the research, seeing as how his eyes were widely glaring at him and his dropping his sides.

“The one casting the Flux spell was able to get him to move, however we still could not figure out how to give it full independence or sentience. We could only get it to move like a living person.”

Arcite nodded, scratching the back of his head. “Through this research, are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”

Father folded his hands over his chest triumphantly. “Yes, I believe these new undead variants were not a natural result of corruption, but purposely created and manipulated by someone with incredible power.”

That was a conclusion I’d come upon too. If Father and his band of mages were able to reanimate a corpse for a few seconds, that meant the ones running around had to have been made and brought to life by someone too. Father just proved that such a possibility was valid due to him demonstrating that magic was capable of making that happen. Prince Arcite seemed to catch on quickly to that same conclusion as well.

“That makes sense, but who would be a suspect? Is anyone in this world truly capable of doing such a thing to hundreds of corpses while maintaining them at the same time? Seems so absurd to me.”

There it was, Arcite’s skepticism showing for the hundredth time today. I couldn’t blame him, though, he wanted to make sure that he didn’t bank on a conclusion that had gaping flaws in them. His pressure on Father did not deter him in the slightest.

“I suspect that the dungeon master of the Dungeon of the Dead is the most likely culprit. Think about it, he’s extremely powerful, an expert on the undead, and has shown clear hostility towards humanity. He has a motive and quite possibly the ability to do such a thing at such a scale.”

When Father stopped speaking, he nudged me on the shoulder, then pulled me to the forefront. I was yanked by the arm and placed right in the middle of dozens of eyes who had once again brought their attention to me. “Your Highness, this is my daughter, and she has first hand experience with that dungeon master I speak of.”

That was my queue to speak up about my experiences in that dungeon, but I found myself choking up on my words. Seeing so many people glaring at me, even the eyes of the Prince of Kori Soaro descended upon me, all to hear my story… which might be useless to him. Arcite might tear it apart like he did with so many other research studies, but he might be even more brutal with me, given that I’m no scholar in the field like all these other people.

I turned back to Lio. He was there at the dungeon too, even if it was just for a split second, so he could relay the story for me. But no, he just smiled and nodded his head to me, mouthing words that told me to start my tale. That was it, there was no way of getting out of this. I had originally agreed to telling Arcite my story, but I never expected him to be this critical in person, nor did I expect to talk to him in front of an audience. My heart sank to my gut, but I had no choice but to press on.

“Um, I'm Charliette. I actually encountered the dungeon master of the Dungeon of the Dead before… and he is as powerful as my father suspects him to be…”

As I said those words, that dungeon master’s face flashed into my mind, that same face that scowled at me on my way out. It still haunted me and never left my mind. It was a constant reminder of my failures and incompetence, and just regurgitating that memory made my throat tense up. I had to finish the story though.

“It’s all true. He’s capable of commanding a horde of undead, and they listen to his every command. I even witnessed the early stages of those new undead variants, which makes me think that he is the man we are looking for.”

I recalled my time in that dungeon, running into a group of sprinting undead. It was unusual to me in that moment, but now that the new undead variants were brought to light, I was able to connect the dots.

I went on and on about us almost dying to the dungeon master, noting his incredible ability to counter anything with his seemingly limitless magic energy and arsenal of spells at his disposal. He used quite a bit of very advanced spells like Armoral and Arachnodia, which drains magic energy like crazy. Yet he was unfazed.

The Prince had sorrow written all over his face once I stopped talking. “Miss, I am so sorry you had to go through that. I commend you for your bravery.” He bowed very gentleman-like.

Wait, so he wasn’t going to mentally tear me apart? It was a nice surprise, but I was bracing for it. I was ready for the critique! That was like waiting to get punched but having the fist stop right in front of you last minute.

Father came to the forefront again, and Prince Arcite addressed him directly. “Sir Glaciare, your research intrigues me.”

“I am so glad you think that way, Your Highness.”

For the first time in this entire meeting, I saw Prince Arcite smile with his pearly whites on display. “I finally have a plan of action, after all these weeks.”

Hm? He really did? I went to see if Lio had any guesses, but he was just as clueless as to what Arcite meant by that. I really need to wait until he finishes before ranting on in my head…

“Everyone, listen up. We will be hunting down this dungeon master in the Dungeon of the dead. No matter the dangers.”

He rose his fist proudly in the air, with the red Soaran flag hanging tall above him. War had finally been waged on the undead, and we'd soon plan an offensive of our very own. Scary...