“I’m telling ya, I fucking saw him fly!” Adam scoffed at the man he had sent to spy on this ‘coronation’. It was a farce, just like everything with this damn country. While they were living it up in Ashvale, he was forced to live in this sad excuse for a hut that his assistant had built. And it was the worst building in the entire town. If you could call this shitty collection of houses a town.

It wasn’t right. He was owed a life of leisure and luxury for all of his long days of work to increase the value of the company he ran. But no. The fucking world had to come crashing down. And due to some shitty lottery system, he didn't luck out on getting any of these new powers. When he had demanded what he was owed, those bastards in the Wizard Council had killed him. Then he was revived by that pompous prick of a Lord only to be cast aside yet again. He was done, he wouldn’t stand for it anymore.

“Were you able to learn anything useful during your time there? I didn’t send you there to spout tall tales at me.”

The man threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine don’t believe me, it’s your funeral. As for what I learned, the man is always walking around the city. He has two guards, but that’s it. Do with it what you will, I’m out.”

Adam stood up. “What do you mean, you’re out?”

“I’m out. I’m done. If you want to carry on with this plan, that’s on you. Have fun.”

When the man turned away from Adam he pulled out one of the enchanted daggers he had managed to acquire through some back channels. Then he rushed forward and slashed it through the man’s spine.

The guy let out a startled cry as his legs fell out from under him and he smashed against the door with a grunt. “What the hell!”

“You could have had a good life if you followed me. But I can’t have you running around ruining my plans.”

Instead of sounding scared, the man laughed. The fucking gall! “My only regret is that I won’t be there to see what Lord Norman does to you when this nonsense blows up in your face.”

Adam slammed the dagger into the downed man’s skull and twisted. This wasn’t his first time killing a traitor and he had learned just how annoying it was to kill his fellow undead. Stabbing them in the heart or chest did little to slow them down. But he had perfected the method.

Just like when he rose to the position of CEO, he quickly found what worked and what didn’t. In this case, you severed the spine and then destroyed the brain. The last time he had gone for the brain first, he missed, only wounding his target. And he almost died when the man turned on him. His former assistant had come to the rescue in that instance, saving him, but the idiot died in the process.

It was an annoying loss. No longer having his assistant around meant that he was forced to get his hands dirty more often.

He put the knife away and dragged the corpse over to the root cellar where he dumped it in and closed the rough wooden door. The one upside to being undead was there was little blood to clean up. He scooped up the bloody dirt from the floor and dumped it into a tin for later disposal along with the body. He would do it now but he needed to hurry to his meeting with the rest of the like-minded individuals who saw things the proper way.

As he left the home, one of his neighbors gave him the stink eye and Adam showed his blade handle. “You got a problem?”

The man spit on the ground and turned away.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The town had become much more dangerous after a bunch of people were robbed of the potions used to restore their bodies. With people on edge and desperate, it hadn’t taken long for a few idiots to get caught trying to steal from the supply house.

The quiet executions of the thieves only made things worse. Now nobody trusted anyone in town. But Adam knew who was responsible. It had to be agents of this Lord. Who else had anything to gain by setting them to fight against each other? It was clear when they were exiled to this little patch of land that the man had little love for them. He probably got off by watching them fight amongst themselves.

Adam splashed through the muddy street, thankful he had gotten a decent pair of boots from one of his victims. His old loafers had worn out long before he had been revived. As he wove through the twisting and turning alleys, he finally came out on Humble Road. He didn’t know what jackass decided to name it that, but it stuck. It wasn’t even a road, just a stretch of rocky ground that nobody had wanted to build in.

He made his way through the tumble of rocks, careful not to twist an ankle. He couldn’t afford to waste what little potion he had left, he was already rationing his remaining supply and hadn’t been able to acquire another bottle. The guy he left in his cellar wasn’t kind enough to have one on him either.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Soon his destination came into sight. It wasn’t the largest building in this nameless town, but it was large enough to house his little gathering. Ten measly people who had believed him and wanted things to go back to the way they were.

That was fine, he could work with ten. All they needed to do was kill off the elected leader and take control of the town. From there he could eventually convince more people of the truth.

Less than halfway to the warehouse, the sky opened up and it started to rain. And it wasn’t some light drizzle either. Cursing his luck, Adam hurried through the remaining streets until he was outside the warehouse. By then he was soaked through. Had he been alive, something like this might have gotten him extremely ill or more likely dead if he got sick in this town. It was the only upside of being undead.

Had he been less worried about the rain and more concerned about his surroundings, the large black silhouette standing in the shadows may not have escaped his notice, and he may have been able to escape what came next.

He pushed open the warehouse door and stepped inside still grumbling and cursing as he wiped the rain from his head. The dim light of the warehouse was suddenly no more as bright lights filled the space.

Adam froze. Standing at the end of the warehouse, the Lord himself stood, clad in his signature white armor. Prostrate on the ground in front of the figure were all of his accomplices. Even worse, on the opposite side was every single person Adam had slain over the last few months, including the man he had just dumped in his cellar.

Being a man of action, Adam twisted around and ran… head-first into a wall of muscle. The man blocking the door grabbed Adam by the neck and hurled him inside the warehouse where he bounced across the floor until he skidded to a stop only feet from the Lord.

He tried to get up but he found his neck was broken and he could only lay there in shock as the Lord rose from his impromptu seat and approached him.

The man looked down, disgust clear in his eyes as he took in Adam. “I’ve seen some truly barbaric and pathetic people in my life, but I think you take the cake.” The man tucked his arms behind his back and walked out of Adam’s line of sight while he spoke.

“I honestly thought you would give up on your delusions after some time. I guess I was wrong. But let’s have the people here decide your fate. “What is your name?”

“M- m Mark, Lord Norman.” Adam recognized the voice of his spy.

“Mark. Tell me, what did Adam do to you?”

“He killed me because I refused to follow his plan.”

Adam could hear the man walk to the next in line and ask him the same thing. Each person further condemned him and his actions. Then the Lord came back into view, this time in front of Adam’s fellow conspirators. There was a rush of hot breath on the back of Adam’s neck, and if he hadn’t been paralyzed already, this would have frozen him in his tracks.

“Princess, you can’t eat him, it would make you sick.”

The huge beast trotted past him with a soft growl, and soon two more beasts followed her. The last one stopped and sniffed him, its mouth opening wide as drool started to pool on the floor. Adam closed his eyes, ready for death but before his end came, there was another growl from the larger of the three beasts and the one near him whined in complaint before trotting off.

When Adam finally got the courage to open his eyes again, he saw the three prowling around near their master as he walked up and down the row of his allies.

“Sloppy sloppy sloppy.” The man spoke. “Did Donovan really think I wouldn’t notice?”

Donovan? Was he talking about the Wizard Council guy? What did he have to do with this?

“Perhaps he just doesn’t care. I suppose you are all kind of disposable to him.”

Adam was really confused now. At least until four of the men started to change. They all rushed the Lord, but his beasts intercepted three of them and they weren’t kind when they did. As for the fourth, he made it to the Lord only to vanish without a trace. Somehow that was more terrifying than what the hell beasts were doing.

The Lord let out a sigh. “Only four. I guess that means we have seven idiots instead of just one.”

***

The sentencing was quick, Adam and his co-conspirators were given a hundred-year term in soul prisons. Once out, they would be set to an additional hundred years of forced labor. If they misbehaved after that, they would receive the same treatment that Gail and J-son got.

As for the city, it was a clusterfuck of rot thanks to Donovan’s spies fanning the flames and causing strife. Norman had wanted to deal with this issue sooner, but he needed to get them all in one go.

He realized part of the issue for the chaos in the city was his fault. He had essentially abandoned them to their own devices. Well, there would be no more of that. He would choose a city representative and station guards here to restore the peace and bring in builders to do things properly. Instead of this piss poor construction these people considered houses.

While he might not like these idiots, they were his subjects now, and he would not see his subjects suffer needlessly if he could help them.

“Eugene, can you and Grobert get the ball rolling here?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Do you think we got them all?” he asked, jerking his thumb over to the torn remains of Donovan’s spies.

“Princess!”

The happily panting hellhound padded up to him and he gave her a scratch on the head. “Take your brothers and search the town for any more of the shape changers. When you’re done, I’ll have a nice treat for you three.”

Princess mewled happily and barked for her brothers to follow as the trio raced out of the building.

“That should take care of any stragglers.”

Eugene nodded at Norman’s words. “Then I don’t see any issue with getting this shit hole back on track in a month or two. What do they call this place anyway?”

“Pff, New Cali, if you can believe it. I was tempted to change the name, but it was their choice so I’ll leave it.”

Originally, Norman had only wanted to tour the new villages that had popped up in Normenia after his coronation. But it was Grobert and Eugene who convinced him to do this undercover arrest. With his Wraiths gathering all the information, the timing to set it up had been easy. And he was glad he had waited. Getting Donovan’s spies along with Adam and his cohorts had been worth it.

There was a sharp howl followed by a scream from outside. “Huh, looks like we missed one.”