When people die in dungeons, they tend to be gone after that. The body is usually absorbed and a bit of their soul gets taken into the dungeon if you take too long. People don’t come back to life unless you have a healer or a necromancer nearby. I didn’t know where I was, but I was sure that dungeons didn’t have a void space dedicated to souls.

I can’t really say that I woke up. I was stuck in a weird soul-dimension thing, and as far as I’m concerned, souls can’t sleep. It was more like I became more aware of everything, like when you get up from a nap and you just sort of take things in.

I was surrounded by nothing, essentially. Just a pitch black void with little dots of color that pop up every now and then. I tried to wander, but it felt like I was trying to walk in place. After a little bit, I can actually feel myself starting to move, although it seems to only let me go in one direction.

Well, I was already dead, so I could afford to follow paths provided to me by the abyss.

I don’t know how long I walked for but eventually I found a screen, not unlike the system messages.

One simple word was on the screen, one that would change things forever. Revive.

It was posed as a question, with yes and no buttons under it. I didn’t want to get stuck in this purgatory if I picked no, so I just chose yes to see what’d happen. A lot happened, and this is where the story starts. You’ll see what happens soon.

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First thing I notice? My limbs aren’t strewn all over the place. No, instead they’re all attached to my body in various degrees. My left arm is hanging on by what appears to be some muscle fibers, while my right is fully attached. Same thing with my legs.

Well. Not pleasant.

Above me, just barely reachable with my attached arm, is a system prompt.

Activate Skill: Regeneration?

I click yes without thinking and everything pulls closer to my body and gets…stitched on, I guess? That’s the only way I could describe that sensation. Once that was done, I looked around, trying to readjust to living again. I put my hand on my chest for a bit before removing it. It takes me a few seconds to realize something.

I bring my hand back to my chest and pull up my status screen in a panic, confirming my fears. The way the status screens are setup, it places the name, the race, and then your stats, in that order. On mine, the race part usually says “Human”, but now, it just says Undead.

So I’m a zombie or something. Why I’m alive again, no idea. What revived me? No idea. The people that got me killed? You guessed it, no idea. What’ll happen when I leave the dungeon? Unfortunately, I do have an idea.

Undead are usually left alone unless they’re branded. The brand will always signify that they were raised by a necromancer or something related to them, and it changes depending on who it was that did it. If an unbranded undead is found near a town, it’s killed because it might be controlled.

Actually, that reminds me. I need to check if I’m branded.

I look at every visible part of my body before seeing it, on my right shoulder. It’s a skeletal bird that seems to have flames rippling off of the head and wings. I analyze it, thinking I might find out who resurrected me.

Brand of The Phoenix

The mark of the few that return sentient. You’ve gone around once already, so why not do it again?

Conditions: Self-resurrect after dying to forces outside of your control.

Ah.

So…I did this to myself? Well, I was always unluckily lucky. I once needed bees to complete a fetch quest and got a hive stuck on my head. And, maybe I can hide it when I get to the surface! Er, wait. Brands show up if you use identify. That would be as useful as cloth armor against a sword.

Alright, I’ve spent way too long just standing here, and I’m burning daylight, so I should start leaving I suppose. Do I still…nope. They took my knife. And my shield.

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If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I step out of the boss chamber that I was still in and look around before seeing a skeleton that I’d killed on the way down here. I had left the stuff behind since none of use thought it’d be useful, and now I’m glad we didn’t. I pick up the [Rusty Sword] and the [Old Wooden Shield], and head on my way.

It’s…strange, slaughtering undead when I am one. It’s even worse when I can vaguely understand them. When I revived, it gave me a skill labeled [Dead Language], and it lets me talk with anything that has an ounce of sapience. It’s not too bad since the most complicated thing I’ve heard one say is “intruder,” but still, it’s a bit of a shock.

So is the sheer variety of them down here, actually. Besides the zombies, there are a bunch of subtypes I’ve had to give names to. So far, there are [Grenadiers], [Archers], and [Runners], but they’re all easy enough to deal with. I can just bounce back the grenades and arrows, and if I parry attacks, they get stunned for a bit.

I’m almost at the entrance, unfortunately. Partly because of how easily I’ve leveled down here, but also because I’m probably going to die in the next town I enter. I wonder how I look, because my skin doesn’t look like moldy Swiss cheese, I can maybe pass for human. As I reach the entrance, cutting through the last monster I see, I hear a voice.

Imagine a bass singer, just talking normally. Now add so much raspiness and gravel that it sounds like they’ve been screaming for an hour straight.

“Who…who you are?”

It’s none of the guttural languages that the zombies speak, the ones that sound like you’re trying to summon Asmodeus, Baal, and Lucifer all at once. No, this was English. I immediately go on guard, looking for the thing that spoke weapons ready for all the good they’d do me. What kind of idiot am I that I think I can fight something that can communicate thoughts besides “kill” and “intruder”?

As I look around, I spot it. This dungeon loves to fuse its monsters, and the floor one boss is a weird

[Runner]/[Zombie] hybrid. People dubbed it the [Reaper] because of what it did. The first level was mostly plant matter, and a lot of food crops. The [Reaper] would harvest most of the things growing and scratch at them with its long claws until they were in a manageable pile. Thankfully, it was optional. As long as you didn’t bother it, it wouldn’t bother you. And now, here it was, talking to me.

“You here yesterday. With others.”

It takes me a bit, but I realize it’s talking about the other people that came down with me. “Yes.”

“They leave without you. Now you dead.”

“…Yes. How can you talk?”

It scratched its neck in an oddly human manner. “Talk, talk, could always talk. No one worth talk to.”

“People try kill me. I kill them. They don’t bother again. No one want to talk.”

I lower the sword, but keep the shield up in case this (likely) is a trap. “How did you know I’m undead?”

“Mana. Changed.”

Alright, yet another thing that I need to deal with. An undead will always be affinitied to death mana regardless of higher connection to other aspects.

I begin backing away, not letting it out of my sight. “Right. I’m going to leave now.” I began to back towards the entrance when it dashed towards me, not attacking but instead grasping my arm tightly.

“Take me with you,” he said, almost hopefully. “Been stuck here. Want to see.”

I considered rejecting him, but I had two reasons to allow him to travel with me. One, he was a sentient undead like me, and two, I was currently being restrained by him. He could gut me like a fish.

“Alright, but you need a name, and you need to learn better English.”

He nodded his head vigorously, not saying anything. After a few moments, he dragged me towards the entrance, excited.

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“Bright. Fireball hot.”

“That’s what it does, and it’s called a sun.”

How long had it been since I’d seen the sun? He had told me that I came in yesterday, but he was a dungeon monster and even the sentient ones had an awful sense of time.

“You decided on a name yet?” I cut through the dense vines that blocked our path and used them to wipe down my body. Bugs. They kept crawling on me trying to lay eggs. I think some of them might have, but I can just cut of that part of my body and regenerate it.

“Rye.”

I stop slashing through the plants for a moment. “Like the grain?” I stare incredulously for a moment before turning to the foliage, dumping it on the newly christened ‘Rye.’

“Those will help you hide from the villagers.”

“What about you?” Rye moved closer. “You still dead.”

“I’ll be fine. I can pass for human, but you look like you were left to rot in the rain.”

Rye didn’t respond.

We were about at the entrance when he asked me a question. “What is your name?”

“Paul,” I said without hesitation. “Funnily enough, it means small.”

Rye looked me over. “Not small.”

I chuckled to myself as I cut through the last bit of brush. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be back, and I’ll have some recording stones that have things to help with your speech.”

“Okay.”