Hey guys!  “Where were you?!” “You spend a week rewriting a chapter, then you make us wait another week for a release?!”   “We’ll drop your novel you know!!” – is what you are probably saying at this point.

I’m sorry!  I had to work a bunch, and this weekend I didn’t do anything (Except read overlord).  I noticed it was about to be a week since my last release, so I hurried to get this done.  I’ll have the next chapter out within 3 days.

A lot of this chapter is dreams.  As a vivid dreamer, a lot of the scenes in Elina’s dream were takin from past nightmares I’ve had, and adapted to fit her.  Anyway, the setting will change without warning during the dreams, so prepare for that.

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--Elina’s Perspective—

It’s dark…. Where am I?

I feel like I’m submerged in a pool of liquid.  It’s hard to move, and my strength is leaving me.

There is a warmth in front of me.  It is slowly drifting away, and as it goes, the cold darkness surrounds me completely.  Part of me wants to chase after it, but it’s troublesome to move.  I want to stay like this.  I’m tired.

Suddenly, I feel two hands touch my back.  They push me forward, towards the warmth. 

Somehow, my feet find ground and I’m walking.  But it’s slow.  My limbs are sluggish and I can hardly move them. It’s as if I’m walking on sand at the bottom of the ocean.

And then, faintly, I can see a light in front of me.  It is dim, but it’s there.  The warmth is coming from it.

As I approach, I am hit by an emotion.  Tears run down my cheeks.  It feels nostalgic, like I’ve finally come home after so many years.

I near the light, and just as it comes within my grasp, I feel the floor under me disappear.

I fall onto my knees, as if I tripped.  There’s a scrape and blood is coming out.  I rub my knee and look around.

I’m in a lush and green forest.  The sun is bright in the sky and I hear the cicada’s singing around me.  This place looks familiar.  I’ve been here before.

There is a scream.  I turn and look in its direction.

My mother.  My mother is on the ground screaming.  Holding her hands out in front of her like she is being attacked.

I try to run to her, but roots burst from the ground and wrap around me, keeping me in place.

Then there are five knights surrounding her.  It was like they appeared out of the air.  No, perhaps I couldn’t see them before.

I struggle against the vines, but I’m unable to break loose.  The more I struggle, the more tired I feel, any more than this and I’ll lose the will to break free all together.

One of the knights unbutton their pants while the others spread my mother’s legs.  She is screaming and kicking at them, but there are 5 of them, and her efforts are in vain. 

Dropping to his knees, the man enters her.  He moves his waist back and forth as the men around him laugh.  My mother’s screams stop, she lays her head back and turns it to the side, looking at me.

Her eyes are dead.  Slowly, she reaches out one of her arms to me.

I can’t do anything for her.  I’m scared.  I can’t move.  I want to shut my eyes, but I can’t.

The men around her turn more violent.  They kick and stomp on her as they take turns with her. 

Then they become something else.  They grow in size and become deformed.  They turn into monsters, becoming feral and laughing wildly.  As if fighting over a piece of meat, they rip her apart and eat her.

I turn my head away.

What enters my sight is my mother.

She is right in front of me, looking at me with a bright smile.  She brings her hands up and cups my face.

As I look at her, blood begins to drip from her eyes and nose.  Her body becomes ragged and beaten.  There are holes bore completely through her, and bone is exposed.  Her smile turns to a look of disdain, judging me, asking why I did not save her.

I can’t answer her.  My tongue is fills my mouth and won’t move.  I can’t make a sound.

She slowly opens her mouth until her cheeks rip open, and her jaw dislocates, enlarging the opening until its half her face.  Her tongue looks like that of a serpent’s, and it slithers out of her mouth, nearing my face.

In an instant, she places my head in her mouth; and unable to resist, my vision goes black.

The pitch black darkness fades.  There are steel bars in front of me.  On the other side, is a long dark hallway.

At the far end of the hallway, I see a silhouette coming towards me. 

Looking at it, chills run down my spine.  I get up and turn to run, but as soon as I take a step, I trip and fall.  Something had grabbed by ankle. 

I look down at it.

A hand make of black fog was coming out of the ground, wrapping my ankle in its grasp.

Scared, I crawl backwards, kicking at the hand grabbing me.  As I kick at it, another hand comes out of the ground and grabs my other ankle, rooting me.  I hunch over and try to peel back their grip, but more hands come from the ground and grab my wrists, pinning me to the ground on my back.

I look down my body.  I’m naked.  Past my feet, I see the silhouette approaching from outside the bars.

I can’t move.  It’s hard to breathe.  I feel my skin crawling, and waves of cold pass through my body. 

The silhouette passes through the bars as if they weren’t there.  It stands over me, and I can see two white eyes open up on its face.  The pupils at the center of them were small and piercing, the eyes were blood shot, and seemed to shake violently. 

Terror washed over me.  My head was throbbing, my vision seemed to get narrow and darkness creeped in from the edges.  My heart beat so loud, it was the only thing I could hear.

The silhouette seems to melt into the ground at my feet until its sunk to just below the waist.

The hands forcefully spread my shaking legs apart.

And then, it enters me.

It fills me up.  My entire body.

It reaches all the way to my head.  I feel as though I’m being possessed.  My brain lights on fire.  I try to scream, but my mouth is stitched shut.

The black fog comes out from between my lips, out of my nose, cutting off my air and suffocating me.  Struggling to breathe, I can only wait for death.

At that moment, a new set of hands burst from the ground and drag me down.

I’m below the floor of the cage.  Somehow, I’m able to see through the ground, as if it were transparent and I see the shadow circling the floor, looking for me.

A hand moves past my eyes and covers my mouth.  The hand is made of bones.  It’s a brilliant white.  Something that belongs to a skeleton, not a single piece of flesh could be found on it. 

With the boney hand covering my mouth, and its other hand wrapping around my stomach, my fear and my anxiety disappeared.  I felt its hard ribcage pressing against my back, but it was a comforting feeling.  Laying there like that, I felt safe.

Finally, I close my eyes.

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--Takke’s Perspective—

What should I do with her?

It’s been a few hours since I escaped the caravan with this cat girl.  It was really a close call back there.  I blacked out, and when I came to, I was surrounded, with barely any Magic Power left.  Using the wolf, I was somehow able to escape, and even save this girl, but now what do I do?

If left in this condition, surely she will die.  It’s a wonder she hasn’t died already.  She is naked, and from her shivering, I can tell she is cold. 

Now that I think about it… I don’t feel temperature…  It’s like my body adjusts according to where I am, creating the perfect temperature wherever I go.  I’ve thought this before, but this body is really convenient.

However, because I didn’t need them, I don’t have any clothes, and haven’t made anything to resemble them… not that I could if I tried…

And that brings me to my current problem.  Without anything to warm her, she will probably catch a cold and die… if she doesn’t die of internal bleeding.  Also, with this body which is devoid of flesh, I can’t use body heat to warm her.

I thought maybe my undead might give off heat, but when I ordered the wolf to curl around her, her shivering didn’t stop.  I guess it’s a trait common in all undead.  After all, corpses don’t give off body heat.

Without any ideas, I command my undead to guard her, and I go off to find something to warm her.  Maybe I can find an animal and get its fur.

I got about 20 meters through the forest before I hear screaming behind me.  It’s definitely the catgirl.  She’s screaming hysterically.

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Did she wake up?

I run back as fast as I can.  When I get there, I see her kicking and screaming.  She is flailing her arms in front of her, trying to protect herself.  Her eyes are shut tightly.

I hurry over to her.

“……”

I try to ask her what happened, trying to console her, but as expected, I can’t speak.

If she keeps screaming like this though, she will give off our position.  While I’m not too scared of monsters coming, if those adventurers are looking for us, they may hear her.

I come up behind her and cover her mouth.  I wrap my other arm around her in order restrain her, keeping her from hurting herself.

Almost immediately, she calms down.  Her breathing steadies, and she relaxes her muscles.

I stay like that, holding her for hours.  Whenever I tried to separate from her, she starts to become agitated, then starts screaming again. 

Well, if it’s like this, then I can’t leave her.  If she doesn’t make it, then at least she has some peace before she goes…

So like that, I abandon my goal of searching for something to warm her.  I have my undead surround us, blocking the wind, and sit there with her in my arms through the night until dawn.

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--Christina’s Perspective—

When the skeleton left, it was as if a weight had been lifted from everyone’s shoulders.  Even though comrades had been lost, everyone couldn’t help but feel relieved. 

That was the effect the skeleton’s presence had.  No… calling it a skeleton isn’t right, it was a demon.  A high demon, more powerful than even a demon lord.  For that last spell not to work… It’s unbelievable.

Commander Edwin rallied everyone together afterwards and we said a few words for the dead.  Edward’s arm had been caught in the blackness, and before it could overtake him completely, my spell turned it to ash.  Thus, he is missing half of his left arm, though the wound never bled…  Edwin’s subordinate was caught up in the center of the blackness, and was one of the first that were turned undead.  Everyone that had died, with the exception of Greg, was ash.  So it didn’t take long to bury the dead.

After boarding the carriages, we proceed to ride toward the edge of the forest with caution. 

It was decided that we would not chase after the demon.  We were to report back to the king as soon as possible.  When this was decided, everyone looked at me cautiously.  When I showed no reaction, they sighed in relief.  Were they expecting me to disagree?  Is that something I would have done?

I think about chasing after the demon.  There is a part of me that wants to, but as for the reason why, I don’t understand it.  For some reason, watching the demon carry off the Beastman girl, I couldn’t see it as an enemy.  In fact, the heavy feeling that had been in my chest the entire way, seemed to be lifted entirely.

And the fact that, when I saw it riding off, for just a moment, I smiled – is something I’ll never tell anyone.

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--Takke’s Perspective—

I watch as a burning red invades the black sky, then is washed away by a calm blue.

I look down at the girl in my arms.  It is a peculiar sight.  I have to look through my ribcage to see her face.  She had inched up into it during her sleep.  It was as if she was sleeping inside of me.  Surrounded by bones, this battered little girl slept so defenselessly.

I ordered my undead to search for an animal and bring it back, as well as find a pond or some water.  I wasn’t sure if they could perform tasks this complicated, but I figured I’d at least try it.

To my surprise, one of them came back with a dead animal.  It was a small bear… well small compared to the cat-bear.  However, by the time it had come back, it was already well into the night and the girl had already found her way into my chest.  I couldn’t skin it without waking her, and even if I did, the fur would be covered in blood.  Besides, while she was in my ribs, for some reason, she stopped shivering.

Well, it’s good that she stopped.  Maybe she’ll make it through this?

The wolf came back, I was able to understand that it found some source of water, but as neither one of us could speak, I wasn’t confident of what exactly it had found.  I guess I’ll have it lead us there when the girl’s situation improves…

Now that I think about it, I can’t just keep calling them wolf and cat-bear.  I need to name them huh…

Hmmm, it’s fine if it’s something simple right?

I decide to name the wolf ‘Kuroken’(black dog) and the cat-bear ‘Kumaneko’(bear cat).  Not the most original names, but they’ll do.

I convey their names to them, and they accept them without reaction.

I wonder if they understand what names are?

I feel the girl move against my bones.  Looking down, I confirm she is still asleep.

I’ve been watching her for a while now, but the shape her body is in still gets to me.

She’s been through a lot huh…

I curse my undead nature.  I can’t use healing spells.  There is nothing I can do for her.  Seriously… isn’t now supposed to be the time where I play the cool MC that can heal any injury in this world?  …I guess it’s not like in the web novels…

I tighten my grip on her a little.  She stirs a little bit, then snuggles her face further up into my ribcage, relaxing further with a small sigh.

C…cute!!

This girl might unexpectedly be dangerous!

…Haaa…  Well, although I feel I could never get tired of watching her sleep, she has to get up eventually.  I need to at least get her cleaned up. 

…and find her some clothes..

Thinking this, I gently shake her to wake her up.  She makes an irritated face and squints her eyes, like a child refusing to get up.  She presses her hands against my ribs, trying to stretch in the cramped space.

She really looks like a cat…

She opens and closes her hands against my ribs, as if pawing my bones.  Eventually, her eyes flutter open.

She turns her head, looking at her surroundings.  She has a confused look on her face.

Then her eyes meet mine, and she becomes still.  Her eyes get wide for a moment and she jolts up, hitting her head against my ribs.  She is finally able to get out, and in freeing her head, she falls down on her back.

She sits up on the dirt, looking at me, looking at the undead next to me.  Like that, we sit there for what seems like several minutes.  We just look at each other, neither of us uttering a word.

…well, I can’t talk….

Suddenly, she breaks down.  She curls up into a ball, shoving her face in her knees and cries.

She sits there crying, and I sit there watching.  Unable to say anything, unable to console her.  Unable to fix it.

After a while, her crying becomes sobbing, and then stops all together.  She doesn’t look up, she doesn’t move.  She just sits in silence.

I can understand that she has been through something terrible, but we won’t get anywhere just sitting here like this.  I'll have to move things along...

I rise to my feet.

She flinches, then slowly looks up at me.

Her face is stained with snot and tears… as well as many other things.  I walk over to Kuroken.  I see her eyes follow me as I walk.  They are hollow.  There is no feeling behind them, no life.

When I mount up, for just a moment, I see a worried look in her eyes.  But it is immediately extinguished, stomped out by that dead look, no doubt forged over her time as a slave.

I hold out my hand towards her, inviting her to come along.

She looks at it, not moving for a long time.  I wait there patiently.  If she doesn’t take my hand, she will die.  There isn’t any other choice for her.  If she seeks death, then I will leave her here, but if she wants to come, I’ll look after her until she can function on her own.

She starts to move, then hesitates.  She seems to be running a lot through her mind.  Finally, she lets out a breath and stands up.  Without attempting to hide herself at all, she walks towards me unsteadily.

I wonder if she doesn’t feel the need to be modest because I’m an undead?

She stumbles and falls.  With her legs shaking, she staggers to her feet and continues to walk towards me.  When she comes within range, she holds out her hand.

I take the small, wobbling hand firmly in my grasp, and in one motion, pull her up on the wolf, sitting her in front of me.  Reaching my hands around her, I let Kuroken lead us to the water he discovered in the night.