Undead city-Altraud
In the dungeon of shadows
Arthur stared at Peter for a few seconds to gauge his resolve and then turned to the undead bird.
“Hey Peco, here take this and get a few skill scrolls from my grave, will you?” He handed the undead bird called Peco an obsidian crystal and sent her away.
Ervin watched it from a sideline and approached the mutation circle to get his reward.
He did the same procedure as everyone else and the letters on the blank slate were,
Species-undead Number of mutations-0/3 Possible mutations -regaining the lost heart -bone hardening -brain sharpening Choose the mutations from the list Warning: once a part is mutated, it cannot be mutated again> After a bit of thought, he pressed the letters brain-sharpening, immediately after which the sickle in the eerie skeleton's hand turned into smoke and entered his skull. An intense throbbing headache assaulted him but he endured it with gritted teeth and after a while everything was back to normal. “You ok?” Arya approached him and asked with a tinge of worry in her eyes. Ervin nodded and sat down to rest his head. “What did you gain?” Maya poked his skull with her finger to find any changes in his skull but there was no change in it. Ervin ignored her antics and turned to Arthur. “Am I strong enough to resist a “Hm, with your resistance, you might be able to resist The mention of the word friend caused Ervin to clench his fist in frustration. It reminded him of a painful memory that he buried deep in his mind. 6 years ago Undead city-Altraud The outer wall of the city An undead with blue flame eyes, wearing purple mage robes sat atop the outer wall with a troubled look. He was Arthur and to him, that day was a nightmare, but the problem was that it was a special day for every undead in existence. He let out a sigh while staring at the many undead gathered outside the city to listen to the one thing he hated with all his might. “Hey Paul, is this necessary?” he asked his subordinate and right-hand man, but Paul just smiled at him and turned away. “Why am I stuck with giving speeches on every newborn ceremony” Arthur grumbled and with a sigh addressed the gathering ahead of him. “Hey guys, I hate speeches. So I will keep this short. Every year on this very day new undead emerge from the ground and start a new life and we celebrate this day as the newborn ceremony, so essentially it is the birthday of every undead. So happy birthday to you all” Every undead in the city listened to his speech with wrapped attention and cheered when he congratulated them. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. “With that out of the way, let's get back to the main topic, just like every year new undead are going to be born and they will be stuck in the forest alone. The dark forest is a dangerous place if we don't do anything, the newborn will suffer, and some might even die on the day of their birth. Are we going to let that happen?” “No” “Right, so everyone go to the forest and capture as many undead as you can. Now disperse” With that Arthur concluded his speech and the crowd of undead rushed into the dark forest with nets and cages in their hand to capture the newborn undead. At the same time Inside the dark forest An undead snake emerged out of the sand and curiously stared at everything around it. The snake had apple-green flame eyes and a pristine white bony body of around 2m in length. It climbed every tree around it, tasted plenty of fruits, smelled a bunch of flowers and examined all kinds of rocks with a child-like curiosity. It explored the forest while hissing and found a lone humanoid undead near a tall tree. The humanoid undead had a weak body with many scars all over its bones and had a terrified look on its face. The snake approached the undead and after some sniffing gave it a flower to calm it down but instead of calming down the tiny humanoid undead screeched and ran away. The snake confusedly stared at the fleeing undead and after a shrug restarted exploring the forest. Unfortunately for it after just an hour of exploring, it came face-to-face with Ervin and he captured the snake with the help of a net. He then took the snake with him and tied it to a grave in the outer city. After that, he placed 6 obsidian crystals in the corners of a hexagonal magic circle and activated it. What followed was the horrifying screeches of the newborn snake as the energy from the crystals rushed into its head and restored all of its damaged nerves. Ervin was not happy to see the snake suffer and tried to deactivate the magic circle but Paul stopped him. “I know how you feel but this procedure should happen. Newborn undead carry a damaged brain, if we don't do this procedure they will be forced to suffer terrible headaches for almost 6 months. This procedure might cause it a lot of pain but it will also help it recover in just a night” Ervin nodded and watched it suffer for the whole night and made an oath in his mind. ‘I am sorry, I will never let you suffer ever again’ 2 years later(4 years before the present day) “Hey Anne, did you see that damn snake?” Ervin rushed into the outer city library and asked the librarian Anne about his newfound friend but before she could answer he found the snake buried under the many books about the geography of the world. The snake's tail twitched when it heard Ervin's voice. “If you are here to drag me out then get lost, I have much more important things to do. Hiss” the snake grumbled with a hiss but Ervin didn't care and with a chuckle dragged it out from the pile of books. “Is dying under a pile of books an important thing for you?” he asked while giving it a mocking grin causing it to groan in annoyance. “Ugh, it was by accident, anyway I am busy searching for fun places to go on an adventure, so don't disturb me” it said and returned to reading. Ervin sighed and joined to read a few books with it. It had been two years since the birth of the little snake and in that time Ervin grew very attached to it. They spent a lot of time together and he learnt a lot about the snake in that time. “So, why did you come to find me?” the snake asked to which Ervin pointed towards the inner city wall. “Arthur told me that this year's newborn ceremony will start in 2 days and that I, you, Maya and Peter along with librarian Anne are going to protect the inner city while the others will be busy with the ceremony ” The snake was not very happy with that but still nodded in understanding and promptly went back to reading. Curious, Ervin peeked at the book title and found it to be about the origin of the undead. “Is it interesting?” he asked the snake and it nodded. “This book says that Altraud was once a city of humans but around 30 years ago during the end of the war of giants, the Vampire King killed every single human in the city, not even kids were spared. The city became a graveyard. A year later the first undead was born and that was Arthur. It's said that Arthur suffered from intense headaches and solitude for almost a year until he found Kyouka in the dark forest. Together they raised the graveyard into a city and named it Undead city-Altraud” Ervin nodded his head at that but had many doubts about the vampire king's actions. “I don't get it. Why did the Vampire King kill so many people?” “don't know but maybe the books in the restricted section have some answers,” The snake said with a bit too much enthusiasm about the prospect of exploring the restricted section but before they could continue that train of thought, a black shadow materialised in front of them making Ervin panic. “Anne, we weren't talking about exploring the restricted section” he said a bit too fast to be believable and received a thwack on the skull from the snake's tail. “Hey, what was that for?” he grumbled but the snake ignored him and turned to Anne. “Um, Anne, he just lost his mind, don't pay him any mind. We were just studying hiss” it said while ignoring Ervin's protests but Anne just smiled at them and threw them out of the library. ‘Do I have to protect the inner city with these children?’ Anne groaned internally and with a worried face turned back into a shadow and went towards Arthurs's grave to complain.