Ritzy looked toward the entrance of the cave with slight surprise before he got back to packing the skeleton into the bag he had used to carry the bone chalk. He just shoved it inside the bag, and the skeleton barely fit, so a few bones poked out. But Ritzy didn’t think anyone would notice due to the large bone he was carrying in his hand like some barbarian’s club.

“Ritzy, you are here! Why aren’t you answering?!”

“Oh, Talia! I didn’t hear you calling.”

Ritzy looked up with an innocent smile as he greeted the tall girl with her hands on her hips and a grave frown on her face.

“I know you did, but we have more important- Hey! What the fuck did you do to your hair? Did you seriously dye it just because I said it was a nice brown hue, you rude shit?!”

“I’m not going to lie. I did think about it, but this was an accident.”

“What do you mean accident?!”

Instead of explaining, Ritzy just pointed at the summoning circles with his bone. Talia noticed the bone, which, combined with the summoning circles, helped her figure out what Ritzy had been up to.

“No way! Did you succeed? Where’s your skeleton? Wasn’t that what you were going to summon first? Wait! Don’t tell me! You failed! Haha! What happened to surpassing the Dark One?! I’m not going to lie. I don’t think that bone, while admittedly large, can’t match up to the Dark One’s first summon.”

Ritzy glared at the top of Talia’s dark brown-haired head since she was bent over from laughing at Ritzy’s failure. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

“I didn’t fail!”

Ritzy swung the bone club down toward Talia. But Talia, despite choking on her laughter, still dodged with ease.

“Hey! Are you trying to kill me?!”

“Yes. Now stand still. Let me see if this bone is good or not.”

“Ah fuck this. Gerhart’s still in trouble. We need to save him!”

“Huh? Gerry’s fine on his own, no?”

Ritzy didn’t put down his club and continued swinging at Talia. But he didn’t have any success.

“No, he’s not! I don’t know what the fuck he did now, but Michmond’s knights stepped in and dragged him away to the town square.”

“Oh! The square! Do you think there are going to be any executions today? If I’m lucky, I might finally win the body!”

“Ritzy!”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What? I’m not going to stop swinging until I hit you, you know.”

“Not that! It’s Gerhart’s body that you’ll be winning in that case!”

“Huh? What am I supposed to do with that?”

Ritzy put down the club and rested against it as he panted and wiped a few drops of sweat from his forehead.

“Nothing! Because we are going to stop Michmond from killing him.”

“But then there won’t be any executions?”

“I can execute you right here and now if you want?”

Talia cracked her knuckles as she walked threateningly toward Ritzy. Ritzy, who was tired from swinging the bone around and from his summoning and the thing with his hair, was far from being in a state where he could run away from Talia.

“One ‘Saving Gerry’ coming right up!”

Ritzy slung the bag with the skeleton over his shoulder before hoisting the bone up to carry it on his other shoulder. But before he could even take three steps, Talia snagged the bone club from his hands and carried it herself.

“Hey! Why are you stealing my bone when you have several perfectly functional ones yourself?!”

“Are you talking about the bones inside my body? And I’m not stealing it. If I have to match your pace while you’re carrying this, Gerhart will have time to die and reincarnate into a turtle before dying again before we get there.”

“Tch. Fine. But you’re giving it back to me after Gerry’s saved.”

“No way. This is my bone now.”

Ritzy glared at Talia.

“If you like bones so much, I might just turn you into a pile of them myself.”

Talia chuckled.

“Heh. Good luck with that, mister necromancer so great he can summon an entire bone and dye his hair white.”

“You’re too confident. You haven’t even met my first victim.”

Ritzy reached into the bag on his back, which made Talia notice the bones poking out from beneath the leather flap.

“Behold! The skull of a robber or something that tried to rob me or something. Alas, how could he have known that he was trying to rob or whatever the future greatest necromancer to have ever lived? Even now, his spirit suffers as he regrets ever coming into my sight! Ooh~”

Ritzy held the skull in front of his face and moved it around while making wailing noises, similar to what a ghost or wraith might make.

“R-ritzy, you’re not serious, right?”

Ritzy heard Talia’s frightened tone and grinned.

“Huhu. Of course, I am. My necromancy shan’t be doubted!”

Ritzy put his hands on his hips, one of them with a skull as an intermediary between the hand and the hip. He puffed out his chest and tilted his head backward as he laughed proudly.

“Wow, you’re so great, Ritzy. I can’t believe I ever doubted you!”

“Well, if you realize you’re mistake and reflect upon it while kneeling and kissing the ground I stand on, I might be inclined to show some mercy.”

Ritzy crossed his arms, but he still had his head tilted backward and eyes closed in pride. That was why he didn’t notice Talia’s mocking grin.

“Yeah, with some training, you could even become a jester for the royal court. I didn’t know you were so good at making people laugh. Pfft- No, wait, I did know. Just looking at you brings me to tears!”

“A jester- Talia! First, you steal my bone, and now this! I can’t believe I once thought of you as a friend!”

Enraged by Talia’s vicious mockery, Ritzy ran after her with his fist raised. Since she had taken his bone, he had to use the skull as a weapon.

But even while carrying Ritzy’s, now her, bone, Talia didn’t have any trouble keeping her distance from Ritzy.