The skeleton knight paused and lowered his sword, placing it on the ground as he thought to himself. Allowing me to finally get up from the ground and sit instead, I wasn’t planning on standing, seeing I was likely going to be dealing with the situation for quite a while.

“Hmhm, you speak of a contract. Yet, what do I gain from it?” Was he retarded?

“Not die?” I asked the obvious.

“That sounds like slavery…”

Sigh… “Listen, we are in a dungeon, I am the one clearing the dungeon. I am literally the only person in this room, and you are the boss that I need to kill in order to get the rewards. So I can either make the attempt or we can try to resolve this peacefully…” I wasn’t really willing to negotiate with someone that had no place to negotiate to begin with…

“You are right girl, although there is no way forward for me.” Eh? “For you see… Since I was young I swore to kill all undead, and yet… I became the very thing I swore to destroy.”

“Ah…” He was going to go that route… Also, I feel like I've heard those exact words before... Anyway, luckily for me. “Let me ask you something.”

“What is it?” The knight paused and looked at me with a tilted head.

“Do you feel dead right now? Am I talking to Jermud, or am I talking to a skeleton that calls himself that? Because if so, then I guess I will just kill you…” I narrowed my eyes and stood up as I firmly held my knife, I wasn’t able to be as hostile as Aizen, but at least I could act.

“W-Wait!” He flailed his arms around. “Let me think!” I paused as I saw him panic, looks like I was right. He thought it was a waste to try to kill me seeing he would still be at the same crisis. So if anything it would be better for him to allow me to put an end to his “misery”. Interesting. I am glad I listened to the npcs! Although he didn’t quite behave like one.

I waited a few minutes as he thought once again, muttering things to himself that ended in 'no's', but yet he kept pacing around the room as he muttered his things, he really was putting a lot of thought into it, come on... it wasn't that hard! Not like you had a choice, to begin with... Oh, he stopped and nodded!

“Very well! Seeing it would be a waste for me to kill you, seeing you are alive, and I am… an undead. I won’t try to kill you!” Aha. “I am Jermud, once hero, once king and now… an undead! But in the end, I am still Jermud, and I am more than willing to make a contract with you… Although I still don't understand what you mean by contract exactly.”

“Glad we can cooperate.” I extended my hand. “Will you accept to become my loyal summon?”

He was taken aback but reluctantly held my hand and shook it. I instantly felt a chill run down my spine and jolt of electricity. Making me slightly move, I noticed that he also did the same.

“That’s it?” I shook my head.

“Now I get to name you!” The knight froze.

“W-Wait, I did not agree to this!”

“Too bad.” Hmm. “Your name will be… Jermud is pretty long and weird, hmm… I would say Marco just because but… your name will now be… Hmm, something that sounds great for a death knight… I guess… Jer would be fine, could not come up with anything… Short for Jermud it is...” I said in defeat.

“Uh…” He froze.

“Don’t worry, it really doesn’t matter, it’s just the name I will use to refer to you and summon you if needed.” Although my words did not seem to make him relaxed if at all.

“I guess I can’t do anything about it now… Either die or accept it...” He said with defeat.

“Now I see that you under⁠stand, now wait and se— BOOM”

My vision was clouded with dust and I heard some metal crash against the ground. I looked around in confusion and saw silhouettes rushing from the entrance. Before I could do anything about it, I felt a strong tug on my arm and my center of gravity quickly shift. Giving me slight neck pain.

“Wha…” I was taken aback by seeing all of my surroundings spin around me.

“I am glad you are fine…” A relieved yet firm female voice said. I felt a sudden pause and gentle swaying as I was laid on a flat surface. After quickly shaking my head to somehow dispel my dizziness I looked around.

“The miasma dispelled and we rushed here as quickly as we could, I am glad we made it in time…” The leader said as he panted. He steeled himself and stood firm. “Guys, take the chance now and attack the beast!”

A single command and everyone rushed into the dust cloud and started hitting something metallic, I was petrified by the sudden change of things, and then it dawned on me.

“What are you people doing!” My summon was getting beaten up… “Girl, do something!” Eh… I mean… If he couldn’t do anything about it then did he even deserve to be my summon? I heard a lot more bashing. “Girl, I am actually going to die because of your stupid wait command!” Oh…

“Umm… I command you to… unfollow my commands and do as you wish!” Yea! The rattling and bashing stopped as soon as those words came out of my mouth.

Some more seconds passed and I heard more clashing, this time it was quickened and unsteady, as if something was happening, then it suddenly became quicker and a lot more rhythmic as things clashed.

“Kghh… That’s a boss for you!” A person came out of the smoke, covered with blood. It was the leader, followed by the assassin with a bloodied arm and an archer that was sweaty. The healer was not here for whatever reason.

The cloud of dust was still lingering for some reason, it must’ve been some type of spell. I saw something erupt from in front, bringing more dust towards me and shrouding me within it. I was a bit confused, I could not see very far, but it did not bother my eyes, I was just confused.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Girly, I am sorry to request so soon. But, I would like to borrow some mana from you…” Woah, what a knight. I’d be better if he called me master though, I wanted to broaden my horizons... Although it wasn’t time to think about that.

“I mean, if it’s just a bit you don’t even need to ask, pretty sure you can even use my mana without asking me since our contract is slightly weird…” I informed him without much thought.

I did not receive a reply but I did feel his presence vanish. And like that, the dust started clearing up once again. I was left sitting on the ground with visible confusion on my face, the party was grouped up and ready to go on one side of the room, and on the other side Jermud, or now Jer, was ready with a half-broken-twisted-sword-of-evil. That thing would be better described as a haunted branch with sharpness rather than a sword.

It took me a few seconds to realize that my summon was about to brawl a group of adventurers to death, however, didn’t they hear me command him? Hmm, I kind of wonder why they still wanted to go…

“It’s time to end this…” Jer commented with a threatening tone as he touched his sword.

The party did not say anything and readied their weapons firmly, waiting for an attack. I wonder what kind of attack.

As I thought about the battle I felt a shiver run down my entire body, it felt weird and made me shake a lot. Looking back at Jer his sword was completely clad in black, he seemed a bit confused, seeing he inspected it as if it was the first time it happened. I felt slight head pain as well. Weird… He hadn’t drawn much of my mana.

The adventurers froze for a second and seemed to hesitate.

“Are we sure about this?”

“W-We have to..”

“That sword’s aura is… it seems like it’s covered with the scream and sorrow of souls…”

Eh, was it that bad? The sword was just black and the weird energy it was clad in seemed to be shaking. But, how could it be something that… dramatic… As I thought about it, they looked back at me with slight panic.

“Let’s retreat for now Dark sha⁠—” The leader froze as he looked at me, the others followed my gaze and looked at me, also pausing with confusion. Jer also looked at me and also froze with confusion.

“S-She…”

“S-She is a…”

“A Necromancer…”

They all muttered in disbelief.

“No, but wait… That aura she has… Are you sure she is not… Something greater?!”

“Like, what?! There is nothing above necromancer!”

“Maybe she is the devil herself!”

I made eye contact with the archer and he started shivering uncontrollably.

“R-Regardless… S-She is going to kill us any moment now, p-please run!” The archer started running frantically afterward… I became incredibly confused, it did not take long before all of them ran in a panic.

I heard some shouting outside, and some argument breaks out. I couldn’t help but wordlessly tilt my head. Where had I seen this before? Unreasonable panic... Was it?

“You know, it was hard to make the choice to serve you… But to think you would be such a twisted being… And here I thought I was serving and saving a nice little kind girl…” Jed absentmindedly said as he looked at me. "Although I kind of had the feeling since I met you."

I was confused and looked at my hands, they were normal. Everything seemed normal, I looked down and paused with confusion, nothing had changed. Wait… I looked at the sword with confusion, it was still clad in black, then I realized it had a twisted aura. Looking closely, it did seem to be the screams of sorrow that he mentioned. It had skulls and it was consuming itself like a flame.

A few more seconds went by and the spell on the sword dispelled. Jer was taken aback.

“What did you do?” Eh?

“Nothing?”

“That… aura of yours… vanished…” Eh… Was it?

“You mean… the one that instills fear… and death?”

I asked with uneasiness, he wordlessly nodded. I froze for a second and remade my mind.

“New command, you are not to use my mana under any circumstances… It seems like no amount of items will save that… This is absolute...” I said with slight regret. Jer nodded again with confusion, he did not seem to understand what I was saying, but I did not want to explain it to him. He was just a skeleton knight after all… Although I kind of felt like a hypocrite, I never saw Fenri and Aizen as a tool, and yet I got Jer out of curiosity...

“Wait!” I heard a faint shout from behind me, followed by hurried footsteps. Then I heard some more unintelligible shouting outside. Making me look behind me I saw Ari arrive in a rush, she did not even see Jer standing there with bewilderment.

“W-What happened? Why did they tell me to run for my life and saying you were going to kill us all?!” Ari asked with slight panic.

“Em… Looks like my aura leaked a bit…” I silently explained, Ari relaxed upon hearing that, or well. As relaxed as she could be after the disaster that seemed to happen outside.

“Girl, who is this… other girl?” Ah right, Jer did not even know my name and did not seem to want to call me master…

“This is Ari, and I am your Master.” I kind of wanted to force it, I needed some fun after the train-wreck that the dungeon was.

Ari on the other hand froze. “Y-Yami, there is an undead that can speak!”

“Right!? Looks like I was not the only one that did not think it could occur!” I said with pride.

“B-But… why is it not attacking us… and, why does he seem friendly…” Ari asked with confusion.

“New summon!” Big reveal.

“Eh…” Ari paused with confusion or astonishment rather, but once she thought about it her face just went neutral, almost as if it wasn’t impressive at all...

“I don’t like this girl you call Ari…” He paused. “She makes me feel… uneasy…” He said as he paced around her, examining her like some type of object. Undead things I suppose.

“Well, you will have to get used to it. Or I can send you far away and summon you when needed…” I kind of wanted to take Jer around, having someone with the appearance of a knight follow me around would be beneficial, since it would stop people from approaching me, yeah…

“I will follow you for now…” Yay.

“Hey Yami, um… The only reason you got um, a new summon is because this one can speak?” I nodded with slight confusion. It wasn't entirely accurate after all.

“Kind of, Fifi can also speak…”

“Can he?” Oh right… “Well, I guess you really just like new things rather than rocks…” I nodded seeing her assessment was pretty accurate…

BRRRRRRRRRRR

The place started shaking… “Looks like there will be no loot for me… Sigh…” I admitted my defeat.

“Oh, you mean this?” Jer pulled a bag out of nowhere. “I woke up with it and had a feeling it was important, almost as if I had to protect it with my life, but that feeling is gone…” He handed it to me with slight confusion. "I truly was a dungeon boss, huh?"

I ignored Jer's comment and focused on the item bag, it was quite small, could it be? I inspected it and sure enough, it was the popular Item-bag.

“Um… Can you check what you got after we get out… I don’t want to die in a dungeon collapsing…” Ari said with slight annoyance. I nodded and Jer was confused but we started going back as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, I had to carry Ari out of the dungeon, my new summon refused to do after trying it. He said something along the lines of: ‘It burns my arms.’ I think he was just being melodramatic, but even giving him the order would yield no results. I kind of wished the dungeon wasn’t collapsing, that way I did not have to carry Ari just because we were in a rush… Pathetic summons that could not carry a little girl! I mean, you are an undead sure, but you are the boss! Truly pathetic...