A cloak-wearing figure was observing Kraigen ever since the incident the previous day when she noticed the corpses stirring and reanimated. Alerted, she jumped off the tree she had been perching on, reprimanding herself for being too curious.

She should have been more responsible and informed the knights of the situation. If the reanimated corpses were reacting to the knights, she asked the survivors of Kraigen to inform, she would have a lot of explanation to do, starting with whether she was the one casting the spell. It may sound illogical, but she assumed that would be the standard protocol for investigating knights.

She couldn’t be the one casting the spell. If she was, she would end up becoming one of the reanimated corpses. Aether was not a joke. Sadly, too many people underestimated its corrupting nature.

Her trail of thoughts was cut off when she heard a woman shouting. It was a voice she was familiar with, and the one she never thought would come to a faraway land. The cloaked figure turned, and saw her beside a sword-wielding, red-haired man with cat ears. Flanking them was a Crocodilian mage. He was casting a protection spell, which did not work due to the reanimated corpses literally eating off the barrier.

“Their whole body is Aether!” she shouted, turning their attention towards her. “Your spells will not work against them!”

On the side of the trio, Sakiri and Raine heard the warning. Sakiri, who instantly recognized the voice, said, “What are we supposed to do, Aranis?! The Croc said the caster’s dead, and this is a wild magic!”

“You can’t do anything! Get out before they infect you with Aether!”

“Can’t do, miss!” replied Raine. “They’ll cause more damage before the knights can contain them! That said, where the hell are they?! They should’ve been alerted by this!”

“The townspeople should have called them by this point,” said Aranis. “In any case, this is out of your hands now! Back through the gate! Now!”

The urgency in Aranis’s voice was enough to cause everyone to immediately turn around and broke off their engagement. Raine jumped up the carriage they were forced to abandon and took their hard-earned cash while leaving the rest of them behind. Fortunately, most of them were Narati’s junk, though there were provisions, too. They couldn’t help it; the money was far more important than the rest of them.

Unfortunately for them, the Aether Necromancy spell was no limited to the recently deceased; Karkas noticed that there were more reanimated corpses from the graveyard on the other side of the town. The graveyard was as big as the small town, and all of the bodies buried there, from the recently dead and ones that were reduced to bones, burst out of the soil and rose from their graves. They immediately detected the living people and chased them.

The gate to the town, as they soon realized, was too big and heavy to effectively move. It had clearly not been used for a while as the doors were partially buried by the soil. Karkas’s natural Crocodilian strength was enough to move them after Raine and Sakiri cleaned off the dirt from the bottom of the gate using air magic.

Aranis pulled out her bow and started shooting at the reanimated corpses to hold them off. Her impeccable shots and prodigal handling of her bow astonished Sakiri and Raine, who couldn’t do anything more than supporting her by cutting through those that managed to pass her.

It went on for a while until Karkas managed to close one door. He strode to the other door and, as before, called for Raine and Sakiri to clean the soil keeping it lodged in place. Aranis, however, realized that she was overwhelmed by the aggressive living dead and broke off from her position, opting to run towards the exit. But even she knew she was breaking it off too late.

Raine noticed this and quickly pulled out one of Jacques’s revolvers. He kept it with him per Narati’s insistence, both to honor his fallen friend’s memory and because Jacques’s revolver could only be effectively used by someone who knew how to use spells, even if it was the most basic of spells. Knowing this, Raine quick-cast a fire spell on his hand. The revolver absorbed the spell and was glowing, so all Raine needed to do was pull the trigger.

He shot off several bullets made out of condensed fire spell, which hit their targets. His aim was not the best with one hand, especially with a revolver that’s slightly heavier than his sword. Thus, he held it with both hands. His aim was not improving but at least he could keep the reanimated corpses off Aranis as the cloaked figure retreated to the door.

“Raine!” exclaimed Karkas. The door was almost closed, and Raine noticed this. He immediately retreated and ran out of the town’s gate. To his surprise, Narati was there with a glass bottle filled with flammable liquid and a soaked ragged cloth on top. He lit it on fire before throwing one through the gap between the gates. The makeshift incendiary grenade exploded into a ball of flame that burned most of the corpses just as Karkas closed the door.

There was no way for them to see what’s happening behind the door, other than the silence that followed. Narati was the first to break the silence.

“Is everyone alright?” he asked, with obvious concern.

“We’re fine,” said Raine, panting and catching his breath. “You?”

“I’m alright. Sorry I can’t be much help.”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“No worries, buddy. At least we haven’t lost anything too important,” said Raine, holding up the pouch of money they earned with much effort. Raine then noticed Narati’s wrapped weapon and said, “Of all the things you saved, it happened to be that thing.”

“I can’t just let my weapon burn in there, can I? Besides, I wouldn’t be able to find the parts to replace it.”

“Just get a regular axe, kid.”

“Axes don’t look as cool as my thing, Raine.”

Raine sighed. “You…got a point. Just don’t blame me if everyone looks at you and think you’re a psycho rat.”

Narati let out a cheeky smile on his rodent face. “Isn’t everyone?”

As Raine was amused by Narati’s cheekiness, Sakiri walked towards the cloaked figure. Without warning, the Chitra hugged her, causing Aranis to be taken aback by the feline warrioress. Nevertheless, Aranis returned the hug.

“I’m so, so worried, Aranis!” declared Sakiri. “Why did you leave without saying goodbye? A note’s not going to cut it!”

“Apologies, dear Kiri,” said Aranis. “While I am willing to stay, I do not wish to plant my roots just yet. Yet, I am quite surprised that you followed my notes to meet me here, all by yourself.”

“I need to get away from home,” said Sakiri. Her eyes looked away nervously. “It’s not the best place to be.”

“I understand.” Aranis then turned her attention to Sakiri’s companions. “I must thank you for helping her find me, although I wished for a better circumstance than this.”

“We had our share of adventure,” said Raine. “Though dealing with Aether using Necromancer’s NOT something on my checklist. I thought Aether’s practically gone in the Valley.”

“Not gone, dear human. Never,” said Aranis. “It is simply under control. It will take centuries more to purge Aether off the Valley, one that even I won’t be around to witness.”

“Even you?” asked Raine.

Aranis promptly removed the hood on the cloak, which also showed her brown skin. This act answered Raine’s question.

Aranis was an elf. Or precisely, a dark elf.

Her skin was brown and smooth, which was shared by all elves that Raine knew. Her face was angular, which represented the feminine beauty of all elves, complimented with short, wavy, black hair. Her ears, long and pointed, were very apparent and decorated with piercings. Her eyes were big and round, though still normal when compared to humans. What wasn’t, however, was her pupil. Her eyes were yellow, and her pupils were cat-like. Combined both with her big eyes, it gave her something of a feral appearance. She could be descended from a Felinar. It wasn’t a surprise if she was.

“Greetings,” said Aranis, forming a smile on her elven face. “I shall reintroduce myself, as appropriate. I am Aranis Darion of Shal’Viga. In your tongue, it is the Capelin Forest.”

“I, uh…don’t know where that is,” said Raine. “Is it close to Cavilen?”

“It is close, yet not, when you decide to use conventional roads instead of the path within the forest. Granted, that path is only available for children of the forest, such as I.”

“You certainly look like a cat with those eyes.”

“Then you will excuse me for refraining from using that path, as I am not planning to part ways with you, now that Sakiri is here.”

The elf examined the group, including Narati, and deduced their reason for accompanying a Chitra stranger. The way they handled the undead also indicated that they were not simple travelers.

“Speak your intentions,” said Aranis. “I may have a solution.”

“Whoa,” said Raine, taken aback by Aranis’s formal, archaic speech. “Uh…we’re looking for a land or a town to settle. This may sound like a pipe dream, especially in this time and age, but we are planning to establish a town.”

“I see,” said Aranis. “You bore no ill-will, either. I have the solution for your search, one that make great use of your skills as seasoned adventurers.”

“Bandit camp?” assumed Karkas.

Aranis responded with a nod.

“What’s the catch?” asked Raine.

“The town was a bandit camp. The fifth one, to be exact. Many years ago, an unusual event forced them to flee in panic. Many of them decided to camp further into the desert, all of which had no desire to resettle. It gained the reputation of a cursed town among the undesired elements.”

“None of the knights ever responded to it?”

“The knights have better things to do than to worry about a cursed town. Moreover, the region is too far from any jurisdiction. With incidents that befell Kraigen becoming more and more apparent in the Valley, the knights were stretched thin.”

“I never heard about this,” said Raine.

“You are from Cavilen, aren’t you? Be glad that your home region is spared from incidents such as this. In any case, you are not behaving like many from Cavilen would.”

“And to be fair, Cavilen’s full of monsters. Make for some good practice.”

“Those monsters only have claws, teeth, and basic instinct.”

“That’s why there is a saying among us knights of Cavilen. You need both silver and steel for any kind of monsters.”

Aranis cracked a smile. The cat-eared human had a wit in him. No wonder he could convince someone like Sakiri, a Chitra warrioress, to trust him, along with a Crocodilian and a Fa’ar.

The five of them decided to wait near the walled town of Kraigen in case anyone who did not know what happened became victims to the town’s situation. Soon, the knights, who had clearly traveled the whole day, found the five of them, to which Raine, using his authority as a fellow knight, told the arriving knights to deploy the mages, as they were dealing with an Aether magic that went out of hand. The knights immediately called their superiors of the situation through their communicators, which were shaped like a pocket watch. Only they could hear what the other side had to say.

Raine was familiar with the equipment and wondered whether he should’ve taken his vox with him when he left. Then, he remembered that it was only issued to actively serving knights. Good thing he still had the authority of a knight, as it was the privilege serving knights had, especially when they left the order honorably.

After making sure that the knights knew what they were doing, and after conversing with them about the situation in the Valley, the five departed to check on the cursed town. The knights warned them that the area around the town had been problematic due to the rising crime rate that forced some of the villages to relocate. As the knights could not respond to that area quick enough, it had become a haven for many of them.

Raine assured them that it was nothing new in the desert and even admitted that he disrupted the status quo of a given region every now and then. Knowing that Raine, with his wits and optimism, was reliable, the knights trusted him to take over the region and possibly return some normalcy in the Valley. The human appreciated their trust, though he wondered how he could inspire such confidence.

“Maybe being my cheery old self helps all the time,” he thought, answering his own questions. He then shrugged. “Oh well.”