The moon rose again, and Lich woke up like always.

Surrounding him was a fairly intact ruin of a lone building.

He never questioned his decisions, even if his objective was pointless and dangerous.

But he had little brain power to spare for thinking about the validity of his goal. Reading a random book in French was much more important, since he was slowly approaching the former French colonies.

Most of them were burned either by humans for warmth during the night, or bombs for the fun of it, so finding a readable copy of anything was a challenge.

Thus, Lich didn't complain about having to read a book called Romantically-erotic square (which was a pornographic novel).

Luckily, he didn't understand even a word written in that book, saving his radiation-damaged innocence, that was thoroughly mixed with cannibalism and a light case of insanity.

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But that didn't discourage Lich from trying and failing to learn the language by reading.

He stood up and tidied his belongings. There wasn't much to pick up, so he could quickly eat breakfast, which this time consisted of 0% human flesh.

But there was a surprise waiting for him, because an oversized arachnid with fur was nibbling on his dried vegetables.

It was an animal called white scorpion. The name came from its color. For some reason, it was herbivorous, despite its ancestor's feeding habits.

“You…”

Lich saw his food being eaten before his own eyes. But that didn't make him angry.

“You're my friend now!”

He was getting lonely after princess' death, and an opportunity to end that loneliness finally arose.

The confused, almost one meter long animal was struggling, but Lich succeeded in picking it up, before putting his old pet's collar around the little critters' torso.

“Let's set off on a journey!”

He put the scorpion on the floor and made a step forward… Just to step on his animal.

Nods connected in his head, and he realized that scorpions are not nearly as fast as humans.

Which resulted in the pet's head being smashed open with a (of course triangular tipped) pick.

Lich ate it after cooking, and set off the road, This time empty minded because of his loss.