Alysa woke up, not in a plaza surrounded by panicking people and ravenous undead, but in a bed. A simple, rustic wooden bed.

She looked around, the room she was in, was small. Besides the small bed, there was a wooden circular table with a small candle. The room had a bigger table at the middle standing over a carpet and an empty wardrobe in a corner.

She had seen this layout many times. This was one of the many rooms of the Aurelius inn, the inn she and her group usually came to rest after a hunt. How she made it here? The last thing she could remember… She was going to die.

She should be dead yet she was here. For a moment she thought this was the Arcanum, but quickly got rid of that idea. She hadn’t been important enough to make it there. Then, was this the Soulrest?

She quickly disposed of that idea too. She wasn’t dead, it was clear. But then… How did she…

Then, footsteps were heard outside. The door knob slowly turned to the left and a figure walked inside the room.

It was Grath.

He looked tired. He had a wound on his arm, as if someone had cut him with a blade, and he had eye-bags, as if he hadn’t slept in a good while.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Grath said to her. He had a relieved face.

“Grath?” Alysa asked in a sleepy voice while sitting on the bed, she had just woken up, after all.

“You’re okay?” He asked her in tired voice, concerned.

“What happened? Where is Clement?” Alysa asked, ignoring his question

“We… Will talk about it later. Clement is helping the other priests in healing the wounded.” Grath said while staring into the roof, deep in thought.

“Come on…” Alysa said, lightly punching him in the shoulder.

“Alysa, you’re talking while asleep.” He said, pinching her cheek with no reaction from her. Even her eyes were still closed. “Not true… I am perfectly awake an…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, as she had just fell asleep.

Grath sighed, and slowly put her back to bed, but as soon as her head touched the pillow, she slowly opened her eyes and sat up again.

“No no no no.” She said, waving her hands. “I just need to splash some water in my face and I’ll be as good as new.” She told, to herself or to Grath? Nobody can tell.

Alysa lazily stood up from the bed, and started to walk towards a water bucket in the corner, normally used for washing hands or vocal hygiene, if you had the necessary tools. She splashed some water on her face but her expression remained unchanged, a bit more and…

“What happened?” She asked Grath concerned, now fully awake. Grath looked at her, a bit amused by her attitude, but he wouldn’t let anybody know.

“I’m not into details, so everything you have to know is that when you froze in spot, Clement saved you. You then fell unconscious on the floor. Clement, the city guards and I kept the reaper in check until the knights of the church arrived and put it to an end.” He explained to her. Alysa nodded during the whole story and looked at the ground.

Alysa lips moved slightly as she was about to say something, but Grath spoke first. “You don’t have to apologize. You’re just a young woman after all. The first time seeing undead is hard for everyone, but you’ll get used to it.” He said. ‘I don’t want to see an undead ever again.’ Alysa swallowed those words down her throat, not having the enough courage to say it loud.

Alysa just stared to the ground. She had slayed many orcs in battle, killed countless goblins that she came across, she even hunted down a chimera! How could she have been immobilized by fear like if it was her first battle.

No matter what Grath said, she couldn’t forgive herself for it.

Grath seemed to have seen the complicated expression on her face, and said. “Everyone make errors, Alysa. We are not perfect gods, but mere flawed mortals.”

Stupid. It was stupid. What was the purpose of even trying if you can’t achieve perfection? Everyone had a weakness. She had found hers.

Undead.

She had a traumatizing fear of undead.

Alysa was not stupid, she realized this. She had to overcome that fear, but could she?

Grath walked outside, snapping her out of her trance. She looked at him and he returned her a glare. Of pity? Of understanding? Of what is that glare? Alysa couldn’t see it.

“Come downstairs when you’re ready. We have something to discuss.” He said, and closed the door.

Alysa stared at the door for a few seconds before standing up. How could she become a great mage and ascend to Arcanum, if she paralyzed in front of a mere undead?

She wouldn’t allow it. She had to overcome this fear in order to achieve her goal.

With her heart full of determination, she went to the water bucket once again… And began to wash her teeth… With her finger… And no toothpaste.

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When Alysa finally went downstairs, Grath and a woman she hadn’t seen before were talking in a table in one of the corners. The inn lower floor was a bar and the upper one were the actual rooms. The ones with a soundproof enchantment were more expensive, because they didn’t allowed the sound of drunk men inside. But that didn’t mattered now.

Alysa went to the table and sat down besides Grath. The woman was wearing a black dress that looked expensive but nobody was paying her attention, Alysa wondered why.

“I think I must present myself. I’m Ellya Reanfred. Grath has spoken plenty about you, Alysa.” The woman, Ellya, spoke. Alysa shook her hand with a bit of caution, she didn’t trusted strangers right away, even if they were friends of their friends.

“I’m from the D.G.P.K. I was sent to investigate about the… Incident of yesterday.” She said.

Yesterday!? It’s been a day already?! Alysa was shocked. She had been unconscious for an entire day! Why did Grath didn’t… But she didn’t ask him so… ARGGHHH! Alysa wanted to grab her hair and rip it out, but she refrained.

After all, it’s just a day, right? There’s no need to worry.

Alysa sighed, and cleared her mind. D.G.P.K. Defense Group for the Protection of the Kingdom. They were the ones who dealt with spies or internal threats. It made sense they were here. But what did they wanted with them?

“As you may know, a powerful undead such as a Reaper appearing in one of the most important cities of the kingdom is… Unacceptable.” She lightly clenched her fist at the last word. Grath didn’t noticed by Alysa did.

“Our… Secret agents tracked down the source to an abandoned building, far from here.” The woman said. Alysa knew well who these ‘Secret agents’ were, and this time, she was the one to clench her fist, but she didn’t took the effort to hide it, unlike Ellya.

Ellya looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and continued her explanation.

“Originally, we were going to send out own agents, but we suspect that this isn’t something made by a small group.” Ellya said. Alysa didn’t understood. Wasn’t it obvious? A small group wouldn’t be able to create an undead so powerful as the reaper.

“And we decided to not send them. If this is indeed a bigger organization, then once they learn that we have discovered through… Unconventional means, they may retreat. And we can’t allow that. So we decided to contract mercenaries, and make it look like if they stumbled upon it by accident.” She explained their plan. But since they didn’t wanted their enemies to know, they had to make the contracts personally, so…

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“So I decided to ask help from my friend, Grath, and his group.” She finished.

“I can’t make this decision alone, this decision depends on you and Clement.” Grath said, looking at Alysa.

“Once Clement finishes his duties as a priest, we will make a choice.” He said. “Also, the reward is quite generous. Three hundred silver coins.” He said in a low voice, to not allow someone to hear.

Three hundred silver coins… The reward for a normal job was five or six silver coins. The money alone was enough to make Alysa forget that this mission included undead. Tons of undead.

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Elias wasn’t blind nor deaf, and noticed the ruckus caused by the reaper. He didn’t wanted to interfere directly because making appear three ogres in the middle of the city didn’t seemed like a good idea, and probably would make more chaos.

He was a teen, not a fool.

And right now, Elias was in a depression. When he arrived at the scene, the first thing he saw was the mangled corpse of a woman with an arm missing, and the second thing he saw, was how said corpse stood up with its single arm, and attacked a defenseless old man.

He had heard stories about the brutality of battle, but that was beyond his expectations. People was dying everywhere. Blood came down the sky like rain, and he was sure that if he had a human body, he would have puked.

He wanted to cry. He had never seen a corpse ever in his life, and then, he was there, seeing how hundreds of people was dying. He even thought about running away, but he realized that his real body was safe, buried kilometers down, in the center of the world.

That helped him a little, but not too much.

He wanted to help them. He knew that he could put an end to this if he thought a bit but the shock didn’t let him think straight.

Now that the event was over, he could thing of countless ways in what he could have helped.

He could have created monsters that looked like the city guards to help, he could have made a thunder fall into the undead monster that was taking countless lives, he could have done this. He could have done that. He could have done ANYTHING.

Yet he stood there, watching, mighty but defenseless.

This made him question once again.

Why him? Why was he chosen from the millions or billions or trillions of souls? Why not chose some century old, extremely wise old man that lived in a tall mountain instead of him?

He couldn’t find any logical reason.

He thought that he could go insane at any moment if he kept thinking about it, and an insane world core was something nobody wanted. So he decided to do something instead of mourn on the past.

So Elias decided to track down the source, and punish them. He felt that it was his responsibility, after doing nothing to help them before. And because he didn’t forgot that he had to protect the mortal races, so he couldn’t allow someone cause chaos in the middle of a highly populated city.

And most importantly. It was his chance to become the knight in shiny armor most dreamed to be. Or something like that.

But deep within, he knew that he was doing this, so that he could forget that frightening scene. The corpse of the woman and the face of the poor old man… Would be engraved within his heart forever.

To do so, Elias had done something few would be brave enough to do. But since he was the mighty core of the world, he could just do it. He listened on the conversation between several high ranking men of the D.G.P.K. (Like a mix between the FBI and the CIA)

They talked about some hidden crypt buried in the outskirts of the city. Elias then knew it, that’s was were the responsible was hiding. Or so he thought. And after hearing about its exact location, he went to punish the cause of his most recent trauma.

And now, Elias was in a plain, watching as the seven lizard men he had conjured, dug into the entrance of the crypt. He wasn’t the most creative when it came to making monsters, and neither the smartest one.

He had forgotten that he could just dig the hole himself with just willing it, or that he could just phase through the dirt. Elias had still a lot to learn about being a World Core.

The lizard men were just bipedal lizards with long arms and legs, nothing too interesting, and once they finished digging Elias changed their shovels for sharp iron lances. The entrance to the crypt was like one would expect it to be.

An ancient archway made of stone held together two old iron and rusted doors. There was a carving of a large skull on each door. The archway had also carvings of many undead beings along it, some of which Elias didn’t recognized.

The intimidating entrance made Elias doubt for a bit, but then he ordered the lizard men to march inside with their spears on their front, prepared for combat. Elias would make them pay for what they did to these people. For what they made him feel.

The lizard men, sensing the anger of their master, became angered themselves.

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As the seven lizard men walked along an old room, that was made completely of stone, Elias realized something.

Isn’t this supposed to be a crypt? Then why there is furniture inside? The room they were currently in was large, large enough to have two pillars supporting it. There were many stone tables and chairs as if it was a dinner hall, and it was strangely clean.

There were even dishes in the table, and they were recent. And by the number, there was at least a dozen people inside this crypt.

Nonetheless, this just gave Elias a reason to make even more lizard men.

The now eleven lizard men examined carefully the room, until footsteps could be heard from inside a door.

The door opened and a hooded figure walked outside, and after giving five steps, it realized that there was something wrong.

Eleven pairs of snake-like eyes were staring at it angrily, as if they wanted to eat it alive.

The man tripped due to the shock and fell to the ground. He did the only thing he could do in this situation. He screamed for help. One of the lizard men jumped on top of the man and stabbed its spear on its chest viciously. Blood spurted out and covered the lizard man face.

To Elias, this scene was also somewhat shocking, but not as much after what he had seen, and he knew they deserved it.

The shouts of the man where silenced after the lizard man pulled the spear out, the man heart stuck on the spearhead.

Now it was becoming too much for Elias.

The lizard man devoured the heart with a chomp, without any hesitation. The scene made Elias sick, but he resisted his urge to throw up. Mainly because he couldn’t.

After that hurried footsteps were heard coming from the door. It was opened again, and this time no man showed up but at least six fully armored skeletons. They rushed out of the door one after another, making clattering noises as they ran into formation.

These skeletons were not like the stereotypical skeleton, no, they had rotten meat all over their bones, some even had their half rotten eyes still on their sockets. Their skin was rotten and stuck so close to their bones, that Elias couldn’t tell if he was seeing bone or skin.

These were REAL undead skeletons. They used to be REAL people with REAL families.

Elias repressed his anger, mostly because he had a bit of fun looking at the battle between skeletons and lizard men.

The lizard men awaited his order to charge at the piles of bones. And once he gave it, a dance of iron, bones and scales started.