After traveling through the forest, Mortimer emerged outside the treeline and spotted Crowshire in the distance. It was a tiny town surrounded by a shabby stone wall and a few watchtowers that had seen better days.

It was afternoon and raining lightly. The entrance to the city only had a few lined up cloaked travelers and the guard on duty to attend the gates.

The guard was resting his spear against the wall, wearing a set of plain chain-mail armor over his clothes and hiding from the rain in an alcove. He was taking a sip of a local hard alcohol brew when he spotted Mortimer, trailed by his werewolf skeleton with blood-stained claws.

His eyes went wide, and he choked on the strong alcohol, coughing harshly with his eyes watering. The traveler next in line looked oddly at him, but then turned his head and froze on the spot.

Mortimer walked towards the gates unobstructed, everyone quieted down when they noticed his undead. The people in line to enter the city gave him a wide berth when he skipped it, not even daring to look at him.

Mortimer was just a young thirteen-year-old boy, but his halo as a necromancer nevertheless induced respect that was rooted in fear to the common folk, especially the people of Crowshire who lived so close to the catacombs and had more contact with them.

The guard on duty smacked the stupefied traveler blocking his way aside with the butt of his spear. “Move aside, worm!”

Mortimer looked at the scene oddly. While he knew that most people in town were spooked by necromancers, some of the more daring ones would always try to find a way to ingratiate themselves with one.

The guard bowed to him and took a step to the side after pulling the gate open. “Welcome to Crowshire.”

Mortimer walked past him and into the city unhindered, taking a cursory glance around the bleak city as he advanced. The buildings were at most two stories tall with their exterior paint chipped and stained. They were in a dire need for renovation. The roads were filthy and there was no plumbing, the residents often dumped their waste out into the street.

The streets were void of people because of the bad weather, which Mortimer quite appreciated. He didn’t like the reactions people had to him in here.

He finally arrived at his destination after taking a few turns through the streets, it was a plain-looking smithy in an out of the way area, it was out of the way and not the best location for business.

Mortimer walked inside nonchalantly, staining the wooden flooring with his muddy feet. The storefront had no one staffing it, so he just went around and into the atelier in the back to look for the blacksmith.

In the back, a three-meter giant was sitting down at an oversized table and having a modest meal. His skin was wrapped up in bandages except for his mouth and eyes. The exposed skin that was not hidden was covered in unsightly warts.

Mortimer knew him as Bubos. Most of the armor used by the neophytes in the catacombs was made by him and he was the most popular blacksmith in their circle.

Bubos was not his real name, but something he adopted after leaving his clan.

The reason for his skin condition was that when he was traveling through some marshes years ago, he had accidentally stumbled into the outskirts of a hydra nest. All plant life surrounding it was dead and rotten, but it was already too late by the time he realized his folly. He turned back immediately and never even caught sight of any hydra, but he had still contracted a serious skin affliction that left him on the brink of death just from the residual poison released in the air by the Rank 2 creature in its territory.

Only the strong racial constitution of a giant allowed him to last enough time until he could return to his clan, get immediate treatment and preserve his life. Any other physically weaker race would have succumbed to the poison within hours.

But while his life was preserved, things were not the same after that. His skin was completely covered in green warts that refused to go away no matter what. His wife left him after several healers failed to cure him, and his friends and family started avoiding him after his change. Children even started calling him derogatory names. Everything he had built over his entire life was gone just because of one unlucky encounter, the only thing he had left was blacksmithing.

After that he started covering his unsightly appearance and isolated himself in his workshop to distract himself from his depression, focusing entirely on improving his blacksmithing skills. After a few short years of dedicating himself to it, he had achieved the milestone of an expert blacksmith and left his clan to travel the world and find a master to learn more from, and possibly find somebody more competent who could cure his skin.

He was already an outcast in his clan so he didn’t feel any remorse about abandoning them. They had abandoned him first. He didn’t tell anybody about his advancement, but he was still a journeyman before this. Some elders opposed it because his skills were still valuable to them. However, nobody insisted for him to stay when he made his resolve to leave clear. He was only forced to renounce his clan name.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The reason he settled down in Crowshire was actually to get the help of the catacomb's master and Rank 1 necromancer, Igor. He was an expert at alchemy and was his best bet for curing his affliction permanently, but it was impossible for Bubos to even talk to him, let alone get treatment. Trying to enter the catacombs without permission was a suicide mission.

The only plan he could think of to attract Igor’s attention was to render his best services to his apprentices and create a connection to him through them, he was bound to get their master's attention.

However, what Bubos didn't know was, even the neophytes who were his apprentices rarely ever got to see him, and it was impossible to get an audience. Mortimer himself only had a hazy memory of him from his inherited memories and it was only for a few seconds when the original had just joined under him as a neophyte.

Bubos turned his head to Mortimer, who just entered and said with a deep voice. “What do you need?”

The skeleton werewolf followed closely behind, attracting the giant’s attention.

“Hmm, not bad, it’s one of the more pleasant-looking ones I’ve seen.”

“It’s the paint, isn’t it?” Mortimer sat down in a free chair, ready to discuss at length his wishes for the armor.

The giant nodded. He picked up a leather measuring tape roll from a high shelf and approached the skeleton to inspect it more closely.

“What do you want me to do?”

“It needs to be light and not impair its agility, regular steel should be good enough.” Mortimer held his chin in thought.

“I can make a pair of pauldrons, shinguards, armguards, and a belt tasset, it could use its teeth with an open-faced helmet too.”

Mortimer nodded. “Can you make a pair of proper claw gauntlets? If it keeps using its hands to fight, they'll eventually snap.”

“Yes, I’ll talk to you about the price after I note down all the sizes, making armor for bones is challenging.” he took out a notebook and started scribbling down the measurements he took off the skeleton, it took a long time before he finished recording everything.

After he was done, he put everything away and faced Mortimer.

“Hmm, since you necromancers rarely deal with gold, I’ll take soul essences. I trade with your peers quite often.”

“Five lesser soul essences is a good price, I won’t make a loss.” he put on a nausea-inducing smile.

Mortimer smiled awkwardly. Even with a huge discount from Bubos’ ulterior motives and wish to get a good first impression, he still came up short with three essences.

“I’ll pay you two upfront, and the other three when I pick everything up.”

Bubat nodded. “That’s acceptable.”

Mortimer pulled out the lesser soul essence he got from Melissa and the soul gem he had just harvested from the mother boar, presenting them to him.

He raised an eyebrow when he noticed the difference between them, the essence was smaller and shaped like a clear pearl with a uniform dim white glow coming out of it, while the soul gem looked like a clear crystalline shard with a small glowing wisp encased in the center.

“Why does one look different from the other?” Bubos tilted his head.

“It hasn't been refined yet, but it’s still worth one essence.” Mortimer had a light blush on his face.

“So what's why... I’ll have your order ready in seven days.” he nodded.

Bubos led him to the exit personally, and Mortimer left in high spirits with his undead. He was ogling his werewolf skeleton while fantasizing about how great it'd look in its new armor, but then his mood worsened when he remembered he still had to buy herbs for Melissa.

“She’s definitely trying to torment me for denying her.” he snorted.

He took out his booklet under an alcove, shielding himself from the increasingly stronger rain. After reading through the ingredients he needed to purchase, he pulled his robe’s hood over his head and begun scouring the city for every herb and medicine shop he could find and buying out their stock of the specified ingredients.

It was starting to get dark by the time he finished going through most of the shops in town. He had amassed a sizeable collection of required herbs, both fresh and dry. His werewolf had an over-sized wicker basket strapped to its back, packed to the brim with his purchases.

Mortimer’s boots and the bottom of his robe were soaked in wet mud, he had a miserable expression on his face after he was finished. While he could have called it quits early and lie to Melissa that he did his best, he wouldn’t have even amassed a quarter of what he currently had and his lies would have been seen through. Souring his relationship with the only person who could aid him in this new world seemed like a terrible idea, especially when it was over such a trivial matter.

The only upside was that the rain had stopped while he was busy running around town and he wouldn’t return to the catacombs completely drenched.

His trip back to the catacombs was uneventful, but much slower because of the wet terrain and the burden on his skeleton from the ungainly wicker basket. His robes were a complete muddy mess by the time he saw the entrance.

“Finally back…” he exhaled and stepped down the steps and into the familiar catacombs, almost tumbling down on the slippery stairs more than once.

The neophytes that passed him in the corridors gave him amused looks. He looked like he’d just been in a mud fight. After entering his room and tossing his dirty boots and robe aside, he controlled his skeleton to deliver the wicker basket to Melissa's room while he prepared to take a much-needed shower.

Melissa opened her door only see a mud-covered werewolf skeleton facing her, she almost let out a yelp at the sight.

"You...you scared me."

She unhooked the moist wicker basket from its back, took the top off and rummaged through it in her doorstep.

She raised her brow at the sheer amount of alchemy ingredients. "He really did it? I don't need this many..."