The Lich was not going to return.

I had to accept it after three days, but with those last words and the current situation, I was sure of it. The Lich wasn’t going to return.

It meant I was free again. The realization hit me like a major leaguer would hit a perfectly aligned fastball.

Free.

Nothing was stopping me.

There was still a lot of hesitation in my mind and heart. I thought I was safe as long as the Lich was around, that I had ended up in the best possible situation.

But my body had different thoughts. The months and months of rancid torture had come to an end. My eyes sparkled at the mere thought of going outside, my body shivered at the fact that I wasn’t going to be hit anymore.

That my organs wouldn’t be chopped, or my bones crushed by the blunt blade of an ax.

That fucker was gone.

The groans of the livestock and the moans of the two ghouls in the distance were clear today. My mind had been cleared out, not the air.

The first thing I did was to pull my limbs away from the chains holding me down. I could try to break the chains, but there was an easier way.

—RIIIIP!

A tear resounded as my muscles started to stretch beyond what was possible. Starting with my hands, I tore my limbs apart from my body.

Blood gushed out everywhere and screams left me, strangely enough, they were screams of elation not of pain.

As soon as all my limbs were separated, I started smacking my head against the floor. I didn’t want to wait to bleed out.

“HAAH!”

I could move again. I immediately got on my feet and looked back at the binds. My hands and feet were still in the chains, but the body that should have been on the ground was nowhere to be seen.

My ability seemed to be a middle between resurrection and regeneration. Likely whatever was most convenient.

Even while logic tried to pervade into my mind, the thought that I could leave filled my head.

My feet moved on their own, dragging me to the exit of the cave. The loud screams of the animals served as a backdrop when the sun’s light entered my sight.

It was right in front of me. An exit from this place.

My body froze right before I could take a step outside.

My legs didn’t move, nor did my hands. Even if I wanted to jump outside right now, I couldn’t.

The Lich’s words. There were imperial guards outside, and people from the temples of the Septet too.

It was the seven gods that had summoned me here, and also them who had demanded my death.

If I went out and ran into someone—They would bury me again.

My body started to tremble. I took a glance back at the cave. Here, I was safe. I wasn’t sure if I could always be safe.

But…

If I became a little stronger.

That I could escape from any death without going back to all zeroes. I simply had to raise my stats again.

My eyes swept over the cave as I licked my lips.

I could train here. Reading was no problem anymore, there were some magic spells.

There was still the livestock that the Lich had left, and enough space to work out. It made me sick to eat the animals without cooking them, but I was used to it by now.

Maybe the Lich was right, my mind was probably closer to a monster after dying so much.

It won’t be a problem. Taking my stats back to the twenties or a little higher would help.

Yes.

Let’s grow a bit more.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

So I could survive.

I should eat and train myself a little. As long as I was working hard, my stats would increase. If I exercised correctly, my stats would reflect it. And if I learned magic and used mana correctly, my stats would reflect that too.

I walked over to the center and picked up the blunt ax the Lich used to use.

As if they could sense what was coming up, the livestock tied behind me screamed and wailed.

“I have to eat, to survive.”

I looked back at the livestock and slowly stepped closer.

The animals wouldn’t mind it so much.

“Why… aren’t you a victim too?!”

“Please, please don’t kill us! Please!”

The Lich needed to revive humans and brought back livestock from the closest farming village. Just animals.

He was feeding me animals.

“Please let us go.”

“I have a child your age…”

“Don’t. Don’t kill us.”

“We are all free, that monster is gone. Please.”

I raised the ax high.

I had to eat. To survive.

“Aren’t you human?”

I had to eat.

To survive.

The ax came falling down.

image [https://i.imgur.com/l5staoy.png]

***

Another month passed inside the cave. All the food stored was now gone.

I stood with the tome of the undying spell in one hand, and the blunt ax in the other. The long drabs for a cloak that the Lich used to wear were wrapped around me.

In a bag made from another cloth, I stored some mana potions, herbs, and my Divine Window. I wondered how the Lich even drank those potions, I had never seen him do it.

It was time for me to finally leave this place. I took a glance at the cave, much like the Lich had done before he disappeared.

In the depths of the cave, now almost empty, the voices of the two ghouls trapped in their chains continued to ring out. They growled and groaned, desperate to eat. They were quite similar to me in being unable to die.

I wish I could have lost my sanity too.

Unfortunately, that kind of wishful thinking wasn’t going to help. And the thought of letting them bite me and make me a ghoul wasn’t one I could follow through.

One could never get used to dying, after all.

I took a step outside of the cave for the first time. Instead of feeling a deep sensation of liberation, I only found myself amused at the sunlight and the scent.

The smell from the cave still lingered in my nose, but the trees around weren’t going to lose. It was refreshing.

A chuckle left me.

The liberation that should have struck me was already taking over my body over the last month. There was no one inside the cave to control me, after all.

There was already a plan in my mind about the cave. A crazy bastard as he was, the Lich was still someone I was indebted to. I thought of him as a helpful employer, no matter how shitty he was.

That is why, I planned to keep his last words in mind.

He had left the cave to keep his wife and daughter safe so that no one would come around and end them.

As ghouls, undead, they wouldn’t die if left alone.

That is why, I rolled away the boulder that the Lich had used to partition the cave. Slowly, from the outside, I pulled it with all my strength at the cave’s entrance.

The birds above cried and the hissing of the insects rang about, faintly, I could hear the groans of the two ghouls inside.

The ground rumbled, and the voice of the ‘outside’ finally suppressed the groans of the ghouls from the inside as the boulder neatly stopped at the mouth of the cave.

I took a few steps back, dusting my hands.

“Alright, that should be enough.”

A smile lingered on my lips.

With this, the ghouls inside would never be disturbed. Unless someone went out of their way to open this cave, I didn’t think anyone would since the Lich had spent years here.

For the foreseeable future, maybe for all of eternity, the location of the Lich’s wife and daughter would never be found out.

They would live out their time in the cave, happily, at the sacrifice of the Lich.

My smile only grew wider.

It felt good to do a good deed.

“Now then.” I picked up my duffel bag and the ax, hoisting them on my shoulders—and stepped away from the cave.

The sun was bright today.

***

A cart rattled through the uneven dirt roads outside of the Great Forest of Zirkonia. The path adjacent to the side of the Great Forest that connected the south to the capital of Zirkonia was usually not trodden by many.

“It’s a quiet road…” said a bald man as he looked down at the path. A giant hammer was strapped to his back while armor covered his joints. Next to him, in a long coat, sat another man holding a bow.

The two adventurers had no choice but to ask a local farmer to take them down the road.

The archer crossed his arms and nodded.

Perhaps, wanting a conversation, the bald warrior spoke again. “This hamlet has not been coming out to the public for long, right? Why don’t they make a route to the city, that will probably help them.”

The archer nodded again.

“What was that, sonny?” a completely different voice from what the warrior expected came back as the farmer driving the cart looked back. In his mouth, a small twig of god knows which plant.

“Nothing, I was just saying how the road is bad.”

“Sure is boy, if not for the oxen no one would ride here. Not all the way from Scarlet.”

They were lucky that the farmer agreed. The hamlet was distant enough that even carriage services that usually aimed at adventurers did not want to accompany them.

The warrior was slightly unnerved by the archer’s silence. Unable to keep quiet any longer, he hissed and nudged his friend with his feet.

“Hey, Phil. What the hell are you thinking?”

The archer, Phil, looked up at his friend and hummed.

“It’s nothing, just… Stuart, you know I took a solo quest last month right?”

“Yes?” muttered Stuart.

“I think I saw a quest from the same place there too. They said It had been going on for a few months.”

Stuart leaned back, the hay rustled from his frame. “I think I saw a similar quest from the same place a few months back in our own guild, actually.”

“That’s a little strange…”

“Maybe because it’s so distant? There might be a monster settlement close by and they won’t know about it.”

Phil was not convinced but nodded regardless. Whatever the case, they would be able to handle it.

The cart continued rolling for another few hours. Finally, at the edge of a cliff, the old farmer yanked the cart to a stop and pointed at the distance. From the edge of the small raised ground, the two adventurers could see a hamlet made around a lake.

“That’s the spot, huh?”

There was no one on the streets of the city.

“Yeah,” said the farmer. “You’ll have to go on your own from here Sonny.”

Stuart nodded and pulled out a pouch of coins from his waist. He handed it to the old farmer.

“Here. Can you come back to pick us up in two days?”

The old man smiled.

“Ya won’t have to worry about that.” He climbed on his cart again and waved, pulling his straw hat lower. “Well then, all the best to you.”