A skeleton in a tattered robe sat next to a roaring campfire. A kettle was slowly whistling as the skeleton let out a tired sigh. It has been five days since he was dumped into this gods forsaken world, and so far, his second life failed to live up to its promises.
Just as he was finishing his musings, two small skeletal figures walked into the clearing he was currently occupying. They are about a head shorter than the robed skeleton, even as it was sitting down, and had strangely squished skulls full of sharp, pointed teeth.
One of them carried some dried wood to the fire, while the other bought several small pouches with unknown content.
“Well, at least you guys are useful,” the tattered skeleton said. “Let’s see what you brought.”
As he rummaged through the small bags, a javelin came from the nearby woods and destroyed the skull of one of the smaller skeletons. The body of the skeleton turned into small motes of bright green light before they faded into the night.
“What?” came a surprised exclamation, strangely both from the robed skeleton and from the forest.
The skeleton was on his feet, facing the forest and putting his hands up.
“Don’t shoot!” He exclaimed. “I’m friendly. I’m an Offworlder and only got here a few days ago.”
After a half-minute hesitation, a feminine voice came from the forest.
“You really are an Offworlder. You must have terrible luck to arrive here.”
A young woman in leather armor walked out from the treeline, but her features inhuman features were immediately apparent.
She had light purple skin, backward-bending knees, and three long fingers on each hand. Her eyeballs were black with bright yellow pupils that glowed in the firelight. She had three horn-like plates extruding from her forehead, which was a darker purple and framed her head like a natural crown. Behind the crown, she had long crimson hair that had some leaves and small twigs sticking out of it. Her ears were not pointy as one would expect from a fantasy world, but her earlobes reached her jawline.
“I am Talia Windshear,” she introduced himself.
“Oh, I’m Nathaniel Conrad. But just call me Nate.”
The skeleton, who identified himself as Nate, was fidgeting awkwardly. He was socially awkward even before his first death, and meeting new people was always hard for him,
even without the tense atmosphere of this interaction.
Nate was absolutely sure Talia could kill him easily. He wasn’t much sturdier than his minions, and he took one of them out with a single shot.
“Can I offer you some tea?” he asked, not knowing what to do. Luckily, one of the small pouches contained tea; at least, he was reasonably sure it did.
She hesitated for a second.
“Well, I wouldn’t say no to some good tea. And I’ve never seen a skeleton drink anything, but stranger things happened with you, Offworlders.”
She moved to the other side of the fire, never taking her eyes off Nate and the Skeletal Goblin, before sitting on her knees across from him.
“Oh, I’m not a skeleton. The system gave me an undead transformation skill and warned me not to turn back, or the undead would attack me,” Nate hesitated for a second, trying to gauge her reaction. “That’s probably why it made me a Necromancer.”
“Anyways, you are the first actual person I met since I got here,” he quickly changed the subject.
Nate had no idea how Necromancers were perceived in this world. With the whole world destroyed by an undead plague, he didn’t really like his chances, especially without knowing the cause of the plague.
He mentally commanded his remaining minion to go and grab another cup. He wasn’t expecting company tonight.
Luckily, Talia didn’t react negatively to his admission. He handed her a ceramic cup with some freshly poured tea. He didn’t feel the heat, so he could easily grab the cattle with his bare hands.
“As I said, strange,” she commented. “And I’m not surprised; there aren’t many of us left. The plague attacks high-level people, so most of us left are young and under-leveled. At least out here, we are far from the big cities where the big battles took place. Most survivors went underground, but they struggled to get enough food.”
She stared into the flames while sitting with tense shoulders. The silence got awkward after a few seconds.
“Did the undead destroy the crops?” he asked with all the tact of his now empty skull, trying to keep the conversation going.
“Oh, no,” she stopped her musing. “They don’t really care about plants. Undead monsters would destroy all life they could find, but the ones made by the plague only focused on sentient beings. They don’t even fight other monsters.”
That made sense to Nate. He had a few run-ins with undead further away from the ruined village they now sat next to, but they always ignored him. The system gave him the [Undead Transforamtion] skill for a reason.
Just as another awkward silence was about to set over them, the Skeletal Goblin returned with another cup. Talia followed it with her eyes from the moment it came out of the village. She kept staring at it as it handed its prize to its master.
Nate made another cup of tea before he undid his transformation. His form rippled in a bright green light, and in place of the skeleton now sat a young man. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and unnaturally pale skin. He shuddered from the sudden feeling of warmth as the chill of undeath left his bones. The transformation was an excellent tool to preserve his life, not so much his sanity.
As he lifted the cup to his lips, he could practically feel a pair of yellow eyes boring into him. He looked over at the culprit, who looked a little guilty if he could read her body language right.
“Sorry,” she said as he caught her staring. “I met a few Offworlders, but I don’t think I even read about anything like you. You look like a tall dwarf.”
“Well, I’m a human,” Nate declared. “I’m not sure that means anything over here. On the world I came from, only humans were sentient. Is it considered rude to ask what you are?”
That question seemed to amuse her to no end.
“Not rude, mostly just ignorant or naive,” she said with a wide grin on her face. “I would expect it from small children, but it’s understandable in your circumstances. I take it you didn’t get a guide.”
“No,” Nate said. “The system said there were no guides left. Then it changed the class I have chosen and dumped me out here.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Talia mused. “There were few guides, and they were all situated in big cities. Well, I am a quari. We were a minority before the Plague came, mostly wandering between the kingdoms. There are no kingdoms to wander around anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Nate said as she fell silent, not knowing what else to say.
“Not your fault,” she said almost on reflex. “You, on the other hand, got the short end of the stick. Offworlders often get their second chance, but you get stuck in a ruined world… We are probably the last generation.”
She whispered the last sentence, probably more to herself than to him. The silence that settled on them this time was downright oppressive, and Nate had no idea how to break it. Luckily, after a few minutes, Talia did.
“So, if not Necromancer, what class did you pick?”
“Craftsman,” Nate answered. “The system told me I would go to a high-conflict world, and I didn’t really want to fight. I took a long time to decide what crafting class to pick, but I couldn’t decide, so I just picked the most generic one.”
“Well, I don’t think not fighting is an option,” she said. “And I can see why the system picked what it did. It will give you a good chance to survive the undead, even without a Guide.”
“Yeah…”
Another silence settled over them, and this one was much more comfortable. They sat around the fire and sipped their tea, and Nate couldn’t help but remember how he got himself into this mess.
<====💀====>
Nate found himself floating in an endless void. It took him a moment to realize why he was here.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
In the year 2020, a pandemic swept through Earth. Most nations were unprepared, and the virus proved to be extremely lethal. In the first six months alone, over a hundred million people died.
The last thing Nate remembered was an overcrowded and understaffed hospital, where he shared a small room with six other patients. This was either a fever dream caused by the sickness, or he died, and the afterlife seriously sucked.
Nate just graduated from high school and had some hopes of going to college. He was a little lazy for his own good but had a good head on his shoulders, which helped him to progress through his education.
What he didn’t do well with was boredom. An endless void with nothing to do was a much more personalized version of hell with firey pits and eternal torture.
Luckily, a blue window appeared to break the monotony.
[Starting system integration.]
[Your soul has reached the necessary karma to move into a higher world.]
[Transmigrate to Higher World] [Move on]
That was surprising. Both the existence of karma, and the fact there were higher worlds. The fact that it was presented in a small blue window floating in front of him was just the cherry on top. Nate wasn’t really a fan of anime, but he knew enough to recognize the Isekai trope.
Still, he wasn’t really ready to move on. He was young when he died, and he couldn’t just let it end like this. He might have wasted a lot of his first life on video games, but he was determined to do better the second time. There was only one choice he could realistically make.
[System integration in progress.]
[Selecting world type….]
[Karma is low - High-conflict world selected.]
[Selecting suitable world….]
[Meleris selected.]
[Starting character creation.]
[Race: Human.]
[Age set to racial optimum.]
[No legacy classes found.]
[Please select a class.]
The messages scrolled through quickly, but Nate saw some worrying bits there. A high-conflict world sounded like something he really wanted no part of. He came from an era of peace, at least in his part of the world. He was really conflict-avoidant and had never even been in a verbal fight, let alone a physical one.
Sure, he often dreamed of fighting dragons and rescuing princesses when he was young, but that was mostly the influence of video games. It didn’t mean he actually wanted to get his hands dirty. Sure, he wanted to learn karate when he was ten, but he only went to two sessions, as it was actually hard work, and hard work was something he avoided, like the plague. Or, seeing how he died, he avoided it better than the plague.
Conflict could either mean war or monsters in a fantasy setting. Either way, personal power may be essential. On the other hand, all armies needed logistics, so a non-combat class could work as well.
He looked over the classes, and there were a lot of them. He counted a hundred before giving up, and they were sorted alphabetically. There were no filters either, and Nate had to wonder if the system was this limited or if he just got poor service due to his low Karma.
From the looks of it, around half the classes were combat-orientated, with the rest of them focusing on support. Since there was no time limit, he decided to read through all of them. The combat classes were exactly what he expected and were a mix of JRPGs, MMOs, and D&D. Some of them were even tempting, like the Summoner or the Blue Mage.
For the non-combat classes, there were a lot of generic classes, like Farmer, Merchant, and Laborer, but there were also a ton of crafting classes. Carpenter, Bowyer, Enchanter, Blacksmith, Alchemist, Tailor, Leatherworker, and Cook, just to name a few. There were also more specific classes, like Bone Carver, Thinkerer, or Mechanist, or ones that seemed more specified versions of other classes, like Weaponsmith and Armorsmith. Golemancer also seemed interesting.
It took Nate a long time to read all the class descriptions, but after he finished the crafting-related classes, he was faced with a huge dilemma. He wanted to do all of them. Now, he was faced with his biggest flaw even in life—analysis paralysis. Presented with a lot of exciting choices, he was simply incapable of picking one of them.
He had no idea how long he spent mulling over his choices. Maybe hours, maybe days, or maybe centuries. The lack of reference was still messing with his perception of time, so it was impossible to tell.
As soon as he thought he had picked a class, another instantly seemed more interesting. He wanted to make enchantment; he wanted golems, machines, trinkets, potions and elixirs, and so much more.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally made up his mind. It was not a good choice; it was a boring choice, but the alternative was to spend eternity here, unable to pick a class. It was one he didn’t really take into account because of how boring it was.
[Class: Craftsman]
[A jack of all trades, yet master of none. This class gets a bonus for all crafting-related activities and can learn all crafting and gathering skills, but they can never hope to compete with their more specialized counterparts at the same level. They usually fill in a niche when there are not enough crafting classes in a given area.]
It was a default choice, one that was objectively worse than all the other classes, and even its description stated that. Still, it was the only one that would allow him to potentially dabble in everything he wanted.
Another reason this was a stupid choice was he needed to excel to gain protection from whatever conflict the world was facing. That meant a more specialized class would be more valuable, but it was a moot point, as he couldn’t decide on any other class.
With a heavy heart, he finally selected it.
[Selected Class: Craftsman]
[Granting Core Skill: Craftsmanship]
[Core skill of the Craftsman class allows the holder to learn other core crafting skills as sub-skills by practicing the related craft. Sub-skills are half as effective as Core Skills, and their level cannot exceed the Craftsmanship.]
At least the core skill was cool. Although it was half as effective, he just needed to get it to twice the level. Probably.
[Integration complete.]
[Looking for suitable starting location.]
[ERROR - No Guide found.]
[Looking for cause…..]
Well, that was ominous. For the first time since he awoke in this void, Nate felt nervous.
[Cause found.]
[Character Creation time: 119 years, 3 mounts, 26 days, 9 hours, 1 minute]
[The classification of Meleris changed from High-Conflict World to Ruined World.]
[World is unsuitable for transmigration.]
[Choosing new world.]
[ERROR - Not enough karma to move worlds.]
That was even worse than ominous. Did the world just get ruined while he was choosing his class? Nate wasn’t sure if he was just unlucky or lucky that he hadn’t transmigrated yet. He had no illusion of grandeur that he could have changed the fate of a whole world.
[Troubleshooting failed.]
[Transmigration process cannot proceed. Started integration process cannot be halted.]
[Looking for solution.]
At least there was error handling. From how spartan the class intercase was, he was fully expecting to be stuck in some infinite error loop.
[Root cause determined]
[World has been destroyed by Awakened Undead Plague.]
[World is unsuitable for chosen class.]
[Great misfortune granted additional karma.]
[Choosing new world.]
[Great misfortune is no longer valid.]
[ERROR - Not enough karma to move worlds.]
[World move abandoned.]
[Great misfortune granted additional karma.]
Seems like he spoke too soon. That looked like an infinite loop right there. Luckily, his worries have been unfounded at the end.
[Paradoxal action detected.]
[World transfer abandoned.]
[Testing viability….]
[World is unsuitable for host.]
[Chances of survival: 0.0267%]
[Searching for alternatives….]
Well, those chances looked terrible, but at least he wasn’t stuck in a loop.
[Solution found.]
[Using additional karma to implement.]
[Class forcibly changed to Necromancer.]
[Granting Core Skill: Necromancy]
[Allows learning spells from the category of Necromancy. As a Core Skill, Necromancy spells are more powerful.]
[Granting Extra Skill: Undead Transformation.]
[Active skill that allows the user to change into an undead form. All poisons and diseases are automatically cleared upon transformation. If the forms suffer fatal damage, the caster is reverted into their original form. While transformed, all physical characteristics and traits are identical to the assumed form, while the magical and mental abilities remain unchanged. Suitable equipment stays equipped; all others are merged into the form. Forms may grant additional bonuses.]
[Known Forms: Skeletal Mage]
[Chances of survival: 22.564%]
[Odds are acceptable.]
[Commencing transmigration.]
Nate was startled. Not only did his class change, but he also gained an awesome-sounding skill. He wanted to complain about less than 25% being acceptable odds for his survival, yet darkness swallowed him up before he could finish that thought.