The misadventures of the necromancer

These words—“Don’t let her escape”—make her turn again to face the young man who had just created the skeleton.

Realizing he is still holding her and that she has little chance of breaking free, her legs give way, and she almost falls. The only thing that prevents her from hitting the ground is the fact that he still grips her arm. But when she stumbles, it makes him take a step forward, bringing his whole face into view.

And his eyes truly surprise her. In contrast to the flustered, embarrassed looks Sina and Wonter had given her when their betrayal was exposed, the young man before her had a steady, composed gaze.

In what she would call… a pure look. He does not avert his eyes nor study her like prey freshly caught. He seems to be waiting for something.

That alone leaves her unsure how to react; this whole situation feels bizarre.

In any case, given what she has just seen and all the stories she has ever heard, she starts to say the first word that comes to her mind: “Necro—”

“Another one!?” he cuts her off, his eyes narrowing slightly as he shakes his head in obvious frustration.

“What kind of strange obsession do you all have with necromancy?” he mutters, seemingly to no one in particular.

He points a finger from his free hand toward a spot behind her—likely the skeleton—and goes on, while she straightens herself and tries to think of a way to escape.

“This here is very clearly a summoning…” He pauses, watching her, but when she fails to give the answer he seems to expect, he continues.

“In necromancy, you use mortal remains to reanimate them. In summoning, you use magic to create bodies out of nothing…” He gestures emphatically again toward the space behind her. “Now what does it look like just happened there?”

And she cannot deny that this explanation does make sense. Still, she cannot help but ask, “But the skeleton…?”

The young man shakes his head once again, as though tired of hearing the same thing, before answering.

“And what does that matter for classifying a spell? Whether the spell creates an undead or a unicorn is completely irrelevant for defining what it does…”

His eyes lower slightly, and he pauses once more, as if considering something, before speaking again.

“Well, the spell wouldn’t be exactly the same, since creating an undead is relatively cheap, especially if you’re a necromancer…”

At this, her eyes go wide, and she swallows hard, wondering if he has just admitted to being one.

“…whereas creating a unicorn—if the spell even exists—would drain magic like there’s no tomorrow.” He continues as if he hadn’t noticed what his explanation had implied.

In this new lull in their exchange, she hears the sound of fighting behind her, which prompts her to exclaim, “Grandma Grapton!!”

The boy in front of her only tilts his head and says in a pretty harsh tone he can manage, “Girl, haven’t you realized it yet?”

The laugh he then gives does not frighten her—it irritates her. It feels just like when he mocked her earlier in that strange debate about their ages.

He nods toward the sounds behind her, adding, “If that’s what the old ladies are like in your village, then you really ought to share the secret with the rest of us.”

At that, she finally turns around, only to see a scene she could not have expected: Widow Grapton was fighting the skeleton.

At that precise moment, she had just deflected its sword strike with one hand, slapping it aside almost contemptuously.

To then strike with her other hand, forcing the undead to raise its shield. The impact sounded more like a rock hitting the wood of the shield, and even with that protection, it had to stagger back a few steps.

With the space gained, the Widow dropped down and tried to flee on all fours like some kind of animal.

But the skeleton was quicker, cutting off her escape with another sword swing that forced her back into a more defensive stance.

Behind her, she heard a heavy sigh followed by, “Skeletons… just what I expected.” From his tone alone, she could imagine the boy behind her shaking his head in frustration.

“Well, if one’s not enough…” he muttered, before finishing with, “Lesser Servant of Dekart.”

Once again, a circle of light appeared beside the figure of the widow. But this time, instead of focusing on the magic, she used the added glow to study the old woman—who, she now realized, could hardly be the grandmotherly Grapton. Surely the frail widow could never do what this woman was doing.

With the extra light, she noticed the tension in the woman’s body at the sight of the magic circle. No doubt aware of what was about to happen. She seemed desperate to escape, but the skeleton would not let her.

She also could see that the woman’s frame was larger than she had thought. Her clothes—little more than long, dark rags—had hidden her true size and shape in the darkness, misleading her into imagining the fragile figure of the widow Grapton.

In the midst of the fight, she noticed the woman’s hands were strange, seemingly missing a finger. And as she fought, she used them more like claws than hands, which was working to her advantage.

Lastly, her nose was longer and more angular than she had realized, and her features overall simply didn’t seem… right.

Finally, the spell’s glow faded, and a new skeleton identical to the first appeared. The light gone, she could see even less clearly than before, yet she still cried out in shock at her conclusion: “That thing isn’t human!!”

“Wow, really?” came the now familiar voice behind her, in completely fake surprise.

“Hey, don’t just stand there—go help the other one,” he ordered the new skeleton, which immediately joined the fight.

She, in turn, spun toward the mage behind her and demanded, “But what is that?” pointing to the figure she had once believed to be the widow Grapton.

“Cra…mer??? No, that’s not it, Crave…” he begins saying hesitantly, finally letting go of her arm and using that hand to scratch his head while thinking. After a few moments, he shrugs, seeming to give up, and calmly proclaims while pointing at the creature with one hand.

“It’s an Old Hag, at least that’s what everyone calls them. They do have another name, but I think ‘Old Hag’ is pretty clear.”

And seeing the being that looks like a hideous old woman, she can easily understand the name. But she had never heard of such a creature, nor could she remember ever being told a description of anything similar.

“It’s one of the stupidest monsters that exists. Usually found in ruins near forests or old cities…” he begins to explain, apparently noticing her ignorance.

“… it’s rare to find them outside of those places, but it happens.” Having said that, he looks at the strange creature now locked in a standoff with the two skeletons, resulting in a pause in the fight.

For a moment, she wonders why the skeletons are not pressing their numerical advantage, only to remember that the boy had ordered them to prevent the creature from escaping, nothing more.

“Apparently, it likes to rip out its victims’ hearts and eat them in front of their dying eyes… Oh, and it apparently prefers young maidens,” the boy continues with a mordant smile, making her swallow hard, realizing he’s telling what she had just narrowly escaped.

“As you can see, it specializes in camouflage and ambush attacks… Tough in combat, but not too hard to beat if you know what you’re doing,” he continues explaining, as if preparing her to deal with such creatures.

But then his smile returns, and he starts commenting.

“Of course, for something that specializes in surprise attacks while pretending to be a harmless old granny, I’ve never actually seen it work…”

He lets out another laugh before continuing.

“What greater alarm can you imagine than an old lady suddenly appearing in an insanely dangerous level of some ruins, where no one who can’t fight has any reason to be? The creature might as well just appear, screaming that it’s going to attack us… Honestly, that would be more surprising. I have no idea what was going through the devs’ heads.”

She doesn’t understand what he means by “devs.” What she does understand is the criticism directed at her, since he had already asked her, if it wasn’t Granny Crapton she thought she saw, then what else could it have been?

And now that she thinks about it, it really never made sense for it to have been the widow she had found in the forest. To begin with, she would certainly have called her by her name, Berta. And besides, the poor old woman would never have gone into the forest alone at night.

And if something had happened to make her get lost in the forest, by that time, the whole village would already have been out looking for her, fearing the worst. The woods would have been full of people calling out Granny Crapton.

Only her own efforts to try to recognize the unknown figure had created confusion in her mind, which the creature had exploited.

But then she recalls the first skeleton she had encountered, which leads her to ask, “Where did that other skeleton come from?”

The boy looks at her critically, as if he thinks the question is completely foolish.

“Where do you think?”

Rolling his eyes, he continues.

“That Old Hag approached my camp to try her luck.”

“Only she got unlucky. Between my old memories and my mule’s behavior toward it. It was easy to realize what I was dealing with,” he explains, just as the creature tries another escape, which looks like it ended with it being wounded before retreating again.

“Unfortunately, I had only recently acquired this spell. And I made the rather hasty decision to test it, forgetting that skeletons tend to be useful only as cannon fodder…” he complains, casting a critical glance at the skeletons he had summoned.

“…And so, the skeleton I had conjured let her escape. What you found was the idiot after I sent it to chase her.”

And with this, everything begins to make more sense—this young man is, in fact, a summoner who, upon encountering this dangerous monster, decided to fight it using his magic. With a quick glance at the frightening skeletons, she concludes that must be the truth, even if it is a rather grim kind of magic…

Of course, that still leaves one question.

“But where did this creature come from?”

With that, both of them turn toward the strange being held at bay by the two skeletons.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen an Old Hag outside a ruin. And not every ruin has them…” she hears the young man say, which makes her correct herself in her mind. "Oh!! He’s not just a summoner, he’s also an adventurer…", after all, who else would go inside ruins?

“Hey, are there any ruins around here?” the young man asks lightly.

“Not that I know of,” she answers. She had never even heard any stories about ruins nearby. Whenever such tales are told, they’re always about faraway places, like Great Harbour.

“Are you sure?…” he asks again, sounding a bit suspicious. “You don’t know of any mysterious caves, or strange structures that confuse the locals, you know… something like that?”

As she’s about to continue denying it, she suddenly remembers something and says:

“Structures… the only thing I can think of are the two towers to the east… a little more than a day’s travel away.”

Having said this, she turns roughly in the direction where she believes the strange, ancient towers stand.

“Two towers…” he exclaims before falling back into thoughtful silence.

“Are those the two towers where one is straight and tall, while the other is shorter and a little crooked, as if it had been broken?” he asks, staring at her intently—so intently that it makes her more than a little uneasy.

Even so, she tries to recall. Once, she had gone with her father on a journey in that direction, and they had taken the chance to see—though only from afar—these famous buildings in the area.

And even though several years had passed, the image in her mind matched the boy’s description. So she nods and says:

“Yes. They’re like that.”

The young man, who until then had been fairly expressionless, suddenly drops his jaw and his eyes widen. His visible, undeniable shock worries her without him needing to say a single word.

“You… you… live right next to the Twin Peaks!?” he half-asks in his astonishment. Leaving her not knowing what to say, because she had never heard of anything called the Twin Peaks. From his words, she can only assume he means the old towers, but the local people had always simply called them the towers.

“Twin Peaks!?” she asks him, uncertain of what he means.

“They’re the only ruins in this part of the map that I remember fitting your description. I didn’t explore them much… they’re better suited for pure fighters…” he says, turning his attention back to the creature that looks like an old woman.

And continuing, while nodding toward it:

“It’s not one of the places best known for Old Hags. But it’s very possible that’s where she came from.”

“Ohhh…” is all she can answer, since all of this is completely unknown to her. Until she remembers to ask:

“Is it normal for creatures like her to leave the ruins?”

This time, he looks at her almost with respect, nodding with a bit of satisfaction, and even managing to show a gentle smile.

“An excellent question,” he declares cheerfully. “Truly, an excellent question.”

But then the smile fades, and his face turns serious as he continues:

“It’s rare. And when it does happen, it’s usually a bad sign.”

“With other monsters, it might be simpler. But Old Hags are usually deeper inside… So for one of them to leave and travel such a long distance…” he pauses here, as if searching for the right words. Her heart feels like it’s about to leap out of her chest, because it seems like he’s about to describe something terrible.

“…Well, that doesn’t matter. The most serious part would be that this is a sign that an outbreak has already happened—or is about to happen,” he explains slowly.

“An outbreak?” she has to ask, because it is another thing she has never heard of.

“An outbreak, as the name suggests, is when a large number of monsters pour out of a ruin, spreading chaos across the surrounding region,” he states calmly, his eyes fixed on her, as if studying her reaction.

For a moment, it’s hard for her to grasp what he means, until an idea strikes her.

“The village!!!”

He makes a slightly embarrassed expression before saying:

“For an outbreak. A day’s distance might not be enough…”

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