A young man named Letho was carrying logs tied in a makeshift backpack and was walking across the very crowded streets of his city, dragging a leather bag as he moved between the people with a destination in mind. 

Crossing the streets and the crowd of people, he arrived at the central market of the city of Eleydiff, where one could mine all types of minerals. Even if he didn’t set foot inside, he could already hear the loud and constant shouting from merchants, buyers, and even animals.

As he got closer and closer, he noticed the large influx of people going and leaving a particular street with large bags and carts filled to the brim with goods.

However, even if it was a chaos inside, he could describe the market as an organized chaos where the worst that could happen to you was being scammed by your own ignorance. The extremely tall and bulky faceless guards with massive axes strapped on their backs were enough to discourage any form of crime or misdeeds inside. Especially their merciless nature and efficiency in dealing with the problems.

He only heard rumors, but supposedly those guards weren’t human but magical golem supplied by the guilds from the old capital city of Agoland. It was just rumors, of course; but it would at least explain why they were so massive and had such unwavering loyalty to their employers.

The market block didn’t have a proper designation or division reason for the mess to find each stand for specific valuables or buyers. Letho had to take a moment to look around and finally notice the Mansory stand with a long queue of workers also carrying bags of raw materials like him except many of them were carrying special raw materials like granite or magical oak wood unlike him who could only get very basic wood and stone.

In an orderly line, he waited for his turn in the middle of the shouting contest of merchants and buyers from all directions and the cries of surprise of his fellow workers as the scribble announced a price drop of sandstones.

He really wished that he could afford better tools to gather better and rarer resources, but no matter how hard he hit or chopped, those resources never budged an inch. It was as if they were magically protected or something.

The scribe gave a quick glance at Letho before pointing with his feather in a specific direction, which Letho’s eyes followed and landed in a corner filled with many bags of materials and a large weighing scale.

“Put them in their respective pile after measuring them.”

“You brought around 20 kilograms of rough stone and 50 logs of common wood, impressive for a kid.” He gathered a couple of silver coins and pushed them towards Letho, who watched in horror at the amount. “With the current price, that would be 150 silver.” 

The man, unlike Letho, was unfazed as he wrote the purchase on his extensive list.

“Is way less compared to yesterday!” Letho shouted to everyone to hear his disbelief.

The scribe stopped his writing and slowly lifted his gaze to meet him eye to eye. “Yesterday evening, a big caravan from Isherwood arrived. We don’t require more wood for now.”

Letho’s stomach sank after hearing that city name, a city very well renowned for the vast never-ending forest with so many species of trees, each one with its own qualities and magical capabilities. The wood market always took a serious hit whenever their caravans reached any city.

He completely forgot to eavesdrop at the inn and guild taverns resulting in his current economic crisis. It would take months for the wood prices to recover, leaving him with a half-useless economic plan.

“This is barely enough for today.” 

The only way for him to survive would be to work at the many quarries of Eleydiff forcibly subjected to long hours of back-breaking work with low wages and with the cherry on top being abusive megalomaniacs working as overseers.

“Tough luck, youngster. Next!” The scribe shouted, and another independent worker pushed Letho away.

Letho fell on his ass still trying to process the news but even for that he wasn’t given time before one of the merchant guards arrived and dragged him away from the post, by the time he finally regained his senses he had his face kissing the dirt with many onlookers laughing at his misery.

There was nothing else he could do besides standing up and attempting to dust off his clothes. 

Yet the frustration boiling inside him couldn’t be quelled so easily.

“Goddammit!” He kicked a small pebble away from his path, delivering all his frustration on that inanimate object.  

However, rather than going forward, the pebble shifted direction and bounced away before hitting the leg of a passerby.

Letho inspected the man he just accidentally hit and noticed a great-sword strapped on his back, that was enough for him to turn tail and leave the place as fast as possible, with so little details he could recognize an adventurer with only quick glance of their equipment, many experiences and eye witnesses were enough for him to understand how short-tempered and petty adventures could be.

For his luck, the adventurer didn’t bother with him and kept walking.

Letho, on the other hand, didn’t know that he wasn’t being pursued but that didn’t stop him from keep running as far as his feet could possibly carry him. 

After many sharp turns, he knew that there was no chance for him to be found, but that little stunt left him panting on his knees.

Letho refused to accept his circumstances and rushed towards the city gate to leave the safety of the city walls and venture into the wild lands once again.

The gates were wide open as night had yet not befallen the land and the guards showed little to no interest that Letho cross the main entrance as fast as his feet could carry him, a boring task for guardsmen that their mind usually becomes devoid of thought until they are spoken to.

The main road had many branches leading to the various quarries and farms around the cities, but he ignored and focused on the road ahead leading to the outskirts where the fortified walls of the city couldn’t be seen.

The scenery was different. It no longer was vast green plains with roads and houses, instead rocky plains with the occasional trees, but more importantly for him, he could finally see the wandering undead roaming around with no clear objective.

The undead were no threat to the living since they were slow and brainless poor creatures, barely posing any threat to individual passersby or caravans, the worst possible thing being greeted by the unbearable stench of a rotting corpse. Monsters when killed dropped essence or crystals that could be used to enchant weapons, making a highly valuable resource for adventurers and soldiers alike, yet the amount or quality of those resources varied from monsters. And so those basic undead monsters when killed they barely have any reward and the crystals inside them were as small as berries that one would need to gather several dozen of them to actually get an acceptable price.

That was the reason adventures and soldiers ignored those basic forms of undead. It was too much effort for their actual worth.

However, for Letho, this was the only way for him to earn today’s dinner since the meager amount of money he got was only enough to cover a room and repairs for his inferior quality tools made of stone.

Letho gulped and pulled out his small stone dagger, mentally preparing myself to fight a monster for the first time. In all the years of working independently, he always avoided the wandering monsters, but it was time to make him stand if he wanted to eat.

A lone undead finally noticed him and extended both rotting arms slowly approaching him, however Letho rather than correct his stance and steel his nerves, gagged in disgust as the odor reached his nostrils.

The stench almost made him part with his breakfast, yet at the same time his stomach growled, shocking that his meal for the day was waiting. Enough to fill him with vigor and clear his mind.

Rather than breath through his nose, he immediately switched to his mouth, though he could somewhat taste the smell it was passable compared to the stench; his poor nostrils had to endure before. 

Besides, the taste would be gone with a good drink at the bar.

His right hand clenched around the dagger and lunged at the undead.

The dagger was easily stabbed on its chest yet it was ineffective against such a foe, the undead only moaned and flailed its arms trying to scratch him or get a hold of his body, before it could even do such action Letho pulled back and maintained his distance.

Away from the undead he could feel the rush of adrenaline slowly draining away, from what he knew targeting the head would be his best bet to take down the foul undead since his weapon was terrible against them, even a wooden spear would have been better but he rushed at the plain with little thoughts but getting money as fast as possible.

The walking corpse slowly limped closer towards him, trying to reach Letho but instead of trying to stab he sidestepped and grabbed the arms, pushing them away so he could close the distance better and use his body to ram the undead and throw it off balance.

The undead once on the ground became utterly defenseless to his dagger penetrating deep into its rotten skull. The undead could only moan one last time before finally stopped moving. Letho had to immediately get away as he heard many times that the undead dissolve when they were finally killed.

And those tales proved true after witnessing the entire process, the rotten flesh liquifying along with the bones and dissipating on the ground, the grass around the corpse quickly dying with it, losing the green fresh colour leaving behind a blackened and dried parchment of grass.

He could thank all those people’s tales or he might have lost a hand or worse if he remained close, but that could wait since where once a corpse only remained a tiny crystal, which he quickly collected and placed it inside his bag.

If he wanted an acceptable sum of money, he would need several more. At least enough to fill his entire bag.

And so he took one long gaze at the plains in front of him with the sun ever closer to the horizon and noticed silhouettes of more wandering undead, one down and several more to go.

Armed with his newly gained knowledge to take down undead, he rushed towards the monsters with full energy until the unbearable stench of the rotten flesh hit him again; completely stopped dead in his tracks.

“Just die you stinky corpse!” His dagger pierced the undead right below the neck but rather than pulling out his weapon he cut straight up, the sharpness didn’t meet any resistance until reaching the very end of the undead which helplessly collapsed on the ground and liquified into the ground, leaving behind the magic crystal and a small leather bag.

“What ‘s this?”

Quick to open the bag and throw it away to reveal a shiny object in his hand.

He brought the object for a closer inspection, completely ignoring that it was inside an undead for who knows how long, with a better angle he could tell it was a metallic ornamental mask. Turning it around to check the side, his eyes caught the fine details of craftsmanship despite his barely having knowledge of metallurgy, yet compared to any other work from the market or the crafting district, the difference was like heaven and earth. 

He knew it could sell his newly found treasure for a decent coin and probably much better than spending hours killing those filthy undead.

Letho stood up and checked his surroundings before hiding the fancy mask inside his makeshift backpack and left towards Eleydiff as fast as his legs could carry him, silently praying to the god of fortune, Arengi.