We slowly move through the main road leading to Drewco and onto the turn leaving the view
of the village behind us.
As we wander our eyes from bushes to plains and anything in between, we see now ruined house that stood near the road.
"That's the home of that guy hmm." I mutter.
"Oh? Does an acquaintance of yours live here my lord?"
"I just know him, still it wouldn't be that bad to check what happened to his home, it's outside the village and thus wasn't inside the barrier."
I get off my wolf and take my weapon while ordering First and archer skeleton to stand guard near the wolf.
"Second and Third, you are to go with me, that place doesn't have that much space so ranged attacks won't be very good."
We creep closer as my skeletons each protect my sides with weapons ready.
"The fence and gate are broken." I whisper
I come forward a bit and examine it carefully.
"It's bent and trashed as if something charged right through it. Was it perhaps that boar which spawned near my own house?"
We try to sneak inside through the gate and arrive right near the building with a small warehouse nearby.
"Second, go check insides of that warehouse and try to be quiet."
Meanwhile, I and Third slowly approach center of this backyard.
We stop abruptly.
"This smell... it's blood."
We come to the center and see a corpse laying there, it seems to be a young woman, her clothes are in tatters and a small pool of blood near her missing leg, probably bit off by something.
I do not recognize her, but then I only knew that guy living here.
I tell Third to stand watch as I examine further.
I crouch near the body and stand still. My perception expands as I feel and see every blade of grass around me, the body state uncovers various information without needing to touch her in fear of infection.
"It's several days already since this world change happened, and from my guess, she suffered from some starvation based on how slim her body became, her fingers skin is pale and dry as if lacking needed vitamins and other important minerals."
I stand up and look thoughtfully.
"Lack of food hit her hard, also whatever she could eat if anything lacked variety. She was attacked while already weak in body."
"Wait, that blood is not dry." I narrow my gaze stupidly.
I take a piece of cloth from my pocket and open her eyelids.
"As if..."
I activate my sense again and carefully examine her lungs and heart. My sense expands again but it's hard to sense anything behind the flesh and skin. However I feel something.
A light, almost imperceptible reaction.
"Oh shit, she is alive, but how? She is missing her leg, shouldn't an artery be leaking blood all over? Still, that pool of blood isn't really that significant."
I look at this wound.
"I have no idea how it should look like but it seems stable? Could it be that she somehow didn't bleed to death?"
I slap myself in the face in realization.
"She is in shock."
Just as I do this I heard a loud cry of a boar.
"Damn, is that boar still here?"
We quickly run to the warehouse to aid Second.
However what we come to see is a bloodbath, the boar lies there chopped to pieces as Second looks over, covered in red blood.
I approach the place and see that there is some sort of nest.
"Both of you go stand near that girl outside and watch out for threats.
I quickly try to find the girl leg among the gore but fail to see it.
"Did that boar ate it?"
I look around quickly but fail to find anything else worth mentioning and return to that girl.
I look upon her, she still seems dead to me, but my sense picked up she isn't.
"Damn, all these worries and tragedies around me, why me?"
I crouch beside her.
"Second, go inside that house and see if there is any enemy there."
As he runs off I ponder what should I do. I don't have any healing magic or anything like that, and I doubt my ring of recovery will help with this kind of wound.
"Still I don't have anything else on me right now."
I pull out the ring out of my finger and put it on her finger.
"I don't know how much it helps, but her recovery speed should be about twice that of normal human now if I'm not mistaken. That said, this is not something you can just recover from just like that."
After a moment I see Second leaving the house, seeing him just standing here I presume it's safe inside.
I look down again on that girl and sigh.
"You two, protect her while I go inside."
I leave them here and enter the house, pondering over the preciousness of human life.
Specifically, how much it will take to save her, and if it works telling her she is to pay me back somehow.
Inside of the house is nothing to write home about. Just a few rooms, a bit dirty and some blood on the floor, dried already so no idea of it's origin.
I enter a relatively clean bedroom belonging to someone and sit on the bed after closing the door.
"It should be safe enough to open the shop right now, but before that... status."
Thomas lvl 20 STR 43 AGI 41 VIT 41 SPI 101 Troll Body +10 vitality Necromancer +10 spirit +10 agility Money 2342 points |
"Hmm, 2342 points. That's quite a lot compared to me starting. Hopefully what I'm looking for isn't super expensive."
I open shop interface and go looking through miscellaneous and survival stuff. There are various healing items, from disease curing to venom or poison neutralizing and ending up with healing potions like in RPG games.
"There it is, found the category."
Potion of Minor Healing 500 ??? ??? |
"Some of it is unknown, in addition to the same rule as with unlocking life magic, since my death magic was free instead of 50 points, 2nd unlock is 500, and considering potion of greater healing is 50k points, a third magic unlock should have the same requirement."
"Considering the level curve is high, it should be just balance. Alright, I can buy life magic with heal wounds spell but it would cost me 1200 points, and I don't know if I want it right now as it will block my options if I really need it."
"Now since weakest healing potion is already 500 points, it should have good chances of helping her with that leg."
I went and bought one potion for 500 points and the item materialized in front of me.
It looked like a small glass flask with a plug. The liquid inside was blood red, actually it looked like blood for some reason. Nonetheless, I left the house and went to that girl again.
"How do I apply this potion now? Make her drink it or pour it over the leg?"
As I wondered, a system message appeared with a brief tutorial.
Potion can be applied by drinking it to make the effect cover whole body in a balanced way or poured over specific wound for greater effect.
"Alright then."
I used a clean cloth and grabbed the leg which was missing anything below the knee.
"It's bloody."
I felt a bit sick looking over the gory wound.
"Bring other guys over, I need some clean water."
Second ran off to bring my group and I had First assist me.
"Now, uncork that bottle First, then slowly pour it over the wound for me. It will probably work better if it's clean."
First did as I told him to and cleaned the wound, he poured a whole bottle of water, but thankfully I had several.
I unplugged the potion and poured the content over the wound. A bit of it spilled over as it hit the ground and started releasing smoke for some reason.
I noticed the girl body start to tremble a bit as meat and skin tissue started covering the wound.
Her trembling didn't stop as it became more and more violent.
I had my skeletons grab her in case she started to move too much as the wound healed.
I left a bit of the potion and then poured it into her mouth, hopeful that it will also heal whatever damage I did not see.
"Damn she is choking now."
I grabbed her head and moved her jaw to manualy swallow the liquid.
Color started returning to her pale face as her body relaxed from that shaking.
"Okay release the hold, hopefully she is fine now."
"Guard her while I explore the house."
I went back inside and now more carefully explored it. Food was scarce in the fridge, some of it already went bad.
Some trash rolled over on the ground while shelves and drawers were open to show a lack of food.
The only real useful thing I found was a few bottles of water.
I didn't touch them though as the possible owner was still alive.
Then came a shout from outside.
"Aaaah!"
"Lord! Please come over, this woman is screaming."
Screaming damn loud alright, would be strange if monsters didn't hear her.
I went outside quickly to look upon a scene.
Wonder When he'll finally change his race.
Currently
He has no real desire to do so, his thoughts back then(can't even remember the chapter) was merely a curious 'what if' idea. Though at first I wondered if I should make him a skeleton/lich or something.
@sordahon
Still gonna be wondering if it'll happen, the humanoid mc tag is usually on nekos and such, though imo it's more appropriately used on beast-man/lich/etc type of MC's
@sordahon "Though at first I wondered if I should make him a skeleton/lich or something."
Hell no. Why the hell would any human want to be a skeleton? Unless really, really desperate. he is not a game character you create, he is a "real human" in a novel you are writing and no real human in real life would want to be some d*ckless skeleton unless really really desperate. You should not treat your character like a character in some game you play his choice should be more human-like. If I lived in a fantasy world I would still want a body that would more in line with my/human beauty/aesthetics standards.
@sabazurc I wonder about that. On one hand you have sex, eating, relaxing sleeping as advantages of living body but on the other you don't need to sleep and can be active all day everyday, you don't need to worry about food or drink, disease, bleeding, infections and the like. A person who does that would just weight the advantages and disadvantages, or just make a choice based on rule of cool if they are really into it.
@sordahon "A person who does that would just weight the advantages and disadvantages, or just make a choice based on rule of cool if they are really into it."
Nah man, no human would choose that or at least 99.99% would not. Being some d*ckless skeleton who might not even be able to experience pleasure? Fuk that. What's the point of living then, if I can't experience the pleasure of food, women, adrenaline and so on. What the hell would I want power for. It's like wishing to be cursed by Pirates Of The Caribbean curse.
@sabazurc This will explain it far better: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PowerHigh
@sordahon Just let him gain power without becoming a skeleton. If that was the only choice he had maybe...but even then why would you want to go to that direction. There are just soo many disadvantages, power is great but first of all that is mostly a TV trope, and secondly, it's not like the system is limiting MC. He can choose other things just as easily. And also why would you want to turn MC into some skeleton, if it is some temporary power/active skill fine, but permanently?! And willingly?! Maybe some will be into it but I do not know...it's very unrealistic. Even in Overlord MC regrets that he can't have sex, in Pirates of the Caribbean they will do anything to get rid of the curse, and in real life if such a thing existed most(99%) would not want it(unless it is temporary power/active skill). If you really want undead MC, make MC half undead half something else so he can switch between different forms.
@sabazurc You're the type of person that'd die 3 months in tbh, it's the short sightedness and closed mindedness.
@sabazurc
I already wrote in first comment it was merely a thought at the start, I doubt I will go in skeleton direction. Also it's not like s*x is the best thing in the world. Often times I would just rather not have s*x drive and frustration that comes with it.
@KermitAku Because I do not want to choose being some skeleton? Ok.
@sordahon It is not just about sex, it is just good when you can empathize with a character. Having basic human desires helps that, and a robot-like skeleton can only get you so far. Maybe comedy could make it work but this is not a comedy. In fact, you should try to make characters more human-like for now they feel too stale and NPC-like. Also, it is an apocalypse but also it's something that grants you access to so many wonders of magic, let the character explore that not just because of survival but because of curiosity and deep interest. I liked how curiosity got better over him and he experimented on death bolts even though it was risky.
If you like the skeleton idea, try curses. Like, let MC get a curse that would force him to become a skeleton every time his mana goes below 10-20% or something.
Also, please do not get discouraged or something, and please continue writing even if you have different ideas.
@sabazurc I try to give my characters personality but I'm not a veteran writer so I can only get so far in this regard. Though I intend to do better and make more complex characters in the future. The main idea is that before introducing character and their spot in their story I should thought up basic likes/dislikes, goal, and personality, which would allow me to do it more fittingly.
Regarding skeleton or not skeleton, it was in character thought, not as an author so being able to emphathize wasn't linked to it.
@sordahon Good luck and I do like story.