Dreamweaver Chapter 12

 

It wasn’t too long before there were other developments. But not all of them were pleasant. We right away found out there were other talents besides language skills and translation. We still don’t know every talent or ability yet however.

“So remind me again, why the hell does Kenji get to be the necromancer?” Yuta pouted. “Life is so unfair.” He had his hands thrust in his pockets and was looking at his best friend with a lot of envy.

Kenji just shrugged, but he was eating up the attention. Also because he wasn’t used to getting so much attention all at once it wasn’t going well in how he managed it. It was like the years of bad or little attention were suddenly playing catch up and he wasn’t ready for it with his level of maturity.

“I wanted to be a necromancer too,” someone else said sadly. “In RPGs necromancers are always so bad ass you know? They can solo and so they don’t have to share loot and XP! Especially once they have their own little graveyard army,” he said to his friend.

“Oh, I guess you are right,” his friend agreed.

“This isn’t an RPG dumb ass. This is real,” someone retorts.

“Seems like it would have a lot of complications though,” someone said but they were ignored.

“Dang! Why do other people always get a better life?! It should be my turn now!” someone cried out shaking their fist at … presumably God?

“Is being a necromancer really that great though?” Yumi whispered to me while suspiciously narrowing her slits for eyes at Kenji.

I shrugged slightly so Kenji wouldn’t see us whispering. “It’s supposed to be a magic job right? At least in a lot of games it is, but…it has a lot of cons...” I shook my head and shrugged.

“Seems like it would have a lot of problems like you say,” Yumi whispered again.

I nodded slyly. “And not all the jobs might be magic jobs is another possibility,” I added.

They didn’t like that idea.

“I know right? All we get is to be able to do some kind of language skill? My parents are expecting me to do something big with my life and they both have good jobs. If I’m not successful in life they will be really upset at me and give me hell at home,” Raya shook her head sadly. She kicked a desk in frustration.

“That’s assuming we can get back,” someone else said.

“I guess it’s not all bad. You guys got something before anyone,” Yumi chirped.

“That’s good. Stay positive Yumi,” I said.

She frowned at me though for some reason. She can be uptight sometimes.

“But you are still special, all of you are special!” Asakura Sensei said. She patted his head, but then when he tried to hug her, she hid behind me. “Uh, no touching please. Really!”

“Sensei is just trying to mother us, it’s not true…” someone grumbled.

“But…” Yuta’s face fell.

“No….touching…at all,” Sensei reminded him this time more firmly and a bit angry. She was getting ready to hit him if she had too.

“Yuta…am I going to have to…” Akira started to say giving him the ‘stop now’ look, but Yuta backed off. Yuta’s eyes were big seeing Akira’s wrath forming and that was enough it seemed.

“Sorry Sensei, I just wanted a hug,” Yuta looked down, but was sincere in his apology.

“That’s what moms are for,” Yumi responded with narrow slits for eyes.

“I’m not your mom Yuta, sorry,” Asakura said.

But mentioning the word mom I think caused depression in its own way to people.

“Actually there’s nothing that says Yuta and Raya only just have that one skill. We just don’t know how it works yet and how the triggers unlock. Maybe groups of skills can do things too with how they interact,” I said.

They all brightened up a bit. People started talking about it a lot and are excited. They want to believe they can use something to exploit themselves in this world and survive.

“Oh, is that so? Yeah that makes sense,” Yuta looked a bit redeemed somehow and less jealous.

Raya smiled a bit. “Thanks.” I wasn’t trying to make them feel better though, but just stating the obvious.

“Well if it’s like that, then we just have to try different stuff for others too?” Akira guessed.

“Is being a necromancer good though? I mean…Baldy Sensei is going to start to smell soon and he is decomposing,” Akimoto the Judo captain said.

“Eh? I didn’t think about that,” Kenji started scratching his chin, suddenly with a wild look on his face. He was frozen in uncertainty. He’s also concerned what others will think too.

Now the others aren’t as close to him as they were before after remembering that dead things might not smell good after a while. And that made Kenji look totally rejected.

Yamamoto Sensei just grunted listlessly and somewhat …less than fully conscious. It was funny seeing him follow Kenji around like a puppy. He’d been …’awakened’ only a few minutes ago. We still didn’t know if he, or it, could talk. But it did seem to do commands. We got a good laugh at him telling Yamamoto Sensei to roll over and chase a stick.

Kenji didn’t realize that trying to show off and make teacher act like a dog was making him look very strange and an opposite effect than what he wanted.

You see about five minutes earlier, Kenji had gone over to Yamamoto Sensei’s remains and began crying over him over and over, “come back to us teacher! We need you! Don’t leave us! You were the only one that was nice to me!” he was saying over and over sobbing and gnashing of teeth also occurring while shaking the body and teacher’s shirt with his fists. He was crying so pathetically we didn’t realize how much his willpower had been acting in trying to wish Yamamoto Sensei was still with us. That’s when it happened…

“Poor Kenji,” someone said sadly.

There was suddenly then a blue sparkly thing that flashed again and a blue screen popped up in front of Kenji this time. It was just like the blue sparkly I’d received too. Again, it had the Egyptian hieroglyphics like before, so we had to get our interpreters to help out. We were all stunned and looked at it quickly, wondering what was going on.

Kenji stared at it a long time in disbelief and shock. “Uh, what’s it say?” he asked, glancing over to Raya and Yuta. He gave us a look like, ‘is this really happening to me?’

They both came over acting as a team, and intensely curious.

“Acquired hidden skill; you have acquired the infamous magic of terror; necromancy. Hidden job activated! Kenji has become a necromancer. Allocating resources…loading…please wait. Loading…please wait…” Raya kept reading. She sighed impatiently.

“Hidden skill is good huh?” Akira shrugged, wondering what I thought.

“Uh, I guess,” I shrugged. “But life isn’t an RPG. This is serious…”

“In most RPGs aren’t necromancers the villains though?” Yumi wondered aloud.

“I don’t really think Kenji is a villain though he can be a bit sneaky,” another girl said. Several others agreed with her.

“I don’t know if Kenji is smart enough to be a villain,” Akira whispered, to which I tried to cover up my smile.

“Hmm it keeps saying stuff like that, and now it’s saying click next to continue at the bottom of the screen,” Yuta finished for her, after they’d gotten past the boring part.

“Go ahead, you can touch the screen to further my greatness,” Kenji said proudly.

“Wish you could scroll faster. The symbols take up so much of the screen,” She complained flicking the screen down.

“Fuck yeah bitches! I’m a powerful necromancer! Those orc trash will never know what hit them!” Kenji exclaimed. “Behold!” He looked kind o silly too acting funny like he was some super nerd. It didn’t help that Baldy Sensei kept bumping into stuff too.

Some of the other kids snickered, hearing Kenji’s tirade and power trip.

“That does sound kind of cheaty doesn’t it?” Yumi whispered to Yuriko.

“I guess it could be kind of cheaty if his pet is strong? But if the pet is weak it could be bad,” Akira guessed.

“Well he did cheat on a math test recently. So it’s cheaty of a different kind maybe? But if it’s like his grades…” Yuriko shrugged in response. “Of course, we’re not supposed to know that,” she said in low tones so that Kenji didn’t hear us.

“Ah so it’s like that,” someone said, overhearing us. A lot of students suddenly were looking at Kenji differently than before.

“Did he cheat off me then?” someone said.

“I know right? I sit next to him in math too,” another said.

“So is cheating on a test one of the requisites to get it to activate?” one kid asked who was desperately trying to ‘will’ a mutilated girl, who had once been pretty, back to life. It was pretty obvious he wanted to be a necromancer too.

“Come on, come on! I need you baby! Come back to me! I need an undead slave too, preferably one with nice boobs! How does this work again? Please master! I want to be your disciple!” He said to Kenji who was nearby.

Several girls had disgusted looks on their faces. “So he’s that type huh?” someone whispered nearby.

Kenji sighed, “I-I’m not sure to be honest. Maybe you have to try harder?” But he looked a bit happier and brighter at someone saying they wanted to be his follower.

“So does that mean everyone’s going to try out pulling dead people back to life?” one of the girls asked nervously.

“If I die, burn my body,” several of the girls said all at once.

“Yeah, that’s kind of …” many people were staring at Kenji and his new ‘apprentice’.

“Ew, so gross…”

“So people have those kinds of interests huh?” somehow hearing it described that way, sounded really bad, I thought. They were looking at the other new kid that was trying to imitate Kenji’s actions to become a necromancer.

“So Kenji and the other guy are going to be the enemy of all women?” a girl said nervously.

Kenji heard that part and gasped, “Wait a minute? How does being a necromancer make me the enemy of women suddenly?! That’s not fair! I haven’t done anything yet!” he seemed pretty upset and many of the girls around him had their arms folded.

“I know what you are thinking already. You guys are thinking to only resurrect women and make harems and let all the boys die,” one of the girls said accusingly.

Kenji hesitated too long in contesting her it seems, “prove it!” he replied angrily. “It’s not true! I’m the victim! I swear!” he then added. But with the teacher standing behind him in zombie form he’s not that convincing.

“Kenji you wouldn’t let all the men die would you?” Akira pointed at him questioningly. He looked at him long and hard staring into his eyes with the boss going angry stare.

Kenji hesitated a bit too long on that too, and then looked down guiltily. He wasn’t good at lying, I remembered.

The girl just sighed and shook her head. Akira and the rest of us were also disappointed. You can’t argue someone looking guilty after all.

Nearby his friend was still shaking the dead girl. “I can’t get it to work Kenji!”

“Maybe you have to kiss her?” someone suggested.

“Oh yeah, it could be like Snow White, you know when the Prince revivifies her with his life giving kiss,” another said. I couldn’t tell whose side this person was on, really…

“Eh? So the story of Snow White was like that huh?” someone said.

“Ah, I didn’t think of it that way, snow white skin, hair as black as ebony, rose red lips, meant undead?” A girl wondered aloud.

“EH?! Really! We’ve been tricked this whole time!” others said.

But the face of this girl was mutilated and didn’t even have a jaw bone, but just had guts and gore hanging from the top half of the skull.

“Sh-she doesn’t look like Snow White after all,” one of the boys said, feeling nauseous.

“I think I’m going to puke,” Yumi gasped. I changed my trajectory from her just a little bit while still being subtle.

“I-I just have to make her mine right and then it’ll work?” the necromancer wannabe said, obviously frustrated.

The girls were looking a bit scared now. “What does he mean by make her his? Is he talking about…’that’?”

“Eh? That’s…so bold,” Yuriko said with big eyes.

“Would she get pregnant if he could make her his?” someone wondered.

“Hmm, so even though it’s a new world you can’t escape child support after all,” someone said.

“If you kiss her it’ll work,” a boy said innocently. I wondered if he was just trying to goad the kid though, but I didn’t know him and it was too awful what the wannabe was about to do.

“Stop! I can’t allow this. If you try to kiss what looks like exposed intestines and guts…I will have nightmares for the rest of my life,” Yumi said, not being able to take it anymore. She and another girl pulled the necromancer wannabe away from mutilated Sally, or whatever her name was.

“But…I just have to try harder…I have to be a necromancer! It’s my calling in life! All those RPGs and MMOs I was always the necromancer! It’s not fair that someone else can and I can’t?! I can’t take it!” the kid protested and was crying while the girls were figuring out how best to punish him.

But unfortunately, the live girls were now giving him weird looks. I doubted he would ever be able to get a date for the rest of his life. Eventually the girls chased him off. Akira briefly glancing in my direction told me he was probably thinking the same thing. We were both shaking our heads.

“He-he’s not going to do that to us is he?” a girl wondered.

“Oh yuck! That’s worse than a pervert!”

“Worse than a pervert? I didn’t know there was a classification like that.”

“Did you hear the way he was calling out to Rema-chan?! Ooh yuck, plus his hair is a bowl cut. Bleh,” she replied.

“Yeah! Plus…aren’t necromancers supposed to be like hated or something?” Yuriko said a bit too loudly, and stating the obvious.

It seems what Yuriko said was fate as Yuta and Raya read the next screen of hieroglyphics…now that they weren’t distracted so badly.

“As a necromancer, you take a 10% penalty to trading when selling and dealing with merchants. You also incur a faction penalty from fear of the local populace and severe distrust. This also applies to your drudges and live minions, apprentices, etc. You may in some instances even have trouble with the law and face persecution. Because of the nature of your profession you have a fear of death and obsession with immortality, as well as phobia of being burned at the stake…sometimes for good reason. In addition, you must be careful of spreading of germs and diseases due to your exposure to necrotic flesh and…oh that’s not good,” Raya read carefully until the last part. I think she skipped part of it too.

She turned to Yuta, “Do you think reading this part aloud is still OK? maybe you should read this part?”

“Hmm, ah, well –er…I don’t,” he replied. He looked over and was relieved that Kenji had turned to try to comfort the other kid who was now crying that he couldn’t be a necromancer too.

When he heard it Kenji’s face fell. “No! I don’t want to be hated! Argh why do I have to have the bad image!”’

“Well…it’s not that bad. Come on, this is good you might be able to have more than one minion later on,” Yuta said trying to comfort Kenji.

“Really? Oh, that sounds kinda cool actually. Might be able to? What’s that supposed to mean? What does it say? How would it work?” Kenji wondered greedily.

“Eh?! Well it’s …uh not definite. We just think you might need to remember you have some good points too,” Raya said trying to back Yuta up.

“Some of those attributes didn’t sound so good though,” someone said.

“Yeah that’s true. Hmm trouble with the law? What does that mean?” some of the kids asked giving Kenji a suspicious look.

“Kenji’s a criminal?” a girl acted really surprised.

“I don’t know if I should hang out with criminals,” a few kids stepped back from Kenji.

“Well, should I click next to continue?” Raya asked. “Or maybe we should wait a bit for everyone to be ready?” She was trying to judge Kenji’s state of mind and if he could handle the other parts.

“Well we can’t keep the window open forever and we need to figure out if there are other skills and jobs too,” someone said.

“Seems like this world is ran by an evil god so far,” Akimoto the judo captain grumbled.

“Hmm, maybe so,” someone agreed.

“I agree with Akimoto,” someone else sighed heavily.

“I wonder what god the pig orcs follow? Or are they atheist?” another said.

“Probably an evil god of some kind and something involving cannibalism,” someone else responded.

“Go ahead,” Akira said, listening intently.

“The next screen says you have gained access to necromancer familiars. Yamamoto Sensei is now your zombie minion. However due to necromancer being … uh wait a sec, is it OK to read that part?” Raya stopped suddenly looking to Yuta.

“Ah, yeah that’s kinda... hmm wonder if we should read it word for word? We could probably summarize that part. We don’t want to break his spirit,” Yuta said suddenly, as they talked about it in low voices, but I caught what he meant because I was standing close.

“Yeah that might not be good to say out loud,” I heard Raya whisper to Yuta so Kenji wouldn’t notice and thankfully he was on an ego trip and hadn’t noticed it.

“Hey you guys are talking about me and my awesome skills! Fear my powah…” Kenji said confidently. He also tried to show off his skinny muscles, but they weren’t doing much except making him look silly. He didn’t seem to notice how Raya and Yuta were acting suspicious because his ego trip was still giving him an effect like Prozac.

I don’t think he was fully listening to them before. He thinks people fear him, but instead it’s more like pity and sorrow.

Raya coughed, “well, uh it basically says…hmm…your minion’s stats have been lowered because you aren’t very strong.” With that part the status window closed and there was nothing else to read.

But suddenly Yuta elbowed her very lightly, “she means not strong enough ‘yet’. Strong enough ‘yet’,” he firmly said to Raya, to which she suddenly agreed, and she was smiling too big.

Yumi gave me an odd look and whispered in a low voice, “I think they don’t want Kenji to feel bad. They’re basically saying he’s a fail necromancer right?” she whispered while Kenji was commanding Yamamoto Sensei to rise from the grave.

“Yeah, something tells me that what they read didn’t look good and they aren’t saying all of it,” Akira also mumbled in a really low voice.

Kenji talking to the zombie sounded really strange. He’d sort of forgotten that you don’t want to embarrass yourself in public and that he wasn’t all powerful. It basically sounded like a televangelist somehow and I expected him to start asking for people to join his church any time now. The zombie version of Yamamoto Sensei rose to his feet suddenly, and stood there staring at Kenji while it drooled a puddle.

“Poor Kenji,” I shook my head sadly. “I hope he can recover from this.”

“Yeah, I hope so too,” Asakura Sensei said, who was standing right behind my shoulder.

“Oh my gosh! It’s real! I just can’t believe this even after seeing it,” someone said.

Another girl puked from seeing the zombie’s guts hanging out. Then she ran away.

“Ooh yuck, cover up its eye socket. That’s so gross,” one girl said.

Another girl just vomited in disgust.

“That’s so gross, its bones are showing, and it’s just standing there,” another said.

Someone else vomited too.

“Haha see my power! I also can induce a cloud of sickness spell! I already have spells!” Kenji rolled his eyes, trying to show off to the nearest girl.

“Uh no, that’s just people thinking you are gross Kenji. I’m so sorry,” Raya gave him a pathetic hand on the shoulder for empathy while Kenji had a weird and frustrated look on his face. He looked like he was trying to tell if Raya was right or if he was right.

“You know, it’s too bad he got a male minion. If he were smarter he could have picked a pretty girl and at least have felt a little better about it and possibly have the chance for a love doll,” Raya said a bit too loud. It was like she’d dealt Kenji a death blow.

“Hmm how will you prevent Yamamoto Sensei from stinking? A corpse is going to have an awful smell actually,” someone said. Kenji damage – critical hit! He was now in the red zone for his morale and courage centers. I could see him sweating it out as things were piling up in his mind.

“I hate to say it Kenji, but you’re next necromancer skill is probably going to be something like sewing up and stitching undead flesh,” the same girl said.

Kenji’s face fell again.

Akira and I face slapped ourselves. Seriously this girl had no tact. It was like she was purposefully trying to get Kenji to cry.

Suddenly Kenji looked down, “Ah hell. I didn’t think of that. So…is there a reset button somewhere?”

“Well, we have a bigger issue,” I said coughing and waving my hand. “It looks like the orcs are gone, but they may come back soon. So we need to get everyone organized and leave.”

“Well let’s go, we can talk about it later!” Kenji said.

“Yeah, but, we have to sort of talk about it to strategize because we don’t know where the nearest people will be,” Yumi explained slowly like she was talking to a kid.

“Ah, yeah that’s right, huh?” he blushed realizing his mistake.

“Well, does anyone else have any new skills? Did anyone else discover anything else?” Asakura Sensei asked, looking over the group. Nobody seemed to have anything new.

After awhile no hands and no one showing any positive sign made her sigh. “First, how many survived? And also of those, we have to figure out how to move the wounded after we plan,” Asakura Sensei explained.

“That’s going to be the biggest problem. A lot of them don’t have training with people that are sick. Plus how exactly will we move the wounded?” Asakura Sensei wondered. She looked really stressed out about it and looked to me for answers.

Akimoto came back from the roof and then after talking in low voices with Akira they seemed to reach some kind of agreement with Yuriko also listening. “Well there’s a problem, you see. Somehow there are only about sixteen wounded people still alive. It seems we didn’t realize or have a way to prevent the bleeding and we couldn’t have medical supplies for this many and some were too stubborn about using their own clothes and they had bled out.”

“Sixteen? But we carried so many back there during the fight? That’s so low,” Asakura Sensei exclaimed.

“Yeah the roof is now a graveyard,” Akimoto said frowning.

“Well if that’s the wounded? How many people do we have alive and that can still walk by themselves?” I wondered.

“Ninety seven,” Yuriko said slowly. “Out of the whole school of over 900 students, there are only 97 people still alive that we know of and a lot of those are hurt from fighting, though they can tough it out somewhat.”

“That’s terrible!”

“So many dead…”

“Is that really how it is?!” someone asked in disbelief.

There was a long murmuring and many people expressing grief and sadness. It created a lot of confusion and near hysteria for the students to hear so many had died too. People were overcome and felt defeated. They didn’t know what to say, and others were broken emotionally, but a few were angry and we had a hard time calming down some of the kids that wanted revenge.

A few minutes later, a loud voice broke over us.

“Hey guys look at that! What is that?” Akimoto said suddenly from the window area. By now it was light enough to look out.

Instantly a whole horde of kids had gone to the window to see what he was looking at.

There at the edge of the meadow, now not even a few hundred yards away from us was some kind of orc fortress. If it had been light outside we might have seen it but because it had been so dark it was just beyond where our vision would have allowed. The orcs themselves were guarding it and a squad of them was in front of their entrance and staring back at our school. Some of them seemed to be acting like runners to different parts on the walls and there was noticeable activity.

I could see a trail of orc bodies and some human bodies too all the way to the orc fortress entrance. It surprised me that many people had also been fighting to death outside too, but it made sense they wouldn’t willingly be carried away and some would rather die than be sex slaves or be turned into jerky.

There seemed to be orc assistants carrying some of the bodies away on litters to be added to their soup kitchens. They even were cutting up the bodies to make it easier to carry right out in the open. After all they had efficiency and ate everything from the dead, from both sides of the conflict.

“Oh my!”

“Why the hell are we summoned in front of an orc fortress!” someone said angrily.

“Dammit!”

“Who did this to us!” some of them cried out.

“Betrayed by whoever summoned us here!”

“Why would we be summoned right here of all places?! It doesn’t make sense!” even Asakura Sensei, who had a pure heart was expressing some anger.

The students were getting mad now because there had been so many deaths.

“Hmm, you know it always bothered me wondering how they found us so quickly,” Akira said finally. “I mean, we weren’t even here on this world for an hour and we were attacked that fast.” He shivered.

“Wait a minute. This changes everything!” I exclaimed in panic. “If we are literally a stone’s throw in front of their damn fortress we need to get the hell out of here before they send the second wave!” I said.

“So we’ve been scammed! The orc fortress is proof! They summoned us right on top of it practically,” Akira looked ready to crush someone with anger.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what this is, a kidnapping to another world. It is a scam, being a hero is like a MLM scheme now it seems,” I said, also resolute with anger.

Later it became known...behind his back...that Kenji had gained the ‘Spitter’ or ‘Spitter Kenji’ title from inducing vomiteers from his zombie’s guts being seen by townies.