I quickly make my way towards the royal armory, hoping to find its doors open. They are large doors made of some harder-than-steel metal, so I’m not confident in being able to break my way through with my current strength.

I’m not sure what material the doors actually are made of, the knowledge was limited to very few persons in the kingdom. The first material that comes to mind is mithril, but I find it hard to believe that even Cresta would be able to afford ordering huge doors made from it.

If I have no luck with the royal armory, I’ll head to the guards’ station near the southern gate. It has the nearest large armory after the royal armory. The other guards’ stations are further away and I’m in a hurry.

Most of the corpses around have been without as much as a thread on them and have been unarmed. I guess the cheap clothes the commoners wore or the finer materials that nobles and merchants wore have been shredded or dissolved by natural elements over the decades. And I refuse to even consider taking the rags that are on some of the rotting ghouls that have been born before fully decaying into skeletons. I can smell them from a hundred meters away!

The corpses who used to be soldiers or guards before dying have some armor on them, but those are too heavily worn and damaged; I don’t want to use them. It would be disgusting and immodest.

I did consider looking for some blankets or curtains to use as makeshift clothes, but I haven’t managed to find any that aren’t completely ruined. I didn’t go inside buildings before coming to the royal castle, but finding buildings with intact interiors are hard to come by.

All the buildings in the capital are made partly or completely of stone. It’s a magnificent display of national power. But even so, most of the lower and middle class’s buildings are not very sturdy and suffered heavily from whatever caused the city’s devastation.

I should have explored the castle more thoroughly as it is the most likely place to have decent undamaged clothing, but catching the scent of food ruined that plan. I’ll return later if I have no luck with the armories.

As I’m contemplating about the city’s condition and my clothing, or lack thereof, I arrive at the royal barracks and examine the large building made of white stone that is some distance to the side from the barracks.

“Haa… of course,” I sigh.

The heavy looking silvery metal doors with the crest of Cresta’s royal family (crest o' Cresta, get it? Ha…ha…) are firmly closed. They are locked shut with strong long-lasting magic and I’m pretty sure that any people who had the authorization to unlock the doors are long gone from this country or this world.

The locking magic could still last for centuries without renewing for all I know, since the dwarfs renewed the spell not long before the start of the war.

Just in case, I walk to the doors and give each of them a firm push.

Nothing happens, not even a creaking sound.

I take a dozen or so steps back, leave my spear behind and dash. I charge against the doors with my shoulder first and close my eyes.

It feels like I hit a wall, which is actually almost literally the case. The feeling is escorted by a loud bang and a throbbing pain in my shoulder as I get thrown to the ground some distance from the doors by the rebound. ‘I’m really light…’

The doors stay firmly shut. There’s a shallow dent the size of my upper arm in the other door but that’s it. I claw at the door a few times but can only leave tiny scratches.

If I kept doing that for a week or two without rest, I might get in. But I don’t have the luxury of time.

More skeletons and ghouls are gathering to the surroundings, lured by the loud sound, but as they notice me they turn back to where they came from.

Sighing and rubbing my shoulder, I pick up the spear and start jogging towards the southern entrance I got in from.

 

---

 

As I get to the large guards’ station, it’s clearly getting brighter and I have to shield my eyes, but fortunately the city walls are still blocking the sunlight from entering the streets. I need to hurry.

There are several pieces of armors made of metal or heavily processed leathers hung outside on racks and on the wall of the building. They are heavily rusted and worn or degraded, but seem to be in better condition than the ones on skeleton and ghoul soldiers and guards. And more importantly, they are much cleaner than the rags on the common ghouls.

There are a few armed and armored ghouls and skeletons lurking nearby, but I pay them no mind and they ignore me in return.

The equipment inside the building is more protected from the elements and should be in even better shape. The roof of the sturdy two-story building has large holes in it but the interior should be mostly intact. Stepping over the decayed remains of a wooden door, I scan around the large room.

A heavy layer of dust covers the floor and surfaces. There are about twenty unmoving skeletons, all wearing armor, scattered around in varying positions. Some have probably died while sitting on benches or stools, but those have rotted and broken down over the years.

There are stairs leading down at the far end of the room some 20 meters away. Next to them are second stairs leading to the second floor, but I have no interest on that floor as the roof had holes there, likely exposing me to the upcoming daylight. Not to mention that the floor has most likely been used just as living quarters or the officers’ lounge. There’s a doorway on the back wall, near the right corner, leading to a room at the back of the building.

The main room doesn’t seem to have anything interesting, so I search the basement first. It only contains the jail where I can find nothing of interest.

The backroom on the first floor hits the jackpot. There seems to have been a steel door blocking access to the armory, but its hinges have rusted to the point that the door has fallen inwards with its own weight. There are hundreds of armors and weapons densely placed in wooden boxes and hanging on racks and the walls.

Everything here is covered in a thick layer of dust as well. There are no windows or holes on the roof of the room so the equipment is in good condition, considering how long they have been untouched without maintenance. There are no sources of light other than the light trickling in from the main room behind me, but that’s not a problem to me.

The equipment seems to have ranged from okay to quite nice quality back in their better days.

The armors and weapons made of metals, mostly steel, have varying amounts of rust on them but seem to be in usable condition.

I pick up a few swords of different sizes and try swinging them around for a bit before placing them back. These are probably more reliable than my ‘Improvised Rusty Iron Spear of the Graveyard’s Fence™’, but I’ll think about my weaponry more after I’ve taken care of my decency.

There are longbows and crossbows in the armory, or at least what remains of them, but they are in absolutely useless condition. The wooden shafts of spears are thoroughly rotten as well, so they are pretty useless. I can’t find any spears with metal shafts.

The leather and cloth armors are quite torn, worn and degraded, especially at the seams. But their condition is very good compared to anything I’ve seen anywhere so far. Many of them are full of mold, but fortunately not all of them have been ruined by it. I can make this work.

I spend a good while digging through the various boxes and searching the racks for some gambesons and the softest and thinnest feeling pieces of cloth armors I can find, with as little mold on them as possible.

I also spend a good while coughing and sneezing at the amount of dust that gets thrown and lifted into the air by my actions.

After finding the armors I deem to be suitable for my needs, I sweep a sizable area on the floor from dust and go dust the cloths and myself in the jail. Some more sneezes later I return to the armory with myself and the armors almost dustless and place them on the clean area on the floor.

 “Time to get to work!“ I give myself a cheer of encouragement.

I carefully use my nails to cut the softer armors into wide straps and pieces. Then I take some sturdier looking ones and cut them into thin strips to use them as threads. I cut holes through the edges of the wide straps and pieces, and use the thin ‘threads’ to tie them together, making them into a long enough single piece of cloth.

This will act as a comfortable enough temporary makeshift chest wrap. Emphasis on temporary and makeshift. In similar fashion I also make two things that try to resemble panties.

This whole process took way too long to my liking, and the end result doesn’t even look or feel very comfortable.

I don’t think I’ll make a career of tailoring. Or who knows; I technically have infinite time in my hands unless I screw up somehow. It could be interesting to try out different jobs.

But even this improvised underwear of the ‘pitiable grade’ quality is better than having rough leather armor in direct contact with my privates. I at least thought that far ahead, before even trying to put on any armor. It’s a result of my own thinking, not some memories or random knowledge.

‘Aren’t I smart? Fufu.’

Now that I think about it, I wonder how long the tailoring actually took. I probably spent the morning and a good half of the day on it.

I peek outside from the armory into the main room.

There are a few strands of light hitting the floor, shining through the gaps in the roof, or technically through floor of the second floor. I’m so lucky that the armory’s roof is undamaged.

Beyond the entrance and the windows, it’s almost blindingly bright. I have to squint to avoid hurting my eyes and getting a headache.

‘What a hatefully bright light! Now I’m annoyed, reminds me of the bright lights during my memory transitions.’

It didn’t occur to me before, but if my knowledge is correct, I don’t need to sleep being a vampire. Speaking of which, I don’t even feel tired one bit. I’m not sure if I even can sleep, should I wish to do so. I guess I’ll have to find out one of these days.

Well, at least I spent half of the day without being bored. I can imagine how fast days will get boring at this rate, if I can’t sleep through the day or find a way to survive in daylight.

I’m not brave enough to test how well clothing protects me against sunlight on my first day. It’s not like I have means to cover my head and hands right now anyway.

The only gloves I can find here, whether armored or not, are too big for my hands.

And I would absolutely need to make sure my entire head is protected from sunlight, I don’t feel like taking such risks yet. And I don’t know if my hair is sun resistant and could act as a shield for example.

I gather some of my long hair in my hand and bring it in front of my face. It’s ruby red and has a silky feeling to it. Nope, I don’t think it is daylight resistant. And it would be a shame to burn or cut such pretty hair as a test.

I’ll need some kind of eye protection as well if I plan to move outside, a veil or something for example. If every day is going to be as bright as today, I’d become blind after a while of looking or staying outside.

…

After contemplating about my nemesis, the day, for a while, I put on my new underwear and proceed to choose a light leather armor that doesn't look too restricting. It turns out I can’t be too picky about the design because of my height and body shape. It takes me a while to find armor that fits my body somewhat comfortably.

Regarding my body; I was wondering about my height while I was in and leaving the graveyard. For a while I had feared I might be stuck at the height of a child for the rest of my life. Vampires don’t grow after all.

Well, it turns out the coffins in the mausoleum were just very large. I’ve been looking at the skeletons and ghouls wandering around and compared my height to theirs. It’s not easy to tell from a distance, but it seems like I’m shorter than average but I should still be of a reasonable height for an adult woman, by human standards anyway.

I can’t be too sure until I get a chance to measure myself accurately, but I reckon myself to be somewhere around 160 cm, not shorter at least.

Most intelligent races living on this continent are larger than humans though. Let’s not even bring up monsters.

… Suddenly I have a feeling that I’ll be looking up a lot once I start meeting the living.

 

---

 

Can’t it be night already?

I’ve been getting increasingly bored after I finished dusting most of the interesting looking armors in the armory, fitting them and sweeping the rest of the floor clean.

I peek outside the armory. The shadows outside seem to be getting longer, I guess I don’t have to wait for much longer, two hours or so, maybe. No visible rays of daylight seem to be pushing through the gaps on the roof anymore.

Oh, I wonder how the other undead are coping with daytime. All undead are creatures of the night but I don’t think skeletons, ghouls, and the like just spontaneously burn to cinders if they walk in the daylight as I would. Sun magic will kill them, but they should be capable of moving during the day according to my knowledge.

How does that work? Should I take a peek outside and check if there are any of them lurking nearby and what they are doing?

Before going into the main room I take a small steel helm and put it on my head, just in case. Don’t want to risk getting a hole burned through my head from through the roof for being careless.

I’m also wearing worn-out leather breastplate and leather thigh armor. The armor itself is mostly for modesty, and a bit for any physical protection I might or might not need. The type is for mobility. I couldn’t find boots of my size, not that I need any for now. I can move around just fine on bare feet.

I step into the main room and immediately take two steps back into the armory. Blinking a couple of times, my confused mind tries to understand what it registered from my sight. Unsure if I was just seeing things, I carefully walk back into the room.

I didn’t see wrong; there’s a skeleton standing to my right, facing away from the entrance at the back wall to my right. It stands some ten meters away, near the stairs leading to the second floor. It’s wearing a rusty chainmail belonging to the capital’s gatekeepers and holds a steel longsword in one hand. If it ever had any non-metallic clothes or a helmet before, it no longer has them.

I count the unmoving skeletons lying on the floor. Their numbers have not changed.

How did I not hear it coming in? How long as it been here? Did it come in when I was focused on my time killing cleaning?

The skeleton notices me and turns its head at me, without turning its body. It does nothing afterwards.

*Staaaaare*

I lose the staring contest after a while and my gaze lands on the floor.

Curiosity starts swelling inside me. ‘Should I experiment a bit?‘

These lesser undead with low intelligence don’t seem to mind me. I know they have some intelligence as they react to sounds and can carry weapons, but I haven’t seen them doing anything in particular.

Is it a thing like only hating the living or something? I know ghouls are pretty different in that they eat corpses, but even they ignore me. I should look into that as well. Skeletons don’t eat anything. Zombies on the other hand eat only living beings, though I don’t think I’ve seen any. Zombies are supposed to look, fresher, than ghouls.

I grab my improvised iron spear from the armory. Let’s try its reactions.

“Hey you, skeleton guy. Go up the stairs!” I first try giving it a command, although my soft voice is anything but commanding. Nothing to be done do about that.

The skeleton just keeps staring at me. Well, this is awkward.

I try giving a few more different commands, calling it a guard, undead and a gatekeeper, to see if it reacts to the way it’s being called. Doesn’t seem to make any difference, I get no reaction.

I step closer so that the skeleton is within my spear’s reach and pull the spear back, mimicking a thrusting stance. Still no reaction, not even a defensive one. Hmm.

I relax a bit and hit the skeleton’s longsword hard from above with the spear. The weapon clatters to the floor along with the fingers of the skeleton.

“Oops, did I use too much force!? I only meant to knock the sword down, not to break your hand. Sorry.”

The skeleton finally stops staring at me and looks at the sword on the floor. It kneels down with fluid motion and tries to pick the sword up with its broken hand, failing miserably.

The so natural looking movement stops awkwardly for a moment. It looks at its right hand, which is missing all five fingers.

It swiftly picks the sword up with its left hand and stands back up, still lacking any hostility towards me.

I’m shaking. It’s just too much.

Somehow managing to swallow back my laughter, I hit at the sword again, this time more carefully. The skeleton doesn’t let go.

Oh? I guess it does have a proper grip on it.

Now I dare to get closer as it is still ignoring my actions. I grab its left hand and pry the sword from its hand and throw it outside.

‘Am I a bully now?’

I guess its strength is around the level of a human man? I can’t judge accurately since I haven’t met any humans and my memories aren’t reliable, as was proven when I broke my iron spear off from the graveyard’s fence.

The skeleton’s gaze follows the sword outside and it tries to walk after it, but doesn’t get far as I grab its shoulder to stop it. I spin it around, take a step back and stretch out my iron spear towards it. It takes it with its remaining left hand.

“Oh, you took the spear! Interesting,” I exclaim, for no reason other than my excitement and surprise.

Again, it does nothing afterwards. The grip it has on the spear seems a bit awkward and unbalanced. It doesn’t seem to have the intelligence to fix its hold on it with only one hand.

I’m pretty sure I can spend the rest of the day waiting for the evening with this guy without worries about getting bored!

I rush into the armory and bring forth a bunch of weapons and armors.

I try equipping and unequipping Mr. Skeleton in various ways and try to find the logic behind the choices it makes. After a while I stop what I’m doing as a somewhat disturbing thought surfaces in my mind.

‘Is it just me, or does this look like I’m actually playing dress-up with an undead skeleton as if it was a full-size doll?’ I look at my stretched out arms holding a leather breastplate towards the forcefully seated skeleton.

I shake my head to clear up these unproductive thoughts and continue my… experiments.

Seems like it’s unable to remove or put on clothes or armor. It takes the nearest object that it identifies as a proper weapon. I’m not quite sure about what works as a weapon in its mind, but it won’t pick up a sharpened wooden pole, broken crossbow or a steel helmet as a weapon.

It stands up normally if it falls down and can walk up and down stairs, although I have to push it since it seems to have no motivation to move anywhere on its own, unless it goes after a weapon. It seems to have flawless night vision like I do.

It can’t reattach its bones, so missing fingers or arms are gone for good. I don’t know what is keeping the bones together, but does it require a surprising amount of force before they rip off from the main body.

I would assume it’s significantly harder to rip off the limb of a living being with flesh on its bones, but again I have no comparison point and despite vampires having high regeneration speed, I’m too much of a coward to experiment on myself. Who the hell would want to rip off their own limbs!? I’m not a masochist, you know. I don’t even know if my toughness is comparable to anything human-like, as I didn’t feel much at all from stepping onto glass with bare feet.

The skeleton’s bones are surprisingly tough against sharp, pin-pointed attacks, but mysteriously brittle against even slightly blunt weapons. The bones felt harder than steel when I stabbed them with the sharp point of my spear, but weaker than my thoroughly rusted iron spear when I hit the bones with the blunt yet thin end of it.

Looking outside, I notice that it’s become night or late evening.

“Wow, time sure flew fast,” I speak to my skeleton friend.

I’ve noticed I’ve started talking more with the skeleton as the hours have gone by even though it doesn’t seem to understand speech. I wonder if it’s a sign of loneliness. I hope it’s only that and I’m not crazy or something.

I’ll have to get moving again. Food is still the number one priority. Two birds’ worth of blood in a night is bad. I probably can’t sustain myself for long with such a low amount. Afterwards I want to search the royal castle deeper, maybe look for books and better clothes. I should also check the northern side of the capital if I have time tonight. Maybe I’ll get more hints on what has happened around here after the Wave of Death.

Looking down, Mr. Skeleton is lying on the floor with its right arm and both legs missing. It’s staring at the dagger on the floor closest to it but can’t reach it.

Well, time to part with my first ever friend I guess. I’m curious about what keeps moving it.

I cut the spine in half at the middle and it seems to have no effect. Cutting it from the neck stops the movement of its remaining arm, but mysteriously enough the skull still rolls towards the dagger as I move it around. Wow, I didn’t expect for it to still be able to move around. It looks so weird though.

The control point is the skull after all, as I expected. After I crack its skull, Mr. Skeleton no longer reacts to anything.

I look at the cracked skull in silence and a single tear falls down my cheek. Not.

I perform the Crestan salute. I grab two long steel daggers from the armory, slide them into sheaths on my belt, one on each side, and take my (t)rusty spear and head outside. I walk briskly out and through the southern main gate to look for food outside the city.