Before I realized what was happening, it was already over.

One third of the city was devasted, and a corpse lay in the middle of all that. The corpse of the snake. But not just the snake, there were other corpses around as well.

People just… died.

Adventurers, mercenaries, common folk, slaves…. People died.

“MOM! Mom where are you!”

“Have you seen my baby!”

“Timothy!”

“It’s all gone!”

“Kill me!”

“Jared!”

People were screaming all sorts of things. I walked among them. Watched their cries. The horror.

“Lord Sean,” Vivia said. “The Serpent,” she pointed.

Apparently, the corpse just wasn’t dead yet. “Quick,” I sprinted, and she followed. It was almost like I was gliding through the rubble, through the destruction as I raced past the fallen. A bunch of adventurers had the thing surrounded and seeing me they parted ways.

The snake was at least 600 meters in length and it was basically just a streamlined boney structure right now. “Still alive?” I yelled.

“You wretched-” it managed.

“The corpse.”

“It talked!”

Lots of whispers. 

“Lord Sean, what is going on?” Aloglass came through the crowd.

“It sprawled out of the water, attacked me,” I said.

“In time,” the thing attempted. “YOU SHALL SUFFER!” It roared one final time before going out cold.

Seriously, what the fuck was wrong with this thing? It jumped out of the water, attacked me out of nowhere, accused me of shit and then just died while taking out a quarter of the city?

“FUCK!” I kicked its head and the bones splattered. I tried to calm down but it was not working.

People watched me desecrate the corpse but no one said a word. They just watched as I took out all my frustration on the damn snake.

***

Two things pissed me off about the whole situation. One, people didn’t blame me (at least most of them) and two, I was seen as some sort of hero who saved the town (and certainly didn’t destroy one third of it).

Now granted, it wasn’t me who attacked first. It was the serpent. It got out and while I at least tried to converse, it just attacked me and to save my skin, I tried necromancy. But that wasn’t the whole truth. Truth was, I thought I could win. I thought necromancy would be a success and I’d just take over the beast. I was wrong.

Wait, didn’t you cast necromancy before it even came up. My eyes more or less widened as I just stared at the ground. The serpent had clearly said things in the lines of how it was protecting and sheltering this place and I betrayed it by… it’s my fault.

A shiver, and then cold. I never felt drastic difference in temperature. Yet, for some reason, my temperature was awfully shit. I felt cold.

One step, two step, and before I knew it, I was walking away.

“You monster!” A kid threw a stone at me. “Give my mother back!”

A guy knocked the kid over and dragged it- “Don’t worry lord Sean, I’ll make sure this slave never speak such bullshit again.”

I stared, I watched, yet I hardly did anything at all. I hardly processed anything. It’s my fault.

If I wasn’t here, if I never came here, if I-

It was always like this. Always. If I wasn’t born, my parents would have never tried so hard. They would have never gotten into debt themselves and worked themselves to the bone. They’d have never died like that. And if I wasn’t born, I-

But I was born. My parents died. And I fucked up and died. I was reborn as a skeleton. I came here, had my fun. And fucked up again. And now hundreds if not thousands were dead. Sigh.

In the end… what was I? Just a fuck up?

I made it to our inn. Which happened to be still standing. I went straight to my room. I didn’t even notice if Vivia was with me or not. I didn’t care. I just fell on the bed, sinking in. The armor was still on, at least whatever was left of it.

Thinking back, the snake probably just sensed something strong and came to investigate. It said it was protecting and sheltering this town. The knights had clearly implied I was a plague here…. Now, I knew I couldn’t take anything it said at face value but considering it didn’t try to attack Vivia, and just focused on me I had to believe at least something. Besides, I’d attacked it and decomposed a fair bit of its body, before it even came up. Before we even had a chance to talk. If someone just chopped off my arm while I approached them and then pretended to be innocent and talk, I’d try to fuck them up as bad as I could. So, I understood where the serpent was coming from.

However, I’d already messed up. And because of that, the snake ended up destroying a fair portion of the city, and many were supposedly dead. Quite a lot of them were under the rubble and a decent number was going to be sold as slaves since they no longer had anything to do.

I wanted to help, I wanted to do at least something. But what? I’d messed up bad and I no longer had the courage to go face them and-

Wait, didn’t I still have some money? Didn’t I still-

“Vivia-” I mumbled.

“I’m here,” she said. She was waiting at the door.

“Take the money and post a job in the guild,” I said.

“What sort and how much?”

“Save and rescue all living residents of the affected area. Prevent them from being poached by the slave traders. If they’re able bodied, give them some money and rations. We should have enough money to-”

“The affected range is from a few hundred to a thousand. We’ll barely be able to provide a single loaf of bread even if we managed to rescue them.”

“Then do it,” I said. “Use the rewards and everything.” My head wasn’t working. No matter what I did now, what difference did it make? Nothing. And yet- “If that’s not enough, we’ll sell our-”

“My lord,” Vivia sighed once and stood by the door. “I understand your frustration but it’s beyond us now.”

“Just go,” I said. “Ask the local lord to chip in, I’m sure he was going to give me money for everything and slaying the snake anyway.”

“As you wish.”

She came in and when I opened Spacia, took all our money, and promptly left. While I could have gone with her, and made sure… I didn’t go. I couldn’t bring myself to. I just-couldn’t.