Chapter V

He ran desperately through the trees, the dense forest illuminated only by the pale moonlight rising in the sky. Shadows danced around him, resembling hungry creatures lurking. Unfortunately, the moonlight wasn’t enough to prevent him from stumbling over something on the ground. His feet found a treacherous root, causing him to lose balance and fall helplessly. In that moment of descent, he instinctively tried to roll forward, a desperate attempt to minimize potential injuries. Instead, he crashed into a tree, hitting his back hard.

"Ah, damn!" he yelled out, feeling the pain of the impact.

He took a few moments to catch his breath, battling both exhaustion and the pain he now endured.

"I can't believe they would attack me just because they think I'm a necromancer," the young man said to the air, reflecting on his recent experience.

"What the hell, does it even matter if it's true? I was clearly helping," he shouted to the air, indignant at what had happened.

"Did someone to help me while I was trying to carry the old man, no! But then they all turn against me. Cowards, you're all a bunch of...," he yelled, growing increasingly furious. But realizing the volume of his voice immediately fell silent.

In that silence, he leaned against the tree and began to cautiously look around, concentrating on trying to perceive any sounds around him.

Taking the time to collect his thoughts, a single question dominated his mind. “Are they still on his trail?”

"I’m sure heard someone say to come after me. It must have been that damned woman who was provoking them," he murmured to himself, somewhat apprehensive. While recalling his conflict with the other caravan members, and how Arabela was the most vocal of all.

"We've just been attacked, but the most important thing for them is to come after an innocent," he grumbled to himself, still worried that someone might hear him. But as he continued to look around nothing special was visible around. Not that he could see much in the darkness.

"I think they didn't come after me!" a conclusion allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief. “They must have had more to worry about. After all, the bandits are still out there." A thought that, instead of reassuring him, brought another concern.

"The damn bandits who caused all this. They ran in the opposite direction, right?" he asked himself, trying to remember if he was right or if he had run into their hands. Rising slightly from the ground to get a better look around.

"Darn it. Not only the wretched caravan, now I have to worry about the damn bandits," he keep whispering, lamenting his unfortunate fate.

"If they hadn't turned against me, I wouldn't be in this mess."

"How can they think I'm a necromancer?" he asks indignant at the accusation. But at that moment he looked at his hand. And the memory of holding Torvir's body and realizing that he had died, returns.

He had never seen someone die, a part of him was simply paralyzed by the event. He remembered, thinking about how something like this could be happening and how he wanted the old man to get up.

Then in his mind, for some reason, the image of the old man rising from the ground was clear and almost real. That's when a memory of something he had said so many times before came to his mind. He could try to rationalize what had happened. Claimed it was a mistake, that he didn't know what was going to happen, but after saying it so many times to his monitor, he knew the meaning of the phrase. A phrase that, unfortunately for him, he said aloud.

And after the last sound came out of his mouth, he felt a cold energy inside him that gathered in his hand holding the body before passing from him to the dead body. With that energy, the body stood up, as he had ordered.

"And then brilliant me decided to give it instructions. I should have just stayed quiet," he sighed to the cold night air.

"But then what? Having an undead, standing there looking at me would be as suspicious as giving him orders," he countered himself finding a logical explication for his actions.

Starting to rub his face in frustration, he continued to speak.

"Either way, the moment I used the spell, I was screwed."

"Well, at least that way the bandits were defeated," and with that one happy note, he did find some joy.

But at that moment, an idea occurred to him, causing him to pause and before he proclaimed.

"So, I’m really a mage!" It is impossible to deny the idea has some appeal.

"But how?" he asked the night around him. Remembering his previous failed attempts to cast spells when Arisa had shown her spell to the caravan.

"Something must have been missing. But what?" he questioned, trying to understand what had happened.

And so, he looked and groped around to find something. When he felt and picked up a stone from the ground to say.

"Will of the flame," when he invoked the spell, he felt a slight warmth concentrating in the hand holding the stone. But for some reason, nothing happened; the spell had failed.

"But of course, now it fails," he exclaimed irritably as he threw the stone away. Recollecting how he had tried to show the crowd that he couldn't cast magic, only for the spell to work perfectly.

"But it's strange; I feel like the other spell was easier to cast. That shouldn't be possible, at least based on what I remember from the game's magic rules. Raising the dead should require a much higher level than a basic fire spell," he commented to himself, trying to unravel what had happened.

"Only if I am a necromancer. Which wouldn't make any sense. How can I be a necromancer and already at such level?” question lingers in the silence for a few seconds before he proceeds “But it's the only explanation that makes sense; casting something like raising the dead on the first try, would be the height of luck."

Following this reasoning, he again rubbed his face in frustration.

"Ok, if that's true, how is it possible?" by saying this, he once again pauses, while thinking in the reason he knows so much about necromancy.

"Nero!" he exclaimed loudly. The shout is because he had just remembered one of his game characters.

Nero the necromancer is a character close to level seventy, whom he had created to practice magic. To be able to play alone and to have some cannon fodder, he had chosen to use necromancy.

"Yes, that makes perfect sense. But how did I not realize it sooner?" he questioned himself, feeling stupid for never considering the possibility of having embodied one of his characters.

When he arrived in this world, he immediately realized that his face and body were different from his original ones. But he had not realized that they could belong to one of his characters.

Considering that the shock and trauma of waking up in an unknown world, it didn't help. Also, when considering his lack of skills, he always thought that he had incarnated as a beginner-level inhabitant of this world.

The fact that he played in the first person and rarely looked at the faces of any of his characters helped with this oversight.

"That and Nero usually wears the Mask of Disguise," he commented, remembering the artifact his character used to hide his face, so as not to be recognized by NPCs.

"He had to use it to not be kicked out of town, whenever someone recognized him as a necromancer," he said, recalling the debuff to his reputation because of the widespread hatred for necromancy.

"Fantastic, now I'm going to be persecuted for a choice I made in a stupid game."

With that said, he quickly got up from his leaning position against the tree. All his pains were forgotten and a new energy and spirit coursing through his body.

"In any case, if that's true, if I am a nearly level seventy mage, then I'm not helpless or useless now."

Even though he knew he was far from the most powerful person in the world, he could now be a little more at ease.

For what he saw in the fight. If those bandits show up, they'll find out he's a pretty tough prey to bring down. And that brought a smile to his face, and a new feeling of safety.

With the new state of mind, he shouted aloud while extending his right hand.

"Fireball."

To his astonishment, nothing happened, which led him to look around and at his hands.

"But what happened?"

"Fireball!" he repeated.

And once again, nothing happened. This confused him. Had he made a mistake? Absolutely nothing occurred, not even the sensation of energy coursing through his body, which had happened before.

"This is ridiculous, the others work, so why doesn't this spell work?"

And with this question, he extended his hand again, and focusing on the image of fire in his hand, he said, "Will of the flame."

The spell failed again, but once more, the heat focused on his hand, only to disappear with nowhere to go.

"It doesn't work, but it wants to. The name of the spell seems to be like a keyword, but I think it needs a focus," he concluded from his experience.

And so, he concentrated on the image of a fireball in his hand and said, "Fireball!" only to find the same result.

"The Will works, but nothing for the fireball...," he began to say before realizing something.

"The name of the spell is Will…, not a sword in flames or something of the sort." and with that said, he remembered an image on a monitor with a table of various spells. And could not remember of any spell titled fireball.

"What I always called fireball had another name. Since I thought the name was silly, so I just never called it that," he spat out while recalling that in his gaming experience, he usually just referred to the spells by generical names.

"And without knowing that name, I can't cast it." And so, he understood that of the dozens of spells Nero must know, he only remembered the name of the Raise Dead spell.

"I'm screwed," he said while letting himself fall to the ground.

He, lacking outdoor experience and provisions, was four days away from the nearest city, stranded in a forest infested with bandits at night.

To make matters worse, he's a necromancer unable to use his powers, in a world that hates necromancy.

"If by some miracle I manage to get out of this forest, I'll probably be lynched."

And so, sitting on the floor of this dark forest, he let out his solitary and desperate lament.

"What did I do to deserve this misery?"