The little group had barely survived. They came from a small town and were all from the working class. They had mechanics, grocery store owners, electricians, and so on; they knew how to be practical, that was for sure. And when the apocalypse had hit them and killed many of their friends, they started traveling around Nebraska, hoping to find something that would allow them to survive.

Among them, there was a teenager. He had slept in the first hours of the apocalypse. And that had made it possible for Demonic Beasts to kill some of them. However, after he got up, no one else had died.

He had a knack for this new world, a tremendous talent. If someone had scanned it for him, they would have discovered that his talent was at the 9th level, an absolute anomaly. Nevertheless, he was a genius destined to do great things.

The teenager also had a good knowledge of board games and an intimate understanding of power systems. He had been obsessed with tabletops, and he knew they had to keep moving to survive. He had also figured out the population density thing, thus avoiding the most populated centers.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t found any Ancient Ruin yet, even though the teenager suspected somewhere there might be resources that would make them stronger.

And he would have found them, in due time. In another life, maybe.

Sadly, some future heroes meet the wrong monsters on their path too soon on their growth schedule.

“Christopher, what’s that?” a middle-aged man asked while pointing toward a pick-up truck with some weird things in the cargo.

“Those are… Undeads?” Christopher felt an icy sensation on the back of his neck. “Uncle, I think they have seen us. Get the guns out and shoot them if they make even one wrong step. They could be very dangerous.”

…

Max turned off the truck and got out of it, gesturing to Lucas to come with him. Those people were pointing guns toward them, not even waiting to see if they were hostile or not.

“Interesting, you wouldn’t expect them to be so smart, right? I mean this in the most flattering way, ah!” Max shook his head and started chanting under his breath.

“Max, listen, maybe we can let them go, right? They didn’t do anything wrong,” Lucas pleaded even though he knew that he would suffer for it later.

“Oh, Lucas, you know how this works, come on,” they had descended almost a hundred meters from those people. Max needed some time before approaching them, in fact. “See, it really bothers me that people have this weird black skin. It’s filthy, dude. I’m just cleaning up humanity a little. I’ll kill most of the humans, and we will start again from there, with the right magic to perfect our bodies!”

“Please, Max, please! They have a teenage kid with them. At least let him go!” Lucas pleaded.

“I mean, Lucas,” Max scratched his head. “It would bug at me at night if I did. I want to spare one, don’t misunderstand me. Like, I know that be it now or later, the little pig is going to get slaughtered. But it’s like going to sleep with the doubt you left the gas stove on, dude. It nags at you, it scratches your soul.”

Lucas wished he could gas Max to death, or just kill him somehow. But he knew that even though the Necromancer was a Mage, his body was nothing to sneeze at; and he knew because Max had repeatedly told him so.

The Necromancer was a tidiness freak, he could not take asymmetrical things. They drove him crazy. He was an absolute perfectionist, even though he was still charming and not as irritating as one would assume.

Lucas was desperately trying to think of an angle he could work with while they were slowly – oh, so slowly – approaching the group.

“Max,” Lucas started saying.

“Sorry, Lucas, I need some silence, please,” Max moved a hand, and Lucas felt a burning sensation on his chest.

The curse.

Max had laid a curse on Lucas. It was a simple torturing device to make sure Lucas wouldn’t disturb him during some crucial moment. But, unfortunately, it would mute the nurse and make it almost impossible for him to move.

Lucas fell straight to the ground, but he heard the gunshots zoom in on Max the next second. The nurse started sobbing because he already knew what was going to happen next.

The bullets were disappearing on a flickering black barrier that enveloped Max from head to toe. Not that they would be able to pierce his skin, but he found the smell of bullets on his body extremely off-putting.

In half a minute, a horde of running undead finally caught up with Max, who was still reciting an obscure incantation.

They had stopped not that long ago, and the Undeads Max had crafted could run extremely fast. They were mostly Ghouls with the odd Skeleton mixed in. The Zombies were probably much behind the rest. Even though they were not as slow as in some famous shows, they were still much slower than the other two types of undead.

Lucas heard the screams.

They pierced his ears and heart.

They were not the first he had heard.

They would not be the last.

When Max freed him, he was chomping down on the teenager’s heart with eyebrows raised.

“You know,” he said when his mouth was empty between bites because of his impeccable manners, “I’m usually disgusted from eating these people’s hearts. It makes me feel all filthy, and I always need a shower right after to feel less gross. But I have to say, this kid was at the Mantis realm without a Cultivation Technique, and he had a 9th level talent. It’s pretty amazing, especially if you consider that he was black!”

Lucas vomited and fell forward, fainted.

Max could be a pleasant monster at times, even charming, but he was still a monster through and through.

After waking up on the passenger seat and with cleaned-up clothes – thanks to Magic – he spoke a silent prayer. This time, though, not to God; he prayed to the person that Max always spoke with unending hate, the person who had killed the Necromancer in his past life.

Lucas said a prayer to Jacob, hoping that whoever that guy was, he would kill the Necromancer once again.