Once I got far from the dwarven kingdom, I found a cave in a forest. I took off my skin which was bigger than me by a huge margin and threw it onto the floor. The dwarven corpse was well-maintained, but not needed anymore. I killed a dwarven duke who appeared important and controlled his body. His name was Duke Urist or something, I didn’t care as long as he was important. It took me years to blend in perfectly, requiring me to perfectly maintain both essence of death and life to fool anyone, especially that damned vampire. I took out an orb from my pouch and channelled mana into it flawlessly. The air thickened and surrounded my orb, with the ball emitting light from within.

I nervously waited. I could feel my breathing getting harder and my palms sweating. I was about to snap when the orb showed an image of a person sitting on a chair with her back turned to me. Though the person was not facing me, I could tell she was ‘watching’ me.

“Downtrodden Tricks. Since you’re bothering me, it probably means you fucked up hard or fucked them up hard. Which one is it? Depending on the answer, I might have to chop your head.” She chuckled. I laughed a bit. Haaa. Getting my head chopped off...that sounded exciting! Wait! I had a pressing matter first.

“I….both succeeded and failed. I think?” I scratched my head. The figure in the orb titled her head a bit in confusion.

“Explanations? Helllooo?” She impatiently called out.

“Ah, yes. Well, it seems there’s a third party involved,” I explained.

“What the hell does that even mean? I’m not a fucking crazy priest, I’m a crazy bitch. Stop talking to me in riddles.” She snapped at me.

“I told you about the plan to flood the capital with ale, but the plan had to be cut short since one of the dwarves who were working with the alcohol spilled the beans. But it was all fine, since there was enough to at least poison more than half the dwarves,” I explained.

“And? Did something happened?”

“Yes, there was someone that stopped my puppets from blowing up the dam. But for some reason, that same person finished the plan and blew up the dam,” I replied.

“What? What the fuck? That’s fucking nuts! I love it! What happened next?!” She rotated her chair and faced me in excitement. I couldn’t see her face as it was covered by shadows but I could tell she was excited.

“I’m not sure because I had to escape before that person knew about me, but I could tell he wanted to help us or just burn the capital down. But for some reason, the dwarves didn’t rampage as much as we had hoped,” I continued.

“What? What do you mean?” She asked as she leaned in closer to the orb.

“Someone used a spell so strong that it would even make us nuttier than nuts to calm the entire capital.” I pressed the orb on my face. I was angry and happy at the same time. Who had the power to use such a spell?! I started to gnaw on my hand, I wanted to know. I wanted to know. I wanted to know. I wante…

“HEY! HEY! SNAP, SNAP! BACK TO THE TASK AT HAND BEFORE YOU CHEW YOUR HAND. So our plan to knock out the dwarves failed?! What about that person?! I want to EAT HIS GUTS.” She screamed at me hysterically. Calm down, I wanted to do that, too.

“I don’t know because I told you I had to escape. But before you pull all of your hair in fury, I know where he’s going next.” I smiled at her. The figure’s breathing started to get heavier as she shivered in excitement and pleasure.

“W..where?! I must know...kill him...drink his blood...eat his guts…have his head on my display...Ha...ha...!” She asked me as she banged on her chair’s arms.

“It’s a good thing, because we’re also heading that way anyway. Listen, I know you want this guy badly. I’ll need you to tell Regrettably in Vain this…”

.

.

.

“Put your backs into it!” Asha ordered the dwarves. For the past month or so, my group had been rehabilitating the dwarves into their old selves. A good amount of the capital was hit by the ale flood so there was a lot of dwarves and drunken rave. Luckily for the queen, I was here. I used a near-divine spell to calm everyone, and managed to stop the dwarves from burning down the capital.

The alcohol hit wasn’t that bad. Most dwarves had an amazing tolerance of the alcohol but everyone thought alcohol was still a curse to the dwarves so many of them overreacted. There was a group of dwarves who weren’t drunk, but thought they were drunk, so they burnt down the local market.

Maven had been teaching the dwarves how to braid their beards since she thought it would look cute on the angry, rough-looking short men. Funnily, the dwarves took a liking to braiding their beards. Especially the women.

Asha has been trying to get the dwarves back into smithing and was making good progress. Apparently the dwarves were natural at this so there wasn’t much trouble teaching them. If you put a non-dwarf and a dwarf together in a room and you taught them smithing for one month, the dwarf would’ve made a sword with unmatched quality while the non-dwarf would just come out with a brittle sword.

“So. That’s your granddaughter, huh?” I nudged Sarjay. He explained to me what had transpired while I was gone and I was surprised that Asha was Sarjay’s greatest grandkid. Well, there’s another reason to visit Angolia, then.

“Indeed. I’ve been teaching her how to use Phollician fire lately. She’s getting the hang out of it. Actually, Boss. I can’t wait to see my old home.” Sarjay sighed joyfully. I could understand his excitement, seeing his old home.

“W...w..would you like...a cup...sir?” A girl’s voice sounded behind me nervously. I turned around and saw a girl with the same maid uniform that Lucia wore, but much cuter. It had more ribbons and it showed a bit more skin. Most of the dwarves had never seen the queen, only portraits of her so they would probably think she’s one of the palace servants. But this was the queen of the dwarves, Ellysa.

“I don’t want dwarven tea.” I shrugged her off.

“Wait, um...this...different. This is different…” She muttered. Ever since I chastised her severely a month ago and since she found out I’m really an Archlich, a being at the pinnacle of the art of death, she’s been sucking up to me lately.

“Fine. What is it? I’m busy right now.” When I answered I felt something ceramic-like touching my fingers. I held the cup closer to my face and noticed it had a different color than the usual brown color of tea. I drank it and smiled a bit.

“Beer, huh. Well. You should work on changing the cup to a glass or something,” I commented. Ellysa nodded at my approval, but I am still wondering how she or her nobles could make a cup or a teapot appear out of nowhere. I asked Ellysa to teach me but she said that it simply just happens.

“But, still. Ellysa. I can’t teach you what I know. The only punishment I gave you was wearing that maid outfit and nothing else. You don’t have to follow me like a puppy,” I told her. She had been bugging me a lot recently. I told her to wear a maid uniform once because I wanted to see her in something cute but ever since then she’d been wearing that damned thing. She looked at me with puppy eyes, trying to coax me. Or tried to. She looked rather menacingly cute.

“Eugh. How about this? I’ll teach you a certain type of blood magic. This will eventually branch to secrets that no vampire has ever known. In exchange, stop following me everywhere,” I offered. Ellysa smiled widely then threw a fist into the air, her thralls clapping for her going, ‘Congratulations, your Majesty.’ or something generic. She realized what she was doing and then quickly fixed herself, giving me the Ellysa puppy look.

“Just get out of here, will you?! I’ll teach you when I get back to the palace! Out!” I shooed her away, she left the smithy with her thralls except for one. The only one standing where the thralls were was Lucia. She walked up to me and bowed.

“What do you want? Shouldn’t your connection with the queen be fixed? I’m pretty sure what I did was just a temporary cut,” I asked her. She shook her head.

“That doesn’t seem to be the case, your lordship. It seems that this one’s connection couldn’t be fixed...and after a brief period of investigation, this one needed a source of death essence to feed on…” She looked at me like I was at fault here. Well, she was correct, in a way.

“Why not go back to the queen and feed off her?” I suggested.

“It’s pretty awkward, this one must say. Being the only thrall who is not connected to the other thralls. It’s like a lycan in a human kingdom. One could try to fit in, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re an oversized dog that can’t wear pants. Or something along those lines,” She explained. I could and couldn’t understand her at the same time, so I just nodded silently.

“Is it true your lordship is touring the world? If so, this one would like to accompany you. This one would be your personal maid and could help you get around. From what this one heard, you only woke up a few months ago after a thousand years?” She asked. Well, I didn’t need a maid but it would be good to have someone who knew the way around the place.

“Aren’t you a servant of the queen or something? How would you know your way around?” Sarjay pointed out.

“As this one had told his lordship, this one has a bit more independent thought than the others. Ergo, the queen had sent this one to missions that go far beyond the United Fortresses,” She replied. Well, I wouldn’t lose anything. I’m pretty sure Ellysa would think that giving Lucia to me would also earn her a favor, or at least that what she would think. I agreed to have her join my group. A thrall in a band of undead warriors and mages wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

Asha finished her work as soon as I finished discussing with Lucia. She jogged towards us and joined our conversation, “What’re you guys talking about?”

“This is Lucia. She’ll be joining us,” I introduced. Lucia bowed then took her leave. She went to pack her things, if she had any in the first place. I’ve been surrounded by skeletons, dullahans, spirit knights and whatever, but I’ve never really be close to a vampire. Well, Lucia’s a vampire thrall, but that was good enough for me. I certainly did not want to drag that annoying bloodsucker with me.

I might study Lucia over the time, since Ellysa mentioned she was a lady of the Vampires of the Western Continent. That meant that there was more than one annoying bloodsucking leech flying around the place and I’d like to know more about current vampires.

“Hm. I see. So, when are we leaving for Angolia?” She asked. Originally, she wanted to go to Angolia to study on Sarjay’s name but then that wasn’t needed. So, we decided to change the reason to letting Asha introduce us to Follis.

“Soon. I toured a bit, but I found the drunk dwarves still getting used to getting drunk more amusing than some of the tour spots in Londonius. I’d like to go somewhere else now. I’m getting bored of this place,” I told her. Sarjay crossed his arm and thought deeply.

“Ah. I can’t wait to get to Angolia. Home.” He sighed reminiscently.

“Ancestor, you’re quite excited to see your old home, right?” Asha asked as a curious greatest grandkid would ask her greatest grandfather.

“Yes. I’m excited to see my kingdom once again.” He proudly boasted his chest, with arms crossed.

“Ha ha...wait. Your kingdom? Like ‘your’ as in like ‘our home’ or something?” Asha inquired.

“Hm? What are you talking about? Angolia’s my kingdom. The very kingdom that I founded. I didn’t know Angolia was my kingdom at first because it was first called the Kingdom of Phollicia. But when you showed me the map of it, the structure of it and the history of it, that’s definitely mine,” Sarjay replied.

“Wait...what? Are you...mistaking something? Maybe it’s got to do with your memory?” Asha nervously asked.

“Wait, you’re not a princess?” Sarjay asked.

“N-no….I told you Follis is a minor noble house which was once a top shot in the kingdom…” Asha’s tone started to quiet down as she realized there was a few puffs of smoke coming out from Sarjay’s helmet slits. Oh boy.

“So...Sarjay, my longest friend and ally. What say you?” I asked mischievously. He turned his head to me. Though, I could not see his face, I could tell. This guy was mad.

“It’s time to take my kingdom back.”