“Mom? Mom, where are you?”

A small child walking through rubble, dead people and blood all around, his mother crushed under a collapsed building. This child was walking around aimlessly, calling for his mother, tears in his eyes.

“You killed all of us.”

An unknown face in front of her, many voices following.

“We are all dead.”

“All because of you.”

“Murderer.”

Many faces, all unknown, talking to her: sadness, anger, hatred, grief.

“Murderer.”

….

Silvy startling woke up. Tears falling from her eyes, grief eating her away. A nightmare: that was all. So many dead…

She cried in her room, in silence, until the tears run out. What was she supposed to do? Should she confess? It would solve nothing.

‘Stop brooding over it!’ she slapped her cheeks, trying to forget about it. This sin was too big for her; it would just squash her with the weight. It was better to forget: it was the only thing she could do. She cleaned her face in a bucket of water, a service provided by the establishment.

She was coinless, sad, and without magic. Oh, right, unarmed as well; she wasn’t able to create a mana blade without a wand. Which was in her bag of holding. Which was… where?

Pieces of memories were still missing, but she remembered she had buried the bag in the slums, but she could… not remember, feel that the bag was not there anymore. She had moved it in another place while in the whole state: she just couldn’t tell where.

Well, having money would solve the unarmed problem; she could just buy a normal sword. So, how could she get money… She couldn’t do adventurer’s jobs; her badge was in the bag. So… she either stole it or asked Lindrl. She had to pay Jekhum for the lessons as well; maybe Eiram or Vilza would help her out, but where were they? She had no idea.

Next objective: asking for gold from Lindrl. She didn’t feel good about it, but she needed it. She cleaned and dressed, going outside without eating; food was not included in the cost of the room, but she could go without eating for some time: she had done it many times in the past.

The streets were just starting to fill; people were getting out of their houses, going to their stores or outside. Even the mages’ guild seemed busier at this hour: still, Silvy couldn’t understand why there were so many buildings and so few students: she would have to ask Lindrl.

She reached the tower with no problem; this time, armed with yesterday’s knowledge, she knocked on the door of the left building. Deala opened the door right after the second knock, startling Silvy. Was she waiting for her?

“Come inside. [Archmage] Lindrl is busy at this moment. Please wait in here.”

She brought Silvy to a waiting room, with a teapot and some good-looking food on trays. Deala left Silvy alone, who ate to her heart content. The food was high-class, and the tea was tasty; what a nice breakfast.

She had to wait another half an hour before Deala came back to call for her.

Before the beginning of the lesson, Silvy decided to ask Lindrl why the mages’ guild seemed empty.

“It’s for [High Archmage] Divol Luvrat public lesson of course. Never heard of him? He is the king’s advisor for magical affairs; he is considered the strongest human mage alive. He announced his lesson a year ago, giving time for everyone to reach the capital. It’s a unique occasion: people from all over the empire have participated. It’s already finished: people should start coming back in a month and a half or so. Unfortunately, you lost your chance; you are seven months late.”

Silvy hadn’t heard anything about it; then again, seven months back she was busy trying to survive, and this thing seemed important only to mages. She either hadn’t paid attention or didn’t hear about it.

“I see. What should we do today?”

Silvy was hoping to change exercises; yesterday had been quite boring.

“What we did yesterday, of course. People don’t learn spells for a long time; they first need to use their mana correctly, or they’d be able to cast only one basic spell, maybe not even that.”

Oh…

Another day passed, with the morning training together with Lindrl and the afternoon alone; Lindrl had to patrol with the guards today as well, but it would be the last day. Silvy felt like she had made tiny improvements, and Lindrl confirmed it, but it was so small it was hardly significant.

“You should train yourself until you can form a line with at least half of the mana coming from the outside. After that, I’ll teach you a few simple spells; nothing too difficult, as you still have too little mana to use them.”

“Uhm, Lindrl, may I ask you for a favor?”

Lindrl smiled gently.

“Of course.”

“Ehm, you see, I had a bag of holding before… and I lost it. I had all my money in there, and I thought maybe I could ask some gold from you… I’ll give it back, I promise!”

Asking for charity after having killed thousands of people. Silvy had never felt worse, but she needed to defend herself…

“What for?”

“Oh, well, I was thinking about getting a sword… Maybe ask for a new badge, as it was in my bag as well… Maybe even paying Jekhum, my sword teacher…”

“How much do you need for that? I’m not acquainted with the prices for that stuff…”

“Mh, well, maybe about thirty gold? I’m not sure either… The badge is a few silvers, but I don’t know about the sword, and I don’t know how much Jekhum wants to have…”

“Thirty?”

A chuckle escaped from Lindrl.

“You don’t have a bag anymore either, right? Wait here.”

She went outside her room and came back around ten minutes later with a bag in her hands.

“Here. Take this bag of holding; it’s probably bigger than yours. You will find a couple of hundred gold coins and a wand inside; free of charge.”

“That’s too much! I can’t accept that!”

Lindrl smile deepened.

“I knew you would say that. If you don’t accept them, you can stop calling yourself my student. So?”

“W- Why?”

“Because these coins are a drop in the ocean for me. My services, like those of other [Archmages], are highly requested and highly paid as well. If so little helps you, I have only to gain from it.”

Silvy nodded, still unconvinced. A drop in the ocean? How much money did she make anyway?...

She took the bag, hiding it in her shirt. Silvy extender her hand.

“Thank you.”

“A handshake? That’s so cold coming from you, Silvy.”

Lindrl made a pouting face, taking the arm of Silvy and hugging her. Silvy grew red from embarrassment; why were people suddenly hugging her?!

But she returned the hug: she owed it to Lindrl. She had helped her so many times, and for so little. Just a hug was fine…

But it was lasting too long; it was becoming uncomfortable. Silvy tried to extricate herself from Lindrl, who on her part didn’t want to let her go.

A few minutes later she was out of the guild, uncombed hairs and red-faced. That woman didn’t let go easily! Anyway, she now had some money to go around. The first stop was the blacksmiths; she wanted a sword today.

She went back to the same shop she had made the order for the armor; at this hour it had only a few customers inside, browsing through the wares.

Silvy joined the other customers, looking through the available shortswords. A longsword needed two hands to grasp, especially for her; her style of combat was very agile, and many times she needed a free hand. She was looking through the swords on the wall when her eyes were attracted to the rack with magical swords. The spear and a sword had been sold, but a new shortsword had appeared: it was… ugly. His blade was rusty, dull, chipped around the middle; the hilt had a crack running through it, and a small black core was in it. How could the owner sell a sword like that? Everyone could see it needed repairs…

But wait; she was a normal person now, right? Could she buy a magical sword? Well, she’d have to sell it back after the cores worked again, but until then she would have an advantage in the fights…

She went up to it, studying the blade more closely. The chip was quite evident: it was around a finger long, a third of the blade deep. Rust was all around it and running through the whole blade; only a few patches remained of untouched metal. But even a blade like this could be used to pierce someone, even if it would probably break right after. The biggest problem, for Silvy, was the crack through the hilt. Looking closely she could see that it was not only the grasping part that was cracked but the metal inside as well. What had caused this damage?...

“You are… the girl from the other day, right? Don’t even look at that blade; it’s scrap metal. I left it there because maybe someone crazy enough would buy it.”

Silvy turned, seeing the owner of the shop. He was looking at the broken sword irritated as if he had made a bad deal.

“What happened to it?”

He turned to her.

“Happened? Well, it’s been found in the dungeon near the city. It was probably owned by one of the adventurers who went down there. But it has the worst kind of core inside.”

“What do you mean? In the dungeon?”

“You don’t know about that? It’s a rare occurrence. Sometimes, a piece of equipment left behind by someone will form a core. It’s very rare, the core is usually a low-level monster, and it’s not been worked on by an enchanter: they are garbage, unusable. Just like this one, but this is the worst kind of garbage: I shouldn’t have bought it. Damn Skills.”

“It’s not been worked on by an enchanter? You mean it still has the will of the monster inside?”

“Yes, and that’s bad because it can do whatever it wants; no one has ever tamed a monster.”

“And why is it the worst? What core is that?”

The owner raised an eyebrow, looking curiously at Silvy.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s an undead core. Useless cores; they just make the equipment worse. I bet the sword without the core is worth more. I paid five gold coins for it; I’ll take it as a victory if I can sell it at the same price.”

Silvy looked at the sword again. An undead core? And they made the equipment worse? She couldn’t feel anything special from this sword; indeed, it was scrap metal from all points of view.

“Can I touch it?”

“Sure, go ahead. But don’t make the same trick you did last time: I’m not sure this blade won’t fly off if you swing too hard.”

The sword had no scabbard; it was left out in the open air, uncared for. It was obvious the owner wanted to get rid of it, and he probably would do it in the next few days. She grasped the hilt but didn’t remove the blade from the racket; she wanted to be sure it wouldn’t try to attack her.

The sword didn’t react in any way: that was promising. She took it out from the rack, passing a finger over its blade. It was bumpy, rugged; she tried the edge over her finger, but it had no edge to speak of: it was dull, unusable.

She put the sword back; she was now sure she could buy a magical sword with no problem.

“It doesn’t react to your mana, right? Doesn’t matter how many tried in the past, the undead cores have no particular ability. Those monsters are just a plague, nothing more.”

Reacting to mana? Right, you needed mana to create a link with the sword. But no one had ever succeeded?

“It doesn’t react? Why is that?”

“Well, because undeads have no special feature: they are just a bag of dead flesh and bones. Take any monster out there, and they have a specialty, somewhere where they are better than humans. It could be speed, toughness, maybe some magical ability; they may fly, maybe move underground as if it was water. But undead? They are worse than humans in every way. They can barely walk, they are as tough as a normal human, arguably even less; their senses are horrible, and they have no magical ability to speak of, even if the human they come from was a [Mage]. Their only advantage is that they won’t stop until you remove or destroy their core, but what use is that on a sword or armor? It won’t help to hit your opponent, nor will they help dodge or cushion the strikes. They are of no use, and that’s why no one makes equipment with those cores. Only stuff that comes from dungeons may have it, and even then, the rarity of finding magical equipment in there is rare; dungeons use their mana to create monsters more than magical items.”

No special feature? Completely useless? Silvy was not undead right now, but she felt offended; how could he say something like that? Her undead core was much cooler than this guy anyway!

A challenging feeling came over her: she had to respond in some way. She couldn’t dismiss his criticism so lightly!

She took the sword again, making her mana flow inside it. See if undeads are not cool!

Nothing happened. She felt quite stupid: if it had never reacted to anyone, why would it have reacted to her? She was just a child, with no special ability. Her magic came from her heart core and her swordplay from the infallible memory of an undead.

“Everything alright? Do you want to buy the sword? Five gold coins and it’s yours.”

“Didn’t you buy it at five gold coins?”

“Well, yes, but look at its condition: I don’t even know how much I can scrap. If I could sell it at the same price I bought it, I wouldn’t take a loss. What do you say?”

The owner had his best smile on his face: it seemed like he had found easy prey. Who would be so stupid to buy a broken weapon?

Silvy felt conflicted. This weapon was bad: it would probably break at the first swing. There was no way she could use it. On the other hand, this guy had offended the undeads. Her core was useful, alright?! And this sword was undead as well. They were like… family, right?! Yes, she should save this core. Her undead core would thank her later: she would save its family.

“I’ll buy it. But I need another one, not magical…”

Apparently, a common shortsword costed more than an undead magical one, priced at ten gold coins; the owner threw in two scabbards for the swords as well, probably out of pity. She felt even more offended: undeads were not useless, alright?!

Well, she wasn’t undead now, but she would become one again in the future. Doesn’t matter: she had what she came for. Next stop: her badge.

She went into the adventurer’s guild yawning, tired from exercising the whole day. The fee was fifteen silver coins for a new badge, which she paid with no trouble.

She felt much cooler with a sword strapped to her side; obviously, it was the normal one. The undead one had a crack on the hilt; she couldn’t go around with that!...

Jekhum was the next stop. His house was still illuminated: he was still awake. She gingerly knocked on the door, waiting patiently for him to respond. It didn’t take long, and he was surprised to see Silvy.

“Silvy! Come in, come in. I was a bit worried, after what happened…”

Silvy lost a bit of her happiness at those words: she had been responsible…

They walked inside, sitting at the table while talking.

“Hi, Jekhum. I’m here to repay you: you helped me out a lot.”

“Nonsense girl. You’ve made an old man proud; what more do I want? Being the teacher of such genius… I can brag about it for the rest of my life. Just become someone famous, alright?”

He laughed loudly, relaxing the atmosphere. But Silvy was not all right with it.

“No, I insist: you made a good job, and you should be paid for it. Here, fifty gold. I don’t know how much-”

“Girl, what do you think I am? Some kind of knight? I’m just an old man with some experience. Fifty gold is way too much. And I don’t want your money anyway. Have you had dinner yet? I can cook up something if you wish.”

Well, she had eaten dinner with Lindrl, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t eat a second dinner… She was not here for this!

“Please, accept the money. You could brag about that too! Please?”

Silvy made her best puppy face she could muster. No way Jekhum could resist: he was obviously attached to Silvy.

And in fact, his face warped, conflicted between accepting and refusing. In the end, he sighed loudly, taking a single gold coin from the pile.

“Fine, but a single coin is more than sufficient. I feel like I’m stealing anyway; three lessons for a gold coin? I would never ask for that much.”

He stood up from the table, preparing a cup of tea for Silvy. She accepted gratefully, eating a few biscuits he offered; they were good dipped in tea.

Silvy then said goodbye, hugging him briefly, surprising Jekhum, who hugged her back after a second.

Back in the tranquility of her room, after having made some exercises, she took out the undead sword again. Were the undeads really so weak? Her core didn’t seem so… Maybe people hadn’t found their use.

She cradled the sword, making her mana flow inside. There was no response from it as if it was… well, dead.

‘Uhm… Hello? Can you hear me?’

Nothing. Well, it was obvious that this random core would not be as good as hers; she was a much better undead. Mmmh, which reminded her, how she had spoken with her core before…

She concentrated on the hunger she had felt coming from the undead core; it was hard to remember such deep emotion, especially with her stomach full, but she did her best. Her mana changed, mirroring her emotion. Nothing happened. She concentrated more, more: more hunger. A hunger so deep to eat the world, to feast on everything: a small ripple came from the sword, answering her call.

So much hunger flooded back to Silvy: the mana of the core had made contact with her mana, making her feel what it felt. Her hunger was a shallow puddle, while his was as deep as an ocean: no matter how she tried, she couldn’t recreate such emotion, what she had felt back there. But the sword had answered her miserable attempt, made contact: this was something.

What was she supposed to do now? Swing it around?

She did just that, cutting the air. Her room was lightly lit from a candle on her bed table. Shadows danced in the room, following the child dancing around, quickly and nimbly. She was not at the same level as before, she could feel it: but she was not an amateur either. Her grip was unstable on the broken hilt, but she did her best to keep the sword in her hand.

Her mana linked to the sword, she cut around, dancing wildly, careful but freely, until she couldn’t anymore.

Silvy stopped the dance, breathless and sweaty. Having a limit sucked! And the sword hadn’t reacted in any way as far as she could tell. The link was still there, even now that she had forgotten the hunger; it seemed like the sword had accepted her or something. Well, it was unusable anyway; it would break easily…

She put it in the scabbard, but… she didn’t want to break the link. It was… comfortable, familiar. A reminder of when she had been an undead: she went to bed, hugging the sword.

Nightmares tormented her, as they had done for the last few nights without truce. But, this time, every time a nightmare came by, she would eat it. Her mouth, her being, would become giant, inhaling and ingesting the nightmare, burping after it, a smile on her lips. Everything was food: even nightmares.

…..

The day later passed by much the same way, with Silvy training with Lindrl during the day and using the sword a bit in the night. The only difference was that Silvy had taken a bath in the morning, making her feel fresh and clean.

And the day after that, her armor was ready: it was a leather armor covered in brown and green scales, giving a wild vibe. But it was nicely made: it fitted perfectly, with a bit of leeway for when she would grow up.

“How is it? The scales of a Giant Serpent are almost as tough as steel, but the cost of making the armor is lower.”

Silvy could feel the weight, but it was not so much to make her uncomfortable: she could still move around nicely. But she had an idea she had thought about during the day: what if she put belts and dagger around it? When fighting the acid worms, she had danced around, throwing blades of mana around: could she do the same with real daggers?

“Can you add belts with dagger sheaths on them? And I want to buy enough daggers to fill them.”

“Of course, no problem. Do you want daggers all around, only to the side?...”

She explained what she wanted to do: being able to draw and throw daggers when fighting. They settled on belts around the chest and shoulders, crossing in the middle. Three sheaths would be on each belt, six in total, in the front: she would be able to draw and throw them easily, just a little pull and they would come out.

Silvy dressed in the entire set was scary: her whole body was covered in green scales, with the helmet showing only her green eyes. Sword at her side and daggers on her torso, her small stature made the picture only more terrifying: she looked like a snake ready to pounce on his prey, with steel blades as teeth. She liked it.

But she removed her helmet when going around the city: it was not hot enough to be suffocating in mere minutes, but keeping it on for long would give her that sensation; moreover, it impaired her vision a bit.

Her walk through the city attracted quite a few stares: it was not often you saw a child walking around fully armed, ready for war. Adventurers were common, moving around with armor, but child adventurers were not.

Well, she did not need to go back to Lindrl; she told Silvy she had taught her every trick she knew for mana manipulation, and only perseverance in training remained. If Silvy had any doubts, she could go back there, but right now she had none; it was clear what she had to do, she just needed to train more. Her progress was slow but steady: Lindrl had told her that maybe she had average talent, not below-average like she had thought. Well, it didn’t make Silvy feel much better, but it was better than nothing.

Right now it was right afternoon, and she had already eaten at Lindrl’s place before going outside for receiving the armor; she could either go back to her room and train in magic, or she could do something else. The date of the adventurer’s exam was getting closer, and none of her cores were responding; she was getting a bit antsy. So, she decided to go in the sewers again; this time there was no core to help her, but she had no intention of going around to kill three hundred worms. She just wanted to see how worse she had gotten with a sword against a real enemy: nothing more.

Taking the request was easy enough, as was getting to the sewer entrance. A different guard was at the post, with a bored and mildly disgusted face. This post was probably not sought after: Silvy could feel the smell coming from below getting closer. It was not as bad as below, but the guard could smell it, and it was here for eight hours at least. Well, she was going inside: even worse smell awaited her.

She had come from the same entrance, and nothing had changed: the water was still filthy, and the smell was sickening. But she couldn’t stop breathing this time: after a couple of retching caused by a deep breath she shouldn’t have taken, she walked around, taking small breaths, nose on her sleeve.

Mice were quite populous, squeaking and scuttling away from her, running from the big bad human with a sword. She was searching for slimes, maybe something stronger: mice were not an enemy she could measure against.

It didn’t take long to find one: a squishing sound came from around a corner, warning Silvy. She prepared her normal sword, ready to attack. She had to remove the core from the slime, and everything would be over: attacks against its body were not very effective.

A slime as high as her waist appeared from around the corner, detecting Silvy and dashing towards her. It was neither slow nor fast; it would be a danger to a normal human if taken by surprise, but it could be outrun. Silvy zeroed on the core, thrusting the sword inside it the moment the slime was in range. The sword slightly slowed down when entering the slime, but not much: she hit the core, displacing it but not removing or breaking it. The slime recoiled from the hit but came forward a moment later. This gave Silvy enough time to jump back, escaping its reach. Thrusting did not work: maybe swinging was a better idea. She changed the stance, ready to swing the sword against the core. She swung edge first, cutting through the slime, and changed the orientation of the blade towards the end, hitting it with a decent force. The core shot towards the left, outside the slime, plopping directly inside the running filthy water.

“No!”

The slime was dead, but the core was irrecoverable: she was not going inside that water. Silvy sighed, boots slightly wet from the slime falling apart. Next slime…

The sewers were extensive, running below the whole city and a bit outside; there were slimes inside, but not so many to overrun it. Silvy stopped in place and took out her new wand, training her line creation; slow progress was progress, nonetheless. But a line formed with only half of her mana… That was still far away.

She restarted her patrol, and another slime entered her vision after around ten minutes, this time in the middle of a hallway after turning a corner. It hadn’t seen her: time to try something different. She drew and threw a dagger in one swift motion, missing the slime. She had almost hit it: almost. Drawing and throwing were not easy: you had little time to aim; you just had to go with your feelings. At least the dagger didn’t end up in the water: she had just bought them!

She tried again, this time hitting the slime: the dagger implanted itself into the slime body, floating harmlessly inside. Maybe she was too far, maybe she was too weak: but even if the dagger had been on the right course for the core, it wouldn’t have had enough strength to push it outside.

She ran towards the slime, who reacted when she closed the distance, rushing towards her in response. Silvy drew another dagger, throwing it with her left before swinging the sword with her right. The dagger hit the slime, missing the core, but the sword hit the core. This time she had hit the right way and the core shot out against the wall, rolling harmlessly on the floor. After recovering her three daggers, who now smelt awful, she restarted her patrol.

The afternoon passed like that, with Silvy going around the sewers, killing slimes or training in magic after every kill, or when she felt rested. Twenty-six cores were her spoils, twenty-seven kills in total: she had lost only the first core.

The bounty for slimes was low, one copper for two kills: that meant thirteen coppers total. She went to the blacksmiths, who paid two coppers for core; they were used for the creation of bags of holdings, but those so small could create only the smallest kind; moreover, the supply was quite high, so the price was low. Luckily, Silvy was not doing it for money, otherwise, she would hardly have enough for a room at the inn and some food.

In her room, she trained with her undead sword again, even if nothing happened. At least she had no nightmares when sleeping with it; she didn’t know why, but that was not important.

And another day passed. A few days passed like this: Silvy would wake up, have a hearty breakfast in a different place every day, and she would go around the city, eating and tasting various treats from the stalls. But she never forgot her objective: she would stop in one place, create a line with the least mana possible, and then she would continue, recovering her mental fatigue. She was getting better; the time needed to recover was getting lower, and the fatigue accumulated was less as well. But at this rate she would take a year to create a line with only half of the mana coming from her pool; it was so hard! And she had levels in [Mage] as well: how did normal people do it? It would take so long…

Her morning was spent like that, eating away her worries. The people of the stalls started to recognize her, both because she kept coming back and because she always bought several treats. But in the afternoon she disappeared in the sewers: she hunted slimes, searching for something stronger in the meantime. She even went back to the worms’ nest, but the hole in the wall had been completely repaired, leaving no sign of ever existing. As luck would have it, she didn’t find anything else other than slimes and mouses, which was good for the city but boring for her.

Two days before the adventurer’s test, her undead core awoke again, surprising Silvy by speaking to her when she had just woken up.

I am awake.

‘Hey core! How do you feel?’

I am stronger. I am smarter. Speaking is easier. What happened after my sleep?

Silvy recounted the last few days, emphasizing on the magical sword with the undead core.

‘Look! The shop owner was telling me undeads are useless, so I couldn’t let him go! And I bought the sword. Want to see it?’

Silvy felt the core nodding; it was a strange sensation.

Silvy brought out the sword, showing it to her core. He instantly linked his mana with the sword, and…