“Erm...” Foster started quietly as he pulled his finger out from in between the ulna and radius and pushed his body off of the ground, picking the arm up as he was at it, “Sorry?” He said nervously as he gave the animated skeleton its arm back.

With a quiet grumble, the skeleton pulled it over toward his shoulder. It snapped it back into place before turning to Foster as he tried moving his arm around again.

Foster was actually pretty nervous right now... He knew that the skeleton said it would be fine to leave, but he still wasn’t sure if it wasn’t just going to get mad. But before anything else happened, the skeleton just turned around and stepped back toward the other two.

“&§$&/%&.” It said, but then, all of a sudden, something appeared in front of Foster again.

[Basic Skill Learned!]

[Arthor Language Comprehension LV. 1]

[Effect] Understand the Arthor Language

[Type – Passive][Cost – None]

“Ar% $§%2§?” The skeleton seemed to ask, and Foster turned his eyes away from the message, “Say that again.” Foster said, and the animated skeleton turned toward the two others behind it confusedly, “Are $§%§§?” It repeated, like Foster asked it to, and he got pretty excited in response, “I can understand you! Holy fucking shit!” He exclaimed. What they were speaking in was obviously a completely different language to English. Still, Foster could at least understand at least one word of what the skeleton said now.

Excitedly, Foster stepped through the message and followed the skeleton over toward the other two. However, Foster was a bit more hesitant to approach them. It was apparent that the skeleton that Foster fought was just completely holding back against him.

“Really need to practice some more...” He muttered to himself quietly, before the shortest of the three skeletons, the one with the rusted armor, slowly spoke, “&§$&1§ real% !2§%!?”

[Basic Skill Leveled Up!]

“Jakob! Be q!%&!” Slightly surprised, Foster turned toward the shortest skeleton and squinted his eyes, “Jakob?” He asked, and the skeleton swiftly turned toward him.

“You &)§$((and us?” Jakob, the animated skeleton, asked with surprise. Foster just slowly nodded his head, “If you just asked me if I understand you, then the answer would be yes...” Foster replied, unsure what exactly he should do, whether he should sit or keep standing awkwardly like this.

With a slight grumble, the skeleton that had the knife with him scratched its cracked-up chin, “So it’%§ not an idi%1?”

‘Did the guy with a literal empty head just call me an idiot?’ Foster thought to himself, weirdly annoyed by the fact that he was insulted by a talking skeleton instead of worrying about why a skeleton was talking in the first place. He then just smiled wryly.

“I’ll let you know, if shit didn’t happen, I’d have finished High-School at the top of my year.” He exclaimed rather annoyedly, and the skeleton that Foster spoke to slowly stood up.

“A hi&3% school? A &%!%§ Academy?” He asked, seemingly confused, and another message appeared in front of Foster.

[Basic Skill Leveled Up!]

“Tell me, are you a master of the &!§6§?” The skeleton asked with surprise, and Foster just looked at him with a wry smile, “I’m a master of Mac’N’Cheese, but I doubt that’s what you asked...”

“What is this Macken Cheese you speak of?” The skeleton asked curiously, but Foster just shook his head, “Yeah, nevermind. Erm... Could you maybe tell me where I am? I just woke up in this forest and was nearly ripped apart by those Lunacides...”

“You have no recollection of how you got here?”

Immediately, Foster shook his head, “I don’t...”

“Well, well... This is the forest of Artia. It’s pretty dangerous here, young lad. You’re an unlucky one, it seems.” The Skeleton said as it cupped its chin in between its index finger and thumb before Foster looked at him with a wry smile.

“You could say that...” He replied, not really being able to deny it all that much. Seemingly in thought, the Skeleton turned its head to look Foster up and down before turning toward the other two, “Jakob, Ernard, don’t you two think he might be a good fit for the &/=%&?”

Instantly, the two other skeletons looked at each other for a moment confusedly, “Boss, that guy? For the &/=%&?”

“Of course! He may be quite weak right now, but he has fair potential! If we bring him there for the &/=%&, then everything might work out.”

“Wait, what’s the... whatever you guys just said?” Foster asked confusedly. They didn’t seem like bad guys, despite how they looked, but Foster still had a bad feeling about this. But before he could react, the tallest and seemingly strongest of the skeletons, the ‘Boss’ that Foster fought against, swung his arm around the young man’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry about that. Let’s just get going, bud. It’s going to help you out, I think. I doubt you want to stay in the open tonight, right?”

“Oh! Is that a house or something? Or a town, even?” Foster guessed excitedly, and after some thought, the skeleton nodded his head, “You could say that, yes. It’s going to keep you safe from the creatures out here at night.” The Skeleton said, and Foster smiled brightly, not believing how lucky he was!

“I’m so glad I met you three!” He exclaimed, and with a light chuckle, the skeleton nodded his head.

“Likewise, young man. Let me introduce ourselves.” He started, and as the group of four was walking through the forest, Foster got to know who each of them was at least.

The shortest one, Jakob, was seemingly pretty aggressive and cold, like Foster already experienced. His rusted armor that covered just part of his torso and his jute pants were obviously not part of the same set. The spikes on his club were already so dented that they could barely be called spikes anymore.

He was missing three of his fingers, one on his left hand and two on his right hand, and had a crack running through the lower part of his eye socket. Some teeth were missing as well, and that looked slightly weird when you saw where each tooth was supposed to be.

Then there was Ernard. He was really just wearing some basic, relatively thin, and ripped up jute clothes. They didn’t seem to be all that special, but what did stick out was the belt that was tightened basically just around his spine because it was pulled as far as even possible. And attached to that belt was a ripped-up sheath that the knife was hanging in. The knife was actually way too small for the sheath, so Foster was sure that it would just fall out there at some point. While he was also missing a couple teeth, the only other thing that seemed to be off about him was that he had a crack in his chin.

And then there was Georg, the boss of these two. Foster couldn’t really say much about him since his whole body was covered in a cloak. He didn’t see any weapons before while they were ‘fighting’, and he didn’t really seem to have any cracks in his body either. Out of these three, Georg was obviously in the best condition.

They were walking and talking for maybe two hours, during which one of Foster’s thoughts grew deeper and deeper. There was something else going on. He thought he was lucky before, but that was because he was really excited and desperate then. But now that he could think about it a little, this was just way too weird.

They wouldn’t keep speaking about that weird thing at all either, so Foster had to clue where they were actually going. Just to be safe, Foster came up with a dumb excuse to change into his running shoes and his gym pants, because he was more agile in them.

Soon, Foster also started to see what seemed to be stone bricks in the distance. The closer they got, the more those stone bricks took the shape of a well that was just standing in the middle of nowhere.

“Alright, we’re here.” Georg pointed out as he placed his hand onto the edge of the well and just looked inside, and Foster stared at him confusedly.

“What do you mean?” Foster asked with a deep frown, and with a slight grumble, Georg crossed his arms, “You see, even if it may not look like it, but this is a pretty important place, you see?” Georg pointed out, obviously acting as if Foster was an idiot like he had been the whole time they were speaking to each other.

“Down there is actually something that we really, really need. But because we, as Undead, can’t enter that place, we need someone that lives to go there.” The Skeleton explained, but Foster just stared at him with a deep frown.

“Right, and why are you leaving out the fact that I will need to fight something there, and that I can’t get back out?” Foster asked with his arms crossed, and Georg’s posture immediately changed to be far, far more intimidating as he tried to tower over Foster.

“Oh, so you’re not as much an idiot as I thought you were. How’d you figure that out?” Georg asked, and annoyedly, Foster pushed his hand into his jacket’s pocket, slowly turning on his phone as he simply shrugged.

“You don’t seem like the kind of guy that’d just want to fight random people. And because you only suggested it after finding out I don’t know how I got here, you must have been thinking nobody would know that I’m here.” Foster pointed out, and just waited for his phone’s slight vibration to tell him that it turned on properly.

“If you’re curious, I also have a pretty good idea of what’s actually down there.” He explained, and Georg looked down onto Foster with an intrigued chuckle. The young man started to pull random shit out of his ass to keep Georg, Jakob and Ernard distracted a bit longer.

“I think the most likely thing is something that will let you come to life again. And properly this time, so that you aren’t just skeletons anymore. Or maybe there’s a clue down there to bring you to the one that did this to you.” Foster laughed, and once he finally felt the slight buzzing in his hand, he started to pretend as if he was scratching his head while pressing the button on his headphones for a little while.

“Well, that all is probably not right. It’s probably just that you guys are looking for the dicks you lost after turning into skeletons. By the way, Siren, play the ‘Smooth Moves’ playlist.” Foster said with a grin on his face after confirming that his headphones connected with his phone’s Bluetooth. The very next moment, he could already hear the music start playing.

“Now, you three bony motherfuckers, either you bring me somewhere where I can actually sleep tonight, or I’ll find some dogs to feet you to.”

“Heh... Bad choice, kid. Didn’t you already see that you don’t stand a chance against us? Jakob, Ernard, get started.” Georg said with a slight chuckle, and the two skeleton goons swiftly took out their respective weapons to swing them at Foster.

But before they could even start swinging at him, Foster already let his backpack drop to the ground. He kicked Jakob’s metal chest plate while pulling on the part of Ernard’s belt that was sticking out a fair amount and pulled on it as sharply as he could to pull Ernard toward him.

Since he was really just made of bones, he was incredibly light, so Foster was able to do that fairly quickly. What was also easy was to then slip behind the imbalanced Ernard and kick the back of his knee. He was pulling his leg sometimes, so Foster figured it wasn’t in as good a shape as he was letting on outwardly.

And just like he assumed, Foster pulled out Ernard’s leg from the pant-leg with his foot a few moments later. The very next moment, Jakob was swinging his club at Foster. Still, now that the young man had something new in his hands, he was swiftly able to defend against the attack by holding the leg in front of him.

But even then, the thin fibula cracked in half instantly, but Foster didn’t really mind. He swiftly pulled one of the two fibula-halves out and slammed it in between Jakob’s ulna and radius. Since Jakob just now realized that Foster just broke his friend’s leg, he was a bit careless. That was probably the only reason why he could do that.

With all that he could, Foster then tried to push Jakob’s arm toward his chest using the broken fibula as help for that. He guided one end of the fibula into one of the chest plate’s holes and then snapped the other side into it as well so that Jakob’s arm got stuck on his own armor for a moment.

Using that chance where Jakob couldn’t use his massive club, he just proceeded to punch the underside of his jaw.

With a light snapping-sound, Jakob’s head flew a meter or so into the air, and the young man held his hand out and swiftly caught it before staring over toward Georg with a grin.

“I knew it. I’m useless without Music.”