“Move it, move it!”

The captain’s worry is obvious; the slight tremble in his voice while trying to commandeer half-asleep men is clear. On the sidelines, Melissa watches him with guilt, wondering if this would’ve been prevented if she didn’t kick down the door in her haste.

“Melissa, get moving!”

“Yes, Captain!” She replies, feeling her body go stiff.

She hurries over to the small squadron of men, each of them yawning and looking irritated. Captain Gillard is in the front, leading them with a loud and clear voice. Melissa feels the twinge in her heart once again as her eyes gaze upon his back. She looks away, focusing on the greaves of the man before her.

“Where are we going, Captain? Seems urgent but you only mobilised a few people.”

Captain Gillard clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“There’s a breakout of a spy and he has very important information that we need to have.”

“Huh?” Another man pipes up. “Don’t we execute our spies? Why is he still alive?”

“I arranged for the execution to be at dusk, not immediate. In any case, shut your mouth. We’re going down to the catacombs and I’m not having one of you noisy dimwits wake up the residents.”

“Catacombs?”

It instantly clicks in Melissa’s head.

***

The orb of light seems to form the shape of a doorway.

I quicken my footsteps, motivated by this light and the eagerness to leave the darkness. I realise that even as I got closer, that short-lived breeze that extinguished my torch flames did not reappear. The air is still dry and stale.

Somehow, that raises an alarm in me.

In any case, the best thing to do right now is to investigate this exit.

“Is that…?”

I’ve played enough games to know where the doorway leads to. I can see light in the corridors, illuminated by burning braziers, torches and lanterns hanging on the walls. I quickly rush in, enthused about leaving the long, winding corridors.

Yet somehow, the alarm in my heart isn’t going away.

Perhaps, I still need to stay on my toes.

As I walk down the corridor, I realise that this place has its own beauty. Murals and inscriptions are on the wall, presented either in darker stones or blood-red paint—or blood, perhaps, but I shudder at the thought of it. The floors are solid, marble-like stones, the veining thick and dark.

The corridor itself, however, is much like the dark corridors that lead from my cell. Cold, dry and stale, the air seems less breathable than before.

My ears perk up.

“What’s that?”

My heart rate starts to pick up again. Adrenaline courses through my veins once more. I frantically look around, turning left and right, wondering what sort of thing would make such a noise.

“Fuck…”

That’s when I see it.

I quickly rush over to the wall, squatting down and covering my mouth in case I let out a scream. My eyes are widening. My skin is crawling. My hands are trembling. I quickly put down the wooden club, holding the extinguished torch with one hand. I take a deep breath, spending a few seconds in one breath, then holding it for a few more seconds. Then, I exhale. After a few cycles, I feel my heart rate slow down again.

I hear another creak.

This really is another world after all.

At that moment, it suddenly clicks in me. For all this while, I had been looking at this world as if I was a tourist. I would go sightseeing, then I would leave this place after a while. I had no attachment to this world and to the life that I was given.

Right now? I’m well aware of how weak I am.

If I’m a strong hero, perhaps I could go in swinging my sword or bashing my shield. Maybe, I can throw fireballs and shoot lightning bolts from afar—that seems to be more of my style, but heck, I’m now a weak, pathetic, human being with nothing but a short wooden stick in hand. No tutorial, no pause, no restart. If I die here, I don’t even know if I can go back to the real world or not.

Why am I thinking about the real world?

Is it because I feel safe there? That I don’t have to do anything, yet I can still maintain my lifestyle? Is it because I don’t have to face this sort of dangers?

Do I miss home?

Fuck that place!

Screw it. Screw it!

I peek from a corner, noticing thick, metallic greaves. The metal itself is dark, much like granite, yet looking firmer and sturdier. Much like the walls, blood-red inscriptions can be seen on it, though it looks like the paint has dried up considerably.

Wearing the greaves, however, is a… skeleton.

How the fuck does that make sense? A zombie? No. It’s a goddamned skeleton! It’s a skeleton, live and breathing—no, they probably don’t breathe…

It’s Elgia. It’s a magical world with things such as spatial manipulation. If I can believe that you can connect a portal to teleport from one place to another, then I can believe that there can be skeletons wearing greaves and gauntlets, walking around in a corridor, making creaking noises with each step it takes.

“It’s a skeleton.”

At that moment, I feel a surge in me. Is it courage? Is it bravado? Can I really take down a skeleton? If I think about, this skeleton looks the same as the model in biology class. One time, one of the girls in class bumped into the skeleton and it fell. The model fell apart since the glue dried up a long time ago, and she had to stay back and piece it together or she had to buy a new one for class.

Wait.

What if this is totally different? This skeleton might have stronger bones. Heck, it might not even fall apart if I don’t apply considerable strength. Plus, it’s alive. It can walk. It can move. Its’ hands are free. If I charge for the skeleton without a plan, it might actually fight back.

Yet, when you come down to it, it’s just bones. They’re bones, connected by joints. Those joints creak when it walks. The only thing that I have to be wary of is the gauntlets and greaves. If it decides to smash me with them I’d most likely meet my end here.

Fuck. What do I do? Do I charge?

There’s no sneaking around this one.

The skeleton stands within a small, square room. Ceramic urns, painted in different colours, are placed around the room. Besides that, the area is bare and devoid of any form of decoration.

I look at my extinguished torch.

Can I burn this skeleton down?

I never understood why skeletons are always susceptible to flames. I know cremation can vaporise and deteriorate bones, but it doesn’t work that way in real life. You can’t just burn down a skeleton and then watch it become ash: it’s not like the temperatures of the flames will reach over a thousand degrees Celcius…

Flames are out. Perhaps, if I wielded some sort of flame-shooting tool, or if I’m a flame-shooter myself—no, let’s not think about that. Right now, what stands between me and my exit is a skeleton looking left and right.

I look at my torch.

“Okay,” I mutter. “Here goes.”

All those home workouts at home better be useful right now!

The skeleton turns around, exposing the back of its head. I quickly emerge from the wall. I take one deep breath and ready myself. With a war cry—in my head—I sprint for the skeleton, raising my club.

“Fuck!” I blurt. “Fuck you!”

I bring my club down, smashing against the bones. I can feel the collision creating huge vibrations, reaching my hands and resonating within my bones. The skeleton stumbles forward, then turning back.

Before it can turn back I raise my foot and stomp at its spine.

I hear a crack as the skeleton falls onto the floor, unable to react in time. I rush forward, realising that this is my chance, and I repeat my stomping. Left leg on the spine. Right leg on the ribs. Left leg. Right leg. Left… Right…

At this moment, I feel like a king.

Fucking Elgia! This place sucks balls! I hadn’t had a good meal, hadn’t had a cup of water, hadn’t had time to rest… No one adjusted me to this place, no one gave me an objective, no one gave instructions. I’m on my own in this bloody strange place. Where are my companions that I will somehow meet during the journey? Where’s my overpowered, undiscovered power that I must hide from the masses?

You’re the fucking problem here! Fucking skeleton! Eat my shit! Die! Die!

With pure rage boiling in me, I feel my left foot land on the floor, realising that the skeleton’s spine has snapped a while ago while I was welling in my anger.

The skeleton, with its torso, attempts to crawl away, grabbing at the floor with its hands.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “It’s not like I want to do this. It’s not like I want to kill you. You’re already dead anyway, you’re the undead. You’re not supposed to be alive.”

With that, I grab the bottom of its skull, feeling the cold of its bones. My other hand grabs the hyoid bone, connecting the head to its torso at the neck. I take a deep breath, feeling the skeleton twitching and trying to turn. The hands of the skeletons are flailing about, frantic and in panic.

Like wringing a towel, I twist the skull to the left and the neck to the right.

Not budging.

No matter. Again!

Again!

Ag—

Snap.

The skeleton stops moving.

So, the skeleton dies when the head is severed from the torso?

That’s much like a zombie—or at least, that’s much like the zombies I’ve read and seen in movies.

Now that I look at it, the skeleton seems to be less threatening. No matter how you look at it, it’s just a pile of bones. The only thing that scared me was the fact that this never existed in the real world. Just like how horror movies scare me, it’s the fact that we usually don’t believe that ghosts or abominations exist in the world. Or maybe they do.

Who knows? The point is, this bastard existed in fiction. Right now, I cannot think like that. Things in Eliga are totally different. Magic. Skeletons. Portals. Gods. I must take in everything as if they are true first before doubting them.

Now that I’m embracing that skeleton exists, this does not scare me anymore. I’m not afraid of a walking skeleton, roaming the corridors with its creaking bones and dark, metallic greaves.

I’m afraid of losing my life.

***

“Captain!”

“On it!”

The captain rushes forward, his sword glowing brightly. In one swing, the captain cuts off the head of the skeleton. The force throws the skull a few metres away and it smashes against the wall. The captain finishes the skeleton off with a front kick and what’s left of the skeleton falls apart, leaving only a pile of bones on the floor.

“Captain, there’s more coming!”

The drone of bones creaking and jarring noises as their swords collide against one another come together in a cacophony, debilitating the inexperienced and unwise guards. Unable to stand their ground, some of them throw their helmets on the floor, hurrying back to where they came from in a flash. Some of the others, however, are more afraid of the Captain than their undead opponents, forcing them to take deep breaths as they steady themselves for the clash.

“Get ready!” Gillard signals, the hilt of his sword an arm’s length away from his head.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!”

One of the skeletons strays from the pack, charging forward on its own accord with a long, dark, metal sword. It opens its mouth as it rushes forward, giving a silent war cry.

“Take them down!”

Gillard charges forward in response, swinging his sword in an orbital movement. His sword collides with the skeleton’s ribcage, sending it stumbling sideways. At that moment, he launches himself with his left feet, spinning sideways and landing a kick right at the skeleton’s temple. The skeleton falls, crashing onto the ground.

Melissa rushes for the skeleton and delivers a stomp, smashing the bones underneath her greaves. She relishes in the sickening sound, feeling a tingle in her nerves.

The two’s swift takedown of the skeleton pumps what’s left of the guards with adrenaline and vigour. They quickly take up arms and charge forward as well, throwing themselves into the tempest of battle-hungry skeletons. Skulls begin to fly as the guards swing at them with maces and axes, while the others armed with finer swords stomp the skeletons back to the underworld.

And in several minutes, the raging storm of undead is now reduced to lonely piles of bone.

“Man, that’s fucking scary,” one of the guards mutter.

“Thank Fleuris we lived through that,” another agrees.

They then laugh, jesting behind their Captain and Vice-Captain, wondering out loud if they’re going to meet more skeletons as they go deeper. Some become complacent, going so far as to claim that they may be a hero.

The Captain ignores them, noting that since the morale is high, there is no point to dampen their spirits as they continue their search in the catacombs.

“We might meet stronger opponents, dimwits,” Melissa pipes up in anger, “Don’t get too ahead of yourselves!”

“Ah fu—yes, yes, Vice-Captain…”

Melissa looks on at them with a smirk, her smug expression irking the previously self-absorbed men.

“Melissa is right,” Gillard reiterates, “You must not let your guard down. We’re only in this situation because of a real loudmouth in our midst. Thank Fleuris that he escaped before we started fighting the horde, or I’d have thrown him into the skeletons as a meat shield.”

The guards gulp, making a mental note to shut up when Captain Gillard tells them to.

“Let’s get a move on, the holding area shouldn’t be that far away.”

“Yes, sir!”

***

Now that I’ve beaten the skeleton, what do I now?

The path out from this small square room leads to another room at the far end of the corridor. A chandelier with candles dangles from a rusted chain a good ten metres or so from the floor. Besides that, nothing else seems out of ordinary, the room looking very much the same as the one I’m in right now.

A large bone—probably the femur bone, rolls over to my feet. I kick it aside, noting that back in the real world, doing this would most likely be disrespectful to the dead. Here in Elgia? The dead fucking came to life! What’s there to respect? Who cares!

In my fit, I find myself walking down the new pathway. I look to my sides, realising the walls are filled with mounds made of soil and clay.

I pat on one of them.

Seems like the type of burial mounds that you can find in the Philippines, the ones where they have the coffins in the mountains or something. It’s hanging on the side like these mounds.

This place should be some sort of catacombs.

That’s why it’s so cold here! The temperature is suitable to preserve their bones for a longer time, but I guess this is the result of some kind of magic. Necromancy? It has always come off as a sort of cold, chilling magic, devoid of life and soul. Maybe it’s that.

Who knows?

Right now, the objective is to get out of this place as fast as I can. Fighting the skeleton has drained my stamina considerably after the adrenaline flushes out of my system. The crash after the rush comes quick, causing me to wonder if I can ever do that again. If another skeleton pops out of nowhere, armed or not, will I able to pulverise it like just now?

No time to think. Move. Move. Move.

The pathway leads to a room that’s similar to the square room I was in. Ceramic urns are scattered around the floor, some of them overturned. A large metal cabinet filled with thin, yellowish paper stands near the next doorway.

“Okay, let’s just move, let’s just move.”

Go forward, move quickly, avoid fights.

At my current state, I now realise how rash I was to choose to fight. How was I so sure about winning the fight? Was I motivated by my lack of understanding? Is it perhaps because I embraced death a long time ago, that I could willingly throw my life away just to gamble it on one chance?

I’ll never do it again. Not while I’m only armed with a pathetic, wooden club, which existed as a torch hanging on a wall just a while ago.

I need a better weapon.

Do I have magic?

I look at the Game Menu, noticing a small round circle on the top right corner. The center of the circle seems to align itself directly on the edge of the menu. I pull up the Game Menu, bringing it closer to me, examining the circle.

It’s a dark red, somewhat burgundy, with a white number in the middle.

“Two…?”

What’s this? What is the meaning of this? It looks just like a notification bubble on the smartphone—wait, maybe it is! Maybe it is a notification bubble after all.

Damn. If only I can unlock this Game Menu.

No matter. No matter.

When I leave this place, the first thing I have to do is to find a way to unlock this Game Menu. Then I’ll go around the world, sightseeing, eating the best foods, bedding the best girls…

“Fuck…”

Stop daydreaming, dumbass! Let’s get a move on so I can live that dream!

“That’s the last of—no, there’s more! On guard, men! Defend!”

Wait.

That’s the voice of a man.

And it’s oddly familiar.

I feel my heart sink for a moment.

Bloody hell, don’t tell me...?

I hurry over to the door, stretching my neck out, peeking from the side of the wall.

Skeletons, tall and mighty, stand with shields and swords, deep in a heated battle between the ‘guards’. I quickly scan them, noting a total of five guards and twenty skeletons. Some of the skeletons are standing around, waiting on the sidelines, as if substitutes for a football match.

“What’s going on?”

Then, I see it. One man, without a helmet on, merely combining swordplay and martial arts, swinging his sword and kicking the skeletons like stubbing out the flames of candles. One woman, without a helmet on, here ponytail flailing as she fights, her movements animated yet controlled, the thrusts of her sword seemingly finding the right spots to stab through, cutting the skeletons down in quick fashion.

Seems like it's not just the head that's the weak spot; the whole skeleton itself is a walking dummy.

Wait... what's...?

Brown hair.

Black hair.

Oh fuck.