"Mate, you have a guest." And with those words from Arla, I could feel my pulse rising while another headache threatened to sour my mood for the rest of the day.

Putting the blood-filled mug on the improvised stone table, I just accepted my fate and signaled for Arla to invite our unwelcomed guest inside.

Based on the death aura tingling at the back of my neck for a while now, I was more than certain that it would be quite a tricky encounter. Putting my poker face on, I prepare myself for another life-and-death physiological battle… Like the one from yesterday wasn't enough.

While waiting for the inevitable, I think that maybe coming to this place was a mistake… Although I didn't really have a choice to begin with.

'It's all that dragon bitch's fault!'

Who would have thought that there would be such an annoying dragon that would stalk us for hours after pretending to let us go? If it was not for my newly gained heightened senses, I would have most likely left my guard down, acted naturally, which would have most likely resulted in everyone's death.

After a couple hours of walking through the heavy snow with a bunch of dwarves staring at my naked butt, with the sun ready to be swallowed by the horizon and death looming over us, my fate seemed to change. Passing past a snowy hill, a range of low mountain popped up into view. Although it was a rather strange occurrence, especially since said formation was not present on any map I studied in the past, I had no time to consider it and made way towards them.

Meanwhile, the crazy drake that liked to call herself a dragon stopped following us and retreated, most likely for good this time. At first I was surprised, thinking that it might be some kind of ploy, but soon my suspicions dissipated and realisation struck me as five powerful auras crashed into us.

'Plop'

From behind I could hear the dwarves falling one by one, either unconscious or simply kneeling before a higher power. Only the Queen stayed straight.

'Damn, she really is strong.'

'Seven mountains. Five auras. It looks like I stumbled upon something problematic again…'

"I'll take the third from the left." Speaking to no one in particular while hoping that the owners of the five auras can hear me, I raise my hand and point to one of the two mountains that seemed to be empty.

After a couple seconds of silence, the threatening presences retracted and everything returned to normal like nothing ever had happened.

'Jackpot!'

….…………………………..

With my heart steady and mind back into the zone, I prepare myself to face one of my new neighbours. As the entry to the improvised tent flap, a powerful death attribute wave passes through my body, chilling me in the process to the bones. Meanwhile, a tall ghostly entity, covered in a black robe, makes its way towards the centre of the tent. As tendrils of smoke spread around like a bunch of snakes, I can't stop myself from skipping a beat.

'This might be even worse than the dragon.'

As to confirm my suspicions, the tall entity takes off his black hood, revealing a pure white skull with two jade ghost flames burning slowly inside its eye sockets.

'I take that back. This couldn't get any worse even if a God were to descend and smite me on the spot.'

The problem with dealing with undead beings is that they don't have normal feelings and manipulating them is beyond difficult. Furthermore, away from some random fragments of knowledge from unique books I’ve read in the past, I'm a blank slate when it comes to their type.

"Lucius Enatius de Dano Laos. That is my name." Pausing for a second, the lich moved another step towards me.

Now, less than a metre away, I can fully appreciate just how tall he is, standing at over two and a half metres of height, forcing me to rise my head in order to keep eye contact.

And now I'm faced with a conundrum. Having heard his name, it's only appropriate I provide mine back. The problem I've been facing for the past 36 hours since I've awaken is that I'm not sure what my name is… So far I've just been avoiding the question but now it looks like I'll have to make a choice.

In my head, a bunch of different names and titles keep swirling in a vortex of still incomplete memories. Among those, three stand out, illuminating my inner self with a soft glow. Still unable to choose which one to pick and with the giant lich staring at me, I decide to go for the most sensible and obvious choice of taking parts of all three names and forming a new one in the process…

"Lite Everdeen is my name, but you can just call me Tony." Make it weird. There is no other reason for introducing myself in that manner. As long as I keep giving the impression that I'm more than meets the eye, my chances of surviving this one as well increases dramatically. Extending my hand, I wait with anticipation for his answer, while preparing in the background an additional bluff, just in case.

"Then you can just call me Lucy, neighbour."

'Wait…' The moment he completed that last sentence while extending his skeletal arm, my mind went blank. Then something just clicked into place.

Making sure that the drop of potent blood that has been nourishing and healing my body until now is in my right hand, I shake his. In that moment, a trace of green appears in the flames illuminating his skull, only to return to normal in the next instant.

'Good. He noticed.'

"Pleasure to meet you as well, neighbour. Please have a seat." I reply, while indicating for one of the three carved stone boulder around the table.

Without hesitation, the lich sits down across from me.

'Damn, he is big…' Even now I can't get over how tall this guy is. Let's not forget that liches were born as mortals. As such, I can only imagine how intimidating he would have been before losing his flesh.

Meanwhile, Arla, performing the duty I assigned her for the moment despite her obvious complaints, brought forth one of the last bottle of wine from the personal bag of the King together with one of the wooden mugs and placed them in front of the lich. Then she exited the tent at a rapid pace.

Of course, I didn't expect the lich to be interested in wine, being dead and everything, but the show must go on. Popping the screw, I poured the red liquid in the mug and pushed it slowly towards him.

Giving me a doubtful look was exactly what I expected. Dawning the mug, taking the bottle and pouring another one while giving a brief comment of appreciation on the side, "Good wine…" was not even close to what I hoped to happen.

'Ding!'

Looking at his black clothes, I half expected the wine to end up on the floor, but no such thing happened. I do not know what is occurring inside his robes, but I'm extremely curious.

"I'm glad you like it." Not that I expected you to taste it to begin with. "So say, Lucy, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit today? I doubt you came by just to say hello." Straight to the point. I feel like there is no reason of beating around the bush with this guy.

"What can I say? I was hoping you to be a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, you are just a little vampire."

'Ding! Ding!'

At a momentary loss for words, I had no choice but to take a slow gulp of the foul blood in my cup while preparing a proper answer. Fortunately, years of fooling Luke have forged my ability to adapt to any situation to the utmost limit.

"Eh, what can I say? I'm used to disappointing people."

For a second there I though a smile crept on the liches' face… Although liches can't smile.

"Is that so? Well, I'm not surprised." Replied the lich while taking another gulp of wine. "Although if you were to wear a dress, given your pale skin and thin body, you would not look half bad…"

As if electrocuted, my body jolted back for a second, only to return to normal in the next. That was beyond unexpected. But…

'Ding! Ding! Ding!'

With the alarms ringing louder and louder in my head, I'm almost certain at this point.

It's said that you need a harlot to know another. And I feel like he is just like me, despite being a lich.

"I didn't think you would be interested in that kind of stuff, but I guess it's to be expected from a lich as special as yourself." Although it might sound like an insult, I'm just setting the ground for taking a massive risk.

"Ha ha ha…"

'I didn't even know liches can laugh.'

"By the way, I was wondering for a while now…" Pausing, I redirect my gaze towards his torso. "Where does all that wine end up?"

"In my stomach." Answered the lich like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Can I see it?"

Flinching a bit, the lich looks at me with his eye flames flickering slightly.

Unfortunately for him, I have no intention of letting him think about it properly before hitting the nail in the head.

"Don't get me wrong." Looking into his eyes, I paused. "I have no interest in your skeleton-like body or anything like that. I would like to just pop my head between your ribs through your mantle while you drink some wine in order to see it happening in real time."

For the first time, the lich stops moving entirely. Even the flames in his eye sockets diminish by an order of magnitude, only to explode in the next.

I knew it… The two of us are the same…

'Well, it looks like I might be a rather good harlot…'

That sound wrong somehow.

….…………………………..

*** Arla ***

"Woman, stop wasting time and start working on section three." From behind, Marve calls for me to join the other workers.

"Keep your voice down, idiot." I snap back. "The Count is in an important meeting."

"Hash… You really became his bitch, didn't you?"

'This idiot is really looking for it, isn't he?' Unfortunately for him, he really found me in a sour mood. At the end of the day, it's true that my assigned role is that of a maid, which is beyond insulting for a forger like myself. Even so, I didn't dare to not follow the orders of our saviour.

"You know that I'm not the only one having this role, right?"

And with that, a look of terror covered Marve's face. This idiot might not fear me, but he sure as hell doesn't want to anger a certain extremely overprotective King, especially considering that his daughter shares the same role as myself.

"Anyway, how's it going, Marve? Are the blueprints done?" Changing the subject to calm down the trembling mess before me, I address the crux of the problem.

The Ashguard family Marve is a part of have been the greatest planners of the dwarven empire for generation. Despite being one of the weakest scions in over a thousand years, he is still someone that even the King respects.

"Sections one through seven are done…" Pointing out towards a stone table covered in complicated sketches and countless numbers I refuse to even attempt to understand, Marve moves toward the other end of the room, ignoring me. "I'll take a couple hours of sleep and start working on the rest afterwards."

"Good work." Leaving those words behind, I retrieve one of the last bottle of wine previously reserved for the King's consumption and walk back towards the Count's tent.

"Excuse me mat-… Sir," correcting myself before making a blunder as I'm supposed to address him as "Count" or "Sir" when someone is around, although habits are hard to change, I make my way through the improvised tent's entrance and my mind just goes blank at the absurdity of the situation before me.

"Slower! Drop by drop!"

In the middle of the dimly lit room, a giant naked skeleton is pouring wine from a bottle slowly while the Count is watching it go down his mana coated skeletal throat towards a complicated-looking rune formation that keeps absorbing the wine, with his head inserted inside the Liches' empty stomach.

Before even realising it myself, my body started moving out of instinct, retracing my patting pace by pace until I was outside the tent. Then, turning around, I hurry towards section 3 where the dwarves are busy carving the stone and ice in an empty attempt to forget whatever the hell I just witnessed.