Another uneventful day had gone by and it was now early in the morning with the sun low in the horizon, Allen was sitting at a park bench waiting for Nera and yawned. The park he was in was fairly sprawling with several pathways for people to walk. It was next to a medium-sized forest that was right at the edge of the park’s perimeter.

‘Where is she? She should’ve been here by now.’, Allen thought to himself and looked at his phone to see the time was 5:11 am. He was getting increasingly annoyed about having to wait in the cold. It was summer but early in the mornings still had a sharp chill to it. He looked over the message he had gotten from Nera yesterday.

‘Going to be a little late meeting up to go to the Luminaire tonight’

Apparently, she had tried to get in contact with him while he was at his meeting for Dezigners and had gone to Coffee & Chronicles to find him. Allen shivered, not from the cold but at the thought of Amy and her being in the same room.

At that time, Allen had understood and waited patiently but this would make two days in a row where he had to wait on the monochrome-haired young woman and the conditions were a lot more bothersome than last evening.

He rubbed his hands together for a measly bit of warmth. He and Nera had been going to R&R Lounge every other day since they first went there and hoped that other patrons would be able to give them any information about possible specter sightings they could track down. It was not until just last night that this actually came about. Luka and Evelyn told them about recent sightings of a “spill” in the eleventh ward and they decided to both go check it out first thing in the morning the next day.

If they could not get a request to deal with specters, searching for the monsters themselves was the next best thing since the specter stones were also worth some money. Apparently, a lot more than what Nera had thought previously and whoever she was exchanging them with before had been ripping her off.

‘Probably didn’t have many options not being able to go to the Luminaire herself.’

As he thought this, he heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the dewy grass and turned to see it was Nera, her hair as messy as ever and yawning. She was wearing her usual purple and black tracksuit.

“Hope you had a nice sleep. You’re just a little over thirty minutes late.”

“Can it, I spent the extra time finding these. Here, take one.”, she threw him a brown pouch with a belt attached to it. After catching it, Allen scanned it over and did not see anything out of the ordinary with it and noticed she already had one on her waist.

“What’s this supposed to be for?”

“For any specter stones we get of course. We might not have enough room for them in our pockets.”

“Stones? As in more than one specter being in the leak, is that likely to happen?”, Allen inquired worriedly.

“No, but it’s not exactly like it’s against any rules for multiple specters to show up in the same leak so we’ll need to be wary of that.”, Nera elaborated.

“And the likelihood of that happening exactly?”

“Eh, chances of more than one “wraith-class” specter showing up is very slim. Wraiths are stronger than average specters with a unique appearance and powers like the mandrake I saved you from before. However, there’s a moderately higher chance of several weaker “shades” appearing.”

“Shades..so they’re like common video game mobs while the Wraiths are the bosses of the dungeon.”, Allen rationalized to himself. Suddenly, Nera fiercely grabbed his arm and leaned down to look him directly in the eyes.

“Not at all, this isn't a game, Allen. Every single specter is a lethal threat that could kill you or anyone close to you in the leak at any moment. Engrave that in your heart and promise me you’re not going to die a careless death to one of them. If not, there’s no way I’m letting you go in there.”, her voice was resolutely serious.

“I promise, I’m not going to die a careless death. I’m not going to an early grave.”

Nera was pleased by this answer and relinquished her grip only for Allen to grab her arm as she was retracting it.

“It’d be reassuring if I could get the same promise from you, Nera.”, Allen said solemnly.

“I can promise you the first one but I’m not so sure I can avoid an early grave.”, Allen loosened his grip in surprise and Nera pulled her arm back. She averted her gaze then stood back up straight.

“What do you mean by that last part?”

“Hmph, I eat way too much junk food to be able to live that long.”, she jested.

“Eat too much of that stuff and you’ll get bad dreams.”, Allen could tell she did not want to talk about it and decided not to push further. The topic of death was not something he was enthusiastic about discussing anyway.

“Hmph, I can handle a few nightmares. Now, enough about me. How’s your aura training come so far?”

“See for yourself.”, Allen unwrapped his bandages and then retrieved the mandrake specter stone from his pocket. Then, a wispy mist aura enveloped his body before it condensed over his arm and took on a much darker tone and more rigidity.

However, Nera just stared on innocuously.

“You know I can’t see mystic energy outside of the Underworld and leaks, right?”, she questioned. At that moment, the aura around Allen’s arm dispersed back around his body at his surprise and deflation

“Oh yeah. I forgot. In that case, let’s just say I developed the ability to concentrate my aura on just a single body part like my arm in order to make it extra durable with more offensive power. Although, even with both the mandrake stone and the harmonica’s crystal, I’ll probably only be able to keep it up for about a dozen minutes overall before they need to recharge. It’s still super cool, right?”

Nera nodded in approval. “I’ve seen what you can do with them before, so it should be enough to handle any specters we encounter. With my help of course. By the way, have you thought of a name for it yet?.”

“This? I hadn’t even considered it.”

“Well, you should. Giving a name to your skills helps solidify your image of it and your skills can become stronger the stronger your image of them is. That’s what I was taught and it just makes sense to me.”

“So that’s why you name your moves but that advice sounds like it's for people like Crafters.”

“That’s because it is. Even if it’s not what it was originally meant for, you can still incorporate valuable information from all sorts of sources into your life in new ways. Make sure you consider that lesson, lackey.”

“Hmm, I guess I get what you’re saying but I’m still not your lackey.”

Nera crossed her arms and turned away from him.

“You know a lot of people would be thrilled to have my leadership. What’ll you do if I leave you for them?”, she teased in a jovial tone.

“Alright, you ready to head out then? Wait, did you say something?”, Allen asked as he finished wrapping the pouch around his waist and storing his specter stone in it.

“Ugh..”

‘Wow, that offer is sounding really tempting now.’, Nera thought.

Nera then lukewarmly responded by signaling in the direction of the forest and then giving a thumbs up. Allen nodded and they both started walking briskly towards the gathering of trees.

When they got up close to the forest, Allen stopped as he saw a familiar veil of spectral energy in front of them.

“You stopped, this is the place then, right?”, Nera asked.

“Yeah, hard to imagine I'm diving into the lion’s den again willingly.”

“We don’t have much of a choice though, do we?”

“Yeah.”

They proceeded to walk through the veil with barely any resistance from it. Allen could feel a noticeable difference in how the air around him felt, a lot denser. When he looked into the sky, he could see a segmented ring of clouds hovering the area that looked too geometric to be natural.

The two only ventured a few moments into the expanse before spotting someone walking ahead of them. They were a blonde-haired man dressed all in black wearing a button-down shirt, slacks, and formal shoes. Alarmed, they both rushed to intercept him.

“Hey man, what’re you doing out here?”, Allen asked frankly, causing the man to turn back towards them in surprise.

“Huh? Oh, I’m just going to the cemetery close by and decided to take a shortcut through the forest.”, the man explained.

“Uh, don’t think you should go this way. I hear there’s a lot of wild bucks out here and if you’re not careful they’ll ram into you.”

“Yeah, they’re like everywhere and they’re like...mega aggressive. So how about we just escort you out of here?”, Nera urged, pointing to where they had come from.

“But, you two are here so it can’t be that dangerous. I have something important to take care of, so if you don’t mind I’ll be on-”, his words were cut off by a monstrous hand hitting him from the side and sending him hurtling into a tree. He collapsed against it with blood beginning to trickle from his head. The arm was stretched a wide length and they both watched as it retracted, seeing the source of the attack. It was a towering humanoid creature at least four meters tall with rockish armor and a dark blue tint. The armor had several norse runes on it and it wore a horned viking helmet.

“Nera, is he alright!?”

“Not sure if “alright” is the right word but he’s breathing.”

Allen sighed in relief, “Okay, let’s try to get this thing away from him.”

“On it, I’ll send this thing packing.”, Nera ran up to the monster, leaped into the air then kicked it in its chest. The creature was knocked back quite a distance but remained on its feet. It followed after Nera as she ran past it. Allen took this time to gather mystic energy into his arms before going after the specter himself.

After getting a good distance away, Nera began attacking the creature with wide kicks before snapping her fingers to don her gauntlets and use her fists as well. Once this happened, Allen was able to catch up and threw a punch of his own at the specter’s back charged with mystic energy. The force expelled from the impact sent the creature a meter into the air which set up Nera up for a flying kick into its face.

The monster was knocked back again and its back arched inhumanly before regaining its balance. With a guttural growl, it continued swiping its large clawed hands at them. It was a little sluggish, moving a step slower than Allen so even he did not have that much trouble avoiding it.

“So that’s how it feels to punch something with mystic energy. It’s like I’m wearing a thick boxing glove but can still directly touch what I’m hitting.’

Allen stretched his fingers out and back. He was expecting it but it still felt strange how there was not any pain even after punching something that felt like a solid rock wall. He took this as a plus though of course and refocused his attention on the wraith-class specter.

When Nera created another opening with a strike sending it off kilter, Allen punched it again to further disorient it. Then, a large amount of dark blue light began to concentrate in one of its arms.

“Allen, watch out! It’s going to use that stretching attack again!”, Nera yelled.

“Roger!”

Allen was able to easily dodge the highly telegraphed attack but he was still unnerved by how fast the arm launched forward and the strong gust of wind that came with it. It was like a boulder being thrown at him at high speeds.

“That attack would’ve done a lot more damage to that guy if it was from this distance, but how did this thing even manage to get as close as it did without us noticing!?”, Allen started to feel drained from the encounter and talking while fighting was not helping in this regard.

“Not sure, probably some spectral ability of its.”, Nera stated before backflipping to avoid an attack from the monster and then leaping onto the high branch of a tree. This gave her a moment of reprieve as the specter gathered mystic energy to launch one of its arms again at her.

“Got any ideas of what kind of mythical creature it's drawing from? Wraiths usually take the form of something from all types of old stories although they can be fairly off from how they’re depicted in legends. Still, finding out which one can give you an idea of what it can do and…”, right before she was going to finish her sentence, she leapt off the branch towards the specters just as it attacked.

Her kick came crashing down on the creature’s head and smashed it into the ground with a loud thud. Despite this, there was still no visible damage on it aside from the various cracks that were already on it before they even started battling it.

“...how to beat it. We’ve been clobbering this specter for a while now but not making any progress.”, Nera bounded back from the creature to where Allen was standing.

“Uhh, let me think about it..”, Allen glanced around and spotted several blades, shields, and even jewelry scattered around the forest he had not noticed before.

“Those probably aren’t normally there so it's probably related to the specter’s myth. Not sure how tho..”, Allen chuckled meekly and averted his gaze. He was feeling a little useless. Nera was the one doing most of the work and he could not even assist in the one of the only things he was kind of good at, knowing random trivia about myths and legends.

“Don’t sweat it much, just think it over. While you’re doing that, I’m going to do a heel move and stomp on it while it's on the ground.”, with that, she leaped high into the air before coming crashing back down

“Magical Double Foot Stomp!”

“Still can’t see what’s magical about that,”, Allen muttered to himself in exasperation at the tacky naming scheme of her moves.

He watched as she was about to land a heavy blow on the specter but at the last second, the monster suddenly sunk completely into the ground and Nera just landed on solid earth with a strong impact that kicked a low cloud of dust into the air.

“What the hell!?”, Nera shouted out then suddenly tensed up as she heard a muffled sound from underneath with her cybernetic ears.

“Jump to the left, right now!”, Nera shouted at Allen who hesitated for the briefest of moments in confusion before throwing himself into the ground away from where he stood. Not a second later, an arm sprouted out from the ground at an alarming speed going right through where his head had just been. He had taken the fall, instinctively feeling he did not have enough time to dodge properly.

Nera leaped back much more gracefully to avoid another arm that came up from the ground.

“Ugh..”, Allen grunted as he picked himself off the ground.

“It can do that too? So unfair.”, Allen did not have much time to complain as Nera warned him to dodge another attack and the two began running out of this area to hopefully make it harder for them to be hit.

“You got any idea now what this thing is? Because that could really help.”, Nera inquired once more.

“Yeah, norse runes, viking armor, shape changing, and especially swimming through the earth. I should’ve realized it before, it’s a draugr.”

“A draw-what?”

“An undead warrior monster from Norse mythology that tends to hang around its burial site and fiercely guard its possessions. Probably that’s what all the stuff laying around is supposed to be representing.”

“Okay, know anything about how to defeat one of them then?”

“They have a weakness to iron in the video game I was playing the other day.”, Allen stated frankly. He knew this did not sound credible.

“I’d be fine with that if we had any iron.”, she then tapped one of her gauntlets.

“Steel.”

Allen grabbed the harmonica under his arm.

“Silver.”

‘Not like I could really use it as a weapon anyway.’

“That plans a bust then, got any other-watch out!”

Nera pushed him out of the way just as arm came hurtling towards him from behind.

“Thanks...”, Allen uttered in winded breaths. The long run was taking its toll on him.

“No problem, you need to watch out for them too. You got the stellar power to see mana itself, use it!”

Allen nodded in agreement. He was used to seeing magic with his eyes but sensing it without his sight or other senses was not something he could do quite yet. He wanted to try though, so he closed his eyes and attempted to focus on mystic energy in his surroundings.

He did not feel anything for a while. Eventually, he noticed a large concentration of mystic energy just under them and that it was rising and then erupting straight towards him.

“Left!”, Allen shouted out loud.

“No, right!”, Nera pulled him out of the way as another strike of the draugr’s inhumanly long limb came up from the ground right where he was going to move to.

“On second thought, maybe trying to figure that out is not something you should be trying to do right now. Just follow my lead, lackey.”

“Yes ma’am.”, Allen was all too eager to follow her words since this time, the draugrs claws had ripped through the side of his jacket nearly grazing his skin. The two continued running through the expanse aimlessly until Allen spotted a large dark axe embedded into the ground on top of a nearby hill.

“Hey, I think I’m going to give plan A another try.”, Allen declared and then charged towards the weapon.

“Wait, what?”, Nera exclaimed before dodging back from a claw that was directed at her this time.

When Allen reached the axe, he leapt to grab hold of it and then held up in front of him. It was lighter than he thought it was going to be.

“This might be the iron we need! I”, Allen called out preparing to intercept the draugr’s next attack at him. He was at the edge of the hill so one could only come from in front of him.

“Not sure about that..”, Nera started to voice but before she could continue an monstrous arm came flying out of the ground directly towards Allen at an incredible speed. Anticipating it, Allen evaded to the side and slashed at the arm with the axe but the blade and most of the handle harmlessly shattered upon striking the arm.

“Damn it!”

“Move, Allen!”, Nera yelled but swinging the axe with most of his weight behind it made him lose his footing and he had no time to react to her command before another ghastly clawed limb was launched toward him. He tried blocking with what was left of the axe’s handle but the hand simply ran straight through it and crashed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him hurtling over the edge of the hill.

As he briefly passed through the air before falling, as if time itself had slowed, Allen looked at the warped sky up above and thought a pointless thought.

‘Ah, it was made of pure ether. That’s why it was so light.’

***

‘As a young child, I thought I had a clear concept of death. It was an encroaching inevitability that would steal my loved ones someday in the distant future and something that would eventually end my time in this world when I was old and had experienced life to the fullest. I thought it was as simple as that.

That was until there was an accident at the construction site my dad worked at. He was mostly unscathed but a co-worker of his had been brutally crushed by steel beams. Although my dad knew him, he felt like just an idea to me. So even though someone had died that was tangentially connected to me, I did not feel much at first.

But when we went to his funeral and I saw the man's lifeless body lying peacefully in the ornate casket, I thought about how young he looked and then gravity seemed to concentrate on my frail body as the concept of death became not so distant as before. Death is truly a heavy weight to bear...but I won’t let it crush me.’

Allen woke up with a start on the ground, sitting immediately up. He then looked around. He was surrounded by several people in dark clothes. Some of them had shovels and all of them were looking at him curiously. He realized he was in the cemetery that neighbored the park. In front of him, there was the hill he had fallen from with the hazy veil of the expanse around it.

Allen quickly got up to his feet and then eyed one of the shovels of the people around.

“Hey! Is that shovel made out of iron?”Allen asked the middle-aged man who was holding it.

“Dammit, can I get it off of you still, I’ll pay.”, Allen stated as he grabbed a wad of cash out of his wallet.

“Uhh..sure, we’re already done planting some trees here anyway. I would’ve given it to you for free though ”, the man took Allen’s money readily and handed him the shovel. As soon as Allen took hold of the item, he sprinted off to the hill.

“What exactly are you going to use that for anyway!?”, the landscaper called it.

“I’m going wild buck hunting!” Allen shouted out to all of the other men’s bewilderment.

***

“Shit!”

Nera was still avoiding the draugr’s wide-reaching attacks while not being able to reach where it was. She had a considerable amount more endurance than the average person but even hers was starting to wear down.

“I can’t find a way to beat this thing, it’s so much stronger than what I’m used to facing and I don’t even know if Allen’s-No.", she shook her head to force out doubt "He promised...I’m going to believe in him.”

Nera would have gone after Allen but the expanse’s barrier was just at the edge of the hill and she could not get through it on her own. However, this meant that Allen must have cloaked himself reflexively in aura to shield against the draugr’s strike in order to have passed through it. This reassured Nera that he was still okay.

“Maybe I should try this then?”, Nera pulled out her ribbon baton and shifted it into its scythe form with her now being able to see the blade. When the draugr attacked again, Nera slashed at its arm but it just passed through with no apparent affect. Frustrated, she returned to its baton form and put it away again.

“Nera!”, she suddenly heard a yell from close by. It came from Allen who had entered back into the expanse carrying a shovel. A wide grin of relief showed on Nera's face.

“I got an idea on how to beat this thing. Follow me!”

Not having any good ideas herself, she went along with his words and followed him as he went deeper into the forest away from the edge of the expanse. Eventually, they reached a large tree where he stopped at.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to try to dig it up with that shovel. Cause that plan is a hell of a lot worse than your last one!”

“Of course not, I got a way better idea than that.”, Allen assured.

“And that is..”, Nera inquired as she leaped out of another attack.

“Those cracks in its body are probably weak points. I can use this shovel’s edge to break into them and the first thing I’m going to do with that is pin it down. How long do you think you can hold onto one of its arms?”

Nera contemplated this for a half a moment before answering., “If I use my full strength then about 20 seconds at best.”

“Alright, that should be enough. Do that on its next attack while we stand next to this tree.”, Allen readied the shovel in his hands like a javelin. Sure enough, the monster again launched one of its arms out from the ground at the two of them. However, instead of dodging the strike, Nera grabbed hold of the arm and used all of her might to keep it from retracting.

Moments passed excruciatingly slowly for her with her muscles beginning to scream in agony and her heels digging deeply into the ground. The rocky exterior ripped through her tracksuit sleeves revealing her prominent veins.

“That’s good, just a little bit longer…”

A few seconds after that, another arm came hurtling towards him, He evaded to his left. Then, he envisioned lines of mana extended from his aura to the shovel and covered the item with a dark cloak of mystic energy, he propelled it into both of the arms through the cracks in the draugr’s body. This pinned it down to the tree and embedded the shovel’s edge deeply into the tree’s trunk.

“Remember what you said about naming my technique? I decided to call this “Subtle Iron”.”, Allen stated, referring to the concentrated cloak of dark aura he had been using.

“Ah..”, Nera grunted out, still struggling to hold the draugr.

“Now, with its arms pinned. It’s gonna have to retract but this time it's going to be brought to us instead.”, Allen started gathering mystic energy into his legs.

After several moments, just like he said, the draugr came rising out of the ground and charging towards them. Allen focused in on a large crack on its neck.

“They say one method of killing a draugr is decapitation but I’m not sure I can...”

“Just get it over with already.”

“Right.”

Allen then bounded forth from the tree in a burst of mystic energy at the specter, moving faster than its now free arms could retract.

WIth a fierce slash, he brought the shovel down into the crack on its neck that led it all the way into its chest and then released all of the mystic energy he had stored in the shovel’s edge to burst open the draugr from inside out. This revealed a glowing dark blue stone in the center of its body. With an “iron” cloaked hand, Allen reached out to grab it. The moment he grabbed it though,let go of the stone and froze in place. This gave the half-beaten monster just enough time to finish retracting its claws and swing them down towards him.

As swift as the wind, Nera lunged past Allen and gouged her fingers into the draugrs chest to take hold of its specter stone and then sliced off what little of its neck was left with her other hand.

Instantly, the undead sentinel of the burial site collapsed into rock and dust onto the ground with the specter stone remaining in Nera’s grasp.

They had defeated the wraith-class specter. They were both drenched in sweat and breathing heavily with visible clouds appearing in the cold air.

Then, suddenly, Allen collapsed onto the ground.