Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 66

Mortimer had thought that he was pretty good at hiding, and pretty good at fighting. He’d also thought that master Valarao’s training had been hard. It turned out he was wrong, or at least, not entirely right. Everything he thought was true, to some extent. However, it was also incomplete. Mortimer learned this, because he gained a new perspective.

Blood flowed out of his neck. Then, he felt a slight pain, then noticed a shadow. In that order. Unfortunately, that was the last thing he ever saw… in that iteration of his life. Of course, he immediately respawned, in a new location. Mortimer immediately move to hide. This time, he died in a different manner, but again without seeing master Valarao, or even noticing that he’d been seen. Maybe Mortimer was above average at hiding, but he couldn’t say he was good in front of master Valarao.

Next, he stood in a dojo, facing off against master Valarao. He started off with a feint… and died. He wasn’t exactly sure how. Next was a real stab, with the same results. He tried focusing on his foot movements, but it seemed to not help. Master Valarao was too fast. However, Mortimer couldn’t really say that it was unfair. After all, he had the same specs as Mortimer right now, with muscle power and other bodily abilities set by the computer. Instead, Mortimer just couldn’t react properly to master Valarao’s moves, even when he knew they were coming. The problem was he didn’t know which move was coming, and also didn’t know the exact timing. Which was the point, of course. The exact timing was very important. Still, Mortimer felt like he had when he’d first started learning, as if he hadn’t improved any. A novice at fighting.

There was no time to rest. He came back to life in different places, at different distances, somewhere that people could hide, or in an open dojo. In all cases, he died within moments. At first, Mortimer thought master Valarao was cheating, at least in the hiding sections. Maybe he always appeared where he could see Mortimer. However, Mortimer knew that wasn’t true, but the thought briefly made him feel better.

Mortimer eventually began to feel something odd. He hadn’t felt the feeling much, and thus took some time to figure it out. Then, he knew it was fear. It wasn’t fear of death. Besides the fact that he couldn’t actually die here, he really wasn’t scared of death. The pain… very brief pain wasn’t even the slightest issue. It was nothing like being mauled by a tiger, or swimming in a pool of acid, or drinking poison. Instead, what Mortimer was afraid of was not being in control. He was afraid of dying without knowing it was coming. He was afraid of not being able to react to moves that he should be able to react to.

Mortimer tried to ignore his fear, but that didn’t work. It just grew worse. So, Mortimer accepted it. He was afraid. However, he didn’t have to stay that way. He would get better. Maybe not today, but in tomorrow's training. Speaking of which, Mortimer wondered when the training would end. It had been at least several hours. Normally, it wasn’t that long. Well, Mortimer also wasn’t keeping track of time well here. Maybe it just felt longer because each encounter, and thus each life, was short.

They were short, but Mortimer began keeping track of time. However, that only lasted for a few minutes. Then he counted deaths. After he got to 100, he started to lose track. Then he approximated every 10 deaths. However, he soon realized he was dying faster. He’d lost concentration. He was tired. Still, he could do a little bit better, if he wasn’t thinking about time and numbers.

So, Mortimer concentrated. It didn’t make much difference at first. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to get back to his former level of survival, which wasn’t even high. Then, he started to get better. Half a second longer before he was found. A slight glimpse of movement. He even noticed an attack and began a dodge. However, that was the highest point he reached. Then the tiredness caught back up with him, and his effectiveness degraded again. He started slowing down. Still, he kept going.

Finally, he came across a perfect chance. He saw master Valarao’s back immediately after they started! All he had to do was walk up behind him quickly, and maybe… he could do something. However, his feet wouldn’t walk. That was weird, his muscles shouldn’t be tired. However, his legs refused to support him. He was… falling? That was weird. Then, everything went black.

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Mortimer woke up the next morning in bed. He didn’t remember going to bed. He didn’t even remember leaving his capsule after playing Royal Road. Actually, he didn’t remember entering Royal Road at all the previous night. Finally, he remembered. He’d blacked out during training. That was probably not healthy. Well, he wasn’t in the hospital so he should be fine. Mortimer was slightly confused that his alarm had gone off, because he had thought it was Sunday, but he realized he must have gotten the day wrong. He got up and got ready for school, even though he felt very tired.

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After school, Mortimer was met with more of master Valarao’s new training. This time, it was physical training. Although it could have been described as less intense than the training the previous day, that was only for one reason, to avoid Mortimer becoming crippled. Mortimer had attained the best physical condition of his life, but the new exercises made him feel like he was starting over at the beginning, when he’d been completely out of shape.

The new exercises seemed to focus on specific body parts. Specific movements of hands and feet, the strength of each of his fingers and toes, and very specific movement steps and arm motions. Somehow, he found muscles that hadn’t been used before, and were rarely used for anything, being strained. Fortunately, the exercises only lasted for half of an eternity two hours, before Mortimer couldn’t move. He could still walk, but he couldn’t do much else. He eventually collapsed into his capsule. Fortunately, there was no virtual reality training to be done today.

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Upon entering Royal Road, Quietus was pleased that it was daytime. He had no interest in dying to the rabbit for a third time, and he had better things to do than attempt to defeat it. Like… continue his quest. Therefore, he headed back to where he first obtained information about Aullet. It would take some travel time, so he occasionally stopped to hunt monsters and train his dig skill.

Since his undead as a whole got some amount of his dig skill, he found it to be more efficient to let them do the hunting. They brought him the corpses of the monsters they slew, and he created more undead. Then, eventually, he would move on to a new area.

Quietus was getting better at the magic side of being a necromancer, but he kept up his close combat skills. Of course, master Valarao wouldn’t have let that be any different, but it was still somewhat his choice.

Before logging off for the night, he got contacted by Angelo about a dungeon that they would be exploring. Since it wasn’t far out of his way, he decided he would go with the group the next day. After all, he couldn’t spend all of his time playing Royal Road “alone”. Well, he probably could have, but sometimes he wanted to see Ruby’s outfits his cousin and friends.

End Chapter 66