The Ruined Death Knight

Walking back to his tabled frustrated, Isamu cursed to himself.

"Dammit!"

Sitting back to his table, he gave the wooden cups of liquor glances before drinking it on one go. Making his cheeks appear slightly red.

He was frustrated with his weakness for several reasons.

Be it for letting many of his comrades die or being unable to realize against the truly powerful.

He despised his own weakness.

Even if his strength level was considered amazing enough for those of the lower tiers.

From the side of the table, the others who saw the usually calm Isamu drinking the liquor as it was water, cast a worried look at him.

"Hey Isamu, I understand how you are feeling. But it isn´t your fault for what happend. We all took the march to find that tower too lightly. Even if that necromancer didn´t appear, most of us died against that ambush of those damned hiding dogs. Although it wasn´t supposed to happend... such sort of things is what makes us explorers." Sean said as he gulped together with Isamu the next cup.

"Although I hate to admit it, Sean is right, it wasn´t your fault." Sylva said while piercing one of the sausages with her fork and putting it in her mouth. Biting it, a satisfying crack sound appeared from the skin of the sausage.

That action alone didn´t go unnoticed by Sean's watchful pair of eyes.

"That´s right! T be rewarded with treasures and girls is a good enough reason for risking our lives! Even If I were to die. Dying while watching those..." Getting closer to Isamu shoulder with shoulder, he mentioned to Isamu to stare at Sylva.

"Isn´t too ba- Aghhh! What are you doing!" Sean yelled in pain while touching his leg to lessen the pain that came under the table.

"Hmpf! Guys. Don´t let yourself ever be corrupted by that beast, priestess." Sylva told the priestess beside her while giving Sean a look of pure disgust.

Unknowing to her though...

He was into that.

While the two looked like they would start fighting any minute, the quiet priestess with golden blond hair moved her gaze towards Isamu.

"Isamu, failure is how we humans progressed through hundreds of years. And with each failure, we can correct our ways and improve. Although failing isn´t a good thing, as long as we can learn from our mistake and improve ourselves, there will be always a next time." The priestess said with closed eyes together with her sweet voice like a lullaby.

"But as you and we know, once you died everything is over. Once we died, we can´t improve nor try again. But as long as we are alive there will be always a next time."

Processing what the priestess told him, his mind got slightly clearer.

"Are you by any chance implying that we... try to go back to that place where our comrades died?" Isamu tried to say quietly but ended up voicing it much louder than he expected.

But what he didn´t expect was that the sweet priestess of their party would actually nod her head to his question.

"Yes, as a member of the Sacred Cross church, and a believer of the goddess of light, I can´t tolerate someone who uses the arts of defiling the dead and forcing them to his will." She said with a serious voice and her eyes half-opened.

Him and the other two who were bittering among themself a moment ago turned and looked surprised at the priestess in silence.

The first one to break the silence was none other than Sean.

"To think a person like you had become an explorer. If they were more people like you, maybe us being called graverobbers will be no more!"

"Yeah, I remember meeting her and praying to every monster that we killed though all those years and-" 

While Sylva was bringing the dark past of her early years of being explorers to her party, the serious aura that she was letting go of was soon replaced with a bright red one.

"Ahhhh! Sylva! You told me that you aren´t ever going to mention that!"

"Mhmm..."

Taking a gulp of her own drink she put her hand on the cheeks while tilting her head.

"Did I say that?"

"Ahhhhhh! Sylva~!"

With the previous gloomy mood disappearing as if there wasn't any, to begin with, Isamu stared from the sidelines at how his remaining friends were joking with each other and having a nice time.

"Hahahahaha!" Laughing out loud, he grabbed another cup and drowned it down.

"Fooooh~Thanks guys. I lost myself there for a moment. As long as we are alive we can try again. Sylva, Sean, will you be coming to take revenge with that priestess of us together? I would understand if you refuse to go to that place again" Isamu said.

"Sigh...of course, I will be coming," Sylva said while piecing another sausage with her fork.

"We are friends after all"

Isamu nodded before looking at Sean, waiting for his answer.

"Man, you really can't read the mood, can you? I obviously coming too. Losing a beauty to look at and her holy magic would hurt that fragile heart of mine." Ignoring the gaze of Sylva, he patted the shield that he had on the side.

"You can trust that shield to be at your service"

"Thank you," Isamu said sincerely.

"But four of us isn't going to cut it." Sylvia said after swallowing the sausage.

"That place is lurking with beasts of the 3rd-tier. None the less that Necromancer..." 

"She is right. The Necromancer was capable to make undead of the 2nd-tier. At worst we can expect him to be a 3rd-tier combatant. If he was any higher we wouldn't be here drinking as that" Sean said.

"We can't forget that he only used two spells of his. Someone capable of controlling death should also be able to have other spells into his arsenal." Priestess mentioned from the side.

Hearing the back and for opinions of his party, Isamu came to a single conclusion.

"We lack the numbers."

Knowing that they will be facing a necromancer together with his army of undead at the very least, four people were indeed a small number.

Grumbling to themselves about how to proceed with that problem, a sudden voice came behind them.

"Yo, I heard your discussion and I can't help but say that you got gotten my interest." A large man with armor came at their table with a big grin on his face.

"If I did hear right...you talked about a necromancer and a tower right?" The man asked while sitting beside Isamu.

"That sounds like a place much to earn, my friend. Since you guys need some people, let me and my group join the fun too."

***

On the last floor of the tower.

Where the hole of the roof lets the sunlight inside and illuminate the whole room.

An undead Wight was swinging his weird through the air.

Each swing raised the sand in the air.

Though to someone it would have looked like the undead was aimlessly swinging their sword through the air. It couldn't be further from the truth.

With both power and balance, the blade was cutting through the air countless times. Doing such a feat for countless hours without seeing a sign of lack of quality of his swings.

But soon that circle was shortly stopped by a notification that appeared in front of the undead.

[You received 5000 XP]

"..." Pushing the floating window to the side, Danzel was about to start his training once more until he released that his missing arm had finally recovered completely.

"That took quite a while..." He said while clenching his hand.

His first thought after having his hand back was to go back into the training.

But as he was about to continue, a sudden thought came to his mind.

"Right...it has been quite a while since I checked does undead of my." 

Summoning a pair of dark green hands, he walked towards the gate while commanding the hands to bring his helmet to him.

"Same as always, huh" Danzel said as he stared at the kneeling corpse that was supposed to be the King's child based on the carvings.

Taking his helmet from the hands, he put it into his head while going down the stairs.

Though he still watched the wraiths staring at him, none of them did attack him.

'Are those guys actually smart? I got to use status on them once I come back.'

Going to the next floors, he collected Skull Claw and his two bodyguards that fully managed to recover by now to the last floor which was his fee skeletons similar to him swinging their weapon to the air.

"1st-tier is really slow..." Danzel mumbled as he moved past that undead.

Though he had them, where he was planning to use them wouldn't fit their power level.

Going outside of their tower, he gave out his internal command.

'Rise'

Hearing their lieges command, the few skull wolve came out of the sand and started at Danzel.

"Mhmm... Maybe it's time to see what else hides in these ruins."

Looking behind him, he started at the Skull Claw.

"Let's see..." Putting some strength in his legs, he jumped up high towards the back of the Skull Claw.

'You all! Follow behind me!' 

As commanded, the undead skull wolves follow behind Skull claw and their master in his back.

"There should be some still left out there..." Danzel said as he imagined the XP that was to gain from the skull wolves remaining in the city.

"I guess recruiting a few more of those shouldn't be too bad.." Danzel said to himself as he started riding with Skull Claw and all his other undead skull wolves around the city that there was supposed to be in the past.