"Great! This is amazing! I can't believe how lucky I'm feeling right now!" Felix suddenly exclaimed loudly as soon as the news of the skeletons was heard.
There was dead silence in the room. Sylvester walked over to his friend and patted his shoulder. "You okay, Felix?"
Felix smiled like he was reborn. "I am absolutely fine. Madness, Demons, Bloodling, and now we have skeletons attacking us. What can be better than this?"
Sylvester chuckled. "First time? Get used to it. I've learned my lessons, and nearly nothing shocks me too much. Let's go and see these skeletons. They are too easy to deal with anyway."
"Of course, we have the world's greatest lantern beside us." Gabriel japed.
Sylvester rolled his eyes and moved out of the house. The walls of the town were pretty high, so nobody was too afraid of this occurrence, although somewhat creeped out by it. "Chief Kennard, get your son checked by the healer."
He then followed Sir Holand to the boundary wall. It was dark outside, and the twin moons were hidden behind the dim sky. The climate of the land south was very much unpredictable, so the town was prepared for everything.
Lanterns and candles were placed all over the roads and near the windows of the houses. It was a rule in the town that people must place lanterns outside their homes each night. For it, they were paid monthly with material to burn.
"Have you ever been attacked by these creatures before?" Sylvester asked Sir Holand.
"No!" Sir Holand blurted, shaken up, it appeared. "We have never faced anything so vile before. This is… strange…"
Sir Dolorem blurted quickly at that. "Maybe the dead outside in the shed were not burned fully, and you left their bones. The creatures of the night do rise from the dead."
"Sir Holand! Come quick! They have started to kick and punch the gates." A guard came running to inform.
So they all hurried more and made a run for it. Soon, they climbed the stairs and looked on the other side of the wall.
Sylvester did the same and felt somewhat amused and shaken by the scene. He had only heard about the skeleton hordes that rise from the sudden death of a whole village or a town due to some calamity. They are not too powerful for a magic user or a knight but still, in enough numbers, they could be disastrous.
"Maxy! Look! There is a kitty skeleton too!" Miraj pointed his soft paws from his shoulder.
The air on top of the wall was strong, and since it was a desert area, the nights were specifically colder. So the furry boy was Sylvester's comfy muffler around his neck.
"Hah, wanna make friends with it, Chonky?" He joked.
Miraj intently looked at the skeleton and soon shook his head. "Umm… I can't share my tasty bananas with it… it will fall out of it."
Sylvester chuckled and prepared to attack the creatures with fire and light to end the menace quickly so he could go and work on the methods to treat the schizophrenia patients in the monastery.
"Prepare to pour fire and light on them. If you have any light crystals, throw them too." He commanded loud and clear.
Sir Holand was absolutely not prepared to lead in a situation like this due to his fears of the undead. So Sir Dolorem had to take the command.
"Light your arrows on fire!" Sir Dolorem roared like the military man he was.
"Max! Stop! Look there, near the back of the skeletons… there is someone." Felix boomed suddenly.
Sylvester stopped looking at the horde just below him near the entrance and looked back. There, in the white mist, a figure of a man was clearly present. It appeared the man was wearing dark robes, and the whole body was covered from head to toe.
'Is that an enemy? A necromancer?' He deduced quickly and prepared to act.
"Change of plans, take offensive formation, and aim at the man in the back!" He roared and walked to Gabriel. "It's likely a necromancer. You take care of the entry gates. If they are breached, the undead will enter easily. Use your light magic… I will have to act if the necromancer makes a move.""Are you going to him?" Gabriel questioned.
Sylvester denied. "I'm not that stupid to go to the enemy when he's in his home ground. No, let him come closer."
"Loose!" Sir Dolorem's command came soon after.
Hundreds of arrows with lit tips covered the sky like a raining fire and slowly arched towards the man in the back.
Clank!
Bam!
However, none of the arrows hit the man as a few skeletons jumped in the way to save him. This effectively made it clear that the man was likely the master of these skeletons.
Sylvester prepared his spear for the worst-case scenario too.
"Loose!"
The barrage of arrows kept going out in waves, but the necromancer was as safe as ever. However, a bigger problem was near the gates as the skeletons started to make a mountain there, climbing on one another in order to reach the top.
The situation was not out of control, though, and nobody among the four of them was panicking. On the contrary, Felix and Gabriel were helping the soldiers by ordering them around. Felix was a knight above all, so he was easily able to throw some spears at the skeletons with precision. So he was ordering the soldiers around to bring him as many as they could find and dip them in the burning oil.
Sylvester kept an eye on the necromancer in the distance, who was moving too slowly. But when the man finally came out of the mist, he noticed something. 'Wait, why is he dragging one leg? Is he hurt? And what's that in his hand?'
He noticed the man. The necromancer was holding something in his hand as if he was trying to show it to all of them. But the night was too dark, and the mist was stopping them from seeing it.
Sylvester decided to do something and threw a light crystal near the man to see things more clearly.
Bam!
However, the moment he saw it, he quickly bellowed further orders and, without waiting, jumped down from the wall. "Stop this instant! Friendlies!"
Felix and Sir Dolorem also jumped down and ran behind him, thinking he was going to attack the necromancer.
"Are you okay?" Shocking them all, Sylvester asked the man for his well-being instead.
Thud!
As soon as Sylvester reached him, the man fell face first. Sylvester was quick to hold him up and take the thing the man was holding. "Look, it's the church's insignia…."
Sir Dolorem was quick to fiddle the unconscious necromancer's clothes and take out a few papers. The result, however, left him in shock and wide-eyed. "This… What's he doing here?"
Sylvester took the paper and read it. "So he's a Sanctum Inspector too? Indeed, what is he doing here? Actually, why is he alone? He's at least a Bishop ranked man and must have a team."
Sir Dolorem fiddled more with the clothes, but they found nothing else. They could understand, though, that no normal knowledgeable Sanctum Inspector would keep his assignment documents to himself.
"What about the skeletons? They will not stop unless he stops his magic?" Felix asked as he noticed the skeletons were coming towards them slowly.Sylvester picked up the necromancer on his shoulder like a sack of rice. "Leave them be. They will die or be nullified in the morning anyway. We need to get this man to safety first and heal him… it appears he's suffering from solarium depletion."
Sir Dolorem nodded and waved his hand towards the boundary wall. Soon, a ladder was dropped for them to climb up, while Felix covered them from behind and stopped the skeletons. Like a bull, he broke them apart like toys with his inhumanly long sword.
…
Sylvester brought the necromancer to the healing station and put the man on the bed. He appeared pale as the moon, likely due to covering himself all the time.
The man was not too old, likely middle-aged, but he lacked any hair on the face or the head; even the eyebrows were gone. Still, Sylvester couldn't help but nod as he expected a necromancer to look just like this… a loner.
"Good thing we keep solarium crystals to ourselves," Sylvester muttered as they started feeding the needed minerals.
However, Gabriel was on the verge of crying as he was the keeper of the accounts for their team. He was supposed to write all the expenses so that later, they may reimburse them. "The Administration never gave us money to buy these crystals. They are too expensive, Max."
Sylvester scoffed and took money out of a leather pouch belonging to the necromancer. "Well, I never said we're saving this necromancer bloke for free."
"Woah! Is this what monsters look like?" Just then, the wandering young boy of the town, Shane Kolt, walked in to see the new addition.
Sylvester chuckled and called him in. He was trying to get this boy to become passionate about learning magic and knighthood. He could always use some good strong subordinates. And since the boy was very young, he could make him utmost loyal to himself with some not-so-conventional methods.
"Hah, no, I'm afraid this is not a monster… well, not the kind you think. What are you doing here? I hope you didn't sneak in to meet your mum."
Shane shook his head strongly. "I will never disobey you, Priest. You are my new teacher, and mum says we must always listen to our teachers."
'When did I become tha- Ah, I did say I would teach him the violin.'
"Good, boy. Now don't waste time here. Find something else to do." Sylvester shooed him away.
But Shane remained behind and asked curiously. "Priest, I heard Archpriest talking about Bloodlings… are they scary? Are they bad? What do they look like? How were they born?"
'Was I also this annoying when I was a kid?' Sylvester wondered. But he entertained curiosity. "They are the worst kind of monsters, and they look ugly with a lot of tentacles… they can destroy towns with ease too."
"Then, can you beat them with your shiny magic?"
"Of course!" Sylvester replied almost instantly. How could he not say yes?
In an instant, Sylvester's mouth and nose were hit with an extreme amount of the smell of tulip. It was proof of how much the boy worshiped him in his mind… It was almost unbelievable. 'Did my light have too much of an effect on him? Or perhaps it's because I saved his mum?'
"Priest, can I one day become as strong as you? Can I also join you on the adventure?"
'Adventure? I've nearly died more times than I can count.'
But Sylvester didn't want to break his heart, and the boy was indeed talented to be an Arch Wizard. "If you train hard on magic and become a Master Wizard in the next eight years."
His words appeared to have meant too much as the kid beamed with joy and smiled ear to ear. "Really? You promise?"
Sylvester sighed and nodded. "If you keep your word, then I shall keep mine. Become a Master Wizard, and I promise to invite you to the Holy Land myself."
"Argh… No…"
"He's waking up!" Gabriel got up quickly. The necromancer finally seemed to respond to the treatments.
___________________
GT = 1 bonus chapter.
Super Gift = 1 Bonus chapter.
APE TOGETHER STRONG!