The Ruined Death Knight

Stepping forward, Danzel made a footmark through the snow.

And behind him, were respectively 35 of his own creations.

5 which consisted of his elite soldiers, the Anabast, and the rest of the Draugrs.

While they were vastly inferior to the Anabast, their strength was of a considerable amount of the 2nd-tier.

And beside him, was Shiro with Koji and Niyuki, the living armors.

Which started also learning magic from Shiro herself.

As for how the two parties seemed to communicate so well, he had no idea how.

He suspected it to be a skill or a spell of the sort, but he spared himself the effort to search all spells and skills of Shiro.

It was certainly interesting to see if living armors could learn magic, but Danzel had high hopes of them, as attribute-wise, they were more melee-focused than for magic.

But as for now, he paid no attention to any one of the above-mentioned, as of currently he was staring at a ball of fire that was hovering on top of his hand.

'It's stronger than before, but channeling the mana feels awkward.' Danzel thought as he tried to make the flames stronger while maintaining their shape according to what Shiro taught him.

Although it would have been faster to simply buy the [Firebolt] spell with his XP and upgrade it, he wanted to learn magic without any help from his status.

So staring at his fireball in hand, Danzel slowly moved his soul mana to mix with the fire in hopes to create something new, though it was extremely hard to do so.

The flames were becoming unstable and all the more chaotic the more he attempted to make soul magic with those flames.

With no results this far.

He already attempted combining his flames with dead mana, which worked much better in making flames similar to chaos magic, but different.

They simply bring forth a decay effect while still being extremely hot. What made him abandon that direction of magic was that the flames became slower the more he succeeded in fusing the two.

Which was a big flaw.

Nonetheless, the flames in front of him were becoming more unstable, requiring his whole focus to keep them up.

'What am I doing wrong? Why does it become so unstable and doesn't mix?'

And currently, where he was putting his every focus on preserving the flames, a sudden yet quiet voice came from his side.

"Rue, what is that bottle on your neck?"

Getting distracted, the flames were extinguished and the mana he used disappeared into the air.

Staring at the distraction annoyed, he answered.

"It's something in case someone returns back to that village. It will break if the undead I left behind see someone returning." He said before making another attempt with the flames and ignoring Shiro.

But whatever he tried, no improvements were to be seen.

Shiro watching with interest at what Danzel was trying to do looked at Danzel's skull before shaking her head.

"You will get it eventually, no need to get frustrated..."

Flaring his eyes, Danzel crashed the flames with his hand and stared at Shiro.

"I have the slightest need of your comfort, Shiro. Wherever I am frustrated or not doesn't matter, with time I will get it right." Danzel said in his cold voice.

"So you are admitting that you are frustrated?" Shiro asked while carefully staring at Danzel's flaring eyes.

'Of course, I am.'

Would have been the easiest answer to that. But he didn't want to admit it.

"Is there a reason as to why you trying to see what an undead feels or is there another reason?"

Hearing this, Shiro looked to the said.

"Well...we didn't do much of anything except studying and walking those past 2 days, and well...ehm."

Seeing her struggle with her words, Danzel shook his head.

"I won't cut your head for asking a question or two. Considering how boring is to see only snow and ice, I might as well hear you out. First though, how did you like the runes of your staff?" Danzel said with a blank voice.

Tightening her staff, she nodded her head to him.

"Your runes are amazing Rue! I feel like my spells are half as strong as they were supposed to be!" Shiro said while raising her staff.

"It should be around a third though...well, as long as you like it." Danzel said.

"Yes, it's amazing! If only I could enchant it, it would have been so amazing." Shiro said while imaging her staff fully enchanted.

"I see..."

Danzel of course didn't care much.

For a moment the atmosphere became awkward and Shiro hesitated before speaking again.

"Rue, might it be possible to also learn-"

Without letting her finish, Danzel stopped her right there.

"No, teaching you death magic and teaching you runesmithing is something completely different. Even if you manage to learn it, I have not the slightest intention of teaching you how to make runes." Danzel said with an ice-cold voice.

"Oh...I see." Shiro said while looking down at the ground disappointed.

Staring at Shiro, Danzel shook his head.

"To begin with, you shouldn't even have time to learn magic and runesmith. You don't even know flying magic or teleportation magic. How do you expect to fight a melee fighter of the 3rd-tier?"

"I-I just defeated them before they reach me, I also have some movement spells. And those spells you mentioned are already hard to learn and I don't-"

Without letting her finish, Danzel drew his sword and swung in the air three times, releasing 3 air blades moving at incredible speed and cutting a large stone into pieces.

Shiro and Anabast were surprised by Danzel's actions.

"Someone of the 3rd tier is capable of doing what I did while closing the distance to you. You will have to make a barrier strong enough to block something like this and that will result in loss of mana while putting unnecessary focus."

"Teleportation is an extremely powerful tool to have against a melee fighter. As they can create more distance and dodge such attacks, whereas with flying magic you can maneuver to dodge the such attack. Just being in the air, is a huge advantage if the enemy can't reach you..."Danzel halted for a second before continuing.

"Or not getting buried in a wave of snow."

"It was an accident!" Shiro yelled embarrassed before putting on her hood and covering her face with the bone mask."

"What I am saying is, focusing on magic. You got enough talent to reach the 4th-tier if not higher. When you reached that point, I might be willing to make you a few runed items. Of course, for a certain price that is."

"Mhm." Shiro nodded her head and smiled behind her bone mask for a moment.

Though her smile didn't last that long.

"Rue...do you think that magic can heal my sickness?" Shiro asked hesitantly.

"Impossible." Danzel said without hesitation, taking Shiro by surprise.

"Huh?"

Looking at his mistake, Danzel started explaining.

"Let me correct you, that sickness that you so speak of is no illness of any sort. The truth is that your body has evolved differently than is supposed to. Which gives you a huge amount of mana. The problem is that your body has still to adapt to such evolution."

"Maybe it gets better when your body has fully adapted or you will have to experience that growth for your whole life. As for treatment, the core problem is losing vitality and pain. The former can be treated with your healing magic, so searching for a way to remove the pain with magic can be a way to treat your problem."

Though he wasn't too sure what would happend if her various became complete, his solution was simple. Remove the pain so that you can heal yourself.

Shiro of course didn't like his answer that much and felt depressed by those facts.

"Is it really uncurable? Not even with...death magic?"

Danzel stayed silent with a such question and continued walking through those frozen lands.

'Is that why she wants to learn necromancy?' He shook his head internally.

Shiro waited for an answer, only to get none in the end.

***

At the same time, in the Vashara Village.

Stepping out of bed, with her whole shoulder covered with something close to bandages together with her chest, Alka walked outside the house of the masked woman to get some fresh air.

"Her house is quite high up, huh?" Alka mumbled as she stared down the Vashara Village.

She still couldn't believe that she managed to reach this place after what happend to her and her village.

She stayed there to appreciate the sight and to forget her nightmares, but before long she noticed a few warriors moving out of the village.

As she asked herself what they were doing here, a gentle voice came from her side.

"You still haven't recovered enough to step out of your body, Alka."

Turning around, Alka was surprised to see the masked girl.

"I just wanted to take fresh air..." Alka said with a bitter smile on her face.

The masked girl moved closer to her and stared at where Alka was looking at. Which were the warriors.

"Are they going to hunt?" Alka asked curiously.

The masked girl shook her head.

"No, they are going to see your village and what happend more closely."

The moment Alka heard what she said, her eyes widen in shock.

"What!?"