I could hear my heart beating in my ears as I felt the shadows continue to get tighter and tighter around my body, binding me to the bed as many more circled my room slowly like rotating clouds, laughing and whispering. The largest of the shadows stared at me from the ceiling, its red eyes gazing into my eyes, waiting for a response.
"How did you know my real name? Who is your master and why haven't you killed me yet?" The whispering and laughing grew louder, and they circled the room faster, their shapes constantly changing forms.
"Our master has sent us to give you a message and to lend our assistance in keeping you alive."
I was dumbstruck. Who the hell was siding with me? I thought most of my allies had either turned on me or were killed in the war against Jackeal's army. This supposed ally I had must be one hell of a necromancer to be able to control this many shadows at once. He might even be on the same level as I was back in my former body.
"Who is your master?" I asked in a voice that was supposed to sound strong and authoritative but instead sounded squeaky and pathetic. Damn the gods for putting me in such a useless body.
"Our master is someone who would rather keep himself unknown to you for now."
"Okay, what is his message that he has sent you to give to me?"
"That he is aware of the question you had asked Mavra right before she sank her claws into you. He knows that you know how to kill her and he wishes for you to do so."
My eyes widened at that. How the hell did their master know what happened that day? I gritted my teeth and doubled down on my authoritative tone, not caring if my voice sounded squeaky or not.
"Your master can speak to me in person if he wishes me to help him. I am the great Edward, the one who raises the dead back to life. I am the one who makes the holiest of priests turn from their god and get on their knees. I am the one—" The shadow's body tightened around me harder, cutting my speech short, causing me to grimace in pain as I felt my ribs on the edge of breaking. The shadows circling the room abruptly stopped, went silent, and all the shapes of the shadows turned into snarling humanoid faces. Hollow eyes everywhere in the room gave me death stares.
"Your arrogance disgusts me. You are trash compared to my master!" Its face also turned humanoid and snarled at me and stared red daggers into my eyes. Bloodlust and anger filled the room, all of it directed at me, threatening to suffocate me.
"If it weren't for my master's explicit commands to keep you alive, your small body would be torn apart by now and thrown into the garbage where you belong! Do you think you were brought to this world by pure coincidence?! Do you think that you were so great that the gods themselves decided to reincarnate you into another world to give you a second chance at life?! If it weren't for my master, your soul would have been ripped apart and tossed into the void by Mavra!"
My heart pounded so hard it hurt my chest, and my confidence felt nonexistent. Questions ran through my mind about the identity of their master and how he was able to put my soul into this world.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the shadows, trying to calm them down. "Forgive my rudeness and tell your master I beg his forgiveness too. Please quiet down, though; you will wake my parents up if you continue to yell."
"No sound can leave this room thanks to the spell my master has given us." The shadows started rotating around the room again with their faces still filled with rage.
"So, I'm not under some dream spell, then, right? So, I really did die that night that she sank her claws into me?" The shadow's red eyes stopped drilling holes into mine and seemed to ponder the question.
"Your body died, but your soul was saved by my master since you are a valuable weapon he can use against Mavra in the future with the knowledge you have on how to kill her."
"Why doesn't he just ask me how to kill her, then? It seems to me that would solve his problems and he could simply do away with me." The shadows circling the room all grinned and began to chuckle and rotated faster and faster around the room, causing them to start blurring together. The largest of the shadows loosened his grip on me, my ribs thanking him for doing so, and a deep chuckle rumbled through the room, and his red eyes smiled at me.
"You might be garbage, mortal, but you are amusing garbage. To answer your question, my master, even with your knowledge, could not kill Mavra himself. It has to be a mortal wizard that does the deed."
"But I only know how to kill her," I said, staring at the shadow with a pleading expression. "How does your master expect me to kill her if I don't know how to get back to my world yet?"
"There is no need to get back to your original world, mortal. Mavra will eventually arrive here in this world to slay you. As we speak, she is attacking the wall that separates your world and this world and trying to pour her soldiers into this world to find and destroy you."
Well, that is not good, I thought to myself, wide-eyed, not knowing what to do with that information. The shadow spoke again, now with a calm voice, the anger seeming to completely evaporate from the air.
"We have been protecting the wall since you have arrived here, and we will continue to do so until we can no longer. Soldiers of hers will eventually slip past us; this we are certain of. This is why we are going to provide you with your own shadow that has already been paid for with mana. He will be your protector and help you grow your powers. He will still need some of your mana to stay in this plane of existence, but there will be no summoning fee."
I blinked at the shadow's face. All the information swirling in my head made my head begin to ache, and I sighed.
"So my shadow has already been picked out for me? I don't get to choose who my partner is?"
"No, you do not get to choose. He has a debt with our master, and this is how he will be repaying it—by protecting you until Mavra is defeated. You both have a debt you owe my master, so you must work together to defeat her once and for all."
"Who's my partner?"
"Right here!" a shadow said cheerfully as he glided towards me. The shadow snatched up my hand, and a burning, tingling sensation went through my hand, causing me to wince in pain. The shadow let go of my hand, and a tattoo was left on my skin, representing a bond between me and the shadow. My mana now was directly linked to the shadow, allowing me to siphon energy into it.
"You can't just make me bond with this shadow!" I said in protest.
"We can make you, and we will. My master owns your soul. After all, he did save it from annihilation. Have fun working with him," the shadow said, waving its gigantic shadowy hand in my direction, and released his grip entirely on me, the others doing the same, and all shadows started to go into regular non-supernatural shadows and went back to their dimension—all except for one, that is. My new partner, which was my shadow now, I guess, drifted around the room, making noises of excitement and paying my death glare no attention.
"This is going to be a wild adventure, buddy!" the shadow said, and then it rushed at me, stopped near my face, and grinned. "So when do I get a corpse to take over?"