"Where the hell have you been, Edward?" the girl snapped, pushing her way into his room without waiting for an invitation.
"You were supposed to meet my grandpa two hours ago!" Her voice was sharp, almost accusatory.
"You begged him for months to teach you the basics of mana control, and now—what? You give up because it's hard? Is that it?"
"Grandfather?" Edward searched the boy's memories, but nothing surfaced.
"I was—"
"Wait…" She cut him off, "Is that blood?" Her eyes dropped to the heap of clothes on the floor.
She crouched and picked up the fabric. Then, she dropped it just as fast when she saw the state of it. The clothes fell from her hands as if they were burning hot.
"What happened? Are you hurt?" Her anger melted into concern as she stepped toward him, scanning him from head to toe.
"Yeah… I… uh… fell," he stammered, scrambling for an excuse.
"You fell?" Her brow furrowed, disbelief clear on her face.
She let out a long, weary sigh. "Fine. I'll tell Grandpa you had an accident. But don't you dare miss your training tomorrow." With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared through the crooked door, leaving him alone in the dim room.
The moment she left, a flood of memories surged.
Selene.
Edward remembered meeting her as a child. Her parents had died in a hunting accident, and she'd been sent to the same orphanage as him. It was she who approached him first, and the two have since become good friends. A year ago, her grandfather appeared in the village and took her in.
"Training…" Edward lingered on the word.
He had little desire to meet anyone, least of all some old man. But the thought of learning mana control, the idea of learning magic, was truly tempting.
What worried him more was the truth. How would people react if they knew the real Edward had died, and another soul now lived in his body? At best, they'd call him mad. At worst, they'd accuse him of witchcraft—and execute him on the spot.
"No matter," he muttered. "One day at a time."
He slipped out of the inn and back into the village's narrow roads, letting the fragmented pieces of Edward's memories guide him into understanding and learning about the world he was in.
An hour later, Edward found himself far from the village, lost in thought.
Suddenly, his steps slowed.
A dark, crimson smear caught his eye, half-sunken into the hardened mud.
He crouched, fingertips brushing the dried crust.
"Old… a day, maybe two," he muttered.
The blood had lost its sheen. It turned rust-brown and clotted. No sharp droplets remained—only the residue of where they'd once struck. The edges had cracked under sun and air, faint outlines of arcs dulled with time.
He moved closer to the oak, and the corpse came into view.
The man lay slumped forward, half on his side, flesh already bloated and marred by early decay. Insects crawled across the gash, splitting the back of his skull. Dark rivulets had long since seeped into the soil, forming a thick, lifeless pool.
Edward scanned the ground. The earth bore no marks of struggle—no scuffs, no desperate imprints. Just the attacker's steady approach and departure, boots sinking neatly into softened mud that had since hardened.
"He didn't fight," Edward murmured. "Didn't even turn. One blow from behind. He never saw it coming."
Closer to the tree, faint linear stains—barely visible now—marked the cast-off of a heavy, flat object. Their rhythm was uneven, with only a handful of streaks before ceasing entirely.
"One strike. Maybe two. First was enough."
He shifted his gaze to the ground beside the corpse, where no blood lay. Even with time dulling the scene, the void was visible: an untouched patch where someone had stood close, letting the spray arc around them.
Edward's jaw tightened.
"Cold-blooded murder," he noted with a darkened expression.
"Two murders in a single day… For a village that small, I can't say it's normal."
Then, a sudden sound resounded in his head.
[Necromancer System Activation Complete!]
[New Ability Received: Extraction]
Confusion hit him like a hammer.
"W—what? Necromancer System? Extraction?"
Before he could process further, the air around him thickened.
Shadows gathered above the corpse, coalescing into a humanoid silhouette.
The figure was almost entirely black, but dark green motes flickered along the edges like embers trapped in a void. Its form was fluid, limbs stretching and bending with a subtle, unnatural grace. The silhouette hovered above the corpse, shifting slightly as if observing, recording every detail of the scene.
Its face was featureless, yet the dark green shimmer along the contours hinted at eyes, a mouth, and faint traces of expression—but nothing solid, nothing fully human.
[Extraction Successful!]