Three days passed in an agonizing, monotonous haze.
The heavy physical labor, like a press, squeezed every drop of life from my body, leaving no energy even for idle chatter. Each day was indistinguishable from the last: wake up to the clang of a club on bars, receive a portion of disgusting slop, spend twelve hours hauling stones under a scorching sun, and finally, return to the stuffy pen. Time flowed at a strange pace—every hour dragged on for an eternity, yet the days themselves burned away like cigarettes, leaving behind only the ash of exhaustion.
And then, at long last, the day arrived.
That evening, as I swayed with fatigue and was about to collapse onto my stone slab, a shadow detached itself from the wall. It was Rob. For three days, we had barely spoken, exchanging only rare, meaningless glances. It seemed we were each lost in our own thoughts, but in reality, I was burning with impatience to talk to someone. It was just that a certain old man had decided a dramatic pause was exactly what we needed.
"When the sun finally dips below the horizon and darkness thickens, we will begin," his voice was quiet and even, and his face, like cracked earth, showed no emotion.
"Could you be any more cryptic?" I snorted sarcastically, unable to hide the tremor of anticipation in my voice. "What, do you moonlight as a subway psychic in your spare time?"
My words were sharp, but my eyes burned with anticipation. Soon. Very soon, the time would come when I, the unluckiest transmigrator in history, would finally break free from this cycle of pain. I could already picture the sweet moment. The moment I would do something incredible, and then mentally rub my snarky System's face in my achievements.
And she, choking with delight, would display on her pathetic yellow screen: [Wow! My Host is so cool!!! ♡ (´｡• ᵕ •｡) ♡]
A smile remained plastered on my face, but before I could fully immerse myself in my pleasant fantasies, the old man spoke again. My barbs had bounced off his stoic calm like peas off a wall.
"I've made arrangements with the other slaves. They're going to start a riot, give the guards a little party," he, too, tried to inject some cheer into his voice. "This is our chance. While all the attention is on them, we'll slip out, and you can run wherever you need to go."
"So we're aggroing the mobs to stealth our way to the objective?" I asked rhetorically.
The old man's expression turned puzzled for a moment, but he apparently chalked my words up to pre-game jitters.
Looks like tonight was going to be a hot one. I felt no remorse, however, that all of this was happening because of me. In the original story, all these people were going to die anyway, including Rob. I wasn't the cause of their deaths; I was just… fast-forwarding to the action sequence. If everything went well, I might even be able to save a few people.
"The children will find you; they'll come to the pit," Rob continued, his gaze heavy and piercing as it locked onto me. "They know what to do. I hope you'll keep your promise."
"Don't worry, old man," I answered confidently, my mask of indifference firmly back in place. "My word is law. Nothing can shake it."
After all, what can a few simple guards do to me? I scoffed mentally. They're just NPCs from the starting zone. Walking experience points, come on! I'm the protagonist here, not them.
Wait, wait, wait. I think I heard something similar right before I was killed… Never mind, I must have imagined it.
Waiting is the worst part of any show. But fortunately for my impatient nature, I didn't have to sulk in the corner for long. A deafening, juicy BA-BOOM! shook our flimsy walls, sending a cheerful shower of dust from the ceiling right onto my head. And then, as if on a conductor's cue, a cacophony of howls, screams, and death rattles filled the air. Yes… there were perhaps a few more screams than I'd anticipated. It seemed this "little" riot was going to be far more entertaining and bloody than I'd imagined. Five-star entertainment, no doubt.
Rob, who had been groaning in his corner just a second ago, rose with a grace utterly unbecoming of an old man. His joints didn't even seem to crack. He walked silently to the door, glanced through the tiny barred window, and then did something that defied my modern understanding. As if a green-skinned, steroid-fueled Hulk had been hiding under his withered skin all this time, the old man clenched his fist and, with a short exhale, struck.
The wooden door that held us captive didn't just fly off its hinges—it was launched a good five meters, splintering into pieces mid-air. The hinges themselves seemed to have died of shock, not even realizing their careers were over as they clattered pathetically to the stone floor.
Frankly, when I stepped over the remains of our former prison and followed Rob outside, the view was not exactly conducive to a picnic. The air was thick, saturated with the smell of copper, sweat, and primal fear. Guards in sturdy armor were dicing up unarmed slaves like a chef cutting tofu for soup—effortlessly and without emotion. The only problem was, there was far too much "tofu." Dozens, if not hundreds, of crazed slaves were charging at the swords, tearing out throats with their bare hands, gouging out eyes, and beating the armored men into a bloody pulp.
As if jacked up on cheap combat stims, they had no fear of death, transforming into a living tsunami of flesh and fury. And strangely enough, this absurd "overwhelm them with corpses" tactic was working flawlessly. Despite the guards' obvious superiority in weapons and training, they were simply drowning in the wave.
Some of them, probably the smartest or the most cowardly, had just huddled in corners, forming little "islands of safety." They watched the chaos with expressions that screamed their salary didn't cover the risk of being torn limb from limb. Fair enough.
Without a word, and certainly with no desire to join this festival of self-mutilation, I saw my chance. While everyone's attention was fixed on the bloodbath, I bolted for the pit in the center of the area, which now seemed like the safest place to be. Halfway there, I sensed I had a tail. A stupid hope flickered that it was the children the old man had promised to gift me.
But no, the universe was being particularly cruel today. It was a guard who had apparently decided to pick an easier target. Judging by his pale, sweaty face and the look of a cornered rat, he was scared to death of both the mob of slaves and his superiors. Apparently, the prospect of getting chewed out for hiding was scarier than the risk of dying. Career advancement through killing scrawny teenagers—a bold strategy, you have to admit. We'll wish him luck, of course, posthumously. Because I had already reached the pit.
My landing was surprisingly soft. And wet. And a little crunchy. The stench was so bad my eyes watered—a thick cocktail of old blood, fear, and very poor hygiene. The perfect atmosphere for a necromancer's debut.
And at that exact moment, as I was trying not to think about what I was knee-deep in, the semi-transparent, ugly screen with barely legible text flashed before my eyes. Finally! The tin can had deigned to appear. I was starting to think it had died just from watching me. Before me hung the long-awaited system messages. It seemed this headstrong program had finally decided to do its job, and right now, I was reading a brief but humiliating user manual.
[Create Undead]
Description: Choose a sufficiently epic phrase to resurrect the dead, then say it aloud to create absolutely loyal warriors who cannot disobey their necromancer. They have no union, require no salary, and never complain about overtime. The perfect employees.
[System Note: A classic of the genre, a basic skill for any self-respecting (and not-so-respecting) necromancer. To be fair, it devours so much spiritual power that your reserves are only enough for maybe a couple of twitching hands. Seriously, if you can raise more than three corpses on your first try, I'll start calling you Father.]
Reading this, I felt cold sweat trickle down my back, washing away the filth and someone else's blood. Was this a joke? The "Multiverse's Strongest Necromancer System," and its main skill was a lottery where the grand prize was not dying of exhaustion after raising three cripples? My grand plans for world domination with an army of the undead were beginning to crack at the seams.
[I'm not overrated; you're the defective user. Don't you dare project your inadequacies onto my perfection!]
The System decided not to wait for my mental insults and responded preemptively. Well, at least it wasn't ignoring me. I'd argue with this piece of code with a seriously inflated ego later. I hastily shifted my gaze to the second skill.
[Undead Space]
Description: Your personal, infinite pocket dimension for the undead. With a single thought, you can summon and dismiss your subordinates, storing them for a rainy day.
[System Note: An infinite storage for your future "army." You know, like buying a massive garage for a single rusty bicycle. Very forward-thinking.]
Okay, got it. The System is a sarcastic bitch, and my abilities are currently extremely limited. Meanwhile, I could hear the guard's footsteps from above—my personal hunter was jumping into the pit. There was no time for deliberation. An epic phrase... Something like "Arise, legions of darkness!"? Cliché. "Death is no excuse for laziness!"? Too harsh. I needed something short, punchy, and idiotic enough to work in this circus.
"To work, my legion!"
The plan was simple: the guard would think I'd gone insane from stress, twirl his finger at his temple, and go find a more stable victim. Nobody likes the paperwork that comes with dealing with crazies.
For a second, there was silence, broken only by the panting of the guard descending into the pit. And then... instead of the two or three convulsing pieces of meat I expected, the entire mountain of corpses beneath me began to move. It started with a low, guttural rumble, as if hundreds of voices were trying to rasp out something important from parched throats. The ground under my feet trembled as if an ancient titan had awoken. Every corpse in this pit, from the nearly fresh to those that had long since become skin-draped skeletons, began to rise. Arms, legs, skulls—they all clawed their way out, grabbing onto each other in a gruesome effort to obey my command.
The guard, who had almost reached the bottom, lost his balance in the unexpected tremor. His foot slipped, and with a dull clang of armor, he fell face-first into the reanimating mass.
It was a mistake. A critical, fatal, Darwin Award-worthy mistake.
Without waiting for my command—such initiative!—dozens of hands instantly shot out at him from all sides. Skeletal fingers, hands swollen with decay, forearms gnawed to the bone—this whole nightmarish bouquet reached for the only living, warm object within its grasp.
"A-a-a-a-ah! Get off me, you freaks!" his professional bravado evaporated in an instant, replaced by pure, animalistic terror. "Help me! Ahhhhh!..."
His heart-wrenching scream was drowned out by squelching, crunching, and dull thuds. The last thing I saw was his hand, which appeared for a moment above the wave of writhing bodies before disappearing beneath it forever. Poor guy. He just clocked in for his shift and ended up in a corporate restructuring. My new, extremely motivated team literally buried him in work.
I stood amidst the chaos, staring in stunned silence at my newfound "army."
"What was that you said about calling me 'Daddy'?" I mentally addressed the System, feeling a very, very unkind smirk spread across my face.
While my newly formed, highly motivated team was disposing of the guard's remains, the text window before my eyes flickered, like an old monitor getting interference. The text trembled and blinked.
[Are… are you a cheater? Is this a bug? HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!]
[Wait… Scanning… A normal person has barely enough spiritual power for one weakling! My most generous prediction of three corpses was factoring in my divine assistance! And you… holy shit!...]
[Did they dip your soul in a nuclear reactor in your past life?! You don't just have an abyss of spiritual power, this is a goddamn Mariana Trench, and at the bottom, Cthulhu is playing cards with Godzilla! I can't even see the edges!]
The System's words, full of panic and error messages, were music to my ears. Just a few minutes ago, this tin can was calling me a loser with a massive garage for a rusty bicycle. And now? A pleasant, warm feeling of schadenfreude spread through my chest. I allowed myself the most malicious grin possible as I looked at the undead stirring at my feet.
"La-la-la… so what was that about worship? Or maybe you'll just call me 'Daddy'?" I drawled mentally, savoring every word and anticipating an angry tirade in response.
The blue screens before my eyes flickered one last time and vanished with a soft click.
Silence.
It seemed the System was offended and had gone into total silent mode. Hmm. Even my ex didn't have such wild mood swings. No, wait, that's a lie, she was worse. Ah, women…
While I was mentally bickering with the sulking program, the silence was shattered by a deafening BA-BOOM!
The sky above lit up with a crimson flash, as if someone had set off a very expensive and very destructive firework. The ground trembled lightly again, and stone dust rained down from above. I looked up at the edge of the pit. Standing right on the precipice, like frightened little meerkats, were them. Six childish silhouettes against a blazing sky. Six pairs of wide eyes, all fixed directly on me.
Oh, look at that. It's... what's-their-names... the local after-school club.
Ah, that's right! The red-headed beast, the future Titania, Erza Scarlet. The blue-haired little bastard, Jellal Fernandes. The big guy with the square jaw, Simon. The weird, blocky-looking dude, Wally Buchanan. The cat-obsessed girl, Millianna. And her little buddy, Shô.
Old Man Rob hadn't lied; they had really come. But… something about their expressions was unsettling. They were staring with unconcealed horror… at me. No, I must be imagining it. I'm such a cute kid, after all.
There's no way I could possibly look terrifying, standing knee-deep in viscera, surrounded by a hundred slowly turning, rotting heads!
But I know how to get along with kids! The key is to be friendly and open.
I stretched my lips into what I thought was my most encouraging smile, possibly flashing a tooth or two, and gave them a lazy wave. "Hey, kids! Your savior is here!"
The effect was… not quite what I was hoping for.
The cat-girl (Millianna, I think) let out a tiny squeak and immediately hid behind Jellal, clutching his shirt.
The others turned as pale as if all the blood had been drained from their bodies at once. Jellal instinctively threw out an arm, shielding the others, while the red-headed Erza, though trembling, stubbornly gripped a rusty pickaxe as if it could save her.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong?
I looked myself over. Okay, I was a little dirty. Standing knee-deep in a mass grave. Surrounded by a hundred reanimated corpses with empty eye sockets, obediently awaiting my command. The bones of an unlucky guard were crunching somewhere under my feet. No, everything seems fine. Maybe they didn't like my smile? I'll have to practice in a mirror.
Not wanting to prolong the awkward pause, I decided it was time to get out. Ignoring the terrified children's gazes, I began my ascent. A few of the nearest undead instantly got the hint without words, offering their backs and shoulders to form a gruesome but surprisingly stable staircase. Stepping on their contorted bodies, I climbed to the top with little effort.
Once I was on the same level as the children, I made a grand, conductor-like gesture toward the pit, as if finishing a symphony.
In that same instant, my entire army vanished as if with a snap of my fingers. And completely silently.