The Grey Lands, in the shack, June 12, 2021 A cascade of notifications exploded across my vision, blindingly bright in the darkness, and woke me up.I blinked several times and looked around in confusion.Astrid was sprawled across the bed, dead asleep, one arm hanging over the edge. Her long artificial claws were gone. Apparently, she'd finally decided those things were too impractical and gotten rid of them at the first opportunity.Or maybe they were sitting in her backpack, which she never seemed willing to part with.What the hell was going on?I started reading the notifications.+5 experience (from raised creature)+10 experience (from raised creature)Level Up+18 skill points+12 experience (from raised creature)+10 experience (from raised creature)+15 experience (from raised creature)Holy shit.Gena was killing something…+12 experience (from raised creature)Level Up+18 skill points+1 attribute point…in real time!I jumped to my feet, grabbed the axe lying beside me

As I gathered from Astrid’s subsequent conversation with the dumbass cultists, they supplied her with food from their world, mostly military rations to conserve the necro-energy required to transport them.Now I understood how she’d managed to survive here all these years without wasting away to skin and bones. Army rations were designed to keep healthy men running around like horses, so it was hardly surprising that Astrid had developed such a tempting figure.Wait. Eyes away. Think about laboratory scales…The necromancer then began feeding the cultists information about the spell that converted necro-energy into life energy, revealing the details in carefully measured doses. To be fair, these assholes might have been willing to sign up for what amounted to their own execution if the knowledge they received in exchange was valuable enough.And this particular conversion ritual certainly qualified.You have learned the ritual formula: “From Death to Life.”Accept / RejectAccept, obvi

After a painfully long fifty-seven steps, I finally spotted Astrid curled up in the fetal position, lying on the gray sand and whimpering miserably.“W-what... what was th-that...” I whispered, my lips trembling. “W-what the fuck was that?”The sand settled fairly quickly, but the dust was still hanging in the air.What the hell had just happened?Astrid didn't answer my question.Instead, she let out a long, desperate wail.Somehow, that made everything even more terrifying.If I hadn't been in so much pain, I might've been lying there beside her, howling, too...Astrid was no use to anyone now. She'd sunk into the depths of despair, just like our shack, which lay scattered all around us in the form of burning wooden debris.I had no idea why the wreckage had caught fire...I slowly turned around and looked toward my attackers.One was lying on the ground with his throat slit. From the way it looked, he'd done it to himself.The other was slowly crawling away.No. That wouldn't do.T

While I'd been lost in thought, I'd managed to assess the full extent of the damage to my left arm.What I'd taken for a fracture turned out to be a dislocation.An elbow dislocation was always a nasty business...This was going to hurt like hell.I grabbed my arm and tried to yank it back into place.“F-FUCK!” I yelled, wrenching at my own arm.Naturally, it didn't work worth a damn.Still, there was one positive side to the pain: it woke me up and gave me a brief reprieve from the anxious thoughts spiraling toward outright suicidal territory.I'd already defied Fate once.I could do it again.What had really changed, after all?“Come here,” Astrid said.“Don't tell me you know how to reduce a dislocation?” I asked, looking at her in surprise, a flicker of hope creeping into my voice.“I do,” Astrid replied with a grim nod.She examined my swollen arm and pressed the surrounding muscles a few times. Then, without the slightest warning, she grabbed it and yanked as hard as she could.

“This one...” I said, pointing at the warrior I'd personally killed. “He kept mumbling something like matera, matera. Any idea what it means?”“He was calling for his mother,” Estrid answered curtly.I felt even worse.Everyone has a mother and father, or had them once. Yet in moments of sheer terror and shock, for some reason, it's always their mother they call for. Somewhere deep inside every person, even the toughest veteran who's survived dozens of bloody battles, there's a last line of defense hardwired into their instincts.Mom.It's something we learn in childhood, and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.I wondered what kind of woman this warrior's mother had been. Had she looked after him? Washed the scrapes on his knees with warm water after he'd hurt himself playing in the yard? Offered a few kind words when he'd failed at something or suffered a setback? Stood proudly beside him when he succeeded? Had she seen him off before he left for this place?I'd never know no