Heir of Anubis: Survive the God's Deadly Game

Chapter 10. Bony

'Skeleton Commander..'

He had already guessed it, but seeing the immense experience point difference between the two types of skeletons gave him a start. The gap in value was vast, almost absurd.

A basic Skeleton only gave him 31 EX, but this Commander had handed him 450 EX, enough to level him up from level one to level two instantly. This fact raised a significant question in his mind, something crucial.

'How exactly does this System calculate leveling up and rank advancement? The math doesn't check out easily.'

Devon assumed that Anubis must be mirroring a system found in fantasy and gaming worlds, adapting it so it could be applied to those granted his power. Since there was a line indicating Corruption, it was highly possible that He personally controlled the users of His system, manipulating them.

"Heh. Maybe I'll figure it out piece by piece later," he mumbled to himself, ignoring the pressure.

He retrieved the dark robe the monster was wearing, slightly frowning because the fabric was dirty and ragged in several places. But he took it anyway. 'Might be useful as a sitting mat for later. Better than the dirt.'

With a small grunt, he turned to head back toward Raline, but he realized one more undead aura still persisted.

The skeleton horse was still there, quietly waiting. He glanced at it, keeping his guard up, just in case it decided to attack them.

But the horse simply nodded its skeletal head when it saw Devon staring at it. Then, it began to walk directly toward him, its bones clicking softly.

He immediately went back on high alert, gripping the sword with both hands, aiming the point at the creature. The bony horse kept walking slowly toward him, showing no aggression.

When it got closer, the horse still didn't show any signs of attacking him. The creature lowered its head toward the body of the skeleton commander for a few moments, as if calling for its master to rise again, mournfully.

But once the skeletal horse realized its master wasn't coming back, it raised its head and pointed it directly at Devon. It advanced again, prompting him to instinctively take one or two steps backward.

It began to gently sniff Devon, not showing any intent to attack him at all.

Confused, he allowed the horse to approach him closer, lowering his sword. It continued to sniff him, then it lowered its two front legs, as if kneeling toward him, bowing deeply.

"...What the actual hell," he muttered, perplexed.

Devon stared at the horse for a long time. It eventually rose back up. They stared at each other in a bizarre moment, made stranger by the fact that one of them had no eyes to see.

"You should just go away... shoo... shoo," Devon said, waving his hand toward the direction where they descended from Newark.

The horse raised and lowered its head just like a living horse would, and he could almost swear he heard it snort, softly.

"..."

He decided to ignore the creature and walked back to Raline. But the skeletal horse followed him, stopping exactly when he stopped.

Raline, seeing the skeletal horse trailing her brother, widened her eyes in terror. "Dev... why is that thing following you?" she squeaked.

Devon let out a long sigh, then picked up his backpack and put it back on his shoulders. "Looks like it decided I'm its new master. Seriously."

She looked back and forth between her brother and the skeletal horse, frowning. 

"...Are you sure it won't be dangerous, though? Like, later?"

"Just leave it alone. We need to go now."

Devon picked his sister up again, carrying her, then walked deeper toward the mountain. The bony horse still followed close behind, shadowed by Raline's continued fearful gaze.

*******

They walked for several hours, penetrating deeper into the obsidian-colored mountain's rocky forest.

But now, Devon only carried Raline. His backpack was being carried by the skeletal horse. It seemed content, almost pleased, that Devon was finally trusting it enough to carry their gear.

"You know, it's actually not bad. We got ourselves a free ride, and we don't even need to feed it," he joked when Raline was about to protest as he transferred his heavy backpack to the skeletal horse's back.

"But... it's still an undead, though..." she protested weakly.

"Just let it be. Do you really like seeing me carry you while also lugging that huge ass bag?" he countered, deadpan.

"Oh, who told you to carry me in the first place? I'm grown up, I can walk myself," Raline retorted stubbornly, crossing her arms inside her brother's hold.

"Yeah, right. You'd barely last ten steps before collapsing and asking for a carry..."

Devon's playful bickering with his sister—a simple tactic to diffuse the heavy tension that had persisted for days—suddenly stopped abruptly. His Death Sight had picked up several auras ahead.

But this time, the auras were different from the dull, cold ones of the skeletons he had encountered. Suspiciously, he glanced back at the skeletal horse he now called Bony, whose aura remained dark, interwoven with a few strands of gold light, unchanged.

The auras he saw ahead, however, were colorful, mostly tending toward a bright orange and red hue. The energies seemed to be concentrated in a single area, which looked to be a small cave entrance.

Seeing her brother stop and stare intently in one direction, his body tense, Raline whispered nervously, "...What is it, Dev...?"

"I don't know yet. You wait here, let me sneak a peek, okay?"

Hearing her brother's words, she immediately struggled and pouted dramatically. "You mean I'd be all alone with that freaky horse? No way! I'm not doing that!"

"Shhhh!" Devon winced, noting how loud his sister's whine sounded. He looked at her. She stared back defiantly, her lips jutted out in a stubborn pout.

"...Haish," he sighed, exasperated. He began walking again, still carrying Raline, moving more slowly this time toward the area where the auras were clustered.

After getting a little closer, he subtly signaled to Bony not to follow any further. The skeletal horse obeyed, somehow understanding Devon's meaning, and waited silently without protest.

He asked his sister to shift onto his back, securing her, then walked toward the steep cliff face. After several dozen meters, he found a cave entrance, its mouth perhaps two to three meters high, and wide enough for three people to walk through side-by-side.

From within, a light like a campfire flickered, but it wasn't visible from the outside, concealed by a small, natural step of rock right in front of the cave mouth.

Devon continued to walk slowly, cautiously forward, and then he accidentally stumbled upon a small recess in the rock wall, just large enough for one person to crouch in. He lowered his sister there and silently motioned for her to stay quiet, absolutely still.

His sister obeyed instantly, and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Moving with agile, silent steps, his footsteps soundless, he crept toward the cave mouth.

"We might actually die if we can't get some kind of food soon, you know."

His steps froze instantly. He heard a human voice from the cave.