Huh? I expected my thoughts to randomly stop, for my life to have been extinguished with nothing afterwards. For the person that I once was to never exist again. And yet a glowing red ‘You have died.’ flashed where my status messages were usually displayed. I couldn’t feel anything, but my consciousness clearly remained. I died?

  How could I still think? Was I still in the process of dying? A barrage of questions I shouldn’t be capable of asking filled my thoughts.

  I accessed my status menu in the darkness to check. Good or bad, everything displayed properly. My HP and MP both had me at zero HP and MP. It was a shame too that I was just a few mobs away from leveling.

  I re-read my skills to double check and realized there were a few new changes. My status window had displayed a level up for Skeletal Mages, Inner Calm, and even Pain Resistance. There was something peculiar, too.

  Branded was gone. Mutated had also changed as a skill, and was instead now Mutant LV. 1. I looked it over again and realized something else… My EXP bar had moved and was now 98%.

  What happened before this? I struggled hard to think about what I was doing. We were fighting… what happened? Fragmented memories raced by as I saw Jessica’s crying face as time seemed to rewind in my mind. The demon worm, the javelin toss, the fist-sized hole in my chest passed by as frames. I really did die…

  The EXP bar moved again, ticking towards 99%. It felt as if I existed as a thought, and yet how could a thought feel emotions? Growing expectation filled my being, and even the surrounding space seemed to vibrate in anticipation.

  My world view began to shake rapidly, and then a welcomed message appeared.

  The status messages seemed to bleed out as they dripped into the abyss of my framed world-view. It rumbled and shook until I felt as if I was on precipice of an erupting volcano, and just before I fell… the faint darkness rushed in towards a singular point, and then even the blackness was gone.

  I was expecting something to happen, and yet nothing did. A level wasn’t enough eh? I must be waiting in purgatory for judgment. What else could it be in this fucked up world where even death didn’t allow you to escape?

  That thought swirled in my head for a while until I eventually let it all go. I wasn’t sure how long I floated there. Days? Years? Time didn’t seem to have any consequence. Eventually there were no thoughts at all. It felt like centuries had passed until a sparkle of light formed in the nothing.

  I didn’t know how light could form out of nothing, but that brilliant dot rapidly expanded towards me until it fully enveloped my conscious. A rush of warmth embraced me, and a pleasant feeling of calm washed away the how or why, but only for a moment. Pain, confusion, weakness—my body suddenly felt wrecked as I realized I was staring up at the sky above.

  Sounds of fighting echoed around me as I struggled to turn my head. The cool dirt rushed between my fingers as I forced myself to sit up. I… wasn’t dead. How in then fuck was I not dead?

  The fight still raged on around me. The tank wall held strong, but there were fewer people around. I could see some human bodies in gruesome states, no doubt a result of another javelin toss, or even several. They were all too badly mangled to even tell who they once were.

  My mind was still fuzzy, but somehow or another I was alive. The wound on my chest looked to have almost fully closed, and all the blood was a deep black color. My HP was just a little over 100, but it was slowly going up as it seemed the bleeding had stopped.

  There was a tingling burning sensation in my chest that I couldn’t ignore. I traced my hand along the wound and realized the black wasn’t dried blood, there wasn’t any blood at all actually. Even the black stuff was something else, but it was slowly closing the wound at a snail’s pace.

  I forced down an HP potion, which seemed to have almost no affect at all, and provided absolutely no relief to the aching. HP potions didn’t work anymore? I guess that was a small payoff if it meant I came back from the dead. I sat up and got a better look as my blurry vision corrected itself.

  The demons grew sparse, and the boss now looked to be in even worse shape than before my death. The arm that it had tossed the javelin with was gone, instead replaced by a devastating wound: as if someone had ripped the arm clean off with nothing but brutal, overwhelming strength.

  All of my summoned undead were gone except just one, a singular skeletal mage that pelted spells from beside Jessica. Jessica! Still unharmed, I saw, with immense relief. None of this made sense as I was positive my death would have my undead soldiers de-spawning, but somehow or another I knew their continuation was the only explanation. How else could I have leveled without them?

  Jessica was fully focused just a dozen yards away, positioned between my body and the boss as if shielding me. Her bow twanged silently, and I watched as she pulled another MP potion in full concentration to continue firing shots without stop.

  While I had been floating in that timeless prison, I had started to feel alright about my own death. Seeing Jessica’s back reminded me how delusional I must have been. A budding happiness grew as I struggled to sit up.

  My HP ticked up just a few points with every cast of my skeletal mage. Could it be that a summoned skeleton that I would have considered almost useless on its own before had pulled me back from the depths of hell?

  My MP was pitifully low, and without MP my ability to fight was near zero. I pulled the biggest MP potion I had available and swallowed it in two gulps. HP Potions had no effect, but I prayed MP potions still worked.

  The cooling sensation as the liquid raced down my throat sent a rejuvenating rush through me. It worked as well as it ever did, and I had an unlimited amount of corpses at my disposal. Oddly enough though, I couldn’t summon from them.

  It was as if because I had previously died, none of these enemies were slain by ‘me’ and couldn’t be used as a catalyst. Although it required a bit more MP but I cast Shallow Grave reluctantly before unleashing my skeletons once again. My fully replenished army of undead, reborn just as I had been.

  The skeletal mage just next to Jessica shattered as if exploding, being replaced in my mass summoning as I reached my undead cap. It was the first time since I awakened that I saw her hesitate—her entire body quivered for a moment as if something had finally broken. She had been pulling and firing nonstop for the better part of half-a-minute, and surely more that I hadn’t seen.

  She was at her breaking point. No, any more and she would break. No matter how much MP you had, using abilities was more than just that number in your character sheet. It was mentally and physically exhausting.

  I ran forward, as did my undead soldiers. The words wouldn’t come out of my throat, but the sudden sound had her turning. My hand reached the arch of her back before she fell in exhaustion. “I’m h-here” My throat was so incredibly dry it cracked as I forced myself to speak.

  She was burning up, not from any damage or illness, but from pure exhaustion. “It’ll be alright. You did good enough.” I wanted to explain but now wasn’t the time. We supported each other and walked past the newcomers to behind the wall where she could rest safely.

  Just before I could turn back around I heard Thomas’ voice. “H-how.., but? Yo- you died?”

  I knew. I knew… “Tell me about it.” Was all I could say, but inside I could only think one thing. What a fucked up day.