The fighting inside the church continues.

The dead and the living fought hard and swords against each other, and there was no more meaningful battle. He wants him to join, he wants him to rest in peace, like ice and fire, cold and scorching heat, where one side will always perish.

A piece of broken ice crystals blew out of a crack in the church door and landed on Ralph's helmet. He stood motionless in the doorway, like a silent statue.

Ralph is not a statue, but he is silent, as he is an undead, a loyal skeleton guard.

He obeyed the orders of the lord of the town, Lord Viscount Fried, and stood guard outside the church to ensure that the battle that was taking place inside would not be disturbed by other creatures.

There was a constant roar and a roar, but Ralph didn't care about the battle inside the church, for he had no ears......

No, it's because he has a lot of faith in his lord.

Ralph believed that Viscount Fried could defeat any kind of enemy, whether it be a fierce bandit, a gloomy adventurer, or an undead of all kinds, and the Viscount would be able to wipe them out.

Both alive and after death, Viscount Freed was a powerful and harsh lord. Those who had the privilege of fighting with the lord, or who had seen the lord fight, were convinced of this.

And Ralph is one of them.

He was an ordinary patrol guard in Giethoorn during his lifetime, and his job was to patrol the three streets near the town's main road.

This is a very important job, and it is related to the safety of all the people in the whole town of Giethoorn, and Ralph has always thought so anyway. He was a sturdy fellow with some skill, having single-handedly dealt with three thieves armed with sharp weapons and knocked them all to the ground.

When the town was first engulfed in darkness and death, Ralph resisted the invasion of negative energy in the first place, and did not become a terrible undead like the rest of the inhabitants.

However, this was not a cause for rejoicing, for he could not escape anyway.

With his own skills and will, Ralph struggled to survive in the dark. He ran and hid, and with his weapons he had slashed several abominable undead. However, as time passed, his body became weaker and weaker, and in the end, he still inevitably had his neck bitten off by a zombie.

The zombie that bit him was Jora, whom Ralph knew.

Although Jora's trademark long blonde hair had thinned and yellowed, her delicate face had become shriveled and hideous, and her gentle eyes were gone, Ralph recognized her at first sight.

Because, he had a crush on her when he was young.

Ralph would often go to the restaurant across the street from her house after the changing of the guard, hoping to see Jora. The restaurant had a famous dish called 'Lucky Rabbit's Feet', which Ralph often ordered when he had a lot of money. He wished he had good luck, that Jora would appear in front of him more often, and that she would lie down in the crook of his arm.

Unfortunately, Ralph still rarely sees Jora, and sometimes he doesn't see her until the restaurant closes. However, her figure would often appear in his dreams, those wonderful and beautiful dreams......

Jora does not belong to Ralph in the end, and she marries Ted, the son of a merchant. Ted wasn't as tall as Ralph, nor as strong as him, just a little handsome. But what's the use of being handsome? Woman, sometimes it's just so stupid.

After the two got married, they also opened a grocery store in the town. They also gave birth to a lovely daughter and named her 'Eve', which means 'beautiful and magical little life'.

Ralph, on the other hand, is married to Sancy, who is two years younger than him, the daughter of his captain.

Sansi was a good woman, she kept the house in order, planted pumpkins and grapes near the house, and made a lot of wine every year, because she knew that Ralph liked to drink wine.

Her cooking skills are also very good, at least since Ralph got married, she has rarely gone to that restaurant full of memories to taste the dish called 'Lucky Rabbit's Feet'.

However, Ralph still dreams of the blond figure from time to time in his sleep at night. No matter how much time has passed, no matter what the situation, her face will always appear clearly in his mind.

Just like that time.

In Ralph's opinion, it is also a good choice to be able to die in Jora's mouth in the end. He had dreamed countless times in his sleep that she was gently arching and licking his neck like a cat, and in the last moment of his life, it could be regarded as a fulfillment.

......

There was another loud noise in the church, and it seemed that many wooden boxes had been broken.

The sound interrupted Ralph's recollections, but it still didn't catch its attention. Because the lord's soul fire was still so blazing and vigorous at this time, it showed that he was still in control of this battle.

Ralph habitually moved his less skillful left arm and looked to his side, where Black and Aven, who were also skeleton guards, were standing next to him, while Dean was killed by an uninvited guest in the church.

Oddly enough, Dean didn't come back to life as usual. Although his head had been knocked out by the living man, his skull itself was not too badly injured due to the protection of the barrel helmet. As usual, it wouldn't be long before Dean's soul fire would rekindle in his skull, but from his fall until now, Ralph still hasn't felt his resurrection.

In this sealed space, death is not the end, but just an ordinary process of reincarnation.

Ralph had died five times, and each time he died, he felt as if something had been lost in his soul fire, but something had been added to it. He didn't care about it, though, except that sometimes when he reawakened in the dark, he would sigh inexplicably, even though he didn't need to breathe......

He died for the first time in Jora's mouth, and one of his left arms was snatched by a passing ghoul. After that, he was resurrected as a one-armed zombie, and with the remaining memories of his life, he wandered the three streets every day.

One day, long later, his muddy soul fire suddenly felt the call of the lord. He wasn't the only one who was called, all the guards in the town had been inspired and gathered together, just like him.

They gathered from all corners of the town towards the central square, and looked at the lord to whom they had been loyal with the fire of the Chaos Soul.

At that time, it was not only Viscount Freed who was waiting for them in the square, but also Lord Viscount's former chief knight, Sir Illion, also rode a skeleton war horse and stood quietly behind the Viscount.

When all the guards were gathered, Viscount Freed transformed them with the icy blue power of death, turning them into another form of undead - skeletons.

Because skeletons are more agile than zombies, and they are more able to suppress the instincts that the dead are born with than ghouls. They do not feel hungry, they do not have any desires, they only faithfully carry out the orders of their position.

Ralph vaguely remembered the spectacle of the guards kneeling in the square, the lord in the middle of the square on a skeletal horse, and the chief knight standing behind him.

The lord pulled out the rune greatsword behind his back, then raised it high again, using his soul fire to deliver new orders to them.

"Pledge your allegiance to me again, Guardians of Giethoorn, and to your lords!" Viscount Fried's surging voice slammed into Ralph's soul fire, making it a little clearer.

Inspired by the voice, Ralph directly let go of his soul fire, and let the lord imprint a touch of ice blue in the shape of a sheep's head.

"We return from the living to death, and then awaken from the darkness of death...... Lord Lord said a lot at the time, but Ralph did not remember it.

He only remembered that after the Lord had finished speaking, the light on the rune greatsword in his hand was shining, and then Ralph felt a throbbing sound from the depths of his soul fire. He fell to the ground wailing and found all the undead in the square like him. For a while, the screams were endless.

Immediately afterward, the carrion on the bodies of the undead, like fireworks shot from a circus performance, exploded one after another, and the rotten flesh and coagulated black blood splattered everywhere, and the square was in shambles. After that, the whole square was as silent as death, except for the skeleton war horse under the lord's crotch, gently scraping the ground with its front hooves.

The moonlight shone on the bloody, filthy square, and one after another, the skeletons were pale and slowly rose from the carrion. When they raised their heads, the soul fire in their skulls turned from orange to ice blue.

......