008 Special Talk

  It had been three months since I was unceremoniously dropped into this world, and if I had to describe my afterlife so far, I’d say it was like being stuck in a weird mix of house arrest and summer camp… minus the campfires and s’mores. I’d settled into a somewhat vague routine to keep my sanity intact—or whatever’s left of it after being dead for a while.

  Mornings usually started with me doing household chores. It sounds mundane, I know, but I wasn’t exactly scrubbing floors or folding undry. I didn’t need to, obviously, but I used chores as a way to practice my tactile telekinesis. Poltergeist stuff. I’d lift broken chunks of Skully’s furniture and reassemble them, move objects without touching them, and occasionally rearrange his bookshelves just to mess with him. He hated that. Especially when I alphabetized everything by author’s first name.

  Then came the ghost power experiments. That was hit or miss. Literally. One day, I discovered I could float through walls at will simultaneously, which was cool, and the next, I tried phasing through the floor and ended up stuck waist-deep in the stone like some kind of supernatural gopher. Skully ughed for a solid fifteen minutes before begrudgingly yanking me out.

  Afternoons? That was reserved for getting hit by Skully’s magic.

  Yep, still happening. Skully had taken it upon himself to keep testing whether he could destroy me, and I, in my infinite boredom and curiosity, let him. It wasn’t like it hurt. One minute I’d be floating around, and the next, BAM—fireballs, lightning, even something he called Death Beam, which sounded way more dramatic than it actually was. I’d just blink, phase back into pce, and give him a thumbs-up. He’d grumble, mutter something about “damned persistent spirits,” and we’d repeat the cycle.

  But recently, I’d added something new to the mix: learning magic. Or at least trying to.

  Skully wasn’t exactly thrilled about that. “You’re already an unkilble ghost, and now you want to add spellcasting to the list?” he’d said, sounding more annoyed than concerned.

  “Yep,” I’d replied. “Might as well. I’ve got the time.”

  Who knew, I might achieve an incredible breakthrough that would allow me to kill myself.

  The magic system in this world was… weird. Apparently, it revolved around a theoretical form of energy called mana. You couldn’t see it, touch it, or measure it in any scientific way. It was just there, flowing through everything like some kind of mystical Wi-Fi signal. According to Skully, magic users maniputed mana by using spells, runes, incantations, or even sheer force of will, depending on the type of magic they specialized in.

  It was fascinating but also incredibly frustrating because none of it followed the rules my mom taught me.

  My mom… she used to dabble in folk magic back when I was a kid. Nothing fancy—just little charms, herbal remedies, and the occasional candle spell to ward off bad vibes. She always said magic was about intention, about channeling your energy into the world and trusting it to respond. But here? Here, magic was like math. Complex, structured, and annoyingly precise.

  Still, I kept at it. Not like I had much else to do.

  So, how was my afterlife treating me recently? Absolutely boring. The realm was surprisingly peaceful despite looking like something straight out of a high-fantasy RPG. No marauding warlords, no dragon attacks, not even a rogue necromancer causing chaos. Just endless stretches of quiet forests, crumbling ruins, and sleepy vilges where nothing much happened.

  I guess I should’ve been grateful for the peace, but honestly? I was kind of hoping for more excitement. Maybe a quest or two. A treasure map. A prophecy. Anything to break the monotony.

  “Hey, Skully,” I said one afternoon as we sat in his cathedral-turned-ir. He was hunched over his workbench, fiddling with some kind of glowing crystal, and I was zily floating upside down near the ceiling. “Do you ever get bored?”

  He snorted. “Do I look like someone who has time to be bored?”

  “Kind of, yeah,” I said, pointing at the pile of half-finished experiments gathering dust in the corner. “You’ve been dead for how long now? Centuries? Millennia? And you’re still puttering around in here like a retired alchemist with a hobby.”

  “I am not puttering,” he said, shooting me a gre. “I’m conducting research.”

  “On what?”

  He paused. “That’s none of your business.”

  I shrugged and drifted lower until I was level with him. “You know, maybe if you got out more, you wouldn’t be so grumpy all the time. Go on a vacation. Take a break from all the doom and gloom.”

  “A vacation,” he repeated ftly, as though I’d just suggested he take up knitting.

  “Yeah! Hit up a tavern, visit a magic fair, see the sights. You might actually enjoy yourself.”

  “I am a Lich,” he said, enunciating every word like he was talking to a particurly slow child. “I do not vacation.”

  “Maybe that’s your problem,” I said, grinning. “You’ve forgotten how to have fun.”

  He groaned and pinched the bridge of his bony nose. “Non, I swear, if you don’t stop talking, I’m going to—”

  “Yeah, yeah, hit me with another fireball. Go ahead. I’m ready.” I struck a dramatic pose, arms outstretched. “Bring it on, Skully.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. “You’re insufferable.”

  “Thanks. I try.”

  And time went on like usual…

  It had been a few more weeks of me floundering through this bizarre afterlife when Skully finally hit me with some news: I was magically defective.

  Apparently, after all my failed attempts to cast even the most basic spells, he decided to run some tests. After poking, prodding, and scribbling down notes on crumbling parchment for hours, he gave me his professional diagnosis.

  “You’re suffering from anti-mana interference,” he said, gesturing dramatically with a bony hand.

  “Anti-mana… something?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

  “Interference,” he crified, as if that somehow made it sound better. “Your spirit seems to repel mana. It’s why you can’t perform magic like normal beings.”

  “Great,” I said, throwing up my hands. “So, I’m basically a magic brick.”

  “More like a magic bck hole,” Skully mused, tapping his chin. “You don’t absorb mana, but you disrupt it… a lot. That’s probably why nothing I’ve thrown at you so far has worked.”

  I sighed. “So, I’m unkilble and magically useless. Fantastic.”

  For a while, I honestly thought I might die (again) of boredom. The days started to blur together in a haze of ghostly chores, failed spellcasting attempts, and Skully’s increasingly frustrated mutterings. I was about to lose hope when, out of the blue, Skully invited me to help with his experiments.

  At first, I thought he was joking.

  “You want me to help you?” I asked, blinking in disbelief.

  “Do you have anything better to do?” he snapped.

  Fair point.

  And so, for the next few days, I became Skully’s b assistant—or, more accurately, his magical guinea pig. My duties included carrying stuff, bringing stuff, standing still while he scribbled runes around me, and, occasionally, getting tossed across the room by experimental potions.

  “Are you still trying to kill me?” I asked one day, after picking myself up from a pile of shattered vials.

  “No,” he said, frowning. “This is purely for research purposes.”

  “Good,” I said, dusting off my ectopsmic sleeves. “Because, you know, my whole ‘exorcise me, please’ request is probably going to be a long-term affair. And while I’ve got the patience for it, I’m starting to worry I might outlive you if you don’t find a solution.”

  He shot me a gre, but he didn’t deny it.

  Currently, we were experimenting with magical items. According to Skully, people in this world could only equip a limited number of magic items, and that limit was tied to their strength. It had something to do with how much magical power the body could handle before it overloaded.

  In game terms, I think he was referring to level requirements.

  “In this time and age,” Skully expined as he handed me a glowing amulet, “if someone tries to equip a magical item beyond their means, they’ll suffer severe consequences—anything from debilitating sickness to, well, instant death. Unless you are a demi-god, there is no way you can equip artifacts beyond your ken.”

  “Sounds fun,” I said, slipping the amulet over my head.

  For me, though, the consequences weren’t quite so extreme. My limit, as it turned out, was a single ring. No more, no less. If I tried to wear anything beyond that, I didn’t die or get sick—I just became… encumbered.

  Imagine trying to move through a pool of mosses while wearing a hundred-pound backpack. That’s what it felt like.

  “Fascinating,” Skully muttered, jotting down notes as I struggled to lift my arms.

  “Gd you’re enjoying this,” I wheezed, slowly peeling off the extra magic items.

  Once I was back to normal, I gnced at Skully’s hand. Specifically, at the glowing ring on his finger.

  “So,” I said casually, “about that ring…”

  “No,” he said immediately.

  “Come on, you didn’t even let me finish!”

  “I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no,” he said firmly. “This ring is… irrepceable.”

  Yeah, I knew that. I tried. But come on, imagine the adventure I could’ve had if I had that ring. Unlimited transtion powers? I’d be practically unstoppable—at least when it came to asking for directions or haggling over magical trinkets at the market.

  Unfortunately, Skully wasn’t budging, so I figured it was time to consider a more nuclear option.

  “Fine,” I said with a shrug. “If you won’t give me the ring, maybe it’s time I try something else.”

  Skully raised a suspicious eyebrow—or at least, the bony equivalent. “Like what?”

  “Point me to the nearest church.”

  He blinked—or, well, his eye sockets flickered, which I took as blinking. “Church?”

  “Yeah. You know, holy ground, priests, faith, all that stuff.” I gestured vaguely, like that would make it clearer.

  Skully crossed his arms and stared at me like I’d just asked him where to find a unicorn petting zoo. “There… aren’t any churches left,” he said slowly.

  “Wait, what?”

  “The Church you’re talking about perished over a thousand years ago.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he was talking about st year’s crops. “The most powerful religious organization in the world now is called the Clergy of Magic.”

  I blinked. “Clergy of… Magic?”

  “Magic,” he repeated with a nod. “They worship the arcane forces of the world and venerate powerful archmages as saints.”

  Okay, that was definitely not what I was expecting. I mean, sure, this world was clearly leaning hard into the high fantasy aesthetic, but no churches? No priests with holy symbols? No exorcists wielding crucifixes and chanting Latin? What kind of afterlife was this?

  I scratched the back of my head, trying to process it all. “So… what happened to the old Church? You know, the one with gods and stuff?”

  Skully sighed, and for a moment, he actually looked… tired. “It’s a long story,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “Let’s just say the world changed, and the old gods didn’t change with it.”

  I nodded slowly, even though I didn’t really understand. “Okay… So, what exactly is the Clergy of Magic? Do they do exorcisms?”

  “Technically, yes,” Skully said. “But their exorcisms are more like magical purges. They don’t use holy water or prayer—they use spells, sigils, and alchemical rituals. It’s technically the same thing I’ve been doing to you.”

  “Huh.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Sounds intense.”

  “It is,” Skully said. Then he gave me a pointed look. “And not something you should mess with lightly.”

  I waved him off. “Rex, I’m not pnning to march into their temple and demand an exorcism. I just want to know my options.”

  Skully didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. Instead, he gave me a curious look. “You know,” he said, “for someone who’s been here for months, you seem surprisingly clueless about… a lot of things… Does it have something to do with the degradation of memories of ghosts?”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a slow learner.”

  Skully narrowed his eyes. “Just where did you come from, anyway? How have you not heard about the historical changes, the fall of the old Church, or the rise of the Clergy of Magic?”

  I froze. For a split second, I considered lying. But then I remembered who I was talking to—a literal undead skeleton with a penchant for bsting me with lightning whenever I annoyed him. If anyone could handle the truth, it was probably Skully.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath (even though I didn’t technically need to breathe). “You might want to sit down for this.”

  “I don’t have muscles,” Skully deadpanned. “Or a butt.”

  “Fair point,” I said. “But still… you might want to brace yourself, because what I’m about to tell you is going to sound pretty crazy.”

  Skully tilted his head, clearly intrigued. “I’m listening.”

  And that’s when I decided to drop the bombshell:

  “I’m not from this world,” I said. “I’m from another one—a pce where magic doesn’t exist, skeletons don’t talk, and the only monsters we have are the ones on TV.”