“If you want to become an adventurer, I'll join you every step of the way…”

  Her voice was so lovely, and so was the manner in which she said those words. It was as if the mere sound of her voice held the burden of all that I had struggled for. It reminded me why I never lost hope for this new life, why I decided to tread a different path, one filled with hope and warmth, unlike the coldness of my previous existence.

  The grass moves softly in the wind, its motion a gentle dance in harmony with the rhythm of nature. The flowers bloom in every colour of the rainbow, their hues vibrant and alive under the brilliant, limitless sky. She ran happily through the open grassland, laughing freely and effortlessly, her voice ringing out as if to wash away all the sorrow and remorse that once filled my heart. In the distance, farmers plough the land, their sun-baked skin weathered. Above them, wyverns soar through the open blue heavens, their broad wings outstretched, riding the wind with ease.

  She’s a vision, her brown locks blowing in the breeze, her blue eyes glinting with the innocence of the world around us. We stroll side by side, hands clasped, fingers tracing gentle patterns upon one another. It’s a simple gesture, but it feels like everything I ever desired, everything I never believed I was worthy of. How I prize this moment, how deeply I hold it. It is a gift I had never known before, a gift I never even dared to dream of.

  When I was serving the Red, my existence was nothing but duty—rigid, cold, and empty. There were no quiet pleasures, no tender moments, no love. Only the daily grind of survival, the burden of duty, day in and day out, year after year. And yet here, in this new world, with her beside me, I find myself questioning. Could this be what love really is? A peace I never dreamed of? A gentleness I never imagined I could have?

  It’s difficult to believe this might be real. But in her eyes, at this moment, I see that maybe love isn’t some sweeping, monumental thing but a quiet, insistent presence, a bond that builds with every breath, every exchanged smile, every fleeting instant as we navigate this life side by side.

  “NOOOO!!”

  The lush green faded into the shadows of a dark cave. My surroundings snapped back to harsh reality as the memory returned, the moment that changed everything. My only two friends... and her. My sweetheart, pinned down, her body no longer under her control. The bastard in golden armour slammed her to the ground. My eyes widened in horror. The group we joined, the ones we trusted, had become something else entirely.

  “IT’S A TRAP!” someone shouted, spinning around just in time to see an archer release an arrow. It whistled through the air and struck his low-grade armour.

  “ARGH!” Lancer cried out in pain.

  “LANCER, NO!” I screamed. But there was no time. Another shout rang out—louder, more desperate. I turned just in time to see it. They stabbed her. Quick. Effortless. The golden-armoured bastard grinned like it was a game, while the witch beside him whispered the words to a binding spell, locking her in place.

  “YOU FUCKING DOG!!” My voice cracked, torn from my throat by rage.

  “GUAR—HEL~” The cry was cut short. Swallowed by chaos.

  She glanced back at me with those beautiful eyes—lifeless—as he pulled the blade from her body, chuckling at the sight.

  “Easy bitch to kill.”

  I stared at him with burning hatred, trembling with rage, struggling to break free from the magic holding me down. But I couldn’t. I shouted, my voice shaking as he slowly turned his gaze toward me.

  “YOU BASTARD! YOU NOBLE BASTARD! YOU ONLY DID THIS TO OBTAIN THE IMPERIAL CAST! YOU NEVER CARED. YOU WANTED US DEAD—JUST TO OPEN THE GATE!”

  “Of course~!” the bastard said with a smirk.

  “Do you truly believe we needed a summoner who can’t even summon dirt? Or some worthless noble knight who can’t even keep his stance straight? The only reason we brought you along was because we needed her, your bitch of a girlfriend. She did the job, and now, we’ve got the Imperial Cast.”

  “Look at you…” He muttered, glancing down at me with those sharp, wolf-like eyes. His blade dripped with blood, and he took a slow breath, almost savouring the moment.

  “I can’t imagine how it felt hearing that magic appraiser tell you what you are—an Undead Summoner, of all things. The most useless class of summoner there is…”

  Behind him, the mage and his men casually swept through the area, taking their time to loot everything they could. I glanced toward Lancer—he was being stripped of his gear, and still, he found the strength to shout back.

  “ARGH~ Why?! What did we do?! If the Guild finds out, they’ll make sure you pay for this!”

  He tried to fight it, but they just laughed. They didn’t care. One of them even kicked his shield aside like it was scrap. Then the captain, smug and calm, turned his gaze toward Lancer. He began to walk toward him with a mocking strut.

  Anger surged through me, sharp and hot.

  “DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM, YOU BASTARD!” I screamed, my voice cracking.

  The captain stopped mid-step, pausing to glance in my direction. For a moment, silence. Then—without warning—he turned and charged at me.

  His armoured boot slammed into my face. The impact was immediate and brutal. My senses shattered. Everything blurred. My vision went white, then black. I could barely breathe, barely think.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he barked.

  Pain exploded across my skull. My ears rang. My face throbbed as blood trickled down my chin. And through it all, I could hear Lancer crying out, his voice full of fury, helplessness, and fear.

  “YOU RAT MOTHERFUCKER!”

  His boot slammed into my face, and though I was knocked down, I didn’t fully lose consciousness. Everything was a blur, my vision swimming, but I could still hear. Every sound. Every scream. Every taunt.

  Through the haze, I saw the captain turn back. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword once more, drawing it from its sheath with a gleam that caught what little light there was. I heard them jeer, and then came the sound that twisted my gut—

  Lancer’s cry of pain.

  My eyes welled with tears. Hearing him like that… it shattered something inside me. That was when it truly hit me—these weren’t comrades. They weren’t allies. They were monsters cloaked in armour and false smiles. This world… no, the people in it, they weren’t equal. Not kind. Not just.

  “No…” I muttered, tears spilling as I listened to the last cries of the only friends I had left.

  They were toying with us—finishing their mockery with a cruel suggestion from one of the men.

  “What should we do with the useless summoner?”

  The female mage spoke next.

  “Don’t worry. I got this…”

  The Captain said, his voice calm and venomous.

  He approached slowly, each step measured, like he enjoyed dragging out the moment. His gaze pierced me—cold and cruel. He fed on the fear, the silence. He was the kind of man who relished the power he held, even if it came at the cost of others' lives.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "You know," he began, voice low, poisonous, "the Imperial Cast… It's something I’ve longed for. Five months—five cursed months, I’ve played nice. Subtle tricks, lies, flattery... just to get it from that slut you keep as your girl.”

  He spat in her direction without hesitation.

  "But now I see,” he continued, a mocking grin spreading across his face, "it was all foolish. A waste of time."

  Then his eyes drifted to her body—lifeless, still, and somehow still radiant in her dead state. My heart clenched.

  "You actually pulled a loyal one, didn’t you?” he sneered. “So pretty, so faithful… to a worthless class like you. Tragic, really.”

  He chuckled, bitter and cold.

  "I'd be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about breaking her in myself."

  "Babe! How could you say that in front of me?" His mage purred mockingly behind him, her voice dripping with cruel satisfaction.

  But their insults only stoked the fire burning within me.

  I lifted my head, teeth bared, a low snarl slipping from my lips, born from the depths of my fury.

  "If I had time, I’d kill you a thousand times. But I’ll settle for once. When the time comes, I swear, you and that viper by your side will be thrown into the darkest hell... and I’ll be the one to toss you in."

  The others laughed—derisive echoes that cut through the air like knives, their mocking tone deaf to the violence I was seething with. But as their laughter rang in my ears, something darker swelled in me. Beneath the weight of despair and the magic holding me in place, fury boiled—raw, unbridled, personal.

  It wasn’t a retort. It wasn’t just words.

  It was all I had left.

  I locked my gaze onto his sneering face, and every part of me screamed to erase it from existence. To tear it apart, to rip him to shreds. But my body refused to move, paralysed by the spell, held down by the agony, or perhaps crushed by the weight of a fate that wouldn’t let me escape.

  With sickening calm, he advanced.

  The sneer on his face never wavered as he drew his sword. The cold blade gleamed, reflecting the flicker of flame and magic around us.

  He pressed the tip of the sword to my belly, the point firm and cold against my skin.

  "No hard feelings?" he taunted with an ugly grin.

  * * * * * * * *

  The loud, echoing steps of my boots were the only thing breaking the suffocating silence of the dungeon. The whispers, the constant screams of agony from my friends—it was a living hell, and every step reminded me of the nightmare I had gotten myself into.

  It had seemed too good to be true. Fucking hell... I was gullible, just another low-ranking adventurer taking a job from those at the top. The whole thing had been a trap from the start.

  Navigating through the tight corridors and cave passages, I realised how different things had become since we entered. “Couldn’t be…” I muttered, scanning the area. It wasn’t just the dungeon that had changed—some of the key items we’d used to enter were gone. I’d been stripped back to square one. Fucking fantastic. I had no idea where I was now, and if I didn’t figure it out soon, one of the high-tier beasts roaming the area would tear me apart.

  "Shit..."

  "Those rats... they cleared all my shit out."

  Everything was gone from my inventory. Frustrated, I rifled through my bag, but there was nothing left except my journal and my magic book. The book was useless; my Undead Summoner class made it entirely obsolete. I sighed and kept searching, but it was clear. No valuables. No backup. Just me, alone in the dark.

  I needed a safe spot to rest.

  I felt my fingers brush against some deadwood nearby, at the edge of the corridor. A small pocket of space. I quickly set up a makeshift camp, placing a talisman down to light a fire. The flames crackled louder as I tossed in more dry branches, working to keep the fire going through the night.

  Looking down at my injuries, I expected the usual—a collection of bruises and cuts, reminders of how much I’d already been through. But to my surprise, most of them had healed. The bruises, the cuts, all gone. It was as if something deep inside me had stirred to life. Whatever it was, I embraced it, welcoming the strange power.

  There was a moment of silence.

  I dug through my pockets—the ones they hadn’t bothered searching—and my hand brushed against something familiar. Something heavy in my chest. A small, unmistakable weight.

  "I'm sorry I didn't save you…"

  It was a locket. Her locket. My childhood lover’s. Her eyes stared back at me in the miniature photo, that soft, gentle smile frozen in time. Holding it, I felt a surge of guilt clawing at me, threatening to swallow me whole. Everything that had happened—every decision, every failure—had led to this. And in that moment, I couldn’t help but remember a past I’d tried so hard to forget.

  And then it happened.

  Through the flickering flames, I saw him—me. My former self, from another life. He stood there, just watching me, with eyes that held the weight of a thousand regrets and a bitter smile that mirrored my own. Somehow, we both knew. We both understood.

  "I didn’t think I had a childhood sweetheart," he muttered, the laugh that followed flat and hollow. "She was beautiful, too."

  I blinked, unsure if this was real. "Do we… share the same mind?"

  "Maybe. Or maybe not. But I've been wondering… what did that captain say? Called you a waste of a summoner? And how in the hell did we get ourselves into this mess?"

  I stepped closer, eyes narrowing. My former self, his uniform tattered, body armour covered in dust and dried blood, stared back at me. His face was as cracked as my own, but what struck me the hardest was the hole clean through his forehead.

  A clean hole. A perfect kill.

  That was how I died.

  And he was laughing. Not with joy, but with the kind of delirium that comes from too much loss. The war was over—he knew it, and deep down, I did too.

  "Ukrainians fucked us over good," he shrugged. "If I had to guess, they used my battalion as bait to draw attention away from the actual SOF units. Too bad my tent guards were understrength. Half my men were already dead..."

  I couldn’t help but snap back, bitterness pouring from me like poison. "Don’t give them so much credit. None of this would’ve happened if you’d just stayed loyal to the Kremlin and kept pushing. We could've taken Kherson quicker."

  He shot me a glare. "We couldn’t capture Kherson when the O and Z units kept ordering me to stay put. Even the Kremlin commented on it. You’re just spouting crap."

  I didn’t have a response. I knew he was right, and that was what made it worse.

  We sat in silence, two fractured halves of the same man, trying to understand what we'd become. The air between us felt thick, as if the years of regret, pain, and mistakes lingered in that space. A deep sigh escaped my lips, but it felt like it came more from him than from me. We were forged from the same mind, but we had never truly known each other—not until now.

  The "awakening"—whatever it had been—had triggered something within my mana. A spark, profound, that brought memories I was never supposed to see. And in doing so, it had brought him back—the me that had already died, unaware of the storm I had contributed to.

  I glanced at the image of my past self, Alexander, and in that moment, I began to tell him everything. I spoke as though giving a bitter eulogy for the person we once were.

  "Your new name is Ovisia Merisa. We grew up in a goddamn dump and somehow made it out alive. Only child. Spent the days hawking fish, wandering from village to town after our slut of a mother finally died on us."

  He didn't respond. He just listened, as if he were trying to piece together the fragments of our shared past.

  "Five months ago, I woke up. The mages detected mana within me. At first, I thought it was a blessing… until they told me what I was."

  I paused, feeling the weight of the memory.

  "Undead Summoner. Of all the damn classes... I received the weakest form. The dregs of the barrel."

  "Tell me more," my past self said, his voice low, curious.

  "Undead Summoners can only raise the dead. Skeletons. Maybe some low-ranking wolfhounds. Never anything powerful. No demons. No dragons. That’s why we’re useless. If we had been lucky, maybe we would’ve gotten something like Dragon Summoner. But no. I got the worst."

  He stayed silent for a moment, as if processing it all.

  "How useless is it, then?" he asked. "Can't we just go to a graveyard, raise an army of corpses, and have them fight?"

  I let out a frustrated sigh, a bitter laugh escaping my lips.

  "That’s what I thought," I muttered. "But it doesn't work that way."

  He scowled.

  "Why not?"

  "Because undead summoners can't resurrect anything unless their mana is up to a certain level. And mine? I'm dead-zero. Not enough even to revive a rotting mutt. Most summoners start with a mana point. We don't even get that."

  "That doesn't make any sense."

  "I know," I said. "It's just how the class works. Everyone thinks we're trash-tier. And to be honest... talking to myself like this? It's starting to mess with my head."

  The old Alexander chuckled.

  "I'm part of your mind, remember?" he said. "Might as well help you make sense of it."

  He leaned forward, his curiosity piqued.

  "Still... how useless is it? Can't you summon one undead and give it a command?"

  I scoffed.

  "Even if I were able to, the undead don't take orders very well. It's like asking a braindead moron to drive a car—hell, he'll crash before he gets out of the driveway. They can do things, but they don't think. And they sure as hell don't listen."

  He nodded slowly.

  "Well... since we're the same person, I think we should correct that. Make the undead helpful."

  I looked at him tiredly.

  "You think I haven't tried?"

  He smirked.

  "No. But I do believe you're going to find a means. This dungeon… there's something within that could assist. Something that would drive your mana higher. This class—this affliction—it brought me back. That means there's more to it than you know."

  I raised my fists.

  "What am I even supposed to do? They killed her. Our sweetheart. Rivas too. Our only friend. And I had to sit there, paralysed, while they laughed at us. Teased us like we were bugs."

  "We'll take care of that," he said matter-of-factly.

  I glared at him, the rage seething just under my skin.

  "You saw what I was. Weak. Pathetic. I couldn't save anyone."

  He didn't blink.

  "I did," he said. "And it sickened me. Seeing you—seeing me—fall so far. I despised it. But we're not going to remain like this."

  He moved closer.

  "For now, we exist. Then we adapt. And when we're powerful enough…"

  His eyes were shining.

  "…we make them pay. And the way we can pay them to ensure we have the advantage… discover what you can retrieve from this cave and perhaps you'll find an item that will enhance our magical abilities like never before…"

  “What should we do?” I asked him, my voice filled with uncertainty.

  Alexander smiled and merely replied, “We shall build an army…”