Chapter 20

  The Dragon’s Den was filled with clinking mugs and loud conversation when Callum arrived after finishing his delivery job. He could see busy barmaids navigating the tables while balancing drinks and platters. Men were drinking to their heart's content while talking to their friends. He could even see a group of adventurers merry at the tavern's corner.

  However, Callum wasn’t here to buy a meal. At least, it wasn’t his main reason.

  His eyes scanned the room for an empty table while looking for Tess. He knows she’s busy, but if he could have her send him his meals, he could mention his dire need for a tutor.

  “Callum! You’re here early!” A young barmaid said to him.

  He knew her name to be Clara, but mostly, he knew her for being a charming girl.

  She made her way to him, drinks still in hand.

  “I’m just here to find Tess, and a meal or two if I can,” Callum said.

  The young barmaid guided Callum to an empty table.

  “Well, you know how busy that girl can be, but I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  “That would be great.”

  Callum sat himself down at the table. It was secluded enough that he could eat undisturbed while watching the whole tavern, a great spot to look for a certain barmaid.

  “Also, Sabrina has been working hard in the kitchen! That girl won’t stop moving, not until Mama Mia tells her to take a break,”

  “Hope she’s not causing you guys trouble,”

  “Oh, none at all! If anything, the kitchen is more lively with her around. Anyways, I'd better get back to work before the boss chews me out for slacking,”

  With a chuckle, the barmaid went away. As he got comfortable in his chair, Callum couldn’t help but smile at the energetic buzz of the Dragon’s Den.

  He had grown to love this place. The food was nice and cheap, and the atmosphere was always vibrant. Callum would have loved to start a conversation with everyone here if it weren’t for his abyssal eyes.

  “Yet life can’t be so easy for the damned,” Callum sighed.

  “What are you sighing for?”

  Raising his head, Callum saw an annoyed Tess glaring at him. His posture straightened as he regarded the woman, coughing into his fist as he regained his thoughts.

  “Tess, nice seeing you here,” Callum smiled.

  “Are you just here to piss me off, or are you going to order something?” Tess replied.

  “What’s wrong with greeting a friend after a long day at work?” he retorted.

  If looks could kill, Callum would already be six feet under from Tess’ death stare. It took ten seconds of silent glaring before she started walking away.

  “Wait!” he shouted, half standing from his seat.

  “If you’re not orderin’ from our menu, get out.”

  “Okay, okay. Geez, does everything I do not to your liking?”

  “Yes,” she answered with a straight face.

  “Duly noted.”

  Tess sighed in exasperation as she looked at him tiredly.

  “Look, Callum. I’m busy trying to earn my damn keep. So if you’re going to buy something, do it now. Or else, I’ll kick you out of this place for everyone to see.”

  Callum nodded at the girl’s remark. He felt guilty keeping her from her work; however, the need to learn the language of this world was important.

  “Okay, but once you have some free time, come see me,” Callum said seriously. After all, the quests are written on the board, and knowing how to read would help his research about magic. “And I’d like the usual,” He added.

  With a snort, Tess moved on, noting his order for the day in her head. She glided through the tavern, avoiding platters and tankards carried by other barmaids, until she disappeared through the kitchen doors.

  “Hope she shows up. I don’t want to spend a long time finding someone else.”

  He still had no idea how he had been resurrected as an undead. He knows that the ocean of mana he riled up within his mindscape was part of it, but that wasn’t the only component.

  Feelings and fragmented memories leading up to his rebirth were the only things he remembered after the regeneration stopped. His mind was already at the tipping point, and losing that foothold of sanity had broken him for a brief moment. The next thing he knew, he opened his eyes towards that sunset sky.

  He remembered Nick’s bow and how it had been lent to him by the guild. He said he could pay it back bit by bit from the quests he’d accomplished. So there might be a way for Callum to borrow a sword from the guild. If not, he could also stop by a smithy he’d grown to know from his deliveries.

  While lost in thought about his future, a group of people ambled toward his table. His senses picked up on their arrival, yet he kept his ignorance. He didn’t want to show his uncanny ability if he could help it. After all, these people were adventurers.

  “Do you mind if we share a table?” A stocky man wearing plate armor said to him.

  There were four of them, and the man questioning him seemed to be their leader. Next to him was a woman in robes, hands fidgeting on their wooden staff to their side. Beside her was a lean man wearing leather armor, a bow strapped over his shoulder, and a quiver at his hip. Last was a timid-looking girl with golden hair, her body draped in white flowing cloth. She wore some kind of necklace, its symbol shining through his blindfold.

  It took a second for Callum to compose himself, his eyes never leaving that necklace.

  “No. You’re more than welcome,” Callum replied with a smile.

  With a nod and a thank you, the three sat on the empty chairs, the last borrowing an empty seat from an adjacent table. Though the table he currently has wasn’t that big, they somehow made it work.

  Once seated, the group’s leader stretched his hand towards him.

  “Name’s Orgham,”

  “Callum,” He said as he shook the man’s firm hand.

  “What brings you to my table?” he continued.

  “Curiosity, mostly. Our mage said you looked like someone her mentor described.”

  “Is that so?”

  Looking over to the robed woman, he saw her intently staring. The interest in her eyes made his spine shiver.

  If he could sweat, a bead would already have formed on his brow. The pangs of hunger in his stomach were completely gone, replaced by anxiety and fear. He was ready to run if need be, but knowing that someone else knew him made him stay to hear what they had to say.

  “Sorry for the intrusion. My name is Kelsa,” The mage said as she shook his hand.

  “My mentor had been talking about you for days, and I couldn’t help but be curious.”

  “We saw you near the Guilds a few hours ago. Were you registering for something? Name’s Aldrin, by the way,” The man with the bow asked, shaking his hand as he said so.

  “I was. Just got my card at the adventurers’ guild,”

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

  His suspicions were mounting. Though the mage seemed to know him from this supposed mentor, it looked like the hunter had a different agenda.

  Orgham smacked Aldrin upside the head, eliciting a curse out of the man.

  “Stop making the guy uncomfortable. We’re not on the job,” Orgham reminded.

  “Sorry, force of habit,” Aldrin replied wryly.

  “Don’t start a fight in the middle of a tavern. The lord condones it,” The timid-looking girl said.

  For some reason, Callum’s instinct told him to stay away from her. From the moment he laid eyes on that necklace, his hunger evaporated. It was as if that part of him was scared, trembling in fear from the normal-looking woman before him.

  However, he couldn’t afford to be rude to these people. They don’t seem bad, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t. One small slip-up and he could get in trouble with them. At least, that was what he thought would happen.

  “And who might you be?” he asked the girl.

  When he laid his eyes on the necklace once more, it looked more dazzling than ever.

  “Ah, this is our resident healer. Without her, we would have been dead,” Orgham said.

  “My name is Odahlia. Nice to meet you,” She introduced herself with an outstretched hand.

  “Likewise,”

  Callum reached out instinctively, years of working in the industry having ingrained in him to shake people’s hands when they expected it to be shaken. However, when his hand made contact with her skin, a searing pain bloomed in his palm.

  A deafening scream echoed in his mind, dread filling his insides from the momentary contact he made with Odahlia. Like being drenched in flames, he felt his hand be consumed in hellfire, so hot that he imagined it melting from his arm.

  He quickly pulled away, knocking his chair over as he stood up from his seat.

  “Mothershit, that hurts!” he yelped, feeling his palm with his other hand.

  The skin doesn’t look burnt, yet the sensation of tiny needles poking his palm remained. The shriek in his head was also gone.

  When he looked over to the group of adventurers, he found four sets of confused eyes. Other patrons of the tavern were also looking at him to see what the commotion was about, but most of them went back to what they were doing before.

  It took all his willpower to stop his hands from trembling. The burn was gone, but the fear lingered like the echo of a scream.

  “Is everything okay?” asked the healer.

  Now that he looked at her, the symbol on her necklace was so blinding, he had to squint his eyes to shield them. It was as if it was trying to banish him, telling him to move away from the healer. Then a thought struck him.

  Most undead were born from dark magic, and some from negative energy. This negative energy could be found in places filled with tragedy, making it akin to magic.

  He hedged a guess that the reason why his hand felt like it had been drenched in a pool of lava after making contact with her was because she was a person of faith. They were the bane of the undead, after all. And making any kind of contact seems to burn him alive, even if his pain tolerance was beyond what any human could measure.

  “Are you good?”

  Orgham and his party cast him worried eyes, Odahlia in particular seemed regretful, even though she didn’t do anything wrong.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just strained my hand after carrying too much at my job.”

  He slowly took his fallen chair off the ground, mind still a bit frazzled by the sudden pain, until he took his seat.

  “I can heal it for you.”

  “Ah, no. It’s okay for now. It’ll heal on its own.”

  Callum waved off the healer’s suggestion. He didn’t want to be outed as an undead in the middle of the tavern. Also, the pain of feeling your hands burn away was so excruciating, it almost compared to his years of decomposition. Almost.

  “Anyways, what’s the talk about your mentor knowing me?”

  To move the conversation along, Callum asked Kelsa about the supposed mentor who had been talking about him nonstop. This seems to lift the spirit of the group, and the few eyes around them disappeared after seeing that no fight was going to break out.

  “Right. Miss Winnerva had been impressed after you visited her shop a few days ago. She said that your potential to be a mage was staggering; she had to contact the people from the West to give you some type of scholarship.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Who’s Winnerva? I don’t know anyone with that name. Also, a scholarship?”

  If memory serves him right, Callum hadn’t met this Winnerva. The only person he’d met that would count as a mage was…

  “Ah, you’ve seen one of my mentor’s forms. If I remember correctly, she has a shop here called Winneckers Magical Emporium, or something?”

  “That’s why they’ve been closed. Man, what a relief. I thought they had a heart attack or something,”

  “Heart attack?”

  “Yeah. The wizard I met looked like someone over the age of seventy. But from what I’m hearing, this Winnerva can change her looks, right?”

  “Yes, that would be the case.”

  Hearing that there’s a way to change your appearance was good news to Callum. He had been trying to find a way to change the color of his eyes, but from the stories he’d heard from his co-workers, the ability to alter your features at will was more myth than fact.

  But now that he knew that there was someone who could achieve such a thing, Callum felt more hopeful. This means that there could be more people out there who could do the same thing.

  However, why would someone like that try to give him a scholarship? All he had going for him was his vast amounts of mana, which, to this day, he couldn’t access.

  “She visited me and talked about your potential, saying that she needed to travel back to the institute. The reason was to get you a way to enroll in one of the schools to the West.”

  “But why? I don’t think I’ve made a good first impression.”

  “Winnerva had always been like that. She would give as many opportunities as she could to those who had talent for magic. No strings attached,” Kelsa said with a reminiscent smile.

  “I take it, you’re one of those people she helped?”

  “Yes. And I’m forever grateful for that,”

  The thought made him think back to his time on Earth. There was that week when he and his father volunteered to help at a nearby charity event, the experience was something he’ll never forget. After all, it was during that time that Callum decided to study anthropology.

  With so many different people coming and going from those days, he couldn’t help but wonder how they lived, their traditions, mannerisms, and livelihood. It may seem strange at first, and he thought it too, but knowing how people interacted made him excited. It’s like watching history unfold with his very own eyes, and he thought that Kelsa’s mentor felt the same.

  She would mostly be a bystander, watching people come and go from her shop. And when she sees someone with potential, she would give them the push to unlock it. After that, she would watch them grow and be proud of who they’ve become. That was what he imagined her to be, and he felt like it checked out.

  Knowing that, Callum’s suspicions over the group disappeared. He’d seen firsthand how kind they were. And with kind people, other like-minded individuals would flock towards them.

  Orgham, though intimidating at first, was a gentle giant. He was strict when he needed to be, but was mostly a quiet bystander to the group.

  Aldrin, on the other hand, was an energetic youth. He kept telling him stories about their journey, but never bragging at any point.

  Kelsa was the refined mage. She gave Callum some advice about adventuring. Even went so far as to give him some lessons about magic when she had the time.

  Then, there’s Odalhia. She was kind and considerate, always smiling while watching the conversation happen. She held a motherly attitude, acting as support to Orgham’s demeanor.

  It wasn’t long before his meal arrived, Tess looking mighty annoyed as she handed him his meal.

  “Looks like the drunkard has met some new friends,” the barmaid said as she set a tankard on the table with a ‘thunk’.

  “Yeah. About that thing I asked you earlier…”

  “You can meet me once you pick up Sabrina.”

  “Thank you,”

  With a huff, Tess asked the group about their orders and went back to her work, handing the rest of the meals on her arms to their respective tables.

  “Having trouble with the missus?” asked Aldrin.

  “WHAT?! No!” yelled Callum.

  “Relax. I’m just teasin’ ya,” the hunter laughed, earning him an elbow from Orgham.

  “Don’t mind him. He likes riling people up when it comes to their love life.”

  “She and I aren’t a thing. If anything, she’d kill me before I could ask her out.”

  “Then why do you wear a ring on your pinky finger?” Odahlia asked.

  Looking down, he saw the silver glint of his ring. Complicated emotions stirred within him, fingers now coiling around the accessory. He contemplated whether to remove it or keep it as is.

  “What about it?”

  “The pinky finger symbolizes love and fertility. When a ring is worn upon it, it means a bond has been formed with a significant other, which usually means marriage,” she explained.

  “Is that so?” Callum muttered absentmindedly.

  He’d done a remarkable job forgetting the ring for the past couple of days, his eyes not once looking at it lest he remember her. Some part of him still felt angry at her ex-girlfriend's betrayal, but most of the feeling he had now was hollowed out by the decades' worth of torment he had endured.

  “I guess you could say I tried to marry. I even thought about it long and hard. But that’s all behind me now. No point in trying when you’ve failed once, right?” he said mostly to himself than the others.

  No one would love a living corpse, not one who couldn’t satisfy their needs. He accepted it the moment he knew he wasn’t human anymore. Yet, it still left him melancholic.

  A past that was once his was now gone. A future that could have been had been burned. And trying again was more impossible than dying in his mindscape. He had been with countless people, the last one he had even seen a future with. But with a sting that left a gaping hole in his heart, trying again was pointless.

  Their conversation turned quiet after he said those words, everyone in the group now glaring at Aldrin’s direction. The youth felt small at that moment, knowing well enough that he had overstepped a line.

  When their food arrived, they ate in silence, the air only helped by the loud ambience of the tavern. But there was unmistakably a dark cloud looming over the table.

  Seeing that he’d somehow dowered the mood, Callum started the conversation once more. He wasn’t much of a fan of awkward situations after all.

  “About that scholarship you’ve mentioned,”

  “Ah, yes. Winnerva went to the West for your scholarship. It would likely take a few months to get some news back, so don’t be alarmed when a bird comes flying towards you holding a piece of paper.”

  “Is it possible to delay that? I’m not leaving this region for a few more months.”

  There were still things Callum planned to do before leaving Halsinn. He couldn’t abandon the siblings unless he knew they were safe. He also needed to train himself to fight. After all, he’s an adventurer, and the class he picked leaned more towards battle than anything else. It would be a waste of potential to leave it hanging.

  The group listened to his worries, telling Kelsa why he couldn’t travel to the West.

  “I guess you could delay it. But not more than a year,”

  “That’s good to hear,” Callum sighed.

  “Also, if you’re looking to train, our party would be more than happy to help,” Orgham offered with a smile.

  “That would be too much. Just knowing I could ask you guys for help is more than enough,” Callum replied.

  “I see. Well, if you ever want to train, I suggest heading for the town’s barracks. They offer some training with a small fee.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Callum replied with an appreciative nod.

  Now that the conversation had ended, the group waited for everyone to finish their meal. Having finished his food long ago, Callum rummaged through his pocket to ready his pay. However, when his hand reached inside, he found nothing.

  He patted himself down, double-checked, then triple-checked every nook and cranny for his coin pouch. He even stood up, hoping it might magically fall out of his pants, earning a few confused stares from the group. But his heart kept racing, and his pockets turned up only a few coins, some lint, and a stray button.