"I would like to talk to the necromancer that resurrected you," Runar looked at the mouse-like face of the elderly mustiar in front of him. She was an almost perfect creation. Her heart was beating, she was breathing, and she was giving off actual body-heat. But that was just the inside. Now that the illusion covering her body was broken you could see that she was... thin. Like a woman who wasn't able to stomach any sort of food in the last days of her life. Her eyes were clouded over and glassy, and she was losing patches of fur all over. In her skin that was revealed through those bald patches, small stitches could be seen, seemingly covering her entire body. But the illusion itself was well-crafted, of course. It was so deeply mixed in with her body's natural mana that it was hard to spot.

  One of the only reasons why Runar was able to realize that this woman was an undead, specifically a type of zombie, was that the mana within her body wasn't distributed correctly. Even in the bodies of unawakened people, mana had the tendency to stick to a few places more than others. Certain cultures called these places pressure points, meridians, chakras... they were large, complex patterns inside the body that were slightly different for each species. For example, though it was a simplification, a mustiar's mana was always denser around their heart than their brain, amongst many other combinations of these different 'knots' of mana. The different concentrations didn't seem to make a huge difference in the way the body functioned, but it was something like a small quirk for different species.

  However, the places where the mana concentrated in this old woman wasn't like that of a mustiar, it was like that of an orc. It was a common mistake for necromancers that have spells to mask their creations like this - unless particularly careful, they distributed these concentrations like they were naturally in their own body. Of course, most people wouldn't be able to notice these differences, even amongst those that had the ability to see or sense magic so precisely. But Runar wasn't like most people.

  "He's upstairs, correct?"

  The old woman looked up at Runar as his gaze already wandered over to the set of stairs next to the front door, "My, my, I do not know what you-"

  "Sorry. Please, rest well this time," Runar wrote a second rune onto the mustiar's forehead. As it activated with a bright white light, her body slumped down onto the ground. The mana that was inside of her body, disguised as the mere ambient mana of a person's body, seeped out of her and quickly returned to the necromancer it belonged to.

  He picked up the old woman's body and carried her outside. As careful as possible, he placed her into the trunk of the car.

  Runar noticed Yamada's twisted expression, but he just laughed a bit, trying to lift the mood, "Don't worry, I'm keeping her body cool, so she won't make the car smell."

  Yamada stared at him and began to sign, "You know that's not what's making me mad."

  He slowly nodded, "Yeah. Let's just question this guy and get this over with. You stay out here, he's probably going to try and flee."

  Runar stepped back into the house and began to climb up the stairs. It was well-maintained, though the decoration seemed pretty outdated. And the more Runar made his way through the house, going to the guy whose disgusting mana was stinking up this entire place. He had no idea how he was able to disguise his mana as that pure - it certainly showed a lot of skill - considering that at its base state it was like rotten flesh. That disgusting sludge at which point you couldn't recognize what it once used to be. Close to black and sticky and utterly revolting to even have to look at.

  He was sitting on an armchair in the livingroom, staring at the television that was showing nothing but white noise. The room was clean otherwise, so that soon-rotting man sitting there in the centre was almost like a punch in the face.

  The necromancer looked even more decrepit than the elderly mustiar. Normally, at their baseline, orcs had a high bodyfat percentage, and a strong musculature that could support them well. They evolved this way to kill what they hunted with overwhelming physical strength, and even in this day and age, this was clearly visible.

  But this man? His height was the only thing that was orcish. He was two and a half metres tall, a giant even amongst orcs, but if he had to guess, he probably weighed less than the average child. Neither muscles nor fat seemed to line his bones, and his skin was a light grey that made it look like he was drained of all the colour he used to have, with just a hint of green sleeping underneath.

  "Necromancer. I'm here to ask you a few questions," Runar glared at the man as he walked around the armchair to properly look him in the face. His eyes were a deep black, and he didn't seem like he was able to see.

  "Of course you are. Everyone in this world has some questions they wish to ask those more wise than them," the orc replied, though his voice sounded strained, as if someone that hadn't had a sip of water for weeks was trying to yell. He shakily raised up his hand, showing three bony fingers, "I will answer three of your questions."

  Runar couldn't help himself but scoff at the man's attitude, but he figured he should play along, "Fine. Three questions. Do you know a dwarf named 'Anders Steinberg'?"

  "Hm... that name does not sound familiar."

  The man lowered the first of the three fingers.

  What? But... Runar had seen this address in one of Anders' hidden folders in his office at home. It was hard to crack open, even magically, so it took a while until he managed to do it. If Anders had never been here, then why..?

  "... Alright, uhm..." this was already throwing a wrench in Runar's guesses. If this man had no relation to Anders himself, then... there was only one thing it could be, "Are you working with the White Shadow Society?"

  Runar was hoping that he would say no. And he got what he wanted.

  The necromancer began to laugh, much louder than Runar thought he would even be able to, "Work with them? Of course not. They are naught but fools that believe themselves to be the sages of this time. Some favours, once or twice in the past, maybe, but do I work with them? Never," he replied. That didn't make Runar feel much better, though. Actually... something felt off. The man's voice sounded clearer. Much less strained. As he lowered his second finger, it seemed to... grow thicker, as if fat was growing underneath the loose skin.

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  Runar knew that the necromancer was using some kind of ability or spell that he had cast without him realizing. He shouldn't ask that third question. But... somehow, his mouth opened anyway, and his body wouldn't move.

  "What group do you belong to?" he asked, his body not listening to his mind.

  A large grin appeared on the orc's lips. His cheeks became fuller, his skin, still grey, somehow seemed healthier and more taut. He was still as thin as a corpse, but somehow, you could actually imagine the necromancer moving around somehow.

  The last of the three fingers dropped, and the necromancer pushed himself off his seat, "I am a proud follow of the true, greatest god of this world. A clergyman, spreading the word of our lord, in death and rot."

  Shivers ran over Runar's back. 'Greatest God'..?

  "But- the church was disbanded, how-"

  "The voice of our god can never be silenced! The flame of his will shall never be snuffed out!" the necromancer leaned over Runar, almost enveloping him in his thin body, "My name is Hargrave, the seventh son of the Church of the Dead God."

  Runar's body came back under his control, though maybe a moment too late. Hargrave reached out his hand and tried to grasp Runar's arm, but was only able to barely scrape by. But even that, just a brief touch, filled Runar's arm with a deep necrosis. He couldn't see his skin, but he could feel a large chunk almost rot off immediately.

  Without hesitation, Runar tore off his sleeve, seeing a splotch of deep black, reeking of pus and rot. While still dodging out of the way from any further attempts by Hargrave to attack, Runar wrote a specific rune onto his arm. Its meaning was 'Reversal', and though it was painful when applied to a living being, in this case it was the fastest way to cure this.

  Feeling his cells rearrange themselves, Runar was cured of the necrosis. But he didn't stop there, starting to inscribe a series of runes all over his body to cover himself in a layer of 'Life' that would hopefully protect him from the 'Death Touch' of this man in front of him.

  "You're not a simple necromancer, are you?" Runar scoffed, and the orc's grinning mouth opened up.

  "If you would like to come to another agreement, I would be happy to oblige."

  That answer already told Runar everything he needed to know. He assumed that he was just a particularly skilled necromancer, maybe one with a special or rare class, but it seemed to be simpler than that. He was probably a mage that learned magic from not just the school of necromancy, but also a school relating to truth. That would explain why he was able to feed off an exchange of truth between himself and another. It also helped explain how he was able to hide the 'true' nature of the elderly mustiar.

  "No need," Runar continued dodging, writing a rune into the air as he did. It was a rune of 'Analysis', also belonging to the domain of truth as the orc's abilities seemed to. But specifically, it was just an extremely powerful way to analyse your opponent. Specifically, their stats.

  'A mana stat above 10..? Strength above 3, spirituality is at least at 7. An extremely powerful man, but nothing I can't handle,' Runar thought to himself. Someone with stats that high had to have at least seven or eight skills, probably some unlocked ones that were tuned toward his specific application of magic.

  One of those skills probably allowed him to combine his magic in special ways. That death touch was something that Runar couldn't see even through these mana-seeing glasses, so if that was the case, then there had to be some trickery at play.

  The orc was moving quite slowly, so it was easy to dodge his advances while Runar tried to get a proper grasp of the situation. Mostly, he just wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be taken by surprise.

  But, even more importantly, he had to give Yamada a little bit of time. And soon, he heard a gunshot in the distance, and knew that she had managed to give Runar a bit of space to fight.

  With that, he immediately started changing his approach. He wrote a series of runes into the air as he started to speak the runic language alongside the writing.

  The orc seemed to realize that something was happening, but wasn't able to react before space seemed to be twisting around itself, with the orc at the centre. The house collapsed in an instant and was pulled in onto the necromancer. Runar stepped outside, walking on the very air, and watched as the wood and stone and glass that made up this townhouse was being forced down into a space far too small for it to begin with.

  In the end, what plopped down onto the ground was a small dollhouse. It was the 'cage' that Hargrave had now been placed into.

  Runar yawned slightly and walked up to it, squatting down in front of it while beginning to write a new series of runes into the air.

  "So, how about you tell me a few more things about this 'Church' of yours. And I'm not asking you - I'm telling you, just to make it clear."

  The voice of the necromancer was emanating from inside the house. He was trapped in a separate, protected space, the dollhouse was basically just the protective seal that connected to this space, "You shall not walk away freely today!"

  "Mhm, sure," Runar sighed as he looked around. The freshly dug-up fields that surrounded the place the townhouse once stood were starting to bulge and move. Half-rotten hands were pushing themselves out of the soil, as a horde of undead was getting ready to attack. There were thousands of them.

  Runar already figured that this was the case once he figured a necromancer was at play, but it still disgusted him completely. There were civilians, even kids. Some of them were animals, but others were Awakened that were turned into particularly powerful undead. But that didn't matter to Runar. Now that Yamada had given him the space he needed, Runar wouldn't need to worry about going all-out.

  The runes that he had written into the air came together, centring on Runar, and he spoke just a single runic word.

  "Tramiprista."

  There were many meanings in this word. 'Life after death', 'descent to the underworld', 'passing on in peace'. It was a word once used for funerals back when runes were still more commonly used in the world.

  The sound of Runar's voice reverberated through the air, shaking it as if it were an explosion. A wave of light passed through the fields and the undead, rendering them to nothing but dust. The force of the spell, even if not directly affecting the soil intentionally, did still cause the dirt to pile up in sequential rings around where Runar stood.

  "I guess that was all you had prepared for me. Sorry, but I'm not in the mood to play around with you right now," he said as he started walking down the road with the dollhouse in hand, as Yamada brought the car back over.

  Finally, the shed had been fully cleared out. Gregor had broken apart all the old wood and metal and even repurposed the ropes that were hidden between some of the piles. Now, all that Ryan had to do was properly clean in here, and tomorrow, Morgana could cast the 'Blizzard Field' spell in here, giving them the perfect walk-in fridge for the party.

  The ground itself was covered in dirt, and though there seemed to be a wooden floor underneath, Ryan didn't necessarily care to keep this place spotless. As long as he could put down the drink crates without issue, all was well.

  As he was sweeping though, a bad feeling came over him. He couldn't place it at all... it had been a while since he felt like this. It felt like something was going on with Runar... Concerned, Ryan dropped the broom he was holding and stepped out, quickly dialling his uncle's number, without revealing what was hidden under the dirt in the shed.

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