Crackle, crackle, crackle.
“CLACK....”
Ugh, my head....
How could I have forgotten about Skill Overload? Of all the mistakes I could've made, that was a terrible one.
Anyway, nothing happened while I was out, did it?
I spent a moment clearing my dizzy head, then barely managed to move my skull and look around.
Apart from the dusk settling over the forest, nothing seemed to have changed.
“CLACK....”
Relieved that nothing seemed to have gone wrong while I was unconscious, I let out a sigh.
Still, considering that I couldn't put any strength into my body yet, it looked as though it would be a while before I could restore myself from this pile of bones.
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
At least I could stare into the campfire and lose myself in the flames. That should help this tedious time pass a little faster.
***
Just then, something occurred to me.
Where did this campfire come from?
There definitely hadn't been a campfire when I was fighting the bear.
There was no reason for a campfire to be burning in the middle of the forest in the first place.
Which meant someone had built it while I was unconscious....
Rustle—
There was only one person in this forest who could have built a campfire.
“Oh?”
The woman I'd saved, of course.
“You're awake?”
As if on cue, the woman emerged from beyond the trees and approached me with an armful of firewood.
She wore a friendly-looking smile, but there was no way someone who could come to this forest was an ordinary person.
At the very least, she had to be an Awakened. More likely, she was a Hunter who made a living killing monsters.
Her black eyes and straight black hair were unusual, considering the colorful hair and eyes that served as signs of Awakening, but the armor she wore, made with pieces of leather layered together, made it all the more likely that she was a Hunter.
And above all, she was walking straight toward me, looking directly at what should currently appear to be an ordinary pile of bones. That settled it.
“Are you all right?”
She put down the firewood, picked up my skull with one hand, and brought it level with her eyes.
She was definitely weaker than me, but in my current state, she could probably crush me with only a little effort.
I didn't want things to end that way when I hadn't even found a clue about my memories.
Then again, I could replace my skull using [Bone Replacement], so would it be all right even if she ground it into powder?
The question crossed my mind, but I had no desire to test it.
“Hmm... Is it just an ordinary bone after all?”
She tilted her head as she studied me.
Oh, I think I see a little hope.
“Still, this bone seems the most promising. I suppose I'll keep watching it.”
Ah, why....
I wished she'd just mistake me for an ordinary bone and leave, but she trampled all over that hope. Instead, she sat down and stared into the campfire.
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ is amused by the look on your face.]
How is a skeleton supposed to have an expression?
Damn Goddess, please just keep quiet....
At least the fact that she'd tried talking to me and had been waiting all this time suggested she wasn't hostile.
I might not be able to use [Bone Manipulation] to create a bow and arrows because of Skill Overload, but if a single blow from that bear had sent her flying, I was definitely stronger than her even barehanded.
CLACK—!
As if it had been waiting for that very moment, sensation returned to my body.
The instant I felt it, I reassembled myself.
“W-What?!”
And before the woman could properly react, I seized her by the collar with one hand and lifted her off the ground.
“Ghk! K-Khh!”
It happened so suddenly that fear and bewilderment spread across her face.
***
Several minutes passed like that.
And I was still just holding her by the collar.
“...Wh-What do you want?”
I'm screwed. How am I supposed to talk to her?
I'd grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up because I wanted to ask what she was after, but....
In my haste, I'd acted without considering the obvious fact that I couldn't speak.
And since I needed both hands to use my notebook, the only means I had of communicating with other people....
Swish—
“...Seriously, what is going on?”
In the end, I had no choice but to release her collar and carefully lower her to the ground.
-What do you want?
“You grabbed me by the collar and stood there in silence for several minutes just to ask me that??”
An indescribable expression crossed her face, relief at having escaped a life-threatening situation mingling with utter disbelief.
“CLACK....”
Ahem....
“Well, it's nothing much. You're the one who saved me from that bear... right?”
She pointed past the campfire to the bear's half-rotting corpse as she asked.
I had no particular reason to deny it, so I nodded.
“Seriously...?”
-That's right.
When I wrote that in my notebook and showed it to her, her expression grew even more complicated.
“Haah. Never thought I'd live to see the day when a monster that understands speech and can even write would save my life....”
She pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed, then extended it toward me.
“Well, anyway, thanks. I'm Lee Ru-ri. A bit of an unusual name, isn't it?”
-Just call me Skeleton.
With that written reply, I shook Lee Ru-ri's hand with my bony one.
“What? You won't even tell me your real name?”
Well, that's because I don't have one.
I was nothing more than a hollow collection of bones without a name or memories, so being called Skeleton was more convenient.
Besides, neither of us stood to gain anything by getting involved with the other, so it would help me keep my distance from Lee Ru-ri.
“Still, I've never heard of or seen a monster that looks like you. Are you some kind of unusual variant or rare species of Skeleton Soldier?”
I avoided Ru-ri's gaze as she slowly examined me and tried to work out what I was.
Hunters were far too dangerous for me.
They made their living hunting monsters. To monsters, Hunters were practically the Grim Reaper.
And what Hunters loved most were monsters that looked unusual or that they'd never seen before.
To a Hunter, an unusual-looking monster meant a powerful monster.
And a powerful monster meant a big, beautiful Mana Stone and valuable items.
That was how Hunters thought.
If word of my existence ever got out....
-A new monster! I bet it'll drop brand-new items, too!
-Ah, I've got dibs!
-Does that Skeleton Soldier have a tailbone, too? A new tail, a new addition to my collection, heehee....
-Skeleton! Tear it apart! Kill it!
Countless Hunters would undoubtedly come to hunt me down.
Adventurous Hunters who acted as though they were living in the romantic age of the fifteenth or sixteenth century would surely risk their lives even for rumors that sounded like ghost stories.
That was simply the sort of people Hunters were.
And that wouldn't be good for me.
So, if possible, it would be best not to leave her any means of proving I existed. Better yet, I should silence Lee Ru-ri so she couldn't go around telling people about me.
Even if I had to kill her.
“....”
“What's with that strange expression?”
A sudden chill ran through me, and I froze without realizing it, my mouth hanging open like an idiot.
...Damn it.
I felt sick.
The thought that I'd even considered killing someone for such a trivial reason was revolting.
And what made it worse was that I couldn't tell whether I'd thought that way because my skeletal body was influencing me, or whether I'd always been that kind of person.
I couldn't even be certain of something so simple.
-That's none of your concern. Let's go our separate ways now.
Feeling as though I might vomit at any moment, I hurriedly showed her the notebook and left.
Tap—
No, I tried to leave.
“I have a favor to ask, since you've already saved me...?”
If only she hadn't grabbed my arm.
A favor? I'd saved her life, and now she wanted me to hand over my bundle, too? Wasn't that a bit much?
“No, it's nothing too big. Since you've already helped me once, could you escort me to the Gate?”
The moment I read those words, I shook off her hand and kept walking.
Did she take me for a fool? Wasn't she asking a little too much?
“But I'm scared to go alone! Besides, if I die after you went to all that trouble to save me, you'll feel awful about it, won't you?”
I understood how desperately she wanted to survive, but I wasn't some saintly figure from a fairy tale.
Our connection amounted to nothing more than a skeleton searching for prey happening upon a Hunter in danger and saving her. It wasn't enough for us to trust each other or ask each other for favors.
“M-Mana Stones! I'll give you Mana Stones!”
I stopped dead.
“Huh? How about five F-Grade Mana Stones?”
Step—
“Ah, damn it! Five F-Grade Mana Stones and one D-Grade Mana Stone!”
Step—
“You're driving me crazy! Fine! Ten F-Grade Mana Stones and three D-Grade Mana Stones! That's all I have!!!”
Step! Step! Step!
-I'll provide you with the finest service, dear suck—no, valued customer!
Ahem!
I absolutely wasn't blinded by the Mana Stones.
The fact that a Hunter had come to this forest meant this place was inside a Gate.
And if I wanted to find the Sacred Relic somewhere on Earth, I'd have to pass through that Gate eventually.
So I was simply taking Ru-ri along to find out where the Gate was.
“CLACK! CLACK!”
“I had a feeling that might work, but I can't believe it actually did. Don't you like Mana Stones a little too much for a skeleton? Or is that natural because you're a monster?”
-For the record, the F-Grade Mana Stones are payable in advance.
“You really are one greedy skeleton... Sigh. Here.”
With those words, Ru-ri handed over three Mana Stones.
[F-Grade Mana Stone]
-A byproduct containing a monster's Mana.
It glows faintly.
By the System's assessment, these were ordinary F-Grade Mana Stones without any particular defects.
-Payment confirmed. When do you intend to depart?
“As soon as the sun rises.”
That works for me. I can barely move my body again, so fighting is out of the question for now.
Relieved, I put the Mana Stones into my Inventory.
As the saying goes, the more money and Mana Stones you have, the better. I'd increased the money I'd have to spare when I eventually left this forest.
Crackle—
With that simple transaction complete, silence settled over us, broken only by the quiet presence of the campfire.
***
Awkward.
Awkward as hell.
She'd gone so far as to ask for help from me, a monster rather than a human. There had to be some desperate reason behind it.
But asking her about it felt uncomfortable. We weren't particularly close, and we were just a monster and a human who'd met by chance.
That was probably why she was staying quiet, even though she must have had plenty of questions for me as well.
Scrape, scrape—
As the silence continued, Ru-ri took out a small knife and a block of wood at some point and began carving.
I couldn't tell what she was making, but her eyes shone as she gazed at the piece of wood small enough to fit in one hand.
She looked far too serious for someone merely enjoying a hobby. At a glance, her devotion to the task almost seemed religious.
But at this rate, while she was lost in her own world of carving, I'd die of awkwardness all alone in the silence.
If only I could think of something to talk about... Ah!
Just then, an idea flashed through my skull.
-Since we're going to be traveling together anyway, could you tell me what weapon you use?
Good. That felt natural enough, without being too awkward or coming completely out of nowhere.
“Well... sure. I suppose that's reasonable.”
She seemed relieved to have an excuse to break the silence, too. She stood up rather cheerfully, put her carving and tools into her Inventory, and took something else out.
What she drew from the crack that opened in midair was a pair of swords.
One had a snow-white blade, while the other's blade was pitch-black.
“These are my weapons and my beloved swords. White Woofie and Black Woofie.”
Wow, what terrible naming sense....
Of all the cool names she could've come up with based on black and white, she chose White Woofie and Black Woofie.
No, there was a more important question than her terrible naming sense right now.
-Why dual swords, of all things?
“I have two hands, so why would I use only one sword?”
Because people usually carry a shield or a secondary weapon in the other hand.
Damn it. Why did it have to be dual swords?
I was starting to feel uneasy about traveling with her.