Meeting with the Knights

"It's strange… the draugr weren't affected by my life steal."

Alden recalled landing multiple hits and could swear none of them healed him.

"Your answer is in the name." Daiyu laughed as they walked along the tunnel. She had decided to walk this time but whether floating or walking, she expended little energy.

"I guess I still need to train my skill. On another note, did you sense the draugr down there?"

"I did when we got close, there's a trace of energy that I recognize as a Demon God's. If we track down their summoner, we can interrogate them for more information."

"Something is strange unless those draugr dug their way into the mines, they must have been revived there. We need to investigate!"

"Agreed, but be careful! They almost killed you down there." Daiyu said with a concerned look on her face.

Alden smiled warily and nodded, she would lose her investment if he died too soon. There was no way a god could show genuine concern for a human, at least that's what Alden thought.

'Don't get too attached to her' He told himself, but it was hard. Her beauty was peerless, especially on the outskirts of the kingdom. Her demeanor and reactions to the world outside their village were amusing to Alden as well. But her ruthlessness and brutality were characteristic of a god, despite her naïve nature.

As Alden was contemplating his relationship with Daiyu, he finally reached the entrance of the mines. The sun's rays reached his eyes at the same time he saw several knights standing there.

"Your beast." Alden said as he tossed the animal's head to Kane's feet.

Without a word, Kane picked it up and examined it. The others held their noses at the putrid smell that radiated off of it, only Yalgri didn't move away from it.

"I'm Knight-Captain Kane of the Lundri Knights, Yalgri my lieutenant, knights Nylane and Fleyn, and junior knight Aster. We were going to wait until morning to enter the mines, we didn't know if you would be alive until then. It seems we didn't have to worry that much."

"Are you sure it was alive? Or did you just take it off a three-day-old corpse?" Aster frowned as he eyed the misshapen animal's head.

"I think it was diseased, it was unrecognizable as anything I know of. You can strip the flesh from the skull if you want to find out." Alden shrugged his shoulders with indifference, it had been a long night and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Alden started to walk past the knights when all of a sudden, Kane said something in a low voice.

"Is that all you found down there?"

Alden blinked at Kane and furrowed his brows, maybe there was a chance Alden thought.

"There was, but it's more unbelievable than Greshir's forces attacking us."

"Kane, he's not trustworthy!" Aster interjected before Kane could respond.

"Aster! He's your captain! Give him the respect he deserves! Knight-Captain Kane will decide how to move forward." Yalgri chastised Aster after Kane had shot him a look.

"Leaving Greshir aside, I'm interested in whatever's in the sack you're carrying." Kane motioned to Alden's back as Nylane and Fleyn slowly moved their hands to their swords' hilts.

"Hmm, one for each of you." Alden smirked before tossing something to everyone besides Kane.

"What the!?"

"Disgusting!"

"…"

Alden had thrown the heads of the draugr he had killed, he had decided to bring them with him as evidence.

"What is this?"

Kane tossed Aster the animal's head, causing him to hold both heads an arm's length away. The animal and the draugr were both revolting to look at.

"Ugh!"

Kane walked to Yalgri, who held up the draugr's head so that they could both examine it. Nylane and Fleyn had both immediately dropped their heads as soon as they saw what it was.

"Unless you're providing us evidence of your grave robbing, I assume there's a good explanation for this?"

"Draugr, revenants fueled by regret and hatred from their human lives. They're not regular low-level undead, like zombies. Someone is resurrecting them for a purpose."

"Interesting, we'll look into this. Don't leave town until I say so."

Alden nodded and gave them the name of his inn before walking away.

"Did he always have a spear?" Fleyn asked as they watched Alden drag away a sack of metallic-sounding objects.

When Alden got back to his inn, the innkeeper was once again left speechless. Alden looked just as bloody as he did when he got there yesterday. It wouldn't be a surprise for anyone to have called the guards on him.

Just as the inn keeper was about to explode from anger, Alden walked up to the counter and slapped more money down. The onlookers at the restaurant part of the inn only stared on in silence.

"I would like some hot water to be delivered to my room. Some bandages would be nice too."

The innkeeper didn't respond, but Alden was too tired to argue so he walked away after that.

When he got to his room, Alden pulled out all the loot he had got from the draugr. Two swords, a bow, and the spear on his back were all they had that he could carry. They had blood and dirt on them but Alden was planning to clean them up and sell some of them.

He was going to keep the spear, and decided to keep at least one of the swords. The bow was not something he could easily use currently.

"I was going to sell these for money and head for the capital. But now that the knights are aware, perhaps I should stay in case they find the necromancer."

"I would like to say that we should get closer to the Demon King as soon as possible, but your power has a lot of room for improvement." Daiyu said as she watched Alden wipe the weapons down.

"I'll decide after resting for a bit." Alden had stayed up all night in the mines and was going to have to sleep through the day.

After the water tub was brought into his room, Alden cleaned himself thoroughly. The extra bit of water was used to clean the weapons up some more.

"I should get used to this shouldn't I?" Alden winced as he wrapped the bandages around his left hand. He was now missing part of the pinky and had a hole in his palm.

"I need to find something to absorb health from."

"There's shady folk in this town that could spare some." Daiyu said with a small smile as they both looked outside towards the sunlit town.