The promise of a beautiful peace called to Artyom, but he quickly denied it when he heard the scream.


    He turned around and saw the rest of the hero’s party doing the same as him in trying to find its source.


    It didn’t take long.


    All around the town, various bodies at different levels of decomposition ambled about. Zombies, skeletons, and ghouls claimed the daylight as theirs as they banged on doorways and chased after the town’s residents.


    “The church!” shouted Lensa, pointing to a building in the distance surrounded by the largest number of the undead.


    They threw themselves at the large wooden door, trying to force their way in.


    “We have to save the priests, they’re my family!”


    Tommy and the other three ladies of the clique didn’t need to hear anything more, and immediately broke into a run towards the building in the distance.


    Neitra made to follow them, but heard another scream in the opposite direction, and saw a woman about to get a bite taken out of her by a ghoul that had her pinned to the ground. She didn’t have a second thought before charging at the undead.


    Artyom nodded and followed her while casting a series of spells.


    The ghoul looked like someone took a human being and forcibly warped their spine and limbs into that of a quadruped, then took their skin and stretched it as tightly as it would go over every inch of their body. Unthinking eyes blared red and drool dripped from needle-sharp teeth onto the face of its soon-to-be victim.


    And a Gravity Lance cut through its body.


    The hole the spell created went through its side and out the other end, leaving a gaping wound the size of a small fist through its ribcage.


    Yet all it did was make the creature flinch and take a step to the side.


    Artyom tsked but concentrated his magic onto Neitra instead with a speed spell. It wasn’t as strong as what he could cast on himself due to the complexity involved, but it imparted the rogue with a swiftness that carried her to the monster in no time at all.


    Her dagger easily slid into its flesh and right into where its heart would be. Yet even as the ghoul bucked in seeming pain, blood barely came out of the wound and it looked unbothered by the injury as it aggressively turned to face Neitra for a counterattack.


    “These are undead alright, but what kind?” asked Artyom to himself as he grimaced. “We have to keep trying things to narrow it down.”


    Neitra froze for a moment as the monster reared its hand for a slash. Its fingers were elongated with an extra joint and ended in knife-like blades instead of flat nails, perfect for rending fresh meat.


    “What are you doing?! Get out of there! Dodge!” shouted Artyom, but his words went unheeded.


    Instead, Neitra snapped back to reality and shoved her dagger into the bottom of its neck, just between its collarbones.


    The ghoul instead froze this time, and after a second, it slumped lifelessly.


    Neitra removed her dagger and let the monster fall to the floor, once more a corpse.


    “Are you okay?” she asked the fallen woman, helping her to her feet. “If you can move, get to safety.”


    “Y-yeah, I’m fine. I just tripped while running and that thing was ready to eat me! T-thanks,” she said as she ran to join the rest of the fleeing crowd.


    In this time, Artyom caught up to Neitra and the two turned to face the rest of the undead.


    “Their weak point is at the bottom of their neck, you can hit it from the front, back, or side,” said the rogue. “That’s what my [Identify Weak Point] Skill says.”


    Artyom nodded and began running as well.


    Something strange happened as they began their charge, however. At once, all of the creatures attacking the townsfolk turned to face the two and began their own counter-charge.


    “Speed of the Olympian, Tungsten Body, Lion’s Strength,” said Artyom as he cast all three spells on himself. Within seconds, he was in front of the first undead in the oncoming horde. It was an animated human skeleton menacingly holding a hatchet. It raised it to attack, but before it could even bring it up all the way, Artyom slammed his fist into its neck.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Bone cracked as his enhanced body made contact, and the life in the Skeleton’s form dissipated almost immediately.


    Both fists thrown simultaneously did the same to the next pair of skeletons approaching him with their weapons drawn. As they fell, Artyom grabbed a rusty axe from the one on the right and twirled to jam it into the neck of a zombie attempting to sneak up from behind.


    “Maybe I should get something more permanent while I’m here?” mumbled Artyom as he cleaved through several more undead. “It’s kind of annoying having to borrow someone else’s each time.”


    On her side, Neitra cut through her own enemies with a rivaling efficiency. Precise stabs and slashes, alongside pommel hammers against skeletons, left every single attacking entity lifeless once more with no time wasted between strikes.


    It didn’t take long before the duo had cut and smashed their way through all thirty of the undead attacking the villagers, leaving them panting for breath. Not because of the effort needed to take them all out, but from the desperate speed of their assault.


    Artyom knelt down and inspected one of the skeletons he’d defeated. He ran a hand across the spine and followed invisible pathways only he could see that mimicked muscles and veins in a living body.


    “The necromantic magic is concentrated in a single point and flows from there to the rest of the body, kind of like puppet strings,” he said with a frown. “Naturally occurring undead have that magic equally concentrated throughout their body.”


    “So what are you saying?” asked Neitra. “What does that mean if they’re not natural?”


    “Somebody animated them.”


    “Who did? If we stop them, we’ll stop the attack!” she exclaimed as she began to turn her head from side to side while looking for anyone suspicious.


    “They’re probably long gone by now, but something about this doesn’t sit well with me.”


    “What doesn’t?”


    Artyom took a closer look at the corpse in front of him. Something about it was different from most undead he’d encountered in the past. The magical pathways were, as best as he could explain, cookie-cutter.


    Drawing them out was like drawing lines with a paintbrush. Nobody could apply the exact same amount of pressure for each stroke, so no two lines would be perfect… unless drawn with a stencil or machine.


    What was more, whatever stencil was used had magical hooks in the bones to hold it in place. But those hooks didn’t thrum with the magical presence Artyom expected. It was more like…


    A silvery blue symbol began to faintly glow on one of the corpse’s bones, shaped like the letter B, but made entirely with jagged edges.


    ?


    “Rune magic,” Artyom whispered, eyes wide and voice catching in his throat.


    Beyond the standard type of magic that existed, fueled by a pervasive energy that existed even across different worlds, there was also rune magic.


    Not much was known about it. Whether it would be present on a given world in the first place was up to pure chance; get heads on a dozen coin flips and it would still be a maybe. Yet even when a world had access to rune magic, it would still be the stuff of legends, its secrets locked away in old tomes or ancient ruins, never to be seen by mortal eyes for eons until it was stumbled upon by chance or circumstance.


    Most importantly, it was how Artyom and his organization were able to travel between worlds. It was how heroes were summoned from Earth. And right now, it was a powerful hint for how the hero was brought here from Earth.


    “What did you say?” asked Neitra.


    Artyom hesitated for a second before responding. “I uhh said, the attack started seconds before we showed up, right? Sounds like a trap, but we weren’t the target.”


    Neitra’s eyes widened. “Everyone else, most of the undead were attacking the church!”


    Neither said another word as they made a mad dash towards their other teammates.


    It didn’t take long for them to catch up, but by that time they found the church courtyard filled with nothing but burnt and battered corpses. None of them thankfully belonging to the others.


    The front door however was open.


    They quickly yet cautiously went through, Neitra with her dagger raised and Artyom with a Gravity Lance at the ready.


    As they entered, they both let out a collective sigh and lowered their weapons.


    None of the undead had made it inside. The party was sitting around an older priest who was unharmed, but looked weary after the scare. Lensa was next to him with a hand wrapped around his back in a sideways hug while the others whispered words of encouragement.


    “And where were you two?!” all but shouted Daisy. “Lensa’s father could have gotten killed!”


    Even Lensa, demure as she was, looked up at the two with a flush of anger.


    “We were protecting the other townsfolk,” said Artyom.


    “That’s right,” added Neitra. “They were also about to be killed and eaten and there was nobody else to save them.”


    “You truly are members of the hero’s party,” said the older man who looked up at them with soft, tear-filled eyes. “The goddess has truly blessed us by having you all come together, and to be here in our greatest time of need!”


    The priest wore white robes with a central vertical blue stripe just like the other clerics Artyom had met so far, but a short, black waist-length cape hung from his shoulders as well, likely a show of his rank. His hair was gray, turning to white, and his face held just enough wrinkles to mark the beginnings of advanced aging.


    Lensa immediately calmed down at the priest’s words, and even nodded at them.


    “Wait, the other townspeople are in trouble?!” shouted Tommy as he got to his feet with a look of fear.


    “Not any more,” said Artyom. “We finished saving them before coming here.”


    “Oh,” said Tommy, sounding somewhat disappointed as he sat back down. “But that’s still a relief.”


    “As I said, it truly is a miracle you all came here when you did,” continued the priest. “There have been disturbances within the church’s catacombs ever since a piece of the goddess’ armor appeared at the bottom, but I never thought its magic would lead to such danger!”


    “Armor piece?” asked Tommy. “If it’s right here, let’s just grab it right now and solve the undead problem at the same time!”


    The others began to nod along, but Artyom stepped forward.


    “Too bad that’s not what’s causing the problem; there’s a person behind it.”