Chapter Thirteen: Unexpected Guest

  Everything had been settled, but Serene refused to let go of Dapo. Not even when her father, Uncle Locke and Teacher Ellen came to persuade her would she loosen her grip.

  "Go and get Müller to take his daughter back, this can't go on like this, it's better if Dabo is buried as soon as possible." Father whispered to a villager to call Serline's father. Taking advantage of this pause, Father finally turned around to ask me: "What exactly happened? Who was the person who died?"

  "This person is a necromancer, he dug up Dabao's grave and turned him into an undead, it seems like he wants to make Dabao his undead servant." I randomly wiped the sweat on my face with my sleeve, not knowing if it was real sweat or cold sweat, I deeply despised myself for the cowardice I showed in the battle just now, even Xierlin is braver than me, how humiliating.

  "Is that a lich?" As soon as I spoke, almost everyone let out a surprised cry. Immediately, many people gathered around the deceased lich to take a look, pointing and discussing it in hushed tones.

  "How could you not know the immensity of heaven and earth? Why did you immediately return to the village and call us after discovering that the other party was a necromancer? Don't you know how terrifying necromancers are? With your current lowly abilities, how can you possibly contend with a necromancer who has undead minions?" My father scowled and began to rebuke me.

  "I... I was going to go back to the village and call for you, but Serin saw Dabo and rushed out without caring about anything. I was afraid that something would happen to Serin, so I had no choice but to rush out after her." Seeing my father's subtle signs of anger, I hurriedly and unrighteously sold out Serin.

  "Alyric did the right thing. If he had abandoned his companions in danger, that would have been despicable. And... Kuren, didn't you notice that the undead wizard seemed to be killed by Alyric? That's amazing! If I were alone facing an undead wizard, I wouldn't necessarily be able to kill him either. Alyric, tell us, how did you do it?" Uncle Lock immediately spoke up for me. Upon hearing our words, Father's expression improved slightly, and he nodded at me, saying: "So, in that case, your method wasn't wrong either. How did you manage to kill him?"

  "It wasn't actually me who killed him, it was Dapo who refused to accept the command of the undead mage to kill Serin, and suddenly rebelled, clinging tightly to that undead mage, I just took advantage of the opportunity to use the archery skills Uncle Locke taught me to kill him smoothly."

  "So that's how it is, I was wondering when you'd suddenly become so strong, able to kill a powerful undead wizard." Father never seemed to miss an opportunity to strike at me.

  As they were speaking, Uncle Müller finally arrived with the news and saw his daughter's appearance. He hurriedly went forward and forcibly separated Serline from Darbo. His actions made Serline wail loudly in tears, but she couldn't resist her father and could only cry while looking back at Darbo as she was taken home by her father.

  The rest of the matter was simple, people started to clean up here, Dabo's body was carried back to the cemetery by some villagers for reburial. When Dabo's mother saw her son's body being found and reburied, she cried bitterly in front of Dabo's grave, alas, poor woman, why did heaven give her such torture?

  As I looked at Dabo's mother, I silently prayed for her in my heart, hoping that as time passed, her grief would gradually fade away.

  The corpse of the necromancer was dragged out by people, and as I looked at this person I had killed, covered in blood, my stomach suddenly churned with a wave of nausea. I hastily found a corner to loudly retch, vomiting until the sky grew dark and the earth spun. I had never killed anyone before, and during the battle, I didn't have time to think about it, fearing that I wouldn't be able to kill him. But now, seeing his corpse, I suddenly couldn't bear it. A voice kept echoing in my mind: "You've killed someone! You've killed someone! This person was killed by you!"

  My father came over and gently patted my back, in a rarely seen benevolent tone, saying to me: "The first time you kill someone is like this, afterwards you'll get used to it. In the Solrens family, there are no men who can't stand the sight of blood. Be strong, hold on and you won't be afraid anymore."

  After hearing Father's words, I couldn't help but be speechless. Habit? Am I going to have to kill many more people in the future? I raised my head and said to Father: "In the future... that... can we not kill if possible?"

  My father listened to me and didn't get angry, he just smiled faintly and said: "Well, if we can avoid killing, then let's not kill. But often it's not up to us to choose, just like today."

  The undead warlock was burned to ashes by the villagers, and the curse of the undead warlock that lingered in my mind also turned into flying ash with this big fire. Perhaps it was also because the first murder had a huge impact on me spiritually, anyway I almost forgot that there was such a thing.

  But just as my life was about to return to calmness, an unexpected visitor completely changed the trajectory of my life.

  That day, I came back home from practicing archery as usual. As soon as I walked in the door, I heard my father calling out to me: "Alik, come quick!" From the sound of his voice, it was clear that he was in high spirits. What could have made him so happy? I walked into the house with a puzzled expression and saw that in our living room, my father was chatting with an old man wearing a long robe. My father's demeanor was very respectful, as if the other person had a very high status.

  My father saw me coming in and hastily beckoned to me, indicating for me to go over. When I walked up front, my father said to me: "Alik, this is the Empire's only great magician, Ankala, not yet come to ask for good!"

  A legendary all-powerful great magician! How could my father know such a great figure?! I heard that on the continent of Aichner, people who can become magicians are extremely rare, and there are only a few magicians in the entire empire, let alone a high-ranking magician - a great magician is sitting right in front of me! I hesitated to step forward and bowed to the old man with a noble salute, respectfully saying: "Respected Ankala, Alek Solrens greets you!"

  Ankara's great magician looked at me, nodded and smiled, saying a sentence that shocked me even more: "Hello, Alick, actually I came here today just for you!"

  I pointed at my own nose in astonishment and said to Ankara, "Excuse me for being presumptuous, but did you just say that you came here because of me?"