16 Go Back to the Tomb

It was full dark. Westwinds had gone to sleep. Only a few houses were still lit.

Robb set up a large barrel in the yard and bathed in it.

The bath had to be in the courtyard, of course. The indoor bath was very depressing, but it was very comfortable in the courtyard. You could see the stars when you looked up. The Black Pine Mountains behind the church were a huge black silhouette. It was very layered. The wind blew over the heads that were sticking out of the water. It was indescribably comfortable.

Besides, one of the maids had been so happy. Lillian had actually made no attempt to avoid him while he bathed. She had merely turned her head away for the briefest of moments while Robb undressed and went into the bucket. Once he was seated in the water, she turned to him and stood aside, blushing.

Whenever Robb said the water was getting cold, she ran to the kitchen and brought the hot water that had been boiling on the fire and added it to Robb's bath bucket.

Such a comfortable bath, of course, had to take longer, and Robb soaked for an hour. Lillian had boiled two large pots of water, and he had not finished.

"Master… when I went to fetch water from the kitchen earlier… I heard a strange noise in the churchyard behind us. It was rustling, like something was digging in the ground." This time Lillian came back with hot water. She had a look of horror on her face, as if she were a little frightened.

Robb thought: It's normal for girls to be afraid of graveyards!

He smiled and comforted her. "Don't be afraid. It's fine. Don't forget that I'm a priest. With the Holy Light, no undead monster can do anything to me."

The way he said it put Lillian's mind at ease. With a priest of the Light here, what was there to fear about the things in the cemetery? Come to think of it, the graves were all built behind the church, partly so that the souls of the dead could return to the Light as quickly as possible, and partly so that the Light could more or less suppress the undead.

She nodded. "I'm not afraid when Master is here."

"Well, good girl!"

He continued bathing. After a while the water was getting cold and Robb smiled. "Got to heat up the water again."

Lillian darted into the kitchen again, and returned moments later with hot water. She actually looked horrified again. "Master, there really is a noise in the cemetery back there. Not only is there digging this time, but there's that… that bone-moving, clicking sound. It's so scary… do you… do you want to take a look?"

Robb said, "I'm going to take a bath. I can't be bothered to look. The bones are moving. At best, a few skeleton soldiers crawled out of their graves. At worst, it's just a skeleton king. No big deal."

Lilian didn't know whether to laugh or cry at his understatement. 'Master, if a Skeleton King does come, all the towns in Westwind – oh, no, hundreds of miles around here – will be razed to the ground by the undead army, right?'

"But… but…" Lillian said. "The cemetery is part of the church. If something happens in the cemetery, your reputation will be damaged, too."

Now that she mentioned it, Robb was concerned. 'Eh? You're right. The cemetery is the property of the church, which means it's my real estate. If anything unclean is causing trouble in my family's most expensive property, I can't just ignore it.'

"All right, all right. Let's take a look, then." Robb lay still in the barrel, but he had secretly changed his profession to Ranger (Forest Patroller) and used his skill, Reconnaissance.

The field of vision expanded instantly. Reconnaissance spells gave Robb a 5,000-yard field of vision, and the Ranger had the Night Vision talent. The dark night couldn't affect his vision at all.

He looked from a distance toward the cemetery on the hill behind the church…

As he looked over, he saw three tombstones lying askew. Three sinister holes had been opened in the ground in front of them. Three skeletons were digging their way out of the holes, looking like they were planning to climb out.

Robb said, "It really is a skeleton coming out of the grave."

"Ah? Ahhh!" Lillian shrieked. "Skeletons?"

"Don't scream. It's just a few skeletons," Robb said. "Forget it. It's my real estate, after all. I'll have to manage it and push these skeletons back into their graves. If they get away and the townspeople come and find the remains of their loved ones missing, they won't even be able to visit the graves. It's rather sad."

Robb climbed out of the barrel. Lillian quickly turned her head away and handed him a piece of dry cotton. In truth, Robb would have been shy if she hadn't turned her head. He was only an eighteen-year-old virgin. He wouldn't have been able to bear it if she had asked him to run naked in front of her. Fortunately, the girl had turned her head away in embarrassment first, and he was able to remain calm. The whole point of being a rogue was to see who reacted to it first!

He took the cotton cloth and dried himself off. Now, of course, he couldn't be bothered to put on a T-shirt and jeans. Normal humans liked to wear looser clothes after a shower. He took a pair of "tube pajamas" from Lillian and pulled them on. "All right! I'm going to check the cemetery now, Lillian. If you're scared, you can wait for me here."

"Aye? I… I want to follow…" Lillian began. "It's more frightening to stay here. What if skeletons crawl out of the ground ahead of us just as you go to the back?"

"Nonsense! How can a skeleton crawl out of anywhere?" Robb laughed. "To crawl out, there has to be a skeleton underground."

"It's hard to say if there are skeletons buried under the front yard…"

"Forget it, follow me. By the way, bring a shovel. I have to bury something later." Robb didn't mind having a girl follow him. Or rather, he liked having a girl follow him. It was boring to kill monsters, but it would be interesting to bring a girl along. A girl encouraging him was obviously much more comfortable than a few burly men encouraging him from behind.

He started toward the back. Lillian followed cautiously with the shovel. The master and servant soon arrived at the cemetery behind the church. It wasn't a large cemetery, with only a few hundred crypts, since Westwind was small and sparsely populated. Besides, the town didn't have a long history.

When Robb walked into the cemetery, he saw that not only the three graves he had just seen, but dozens of others, were also empty. Judging by the marks at the entrance, the skeletons in these dozens of graves had been crawling out for days. At that time, he had not even been in Westwind Town.

What had happened in the past was none of his business. So be it. But now that he was here, of course, he wouldn't allow the skeleton to crawl away again. He quickly walked to a skeleton that was crawling out.

Lillian was horrified to see an animated skeleton crawling toward the outside of the tomb. She gripped the back of Robb's shirt hard, her whole body shaking.

Robb understood immediately that she was acting like this not just because she was timid, but because she had been struck by "fear." Undead creatures all had a certain level of "fear halo" that could inflict on people with insufficient mental strength. The stronger the undead monster, the more powerful the "fear halo," and the wider the range.

Lillian's current state was the result of being affected by the aura of fear. Fortunately, the skeleton soldiers were only the lowest of the undead, and the fear effect was poor. It was not enough to scare Lillian into fleeing.

Robb took her hand in his left. He activated the sacred Dispel spell, and a warm glow instantly dispelled the fear spell from her body. Lillian stirred, and her trembling body finally steadied.

Only then did Robb crouch down and cross his arms over his chest. He looked calmly at the skeleton crawling out in front of him.

The skeleton was digging at the dirt with both hands, widening the hole. Then, bit by bit, it crawled forward, crawling and crawling. Suddenly, it realized that there was someone crouching in front of it. A blond man in a tube pajamas.

The skull's empty eyes glared at Robb. Then it opened its mouth and roared, "Snap! Snap!"

"Snap my ass." Robb put his hand on the skull and pressed down hard. "Go back to the tomb. Don't come out and scare my little maid."