A New Move

Thanatos felt a twinge of guilt as he watched Charlotte's tears roll down her cheeks. With a heavy sigh, he reached out and began to gently pat her on the shoulder.

"Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you," he said, his voice softening. "I'm just…on edge. It's been a long time since I've had to worry about other people."

"All my life, I've been alone," Thanatos admitted. "I've never had to worry about anyone but myself. I didn't mean to lash out."

Charlotte smirked and wiped her tears. "You're not as bad as you think," she said. 

"But hey, at least you're not a pile of bones. Oh wait…" She gave him a playful nudge, a hint of a smile still lingering on her lips.

Thanatos' jaw clenched, a warm type of frustration brewing once more within him. 

'Great. Just great. Not only do I need to survive this accursed dungeon, but I'm also a babysitter now,' he thought to himself. 

He could practically feel his non-existent eyes rolling back in their empty sockets.

He contemplated their next move, and his thoughts turned to the nature of this strange, subterranean world that he created.

'Here, there's no such thing as leveling up,' he thought. 'Monsters evolve by killing other monsters, and absorbing their life essence.' 

He glanced down at the boar's corpse, a feeling of satisfaction stirring deep within his very bones. 'It's survival of the fittest in its most brutal form.'

He knew that their encounter with the boar had only been the first of many.

Thanatos mused to himself, 'For some creatures, the extraction process can be quite difficult.' He paused as he looked down at the boar. 

'But for a simple boar, the process is simple.' He placed his skeletal hand on the boar's side softly.

The air around them shifted, and the boar's carcass began to dim slightly, as if a light within was being slowly snuffed out.

The boar's body gradually lost its vitality, its outline becoming fainter and fainter, like a candle flame being doused by the wind. 

As Thanatos rose from his crouched position, the light faded completely, leaving behind only a hollow, lifeless shell.

Charlotte, her eyes wide, could barely believe what she had just witnessed. "Did…did you just absorb the boar's life essence?" 

"Yes," Thanatos answered simply.

He felt a twinge of discomfort, an unfamiliar prickle in the depths of his soul. 

He couldn't shake the feeling that he was using her, but then he remembered why he'd agreed to bring her along in the first place. 

Without her, he couldn't survive the dangers of the dungeon. And without him, well, she'd be a sitting duck.

And so, with a heavy sigh, Thanatos pushed aside his guilt. 

'It's a symbiotic relationship,' he concluded. 

'She needs my protection and I need her to track down these beasts. We both get what we need, so no harm done.' 

He may have missed his chance to be a good companion when he was alive, but his new form, reincarnated as an undead creature, seemed to have reignited the human emotions he'd once lacked.

Even though he might not have fully understood it, it was clear that the bond he was forming with Charlotte was something he hadn't experienced in a long time.

A spark of determination ignited within Thanatos' shadowy soul. 

This newfound purpose gave direction to his path, and a sense of clarity began to fill his empty sockets. 

If he could survive the dungeon, leaving its cold, dark depths, perhaps he could find the answers to his mysterious circumstances.

"I will escape this place," he thought, his jaw clenched with resolve. "And then I will discover the truth of why I was brought here." 

****

A few days later.

Thanatos and Charlotte had been traveling through the maze-like passages of the dungeon for what felt like an eternity. 

They hadn't hunted another monster since Charlotte cast preservation magic on the boar meat, and with her versatile spell-casting abilities, she cooked the meat using fire magic. 

The silence around them was eerie, save for the occasional clank of their equipment. 

Charlotte, adept at survival in this hostile environment, had been sustaining herself and Thanatos with water she conjured from the moisture in the air. 

But now, even this source of sustenance was drying up, and Charlotte's mana had been nearly depleted.

She cleared her throat, a dry, rasping sound. "Thanatos, we need to find a source of water soon."

Thanatos had an inkling of how the dungeon worked as it was his original design, including the fact that water ran throughout its hidden passageways.

As an undead, he had the unique ability to sense magicules, tiny particles of magical energy that permeated the air and everything in the dungeon. 

In the days they had been traveling, he'd become more skilled at differentiating the distinct patterns of these magicules. 

Now, he could even feel them pulsing through the surrounding environment. 

And with this sensitivity, Thanatos began to detect the telltale signs of water.

Thanatos tapped a section of the dungeon wall, his bony finger making a hollow sound. 

"Here," he said, turning to Charlotte. "Break this and we'll have water."

Charlotte, relieved, grasped her staff with a renewed sense of hope. 

Raising it high, she struck the wall where Thanatos had indicated. 

With a sharp crack, the wall shattered and water burst forth, flooding the narrow corridor.

"Thank the gods," Charlotte whispered, nearly collapsing with relief.

"This should do it," Charlotte murmured, using the last dregs of her mana to cast a cleansing spell on the water. 

She drank deeply, savoring the quenching relief before storing the rest in a bottle. "Thank you," she said, looking up at Thanatos.

"You're welcome," he replied. "But I need you to do something for me in return, I want us to hunt down another monster."

Charlotte frowned. "But we have enough food from the boar to last us for days. Why hunt another monster?"

Thanatos' jaw tightened. "Because I need to become stronger," he replied. "And you need to become more skilled in combat. Besides, we're not just hunting for food."

Charlotte's confusion deepened. "But what's the point of becoming stronger if we can avoid fighting?" she pressed.

Thanatos hesitated. "Because the deeper we go into the dungeon, the more powerful the monsters become. If we don't get stronger, we won't survive."

Charlotte nodded, sensing the gravity of his words. "Okay," she said, resignation in her voice. "Let's go find a monster to hunt."

Thanatos' bony face twitched into what might have been a smile in life, but now resembled a snarl. 

At last, they would test their mettle against another creature. And he, personally, couldn't wait to try out that new move he'd been practicing.