The Ruined Death Knight-Novel

"You are allowed to go in."

"Thanks, guys! Move on!"

Escorted by a group of mercenaries, three carriages entered the city of Nercana.

Compared to the capital of Bernes where the streets were filled with people going through their business, Nercana was different.

Though they weren´t as many people as in Bernes, you couldn´t call this place deserted. And contrary to what one would expect from a city near the borders, the buildings were in quite good condition if not a better condition than most buildings in Bernes.

And Danzel who was watching by the side inside the carriage found this weird.

After all, you would think that the capital would be much grander than that of a city in the middle of a potential war zone.

He originally wanted to lay low somewhere with a minimum amount of supply of equipment to engrave runes and maybe find a replacement for his armor.

His goal was only to learn the runes of Veren as quickly as possible so that he can remove the chore of replacing his armor.

He didn´t want to admit it, but his skeletor body was siding more on the fragile side.

The endurance was supposed to increase the toughness of one´s body.

But even then he could confidently say that if he were to receive any attacks from the past months such as the [Magic Missiles], the assassins or one of the smaller wolfs by just his bones.

He wasn´t confident to say that they would hold...

Which was why he wanted to have armor at all times.

For him, the armor that he was wearing served as his true body.

At times, he would even forget that he was wearing armor.

With the [Rune Vis] placed in his helmet, it granted him vision similar to as if he didn´t wear a helmet at all.

Toppled him with him being an undead, his severely lacking senses, and unlimited stamina made him feel that his armor was a part of his body.

In total, he had three senses.

Which were sight, hearing and touch.

As one of the undead, he was granted permanent vision with no way to abstract since they couldn't blink.

With no way to blind him and on top of night vision, there were little ways for a skeletor type undead to get his sight disrupted.

Also, their hearing had an advantage that other living beings didn´t have, that being they couldn´t be deafened for obvious reason.

But as the saying says, there is no perfect being in his world.

With advantages come disadvantages.

Not mentioning that they had only three senses, a skeletor type undead sense of touch was much worse than those of the living.

They could feel when they were touching something and how much strength they were putting, but that was all there was.

Their sense of pressure was decreased by a huge amount while the sense of warmth, cold, and pain did not exist.

And with the severely bad sense of pressure, at times he would forget that he was wearing armor and treat his armor as a part of his own body.

That mentality that he had made him want to quickly go and learn the Veren runes to finally remove future damage on his armor.

`Right, I shouldn´t be hasty of such things. Since kingdoms aren´t being built at a day.´ Danzel thought before turning his head towards Serran.

Seeing me staring at him, Serran frown slightly.

Though Danzel didn´t know the reason why, but this guy seemed to have something against me.

"What is it..." 

"Nothing much, I just wanted to ask why this place looks better than the capital of Bernes" Danzel said as he pointed at the buildings around.

Staring him with a tired look, Serran couldn´t help but sigh out loud.

"Sigh...you really don´t know anything do you?"

"How should I if it´s my first time here?" Danzel said honestly.

Touching his temples with his fingers, Serran felt exhausted by Danzel's behavior.

`He is completely clueless. To think I would suspect such a guy...´

Though the whole two weeks he has been constantly trying to figure anything that could categorize Danzel as someone dangerous. 

He kept trying to talk with him with every chance he could get in the hope´s that he makes a slip of tongue and spill any of his secrets.

When that didn´t work he tried to follow him to his so-called night training for anything suspicious.

But the only thing he was was his training really intensely.

The focus Danzel was putting in his training made him be in awe and somewhat scared as every swing of his long sword would raise dust.

The only person he knew that was training as intensely as he would be the muscle head, Hannes.

No, even he felt short compared to the training Danzel was putting himself.

In Serran´s eyes, he saw Danzel train as if something was at stake that a moment of distraction could make him lose something.

And the idea of disrupting someone with such behavior was kinda scary for a magic caster such as him.

Just imaging the strength one needed to carry the weight of all this armor while swinging a longsword like it was nothing made him have cold sweat on his back.

Anyway, the fact that Danzel was training as he said at night and a day looking like a dead fish on land made Serran come to one conclusion.

That Danzel was completely clueless...

"Hey, you hear me? Why did you freeze so suddenly?" Danzel said as he waved his hand in front of Serran´s face.

I mean look at him...

"Ugh...You asked why the buildings are better than Bernes, right?"

"Yeah." Danzel nodded

"There are two main reasons as the reason why this is." Serran said as he raised his two-finger for Danzel to see.

"One is the culture difference."

"Compared to Berum where magic is being controlled and out of limits to the common people to keep them better in control, the Arcana Kingdom is the opposite."

"Magic is heavily assessed here with the better one is with magic, the higher they are in the hierarchy of society. For a commoner to learn magic they just need to enroll in an academy and pay a fee to come in contract with magical knowledge."

"And with a society with magic being the trend, there would be no lack of mages capable of earth magic that is focused on construction."

"I see..." Nodding with understanding, Danzel fell in deep thought.

`A society with a heavy focus on magic. Just imaging everyone here being able to cast those [Magic Missiles] such as those two magic caster makes me anxious. But maybe I might be able to get my hands of few books in magic if I were lucky.´

Ignoring the fact that I was in my thoughts fantasizing about new books, Serran continued his explanation.

"The second reason is that Nercana is one of the main branches of the Durendal Association, otherwise known as the Mercenary Association."

"With Nercana being so far away from both Berum and Arcana, this city became a true neutral territory that is being led by the Durendal Association from the shadows."

"The reason the city is so well of is though their investment alone."

"After all, with the current war going on, this place has become one of the most famous places for mercenaries to take missions and gather supply with before leaving for their next mission."

Looking straight at Danzel, he continued.

"And as you could probably guess by now, our group is going to retrieve the rewards for completing such a mission."

"Danzel, you said you weren´t registered on the Durendal Association, right?" 

"That´s right if you guys haven´t told me I wouldn´t have known that such group existed." Danzel answered.

"Then if you were to register and become officially a mercenary, you can simply go and pick the mission that requires that hound that you killed and simply receive the reward for the mission."

"I see... Thanks for giving me such information, if you were to help me register as a mercenary I wouldn't mind giving you guys half of the mission reward." Danzel said

Surprised for a second, Serran shook his head.

"There is no need to give us anything since you helped us against does beast not long ago. As for helping you register I will do free of charge."

Shaking his head too, Danzel pointed at the carriage carrying the Alpha wolf.

"I insist...Without you guys, I wouldn't be able to carry that thing to his place, to begin with."

Seeing Danzel being so adamant about it, he could help but accept.

"Alright, just don't come back later to get those coins back."

As those do were continuing to chat about rules and regulations of the association.

Coming inside the carriage, Hannes mentions the two to come out.

"We are here."

Moving outside the carriage, the first thing that greeted Danzel was a huge building with many people looking like mercenaries standing nearby.