John's POV

As night slowly approached, we laid down our swords and began the journey again. The waves of sand in the desert were anything but raging. Occasionally, however, a gust from the northern side of the continent would blow by and destroy the tranquil peace. In the sky, the moon hung low and gave off a gentle shimmer to help travellers along their way.

We were in the middle of a discussion when Ezra cut me off.

"Listen." he whispered.

Several seconds went by. I couldn't hear a thing. I looked at Ezra with a puzzled look. However, then my bones turned rigid as if to contradict what I just said. I could hear, from far behind us, low and soft patts in a constant temp. Ezra grabbed me and threw me off the dune we were standing on.

"I can almost swear I heard voices from around here," said a deep, animalistic voice from where we had been standing just a moment ago.

"Not another damn time..." said another.

"What do you mean? I can swear I–"

"Old Sluggy, you hearing things again?" interrupted a third. "I thought for sure those voices in your head had gotten better by now, and yet here you are, spewing out another load of nonsense."

"I'm telling the truth, I really did hea–" The voice stopped abruptly. "Oi, what's this stinky smell? A skeleton? And a vamp?"

"Wow, I can't believe it. You reall–" continued the third voice. "... you're right. I can smell it too."

Ezra looked at me and gestured with his finger to keep quiet. I nodded. It was not hard to figure out that these voices came from beastmen. Our enemies.

As we held our breaths– silently, not making any sound at all– there was a rustle in the sand above us. A dog face poked out from above and stared straight at us. We were shocked. The dog face was shocked. Its mouth opened wide, revealing a set of feral, savage teeth. Then it slammed shut and pulled away as Ezra tried to slash it with his sword.

"Looks like you get to show off those new skills of you pretty quickly." the vampire muttered to me and jumped up from the low spot in the sand. I gulped, an odd excitement spreading in my chest – like a palpitating feeling ever growing stronger. I then followed Ezra to face out opponents.

As we jumped up, the moonlight enabled us to see our opponents clearly. Beastmen. Merges between humans and different animal species. Lower body was human and upper body was beast. Black screens appeared over their heads.

NPC – Dogman Sora (lvl 14) NPC – Prarie Wolf (7) NPC – Mouseman Piri (12) NPC – Prarie Wolf (6) NPC – Owlman Slug (14) NPC – Prarie Wolf (8) NPC – Tigerman Raia (lvl 16) NPC – Prarie Wolf (8)

"A skelly! A-and a vamp!" shrieked one of them. This particular beastman had the lineage of a mouse. It was truly muscular, though. Cords of muscle stretched across its body like how my ribcage was filled with bones. A pale grey fur covered its upper body. As the mouseman shrieked, the long whiskers of close to its mouth trembled.

There were three others. A tigerman, an owlman and the dogman who we saw earlier.

"Piri!" The tigerman ordered. He seemed to be the leader of the group. "You deal with the skelly! Raia and I will take on the vamp. Sora, hurry up, you are the fastest of us four, alert the camp! We can't let these monsters get away if they kill us."

I guessed the mouseman was the one who was named Piri. After all, after the tigerman had roared its orders, which I was able to understand because of Eve, he stared intensely at me with a murderous gaze.

The dogman ran off and the owlman and tigerman blocked Ezra from pursuing them.

"HEY!" the mouseman shouted and tugged his claws to his mouth, charging at me. I flinched, forgetting the basics the vampire taught me. In the last second, whether it was luck or instinct, I sidestepped. However, it was all too late. His claws scraped my left arm and crushed several centimetres of bone. I stumbled away, ignoring the pain. After all, I had one ripped off my leg without hesitation. This pain was nothing to me. Maybe an effect of being undead.

An alert came up in form of a black screen. It told me that had lost five hp. Taking a deep breath, I commanded Eve to remove the screen. The fight was much more important. I had to find a way to regain calm.

Mouseman Piri licked the bone dust from his claws, directly spitting it out again, coughing. He was probably used to attacking creatures with blood, forgetting that I was a skeleton.

"Bastard! Tricking me like this!" growled Mouseman Piri and prepared another charge.

Ezra's POV

I fucking hated beastmen. They were dirty, spoke like their vocals were ruptured, and had absolutely no manners. Didn't they know that attacking a noble was punishable by death? Fucking mindless beasts.

"You fucking dirty beasts, I'll rip you apart! How dare you even block me?"

The two beastmen showed no reaction. Stupid beastmen. They said something in that dirty tongue to each other and then charged at me from one direction each. I laughed. Not because of their charge, but because of their stupidity. They thought they could defeat me with such crude tricks? I would show them now. The true might of a royal vampire.

As the tigerman attacked from the left, and the owlman from the right, I simply stepped back, grabbed both of their legs and swung them against each other. They moved like Panthers in slow motion with movements so easy to read even people without the ability to read would be able to read them. It was laughable. They collided in mid-air and blood spurted.

I stepped back and watched how my dear skeleton friend was doing. The mouseman was charging at him and I could see how his forearm was decimated, but then again; he looked confident. And calm. Well, well, if he couldn't beat a mere mouseman, he didn't have any value in master's Legion – no matter how much of a variant he was.

Hmm? The two beastmen had gotten up. One of them looked really mangled. It was the tigermam. Apparently, his leg was torn off. I looked down to my hand. There it was. Haha! I had mistakenly used a bit too much force!

John's POV

When I entered the stance, a strange calm overwhelmed my senses. The palpitating feeling in my chest grew even stronger. As the mouseman charged forward, I almost perfectly stepped aside. As I thought about it, my previous mistake was laughable. The mouseman's attack was in a straight line. How could I not dodge that?

With my sidestep, I caught him off-guard. "Huh?" he growled as his body shot past mine.

Now!

I stomped down and twisted my body, leading the force that had been accumulated from my pivot foot and legs through my whole body, out through my arm and sword.

Blood splattered onto the sand as the mouseman released a horrifying shriek sank to his knees. The prairie wolf came one step too late, and when it discovered its owner being hurt, rushed over to stand firm between me and the mouseman. Its intention was clear.

I entered the stance again. Mouseman Piri was still down on the ground because of the injury to his back. My bone sword had slashed down at his back and there was now a long gash, in which one could see the colour of white that originated from his spine. I understood this was the best chance to end this.

The prairie wolf growled ferociously, baring its razor-sharp teeth as I advanced with his sword in hand. With a quick double step, I used the piercing skill I had learned from Ezra. My sword pierced toward the prairie wolf's head as it lunged toward me...

*Puchii!*

240 XP gained from killing a Prarie Wolf Level Up! You have advanced 3 levels! Your new level is 4! You have gained 9 stat points for distribution.

[You have unlocked a new class by clearing a special condition!]