“Happy birthday to you…” I paused, looking around at the confused faces around me. I sensed ridicule on Garlan's face, and he patted my back hard.

The chandelier cast its incandescent light all around the room, brightening the myriad of expressions. The atmosphere was lively until I started singing the modern birthday song.

“What’s that, brother-in-law?” Arabell asked. “Have you written a birthday song for Casey?”

“Rudolf, please,” I reminded her again, ignoring my lady’s mischievous smile, and continued. “Well, I thought a song would be the best way to start a party.”

“I bet it’s another of his weird antics, girls,” Garlan shook his head in disapproval. “Let’s cut the cake, hurry up! I’m starving.”

That earned him clout from Beth and glare from my lady.

“Continue, Rudolf. I’ve never heard you sing before," my lady said, propping her chin on her hands. Except the maids, everyone else was seated around the table decorated with exquisite cookies and dishes.

And just like that, I was made to sing the embarrassing birthday song. The cheerful atmosphere resumed amidst my not-so-horrible signing, and the maids served a lot more dishes once everyone had stuffed themselves with enough cake and cookies.

I helped out the maids as everyone sat down to dine, despite my lady’s initial rejection. Occupational habits were hard to change, and she had silently acquiesced. I left the lively table once I was done with serving, carried my two loaves of bread, and walked outside the intricate dining hall. The room was decorated with cloth ribbons, blue ones dominating the interspaced red ones.

I paused at the ancestral portrait briefly and waved at Letitia before making my way down the stairs. I didn’t usually like dining with others, and it had become all the more harder now that the memories of my mortal life were tainting my undead existence. A rundown table littered with empty ale bottles and my mother’s blood were the earliest memories of a dining table. Somehow, I had managed to bury everything away over the many epochs I had spent in solitude.

You see, memories were intimately linked with emotions. Since memories were flooding in now, emotions would follow soon, something I had to avoid at any cost.

The mansion was a maze of its own, and I stumbled on more than a few intersections that made me lose my way more often than not. A kind maid helped me out with a giggle and pointed me in the right direction. Even without the mortal’s help, I would have found my way out eventually.

Right when I stepped out of the door, I felt it. The bloodlust, the thirst for life force, and the enormous flow of mana. It was here, an existence that initially shouldn’t have been a part of this world. Or maybe it was the final boss that the heroine should slay. Of course, it meant I could meet my end in this world.

I cast [Ward] on the house immediately to prevent the undead from draining the life force of my lady and glanced at the distant dark winter clouds. It could never sense me because I was different from the primitive undead who couldn’t even tune their [Undead] curse.

With a sigh, I sat on the stone bench under the patio. A few frogs jumped around the small pond, trying to catch the annoying flies. I ate my loaves patiently, lost in thoughts of unknown origin.

I saw some magic books in the memories, a child jumping around joyously, hugging his equally elated parents. She was there when they tried to burn me at stake, but now I saw her expression. My mother. She was crying, heartbroken, and I saw her body hanging from the ceiling soon after. Her body hung blithely with a broken neck, wind pouring little life into the stagnant corpse. The worms ate whatever little was left of her body after decomposition. I had pulled her corpse down, letting the worms crawl over my body, and had spent the next few days lying beside her. Death had stayed farthest away from me when I needed it the most.

I glanced at my hands and then at the frogs croaking before stuffing my mouth with as much bread as possible. The weather had damped my eyes, so I wiped them with my sleeves before throwing some crumbs into the pond. The fishes gathered around in circles, eating whatever little bread they could gather.

And it then it dawned on me. The reason the primitive undead had decided to gather the life force all at once.

Multiple [First Step] instantly landed me out of the portcullis, and I continued my uninterrupted dash to the Besuk woods, further into the Glazukaize’s lair. Frost had condensed over my palms, and somewhere along the dash, the shirt had been ripped in multiple places. I wasn’t concerned much about it. Shirts were replaceable, but not the last surviving dragon.

“Hello there,” it was here, hidden in the thicket of the forest, the darkness too deep for me to get an accurate view. “Didn’t think I would see my kins here.”

“Neither did I,” I smiled, hiding my uneasiness. “What brings you out at this hour of the day? And to these woods? I’m surprised to see you so idle.”

It walked out of the clearing, the little light from the sky illuminating the silhouette. It’s long hair was tied to a bun above its head, unkempt nails black, and some frayed grey cloth fluttered in the cold wind. It was a male, very frail in appearance, and didn’t look the part. But I knew better than to judge an undead by its appearance.

“I sensed a sink of mana in this region,” he said, scratching the edge of his lips, which had little skin left. “So, I thought of checking out the place inside out. Mana sinks have to be rooted out before they could give rise to unnaturally strong beings. I thought all undead knew this fact too well. Are you a newborn?”

“Lived longer than you,” I casually mentioned, and his response was just to squint his eyes. I expected a laugh or a grunt, but I guess the other undead didn't share my sense of humor.

"I've been the only undead here for the last thirty thousand winters," he said as a matter of fact. "How come I never stumbled on you if you aren't a newborn? I hate lies more than anything. Doesn't matter if you are a mortal or undead."

He was just a kid with a worse sense of humor. I had a million years on him, but years didn't decide the potency of the undead. He was stronger than me; my undead instincts were screaming at me to turn around and walk back.

You see, if I did everything my undead instincts told me, I would have never eaten bread. And I would have destroyed humanity by now. So I knew to ignore them when needed.

"No clue," I shrugged and changed the topic. "Can you let the mana sink be? That new being is mine, so you don't have to worry about it bringing harm to you later in the day."

“And if I refuse?” he raised his brows, scratching his lips again. They started bleeding, and he licked the blood with his tongue before it could stain his worn-out cloth. “Both of us know I am the stronger undead here. A snap is all I need to break your limbs and immobilize you. Torturing you comes next, breaking one bone at a time, followed by peeling your skin and plucking your nails. I suppose you wouldn’t like that now, would you?”

“But I wouldn’t like anyone mishandling my prey either,” I actually smiled at his threat. I guess I’ve been eating too much bread these days. “Why don’t to stick to dealing with the sages? I bet you made all those sagacious commandments too. And the one who murdered Karleburo.”

A reaction was all I needed to gauge the validity of my words, and he gave it to me. Garlan’s ticket to S-rank was in my hands now as long as this freak let me leave in one piece.

“Look,” I walked to a nearby tree and leaned against it. “I have nothing against you. Neither am I interested to know why you are domesticating all these sages. Let’s just be strangers and stay out of each other’s lives. The only one who can actually be a threat to you in this world is me, so if you let me be, you are pretty much an impotent being. Just have fun-”

A blink was all it took for him to grab my neck with his untrimmed nails, and I bit my lip to prevent a gasp. My blood draped his hands in seconds, and I looked down at him, this time getting a better view of his face. Calloused skin was a compliment at those dark patches on his skin. Some were rotting, and he had scratched his face so much that flesh was missing from his cheeks. His nose was disfigured, and the skin peeled out. The musculature beneath was too much for any normal mortal to look at.

He thrust his secondhand into my ribs and broke more than a few, making the pain all the more unbearable.

“You are not my match,” he said calmly as if he was having a casual coffee time with me. The nails bore deeper into my neck. Blood stained my shirt, and I sighed. “So, don’t even think you can order me around.”

I cast [Freeze] on his hand, followed by [Dispel], and slammed his stomach hard with a punch laden with [Cardina Garch]. The momentum sent him blasting across the woods, and I froze his legs before he could stabilise his body. With a [First Step], I followed his silhouette and slammed him to the ground.

He landed a roundhouse kick on my face as soon as his face touched the ground. The frost caused a numbing sensation on my face, but I stood rooted, burning mana to cast [Cardina Garch]. He stood up, scratching his cheeks again.

The pitter-patter of the rain echoed around us, a lightning strike illuminating his silhouette. Hailstorm wasn't far off since the temperature was dropping at an insane rate.

He vanished from my vision, and appeared right beside me, slashing me with his blood forged sword. I ducked and cast [Explosion] before donning myself with [Ice shield]. Bright illumination flared up in all directions, uprooting trees and charring whatever little vegetation that had managed to flourish.

The primitive undead collided against a tree, a sharp twig piercing his stomach. He coughed out blood, suppressed a weak grunt that had escaped his lips.

I cast [Gravity] by burning all the mana around the vicinity, plunging him into a 10 feet deep hole. He had stopped moving because [Gravity] was too much for him to try.

“You see, strength doesn’t necessarily translate to skill,” I sat on the edge of the fresh dugout and looked down at him. The hatred seeping out of his eyes was unmatched, and I clicked my tongue in disapproval. “I’ve seen over a thousand millennia, kid. Your little instincts don’t tell you the most important thing: they can be wrong more often than not. If you are getting angry over this little disgrace, you have a long road to walk before reaching my feet. You are more potent than me? Sure, but I’m more skilled because I have fought with creatures ten times stronger. You are just a puny little thing trying to wiggle its tail in my way. I will be merciful this one time. So, leave my food alone. But I will warn you that someone will kill you. Not anytime soon, but certainly, so get your act together. Don’t be a disgrace to our kind.”

As soon as I released [Gravity], he sprung up and slammed his fist across my cheek. I had expected it, so [Cardina Garch] softened most of the impact. He jumped back when he noticed I hadn’t flown over the woods like him.

“Let’s stop, shall we?” I asked again, and this time, he stared at me vigilantly like a weaker predator.

You might think the little undead was weaker than me, but you could not be more wrong. His wounds had already recovered by the time he had jumped out of the dugout, and my recovery was still underway, [Undead] doing a pretty bad job at it. If he had made me immobile in the beginning, I would have had no way of fending his attacks. But I was more skilled and, perhaps, had a bigger brain on my head.

“How?” he stared at me in disbelief. “How are you so much better than me? You canceled my casting before-”

“Leave the important bits,” I waved my hand. “Learn to enjoy life, kid. That’s the only way to grow stronger. Consider these wise words a gift from me.”

I paused after walking a few steps toward the city. “Also,” I looked at him. “Start eating bread. That’s the only way to become as skilled as me.”