Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 105

Chapter 105: The Goon Squad

Kai stood in the corner of the Adventurer’s League, the coarse job scrolls crinkling between his fingers. He flipped through them one by one, frowning. Errands. Deliveries. Vermin-clearing. And not a single one about tutoring or mentoring.

‘I guess they are rare.’

He checked the jobs posted on the job board on the wall. There were no postings about tutoring, but there were much more difficult jobs. More difficult than an Ash-ranked adventurer should be able to handle.

He grimaced, eyes trailing to the bottom of his coin pouch. It felt far too light now, the wealth he’d plundered from Orlin’s treasury dwindling faster than he’d hoped.

Three decisions formed in his mind like cracks in glass: Sign Kleo up to the League, take a quest far beyond what they should, and try to find a sovereign soul to consume.

He turned on his heel and left the building.

—

Kai’s boots splashed through a shallow puddle as he turned into the alley, shadows clawing up the stone walls like fingers in the late afternoon light. He’d been searching for Kleo for nearly an hour, tracking the soft aftertaste of her mana like a thread through the Citadel’s lower quarters. She moved quietly, yes, but not quietly enough to escape his senses now that he was attuned to her presence. Since she was bound to him.

And there she was.

Backed into a wall.

Three men towered over her. One of them, burly with a crooked buzzcut and arms like tree trunks, leered at her with a grin that made Kai’s stomach turn.

“Hey, woman,” the buzzcut said, stepping closer. “Give us everything you’ve got, and we’ll let you go.”

He reached out and thumbed her chin with calloused fingers.

“Or,” he added, “we take you with us, and take what we want from your body.”

Kleo’s voice was small. “I… Um…”

Buzzcut’s two companions flanked him: one tall and skinny with twitching fingers, the other shorter, broader, with a crooked nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. All three wore the faded leathers of gutter thugs. They were street-level scum that survived by preying on anyone who looked like they didn’t belong.

Kai stepped into view, his tone dry as ash.

“I can’t leave you alone at all, can I?”

The three men turned at once, startled by his sudden presence.

Buzzcut sneered. “Get lost, rat. This isn’t your business.”

Kai’s expression didn’t change. “It is. She’s mine.”

“Oh? Yours?” the skinny one laughed. “Then we’ll take you too. Double the loot. Might even be fun.”

Kai stopped walking. Then inhaled.

He didn’t chant. He didn’t need to. The strengthening magic swelled from inside him like molten iron flooding his limbs. He’d used the magic so many times it became like breathing to him.

Tendons tightened. Blood roared. His bones felt like they were made of steel.

He should have saved his mana, but these three threatened his property.

Buzzcut charged first, swinging a thick fist toward his jaw.

Kai caught it midair. Squeezed.

Snap. Crackle. Pop.

The man screamed as his wrist shattered in three places. Kai yanked him forward and drove a knee into his gut, feeling ribs buckle inward like kindling. Buzzcut folded, gasping, and Kai slammed an elbow down on the back of his neck, hearing a satisfying crunch as the man hit the ground face-first and didn’t move.

The second man, the one with the crooked nose, lunged with a dagger.

Kai pivoted and struck the man’s elbow as he swung.

Another break.

The blade clattered to the ground. Kai grabbed the man’s head and smashed it into the alley wall. Once. Twice. On the third hit, the man crumpled, unconscious, his blood smeared in a red arc on the stone.

‘Weak.’

The last one, the skinny twitcher, froze, trembling. “W-Wait, please, I-”

Kai was already in front of him.

He drove a fist into the man’s stomach so fast it was nearly a blur. Internal bruising. Cracked sternum. Shattered pride. The man gagged, folded, and fell to his knees.

Kai looked down at him with cold, hollow eyes. “You picked the wrong person to threaten.”

The man whimpered, clutching his stomach, and collapsed.

For a moment, the alley was still, just the drip of water and the rustle of wind.

Kai stood over them, blood pounding in his ears. He raised a hand, considering it…

‘It would be easy.’

Raise them.

Animate their decayed flesh. Three loyal corpses. Enforcers. Tools. Weapons.

He saw it so clearly, their heads hanging slack, their bones cracking into place, flesh stitched by magic. It would be so easy.

But the gods watched the use of his necromancy closely. Too closely.

Demeris mentioned as much. And she could have lied, but the adventurers that traveled to Mirth made him think otherwise.

The moment he twisted even one of them into undeath, he’d feel the weight of divine attention. And once their eyes turned toward him, they’d never turn away.

‘No. Not now. Not for trash like this. Not when I don’t have the safety of the academy to return to afterwards.’

He stepped over the groaning bodies and reached for Kleo, who had backed up against the wall, shaking.

“Hey,” he said gently, brushing her hair out of her face. “Are you hurt?”

She blinked up at him. “No. Just… scared. I didn’t expect them. I thought I was being careful.”

Kai sighed, brushing dust from her shoulder. “They were watching the alleys. Probably waiting for someone like you to walk through alone.”

“You could’ve handled them yourself, though, right?”

“I don’t know, and I thought we were laying low.”

“Our safety comes before that, you idiot.”

She looked down at the unconscious thugs, eyes wide. “You were… terrifying.”

Kai offered a half-smile. “They were weak.”

He gently guided her away from the wall, keeping a hand on her back as they left the alley.

“You broke their bones,” she said after a while. “You didn’t even hesitate.”

“I’ve had practice.”

Kleo glanced at him. “Were you… going to turn them?”

He didn’t answer at first. Then: “Yes. And I decided against it.”

“Because it was wrong?”

“Because the gods would have noticed.” He met her eyes. “Right and wrong stopped being useful a long time ago.”

Kleo was silent after that.

But she didn’t pull away from his hand on her shoulder. Not once.