Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 114

Chapter 114: The Hunter
Kai stood beneath the overhang of a cracked cliff face, the wind tugging faintly at his cloak. The silence stretched. Kleo leaned against the nearby wall with her arms crossed, and the grizzled man they’d saved.

Too thin to survive out here by himself. Too pale to take in the sun.

The hunter sat on a flat rock, staring at the ground.

Kai ran a hand through his hair and muttered, “I don’t get it.”

Kleo raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get what?”

He looked back over the ravine they had crossed, Hollowcrag’s jagged maw now behind them. “I was supposed to come back with something. A trophy. A story. Something to show the League. Instead… I’ve got a half-dead hunter and no proof of anything.”

He felt the soul of the dragon boiling within him and breathed gently, trying to calm the raging storm.

Kleo shrugged, but didn’t speak. She understood. Even she had expected some climactic victory, not a quiet end.

Kai turned to the man. “Would you be willing to come with us? To the League?”

The hunter blinked. “You saved my life, boy. Of course I’ll go with you.” His voice was hoarse. “Got business with the League anyway. Unfinished things.”

Kai nodded slowly, uncertain what that meant, but too tired to ask.

‘At least he’ll be proof that I finished the quest. And if I mention the ravine mimic… Well, anyone who faces it would probably die. Eaten, or… Cladeus…’

—

The journey out of the ravine was, blessedly, uneventful. On the far side, they found the hunter’s cart, and a worn, half-starved horse still tied beneath a withered tree. The poor thing had gone without food or water for three days, and its eyes were wild until Kai approached slowly with a few vegetables in hand. It munched on them happily.

Kleo found a half-bag of oats under the cart’s seat, and together they soothed and fed the animal. With the hunter lying in the back and the two of them guiding the reins, they began the slow trundle toward Forne, the citadel.

The hunter barely spoke. He hardly ate. He stared at the sky more than he blinked.

‘Near-death can change a man, I guess.’

Three days out from Forne, they pulled the cart to a gentle stop near a stream curling through the woods. The horse drank eagerly. Kai stood and stretched his limbs. He’d been thinking about it the entire journey.

“I want to spar,” he said.

Kleo didn’t even look up. “You’ll lose.”

“Oh? I want to learn.”

That earned him a grin. “That’s different.”

They squared off in the meadow beside the stream.

Just blades, magic, and wit.

Kai’s longsword against Kleo’s twin knives.

She was brutal. Not cruel, but efficient. A flash of silver, a pivot, a twist, she made movement an art.

‘In another world, she could have been one of those champion acrobats.’

Kai’s sword never reached her.

His arms bruised. His ribs ached.

He lost nineteen out of twenty duels.

But on the eleventh match… he tried something different.

Instead of thinking, he reacted. He shifted his strengthening magic from his feet to his arms to his core in seamless, fluid rhythm. He cast spells without focusing, just enough intent to cast them. Sure, the spells were weaker for it, but less able to be read.

Sparks, wind gusts, illusions, fire, and shadow. Everything moved toward her in quick succession, at different intervals, and different scopes of power, just to throw her balance off. The outcome paths she read blurred. Her foot slipped.

And then his blade was at her neck.

She blinked at him. “Well… that was new.”

He collapsed onto his back, gasping. “I can’t do that again. Not for a while. It’s not sustainable.”

She laughed and offered a hand. “Obviously. You were focusing on not focusing so hard that I couldn’t read anything from you. One out of eleven, though? That’s how legends start.”

“Shut up. I’ll beat you again.”

He didn’t. Nine more duels lost, and Kai sat on the ground with his sword laying beside him.

“And? Where’s that win you were bragging you’d get?” Kleo asked, teasing him.

“I’ll get stronger.”

“You don’t need to, you idiot. Your… friends. They’re supposed to be your strength, right?”

“Some of them are important to me. Wouldn’t you want to be able to protect the things you care about, if you can?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand.”

Kleo sat beside Kai and looked up at the clouds. Kai reached out and touched her hand.

‘When will I be able to touch people without gloves on? How long has it been? Mari?’

“What is it?” Kleo asked.

“We’ll find Firra, I promise.”

They stared at the clouds together for a time in silence.

The stream murmured softly beside them as the evening sun dipped below the treeline. A few fireflies blinked into existence, hovering lazily above the water’s edge. Kai wiped sweat from his brow, his shirt clinging to him like a second skin. Kleo was already crouched by the stream, splashing her face with the cold water, her knives laid neatly beside her.

“You’ve got good instincts,” she said without turning around.

Kai chuckled breathlessly. “You mean I don’t completely suck anymore.”

She shrugged. “You still lose. But now I have to think before I win. That’s progress.”

He smiled, lying back in the grass, letting his aching limbs rest. A warm breeze rustled the leaves overhead.

The hunter watched them from the cart, his face unreadable. He hadn’t said more than a dozen words since they’d left the ravine, but now he finally spoke.

“You’re not bad with a blade, kid,” he said. “But you fight like a man trying to prove something.”

Kai opened one eye. “Aren’t I?”

The hunter grunted. “That’s the problem.”

Kai pressed him for more, but the hunter remained silent.

Then Kleo stood, wringing out the water from her hair. “We should keep moving. The horse’ll rest enough walking slow, and I want a real bed soon.”

Kai groaned and sat up. “Oh, same. Even if I don’t sleep. A nice warm bed would be… amazing.”

—

The walls of Forne rose in the distance. Black stone and shimmering banners marking the city’s domain. Kai’s heart beat a little faster. It wasn’t nerves, not quite. More like a tight uncertainty, like he’d forgotten something important and couldn’t place what.

“Almost there,” he murmured, guiding the cart through the outer roads. “You ready to explain what happened in that ravine?”

Baird didn’t answer.

Kleo glanced back at him, then leaned toward Kai. “What if no one believes us?”

Kai gave a half-shrug. “Then I make them believe.”

He didn’t sound convinced, but he didn’t back down either.

As the cart rumbled over the threshold of the city gates, the guards took one look at Baird sitting in the back and exchanged wide-eyed glances.

That was when Kai realised something had shifted. He wasn’t walking into the League the same way he had walked out.

He was walking in with a story someone else might tell for him.

‘Hopefully this all goes alright.’