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A building exploded in a hail of wood with such force the pieces smashed the nearby buildings, and some wooden chunks even embedded into the town’s wooden walls, a mere meter away from the orc guards’ heads.

“Can you help us?” one of the zombie orcs asked Eve, and she agreed. After all, she was also curious about what was going on.

“Zedd— Oh.” Unsurprisingly, the rogue was long gone. Only a gust of black smoke wafted in the air beside her. Wanting to not be left behind, Eve compelled her exhausted body to move. Red mana coated her muscles as she dashed forward and past the zombie orcs.

As she rounded the corner with a skid, she saw gems of various colors through a half-destroyed building’s roof. Rock turned his titanic body, and Eve saw him rapidly rotate his torso and smash something she couldn’t see. But whatever he hit seemed to fight back with immense force. Rock’s entire three-meter-tall body rocked backward, and he collapsed onto his back, destroying another building and shaking the ground.

“Leave! You are not welcome here in Necron!” Eve heard a familiar man shout across the ruined town. “The master has permitted me to vanquish your kind from our lands!”

Andrew emerged from a wrecked building. It was the port-bellied merchant who had happily sold her an ice sculpture for a friendly price and promised another the next time she came. When Eve had last spoken with him, Andrew had seemed a jolly fellow overall, but he appeared royally pissed right now. His face was dark and his expression cold. Shadows danced around his body, and purple lightning crackled above his palms.

According to Zedd, she should not underestimate the zombie merchants, but she doubted they could stand up to vampires. Eve had only encountered a vampire once, and it had destroyed a small human town singlehandedly. She was a platinum Delver at the time, two ranks below her current, and it took her entire team to take the vampire down. Although they had many weaknesses, they were fast, strong, cunning, and wielded weird blood magic that was hard to predict.

Andrew seemed unaware of the mighty foe he faced as he waltzed into the town square, palms facing the sky and lightning crackling between his fingertips. “Come, foul fiend, let us see who’s the real king of the undead.”

Something moved so fast it was a mere blur, a flash of silver, and Andrew’s head tumbled to the floor with a sickening thud. Eve tracked the blur and spotted a man appear in the shade of a still-standing wooden building with the sign “Necron Inn.” He was a man of tall stature with pale-white skin, trimmed brown hair in a hideous bowl cut, and a rapier by his side. The vampire calmly switched his target and glared at Eve with scarlet eyes.

Eve immediately dove into the sunlight. She had learned from her last encounter with this mystical race that they were very wary of sunlight. It didn’t cause them any direct harm, but it weakened them considerably.

She rolled, a flash of whistling silver passed by where her neck once was, and an irritated vampire appeared only a meter away from her in the shade of the half-destroyed building. “A worthy opponent,” the vampire snarled in an indescribable accent.

Before Eve could even react, the vampire vanished, and the tip of his rapier found itself between her eyes. However, to the vampire’s surprise, she grinned and muttered, “Gotcha,” as her bikini armor activated and an orange glow flashed and absorbed the hit. She didn’t waste a second. She reached up and gripped the blade, and with burning red mana coating her grip, she snapped the rapier in two.

The vampire looked stunned for a second. “You—” Before he could finish, an arc of purple lightning narrowly missed Eve’s head and smacked the vampire in the jaw. The vampire stumbled back with a feral scream and clawed at the charred flesh and exposed bone.

“How are you alive?” the vampire snarled as it leaped back into the shadows like a startled cat. Once in the safety of darkness, Eve watched in wonder as the vampire’s flesh knitted itself together, convulsed and rapidly healed back to normal. It was both disgusting and genuinely miraculous to watch.

Eve compelled her exhausted body to move and backed away, never taking her eyes off the vampire. “Andrew,” she half said over her shoulder, “what’s going on?”

Andrew stood beside her, his head under his arm like a ball. A tendril of shadow seemed to be running from his neck stump to his detached head that was dripping green gunk onto the floor. “No idea. These bastards showed up unannounced, and my master demanded I attempt diplomatic relations with them. I thought it might work out; they look human enough and could speak fine; it’s just a shame…they only demanded from us, no offer of trade. They wanted everything here, including us, and also demanded human rations.”

Andrew then laughed manically as he walked toward the vampire. “Luckily, the master blessed me with overwhelming power on this fine day.” He didn’t even charge up his spell, and like a demi-god, he hurled a bolt of purple lightning so powerful it blinded Eve. An eruption of noise and heat flooded the air, and as she blinked away the burning light, she witnessed a flaming crater where the vampire had once been.

“Ah…” Andrew stared dumbly at the scene. “There goes the post office. Hmm, what a shame. We had just got the bone network setup.” He let out a tired sigh before he attempted to fuse his head back into place. Eve debated helping him, but it looked far too gruesome to get up close.

“So, was that the only one?” she asked.

“No, there was one or two more…” he muttered as he looked in the direction he could hear fighting. He gestured with his now reattached head to follow him, and the two briskly walked to the other side of the square. Rock had recovered and was back on his hind legs, with a very battered vampire underfoot. Bob, the dwarf skeleton chef, sauntered toward the trapped vampire while juggling three knives. Without mercy, he accurately threw each one. Two of them pinned the vampire’s hands to the dirt, while the third dug into the vampire’s skull, causing it to squeal.

“Fry it,” Bob said emotionlessly.

Toby pointed his index finger at the knife embedded in the vampire’s head and used it as a lightning conductor as he fired a purple lightning spell. The vampire released one final scream as his brain became boiling sludge.

Andrew sheepishly turned to Eve and rubbed the back of his neck. “Haha…we should have done that much, errrr, cleaner? Less property damage?”

“What in the high hell was that, Andrew? I could feel the heat wave from here!” Toby walked over with heavy steps. Eve hadn’t felt it before, but Toby was genuinely intimidating. His gray eyes spoke of murder in cold blood, his arms were beefy, and his shoulders broad. A straw hat of poor quality sat happily on his head, obscuring his black hair.

Toby walked past Andrew and knocked him on the way, causing Andrew to stagger back a step or two. “T-toby, man, it’s not that bad. We can fix it, okay?”

Toby poked his head around the corner of the half-destroyed building and whistled. “Well…there goes a week of work. Awesome. Great. Good stuff.” The monstrous zombie, who matched even the ogres in size that stood dumbly on the side, came back and patted Andrew on the shoulder. “This is why I am head of security and you are the trading guy. You, my good man, have absolutely zero fighting sense.” He pulled back his fist and struck Andrew in the face, sending him spiraling back and skidding a few meters in the dirt.

“We work for a fucking eldritch creature, Andrew. I just shot lightning out of my hands like it was nothing. Do you understand? Do you? Hey!” Toby lumbered over and grabbed the fat zombie by the scruff of his shirt. “No more mistakes. Understood? You are immortal. There is no need for you to blow up three entire buildings. All right? We are a team, you and me. Let’s do our parts, ay?” He hauled the fat merchant up, plopped him on his feet, and slapped him twice. “Now look lively. There’s work for you to do.”

Zedd popped into existence with a third vampire dead in his hand with a black dagger wedged in its skull. He casually dumped it on the floor. “One escaped. Three in total, including human slaves in the carriage. Likely used as a portable food supply.” He looked to Eve. “I will head back and report vampire activity to the guild immediately. For vampires of this caliber to be this far north is highly unusual. You stay here and complete our original mission.”

Eve hated being bossed around, but she had to admit Zedd could move disturbingly fast. In fact, she bet he could reach the guild by tonight. “All right. Take care.” She didn’t even get to wave him off as he vanished, taking the vampire corpses with him.

Toby muttered something about enforcing the perimeter as he strolled off toward the town gate, leaving Eve and a stunned Andrew in the destroyed town square.

To Andrew’s credit, he quickly recovered and returned to the jolly persona that Eve was used to before. “Miss Eve, you said you had some business to conduct here? I hope it’s more reasonable than our previous guest’s demands.”

Eve smiled. “I believe you will find my deal very interesting.” She summoned a parchment from her spatial ring and handed it to him.

Andrew gave the contents a look over and laughed. “Oh certainly, Miss Eve, this is very interesting indeed. I didn’t think the merchants guild would make a move this fast…but why does it say here the guild master wants to meet the necromancer?”