In a beaten down shack filled with mold and the cold wind sat a boy no more than four years old. In his thin hands was a feather he had taken from one of his father’s chickens. He dipped his quill into the mud and wrote on a board of wood. Each stroke, despite taking a minute each, was sloppy. Doevm clicked his tongue and wiped the mud off on his raggedy shirt. After a few more minutes he could barely make out the words: Day three. Rena had been so overprotective that he barely got a chance to practice his writing. He broke his quill and threw the board to the ground. ‘When,’ he thought. ‘When will I escape this hell? When can I learn to fight?’ He shivered and brought his rags closer to his body. His new body was something to be proud of. He had no birth defects, disease, or restrictions; however, he was born as a commoner. ‘Filthy humans and their rankings,’ He thought every time he experienced the cold. It was unbearable to him as his dependency on his mother. Undead were born as independent creatures. They were made to fight from the rubble of grown bodies. Humans on the other hand…

“Please Hank, put down the bottle!” Doevm’s mother cried. A quick bang resounded, and she whimpered as usual. Footsteps walked towards the woods. Doevm peeked out of his house to see his mother with a bit of blood coming from her red cheek. She saw him and smiled. “Come here,” she said like she was calling a dog.

Doevm couldn’t sigh. He couldn’t do a lot of things he would like to do. All his mana from over a thousand years was gone. He had to start from scratch. Since his body coudn’t handle a large amount of mana yet, he only gathered enough for basic spells. He could become the strongest mage in the world. In a year or two, he could kill both his parents and dump their bodies in the woods to be eaten by wolves, but he wouldn’t. That was because he swore to himself, he wouldn’t be a magician in his new life. It would be too easy to solve all his troubles with it. He didn’t reincarnate to be a magician; he reincarnated to be a fighter.

Maker disrupted his plans. She put him in a game he didn’t want to be a part of. After defeating the hero, Doevm would need to remove himself from the game by either ending the game or Maker. He had it all planned out. He would learn how to fight for a half of a century all the while building his mana. When he got powerful enough, he would go take her down with both his fists and mana.

That, however, would need to wait. In this life, he already decided to start as a fighter. The first step was to become stronger. Arthur was not the greatest teacher, but one of the few things Doevm learned from him was the fastest way to become physically strong: develop muscles and life essence.

Doevm waddled into his mother’s arms, stumbling a bit to be convincing. She hugged him close and kissed him on the forehead. “Listen to me, daddy’s just a little mad right now. When he’s like this you just need to stay out of his way. Someday I promise you won’t have to fear him anymore.”

‘You need to stay out of his way, not me,’ Doevm thought. He estimated he could develop enough muscle and coordination to kill his father by age ten. All he needed was a rusty nail or a sharp rock and for the father to fall asleep. Doevm would use life essence to off his father in a single swipe. If mana was the immaterial manifestation of one’s soul, life essence was the physical manifestation. Since life essence was unique to living organisms, Doevm never had it. Even a creature as weak as his mother had life essence, it was just too small to be usable.

She inhaled and exhaled with shaky breaths. Since she held him close, he could feel her rapid heartbeat. Her usually warm and soft hands wiped sweat onto his clothes. The way to grow life essence was to be exposed to extreme emotions or dangerous circumstances. Circumstances so dangerous that one’s life might be taken. If she had learned how to build life essence by now, she would be extremely strong, but there is also a second condition: fighting.

Two souls must clash together to refine them both. Each soul acts as a grinder and the other as an unpolished diamond (or jade apparently). If the mother resisted the father even once, her soul would get stronger, and thus her life essence would strengthen as well. Doevm internally shook his head at his poor ignorant mother. ‘It’s too bad you’re still in love with that poor imitation of our species. You could have been strong. You could have been more than expendable to me,’ Doevm thought as his mother sung “his” favorite lullaby.

“Oh, the wind, the wind blows east.

To the edge of the earth, it runs from the beast.

Its fangs are sharp, but mommy has got her harp.

She’ll lull it to sleep and count some sheep.

Oh, the wind, the wind blows east.

Until the end of time, mommy will save you from the beast.”

With that, Doevm fell asleep. He was, after all, a four-year old boy, and her voice was beautiful. In the four years Doevm had been human, he experienced things through a human’s eyes. When he was a Lich, he thought of his life as mundane and boring. Now that he was human, he realized his past was a lonely one. Whenever he remembered anything or practiced magic, he felt a hole in his heart.

Doevm had thoughts as he slept. He remembered humans called these thoughts ‘dreams’. They represent the thoughts and feelings as the brain rewires itself. His dreams were always the same: fighting with Arthur. He imagined his narrow victory and how happy he was to finally stand on top of his opponent. Each fight, no matter if he lost or had an imaginary win, he felt a little less lonely.

“Rena!” Some idiot woke him up. Hank banged at the door with his empty bottle. Doevm was in his crib. It was the middle of the day, so his mother, Rena, was probably at fields, earning barely enough money to live off. The noble of this village was lord Reginald Virility. Doevm guessed it had been almost a hundred years or so since he had died because while he did recognize the Virility family, he didn’t know the first name. They were one of the more generous noble families that provided extra opportunities for the commoners to earn a decent wage. By providing more opportunities, that meant either two things: be a slave in the mansion just outside of town or pick in the rose fields. Flowers were their main business, but most chose slavery. That was because the flowers were special. A mere prick from a thorn could deliver enough poison to kill someone. The unfortunate commoners did wear equipment, but it was only a bit of leather armor for their hands and arms. Rena’s set of armor had broken down long ago, and with Doevm eating her money, she couldn’t afford another pair.

“Rena! You in there?” Hank banged at the door again. The bottle slipped out of his hands and broke on the ground. “Oops.” He hiccupped as he fiddled at the door handle and made his way in. “Doevm, I have a job for you.” He wandered into Doevm’s room and lifted him out of the crib. “It’s something only you can do.” Smiling and giggling, he carried Doevm to his mess. “Now I need you to pick each one of these tiny pieces up.” Doevm felt his stomach curl as he was lowered directly onto the glass. Shards already pinched into the fat on his knees. He winced and cried.

“Uh-oh kid’s crying. Kid’s crying.” He looked up at the cloudy sky. “Kid’s crying. Pretty annoying little shit.” He bent down. “Next time I hear you screeching,” he shoved Doevm’s face into the dirt. “I’ll kill ya.” He laughed more as his son flailed. Doevm couldn’t breathe. He dug his arms through the glass to dig himself some air. It was like every piece of glass was pointed at him. Glass was dyed red as pain engulfed him like the draconic flames in his previous life. The hand let go. He coughed up spit and blood.

Hank walked towards the rose field: “Rena!”

Doevm looked at his hands and feet. He couldn’t even heal himself. He had never learned holy magic because it was impossible for an Undead like him. Even though he knew just about every magic, he didn’t know the one he needed most. Not that it was a big problem to be bleeding. While children were weak, they had high-regenerative capabilities. The only thing problem would be the scars left over. Rena would probably freak out and try to hit Hank but she’s so weak she wouldn’t do anything. Then Hank would retaliate…And since that was the first time Rena fought back, and Hank was still drunk, it would get dangerous.

‘Time to kill him,’ Doevm thought. ‘While Rena isn’t special, I’d rather have her than you.’ He looked at the broken glass around him. Even though it was sharp enough to cut his skin into shreds, Doevm didn’t have the weight to cut his father’s flesh, nor the control to cut an artery. He had been a mage. The most he knew about assassination was to summon a shadow demon to do it for him. If he didn’t cut an artery, Hank would kill him. Even if Doevm managed to cut the artery, it would take a little bit for Hank to die. He would probably bleed out more alcohol than blood.

Doevm’s only choice would be something with poison, the rose thorns. He cleaned up all the glass and threw it out back, where Hank usually threw his glasses. He walked inside and wrapped himself tight with spare clothes, so his cuts weren’t visible. While Rena wouldn’t be fooled forever, a day was all he needed. Hank was hindering growth, so he must be eliminated. ‘Maker, you damned hypocrite,’ he thought. ‘You’d be telling me I’m a murderer after these thoughts. In my eyes, I’m securing my future. In Rena’s eyes, she’ll be relieved. If one of two people have to die, and one is good while the other is bad, why not kill the bad person?’ He went to the back, where Hank had his hidden stash of alcohol.

He grabbed a bottle, popped the cork off, and doused himself. As the dirt and blood washed away, pain even worse than the glass caused him to scream and twitch around. Each of his thirty-six wounds were deep enough to leave scars. All of them screamed at his nervous system. As he writhed around, he swore Hank would receive the most painful death imaginable. When the pain subsided and he lay on the floor in pure agony, he thought about his mother.

‘The true villain here is Rena. If she had realized her husband was Irredeemable none of this would have happened. She’s lying to herself. She thinks she can save Hank but in actuality, she is too scared to run away. She keeps promising to protect me and do something but it’s all just wishful thinking. After Hank, when you get old and frail, you’re next.’