The Ruined Death Knight

Though many had faces full of resistance and unwillingness.

What could they do against Danzel's statement?

Servitude or death?

If it weren't for the fact that a being radiating the aura of death around him, many would have scoffed at such a statement.

But against such a being, how could they?

Heck, if they were to refuse, they clearly saw how one of them was turned into a cursed warrior.

Just the imagination of being turned into an eternal slave and into a cursed existence brought anyone chills up in their spines.

But even with does being the facts, they couldn't do anything.

They couldn't run.

Neither could they fight.

So they bitterly had to fall under the rule of a cursed being.

Which of no surprise, had many that couldn't suppress their fear of the such situation.

"W-What should we do? At this rate, we are all going to die!" A man yelled as he hit the table with both hands on the table while staring down.

"He is right!"

"If we stay here we will be turned into cursed beings!"

"He killed our people! We got to do something!"

Many people started voicing their opinions of the current situation.

After Danzel has declared that they will be under his rule, he claimed the weapons of his Draugrs before leaving the villagers to digest his words and leaving the important talks for tomorrow.

Which lead to this meeting of the whole village, with the leading figures taking the spot on the table in the middle.

The building in particular that they were in was originally designed to shelter all the villagers when the cold was unbearable as not everyone could use wood to warm their houses.

Though the gathering of the villagers might have not been for the unbearable cold, instead of a threat that they could do nothing about.

"Calm down! That monster would have killed us already if he wanted us dead. Aimlessly panicking won't bring us anywhere, we got to see things objectively." An aged man said with a gray beard like the mane of a lion.

"How do you expect us to calm down when he beat the strongest warrior!? We are at his mercy and there is no telling when he decides to butcher us one by one!"

"He is right! We can't trust the words of the cursed being."

"We have to run!"

"No! We got to fight!"

"Idiots! He is the primordial god of Harsch Death. Neither will work!"

"Shut up! There is no way that thing is a primordial god!"

With so many people driven into a hopeless corner, the chaotic conversation was but expected.

Though there is a saying that a cornered rat is the most dangerous. There was a limit to it. A limit that the rat couldn't overcome no matter the case.

Seeing them all argue, the white wooden masked girl who was seating at the table spoke up.

"Everyone, please calm yourself first, we only have a limited time and if this continues, we will reach nowhere."

Though her voice wasn't as loud as those standing loudspeakers, many still heard her voice and started to calm down, but whispers were still being shared around.

The masked girl then looked towards the man with the mane beard.

"Old Miyu...if we were to no longer hunt, how long would our food last?"

The old man whose name was Miyu put a frown on his face before closing his eyes.

"2 weeks, the food that we have will last for 2 weeks and that's only because few hunters returned with meat...at best if we ration it...we can manage 3 weeks." He said with heavy words.

The masked girl shook her head upon hearing that.

"Rationing 2 weeks' worth of food for an additional week will make the pups too weak. If by then we haven't found any food, then you know what will happen..."

"Realistically, if we are lucky at that, at most we have 10-12 days' worth of food. As the hunters will have to find prey and carry it back. But if they are unlucky."

This time the one who spoke was Maxxren, who temporarily took the position of Xasen, as one of the leaders of the hunting and warrior parties.

Old Miyu gave him a burning glare for spouting such a comment.

He himself knew of this fact, but telling it while everyone was present was bound to bring more anxiety to the people.

The masked girl closed her eyes for a moment, before speaking her thoughts.

"Then it is unavoidable to ask "them" for permission to hunt. We will have to"

Before she could continue, one of the people in the crowd suddenly spoke up.

"Lady Priestess! Forgive me for interrupting! But are "them" the two primordial gods!? The ones of Harsch Death and White Life? As the one who inherited our ancestor's knowledge, you should know, right?"

The moment that one man finished, others who were in similar beliefs started voicing out that they wanted to know too.

The masked girl stayed for a long time silent as she recalled the two entities that came to the Vashara village and the story about how the fox-masked girl managed to grow a new limp.

She also managed to hear how the cursed being said that he hold back from killing, Yamarun.

One of them had extremely healing abilities and wanted mercy.

While the other was fleshless capable of ice magic, raising the dead, and coming back from death.

Because of those facts, she found it difficult to remove the possibility that those 2 might be 2 primordial gods.

Though she still had a hard time believing.

"Sadly, I can't confidently confirm or disregard the possibility that this is the case. Our Ancestor, The Frozen Claw, Wallren Sengata, is said to have seen all 3 primordial gods, the God of the Wild Hunt, the God of White Life, and the God of Harsch Death."

"Though in time, only the existence of the primordial god of the Wild Hunt has been confirmed. And none except Wallren Sengata was able to confirm the existence of the other two. The stories that I know from the previous priest of our village had a different depiction of those two, so it's hard to confirm what is true..."

"Some say that the Primordial God of White Life and Harsch Death is but one entity while others say that they are their own entity just like Wild Hunt. But among those stories, there is something common in each of them."

"That is...that Harsch Death is a cursed being without flesh that never dies and holds winter on his will. White Life has long hair, holds mercy on the weak, and has extremely healing powers. So the chance of them being the real deal is..."

She replayed many times how Danzel's skull got destroyed only to be repaired, his ice magic and his necromancy. As much as his strength.

"Extremely likely..." She finally said after contemplating internally many times.

"Hey!" Old Miyu yelled, but his shout was quickly drowned by the other's exclamation of surprise.

"So they really are the primordial gods of the myth!"

"I always believed that White Life existence!"

"But for that cursed being to be Harsch Death..."

"Hey! Weren't you listening? Extremely likely doesn't mean certainly-!"

From the Lady Priestess's statement, even if she didn't really confirm it, the majority were taking the fact that the entities that came to their village were the primordial gods.

Be it for the better or the worse.

And one of them who believe that to be the truth was Alka that was carrying the baby and the last survivor of her village.

"The god of death really did mark my shoulder, I even attacked him..." Alka mumbled with a pale expression on her face.

Unbeknownst to her and everyone here though.

Was the fact that everything inside these walls, was being heard from the very being that they called now a primordial god.

***

Up in the mountain, in the house that Danzel had declared as his own.

It was small yet simple from the inside and kept the cold quite well away.

And inside that house, was Shiro sitting on the floor (Seiza-like) while reading the book about necromancy.

Soon enough though, a dark mist entered through the front door before the same mist started materializing into Danzel.

"Rue, you are back." Shiro said as she closed the book and holder it for Danzel to take.

Taking his book back, Danzel nodded at her.

"So what did they say?" Shiro asked full of curiosity.

As she couldn't understand the language of those fox people and only Danzel and his undead could.

It was natural for her to ask such a question.

Though, unlike her expectations, Danzel stayed silent at her question.

"Rue?" She turned her head confused.

"Oh, right...well, apparently does guys think of us as some kind of...gods?" He said somewhat confused.

Hearing such a response, Shiro tilted her head confused.

"Huh? Gods? We, no...rather you? Seriously?" She said dumbfounded.