The Little Necromancer [LITRPG]

The white had swallowed everything again, leaving Enya alone within its hold. Nekron's words lingered in her mind.

It all begins with Lia.

Her life had been a lie. She was just a soul, sloppily pressed atop another, stealing what was never hers. Lia with her griffon stables, softly stroking their beaks. Lia with her enormous castle, living like a princess. Lia whose laughter still echoed through her mind. Lia whose family—mother, father, even her strict tutor—all smiled and praised her. She had seen those visions before, but now she knew their truth.

Lia wasn't abandoned. She was loved.

Enya was not.

The people who cared for her had never been hers. The longing she once felt for family—the hope that maybe someone waited for her beyond the dungeon, that she wasn't actually abandoned—it all vanished. They weren't her family. She wasn't abandoned. That alone should have made her feel better. But if she looked at it from Lia's perspective…

Enya wasn't abandoned. Enya was unwanted.

Nekron had given her permission to take Lia's life. To claim it. Lia could not stop her; she was asleep, buried under Enya's soul. Enya could live as her. She had her body after all. Maybe she deserved to have some happiness, just like Lia. She hadn't asked for this. She was just as much a victim of circumstance as the girl whose skin she wore. If the world was cruel enough to cheat her of eight years of warmth, then perhaps stealing them back was justice.

Her eyes dulled as she thought about it.

Enya lay back flat on the white nothing, staring at a sky that wasn't a sky. Her breath fogged faintly, though the air was not cold. "Who am I even supposed to be?" she whispered. "Enya? Lia? Or… nobody?"

She imagined Pell's face—or the skull that remained of it. His voice calling her kid, gruff but steady. He wouldn't care what she was, not really. But if she told him the truth—that she was never meant to exist, that she was just some soul shoved into another's body—would he still smile at her the same way? Or would he feel lied to? Disgusted that she wasn't… real?

The thought twisted inside her, sharp and uncertain.

She stood up at last, brushing phantom dust from her clothes. "I should… leave first," she murmured.

The sigil Nekron had left behind burned faintly against her palm. She tightened her grip until her nails dug into skin. When she uncurled her fingers, the sliver of bone crumbled into black dust and seeped into her flesh.

There was no system message. She could not use her menu here. Yet the change was undeniable. It was like a new sense had been grafted onto her, a sixth thread humming beneath her skin. With a thought, she could pull at it, and the air itself seemed to stir in answer.

Then came the second gift. Invisible, but heavy; it pressed into her palm, then into her chest. For an instant she couldn't breathe. Her heart pounded, her breath caught in ragged gasps, and her fingers trembled with uncontrollable energy.

Only after long moments did the weight settle.

She felt more attuned to something—something vast and unfathomable. It reminded her of the bond she had with her minions, that invisible tether of soul to soul. But this was wider. Denser. As though invisible threads stretched out in every direction, tugging faintly at her heart. Some were close. Others, impossibly far.

Her head tilted unconsciously, like a bird listening to a sound too high for others to hear. For just a heartbeat, she thought she could feel… millions. Not their voices, not their thoughts, but their presence. Dead or alive, it did not matter; their essence brushed faintly against hers, a sea of souls just beyond reach.

Enya tried her system spells again. She lifted her palm to summon Ted.E.

No response.

A bone spear.

Same—no response.

She summoned her bonecarver's quill and The Grim Pullet again. Those both appeared, though neither helped her much. Grimmy didn't respond to any of her questions. It was probably also safe to assume that none of her messages could reach Custodian either. Though, she remembered there was something about the Grim Pullet, a line along its description when she first ascended the class. Her messages should travel through any space and any time, so maybe her messages did reach him. He just simply wasn't responding.

It was not much use to think about it now.

That left her with one last thing. The acolyte's skill. The one thing Nekron said could get her out of here.

"Okay… so how do I…" she murmured.

Enya closed her eyes and reached inward. The sensation of souls brushing against her was still there, like wind against her skin. She focused on it, steadying her breath, and then pulled. Not outward, but inward—into herself.

It felt almost natural.

The change began in her chest. A heavy, aching pressure unfurled like wings spreading wide, pressing against the edges of her small body. Her skin prickled cold, yet beneath it ran a river of power—steady, ancient, patient. It crawled up her arms, curling around her shoulders and throat, then sank into her bones.

Her short bob of hair stirred as if caught in wind. The strands lengthened, flowing past her shoulders in glossy black streams. Her eyes glazed, pupils dissolving until her eyes were nothing but two misted pools of white, unblinking and ancient.

Her clothes slowly shimmered in darkness as it spread across her body. The fabric writhed like living smoke, then stitched itself anew, unraveling and reweaving strand by strand. The robe that clung to her was no longer the noble garb she'd known—it was heavier, regal, stitched with threads of shadow and silence. Black silk and deep violet trims curled in layered folds, lined with faint glyphs that glowed like veins of bone. Around her brow a circlet took shape, thin yet unyielding, wrought of dark iron and crowned with a shard of pale crystal. It pulsed faintly with white light, steady and rhythmic, like the beating of a heart long since dead.

Her aura spread with the transformation. The white around her dimmed, shadows creeping outward as the air turned cold. She no longer felt small. No longer like a child fumbling in a place she didn't belong.

Her back straightened. Her chin lifted. It was as if she were already seated on a throne, her presence stretching far beyond her frame.

"…so this is what you meant."

The words left her lips colder, lower, not quite her own. She spoke like someone above, not beside.

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Nekron had said Lia was eight. Looking down at her hands, Enya was still the same. Small. Soft. Only paler now, faintly hazy around the edges.

She turned slowly, her new white eyes sweeping across the void. They gave nothing away—no emotion, no trace of what she felt.

"This feels weird," she murmured. "But calm. I like it." Her eyes sharpened.

The power inside her stirred. It pulsed against her skin, welled in her chest, clear and obedient. Even without the System, she knew these abilities were hers. An innate understanding, a pool of knowledge landed in her mind, all for her to use.

Her arm rose, palm open. Her voice rang through the void, steady.

"Beatrice."

The white ground split with a grinding crack. The air trembled. From the fracture below her, a mass clawed its way upward. Stone, flesh, and fractured souls fused together into a structure—a great circular gate, woven from twisting limbs and carved faces. Each visage screamed in silence, mouths locked open in endless agony. And at the crown of the gate, one head stood apart from the rest. A woman's face, her features graceful yet ghastly, framed in bone-like stone, her hollow eyes lit with faint light.

The gate settled into place, its surface rippling like dark water. The woman's lips parted, and her voice emerged in a cracked, echoing whisper that rattled the void.

"At your service, Princess."

The words wrapped around Enya. She stared at the gate and felt no fear. Only recognition. As though this voice had always been waiting.

"Nice to meet you, Beatrice."

The woman's hollow gaze lingered. Her voice seeped through the gate again, carrying the weight of countless whispers.

"The way is ready. Step through, and I will take you to the Underworld."

Enya didn't hesitate. She tilted her chin in a small nod, the pale crown at her brow catching what little light remained.

"Good."

Her voice was calm, flat, as if this were nothing unusual. The white around her rippled like a curtain, giving way to the gate's surface. It shimmered black, a pool of still water waiting to swallow her whole.

She stepped forward.

Her small foot touched the threshold, and for an instant the cold bit into her skin, sharper than ice. The air pressed heavy, thick with the scent of ash. Her hair drifted behind her as if the void itself exhaled.

Then she was through.

The white world vanished.

The wasteland stretched in every direction—ashen soil littered with gravestones, black trees twisting like claws against a sky of dull lead. Fog clung to the ground, veiling toppled statues and ruins half-buried in dust. Shadows drifted within the haze: shambling corpses, skeletal figures, knights in hollow armor, and far above, wyverns of bone circling on tattered wings.

Enya stood upon the grey dust, her robes whispering in the still air. She drew a slow breath, steady, calm. Her pale eyes swept the horizon before she spoke in a low murmur.

"So this is…"

"The land of the dead," Beatrice's head answered, her voice ringing like a cracked bell. "The realm where the departed linger. It is an honor to welcome your Majesty back to your kingdom."

Enya was silent for a heartbeat longer. Then she lifted a single finger. Beatrice froze as Enya's will pressed outward; the gate began to sink, its grotesque faces unraveling into mist.

"You're wrong about one thing, Beatrice." Her gaze sharpened, voice level and cold. "This is not my kingdom. It is my empire."

Beatrice's head bowed as the stone dissolved around her. Her last words were hushed, almost reverent. "Apologies for my impertinence, Empress Enya."

The gate vanished into the ash, leaving only silence in its wake.

Enya began to walk.

The fog cleared with each step, revealing more than barren wasteland. Roads of cracked cobblestone stretched across the ash. Crooked lampposts leaned over alleys that smelled of dust and rust. And farther ahead—a town.

A small, ramshackle market bustled with figures both grotesque and strange. Zombies in patched tunics traded sacks of bone dust. Skeletons leaned over crates, bickering in rattled voices. Ghouls pushed wheelbarrows filled with charred trinkets, while a towering death knight inspected a sword with disinterested eyes.

Currency passed from hand to hand—coins black as coal, shimmering faintly with soul-light.

Enya's steps slowed. Her aura pressed at her shoulders, eager to spill outward, but she forced it back down. She willed her crown away, the pale crystal dissolving above her brow until only her dark robes remained. Her eyes turned to a muted, dark gray as she kept herself suppressed.

For now, she was no Empress. Just another traveler.

She drifted past stalls and carts, careful not to meet too many eyes. Yet some whispers still followed.

"…noble, surely."

"Look at her dress…"

"Not one of us, that's certain."

Enya ignored them, her gaze catching on a merchant's stall to the right. A skeleton hunched behind it, his jaw clacking as he arranged necklaces and rings on faded velvet cloth.

One necklace in particular drew her in. A pale pendant, carved like a shard of bone wrapped in blackened silver. It shimmered faintly, as though pulsing with memory.

Enya stopped before it, her fingers brushing the air just shy of touching it. She stared, her white eyes reflecting the faint glow.

"…Maybe I could make something like this," she murmured.

"Interested in that, lady?" the skeleton asked, leaning forward lazily on his arm, hand under his chin."

Enya's eyes flicked over to him. Something about his question annoyed her. The lack of formality. The lazy posture when addressing her. But she kept it to herself. She could endure. She was purposely suppressing herself after all. This peasant didn't know any better.

"It is quite cute and charming. What is it?"

The skeleton rattled out a laugh that sounded like loose teeth in a jar. "Bone-memory locket. Trinket for the sentimental types. Put a drop of soul-essence in, it keeps the shape of a memory forever. Can't give you the memory back, but it'll play the echo whenever you touch it. Worth a fair stack of soul-coins, that one."

Enya's eyes lingered on the pendant, studying the way the silver curled tight around the bone shard. A tool. A vessel. Something she could copy, perhaps refine. The thought tugged at her mind, merging with the fragments of crafting instinct she'd honed before.

She glanced at the skeleton again, her expression unreadable. "Show me."

The skeleton perked slightly, reaching beneath the counter for a small vial. Inside shimmered a wisp of pale-blue light. He uncorked it, dripped a single bead onto the pendant. The bone flared, the silver veins pulsing.

A sound spilled into the air. Not words, not clear—but laughter. A soft, fleeting echo, like a woman's voice carried across a dream.

The skeleton merchant tapped his finger bones against the counter. "Two hundred soul coins. Fair price."

Enya blinked at him. Her lips pressed thin. "I don't have any of that."

The skeleton tilted his skull back and let out a sharp, rattling laugh. "Eh? What? You come here to stall-shop without carrying coin? Wasting my time then?" His tone sharpened, lazy grin twisting into irritation.

Something flickered in Enya's chest. Annoyance.

Her eyes narrowed. She lifted one finger.

A crack split the air, and on the counter beside the necklaces, a small figure clawed its way into being. An undead gnome, twisted and hunched, dressed in a perfectly pressed suit far too neat for his crooked frame. His teeth bared in a snarl at first, but the instant he saw her, his posture snapped straight. He bowed deeply, one hand to his chest.

"Ah. Nice to meet you, milady."

Enya tilted her head. Her pale eyes lingered. The name came to her slowly, surfacing like it had always been there. "…Yarul. I need money for this necklace."

Her tone never shifted. It wasn't a request. It was a command.

Yarul straightened, adjusted his tiny lapels, then turned his sharp gaze toward the merchant. "Be grateful your little stall managed to attract her interest." His hand swept outward, and from the air coalesced a golden-black coin. He let it fall onto the counter with a ringing clink.

The skeleton's jaw went slack. His hollow eyes locked onto the coin, sockets wide. A golden-black soul coin. It looked priceless. Enough to buy not only the necklace, but maybe the entire row of stalls.

Yarul smirked, then turned back to Enya, bowing again. "That should be more than enough to buy anything, my lady."

Enya's face didn't change. She reached forward, plucked the necklace with calm fingers, and fastened it around her neck. "No need. Everything else here looks… very ugly."

Without another glance at the merchant, she turned and walked away, robes brushing the cobblestone path.

Yarul gave one last bow, then hopped down from the counter. His form cracked like broken glass before vanishing into the mist, leaving the merchant frozen behind. Various other gazes from the nearby undead were locked on them, shifting between him and her.

Enya continued on, not minding the stares. "I shouldn't linger here for too long… Pell is waiting for me," she murmured.

I need to grab a soul for the painting, she thought. Then, I'll make sure to kill Elria after I get back.