Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The amazing art of bullshit.

An art Skullius was quite good at for as long as he could remember. Tricking others and telling false stories in convincing ways was a gift he found himself to have and with each subsequent increase in his intelligence, he found that it was quite easy to fabricate stories as even in this new world, with all the experiences he had so far, he knew how to appear genuine.

Frankly, he was proud of himself.

At this particular moment, he was reviewing his earlier stunt as he sat down while having his wounds treated within the College of the Esteemed.

His biggest takeaway from the earlier event was the fact that the [Revenant Flames of Ecstasy] were a powerful tool that he was going to enjoy using.

This skill had failed to show any significant feats when it was still in its infancy as [Bitter-Sweet Hell's Inferno] because it had been pitted against vastly stronger opponents whose bodies were enough to tank its effects entirely like Eldris or those that merely coated themselves with mana like Benzard.

Now however, the skill could get past mana and obliterate targets even if they had blue cores.

One would wonder why this skill which was born from [Unbound] was accessible to Skullius in his Discount Human form, though.

The answer was simple. Its background stemmed from the short magic staff from which it was extracted – it was normal skill initially, which gave Skullius a window to use it outside his Null powers.

Skullius had confirmed that the three Knights who had resisted being burnt while using Full Body Aura had been killed, burnt to ash after being hacked to pieces by his thralls.

He had collected the Null Life Essence from their bodies after discovering that the [Revenant Flames of Ecstasy] didn't do any harm to him!

He could move within them without a problem as he leisurely collected his prize along with a bunch of experience.

What he had used to create the gruesome injuries that were now being washed and bandaged, was the lava born from the heat.

Since he couldn't feel pain, he languidly dipped his hand into the molten floor, watching it catch fire and burn before severing it roughly.

Afterwards, he had commanded one of his horny thralls to carry him out, creating a scene that looked like a valiant Knight had saved his life!

For the most part, it seemed like his attempt had been accepted as it was but many questions were still left answered.

Such questions were the ones that the old man and middle aged woman outside the door to the room where he was receiving treatment, awaited to get answers to from him and naturally, Skullius' common sense had told him that this would happen eventually.

After he was sufficiently treated, the improvements he had from his previous state merely being the fact that he did not look horrendous and was washed with herbs that killed the pain, disinfected the wounds.

Healers were rare, especially in small cities as most of them were usually mages with an amazing level of mana manipulation that could reconstruct body tissue or those that had learned spells for healing.

The other small portion of those known as healers were individuals with blessings that were geared towards healing and such a blessing wasn't all that common either.

The women who had been treating Skullius had not objected to the two at the door's plea to ask Skullius questions about what happened.

They had let them in while almost bowing fully as if they were seeing the Deities themselves and this made Skullius a little nervous.

Who were these guys?

They didn't look like some small-time desk sitters for sure.

Even with all the pressure though, Skullius had worn a determined look as he said, "It's okay. That bastard must pay. The sooner I tell you, the sooner he can be caught," in response to their polite inquiry on whether he could entertain a few of their questions.

With that, he had not only garnered some form of levity from the women healing him, but from the two who wanted to question him as their suspicions were lowered somewhat.

"Again, I must apologise for disturbing you, Mr Dawn at such a critical time," the old man said with wise smile on his face. Naturally, the first thing he had asked for was Skullius' name.

"Not at all, br- sir. I'm more than glad to help," Skullius said, mimicking every single expression he had learned off that showed both remorse and determination.

The middle aged woman by the side didn't look convinced though, as with her indifferent expression, she immediately bombarded Skullius with her doubts.

"There are people who were at the scene and are claiming to have seen you being the one who sparked what happened at the public library. They say you started screaming something and then something peculiar appeared at your side."

'<Sigh>. I should have killed all the witnesses at the beginning to make sure no one would escape. I hope my story will be believable,' Skullius thought as a hint of panic was sprinkled over his already existing doubt omelette.

"Yes. That is true. However, those two things are not related at all. As someone who stayed behind, I can tell you what really happened," Skullius responded.

The woman raised a brow as she then nodded.

While looking at the two, Skullius couldn't help but acknowledge that they were powerhouses. Their robes made him suspect that they were Energy Formers, mages like Vijak, but he was only half right.

With that in mind, he had to be careful.

"As you can probably tell, I am at the second level of the Foundation Stage. I wanted to find ways to improve my strength outside my earlier practice at the College of Battle Arts. Looking into history for motivation, I guess. In the process, I had been trying to manipulate my mana at a finer level as I had been taught even while doing simple activities like walking but somehow... I exhausted my core and felt a terrible pain. That's why I screamed."

The two who were listening digested this information.

The woman looked intently at Skullius. She was a Diviner. Given any item belonging to an individual she sought to find out more about, she could determine their actions, but to a limited degree.

She wanted to use her divining on Skullius and clear this up but her partner had insisted on not showing such distrust to someone who had willingly postponed their full rest and treatment to answer their questions.

"Very well. We can verify your enrolment to the College of Battle Arts after this. What of this... thing that the witnesses fail to adequately describe? Where does it come into play?" asked the old man.

"Right. To those that remember well, they should have seen that it was a dark armour with these long chains coming out of its body. At least that was what I thought at first. But it then stood and started attacking people left and right... before...before it produced these hot flames that burned the whole place!"

"How on earth did you survive then? The Knights didn't arrive immediately, did they?" the middle aged woman asked with a frown, recalling the scalding remnants of heat that remained after the fire.

Indeed, this man was still at the Foundation Stage and even though he had a slightly bright white core, that didn't explain how he survived until then.

Even the Knights themselves had been burned to ash, with nothing remaining.

"I was near the entrance when the fire started and..." Skullius looked at the bandaged stump of his hand with a sorrowful look. "...that's when I got these burns. The Knights came just in time before my whole body could be devoured and though some of them died instantly... some used this...uhm... bright light that covered their bodies, different from mana..."

"Full Body Aura?"

"I think that's it. While the others fought whatever that thing was, the Knight who saved me...he.. he got burnt in the process and... you probably know the rest since you were able to find me..."

The old man breathed out a sigh.

While some accounts told the story differently, claiming that Skullius was the cause, he just couldn't buy it when seeing Skullius' level. When he would go to confirm what exactly Skullius was training at the College of Battle Arts, he was sure he would remove Skullius as a suspect entirely.

He and this woman served the city. The City lord would no doubt demand the culprit but that didn't seem like something they could find.

Skullius as a scapegoat was not enough too.

He found believing in this mysterious armoured intruder more plausible than anything else as Skullius was the only one left who was actually there when everything else happened.

He turned to his partner who merely shook her head.

The fact that what happened was blocked even for her made him believe all the more that something terrifying had visited the city.

"Thank you for your time. After verifying a few other things we won't be bothering you any longer."

The old man bid farewell as he and his partner then went out the door.

"It's hard to read that young man's face but I wager he's telling the truth. Or rather his own truth," he said.

"Something isn't right. I can feel it."

"Of course something isn't right. What I can't figure out is the motive of this perpetrator. What could they want to find in a public library?"

While the two hypothesised, Skullius rested on the bed as he sighed in relief.

That wasn't exactly smooth but it got him off the hook. Mostly.

He had made prepared for many things, including the potential search for his spatial ring that would probably get him killed.

He had hidden it... in his stomach!

The experience with his Discount Human body had taught him that he didn't have any organs and anything that went into his stomach as food would be broken down and turned into energy but anything else would stay there and he could regurgitate it at will.

The basis of [Flesh It Like You Mean It] was the fact that it hid Skullius' internal structure well, except for his core since he didn't have organs.

Therefore, anything within his body was also invisible, so to speak.

'I should really give Doom Factor 1 its three day fee and make sure to keep track of its time. I don't want this to happen again,' he thought. 'I got lots of books to read for free. That was unexpected. Now, to visit a certain sockethole... again. I really thought I wouldn't need to see him again.'