Reincarnated as a Cursed Commander in a War Game

Everything was fine… or so she wanted to believe. Far from accepting her grim reality or this world's brutality, she felt her mind would survive. Somehow, her undead nature allowed her to gradually tolerate the excess blood, gore, and unspeakable acts commonplace in Zhal Obryn. It was as if her past and present selves were merging, reaching an uneasy accord. Unwittingly, she found herself in increasingly bizarre situations where her normal moral compass deviated from what her old world deemed right.

She'd grown somewhat accustomed to the crude, alien ways of the other Knights of the Eternal Vow. She'd even learned that a frost-magic-specialized lich named Amal K'zahr was apparently her good friend. From what she gathered, Knights specialized in areas like cryomancy and shadow magic, plague-crafting and curses, necromancy and occultism. Though all wielded necromantic arts, many blended arcane magic or other disciplines the world offered.

In the game, you could only choose one specialization. Here, anyone could wield whatever suited them best. Merryck herself seemed particularly drawn to ice magic, blended with necromancy and shadows.

Additionally, much to Lord Corvas' delight—Zhal Obryn's researcher of physiology and innate abilities—it was concluded she'd developed a method to explosively rupture enemy bodies. By inoculating trace amounts of their blood with the ice blades summoned by her frost, she could detonate them from within. Corvas even suggested expanding this technique using plague-spreading mechanics as a weapon.

Merryck didn't find the ability particularly desirable. Beyond its cruel lethality, she had no desire to bathe in bodily fluids—living or dead—again. Yet, in some twisted way, she caught herself considering its use if circumstances demanded it…

Lord Corvas is a solemn human with ashen hair, his body eerily intact save for a scar on his left cheek—likely earned before death. His study overflowed with corpses of every race, dissected and catalogued. He even preserved rare specimens: creatures unseen in her past life or this body's memories. He viewed himself like a biologist would—obsessed, working day and night dissecting immortal bodies, comparing them to those never reforged by soul magic. He experimented on chimeras and aberrations, overseeing organ replacements for injured personnel. Through her seventy-year-old self's lens, Lord Corvas was abhorrent. Yet, something in Merryck's borrowed mind filtered through—a cold understanding of his necessity. As if the researcher were a vaccine against some greater virus.

In stark contrast to Corvas' solemnity, Amal K'zahr was a surprisingly cheerful lich with an affinity for small animals. No, he didn't eat or experiment on them; he simply adored them.

He'd hum tunelessly within his vibrant purple-and-blue spectral robes while feeding his tiny pseudodragon and saber-toothed cat. His study, unlike others, was meticulously organized—shelves groaned under countless tomes and scrolls, magical circles chalked onto blackboards and even the floor. His research into ice magic and runes was exhaustive. Beneath his skeletal form, he radiated the aura of a kindly, wise librarian. One might mistake the complete skeleton for fragility, but his power was immense; whispers claimed he could flash-freeze entire cities when angered, and that even the Zephyr Aterior's right hand feared him.

Amal had been her friend—both before, and now. Without a word exchanged, the archmage-turned-lich had noticed Merryck's subtle shifts since breaking the yoke. While many knights displayed altered demeanours after Runamor, Amal harboured quiet suspicions something deeper had changed within his friend.

The one who'd once accepted "Lady Wolf" and now styled herself "Lord Astarothe Merryck" might seem the same person to most… but a new gentleness had taken root in the lycanthrope—a certain softness beneath her fierce visage and occasional species-typical growls. At times, she seemed genuinely disturbed and frightened by her own nature and nondeath's essence. It showed in her gaze, in how she'd pause and weigh decisions carefully.

It wasn't unusual for them to spend evenings together, especially since Merryck adored watching Nixë, Amal's saber-toothed cat. She loved the feline's lilac fur and the concentrated mana shimmering within its fangs. In this world, beings wielding magical power bore a distinct luminosity in their eyes; even living humans possessed a certain brightness in their irises if their mana reserves were sufficient.

The night before her authorized leave expired—granted by Highlord Silas Calcinor to recover from mental trauma—Amal gifted Merryck a bottle of Valdayib liquor and passed her a glass. Seated on the floor watching Nixë bat at a rune-stitched yarn ball, they agreed she'd at least offer a toast. As nondead, Merryck needed neither food nor drink, yet she could still taste—especially beverages—thanks to retaining her tongue and most of her digestive system.

It was common knowledge among active Obsidian Banner members that they couldn't process solids, despite craving flavours from their living days. So they settled for drinking—though everything was eventually expelled in rather unaesthetic ways, particularly if the expeller was partially rotted or mummified. Alcohol's effects could still be felt, albeit diminished and short-lived; likely, intoxicating a Knight of the Eternal Vow would require a lethal quantity.

"What are we celebrating?" Merryck asked, watching Amal's bone-white hand pour the drink. The lich's empty eye sockets and polished teeth seemed to smile. Had flesh still clung to his bones, it would've been a broad, genuine grin.

"A new beginning, my pupil," Amal handed the glass to the she-wolf. The liquid within shimmered translucent amber with bluish undertones. She appeared hypnotized by the shifting hues dancing in the crystal. It was expensive, potent liquor. A pity Amal lacked the organs to savor it with her.

Merryck downed it in one gulp, taking care not to spill from her muzzle. Drinking like a human with such a canine facial structure was occasionally troublesome. She was grateful it wasn't a necessity—the thought of lapping liquids like a dog embarrassed her.

As Nixë abandoned the yarn and nuzzled Amal for affection, Merryck posed a question that would've unsettled anyone else:

"Are you… at peace with this?"

Oh yes. Amal had expected this—if not from her, then from Calcinor.

"Why should it trouble me?" The lich was untroubled by her situation, despite understanding it. "I willingly chose this existence through my oath. Unlike most Eternal Vow Knights—forced by Lord Rendezvous under the Zephyr Aterior's orders. In life, I was a greedy man. Held immense faith in the God of Death before He drove His Supreme Cardinal mad, turning him into our tyrant. I dabbled in necromantic arts despite my superiors' warnings… and ended like this. By choice. Just as I now choose to remain with you all. I never wished to follow the former Supreme Cardinal—that aberration—nor belong to his court. As you know, he… compels allegiance through overwhelming force, one way or another."

Merryck nodded. Though she'd never personally felt Maltherion Vaekhar's—the Zephyr Aterior's—seductive pull, she knew its nature. His methods of persuasion were violent, often magical. His power was staggering; only the holy light of the Supreme God, manifested through Paladin Tyburn with a celestial messenger's aid, had severed his yoke over Zhal Obryn.

They were fortunate. Others like them still languished under the Mad God's influence—fathers slaughtering sons, children murdering parents, all on one man's command.

Even the game's lore suggested Maltherion himself was puppeted by the God of Death's corrupted essence. From what she recalled, the Zephyr Aterior had once fought that corrupting presence—the deity's own madness—within his mind before succumbing completely. Tragic. Typical for this place.

"This world is shit per se," she muttered. "Had he not become what he is, we'd face the same entity wearing another face. Call it fate… or a bored Death God's cruel joke."

In another era, such blasphemy from Merryck would've earned severe punishment. But current circumstances lent her truth: The God of Death had gone mad—or so they believed when His Supreme Cardinal lost his mind.

"Having lived millennia and witnessed the inexplicable," Amal replied, "it likely is." He remembered the Maltherion of old—a man who'd assumed control of the Death God's church too young, preserved at barely a hundred years undead and twenty in life. Always just, his heart embracing his deity's creed:

"Endure with Honor."

Life and undeath alike. Be the reaper of corruption, punisher of the wayward, shelter for the wretched.

Endure with Honor.

That was the maxim both Amal and Maltherion had pledged their hearts to—one for true faith, the other for research ambition. Though Amal and older servants predated Maltherion, they'd recognized the young, incorruptible human as the Death God's ideal leader—pious yet stern.

All he'd believed in had vanished. Even had Amal been free of Maltherion's yoke from the start, he lacked the will to refuse anything. He was enslaved by ambition and research, shackled to an empty, tedious eternity growing ever more unbearable and lonely.

Amal realized that even with a free mind, he'd remain the so-called Céfiro Aterior's slave—not by conviction, but by exhaustion. Indeed, he'd always been a slave. Even now, he was bound by loyalty to the Obsidian Banner… though that weight felt different.

Indeed. It didn't.