Reincarnated as a Cursed Commander in a War Game

The smell of saltwater mixed with damp hay and horse manure wasn't as foul as the necropolis's decay, yet it prickled Merryck's canine nose. Likely the sticky sea humidity and vaporized salt irritating her senses. Not debilitating—but enough to blind her most primal sense.

With her dulled smell, there was nothing to do. Vysserius wrestled his own seasickness, so they resigned themselves to the livestock hold. It wasn't that they hadn't been offered quarters with the soldiers; even Tyburn Liardine had invited them with a kindness hard to refuse. But they their corpse-stench and appeara knew nce unsettled the living.

So they sat cross-legged against the wall, silent through the first day's voyage. Neither was talkative. They'd shed their armor for comfort—death spared them heat's suffocation, their eternally cold bodies didn't sweat—but sometimes they craved feeling the world without steel layers.

For Merryck, it was a chance to think. She'd noticed: since that bastard voice started whispering, memories were slipping away.

She still recalled fragments of her past life—the war, the depression—but names, faces… they blurred into unrecognizable stains. Each day, her old self died a little, merging with who she was now.

She didn't fear forgetting the horrors: blaming herself for the death she didn't cause, her parents' cruelty, the bombing run confirmations…

She feared forgetting her husband's face. His voice. His name. His ridiculous jokes.

She wanted to forget everything but him.

"You won't… if you don't wish to."

Merryck ignored the voice, as usual. She couldn't deal with it now—not with Vysserius watching for signs of the God of the Death's madness lingering taint.

She told herself not to worry, though part of her writhed at the possibility. Whoever owned that stupid voice, Merryck couldn't easily derail her fated path.

Then there were the wolf-woman's memories—atrocities she'd committed. The collision of selves edged her toward collapse.

Couldn't deny she'd wrought horrors here. Her body, her memories… Merryck knew she was fractured. Shards of personalities who'd occupied this flesh before her abrupt arrival. To others, it might seem chaos. But she knew: all were facets of her.

This certainty had crystallized weeks ago. Now, finally, she'd put it into words. It had taken over a month since regaining control—and a full day at sea—to assimilate her reality.

Night brought no need for sleep. Bored by warhorses' stomping and whinnying, Vysserius produced a deck popular even in the necropolis. Eternal beings found ways to pass time: reading, learning, training. A ship limited options.

The cards depicted common planetary fauna—mostly tiny fish-man soldiers. A troop-deployment strategy game where the first to lose all units lost.

After a few rounds and lost silver coins, Merryck mastered it. Less luck, more tactics: conserve troops, deploy creatively. Imagination won battles.

Heavy footsteps broke their focus. Leather boots—undyed—appeared before them. Their owner: the kind, naive Sievers.

The mid-rank paladin was among the few volunteers escorting the Eternal Vow Knights to Amrin. A blessing—traveling alone would've invited… incidents.

His freckled face, green eyes faintly gold-tinged, beamed as he approached.

"I didn't see you all day. Thought you might be hungry."

Merryck almost laughed at the bread and wine in his hands. ¡So innocent! If he knew how their dead bodies nourished themselves, he'd faint. Vysserius seemed equally amused—a slight smirk playing on his lips, pointed ears twitching.

"We can taste flavors," she explained, "but can't digest food." Better not detail the expulsion process.

Sievers flushed, looking foolish and disappointed.

"Though... most drinks pose no issue."

The paladin brightened instantly. Clearly seeking an excuse to talk. But why would a human seek out cursed monsters like them? What could beings like them offer a Supreme God of the Light follower besides strained civility?

"Oh, good, good! This wine—my father makes it from fremire berries in Aremere. I'd hoped you'd try it."

Vysserius raised a sceptical eyebrow as Sievers sat between them, filling three brass cups with lilac liquid. Not disdain—just baffled by such kindness from someone whose comrades they'd slaughtered.

"Sorry—don't you like wine, Sir Vysserius?" Sievers misread the elf's expression (easier with an elven face than a lupine one).

"I loved fremire wine in life. Perhaps I still do." Vysserius took the offered cup with pale, icy fingers—a gesture oddly elegant. Merryck accepted hers too, though her fierce features made a "thank you" look like a threat.

"Lady Merryck," Sievers ventured, "why not shift to human form?"

She froze. Few humans knew of lycanthropes. By history's timeline, Moonbreak Kingdom hadn't fallen yet—its people isolated behind walls, fighting undead hordes at their gates. How did he know of werewolf metamorphosis?

"I told you—this is reality. Stubborn, aren't you? I like that." The infuriating voice returned.

Merryck's low growl made Sievers backtrack.

"No need to apologize," she reassured him, shooting a glare at nothing. Vysserius noted her tension.

True, few Eternal Vow Knights were like her—considered demihuman, not shapeshifters, their lineage a secret born of the Wolf God Volferdon's wrath.

"I just wondered… how do you know about it?"

Merryck had tried maintaining human form—even five minutes proved excruciating. Any emotion—rage, joy, anxiety—triggered transformation. She'd resigned herself to fur, though a less fearsome guise might ease alliances.

"Common knowledge since King Iroh sheltered Moonbreak's refugees after the undead horde… drove them out. No offense." Sievers faltered. "They say many of King Gregory Blackwood's subjects died—even his son, Prince Augustus. Betrayed by the dwarves of Minas Serhà."

An alarm blared in Astarothe's mind. That hadn't happened yet in the game's timeline. Moonbreak's fall came later—during the World Guardians' Battle.

"Ah… finally noticed?" The voice taunted. "Humans in your world glimpsed this reality once. Why would it match?"

Merryck listened, stunned. The voice knew things. But she couldn't interrogate it now—not with Sievers watching, not with Vysserius suspecting the God of the Death's madness return.

Gregory saw Vysserius's consternation and Merryck's eyes shifting from ferocious to stunned in a heartbeat.

"Is it possible, my lords, you were unaware?"

"This is our first hearing of it…" Vysserius replied. News of the living kingdoms' alliances or downfalls never echoed through necropolis halls—not when Zhal Obryn's inhabitants cared only for razing cities under orders.

They'd simply followed commands, utterly indifferent to the world beyond corpse-piles and swelling their ranks.

"Could you tell us what's transpired in these years?" Merryck pressed. Vysserius understood: intelligence was vital now. More than fifteen years enslaved to the Zephyr Aterior had cost them the world's violent rebirth.

*****

They finished speaking deep into the night. Merryck lay pensive on her back, furry legs propped against the livestock hold wall. Vysserius sharpened his sword when the she-wolf's gravelly voice cut through the dark.

"This is… bizarre."

"What is?" Vysserius's spectral-soft voice reached her, though he kept honing his blade. The scrape of whetstone on steel merged with the sea's rhythm—a lullaby under three moons (verdant, carmine, gold).

Realizing she'd spoken aloud, pressed on. His perspective might clarify things.

"Why would the Zephyr Aterior attack Moonbreak? He's obsessed with Saint's Relics. Moonbreak's a mountain fortress —even necropolises would struggle. Half the city's beneath stone, shielded by dwarven beacons. There's nothing vital there. And the dwarves betraying their own…?"

Merryck knew Moonbreak intimately—the wolf-woman had grown up there. That dome-like mountain shielded its heart, leaving sunlit fields within walls.

A young kingdom, no god-era lineage, no relics. No seaports, scarce farms—just enough to feed its people. Only its sky-docks, co-developed with dwarves in the mountain's bowels, stood out.

"Strange, I agree," Vysserius conceded. "Minas Serhà's dwarves aren't fools. They'd never open gates to their greatest enemy, even feuding with Moonbreak's humans."

"It wasn't the dwarves…"

The voice hissed in Merryck's ears. Frustration coiled in her chest—she couldn't interrogate it with Vysserius listening.

"What if it wasn't them? Sievers said Minas Serhà fell too."

Vysserius's pointed ears twitched. Mindless undead—ghouls, unlike Eternal Vow Knights who'd retained twisted autonomy—swarmed any city near noise and life.

Each necropolis answered only to the Zephyr Aterior. They'd never know attack plans. Yet Merryck knew: Moonbreak should've been last—no relics, no strategic value.

"Sievers described feral ghouls, not necropolis soldiers. And dwarf-made bombers turning earth to sand…"

"Maltherion doesn't use living-world tech." Vysserius's voice tightened. Someone had weaponized ferals, framing the Zephyr Aterior.

"But who would—?" Merryck froze. A memory surfaced.

Queen Artemirien's description…

"Clever girl! So glad I chose you!" the voice crowed.

Merryck knew Artemirien had lost everything to the Zephyr Aterior's first assault.

A cruel ruler, she'd led her people to the eastern continent with one-fifth of the habitants who survived. Her warships became floating tech-cities before settling near minotaur lands.

In the game, vengeance consumed her…

Now? That grief could've shattered her long before later blows—existential void, her exile-born son's death.

"Sister Merryck…?" Vysserius pulled her back. "What's wrong?"

"Just occurred to me… The Zephyr Aterior has no artifact, toxin, or plague that turns fertile earth to sand."

"The Confederation doesn't either—they'd have used it against Maltherion."

Only the Free Tribes remained.

Both knew the eastern continent lay untouched—Maltherion focused on sun-elf relics. And Moonbreak? Farthest human city from their position… but closest to the east.

Artemirien owed King Gregory a blood-debt for refusing aid when undead ravaged her kingdom.

Artemirien. Her war-tech kingdom. Holed up on a remote isle, awaiting Maltherion's return.

"You think Kriegspire's remnants did this? Heard they had… unusual tech when five necropolises besieged them."

Neither had fought there—Vysserius was deep in Milandai's forests; Merryck, then a Moonbreak paladin, knew nothing of the God of the Death's madness rise.

When Kriegspire's pleas reached Moonbreak, they'd assumed the God of the Death's Oathbound were purging divine lawbreakers. Innocents spared, guilty judged—that was divine warfare.

Only when other kingdoms fell, when oracles screamed catastrophe, did truth surface.

"Likely," the she-wolf confirmed.

Vysserius exhaled sharply. Things were deadlier than they'd imagined.

"Is that why Highlord Silas distrusts the Free Tribes? Their self-crowned queen?"

Astarothe understood: Silas and Artemirien's mutual hatred was forged in the Zephyr Aterior's first war.

"Given their history, Artemirien would distrust Zhal Obryn's knights even if we groveled…"

Merryck recalled Amal's words: Tyburn Liardine had convinced the Light God's Supreme Cardinal, Aeliana Clemens, to accept the Obsidian Banner as allies.

Yet though Artemirien verified their freedom—hitting Silas with a truth-detecting chant—she'd seemed… uncooperative.

Distrust snaked down Vysserius's spine. His closest friend, Baradhel, was en route to the Free Tribes to broker alliance—just like them. He feared Artemirien might claim Baradhel if the Tribes agreed.

Merryck, meanwhile, wrestled with the timeline: why did some events mirror the game while others diverged in this real world?

"Told you—humans in your world glimpse other realms in dreams. Sometimes more…"

The voice again. Intriguing, this time.

"Think Baradhel will be alright?" Vysserius voice reached her ears.

Merryck attempted a smile—it bared too many teeth.

"He'll survive. One of the sharpest minds I know. If he smells trouble, he'll vanish before it bites."

Vysserius nodded, melancholy deepening as he returned to his whetstone. Silence reclaimed them, heavy with private dread.

Merryck's thoughts spiraled: Artemirien's game-story arc—vengeance-mad, experimenting on ferals and criminals (human or demihuman)—had likely already begun.

Baradhel… flee before her claws find you.

She remembered the tribunal: Artemirien blaming her alchemist Virexius for developing a bio-plague to kill all life and undeath—though she'd ordered it. Used first on Nekros Dómata's gates, killing allies and enemies alike… yet leaving Maltherion untouched.

Now she'd tested it on Moonbreak's citizens. The world thought it the Zephyr Aterior's work. A trial run?

"Ding-ding."

The voice confirmed her theory, leaving ash in her mouth.

******

Dawnwood Harbor was strikingly beautiful, despite its military focus over commerce. The fortress city resembled Umbrise with its stone structures and pristine appearance, though civilians were scarce here—only soldiers' families resided within.

Highlord Tyburn Liardine wished the journey to Amrin were shorter. Positioned just below the continent's center-east, travelers from Umbrise faced two choices: sail around the landmass or disembark at Dawnwood and continue overland. They'd chosen the latter; the sea route would've added two gruelling weeks.

Flight was possible, but gargoyles, feral undead griffins, and wyverns prowling the northern skies made it too perilous for a party of five—especially when not all Tyburn's paladins could ride winged beasts.

First to greet them were the harbor soldiers' razor-sharp stares and the stark contrast in treatment between the paladins and the knights. Expected, yet ignored. Sievers shot disapproving glances at the hostile soldiers, but Vysserius silenced him with a gesture.

"Let it be."

Highlord Tyburn noted it too. He understood: common hearts struggled to accept Death God's Knights, even freed from the Zephyr Aterior's grasp. To those who'd survived the first undead wave—led by their faith's own corrupted Supreme Cardinal—they were monsters. Soulless abominations.

As they approached barracks for the night, a soldier spat at their passing. Merryck's involuntary growl turned the man ghostly pale. Sievers stifled a laugh behind his hand.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't make my soldiers piss themselves," the harbor commander, Mathias, remarked dryly to Tyburn. Duty-bound to receive so eminent a guest, his decay-bound brown eyes had seen everything.

He'd hoped his men wouldn't be fools.

He'd been wrong.

"Your soldiers need stronger nerve," Tyburn countered, gentle yet firm. "And I'd thank you to treat all my companions equally."

"Of course, Highlord." Mathias grasped the subtext: Mistreat them, and I won't shield you from consequences.

With Tyburn's prestige, the undead deserved courtesy—but Mathias couldn't erase natural revulsion.

Night passed uneventfully. Whispers from young soldiers outside the barracks reached Merryck's keen ears: praise for Tyburn, venom for her and Vysserius. The slurs didn't wound—they merely echoed deeds she'd earned.

She'd never been a saint. Her past self dismissed gossip and retaliated coldly against threats. Yet responsibility remained her core—a trait surviving the fractured merger of selves. These acts, this life—they were hers to bear. Heavy? Yes. But she'd meet them head-on.

At dawn, she watched the moonlit sea until birdsong signaled daybreak. The paladins stirred, preparing to depart. She marveled at their trust—sleeping alongside non-dead. But these warriors believed utterly in the God of the Light: if He had freed Zhal Obryn's knights, who were they to doubt?

They took the forest road at first light. To avoid further incidents and grant his charges peace before Amrin, Tyburn bypassed settlements, camping roadside when needed.

Arumar's forests under King Iroh were dense and wild. Few homes lined the main highway to Amrin, but countless branching paths spiderwebbed toward every village. Truly, all roads led to Amrin.

Eight days later, Arumar's capital rose before them.

Under midday sun, the main gate bustled—yet crowds parted reverently at Tyburn's approach. The knights went unnoticed at first; Tyburn had them ride company horses in light armor and hoods instead of helms. But a gate guard caught Vysserius's scent—faint, sour, like turned earth.

Of the pair, Vysserius looked more obviously dead: claw-scarred blue roads beneath his eyes, milk-pale skin, white hair—the living image of a Knight of the God of Death from nightmares.

Sword drawn but cautious of insulting Tyburn, the guard demanded Vysserius lower his hood. Tyburn calmed the air, shielding his charges with his paladins.

"He will reveal himself," the Highlord declared, "but under my men's guard."

As curiosity drew crowds, Vysserius slowly lowered his hood. White hair, spectral pallor, glowing bone-white eyes—the mark of non-death by the God of the Death's will. Merryck followed suit, refusing to let him stand alone.

"Glowing white eyes!" a guard shrieked. Blades rasped from sheaths. Civilians screamed.

Before chaos erupted, Tyburn's voice boomed, invoking the God of the Light, scattering fear like mist:

"These knights once scourged our lands—this is true." His words carried divine weight. "Yet the Light's miracle returned them to us. Brothers, they gave their lives for us once, only to be defiled by the Zephyr Aterior. Rejoice that they've shattered those chains! Rejoice that they fight beside us again! Give thanks to the Supreme God and His Light for this grace!"

The crowd stilled—but fear's roots ran deeper than words. They trusted Tyburn; if he vouched for these monsters, they'd comply. Yet hatred simmered. Whispers would race through Amrin like wildfire.

They entered the city as calmly as possible, but crowds already packed the commercial district's avenues to the castle—a grotesque parade of catharsis. Emboldened by Tyburn's presence, they unleashed their fury.

Cold stares became hissed insults.

Insults became a chorus: "Murderers!"

Then the first speck of saliva struck Vysserius's chest.

Rotten fruit and filth followed, heedless of Tyburn's proximity.

"You killed my son!"

"You burned my city!"

"Monsters!"

Tyburn moved to intervene, but Vysserius stopped him:

"They've every right. We owe no offense for truths shouted. Only… I regret you're caught in this storm."

Merryck agreed. She'd slaughtered her own kin—who was she to resent these claims? The pain was deserved. A weight to carry. Her responsibility.

Tyburn ordered his paladins to restrain the mob from violence—the least he could do.

And so, enduring the first of many punishments for their sins, the two Eternal Vow Knights walked the road to Amrin Castle to meet King Iroh.