Chapter 1 the grave of nobody

The first thing Akira noticed when he woke up was the cold. It wasn’t the kind that seeped into your bones after a night spent outside—it was deeper, more absolute. A chill that didn’t just touch his skin but clung to something deeper, something beneath flesh and blood.

He took a sharp breath, expecting pain, expecting exhaustion. Instead, his body felt… fine. No hunger, no thirst, no aching muscles. Just the cold.

He sat up.

The world around him was gray and lifeless. Gravestones stretched in all directions, some cracked and weathered, others newer, their inscriptions still legible. A light mist rolled over the uneven ground, curling around the bases of tombstones like ghostly fingers. The sky was an endless stretch of dim twilight—no sun, no stars. Just an oppressive, heavy gray.

Akira frowned. Where am I?

Then, the memories came.

A knife.

The sensation of cold steel slipping between his ribs, the dull pressure before the pain set in. The gasp that tore from his throat, the way his body had locked up, hands trembling as warmth spilled down his side. A streetlamp overhead, flickering. Footsteps fading into the distance.

Betrayal.

He had trusted them. He wasn’t naive—he knew better than to put faith in others so easily—but he had miscalculated. He thought he had leverage. He thought they needed him.

He was wrong.

The last thing he remembered was lying on the pavement, staring up at the night sky, realizing just how insignificant he was in that moment.

Then… nothing.

Now, he was here.

Then, a voice echoed in his mind.

[You have awakened.]

It wasn’t a sound. More like a thought placed directly into his head, impersonal and calm.

He stiffened. “Who said that?” His voice came out steady despite the unease creeping up his spine.

No answer.

Just as he was about to dismiss it as his imagination, something new appeared before his eyes. Not physically—more like an imprint on his vision, words forming in the air.

[Fate has abandoned you. The Cycle rejects you. You do not belong.]

A cold knot formed in his stomach. What the hell does that mean?

Before he could process it, more words appeared.

[You have been granted the System.]

[Your existence is now your own to shape.]

His breath came slower now, controlled. A system? That sounded familiar—like something out of a game. But this was real. Too real.

More text appeared.

[Initial Skill Acquired: Raise Undead]

[A body is required.]

Akira lowered his gaze.

Just a few feet away, partially buried in loose dirt, was a corpse.

It was fresh.

And something inside him stirred.

The dirt around it was loose, as if it had been hastily buried. The body was intact—no visible decay, no scavengers having picked at it yet. A young man, probably in his twenties, with an expression frozen in fear. His clothes were torn, stained with blood. Whoever he was, he had died violently.

Akira clenched his fists. He had no idea where he was, no idea what this System truly was, but one thing was clear: he had been given a power.

And it wanted him to use it.

He took a slow breath, pushing aside his hesitation. If he had been reborn—or whatever this was—then the rules of his old life no longer applied. He couldn’t afford to hesitate.

“What now?” he muttered.

The words answered him.

[Skill: Raise Undead]

[A body is required. Do you wish to proceed?]

Akira exhaled.

Let’s see what this does.

He reached out toward the corpse. The moment his fingers brushed the cold flesh, something shifted. A sensation unlike anything he had ever felt before surged through him. It wasn’t warmth, wasn’t energy—it was absence, an unnatural void that pulled at something unseen.

The air grew heavy. The mist thickened.

Then—

The corpse twitched.

Its fingers flexed. Its chest rose, taking a breath that no longer belonged to it.

Then, slowly, it sat up.

The young man’s eyes snapped open, but they weren’t human anymore. The pupils were gone, leaving only a dull, lifeless gray. His expression was empty, devoid of thought or recognition.

Akira stepped back instinctively, but the undead did not move beyond that first motion. It remained still, waiting.

Then, the System’s voice echoed in his mind again.

[Undead Raised.]

[Lesser Thrall Created.]

Akira let out a slow breath. “Lesser Thrall… does that mean there are stronger versions?”

No response.

He studied the undead carefully. It wasn’t rotting, at least not yet. The body seemed mostly intact, though the way it sat—stiff, unnatural—made it clear that this thing was no longer human.

A thought occurred to him.

“…Stand up.”

The undead obeyed.

Akira narrowed his eyes. So it follows commands.

Then another thought surfaced, darker this time.

He glanced around. The graveyard was silent, desolate. If he had been dumped here after dying, then it stood to reason that others had been too.

His gaze drifted back to the fresh dirt around the thrall’s grave.

“…How many more are buried here?”

The mist swirled at his feet, as if answering his question.

And for the first time since waking up, Akira felt something close to a smile.

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