Bro, I’m not an Undead!

A slender finger poked at the thick skin of a man who had just slumped into his seat, evidently very tired.

A man with a sweaty but bright visage smeared with two chestnut brown eyes and full cheeks that showed good health turned his head, his dark locks of hair that covered his forehead in messy bangs turning along with his noggin to look at the figure of a thin woman who kept poking his arms.

“Quit it, you overgrown weasel,” the man said with a low voice that had a hint of annoyance.

To this, the woman stopped but leapt up only to land on her butt right onto the man’s chest!

The man barely reacted as he was much stronger than the average human, but he shook his head helplessly.

The woman giggled, her subtly pretty face that revealed its uniqueness when she smiled, dimples emerging from her cheeks brightening up as she turned to poking his face now.

“Your vile tongue won’t hurt me anymore. You’re all bark and no bite. When it comes to me at least,” the woman said as she leaned in, her face being a shallow breath away from that the man she loved.

Once again, she poked at him.

This one gesture was something that had annoyed Bek in the beginning of their relationship but with time he had grown to accept it.

According to the woman, for every rude word he spoke, she would poke him as revenge. And sometimes, she would just do it for fun.

“…I guess you’re right,” the man said.

The small but well furnished house they were in felt like home to both. It wasn’t much but a wise man once said, ‘Love does not conform to material on its own.’

Here in Okenden, a smaller town than Harifrast but equally as cold, these two had been born and bred.

Bek had been born with the desire to become a Knight and had succeeded after giving it his all, the status of Capital Knight being one he received at the age of 29. He was quite skilled and managed to land a few hires in Harifrast over his normal duties.

He had even been to the esteemed Genhuis City but the costs of living there had led him to return back home. While the Capital Service took care of their own, luxuries and upgrades in standards depended on one’s own effort.

Therefore, Bek had firmly settled in Okenden before meeting a girl that lit a fire in his soul.

Sera.

The pure soul with a taste for realism and no tolerance for pretense.

As Bek looked at her now, he found the fire he had for her dissipate, something he had never thought could happen.

Could love just be washed away by the seas of time?

Was his desire for growth leading him to aim higher in terms of women?

Did THAT finally start to bother him?

On the face of Bek’s beloved, her face that was lightly dotted with pimples still brightly pronounced her beauty, but her eyes…

No.

Rather, her right eye which was blind, slightly discoloured to a paleness in contrast to her other one which was a nice shade of satin grey, tended to draw pity when taken with the woman’s overall thin body that was quite curvaceous but lacking in what most men fantasised about their ideal women looking like.

Bek couldn’t help but try to avert his gaze.

Was he no longer feeling love but… pity?

No.

It couldn’t be?

That was what Sera hated the most.

The feeling of being seen as weak because of it.

Being treated like an egg.

She hated such.

That was not why she loved Bek. It was the opposite.

Bek stroked the woman’s brown hair which reached up to her shoulder, Sera’s eyes closing as she sank into the mesmerising hold of his touch with a delighted smile.

Yet, Bek felt nothing.

He was supposed to marry this woman soon but…

Bek held Sera’s head from the back and pulled her towards himself, a slightly desperate huff being detectable in his breath.

He shared a passionate kiss with Sera who slung her arms around him, her body which was covered by a light blue silk dress sliding closer to Bek’s own and rubbing against it.

Yet…

Bek felt nothing.

It was no different from kissing a warm meat.

Why?

What was this weird sensation?

To feel care for someone but to not feel fulfilled when you caressed them and affectionately locked lips with them.

What cruelty was this?

Sera drew back from the kiss and her eyes stared at Bek with subtle concern.

“You’re… colder today,” she said. “Your words and your body… they are, stiff.”

“No. I’m just tired. I’m close to getting a promotion so I have been overexerting myself. Don’t start getting weird thoughts.”

Sera nodded, but she could feel it.

An odd sensation that had begun growing from Bek since a month ago.

It was like he was growing distant.

Bek had always had this rude way of speech which was cultivated as he grew, raised in a family where mannerisms weren’t taken all that seriously.

His mother and father didn’t mind such. Apparently, they had lived in a secluded village way down south before moving to Okenden.

That was as far as she knew, but still, she learned to tolerate the way Bek talked.

But now, she could notice the subtle hints and undertones in his naturally vile speech, something only she could understand and pick up on.

The inferiority that she had felt because of her eye started to regrow with the insecurity she felt now.

“Are you sure?” she asked Bek for clarification while softly poking her finger against his lips.

Bek smiled and nodded.

“We’re about to get married for Listafelle’s sake,” he said, his cheek rippling with the flare of anger he had just suppressed from being asked such a question.

This doubt that Sera propounded didn’t help at all.

The woman on top of him felt this subtle emotion with her finger which was on his lip, her apprehension rising.

“Alright. I trust you…” Sera said but this was the beginning of a decline in their relationship.

Slowly, Bek began sinking too deep in his training for the promotion.

He would clear his mind of everything and even neglect to go home for days on end.

His dream called and he answered, ferociously working to build up the brightest blue core he could and breaking into the Master Stage after fourteen months of uninterrupted focus.

With this level of power came not just a promotion to the level of a Capital Order Knight but many prospective contracts for hire from many local and external rich establishments and nobles.

Such a glorious fate it was. Such a beautiful reward.

Yet..

Sera who was left home, slowly withdrew into her shell.

She had always been treated differently because she was blind in her right eye.

The pity, the false kindness, the special treatment…

It had sickened her.

It proliferated her self-consciousness, causing her to become more insecure instead.

People noticed it and showed fake smiles or in the worst of cases refused to interact with her, at least when she was younger.

Children were usually that simple-minded.

In adults lay all the falsehoods in expression and distasteful pretense and that was the most vile a human could ever be to her.

This had remained the case until she met Bek, whose words were like thorns, but actions and intent being nothing born of pity or falsehood.

He was like a poem that she had to unravel as she found that below the layers of indifferent speech and faces, he was quite caring.

Someone like him who made her break out of her shell and smile genuinely…

For someone like this who did not hide his feelings, she learnt what he meant despite what he said and greedily absorbed everything there was to know about him.

To Bek who was often misunderstood, this was a first as even his family was incapable of reading him so well.

The more he interacted with Sera, the more he felt himself being open despite hiding under his words.

This was the foundation of the twos relationship.

Sera devoted her all, shaping herself in such a way that she would always make what Bek built as beautiful as possible.

The house he built for them.

The clothes he bought for her.

His heart which he eventually gave her.

All of it.

Yet now…

She felt it.

His words were growing false.

He was distancing himself.

He started to feel cold… like everyone else.

He started to become a lie… like everyone else.

She felt his pity when he came back from his work, kissing her only to delay having to talk to her.

Such vileness.

The anxiety that had been dead in Sera for years tore down her hopes.

Nomatter how much she fought, a voice that sounded much like hers would always tell her what she didn’t want to hear.

‘It’s dead! The beauty he had is dead!’

‘He was just like everyone else and only tolerated you when he was a small time Knight! Now that he is growing, he will never look back!’

‘They will laugh at you when he leaves you and they won’t pity you anymore!’

‘He doesn’t love you anymore!’

Such thoughts brought tears to stroll down Sera’s eyes.

Day after day, Sera wrestled with them and yet…

She could only fight so much.

On one fateful day, Bek returned home after a three day absence, his mind and heart joyous as all he had wanted and more was constantly knocking on his door.

Unfortunately, upon reaching his house which he intended to leave behind for a bigger one, an unsettling sight showed itself before him…