The innkeeper looked regretfully at the shocked crowd. As he sighed, the white vapor from his breath continued to drift into the falling snow:
"But you probably haven't realized one fact: time and death are equal. I wouldn't dare overstep my bounds and claim to possess the great power of time, but unfortunately, neither can your dagger be called a representative of primordial death. The Ancient One bestowed a blessing upon me. To put it simply, while I do not possess immortality, instant-death effects from those of insufficient rank are ineffective against me.
"This is a trait most Chosen Ones possess. Though I am not one of those Chosen Ones selected by the Ancient Gods... Take your companion's corpse and leave."
He sighed again, then turned to look at his wife's gravestone:
"I do not want to kill anyone here. That foolish woman believed all her life that she was unworthy of me, and spent her entire life trying to prove that my choice to marry her had been right. But she never understood that I had never regretted making her my wife. Do not stain this place with your blood again. That would be disrespectful to her."
Having said that, he ignored the eight Mid-Ring Arcanists and fiercely hurled the dagger in his hand behind the gravestone.
Though the dagger that had not completed the so-called "Simple Burial Ritual" possessed no other traits beyond being nearly indestructible and especially harmful to undead creatures, it still carried tremendous force when thrown with all his strength. Yet just as the sound of it cutting through the air arose, it stopped. Shade appeared amid the snow and caught the Sage Level Relic.
The first thing he did was apologize to the eight strangers:
"Sorry, everyone. If I had appeared sooner, you would