The hall fell completely silent.
The temple guards all wore strange expressions. The necromancer had taken everyone down with a single spell, making it obvious he wasn't someone to mess with. And the temple was clearly in the wrong here. The priest had finally managed to reach a compensation agreement with him, and they were just about to get out of there—then this guy, of all things, had to go and nitpick about the other person's skeleton!
What was wrong with him?!
Young Priest John opened his mouth, then quickly raised both hands to cover it. He made muffled "mmph" sounds, and the freckles on his face twisted so badly they seemed ready to pop right off.
The spearman Raymond gaped, the Shield Warrior Wally stared wide-eyed, and the red hair of the archer Thorn looked like it was about to catch fire...
Little Grete, wake up!
This was a necromancer—a necromancer! Why was he arguing with him about whether his skeleton was right or not? The whole village had watched this good kid grow up. How had being touched by the Nature God turned him into such a weirdo?
Priest Donald lay on his back, with the big cat standing on him. He didn't dare move a muscle. The cat on top of him raised its head, its golden eyes darting from Grete to the Golden Skeleton. Its tail swished back and forth, and it looked thoroughly entertained.
If the pet was this interested, naturally the necromancer was even more so. He stepped closer, looked up at the skull, then bent down to look at the pelvis. After examining it from every angle without getting anywhere, he turned to ask Grete:
"...How exactly are you supposed to tell?"
"That's easy!"
Grete answered without a moment's hesitation:
"Here, look at this skull..."
The Golden Skeleton was quite tall, so Grete had to rise up on tiptoe, straining a little. The Golden Skeleton turned its face to "look" at him, then suddenly lifted a hand and took off its own head, holding the skull out in front of Grete. Two flames flickered in its empty eye sockets, staring at him eerily from the skeleton's palm.
Grete: "..."
Don't do that. You're making me nervous...
He did his best to steady himself. No matter how the skeleton managed to pick up its own head, the skull's sex wouldn't change. As long as that stayed the same, he had plenty to say.
Of course, the anatomical features of people in another world might be different. That was a separate issue.
He didn't reach out to take it. Instead, he stepped to the side and pointed at the skull, speaking confidently:
"Look at the forehead and the top of the skull. They curve here. If this were a woman, the forehead would be vertical and the top would be flat. Now look at the brow ridge. It's clearly prominent, and there are lots of tiny pits on the surface. See them? A woman's brow ridge wouldn't be prominent, and there'd basically be no pits. Now look at the nasal root..."
The Forensic Medicine material he'd studied and memorized in his third year came pouring out without a single omission.
He should have forgotten it long ago.
He'd forgotten it as soon as the exam was over.
After all, he'd studied Clinical Medicine, not forensic medicine. There was no need to waste memory on an unimportant subject like that.
But now he could recall it all perfectly—even the page and line, and exactly what the diagram in the textbook looked like.
Grete even remembered the little ghost face he'd drawn in the corner of the page.
Looks like getting transported to another world came with a few perks after all...
Well, he was a little happy about that ^_^
After being transported here, his odds of surviving had gone up another notch!
Good news always lifted his spirits. Without realizing it, Grete's lips curled into a smile. He explained things to the necromancer and the Golden Skeleton faster and faster, his tone growing gentler all the while. Before he knew it, he'd slipped into the air of a senior doctor teaching students at medical school.
At that faster pace, the skeleton remained expressionless (not that it could have an expression anyway), but the two flames inside its skull went from flickering to utterly still. It looked as if it had given up completely and decided to serve as nothing more than an emotionless stand for holding things.
Meanwhile, rings of ripples were clearly appearing in the necromancer's eyes. His legs wobbled, and he looked as if he could barely stay upright...
"Okay, that's the skull. Now let's look at the pelvis..."
Grete poked the skeleton's head once, then again. Only then did the skeleton react, fumbling to put its head back on. Grete nodded with satisfaction and bent down to examine the pelvis:
"This part is the hip bone. The pubic symphysis is this wide and flat, so the angle has to be greater than 90 degrees. It's definitely a woman's. Tsk, let's turn it around and see if there are marks on the back too. This woman's had a child!"
Grete bent down, and the necromancer bent down with him. Grete leaned over, and the necromancer leaned over too. Once bent over, Grete twisted his neck to look upward, and the necromancer...
The necromancer straightened up, raised his left hand, and snapped his fingers.
With a rattling clatter, the Golden Skeleton—which had been standing perfectly straight just a moment ago—collapsed into a heap right in front of Grete.
Grete jumped back!
Holy crap, why did this thing collapse? Did it run out of power? Did the magic wear off? But come to think of it, these bones had no joints, ligaments, or muscles. It should have collapsed in the first place. It shouldn't have been standing up...
As he rambled to himself, he watched the phalanges, ulnae, radii, vertebrae, thoracic vertebrae, cervical vertebrae, and ribs fit themselves back together like a slow-motion demonstration. The vertebrae stacked up one by one, the ribs attached at the front and back, and the arms and fingers extended one by one from the outer sides of the shoulder blades...
At last, a headless skeleton with only its upper half stood bolt upright on the ground. It braced itself with one hand, fumbled around with the other, found its pelvis, and held it up unsteadily.
Grete: "..."
Did it think we were tired of bending down to look, so it dismantled itself and held up the bones for us to see?
But it still wasn't tall enough!
He looked at the necromancer, and the necromancer looked at him. After staring at each other for a moment, the necromancer snapped his fingers again. The Golden Skeleton's toe bones, shin bones, and thigh bones began to join together piece by piece...
The lower half of the skeleton stood on the ground. The headless upper half reached out, grabbed the head of the thigh bone, and pulled hard, lifting itself up. It set itself on top, raised the pelvis with one bony hand, then groped around on the ground with the other, found the skull, and held it up in exactly the same way...
Then the upper half, with no pelvis to support it, swayed and toppled sideways.
It fell.
"Meowwwwwwwww—!"
A loud cat's cry rang out. Grete turned his head and saw the Black Cat in white boots make a nimble leap off the priest. Its tail smacked the floor as it rolled around with all four paws in the air...
Hey, that's way too much laughing! You're a cat!
The necromancer had completely lost face. He struck his bone staff against the floor, made the Golden Skeleton return to its original form, then pointed ahead. The stone door at the far end of the hall creaked open, revealing a passage. The muscles in his face twitched, and he managed to force out a smile:
"Shall we talk inside?"
Grete nodded cheerfully. The necromancer set off, the Black Cat led the way with its tail swaying, and the Golden Skeleton followed behind with a clattering gait. After they'd gone a few steps, the necromancer suddenly stopped and barked:
"You! None of you are getting away!"
Thanks to @Y ZIwen for the 1,000 Qidian coins!
Thanks to @The Song Has Ended for the 100 Qidian coins!
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There have been so few reviews these past few chapters. Are none of you reading anymore? T_T
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