“Eeh!? What’s this!? What’s going on!?”
In a barn of the sealed off farm, Melt yelled hysterically.
Her surprise made sense, considering the skeleton horse turned into a black horse the moment it entered the barn. Phi and Angel were also surprised.
“Why!? It was just bone until just now! Wait, what’s its real form!?”
“It looked like this when I met it last night. I think this is probably Skull’s original form.”
“Night… Then could it be that it changes when exposed to strong light?”
“I think so. It’s not even close to evening now…”
Everyone started theorizing, based on what they saw and what Yuugo said.
There was the monster skeleton horse, and the black horse currently in front of them. It was a mystery which was its real form… Or maybe both were.
“But why is this happening? I really don’t understand…”
Melt asked a very basic question, with a question mark popping on top of her head.
Why did Skull have two forms? Judging by what they saw thus far, it seemed unlikely it could switch at will.
Then could it be that Skull itself did not know… Thought Melt, as Yuugo asked Phi a question.
“Hey, Phi. Skull isn’t a monster armor beast, it’s a monster called skeleton horse, right?”
“Eh…? Ah, yes, that’s right.”
“So basically, it’s the horse version of the monster called skeleton?”
“Yes…?”
“…Tell me how skeleton monsters are born, if you can. Just what you know.”
They were common enemies in games and manga, and skeleton monsters also existed in this world… And Yuugo was asking his little brother more about them.
Phi nodded, and tried his best to scrounge around the library of his memories, and brought out the information his brother was after.
“Hum… About how skeletons are born? I’m pretty sure…”
Skeletons were classified as undead monsters.
Unlike other monsters like goblins, they were not born through reproduction.
If they were not given a proper memorial service, dead bodies turned to bones while taking in the filth and grudges of the land, and the monster known as skeleton was born when the flesh was scraped of those bones.
Yuugo heard Phi say that basically, they were born from an intense negative aura combining with dead bodies, and thought.
“…What if… That negative aura and grudge belonged to that body in the first place?”
“Eh… Ah!?”
Phi looked puzzled at first, but quickly understood what his brother meant and turned to Skull.
As he seemed to understand something, so did Angel, and then Melt, and then Phi whispered it.
“So Skull… Might have been one of the horses that was killed near here?”
“That makes a lot of sense. Don’t you think so, An?”
Yuugo turned to An, expecting her to agree, but she was deep in thought as if exploring that possibility further.
Skull had two forms because it was just recently reborn as a monster.
It appeared in its original form in the dark of the night, and showed itself as a monster under strong lights.
Unlike skeletons that were born as a result of filth and grudges accumulating over time, Skull turned into a monster shortly after death, that was its own body with its soul inside it.
If they considered that it retained its sense of reason and real body because being a monster had not set in yet completely, it made sense.
As for the strong negative feelings that made it revive, the answer was simple. It all lied in the incident that happened not long before.
“…Revenge. It revived to take down whatever killed it.”
Horse corpses were found just a few days before… And Skull was one of them.
There was a boiling hatred and resentment inside Skull towards whatever killed it and the other horses, and this all remained inside its corpse, leading it to come back as a lifeless skeleton.
And now, it roamed the plain looking for the attackers.
Angel thought of answers to some questions, but Yuugo shook his head to part of it.
He looked at Angel, then at Skull, and spoke in almost a whisper.
“Just a small correction. Skull is looking for revenge, but not to take revenge for itself.”
Yuugo said while petting Skull’s neck, whose flames burned brightly.
He did so while conveying gentleness and compassion, and stated the real goal of the black horse.
“Skull… You want to take revenge for your friends, don’t you?”
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