Even though it was the middle of the day, greyish, chilly fog was blanketing everything the eye could see.
Gripping down on the shovel tight, the black haired boy slammed it hard against the hard half froze ground and pulled up a hefty load of dirt.
Sweat trickled down as he panted heavily, his whole body heavily soaked in sweat.
Glancing to his side and recounting the wagon filled with corpses, he let out a sigh of relief as he finally digged the last hole got the day.
Anyone unfamiliar with this sight might think that they ran into a horrifying scene of mass murder. Regrettably, though, that wasn't the case.
"Who would have thought, being a Gravekeeper wasnt all Sunshine and rainbows." The boy said sarcastically.
A hundred feet away from the young man, poking through the desolate willow trees of this homely graveyard, was a derelict monastery on the verge of collapsing.
This northern region was cold 365 days a year, and was aptly titled the Land of the Dead where rotting corpses and various undead rampaged about. This boy was spending his days as the exiled 7th Imperial Prince in charge of the monastery.
***
If you asked who possessed the absolute authority in this Continent, then people would most likely point at just one man.
He was the sole king of humanity. An existence that even the most powerful and ruthless beings had to be respectful of.
He, in a nutshell, was the Holy Emperor, also referred to as God's emissary.
Anyone who inherited the Holy Emperor's bloodline would be treated as a person blessed with a noble lineage and would be catered to with upmost care. Too bad this boys situation was somewhat different from those expectations.
"That bastard ruined my life!" The boy cllicked his tongue as his sweaty and dirt caked body began hoisting a corpses down into the hole, trying his best to be respectful to the body but ultimately failed as decaying arm fell off.
The weather might have been chilly, but the bugs of this regions somehow evolved to endured the cold. Mosquitoes buzzed around the corpses atop the wagon, with maggots crawling out of the decaying corpses and landing onto him.
The boy looked at maggot clinging go him and was inwardly surprised about how well he adapted to these terrible conditions, just a couple months ago he was a video editor in the modern world and now he is Allen Olfolse, former Imperial Prince!
Dragging over another body into a second grave, the boy couldn't help but shake his head at how he got here.
After buying an old beige computer from a yard sale for an incredibly cheap price, he booted up the old machine and was surprised to see that instead the windows home screen, there was an 8 bit character class selection screen.
Clicking on everything he could to exit and tapping the escape button a couple dozen times, the man let out a helpless sigh realizing it must have viruses but decided to play along.
Briefly reading the closest class to his cursor, the man simply clicked on it, the Heretic Class!
The next thing he knew, an overwhelming stinging sensation jolted through his body alongside the smell of cooked flesh, he had been electrocuted!
By the time he lost consciousness and woke back up again, he was already possessing a different body.
"I understand my class but why did it have to be this particular body though?"
He wasn't sure whether this was reincarnation or a possession, but what mattered here was the fact that the owner of this body had been banished to this place, the Land of the Dead.
The reason was pretty simple, despite being of peerless heritage, he was an irredeemable human that probably deserved much worse than banishment.
The man couldnt remember this bodies original memories, however he still heard some of the occasional stories about this body's past.
For example, while walking around the imperial palace the imperial prince was supposedly bored, so he summoned a servant and used them as sandbag, sending them into a coma.
Another one includes him spotting a servant girl walking around and forcibly had his way with her or when he'd mercilessly beat up a tutor coming to teach him just because he got bored again.
Sure you could say these were just unsubstantiated rumors that he haf heard about this body, but he could not say the same about the official reason on why he was banished.
The original body tried to force himself onto a certain esteemed noblewoman, one who came to the Theocratic Palace to train and learn more about the workings of the Empire.
During the deed, he was discovered by an archbishop who came to pay his respects to the Holy Emperor, they immediately put a stop to it.
Now normally this would have ended with a simple warning after the Archbishop had stopped the Imperial Prince, however it just so happened that the noblewoman was the granddaughter of the Archbishop and was checking up on her!
The granddaughter he sent to the Imperial Palace to learn refinement and etiquette was about to be ravaged, and he got to personally witness that sorry sight.
Of course, the archbishop flipped his lid and nearly beat the imperial prince to death, which caused the both of them to be immediately summoned before the Holy Emperor.
One could say that the next-most powerful person besides the Holy Emperor was
the archbishop, but such status wouldn't matter after nearly killing the Holy Emperor's grandson. Normally nearly killing an imperial grandson would be grounds for immediate execution, but the emperor understood the archbishop's plight.
Seeing as the grandson was also guilty in this case, both were punished with just two months of house arrest for the incident.
Now this should finallh have been the end of this matter... But the Imperial Prince couldn't get over it...
The immature boy of 15 years old sneaked into the archbishop's quarters and proceeded to burn his holy scriptures. He broke his cross and painted the wall with large letters that read. "Your just a lowly bastard, f*ck the Goddess your so infatuated and f*ck your granddaughter!!"
Despite him living in a theocratic system and being the Holy Emperor's grandson, he dared to write such blasphemous and heretical words! What a crazy and reckless fool he was.
Thanks to that, the Holy Emperor's pent-up rage exploded and he promptly banished his grandson to the most dangerous part of his empire, the Land of the Dead in the north.
The Imperial Grandson's authority and status were stripped away from him, and he was even ordered to perform priest services to the villages there.
"Mourn for the dead and improve yourself". The Holy Emperor ordered his grandson.
While in banishment, the influence the boy possessed as the potential successor to the Holy Emperor vanished too. He didn't even have any escorts anymore.
It was easy to guess what the Emperor's intentions were, sending his devilish grandson into the most dangerous part of his empire without escorts.
He wouldn't give a damn even if the boy got kidnapped by another country, or his life was endangered by something else in this dangerous land, as he would consider it fate at that point. The only thing the boy had going for him, was the fact that the most powers of the world realized he meant nothing to the emperor anymore.
The grandson, while full of dissatisfaction, headed to a nearby village and went on a rampage. He acted like an ass and not even a day later, Paladins came to visit him.
The Imperial Grandson got subdued in an instant and then imprisoned inside the monastery with nothing but prayers and Holy water as his nourishment. After that day, the boy became truly enraged.
This whole thing had been completely unacceptable when viewed from the perspective of the once-lofty Imperial Grandson.
Then again, he got banished to some dangerous backwoods to lug around corpses and shovel the ground. Most probably couldn't see a better future anymore for themselves, that's why he did it...
By the time 'he' gained consciousness of the the Imperial Prince, he was already flailing about with a noose around his neck after he tried hanged himself.
Indeed, the Holy Emperor's dumb grandson complained about his self inflicted sad fate and tried to kill himself.
***
Patting down the last grave, the boy stabbed a simple board into the ground that had the corpses name and dates. Shaking off the few maggots that had fell on him, the new imperial prince couldn't help but shake his head.
"If that bastard hadnt been such a complete scumbag, I could've been eating caviar and living the good life!.... Then again, if he wasn't such a scumbag he wouldn't have killed himself, and thus I wouldn't have a second chance at life... Its all about perspective I guess, I mean shoveling rotting bodies beats dying everytime."
Now that he was thinking about it, he might actually prefer living a simple life of burrying the dead, rather than being surrounded by scheming political figures that have their own hidden agendas.
Maybe it was because this body's brain was a bit sociopathic or maybe it was just him being grateful at a second chance at life, but whatever it may be he didn't really mind having to handle all these corpses.
"I sincerely pray to you, Goddess Gaia, that I'm not some loon who loves to spend time with dead bodies…" Allen muttered sarcastically.
He knew there was something wrong about himself, whether it be mentally or even ability wise. From what he quickly read before he died, a Heretic was a magician-type class that used demonic energy to sling curses and cast dark spells, but he didn't feel a drop of demonic energy inside himself!
As he made his way back to his monastery, he focused his mind as a list of abilities sudden appeared in his mind.
====
[Horrifying Howl], [Puddle of Poison], [Vile Curse], [Hellfire] [Hungering Gaze], and [chaos dimension].
===
These were the ability he was supposed to be able to use, the thing was, these abilities didn't really match their names!
His Curse ability gave Blessings, his Puddle of Poison actually conjured up a puddle of Holy water, his Horrifying shout seemed to make his voice radiate authority and power, etc.
It seemed as though this bodies, being related to the man called Gods Emissary, had an overwhelming Divinity that overrideded and changed his heretical abilities!
Beneath theses abilities were mostly greyed out progress bars that alluded to the fact that once they filled up, they'd evolve and become stronger!
'My abilities are very game like, the interface in my head shows all my abilities looks like a classic game menu and not to mention Hungering Gaze is basically identify and Chaos Dimension is basically an Inventory, the two ability that most games have!'
Stretching his sore body as he began walking back to the monastery, Allen didn't mind the change in abilities. Surrounded by the undead, having his Demonic skills turn Holy was probably the best thing that could've happened to him.
Just as the young boy sat down on the rickety rocking chair outside of Monastery, he was about to read the dusty book on his table when voices could be heard in the distance.
"Sir Imperial Prince-nim… Your highness…!"
A voice called out from beyond the foggy footpath, looking over he saw two men, both seemingly farmers, fumbling about while making their way out of the forest's narrow path.