Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The bandaged Skullius walked into 'Big Bosom Betsy's' with a sickly skip in his step, attracting the attention of the ever present champions of food and ale that were chattering endlessly.

Most of them laughed at him as he limped while Betsy who was behind the counter as usual gave him a curious gaze.

As he was passing by her, going up to his room, she suddenly spoke.

"Is the city proving to be a bit too difficult for you, love? Did you get into a brawl with fire or what?" she asked as she saw the patches of burns that were peeking from under the bandages on his face.

Naturally, because Skullius was evidently bothered by the heat, all the locals could tell he was new.

"Kind of..." Skullius replied.

"You know, it wouldn't hurt to commit to being a part of the Inn. No need to feel like you don't belong if you haven't even tried to fit in. Being alone is an experience that takes much away from you, you know? Chips at your soul instead of adding to it," Betsy said with eyes that twinkled, hiding a loneliness of her own.

Betsy's words poked Skullius quite a bit.

What Serenity had said about him, about his soul and True Undeath. How his yearning for friends was merely a reaction of him missing the other half of his soul.

The loneliness.

Indeed, it seemed to fit.

Just like he had been in Deadmanland, making friends with other undead, a part of him sought that comfort in having others around him still. To fill up what he didn't have.

Unfortunately, because of UNCoddled, the only people he could associate with were those that didn't give a damn about him.

Those whose objective wasn't to see him thrive.

A lonely road full of passive fellowships.

"I know. But some of us don't have a choice," Skullius said before continuing up to his room.

Betsy kept looking at his back as she kept replaying the glimpse of Skullius' true emotions that she had seen just now.

'I remember that look. A despair that you hide in your very guts. A despair caused by loneliness. Hmmm... I guess I still have some of it left...' Betsy thought as she gazed at the cheering men and women at the tables.

She had done what she could ensure that even if she felt lonely, she would never be alone.

*

By the time Skullius arrived in his room, he was already focused on his goal.

His Discount Human body was nothing like his Penetrator one. He would grow 'tired' easily, thus he needed to do what he wanted to quickly especially after the days' rich activity.

The timer for [Flesh It Like You Mean It] would clock out in the morning, but he didn't intend to do nothing until then.

He sat down on the floor and took the books he had stolen from the College.

There were many, numbering in the hundreds.

Skullius quickly skimmed through the pages, finding to his disappointment, that he couldn't read most of them.

The language mostly used for speech and writing among universally or rather with interracial interaction was the Known Language.

It was said that it was developed during warring times, many races adopting it for diplomatic relations over centuries until it became what it was today.

This was what most individuals used.

[Greater Communication] had evolved a few hours prior, reaching the next level which actually didn't change its name or description by much.

It remained as [Greater Communication] with a 'I' at the end, but its scope was enhanced. Where it could understand some low to mid level languages, now it could understand all of the languages in these categories, dialects and all, along with beginning to tap into high level languages.

On top of this, the description implied that it now covered literacy too, but to a limited degree.

The 'Great' series among skills was always the highest level in the tier of skills, which made it more convincing when thinking back to who gave Skullius this skill in the first place.

The fact that such a skill would delve into literacy was not a surprise but this wasn't what Skullius was focused on as he hadn't even noticed that the ability to read was provided by the upgrade to this skill.

The issue was, most of the books here couldn't be read.

They had advanced language and intense jargon which was too much for [Greater Communication I] to handle.

These books were mainly from the shelf he had stolen.

Fortunately, the ones from the stall, were readable though possessing surface level information.

For an organisation with a monopoly over information, it was no surprise that they would sell limited knowledge.

But who cared? Definitely not Skullius!

He began to absorb the knowledge stored within, finding different topics to read through, the one that intrigued him the most being the one about Clusters.

It was only natural that Cluster awareness was one of the more significant things that people talked out and were made to learn as they were an issue concern, especially with the sudden increase in their appearance which was not exactly known by many.

The more Skullius read, the more he realised that he had underestimated these things quite a bit.

Their origin was something he knew already, the clash of the Deities' power forming mini spaces were monsters were born with unnatural powers.

However, their scaling was something he hadn't been able to learn yet.

There were essentially, three levels of Clusters, with six categories.

Every Cluster was distinguished by colour, with Low level ones usually being white and white-blue.

The Mid level ones were blue and purple-blue.

The High level ones were purple and red.

Some Clusters usually had distorted time.

The theory around them was that Clusters existed all around Aigas. The cracks that appeared in space served only to represent that the space within was about to break apart but didn't always happen. In fact, Clusters rarely collapsed on their own.

The regions in every nation, bearing the temperatures ranging from high to low were the the ones with most Clusters, the degree of rise or decrease in temperature acting as a marker for how many Clusters would appear in said region.

This was the distinction between places like Eofel and Inhone, where one experienced Clusters and the other didn't altogether. Even the Tremur Forest which existed in the same region as Eofel didn't experience the issue of Clusters, the temperature in the region being moderate all year round.

Sadly, the reason for this was unknown, with most that had been gathered merely being baseless speculation.

Monsters within Clusters were unique and different from the ones in Aigas as they usually possessed extremely dangerous powers.

'Yeah... those gremlins were definitely a problem...' Skullius reminisced about his first Cluster.

What was even more menacing was the fact that in every Cluster, there was one or more Cluster Generals, a monster with power equal to the sum of its underlings or more.

It wasn't merely a final boss to fight as it also had an absurd level of mana.

This mana was what it used to keep the Cluster stable as the appearance of a Cluster in Aigas meant the Cluster was close to breaking apart.

The Cluster General kept the Cluster space stable until all the monsters within could exit, a time frame that was determined to vary greatly, but with the average time being 3 days.

When a mercenary entered the Cluster, they would unable to leave as well, the only possible way to leave being to kill the Cluster General.

All this made sense to Skullius as he read through it. He had been unable to exit the Cluster back then until he killed Jackpot.

However, even with this knowledge that made him wonder how dangerous Clusters above the white level could be like, he was excited.

He wanted to enter one and he was going to.

But this wasn't all about Clusters as the last bits he could find detailed the benefits of venturing into Clusters.

First, there was the resources mainly found in Clusters, Enriching gems.

After reading their description, Skullius' eyes widened as he pulled something from his spatial storage ring which he had regurgitated earlier after meeting the two Energy Formers.

A purple gem with dim, starry lights swirling within it appeared in his hand.

This was an Enriching gem!

Skullius had collected these from the walls of the Cluster he had been in a few days ago!

He had a little over 200 of these in his spatial storage!

As for their significance...

...!

Skullius became excited as he read through it!

....

[Author's Note]

We're going to back to two daily uploads at the original time.