Erl's battle against the demonic bull had ended in his victory. The battle went well after he understood the rules behind his skill activation. He won after he manifested his skills.
In that battle, he learned that not all skills could be activated the same way. Some of them had certain requirements that needed to be followed. For example his Intimidation skill and Blood Transmutation skills. These two skills had different ways of manifesting.
To manifest the Intimidation skill, he needed to circulate his energy all over his body and let it flow. Then at once, burst them out to create a strong pressure that would scatter all around. It could also be manifested using different methods. One of them was the eye contact method. In this method, he didn't need to circulate his energy all over his body, but instead, focused it in his eyes and used eye contact with his target to trigger the skill.
He learned that there were many ways to activate the skill. The most important thing was your control over your magical energy.
On the other hand, the Blood Transmutation skill could be activated once he was in contact with blood, either his blood or not. He could shape them to whatever comes to his mind. But he needed to be mindful of the size and amount of blood needed to form the object he desired.
In his battle against the demonic bull, he killed it after transmuting his own blood into a sword and stabbing it to the monster's head.
He didn't expect it to be very effective because even his Intimidation skill did not have much effect on it.
Although he killed it, there was also a weird sense that he failed to kill it. But it had already stopped breathing, so perhaps he was just overthinking about it.
In conclusion, activating the skill when he was playing it was much easier because he just needed to select the skill in his skill tab to activate them, whereas in his current situation, he needed to control and understand them.
After killing the demonic bull, the invisible shield crumbled after he stabbed it with a blood sword.
Perhaps his stats were high enough to break it or it was due to the completion of the event. Since he was the last one standing in that area of beginning, he was granted permission to break it? It was only an speculation.
He immediately went back to the village after that as he didn't want to linger in that place anymore where the memories of countless deaths took place.
Before coming to this world, he had not much story to tell about his previous self. His background didn't have much to show aside from being a common person on earth. There wasn't anything fascinating about him. He was just a common folk out of many common folks out there. He wasn't outstanding and notable. If it was a movie, he could be considered as one of the side characters or an extra.
He even reincarnated into an NPC after dying from a truck accident, though this NPC had a much worse role compared to his old self.
Rather than that, he was more interested in the question of why he was reincarnated in this game world instead.
This world was no doubt the world of the game known as "The Forgotten Land". It was an MMORPG, and the last game he played before finding himself in this world. That area of beginning and this Erste Village even looked the same as the one in the game, so he was certain that he was inside the "The Forgotten Land" game.
If not because of the absence of [menu], he would think he was logged in right now.
The memory of this body also contained informations he needed to confirm that he was indeed reincarnated in the world of "The Forgotten Land".
After returning to his shabby hut, he noticed he was tired as hell. The battle earlier had exhausted him so much.
Actually, there were many things he wanted to think, especially about the new him, but for now, he just wanted to lie down and rest.
He retired his body on the hay bed and closed his eyes. It didn't take long after closing his eyes that his consciousness was swallowed into his dreamland.
Right after that, he found himself walking in the middle of darkness. In that darkness, everything seemed stale. No wind, no sound, no odor, no light. Just a boundless darkness as far as his eyes could see.
Where am I? Why is it so dark here all of a sudden?
He continued walking.
While walking, he thought it was weird. No matter how many steps he took, it seemed he wasn't even advancing. He started to get anxious. His unsettling mind started to think of some scary stuff that he wanted to avoid thinking at any cost.
Plok!
"Eh?"
He looked around. He heard a water droplet. Yet, when he looked around, there was nothing. There was only darkness around.
Plok!
He heard another droplet. He looked ahead of him. As he was gazing into the darkness, his heart began to race. In that darkness, it seemed something scary was about to come out. After thinking that, he noticed something in the dark ahead of him where his eyes were staring.
Plok!
Accompanied by droplets sound, a silhouette started to form.
What—!
His face turned pale as a person dressed in white, with long black hair covering its face, crawled out. It crawled towards him. The drops of water he thought at first, were actually drops of blood from that entity!
G-G-Ghost!!?
It was indeed a ghost no matter how he looked at it.
He quickly turned around and ran as fast as he could. When he glanced behind, he saw the crawling ghost coming closer to him.
What? Why is it so fast? And why it's chasing me?!
He was running and the ghost was just crawling, yet despite that, it was catching up. Unbelievable! But it didn't take long for him to realize that despite doing the best he could, kicking the ground, he noticed he wasn't advancing faster. It was like his feet barely touching the ground, or he seemed to be running under water.
The next moment, something cold touched his feet. When he glanced below, he saw the ghost's hand grabbing it.
Hyiii!
He shrieked.
"L-Let go of me!" He shouted.
"Murrrdeerrrerr~~~"
He heard the ghost whisper those words in an eerie voice. Its voice full of contempt and hatred.
"Murrdeerreerr~~~"
It repeated.
"No! Go away!"
The ghost slowly lifted its face. When he saw the face, Erl's eyes widened in disbelief and he froze like cold statue. The ghost face was bloody. It's very scary. But it looked familiar to him.
"You are…"
It was the player who he killed in the Area Of Beginning. But why would a player turned to a ghost? He thought.
"Murderer~~~!" It shouted.
Before he noticed it, the ghost was choking him.
"I'm sorry! But I have no choice but to do that!" He tried to reason. "Please let me go!"
"I'm going to kill you~~~!" The ghost threatened him. It was full of killing intent. It really intended to kill him.
"Please, no, release me!"
"You must diiieee~~~!" The ghost tightened its grip.
"No— Urrk…"
Suddenly, he noticed the ghost stopped exerting strength in her choke.
When he looked at her, he saw the ghost widen her eyes as it was staring behind him. He had no idea what she was staring at but the ghost looked skeptical all of a sudden.
"Eh~~?"
Her reaction baffled him but he had no time to care about it. The ghost suddenly stopped and said, "D-deeeaaal~~"
"Eh? D-Deal?"
"Let's make a deaaal~~"
Erl looked puzzled. Why would the ghost suddenly require that? And what kind of deal did she want?
"You're not deaf, are yooouuu~~?" She glared at him.
"O-Of course not!" He said with both hands trying to get rid of the ghost hands from his neck. His face was blue due to the difficulty of breathing, and also, he was so frightened by the ghost.
"So~~, are you willing to make a deal with meee~~?"
"W-W-Wait… It's hard to talk…"
The ghost glared before she loosened her clasp on his neck. Hah~ He sighed in relief when finally freed. He could breathe again.
While rubbing his neck, he said, "W-What if I said no?"
Her bizarre face suddenly moved closer and she oozed strong hatred. It caused a chill to run down his spine. "I will haunt you for the rest of your life if you refuse~" She whispered in a low creepy voice.
"F-figured."
"Sooo~~?"
"I don't think someone like me can help you with anything. However, let me hear first what kind of deal it is."
If it was the only thing he could do to avoid getting haunted for the rest of his life, then fine.
I don't even have a choice. He commented internally.
Click!
Eh?
With a flick of her fingers, the darkness disappeared and then the whole space was surrounded by white suddenly.
Sensing his dumbfoundedness, "This is called the spirit realm," she said in a normal human voice.
He noticed the ghost was not scary anymore. She even looked pretty.