I died in a meeting.
No truck. No goddess offering me a second chance. No hero summoning circle. Just a sharp pain in my chest during the Q3 budget review, and then darkness.
My first thought when I opened my eyes was simple.
Please tell me this is early retirement.
My second thought was less optimistic.
I tried to rub my eyes. I couldn't feel my eyelids. I couldn't feel my skin. When I lifted my hand, I didn't see the brown skin of Arjun Malhotra, mid-level project manager.
I saw bone.
Polished, grey obsidian bone.
I looked down. I was sitting on a throne made of fused ribs and skulls. I was wearing a heavy crown that felt like cold lead. And in front of me, in a ruined stone hall that smelled like ten thousand years of dust, a hundred skeletons were kneeling.
They were armored in rusty scraps. They held chipped swords. And they were all looking at me.
I sighed. Or I tried to.
Since I didn't have lungs, it just made a rattling sound in my ribcage. Clack-clack.
The skeletons trembled. Their skulls hit the floor harder.
"Great Lord Ossian," one of them rasped. "Your slumber ends."
I leaned back against the uncomfortable skulls of the throne. I looked at the dark ceiling. I looked at my bony fingers.
"Great," I whispered. My voice sounded like two gravestones grinding together. "I'm not in heaven. I'm in middle management."
I needed a coffee. I needed a spreadsheet. I needed to know why I was a skeleton.
But first, I needed these guys to stop staring at me.
"At ease," I said.
The skeletons didn't move. They just vibrated with fear. Right. Fantasy world. Different jargon.
"Rise," I commanded.
They scrambled up like puppet strings had been yanked. A hundred hollow eye sockets stared at me with unwavering loyalty. It was the same look my interns used to give me before asking for a recommendation letter.
A blue box—because of course there was a blue box—flickered into existence before my eyes.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE][WELCOME, HOST: LORD OSSIAN][CLASS: SKELETON LORD (DORMANT)]
I waved the box away. "Status report," I muttered. "Give me the numbers."
The window changed.
[CURRENT STATUS][TERRITORY: THE GRAY GRAVEYARD][POPULATION: 104 UNDEAD][SANCTUARY STATUS: CRITICAL][MANA CRYSTALS: 0][GOLD: 0]
I stared at the zero.
Zero.
I had transmigrated into a bankrupt company.
"Fantastic," I said, the sarcasm rattling my jaw. "I have an army of bone-heads, a castle that needs a structural engineer, and zero liquid assets."
I stood up. My new body was tall. Too tall. I towered over the skeleton soldiers. A heavy black cloak trailed behind me, catching on the uneven floor.
I walked to the nearest window. It was just a hole in the wall.
Outside, the sky was a bruised purple. The ground was gray dirt, dotted with crooked tombstones. It was depressing. It was bleak.
It was perfect.
No commute, I thought. No emails. No stakeholders screaming about deadlines.
"Okay," I said to the room. "Here is the new policy. I am going to sit on this throne. I am going to close my eyes. And we are going to do absolutely nothing for the next hundred years. Any questions?"
The skeletons looked at each other. They seemed confused.
Good. Confusion leads to silence.
I turned back to the throne. I was ready to enjoy the first vacation I'd had in fifteen years.
Then I heard it.
A scream.
Not a spooky ghost scream. A desperate, wet, living scream.
I froze. My non-existent stomach tightened—a phantom sensation from my past life.
"Report," I barked.
The lead skeleton, the one with a slightly less rusty helmet, stepped forward. "Intruders at the gate, My Lord. Living ones. They carry the scent of... fear."
"Adventurers?" I asked. If this was a fantasy world, adventurers were the auditors. They came to wreck your day and take your stuff.
"No, My Lord. Too weak. They are begging."
Begging?
I walked past the soldiers. They parted like the Red Sea. I marched out of the throne room, down a crumbling spiral staircase, and into the courtyard.
The main gates were massive, made of iron and black wood. They were currently barred.
On the other side, I could hear pounding. Small fists hitting heavy wood.
"Open it," I said.
"But Lord... the living..."
"Did I stutter?"
Two skeletons hauled the heavy bar up. The gates groaned open.
I prepared my scariest face. I was ready to scare off some lost teenagers.
I wasn't prepared for what I saw.
There were six of them. Green skin. Large ears. Ragged clothes that were more mud than fabric.
Goblins.
But not the monsters from the games. These were... small. Children. And one elderly goblin holding a baby.
They were starving. Their ribs showed through their green skin. They were covered in burns.
When they saw me—a seven-foot skeleton lord wreathed in black mist—they didn't attack. They didn't run.
They fell to their knees.
The old goblin crawled forward. He pressed his forehead into the dirt near my skeletal feet.
"Sanctuary," he croaked. "Please. The humans... they burned the village. We have nowhere."
I looked at the horizon.
Smoke was rising in the distance. I could see torches. I could hear the distant baying of hounds.
Adventurers. A raid party.
I looked down at the goblin. He was shaking. Not from fear of me, but from exhaustion.
Don't do it, Arjun, my brain whispered. You retired. You died. This is not your project.
I looked at the baby in the old goblin's arms. It was crying silently, too weak to make noise.
It's a resource drain, my project manager brain argued. You have zero budget.
It's a child, my human heart countered.
The sound of horses got louder. The hunters were coming.
If I closed the gate, they would die in five minutes.
If I let them in, I became responsible.
I looked at the System window again.
[ACTIVATE SANCTUARY BARRIER?][COST: 100 MANA][CURRENT MANA: 0]
"I can't," I said. My voice was softer this time. "I have no power to shield you."
The old goblin looked up. His eyes were yellow and wet. "Then... just kill us, Lord. Make it quick. Better you than the hounds."
He offered his neck.
Something snapped in my chest. A cold, hard anger. Not at the goblins. Not at the humans. But at the sheer inefficiency of a world that hunted children for sport.
"System," I thought. "Alternative power sources."
[SEARCHING...][WARNING: HOST BODY CONTAINS HIGH CONCENTRATION OF DEATH MANA.][CONVERSION POSSIBLE.][COST: BONE DENSITY (PERMANENT HP LOSS).]
I looked at my hand. The obsidian bone shone in the twilight.
I was the battery.
"Get inside," I said.
The goblins hesitated.
"NOW!" I roared. The sound cracked a nearby tombstone.
They scrambled past me, into the courtyard.
I turned to the open gate. The torches were visible now. I could see the knights in shining armor. The 'heroes.'
I raised my staff. I focused on the marrow of my own bones.
"Burn it," I commanded the System.
Pain.
It wasn't like a human pain. It didn't throb. It felt like someone was taking a chisel to my very foundation. I felt my bones become lighter, brittle, hollow.
[ALERT: CONSUMING BONE DENSITY. HP DROPPING.][95%... 90%... 85%...]
A green dome of energy erupted from the castle. It rippled outward, passing through me, passing through the gates.
It slammed into the ground ten feet in front of the castle, creating a shimmering line in the dirt.
The lead knight pulled his horse up. He stared at the barrier. He stared at me.
I stood there, feeling like a stiff breeze would snap my legs in half. But I didn't sway. I locked my knees.
"This is a graveyard," I projected my voice. It boomed, amplified by the pain. "Not a hunting ground."
The knight sneered. "A skeleton trying to speak? Move aside, monster. We want the vermin."
"There are no vermin here," I said. "Only my subjects."
[SANCTUARY ESTABLISHED.][TERRITORY RECOGNIZED.]
The knight drew his sword. He charged the barrier.
His sword hit the green light—and shattered.
He flew backward, landing hard in the dirt.
The other knights hesitated. They looked at the barrier. They looked at the dark, towering figure of the Bone King standing guard.
They didn't see a tired salaryman who was currently 20% osteoporosis. They saw a monster of ancient power.
"Leave," I said. One word. Simple. Absolute.
They gathered their fallen leader and retreated.
I watched them go until the torches faded.
Only then did I let myself relax.
My knees buckled. I hit the ground with a sound like a bag of wind chimes.
[WARNING: HP CRITICAL.][BONE DENSITY AT 60%.]
The old goblin rushed over. He looked terrified. "My Lord! You... you saved us."
I looked up at him. I tried to shrug, but my shoulder joint clicked painfully.
"Don't get used to it," I wheezed. "I'm going to need you to pay rent."
I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn't work.
Great, I thought as the darkness crept back in. Day one, and I've already blown the budget.
"Someone..." I rasped out before my consciousness faded. "Someone carry me to the throne. And wake me up... never."