From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 104: Please Let Me Keep This One Thing

"I wonder when this ’for the good of all’ business started," Lucian murmured over breakfast. Alice buttered her croissant and chewed thoughtfully. "Do you think the library will have any answers?"

He drank some orange juice and shook his head. "With people having different passions than their job, a librarian could be anywhere."

"But still, it’s worth a try. This town is just so sad."

"It is. I guess it’s time to investigate a little more. There’s no actual decree, but it’ll keep us busy while we wait for crow-mail."

If there’s any crow-mail for us, anyway.

+

Unfortunately, when they visited the crow-mail post, there was no letter waiting for them.

"Exploring the town it is, I guess..."

The local blacksmith had a small bookshelf, but Alice thought she saw a notebook labeled poetry.

"Good morning, blacksmith." He grunted and continued his work. The muscular middle-aged man melted steel and pounded it to a beautiful weapon.

Even as he clearly looked unhappy, he was careful with the small details. Sometimes he attached gems or carved precious runes on them. As he made another sword, Alice couldn’t help complimenting him.

"Your sword has a beautiful curve." With that, the blacksmith finally smiled.

"Thanks. It’s how I still write."

"What do you mean?"

"I used to be a poet, young miss."

Alice left the smithy with a sword lighter than a feather, but sharper than a needle.

+

Lucian entered a bookstore that specialized in historical items. The owner was a quiet elderly lady who nodded to him. Immediately, he noticed the shelves were impeccably arranged.

"Your organization skills are impressive."

She smiled in return.

He picked up some charcoal for Alice and a book on Velrithane’s mortician history. Lucian was about to pay when he saw a hand-bound leather journal.

Is it sad I don’t know how money works in this world? I...well. I never bought anything from the towns we went to, and being a court mortician meant my bills were paid by Atreaum.

Maybe I can push my luck a little further today.

He grabbed the journal and went up to the counter to pay.

"Please charge it to Queen Marguerite."

The only sound was the cash register and the tablet scratching as she processed his purchases.

"Have you lived here for a long time?"

The bookstore owner nodded.

"Do you like your job?"

She frowned, looked around, and quickly shook her head.

"...what did you enjoy doing the most?"

She looked down for a moment, sadness written all over her face.

"Can you talk?"

Lucian already knew the answer, but he needed to be sure.

She pointed to her larynx, shook her head, and wrote on her tablet. Afterward, she pushed the slate toward him.

"I used to be a historian. Working in a bookshop meant I could be surrounded by the things I loved, at least. When I refused to give up my calling, the town took my voice."

"Not the mayor? It was the dome?"

"Yes. The Mayor had the dome made, true, but it was the town proper that took my voice from me. Punishment for being selfish. I have no regrets, though. Better to have some form of the thing you enjoy than nothing."

"I admire you for that," Lucian said quietly.

He left with his purchases and silently promised to carry her silence.

+

Alice was walking near the square when she felt a small hand tug on the hem of her dress.

A young boy led her to a field full of half-buried instruments and canvases.

"It’s...a graveyard. I guess Lucian was wrong."

Instead of people, each one was an abandoned dream. Different objects had a nametag and were broken. Only a few fully managed to bury their items in the dirt.

She saw half an easel, a flute--even a spinning wheel. Alice knelt beside a cello with a broken neck.

"Why are they broken?" she asked, already sad. It was a beautiful instrument and now the wood was ruined by the elements.

The young boy said quietly, "Seeing them makes people remember, so we were instructed to destroy them. So no one could play."

"They literally destroyed their own dreams...? Why?"

"For the good of all." the young boy replied. "That’s what mom keeps telling me. So it must be true."

Alice bit her lip to keep herself from commenting.

"Must be."

She didn’t believe the words that left her lips. Not for a minute.

If she followed the town’s philosophy, she wouldn’t have woken up at all.

+

It had been awhile since he’d used non-magical skills. But when a woman with her hands snapped off approached him, he couldn’t refuse.

Gently, he sewed the severed hands so her children could hold her hands again. One of her children gave him medical thread. "Where did you get this?"

"We have a doctor and a surgeon in town, just in case." The woman’s teenage child said tearfully. "I tried to sew mom’s hands together, but every time I tried...I just..."

Lucian nodded. "You don’t have to." As he pulled the last stitch, he hummed like Niko used to.

When both children pressed their foreheads to their mother’s palms, the Grimoire in his satchel vibrated.

"Thank you, Lord Mortician."

+

Before, I used to avoid grief. I’d refer the families to my other coworkers for that. Or I called the priest. I never trusted myself to say the ’right’ words for them.

Grieving families are so fragile--I didn’t want to offend them by saying the wrong thing.

Now Lucian knew better. He just avoided grief like the plague.

For a moment, he watched the family linger in silence. As he did so, the air around him grew warmer.

I don’t feel like hiding or running away from their grief. Is this growth? I just spoke to the family. I told the children they didn’t have to sew up their mother’s hands if they couldn’t.

When he returned to the inn, he heard a knock on the door.

"Um...I have a request." It was a laundrywoman. "Could you please help me remember my brother? He was a painter..."

"Lead me to him."

+

She led him to her home, where her brother lay in his bed.

"Why isn’t he moving?" Lucian asked. The decomposition had halted, just like everyone else in Velrithane. But he still didn’t move. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Or breathe, for that matter.

"He died, before the world...kept us going."

Oh. So he’s gone.

I haven’t seen that before. Or thought about it. So if someone passed away before death was suppressed, they don’t revive again?

"Here’s a--well I don’t hope you can revive him, but...here’s an old smock. It must have a lot of his memories by now." Lucian placed it beside her brother’s resting body and opened his Grief Loom.

Lucian let the Loom take over as he started the memory stitching. He felt like he’d done something right when he heard her gasp.

When he looked, he smiled. Brush strokes began to reappear on the smock, and it must have been the movements he used in life.

"He...he used to paint joy. Thank you, Lord Mortician!" She whispered, tears falling onto the floor. "I can’t thank you enough..."

No, thank you. Lucian nodded gratefully and accepted her praise. "You taught me something important today."

+

As Alice walked away from the dream graveyard--

Bam!

"Ow...I’m so sorry!" Alice turned and saw she’d bumped into a young man wearing the same drab gray robes she’d seen on Mayor Prescott.

"Be careful next time...I’m going to be late for the Harmony Council meeting."

His bangs covered his face and once more, the sadness was palpable.

"How can I make it up to you?"

He looked at her and Alice saw bright blue eyes that almost took her breath away.

Before she knew it, she was in charge of taking notes for the Council meeting. Most of the time, the town leaders looked like they were rehearsing being a council. Nobody spoke or gave an opinion unless the eldest councilor gave his approval.

And even he looked like he was barely enjoying himself. Alice thought he would take a nap mid-meeting, if given the chance. She took as many notes as she could catch, and it ended with a hymn:

"To sacrifice yourself

Is to uphold peace for all."

+

On his way back to the inn, Lucian heard a woman being scolded behind a building. He watched from the shadows, a silent witness at her slumped shoulders and muffled sobs.

The man scolding her didn’t look sympathetic. "You think you’re special because you dare to dream? Your mother and I gave those up for the good of all. Everyone in town did."

The woman’s shoulders shook as she wept silently.

"Do you want to bring the chaos back?"

She shook her head. "I’m sorry," she whispered.

"I won’t draw anymore."

His heart sank. Lucian almost stepped out of the shadows, but a hand on his shoulder stopped and startled him.

It was a cobbler, with gnarled hands and eyes that drooped from sheer exhaustion.

"Peace isn’t made with loud voices."

"But--"

It’s too sad. They’re all just going through the motions of living, like you are.

"We’ve kept it together because we stopped questioning. Please don’t break that, mortician. Not unless you’re ready to bury more bodies."

+

He ended the day on the inn’s rooftop and the Grimoire open on his lap.

Lucian looked up at the night sky and remembered Earth. Not just the quiet dead, but the peace he felt because he lived unseen.

But now, knowing what I know? I don’t want to live invisibly anymore. I don’t want to see Austmark suffering because they gave up everything they loved.

"Please, if I must give up anything--let me keep who I’ve become now." He whispered.

And he liked to think the universe looked at him and said "Okay."

Only the Divine Architect knows how truly fickle gods are, anyway.