From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 106: Bargains in the Quiet

After two days in Austmark, Lucian and Alice learned its routine.

The town stirred before sunrise, and Lucian awoke to the scent of pine needles and cold wind blowing from his window. Then he checked the weather outside his window.

The village square looked too clean—nearly sterile in its perfection. Cobblestone streets gleamed like they’d been polished much too often, and the chalk lines from the previous Harmony Walk was already a faint memory on the pavement.

This is what someone’s idea of a perfect little town is. Completely functional, yes, but everyone we saw yesterday was completely miserable. Is this really for the good of all?

He turned to Alice, still asleep, and left a note on the nightstand.

Going out for some air.

+

He stepped outside, boots crunching softly on gravel, and ran his fingers across a fading footprint etched into the square.

They walked these same steps over and over, rehearsing their peace like lines in a play.

He crouched down, palm against the stone. Is survival worth this much silence?

Alice found him shortly after and tugged lightly on his sleeve. "Come on. You skipped breakfast."

She led him to a baker’s stall tucked beneath a willow awning. The bread they purchased was laced with sage and honey—simple, nourishing. But Lucian noticed how the baker kept her eyes down, flinching slightly when a child hummed nearby.

"They say music makes people remember," Alice said as they sat on a bench. Her tone was casual, but her eyes were distant.

Lucian nodded slowly. He was beginning to see the pattern: grief wasn’t just forbidden here. It was filtered, muted, tucked away in the name of harmony.

At midday, Lucian wandered into the town archive. Its walls were lined with scrolls and tidy folios, all arranged in alarming symmetry. A young man in a clerk’s robe handed him a thick digest titled Austmark: A City of Purpose.

The text praised structure, highlighted population stability, and listed job distribution ratios with pride. But as Lucian flipped through, he found glaring omissions. Names were absent. Festivals once celebrated were reduced to footnotes.

"What happened to the First Mourning Festival?" he asked aloud.

The clerk stiffened. "That event is no longer recognized. It encouraged... lingering. We celebrate Harmony now."

Lucian shut the book slowly. I perform rites to preserve the truth, not rewrite it.

Meanwhile, Alice visited the town’s laundry quarters. She helped an older woman fold sheets still warm from the drying line.

"Used to be a weathercaller," the woman said conversationally. "Could sense a storm before the clouds even knew. But we stopped needing forecasts when we stopped celebrating anything."

Alice frowned. "No need to predict the weather when nothing changes?"

"Exactly," the woman said. "Harmony doesn’t need celebration. It just needs to continue."

Alice folded another towel, the rhythm of it feeling more like a dirge.

That afternoon, Lucian received a quiet request. A man asked if he would perform a rite for his long-deceased partner—buried years ago without ceremony, when the Harmony Order took hold.

They met in the fields beyond town, by a mound of earth half-overgrown with thistle and wild grass. Lucian set dried petals and a ribbon beside the grave. Then he took out a clay disc and began shaping it with his old embalming tool, hands moving on instinct.

He chanted low and steady, the ritual inviting memory to surface.

A shimmer appeared in the air. A smile. A faint hand brushing a cheek. The partner dropped to his knees, sobbing.

"They made me forget him. He was my joy."

Lucian placed the memory token in the man’s hand. "Now you remember. Let it hurt. That’s how we honor the ones we lose."

At dusk, Alice joined a community dinner in the town square. The tables were lined with utilitarian dishes: root stew, boiled barley, pickled radish. No music, no laughter—just the quiet clinking of spoons and measured compliments.

A young woman beside her whispered, "I used to dance. Was good at it. They said I could keep teaching if I framed it as exercise. But when the kids smiled too much, they replaced me."

"Why not leave?" Alice asked.

"Because someone else would have to take my job. That wouldn’t be fair."

The words echoed in Alice’s head long after the meal ended.

Lucian sat up late with his Grimoire. His handwriting was tight and erratic.

They gave up love to avoid longing. Gave up grief to avoid collapse. Gave up art to avoid chaos. But the world is built on those things.

What do I fear giving up, to belong?

The Grimoire responded with a soft glow. The ink shimmered, and new text unfolded beneath his question:

New Rite Unlocked: Rite of Dissonant Peace

To call forth the price of false harmony.

Lucian stared at the words. His breath caught in his throat.

Later that night, Lucian and Alice sat by the central fountain. The moonlight made the water glow silver.

"This place makes me wonder," Lucian said softly, "if I should’ve stayed behind the mortuary doors. Let grief be someone else’s burden."

Alice looked at him for a long moment. "But you didn’t. And every time you stepped forward, someone else got to mourn. That matters."

He studied her face, her steady eyes. "Do you ever think we’ll stop running?"

She reached for his hand, fingers warm and sure. "Maybe not. But maybe we get better at knowing what we’re running toward."

Lucian closed his eyes. For the first time since Vel Quen, he allowed himself to imagine a life not defined by flight.

And somewhere deep within the Grimoire, another page turned.

Later that evening, Alice returned to the amphitheater. The moon was high now, casting silver light over the stone benches and ivy-veiled stage. This time, someone else was there—a young girl from earlier, the one with the soil samples.

"You came back," the girl said softly.

Alice nodded. "So did you."

The girl reached into her satchel and pulled out a tiny harp—hand-carved, delicate.

"It was my mother’s. She used to play lullabies. I don’t remember the songs, but I remember how they made me feel."

She placed the harp in Alice’s hands.

"Can you play something? Anything? Just once."

Alice looked at the tiny strings. She plucked a few, uncertain—then stronger. A melody, old and trembling, filled the space. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The girl closed her eyes, swaying.

From the hill behind the theater, unseen eyes watched. But no one stopped them.

The silence had cracked.