KamiKowa: That Time I Got Transmigrated With A Broken Goddess

Xavier's hand moved instinctively toward his dagger as the figure's head completed its turn. The grinding sound of ice against bone echoed across the square like breaking glass. Those empty sockets held his gaze with an intelligence that made his skin crawl—this wasn't some mindless beast driven by hunger or territorial instinct. This thing was thinking.

"Nobody move," he whispered, though his voice carried further than intended in the dead air. "Back behind the nearest wagon. Slowly."

The caravan retreated, boots crunching softly on the ice-slicked cobblestones. Xavier kept his eyes locked on the figure while Smoke sidled toward the frozen market stall that would provide the most cover. The horse's muscles trembled beneath the saddle, ready to bolt at the first sign of violence.

Dalen appeared at Xavier's shoulder, his weathered face pale but steady. The caravan master had survived three decades of winter roads by knowing when to fight and when to run.

"What do you think?" Dalen breathed, barely moving his lips. "Construct? Elemental?"

Xavier studied the figure's posture—relaxed but ready, like a fighter between rounds. The massive sword lay across its knees at precisely the right angle for a quick draw. Everything about its position screamed prepared.

"Boss monster," Xavier said. "Waiting for us to trigger the encounter."

"What does that even mean?"

"Big enemy sitting on a throne in the middle of everything? It's not going to move until we do something stupid." Xavier's headache pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. "Question is, what's the trigger?"

Ashley crouched behind the wagon wheel beside them, crossbow ready. "Could be proximity. Could be hostile action. Could be—"

"Could be time," Naomi finished from behind a stack of frozen grain sacks. "Maybe it's just deciding whether we're worth the effort."

Gareth the scout had pressed himself against the wagon's side, but his eyes weren't on the figure. Instead, he stared at the tattered robes draped over its skeletal frame. Xavier watched the older man's face go from pale to ashen.

"Gareth? You recognize it?"

"The markings on the cloth," Gareth whispered. "My grandfather told stories... said his grandfather saw one during the Crimson Winter. Called it a Bonemarch Knight."

"Which means what exactly?"

"Means it used to be a king. Refused to die when winter took his lands, so winter made him its champion instead." Gareth's voice cracked. "They don't just kill, Thornslayer. They rule. Command territories of the dead."

The words hit Xavier like ice water. Territory of the dead. He looked around the square with new eyes, taking in the preserved buildings, the unnatural silence, the complete absence of any living thing except themselves.

"How big is the territory usually?"

"Big as it needs to be."

That wasn't the answer Xavier wanted to hear. If this thing controlled the entire village, then they weren't dealing with a single enemy. They were standing in the heart of its domain, surrounded by whatever forces it could summon.

Xavier's mind raced through tactical options. The figure sat maybe fifty yards away across open ground—too far for his dagger, too close for a clean escape if it decided to charge. The buildings around them might provide cover, but if Gareth was right about territories, those same buildings could become traps.

"We need to move," he decided. "Circle around the edge of the square, use the buildings for cover. Get to the road on the far side without triggering whatever—"

The Bonemarch Knight raised one gauntleted hand.

The gesture was slow, deliberate, almost casual. Like a conductor preparing an orchestra. Xavier felt the temperature drop another ten degrees in the span of a heartbeat, and frost began forming on the metal fittings of their wagon.

"Run," Ashley said.

"No," Xavier snapped. "Running triggers the chase. We stay calm, we—"

The ground beneath their feet trembled. Not an earthquake—something rising from below. Xavier heard cracking sounds from inside the frozen buildings, like ice sheets breaking apart. Through the clouded walls, shadows moved.

"Oh, hell," Naomi breathed.

The first skeletal hand punched through the snow near the temple steps. Then another, and another. Within seconds, the entire square was erupting as the dead clawed their way to the surface. They came from everywhere—from beneath the cobblestones, from inside the frozen shops, from the spaces between buildings where Xavier hadn't even noticed graves.

These weren't ancient bones. They were the recently dead, still draped in the tatters of their lives.

A baker in a flour-dusted apron, jaw dangling by a thread of frozen sinew.

A mother clutching a swaddled infant to her chest, their twin eye sockets burning with the same pale blue light.

Children. Guards. Elders.

An entire village, reanimated and shambling forward with the twitching gait of broken marionettes.

"Definitely not a boss fight," Xavier said, his hand finding his dagger's hilt. "It's a mob encounter."

The dead moved slowly but with purpose, forming a loose circle around the caravan. They didn't moan or shriek—just walked in that horrible silence, their glowing eyes fixed on the living. Xavier counted at least thirty, with more still emerging from the frozen buildings.

"Wagons!" Dalen shouted, abandoning stealth. "Form a circle! Drivers in the center!"

The caravan exploded into motion. Marta and Henrik leaped from their wagon seats, crossbows snapping up to target the nearest undead. Jorik grabbed a woodsman's axe from the supply wagon while the others scrambled for whatever weapons they could find.

Xavier swung down from Smoke's back, slapping the horse's flank to send him toward the center of their impromptu formation. His meter interface flickered to life, the pink glow casting strange shadows on the ice-covered ground.

Input Buffer: 0/250

The nearest skeleton lunged, arms outstretched. Judging by the tattered leather apron, it had once been a blacksmith. Xavier sidestepped and drove his dagger into the thing's skull, feeling bone crack under the ironwinter steel. The skeleton crumpled, but his meter barely registered the kill.

Input Buffer: 5/250

"They're weak individually!" he called out. "Don't get surrounded!"

Ashley's crossbow sang, putting a bolt through a child-skeleton's ribcage. The thing stumbled but kept coming until she drew her backup dagger and took its head clean off.

"Headshots!" she yelled. "Destroy the skull!"

Naomi had found herself a position behind the supply wagon, using a long-handled hammer to crush skulls as the undead tried to climb over the tailgate.

"This is just a numbers game," she said, bringing the hammer down on a skeleton wearing a merchant's robes. "Attrition warfare. We can win if we don't panic."

But Xavier wasn't so sure. He glanced toward the ice throne where the Bonemarch Knight still sat motionless, watching the battle unfold. This felt too easy, too straightforward.

In every game he'd ever played, the real boss didn't reveal itself until you'd dealt with the opening wave.