Brand New Life Online: Rise Of The Goddess Of Harvest Chapter 2016: The Werebear

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Even after he grew larger, hunted across the wilderness, and eventually joined a village that accepted him despite his quiet nature as a massive Werebear, Norman continued to be someone who ran away from everything.

His strength was appreciated. His hunting skills and woodcutting ability were always needed and valued by the people around him. Yet whenever he sensed a threat he could not handle, whenever something occurred that he knew he could not predict or control, he ran. He was always the first to flee as quickly as possible, leaving everything behind without looking back.

He blamed himself for the death of his parents. That guilt drove him to keep running and running, year after year, until the day he finally faced his own death, bitter and alone.

It was not even at the hands of those who had destroyed his village. Instead, an army of Undead invaded the area where he had settled. He was impaled by dozens of spears while fighting desperately, trying to run while holding someone carefully in his arms.

That is right. Who was he holding in his arms as he ran and fought with his claws and fangs?

It is not as if it matters now... does it?

He died.

He failed his parents.

He failed his village.

He failed even the person he cared for after all that.

And he died pathetically, still running away even though he had always possessed the strength to fight back.

Because...

"I am a coward... I have always been a pathetic coward..."

Norman sighed, feeling a heavy pain in his chest. Even as an Undead who should feel no pain at all, even as a skeleton, he could still feel this pain, this crushing weight.

It was the pillar of his existence as an Undead, a deep resentment that had become a curse.

A self-inflicted curse.

Some speculate that the true nature of Undead is that of "Living Curses."

They are souls who cursed themselves at the moment of their deaths because of all the bottled-up resentment, anger, pain, and countless other painful emotions.

Undead, from the weakest to the strongest, all carry a past they no longer want to remember, yet that past continues to torment them even now.

It is a trauma they refuse to bring up, a painful memory, a regret that shaped their entire existence as Undead.

Even the greatest Undead, the Demon King of Death himself, carried an immense and agonizing regret that tortured his being and twisted him, warping him into an abomination.

The same was true for the other Undead that he, Elayne, and everyone else had faced before. After embracing this curse long enough, they become twisted creatures, monsters far worse than they could ever have been in life.

The most monstrous undead might once have been just a simple person, a farmer, a merchant, or a wandering adventurer who suffered such a painful end that they could not leave this world peacefully.

Fallen kings who lost everything. A father who watched his family being slaughtered. A child who abandoned his parents out of fear as his home burned around him.

Two lovers meeting a tragic end.

This was what it meant to be an Undead.

Countless tragic stories interwoven into a single "sentient being."

This was an Undead.

But Elayne was making things different.

She was twisting the rules.

Her Spirit, her Heart, and her Soul remained pure. Despite having faced the same despair, despite having no real need to act this way, she offered Hope.

Her warm hand, her kind smile, and her power so deeply connected with Nature itself, the ability both to give and to take from it, stood so different from any other Undead’s path of growth.

She did not eat Souls. She nourished them. Each one of her followers had slowly begun to feel this change as Spiritual Hearts grew within their chests.

Their existences as "Undead" were beginning to transform.

These fears, resentments, regrets, and painful memories that held them back from improving, the same burdens that only worsened them until their souls warped into aberrations if they survived long enough, were being cleansed.

The memories remained. They never left them. They stood as a stark reminder of their past and of what they had failed to accomplish. That reminder was necessary so they could improve themselves.

But indeed, improvement.

That was something Undead did not have.

They did not possess the power to improve themselves or become better versions of who they once were. An Undead’s path was that of the Abyss. They continued walking stairs that led into an endless Spiral of Madness.

Or at least, that was usually the case. Some exceptional ones would sometimes emerge, special Undead among the many, driven by their painful pasts and tragic memories.

Those who kept some of their humanity and refused to let go of it by consuming souls.

Those strange ones that some would call "weirdos."

Those who refused to consume their brethren. Those who starved themselves until their souls grew thinner. Those who embraced their pain, their sorrow, and their agony.

They held that pain tightly in their hands and pressed it hard against their chests.

Because they knew.

They knew that they had to accept themselves.

Many would have their souls dissolved or eaten long before achieving what Elayne had done.

She was an exceptional exception.

A woman who, even in death, refused to let go of who she was.

A woman who was naturally kind, naturally motherly, and naturally warm.

Someone raised well by her parents, yet who had also faced countless tragedies and suffered through life in unfair ways.

She was not perfect. She was clumsy, a little foolish at times, and also a bit airheaded.

But she remained herself, and she never shied away from fighting.

She learned how to hold these emotions in her hands...

And turn them into tangible strength.

This is what Norman learned, what he had begun to cultivate within his own soul.

"Running away... it does not fit me anymore."

He remained there, facing the Hollows in silence. His skeletal body rested quietly, the dark wood and bone armor covering his frame.

"I have run away all my life..."

He gripped his fists tightly.

"Enough is enough, Norman..."

He faced the monsters. For a moment, his aura suddenly shifted.

His soul permeated his body with a bright golden light, causing him to resemble his original appearance as a werebear.

Brown-furred, with a large head, golden eyes, and a slightly shy expression, he furrowed his thick black eyebrows.

"Mom... dad... I am sorry... but I cannot keep running away..."

He looked at the monsters as their claws descended upon him. Four Hollows attacked him at once.

This was, without a doubt, total annihilation.

Sure death.

Everything told him to run.

But Norman no longer wanted to run.

"I have to build a fortress... a fortress born from my soul..."

He murmured these strange words as he remained still. The Hollows grew confused when their claws struck him and... snapped.

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