Faith

At that moment, he felt he had been redeemed.

Sadly, Her Grace, the one who had rescued him from the boundless darkness, did not seem to like him very much.

He had seen a look of disappointment on Her Grace's face.

Once she confirmed he had lost all memories of his past life, that disappointment became even more pronounced.

But at that time, he couldn't bring himself to care about that.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings.

He was incredibly curious about everything in this "new world."

Especially... that strange thing called power armor.

Unfortunately, the dog-headed fellow had no intention of taking it off to show him, which troubled him greatly for a time.

He could only watch reluctantly as the kobold left, and when the creature returned, he brought a human with him.

His mother, Her Grace—the great being who had ignited his soul fire and redeemed him from that boundless darkness—seemed to want him to recover his memories.

She said this was his former companion.

But he had absolutely no memory of him.

Compared to that companion, he was still far more curious about the power armor worn by the kobold.

Deep within his soul, he yearned to obtain that object, disassemble it, and understand everything about it.

Fortunately, his mother saw his desire and agreed to let him study those technologies.

But at the same time, his mother also told him something.

It was she who had killed him.

Or rather, killed his past self.

But he didn't care.

He only knew that his mother had relentlessly poured light into that darkness, ultimately redeeming him.

After he voiced his thoughts, his mother seemed very pleased.

So much so that she bestowed a new name upon him.

A name steeped in myth—Arthas!

At that moment, Arthas swore in his heart that he would never fail his mother's expectations. He would become the true Lich King and become his mother's right-hand man!

But... in the end, his mother told him to change how he addressed her, demanding he call her Master instead of mother.

At that moment, Arthas felt as if his soul fire had twitched.

He didn't understand why his mother would say such a thing.

A wave of inexplicable disappointment simply washed over his heart.

Later, Arthas understood.

It was because he was too useless, too weak.

How could someone as humble and weak as him dare to call himself his mother's eldest son?

From that moment on, Arthas silently set a goal in his heart.

‘I will surpass everyone in the empire, earn Mother's recognition, and become the true eldest son of the Empire!’

To achieve this goal, he followed his mother's instructions and went to find that kobold.

The kobold led him to a green-skinned beastkin with an ahoge—Gar.

Working under Gar, Arthas finally came into contact with the various ancient creations he had so deeply yearned for.

Following his inner instincts, he began to disassemble those creations.

However, once he finished disassembling them, he realized... he couldn't put them back together.

At that point, Arthas finally realized that without a solid foundation, it was impossible to study these creations.

So, from then on, he began acting as Gar's apprentice while the beastkin worked, studying by his side and greedily absorbing the knowledge he needed. He dreamed of one day surpassing Gar in the field of ancient beastkin technology.

At the same time, taking advantage of an undead's lack of need for sleep, Arthas would always run to the obelisk outside the city at night. There, he would absorb the lingering death energy from the soil to increase his strength while practicing his swordsmanship.

Although as a lich he was a natural spellcaster, the Lich King Arthas his mother spoke of wielded a sword. To win his mother's approval, he did not hesitate to become a melee lich, solely to bear a closer resemblance to the Lich King of her stories.

In his spare time, Arthas also tried to make friends.

This was something he wouldn't have even dared to dream of back when he was in that boundless dark space.

Unfortunately, he was an undead after all—a "freak" lingering in the world of the living. Even when he wore heavy armor to conceal his hideous, terrifying undead appearance, the beastkin and half-beastkin still feared him from the bottom of their hearts, let alone becoming his friends.

Even high-ranking members of the Black Dragon Empire, such as Fido and Gar, intentionally or unintentionally kept their distance from him.

This distressed Arthas greatly.

He despised this feeling of loneliness.

Thus, Arthas decided to create a companion of his own kind to ease his solitude.

He found the carcass of a wyvern discarded in the desert sands.

To be precise, it was a mangled carcass skewered diagonally in the yellow sand by a giant spear like a piece of kebab.

The boundless desert sands had buried most of it.

Looking at this carcass standing solitary in the yellow sand, Arthas sensed a shared feeling of loneliness.

So, he brought the carcass back and used necromancy to resurrect it as an undead.

But what he resurrected was merely an undead bone dragon completely devoid of intelligence.

Not only was this fellow incredibly stupid, but it also liked to stuff things into its bony backside from time to time.

This completely baffled Arthas.

He immediately crossed this foolish dragon off his list of potential companions, treating it merely as a mindless, goofy mount.

But this left him sinking right back into loneliness.

Just like when he was in that darkness.

To dispel this loneliness, Arthas found himself drawn to the dungeon to seek out the human named Moses.

When Moses saw him again, he seemed very excited. However, upon realizing that Arthas still hadn't recovered his memories, a deep look of disappointment washed over his face.

Arthas didn't care about any of that.

He only wanted a friend who could talk with him.

When Arthas voiced his desire...

The human seemed to agree to his request, perhaps for the sake of Arthas's past life.

But Arthas felt that this wasn't the only reason.

This human named Moses was actually very lonely as well.

Arthas could feel that loneliness.

Thus, two lonely souls found each other, and Arthas gained his very first 'friend.'

Every day, he would carve out a bit of time from his sword practice and studies to visit his only friend in the dungeon and chat.

Though most of the time, it was he who did the talking while Moses simply listened in silence.