World's Best Undad (Original)

I'm going to start posting some of my old original stories that have been rotting in my drive , and working on them in my free time as a hobby. I'll be posting them on Royal Road, and I plan to start a second SFW Patreon as a cover story so that I don't have to tell strangers I write porn when they ask!

I'm only going to be doing a couple short chapters each week so that it doesn't eat into my time for time for my fanfiction work, which will completely remain my complete focus. Also, I have like 30 chapters written from last year, so I'll be posting those as I edit them.

I wasn't sure about posting these on Bag of Depravity, but I put up a poll a few weeks ago, and it was about a 2/3rds majority saying they were interested. If a SFW original fiction story isn't up your ally, no worries! My other stories will continue updating as usual.

The first chapter is going up for all members, but the chapters after that will be limited to Shopping Bag subscribers. All Fanfiction stories will continue to be accessible for Gift Bag subscribers, this is just a small benefit for Shopping Bag and above!

Synopsis:

When Wyatt became a Necromancer, he never planned on reanimating himself. He never wanted to be forced into some twisted fantasy world in the first place, but when saddled with a System that sees “choice” and “” as skippable options, you make do with what you can get. Armed with three starter skills and an undead body with a built-in hankering for flesh, it’s going to take ingenuity and a whole lot of practice to keep him out of an early grave. The world of Varra is not kind to Outsiders, with good reason— most of them want to see the world burn.

Just in case all that wasn’t enough, Wyatt quickly finds himself facing the harshest task of his chaotic unlife: fatherhood. Well, he’ll show the world not to underestimate reanimated corpses. He’ll become the best “Undad” anybody has ever seen.

Chapter 1

Hear My Story

“Normal!” Wyatt screamed. “I am completely normal!”

His words sputtered in a cloudless sky. The stray pebbles scattered across the ground didn’t think much of his declaration. A distant, deep part of his brain recognized that strangers hearing it wouldn’t have been impressed either — when someone screams how normal they are, you immediately start wondering what’s screwy on the inside — but he was quickly distracted. 

His echo just now sounded a bit… sarcastic. Was it mocking him?

“Screw you!”

Predictably, this didn’t help. It’s hard to get the last word when arguing with your echo. After a dozen more boomerang insults, Wyatt realized what he was doing. 

Screaming at an empty chasm, sure, but more than that. He was losing his mind. 

“Can’t. Uh-uh. No way, no how, not a chance,” he muttered. “Gotta stop this. Gotta occupy my mind with something. It can’t unravel if it’s busy. But what is there to… Story! My story!”

The idea was so perfect he would have patted himself on the back, had his plan not needed both hands. Snatching a pebble from the ground, he rushed to the towering cliff face beside him, desperately scraping letters into its surface. He needed to tell everything: who he was; how he died, lived, died and lived again; everything that drove him here, stranded in this unending canyon. If he could just write everything down…

Wyatt lost himself in the scraping of stone on stone, letting letters and memories wash over him. 

O-O-O

Routines. You’ll have thousands in your lifetime, from chores to jobs to commutes. For Wyatt, the most recent was the fifteen-minute walk between his college campus and the one-bedroom apartment he recently moved into.

The trees had been nice scenery at first, and he’d enjoyed how lively the neighborhoods felt, frat kids passing footballs one block and kids playing tag on the next, but these days he hardly paid attention. Earbuds in, he looked down at the sidewalk.  He was a senior now. There was always at least one assignment to think about, and on the rare occasion that there wasn’t, grad school and employment options loomed in their place. 

That fateful day was no different; a Wednesday with nothing special about it, until the car turned the corner. 

Wyatt didn’t notice at first. Sidewalk staring, assignment thoughts, all that. But this car didn’t so much turn the corner as it squealed into view, drifting like a NASCAR driver gunning for first place. It was a jet-black sedan with dark windows, bass blaring from its sound system, all of which Wyatt processed when he finally did look up, at which point the car was already half a block closer to him. It had to be doing at least 60, despite the 25-mile-per-hour speed limit sign posted feet from where Wyatt stood.

It all struck Wyatt as so strange. College kids could be crap drivers, you learned that early driving around town, but they had limits. This was beyond reckless. Windows that tinted had to be illegal. He couldn’t even see inside the windshield with the way the sun was glaring off it. 

And, just as he was thinking all this, the car swerved at him.

It didn’t spin out. It turned as deliberately as when it took the corner into view. This wasn’t a mistake, it was a murder attempt. It was premeditated. It— was not the time for thinking! 

Wyatt hurled himself sideways, clearing the car’s path by centimeters.

If he had noticed the car even a second later he would’ve been turned into a pulpy projectile. The car hit a girthy tree behind him and crumpled like an aluminum can.

Wyatt staggered to his feet at the same time smoke started rising from the destroyed hood. The base was still audible, so the sound system must have survived. As for the driver… Wyatt didn’t feel like checking yet. There was a limit to his selflessness. 

He was just standing there, thinking about what in the world he was supposed to do now, when things went from unbelievably weird to… something else. Something beyond.

A feeling of annoyance flooded over him. Not his own. It was like the frustration you feel when you shoot a wadded-up paper towel for the restroom trash and miss, except it belonged to something that wasn’t Wyatt. How was he experiencing it, then? Wyatt didn’t know. And that bothered him.

The feeling changed. Begrudging resignation, he would describe the new mood as. If the old feeling was missing the trash, this was stooping down, scooping up the paper ball, and dropping it where it was meant to go. That irritating extra step.

“What in the world is happening?” Wyatt wondered aloud.

He didn’t notice the tree the car had hit shudder, or the broad, heavy branch snap off…

Directly above his head.

O-O-O

“What happened?”

Wyatt forced his eyes open, the action taking far more energy than he remembered it having in the past. Once that was done, though, he felt great. Full of energy. As if he’d just been born, all fatigue washed away.

It took him all of five seconds to realize he would need this extra energy. Around him was a wasteland. Directly behind him a rough cliff blocked everything, and ahead a narrow canyon extended further than the eye could see. There was nobody else. The walls rose at ninety-degree angles, stretching hundreds of feet into the air. In the sliver of blue sky that he could see there wasn’t so much as a cloud to give him company.

Things were beginning to come back to him now. The car, the accident, the tree branch. He’d been crushed— the realization hit him like a second impact. Was he… dead? He hoped not. He’d often wondered what the afterlife would be like, if there even was one, and something this boring would be one hell of a letdown. Maybe he was in a coma? He’d always assumed comas were just like sleeping, only deeper and maybe without the ‘waking up’ part ever coming. He wasn’t a medical student, alright? Just a boring old communications major. Fat lot of good it did in this situation. What was he going to communicate with, the sandy dirt under his butt?

You know what? What the hell. 

“Where am I?” Wyatt asked the ground. “I’m pretty unbelievably lost, so anything helps.”

He gave it a second, quiet, and tried to ignore how utterly silent everything was without his voice.

“Yeah, I expected as… much…”

Wyatt trailed off, staring. Somehow, asking the dirt had worked. That was the only explanation, right? Because there, directly in front of him, a green box had appeared, filled with white text. 

Congratulations! You, lucky winner, have been selected based on a long list of stringent criteria as a possible recipient of the following benefits: RESURRECTION. To prove yourself, complete the listed quest.

Quest: Down, Doggy, I Have Places to Be!

Clear Objective: Reach level 5.

Minor Objective 1: Survive the Wolf.

Minor Objective 2: Find food.

Minor Objective 3: Find something to drink.

Bonus Objective: Hidden.

Quest? Wyatt was a college student. He knew this sort of setup; from games, though. Status screens, levels, objectives— that was all supposed to stay inside a screen, not interrupt your Wednesday. 

He set that aside. More words were appearing.

To reduce quest difficulty from Impossible to Challenging Class selection will now begin.

Was it odd that this message calmed Wyatt slightly? He wasn’t a video game character, never planned on becoming one, and honestly wasn’t thrilled that it seemed to be happening to him anyway. But character creation? That was always fun. What were the options? An archer would be cool, firing perfect shots from a safe distance. It would be scary if anything got close, though. Maybe a rogue to sneak past danger? Or maybe…

Class selected.

Wyatt blinked. “What about my choice?”

Proper selection requires detailed factor analysis. As Humans lack the necessary capabilities, system intervention is required. Your class is: Necromancer.

Starter skills

Manipulate Flesh: Greater control when manipulating flesh and other biological compounds. Attention: only animal matter is eligible. Attention: animal matter must already be dead.

Instill Life: Using your sickly mana, imbue corpses with that which they have lost. Imbued corpses maintain perfect obedience regardless of personality. Attention: cannot animate beings of a higher level than the caster.

Dig: The best corpses are often tucked away, but that won’t stop this cadaver. 30% boost to physical stats while digging. Attention: others will consider this skill lame.

Wyatt stared blankly at the words hovering in front of him. Then he got to his feet, starting to pace. He walked faster and faster, until he was nearly jogging, and kicked out, sending a spray of sand and pebbles into the canyon wall.

“Necromancer? Seriously?”

What kind of game told you what character you would make? A really, really shitty one. Strangely, in the moment, it made Wyatt feel better, even as anger surged through him. It was because of the anger. Bad games make players angry, and as long as he was mad he wasn’t thinking about how cosmically screwed he was starting to suspect he really was.

“It couldn’t even be a decent class,” he muttered. “At least let me be a knight, or a ranger. If I had to be a magic user I would’ve taken wizard. But no. All I get are stinking dead bodies— probably literally.”

Necromancer is a perfectly respectable class.

“You’re still listening?” Wyatt asked, staring at the new message. “C’mon, you’re screwing me over here and you know it.”

The message didn’t change, but the screen flashed, giving Wyatt the impression it was repeating itself.

“Whatever,” he said, not quite out of it enough to argue with the translucent screen that may have been a figment of his imagination. “Anything else that I should know, or are we done here?”

The screen flashed one more time without changing, then blipped out of existence. Wyatt growled before shaking his head and forcing it to clear.

So he was a necromancer, and he was stuck with it. Well, so what? He wouldn’t let that stop him! He would overcome adversity and…

What exactly was he trying to do? Get home, he supposed, but his best chance for that seemed like hoping all of this was a dream. Not that he thought that. Even lucid dreams didn’t feel like this. 

It all washed over him with enough force to make his vision swim. What was he doing? If he passed this quest, what would he be left with? Was there a point to any of this?

His legs wobbled, and he might’ve sat down hard if he hadn’t been interrupted. But interrupted he was, a deep growl rolling down the canyon.

The sound sent adrenaline ripping through his system. There was something primal about the noise that insisted, without room for argument, it was the sound of a predator. It forcibly reminded Wyatt of an instinct that modern humans tend to forget: 

We were once prey.

When he laid eyes on the wolf, he didn’t know whether to feel relieved or horrified.

In favor of relief: it was clearly limping, one front and one back paw completely mangled. It was skinny enough for its ribs to show clearly through the skin and fur. Its muzzle had white specks telling of old age, and its left eye was milky with a scar through it, clearly blind. 

In favor of horror: well, first off, it was a wolf. It was snarling, foamy saliva pooling in its gums, and for all its injuries those teeth looked plenty sharp. Worst of all was the look in its good eye. Hunger burned inside it. If the wolf didn’t win its next hunt it would die, and it clearly aware of that. This animal was prepared to fight until its body failed.

Old Injured Wolf

Level 1

Wyatt read the status window in his peripherals, refusing to take his eyes off the advancing wolf. He was suddenly very conscious of how empty-handed he was. Why didn’t he walk to school with a gun again? It was as if he hadn’t expected to be teleported to a maybe-not-on-Earth magic canyon. 

“Any weaknesses?” Wyatt asked hopefully, not ashamed of the way his voice squeaked.

The status window stayed the same for a few long seconds, then added new lines.

Old Injured Wolf

Level 1

Weaknesses:

Old.

Injured.

“I would slap you if I could,” Wyatt promised the glowing pane of text.

The wolf pounced.

As Wyatt dodged out of the way, he found a new appreciation for life. Everyone knew dogs came from wolves, but anything that could turn this mess of claws, fangs, and murderous intent into a chihuahua was truly mighty.

He wished he had that power right about now.

The wolf adjusted quickly, coming at him again as soon as it landed. Wyatt ducked to its blindside to confuse it, and that seemed to work, but he had limited time here. Defense wouldn’t get him anywhere.

He threw a punch.

It was clumsy. He was a suburban kid, alright? The last fight he got into was in fifth grade, and he was never dumb enough to pick up boxing. Getting punched in the face wasn’t his idea of a fun Thursday. Only, looking at himself now, it felt like he was the dumb one.

The punch connected, which was the good news. The bad news was that it bounced off without doing more than make the wolf grunt and shift its head. It also hurt his hand more than he expected, but there wasn’t time to focus on that.

The wolf snapped at him, and this time it grazed his arm. 

It only cut him, rather than tearing off a real chunk of flesh, but pain erupted in his arm. Wyatt screamed. It was a lot harder to take injuries in silence than movies made it look, and he wasn’t thinking about looking tough here.

He stumbled back, which was a mistake. The wolf pressed him. It lunged and snapped its jaws, over and over, and although he dodged the first few, his back soon hit the canyon’s edge.

In a flash the wolf leapt at him, and Wyatt dodged the only way he could, by diving to the side. Before he could rise the wolf was straddling him, stretching to bring its jaws down around his throat.

Wyatt’s hands dug into the mangy fur of its chest, pushing for all he was worth. Those teeth still moved closer. The stench of decomposing meat filled its breath, bathing his face, and for the life of him Wyatt couldn’t tell if it was coming from the wolf’s past meals or its own dying body. His fingers scrabbled harder, muscles burning hotter and hotter.

Even though this wasn’t even remotely the time, silly thoughts whizzed around Wyatt’s head. It all felt so unfair. First his class is chosen for him, then he gets something crummy like Necromancer, and then he’s thrown straight into a fight. If he were a knight, this probably wouldn’t have even been a challenge. Wasn’t the difficulty supposed to be Impossible without skills? What was Wyatt supposed to do with the skills he had, dig himself a grave?

But as the questions came and went, and the wolf’s deadly fangs sunk closer, something else filled him. It was quiet at first, but he felt it stronger and stronger. The emotion was like a roar, a part of him he’d never had a reason to know about, as intense as it was simple.

He didn’t want to die.

He would not die.

He refused to die.

He ripped one arm away from the wolf’s chest, allowing it to overpower him. In the instant before his throat was ripped to shreds by those teeth, he brought the hand back with a vengeance. His fingers dug deep into the beast’s working eye.

The gooey sensation made him want to retch, but this newfound survival sense drowned that out. The wolf howled, missing his head and snapping up sand and pebbles instead. It was still on top of him, and its clawed feet scrabbled at Wyatt’s chest, tearing up his shirt and cutting his flesh. Wyatt gritted his teeth. He jammed his hand further into the creature, distracting it, and around felt with his free hand for a rock large enough to hold.

He found one quickly, wasting no time in bringing it down on the wolf’s head. The crack was ugly and sharp. He pulled back to swing again.

At this point, a healthy animal would have fled. Its desire to not die would have won out, and it would limp away to recover. But this wolf knew there would be no recovery if it retreated. So even blind, even concussed, even on the brink of death, it chose to bite.

Fangs dug into Wyatt’s chest. He bellowed as loud as his voice could go; it was like when his arm was wounded, except thousands of times stronger. This was what he always imagined being shot to feel like. But, like the wolf, Wyatt was too far gone to submit. He would not stop. Would not or could not. He struck with the rock again, this time using both hands, straight down on the wolf’s cranium.

Three blows. It took three blows before the wolf’s teeth loosened. It slumped down on him, feeling astoundingly heavy. Laying there, pain coursing through his body, Wyatt stared up at the blue sky beyond the canyon’s lip.

“I… did it,” he panted. “I did it.”

Monster slain: Old Injured Wolf.

Experience Points: 15

Attention! Level up. Level 1 —> Level 2.

Partial health refill.

Wyatt blinked at the message. Before he’d even finished processing them, some of the pain in his body disappeared. He now felt like utter shit, rather than a corpse in the making.

He rolled the dead wolf off of him, determined to make it easier to get a breath in, and the corpse moved shockingly easily. Too easily. Wyatt narrowed his eyes, until a new status window appeared.

Manipulate Flesh Upgraded: Level 1—> Level 2.

Huh, good to know. So skills upgraded with use, independent of character level. He might have appreciated the discovery more if he didn’t still feel like a car crash victim that had taken on a Wipeout course and lost. 

Wyatt stood, then sat back down when he felt the world wobble and sway. Okay. Definitely too soon. 

Instead, he conjured the quest window again, just in time to watch something change.

Survive the wolf: 0/1

Bing!

Survive the wolf: 1/1

He’d done it. He sighed, a tiny flower of relief sprouting in his stomach. So of course a big black metaphorical boot had to immediately stomp the sapling into the dirt.

Bing!

New Objective

Survive the wolf: 0/1

“I’ll never be free,” Wyatt whispered, staring at the quest window in horror. “I made progress. I damn near died to do it. And you just rip it away from me, like it never even happened? I’ll kill you! I’ll—”

You did make progress.

“Huh?” Wyatt looked at the new message on a second, separate green window. 

It was wrong. It had to be. The Kill the Wolf objective had been replaced, and he watched it happen.

Look closer.

So he did. He scanned his window again.

Wyatt Rodgers

Necromancer

Level 2

Experience: 0/5o

Thralls: 1/1

There! The level! It had only increased by one, but it meant the world to him. He wasn’t running on a hamster wheel! A [Clear Objective] must mean that if he finished that one, he beat the quest. He could finish! He could escape!

Of course, as his eyes drifted over the rest of the window, that good mood started to diminish.

“Find food, huh?”

The rest of the objectives… even if they weren’t the way to beat the quest, they must’ve been things he needed to make it that far. One wolf had only given him one level. He would have to beat another four at minimum. More, if leveling got harder the higher you went. Doing what he’d just done four more times sounded impossible, but it sounded especially impossible on an empty stomach.

He looked around himself. Dust. Rocks. Sand. That was all there was as far as the eye could see, with the exception of one specific thing.

Wyatt stared at the raw, bleeding wolf corpse in front of him.

“As if this day couldn’t get worse…”