Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Death by Ant. Or killed the Ant. Choose wisely.

Arc 1 — The "First" Death.

Abraham Ludacris never expected that his life would ended in a library. His own day-to-day workspace. And yet, that’s precisely where it happened.

He wasn’t doing anything dangerous, unless you counted reorganizing the occult section in alphabetical order by curse potency. He wasn’t meddling with forbidden knowledge. At least that time.

He wasn’t even reading aloud from that suspicious leather-bound tome that smelled like blood and tax returns. No nothing. Just his ordinary day to day work.

Abraham died because he tripped.

He tripped on his own shoelace, fell backward off a stepladder, and cracked his head against the edge of the librarian’s desk.

After groan of pain and some hallucination later, darkness swallowed him faster than the late fees from the Special Collections section.

He awoke to screaming.

Not his own.

That was mildly concerning.

Abraham sat up. Or tried to, to be precise. His back protested, his skull throbbed, and the air smelled like burnt sugar and meat gone wrong.

The sky above him churned in colors that shouldn't exist; green that shimmered like oil, purple so deep it looked wet, and any nonsensical color-combo you can imagine. Jagged peaks jutted around him like the ribs of some colossal buried beast. The earth was gray and brittle, cracked like old bone.

“Okay,” Abraham said aloud. “This surely isn’t my imagination. Everything felt real enough. Except the sky of course.”

He struggled to his feet, wobbling slightly. His clothes were the same; khaki pants, wrinkled button-up, and a brown cardigan with elbow patches. But the ground underneath him certainly wasn’t carpeted.

Nearby, a tree burst into blue flames without warning.

Abraham yelped and scrambled back. “What… what the hell is this place? Did I die? Is this... is this hell? Did I go to nerd hell by any chance?! Or worst of all, Isekai?!”

A low click-click-clack echoed nearby.

He turned. And there it was.

The ant.

It was the size of a car. Maybe even bigger. Like a minivan if the minivan had mandibles that could snip a man in half, and some pairs of claw-like legs. Its eyes gleamed like onyx marbles, and its legs moved with unnerving precision.

Abraham froze. The ant did not.

It lunged.

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He screamed his lungs out, turned, tripped again (of course), and landed on his side. The ant’s mandibles slammed into the dirt where his torso had been.

“NOPE!” Abraham scrambled backward. His hand brushed something hard—long, thin, and sharp. A bone. Something humanoid, probably. With a sharp tip. Strangely enough. What could possibly go wrong?

He did not question it. He thrusted hard.

By sheer miracle, instinct, or the chaotic blessing of interdimensional irony, the bone pierced the ant’s eye. One of it.

The beast reared, shrieking.

It staggered.

Then collapsed, shuddered once, and lay still.

Abraham blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

And again.

He had killed it.

Fortunately. Or unfortunately. He didn't even know.

He had killed a monster the size of an SUV with a some strange bone he picked up in panick.

“…Huh?”

He sat there in the dirt for a while, panting, staring at the corpse. The wind howled overhead, carrying with it the distant cries of unseen beasts. Nothing about this place felt safe. Or sane. Or both.

He stood up shakily, brushing dust off his pants. “Okay. Don’t be panic. You just... You just killed a giant ant. In another world, perhaps. With a bone. That’s... probably fine. Probably. Let's hope so.”

And then something inside him shifted.

A pulse of cold spread from his chest outward, like someone had dropped an ice cube into his soul. Runes lit up in the air around him, bone-white glyphs spinning in circles. He could feel the corpse in front of him. Feel its weight. Its shape. Its... potential.

A voice echoed in his head. Masculine. Full of authority. It struck hard he felt like his ears would bleed instantly.

'NECROMANCY INITIATED!

The first spark of necrotic energy is flaring.

Would you like to raise your first servant?'

“What the...?”

Yes or no? If no, you're dead!

“Uh...," he gulped. "It seems like I don't have a choice here, right? So yes.”

The corpse trembled.

Bone cracked. Flesh squirmed. Green-ish mist coiled from Abraham’s fingertips as if excited. In the same time, something within him vibrated. He knew it. He could sense it clearly. But he didn't know what it was. Or even where exactly that came from.

The ant’s legs twitched. Its mandibles clicked. It rose—jerkily, like a puppet learning how to move again.

And now, it looked different.

Its once chitinous black carapace had faded to a dull slate gray, streaked with veins of glowing cyan that pulsed faintly like veins filled with ghostlight.

Its eye sockets, empty where Abraham had stabbed, now shimmered with eerie green fire. It's like a motes of necromantic energy that floated inside the cavity. Cracks covered parts of its body where resurrection hadn’t fully reshaped the shell, but bone-like spikes now protruded in strange, jagged symmetry.

Its legs clicked more sharply than before, their movements just slightly off, like the timing had been taught but not fully learned. The mandibles opened and closed in sync with the glow from its body, and from its thorax trailed mist. fFaint, but ever-present, a sign of the undead magic sustaining it.

It stood before him and bowed its massive head.

'It's your most loyal servant from now on,' the same voice rang again. 'Name it as you like.'

Abraham stared. For some ten solid minutes! “You know what? I think… I think that we could do it later.”

The ant clicked once.

Affectionately?

He took a tentative step back. The ant mirrored him.

“Okay. You’re... following me now. I guess that makes sense. I killed you and brought you back from the dead. Somehow. That’s probably how this whole necromancer thing works. That's what I knew from those novels I read late night.”

The ant lowered itself slightly to the ground, like it was sitting. Its half-broken antennae wiggled in a weirdly satisfied way.

“…You’re... not gonna eat me, right?”

Click.

“Is it a yes? Fiuh…," he sighed, "that’s comforting. Disturbing, but comforting enough. Thank you.”

Abraham sat down beside it. The world felt too big, too sharp. The wind screamed overhead again, and he hugged his knees.

“This is a lot,” he whispered. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know if I’m dreaming, dead, or in some kind of messed up alternate realities," he paused. "The point is I'm screwed."

The ant scooted closer. Its carapace radiated faint warmth, surprisingly.

He sighed. “You’re the only thing here that not trying to kill me," he staggered a little. A memory of what just happened flew right inside his head.

"We talk about present tense, by the way. Not any other tenses. Just to be clear. Aside from the bone I stabbed you with too, of course. I think I’m going to name you... eventually.”

The ant gently tapped its mandible against his shoulder.

“...Thanks. I guess you’re my first friend here.”

He ran a hand down its leg, expecting cold or brittleness, but the carapace felt smooth and solid, like ancient stone polished by time. There was a hum in it, a vibration that resonated with his fingertips. Not mechanical. Not organic either. Something in between. Something... strange.

A mountain in the distance screamed. Louder this time.

The ant stood up.

Abraham groaned. “Of course. No rest for the recently transmigrated necromancer. What a good time to seek another death. Or dead.”

He dusted himself off, picked up the bone, and tried to look brave. “Alright, buddy. Let’s go see what’s screaming and find out if it wants to be friends... or wants to eat us.”

The ant clicked.

And so, began the saga of Abraham Ludacris: accidental necromancer, bone-wielding introvert, at least for now, and future Bone Emperor of a world that really, really needed a better public transportation system.

And a solid ant-to-English Duolingo.

***