Etzel Deymar made it almost all the way out of the forest before realizing he had a problem.
Not a monster problem.
Not a bleeding problem.
Not even a my ribs hurt every time I breathe too deeply problem.
Those were all problems.
This one was more immediate.
Etzel stopped walking.
DK took three more steps before noticing.
He turned.
"What is it?"
Etzel didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at the man standing in front of him.
Tall.
Armed.
Armored from head to toe in polished silver plate.
A sword at his hip.
A shield on his arm.
The general appearance of someone who had walked directly out of a battlefield and somehow gotten lost on the way to invading a kingdom.
Then Etzel looked past him.
Through the thinning trees, he could just make out the road.
Beyond that were buildings.
People.
Civilization.
His house.
His mother.
Etzel slowly closed his eyes.
"Oh."
DK waited.
Etzel opened them again.
"I just realized I can't take you home."
DK looked toward the distant buildings.
"Why?"
Etzel stared at him.
"Look at yourself."
DK did.
He examined one gauntlet.
Then his armor.
Then the sword.
"I see nothing unusual."
"Of course you don't."
Etzel rubbed his forehead.
"Most people don't bring six feet of armed amnesia home after a morning run."
DK's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Armed amnesia."
"It's an affectionate description."
"I doubt that."
"The important part is that my family doesn't know about you."
"Why?"
That question was harder.
Etzel looked toward the road again.
Because he hadn't planned any of this.
Because yesterday morning he'd been a normal eighteen-year-old.
Because telling his family that he'd accidentally awakened as a Hunter, fought an Epic creature alone, nearly died, chosen one of the most notoriously unreliable abilities in existence, and somehow summoned an A-Rank warrior from another world sounded like an excellent way to give his mother a medical emergency.
And because he didn't understand his own power yet.
That mattered most.
Etzel wasn't ashamed of it.
He wasn't planning to hide forever.
He just wanted answers before he started giving them.
"I'll tell them."
DK watched him.
"Eventually."
"When?"
"When I know what I'm telling them."
DK considered that.
Then nodded.
No lecture.
No argument.
Etzel appreciated that.
There was, however, still the immediate problem of the giant knight.
"Right."
Etzel summoned his interface.
"Let's see if my terrible life choices came with storage."
DK frowned.
"Storage?"
"Please don't take that personally."
"I am beginning to understand that I should take most things you say personally."
"You're learning fast."
Etzel opened the Limited Necromancer interface.
There was more information now than there had been before his first kill.
Not much.
The System apparently believed documentation was a privilege rather than a basic feature.
He focused on DK's entry.
SUMMON STATUS
DETAILS
Name
Dark Knight
Rank
A
Potential
SS