From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World

Understanding nature-based magic, after working with the dead for so long, was a struggle for Lucian. He wasn't used to the smell of herbs instead of dirt and stale air. But she helped him through it in stages.

As the morning sun stretched into noon, Merry Led Lucian past the edge of her ritual grove and through trees even taller and older than the redwood tree she called home. The air was thicker here—it wasn't still, just reverent. Every leaf seemed to bend toward a truth they weren't ready to speak.

Eventually, they reached a large stone arch decorated with moss and vines. The energy around it hummed, but the arch bore no name. Still, Merry walked forward without fear, and Lucian stepped through.

And then everything changed.

+

"Welcome to the Garden of Unfinished Names."

It wasn't a garden in the normal sense. There were no rows of hedges or gates. Instead, what it had were rows and rows of flower bushes and plants. They spanned across seasons and centuries, shifting continuously, as if it remembered places Lucian had never visited.

In front of the flowering bushes were graves from different worlds. Each gravestone was laid flat, like floor tiles. Some of them were made of polished marble, and others looked like they were made of clay. A few looked like they were carved from soft bark, even.

Markers continued blinking in and out of reality like flickering candle flames. As they walked in the garden, he heard rites, half-cast, drifting in the wind. There were names etched in languages he couldn't read, and some he could. But every time he looked at them for more than a few seconds, they vanished.

Lucian turned to Merry, breath caught in his throat.

"This isn't a graveyard."

"No," she agreed. "It's memory. Where the forgotten gather. Some wait. Some settle. Some never knew they were gone."

He had no idea how to reply to this, so he just kept walking.

But what he saw next made him stop.

There were two gravestones, set beside one another, with lavender bushes in front of them. They were worn and there were a few cracks, but fairly intact. One grave had a cat carved into one, and a duck pin was embedded into the other.

Mei

Niko

He stopped.

"They were my friends," he said softly. "They invited me out. The night I—"

The night I died.

His words collapsed in his throat.

Merry knelt beside him.

"They didn't know. But they remembered you for years. Their lives bent around the space you left."

Lucian touched the stone.

"Did they find peace?"

"They did what you never got to," she said. "They gave themselves closure."

He didn't cry. Instead, he pressed both hands along their gravestones and whispered, "I'm sorry I made you wait so long."

Sorry I left so suddenly. It wasn't your fault.

Lucian moved on, but the names were starting to blur. He held his wooden cane tightly--the silver one remained in Merry's home--and it gave him some comfort. She didn't want to take any chances with silver or iron. He hadn't taken her for the superstitious type (didn't the weakness to iron only affect faeries?) but since he was in her home, he followed her rules.

And then...some stones felt far too close for comfort.

One in particular stood out to him, a gravestone with a small dove holding a flower. As he looked at the name, a wisp of a spirit appeared. It took the form of a young girl wearing a thick coat. Lucian gazed at her and when their eyes met, it was like a bolt of lightning struck him.

A memory returned: a girl in a coat, laughing in the snow. Her boots kicked up powder as she tried to catch snowflakes with her tongue.

She called his name and it felt light, warm, familiar.

"Wait—" Lucian whispered.

The memory pulled forward, like a thread in his chest.

She had a name. He knew it. He had loved her, maybe. Or nearly.

But when he tried to grasp her face—

Gone.

The moment unraveled like cloth turned to smoke.

"She looked like a ghost, but she isn't one," he murmured. "She's a... hole."

He turned to Merry. "I lost her."

Merry didn't look surprised.

"You tithed something to the system once, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"A memory. I thought I was saving someone else."

"And the system never gives it back," she said. "But the garden remembers even the holes."

Lucian stood beside the flickering shape of her—whatever remained.

He whispered: "I'm sorry. I would have kept you, if I could."

+

Further in the garden stood a weeping statue.

Not moss-covered. Not broken. Still alive in its own way—faintly glowing with glyphs burned into its chest. Lucian stepped closer and felt a sharp sting ripple through the air.

The Grimoire appeared beside him, trembling softly.

[CODEX UPDATE]

Echo detected: Mortician-Class.

Abandoned protocol: Grief Formulation R-9.

Tear-streaks were carved onto the statue's face. Its hands covered its eyes in shame.

"Who—?" Lucian asked.

"A mortician like you," Merry replied. "They came here once. Tried to cast farewell rites for every lost soul."

"And failed?"

"They tried to carry all of it. When they realized they couldn't..."

Lucian stared at the monument.

"They let go?"

"No. They turned inward. And became what they couldn't fix."

The statue pulsed once. Lucian looked away.

Back near the hearth that evening, Merry offered Lucian a wooden box filled with discarded rite fragments—half-written phrases, burned edges, pages with blood-streaked glyphs.

"Pick one," she said. "Finish what someone else couldn't."

Lucian sifted until a torn scrap caught his eye. Only one line remained legible: Let this soul pass gently into seed.

He took a deep breath, dipped his finger into a jar of soil, and wrote beneath it:

Even if no one names what they left behind.

He carried it to the garden and placed it in a bed of quiet ash.

A glow of green curled upward through the dirt.

As Lucian turned to go, he saw something tucked beneath the roots of a nearby tree—a folded note, weighed down by a white stone.

He crouched, lifted it, and read.

"I didn't know how to help. So I made something.

It's just a thought. But I hope it's soft enough to reach you."

Inside was a pressed marigold, brittle but perfectly preserved.

He ran his thumb across the petal, heart tight in his chest.

The Grimoire fluttered beside him.

[THREAD CONTACT DETECTED]

Residual Kindness Registered.

Protective Instinct: Mutual.

Lucian placed the marigold beside the weeping statue.

"Maybe you never had someone like her."

+

He paused beneath a willow and stared at the stars.

And for the first time in a long time, his thoughts wandered back to the palace—not the glory, not the rites—but the very first time he stood in Queen Marguerite's shadow.

He remembered his own panic when the bell tolled and no one else moved. The way he'd stumbled during his first sanctioned funeral. How the Queen had handed him a cloth and whispered:

"Let grief come. But don't let it command you."

He had forgotten that until now.

"She never punished me for failing," he said aloud. "Only for pretending not to."

The Grimoire stirred, but didn't write.

It remembered too.

+

He continued walking—alone now, past the places where most spirits no longer stirred.

Near the garden's edge, the dirt was warped. Not corrupted, but bent inward—like the world had flinched.

He knelt and found a root glyph.

Backward.

Written in reverse.

Lucian tried to correct it, slowly tracing the proper spiral.

The dirt hissed.

A breath escaped the ground.

Lucian flinched—then stood sharply.

"Don't rewrite that one."

The voice came from behind. He turned and saw a spirit in merchant's robes. He quickly hid his hands, but Lucian saw glyph-scars. The spirit's face was cracked, like a porcelain mask.

"Who are you?"

"An echo. A name lost in a deal too sharp to hold."

Lucian stepped closer.

"The Spymaster?"

The spirit nodded.

"He offered me a perfect death. I gave him secrets. Souls. And when I wanted out..."

"He sealed you."

"I betrayed him. And now I am not allowed to forget."

Lucian felt cold settle behind his teeth.

"Do you want to be free?"

"No. But I want you to remember...not all bindings are threads. Some are mouths, and when hungry, they eat."

And then the spirit dissolved into ash and dust.

+

That night, Lucian sat beneath the trees.

The Grimoire hovered beside him, steady.

[CODEX UPDATE]

Emotion-formed rites now stable.

Thread weight: balanced.

Caster Name: Lucian Bowcott — confirmed.

You have built a closure no system can revoke.

He exhaled and felt true peace.

And then made the mistake of looking up. He felt a singular presence filled with malice and amusement.

It wasn't from the Grimoire or an intruder in the garden--but from the forest's edge.

There was a figure leaning against a tree that remained unbent, its branches barren of both leaves and fruit. Lucian frowned as he saw the boots that did not touch the ground.

He almost saw the spotless gloves, and heard the disgustingly charming voice.

Almost.

Lucian knew he would speak with the Spymaster soon.