Reincarnated As The Hero Ring

We were just about to join the battle against the undead skeletons in the trade central area, our movement was immediately stopped when someone I know suddenly appears from the shadows. It was the shady guy wearing the black robe, he appears right in front of us. 

"I had found you again, why do you leave me Atheas?" That man asks me as he doesn't know the reason why I teleported to another place. 

I can't answer him directly as I was not equipped with the shady guy. I somehow felt the shady guy presence here will only bring more trouble to us. I decided to tell Vicar to ignore him and be careful at the same time as he might be indeed somewhat powerful. 

"Come back Atheas! Don't you want to be with the demon lord..." He said that. 

Vicar didn't know who was this shady guy and he asks me about it. I just tell Vicar that this man might be the follower of the first demon lord that and trying to revive the demon lord. 

"Atheas! Speak to me... I'm one of your comrades." The shady guy said that as it makes me wonder what sort of relationship do the previous Atheas ring has with the shady guy. 

Vicar was confused when the shady guy keeps saying the word Atheas, "Who is Atheas? My name is Vicar..." He said that. 

"Atheas was my name and he was talking with me," I said that to Vicar as he doesn't know my real name in this world was. 

Vicar now knows why the shady guy kept saying Atheas, he then does something that I didn't expect him to do. "You looking this ring right?" Vicar shows his hand. 

"Give me that ring young man in exchange for power..." The shady guy said that as he trying to pull something out from his robe. 

He then pulled out a ring, a ring that I had seen before. It was similar to the ring he gave Eli, a ring with a dark gem. That shady guy then offers Vicar the dark gem ring for me as he said that it would give Vicar an incredible amount of power, different from the ring that Vicar currently has. 

"Is that so? You might be telling a lie and that might only be a normal ring... demonstrate its power and I will decide whether I will give you mine." Vicar said that and it somehow makes me think that he may trade me up. 

"Vicar! Are you insane... That guy wanted to use me for evil and you wanted to give me to him!" I said that as I was afraid that Vicar would agree with the trade. 

"Don't worry about it, I will not trade you... because I'm your owner, after all, Aliss does." Vicar said that as he will not take that offer. 

"So why would you tell him to demonstrate that ring power?" I ask him that as I still didn't understand why Vicar did said that. 

Vicar said his reason for doing so and it was really a good idea, "To test out what that dark ring could do, that shady guy might fight us eventually to get you back." Vicar said that. 

The shady guy demonstrates the power of the dark ring. The dark gem of the ring glows when he successfully said something, there was a magic circle on the ground and skeletons suddenly come out from it. We realized that the dark ring has that kind of power. 

"That's all? This Atheas ring could do more than that dark ring of yours..." Vicar said that trying to tell that the dark ring wasn't that powerful as the man had said it was. 

His reaction when he heard what Vicar had said to him just now. The shady guy was surprised and seems to not believe in what Vicar had said. "There's no way a human-like you could use the Atheas power..." The shady guy said. 

"Everyone can use it as long as they were equipped with the ring," Vicar said that as he still didn't believe it. 

"No one can use it! Atheas wouldn't let anyone uses the power unless that person was the first demon lord." He said that and ask Vicar to give him the ring. 

"As I said earlier, I will decide and I had made up my mind to not give my ring to you... because your ring didn't match the power with my ring." Vicar said that as we both know that a fight would happen any time now with the shady guy. 

"Your ring? Atheas doesn't belong to you! It belongs to the demon lord..." He said that as he uses the dark ring and summons some skeletons and order the skeletons to kill Vicar. 

We already know that it would happen and Vicar already prepare for it. The skeletons charges toward us and Vicar walk forward slowly. He stabs the first skeleton with the dagger, and it falls to the ground. Vicar stabs another in the head, breaking its skull.

Vicar knows that he should defeat the shady guy first and he decided to use his skill Blood Stats, he then hit by the shady guy with his dagger on the side, Vicar then stabs the skeleton again on the other side. He collapses and Vicar goes for another hit and punches the shady guy in the side of the head and he falls to the ground.

A sound can be heard when his head hits the stone in the ground, it might have shattered his skull or something. I didn't even realize that Vicar punches him that hard. 

"And now, you will die but tell me first... what your purpose," Vicar said that before he would land the final blow to end the fight. 

I really didn't expect that the battle would be over this soon as I expected that the shady guy would be much more powerful. But it seems that the shady guy wasn't that powerful as I thought as he was easily defeated by Vicar that on level 11. 

"If... If you were going to kill me... You should at least kill my real body." The shady laughs as his body began to fade away. 

We were both shocked to know that what we were fighting wasn't his real body at all. That would explain why it was so weak but there something been bothering me. How the heck that he could find me here, does he has some spy in here?

Vicar then tried to hit the shady guy with the dagger before it fades away but he was late. The moment he tried that the shady guy disappeared and he drops the dark ring on the ground. Vicar picks it up and puts the ring on his pouch as the skeletons that he hasn't defeated were coming near us. 

Just in a few minutes, Vicar easily defeated all of the summoned skeletons. After that was finish, he took out the dark ring and begin to examine it. I also look at it and notice something, it was really an identical ring to the one he gave to Eli. 

"To think that a simple ring like this could summon skeletons, this ring is indeed dangerous..." Vicar said that as he put it back in his pouch. 

When Vicar said that, I realized something about the dark ring. I now know why the skeletons keep appearing as Eli was the one that summoned the undead into this town. By removing the ring from Eli's hand, it would stop the undead from appearing in this town. 

With that, we could defeat the skeletons that have been summoned and the town would not be in danger anymore. 

"Vicar listen to me... I think I had figure out why how to stop the undead from keep coming out from the ground." I said that to Vicar. 

"Really? How do you figure it out..." Vicar asks me about that.

"You know the dark ring power right? That shady guy gives the same ring to Eli and that why the undead number never decreases even we had defeated a very huge number of them." I said that to Vicar. 

"So what you trying to say here that defeating Eli would stop the undead number from increasing," Vicar said that as he understands what I'm trying to say here. 

"You catch on that very quick... So let's defeat Eli!" I said that as finally we could end the battle. 

"I don't think we could go straight into Eli place, she was on the outer wall remember," Vicar said that as we couldn't reach Eli that quick. 

I understand what Vicar meant by it as there was a battle at the trade central area and at the gate. We needed to go through the battle just to reach the outer wall. So that means we need to fight in the battle and it will delay us from reaching Eli place. 

"Isn't there any way we could use to reach the outer wall?" I ask Vicar as he seems to know the way of the town.