Undead (1)
I laughed hollowly as I assessed the situation.
In truth, there was no need to think too deeply about it.
Hans had died.
The connection had been severed entirely, so I could not even reverse-summon him.
While meditating like that and trying the skill this way and that, I came to understand a few more details about 「Avatar」.
If an avatar died, it would likely be possible to recreate it after a certain period of time.
And the newly created avatar would be a fresh individual, with everything it had built up until then reset.
The one that had died this time had only gone through a few days of hard exercise, so there was no great loss to regret, but I could not help the bitter taste in my mouth.
Now it was time to determine the cause.
Why had Hans, who had been in a safe village, died?
And at a moment when, no matter how deeply asleep he had been, he had not even realized the fact that he was dying?
‘Well, there’s no need to think about it. It’s obvious.’
If it had simply been an attack from outside, I would have noticed somehow along the way.
Then what had been the problem?
‘That old man...’
I ground my teeth without realizing it.
I had thought I was lucky.
In a forest said to be dangerous, I had encountered only a single leopard and somehow managed to bring it down. There had been a small village nearby, and the village chief I met there had treated me kindly.
I had definitely been complacent.
It was my first time meeting them in a completely unfamiliar land.
Just because I met them in a village did not mean they were harmless NPCs from a game.
But that did not mean I could remain wary and hostile forever either.
No matter what anyone said, I was the one who had gone to them first and ended up depending on them.
‘What did he do? Did he put something in the liquor? A drug? Sleeping pills? But I didn’t feel anything strange before falling asleep...’
What was more, I had shared that liquor with the village chief, and even after quite some time had passed since we began drinking, there had been no particular reaction.
Could it be that I was simply misunderstanding, and some unexpected accident had—
Slap!
Before I could think any further, I struck my own cheek and came to my senses.
In truth, the loss I had suffered was not that great.
All I had lost was Hans’s few days of effort, the food expenses that came with it, and the belongings I had sent along with him and ended up losing.
Rather, losing Hans before suffering an even greater loss and thereby learning more about 「Avatar」 in detail was a significant gain.
But that did not mean I could continue thinking positively forever and remain complacent.
Was the danger of the other world not proven by the statistic that the average return rate was 20%?
Even with what I had experienced this time, if what had crossed over had not been an avatar, then I would have died less than two days after going to the other world, and everything would have ended there.
Now was the time to think of a response.
Should I send another avatar? The Otherworld Transfer Circle had a cooldown of one day, so that was impossible for now.
To begin with, I was reluctant to send one back to a place where I did not know what dangers remained.
Should I send one somewhere else? The transfer circle could only send an avatar to places a previous avatar had passed through.
Even if it was far from the village, it would still be right in the middle of a forest said to be dangerous.
Just as I was stuck, unable to do this or that and fretting anxiously...
...I reconnected with the avatar in the other world.
***
The first thing I heard was the village chief’s voice.
“Tsk... I thought he might be useful, but he was utterly insipid.”
“Indeed. Considering he crossed the Forest of Monsters alone, and from the way he worked, I thought he had something up his sleeve.”
“To think he was merely an Elite Skeleton. It seems I expected too much. Let’s go.”
“Yes, Master.”
The village chief’s voice, which had been conversing with someone, gradually grew distant, and then I heard the click of a door locking.
Perhaps I had tensed up without realizing it, because I loosened my stiff body and let out a sigh.
“Clack—”
No, it was just my imagination.
When I realized it, my stiff body had not loosened, nor had any sigh come out.
I was just about to slowly lower my gaze and check the state of my body.
《The individual’s racial value has been changed to ‘Undead.’ Special Skill 「Rotten Heart」 has been acquired.》
I stared sourly at the words that appeared before my eyes, then lowered my head again and examined my body.
The human skeleton model I had seen in the infirmary back in school was right here.
I looked more closely. I lifted an arm bone and checked here and there between my ribs.
And I reached a conclusion.
‘But I don’t have a heart...?’
You called it 「Rotten Heart」?
Grumbling for no reason at the uniform naming that failed to consider the individual’s characteristics, I organized the situation.
The village chief was a necromancer, and after killing me, he had revived my corpse as an undead.
And “Hans” had become an Elite Skeleton, a moving skeleton.
-Individual Name: Hans
-Race: Undead (Elite Skeleton)
-Common Traits: 「Mind Hub」, 「Super Recovery」
-Individual Traits: 「Rotten Heart」, 「Mana Affinity」
-Special Notes: Turned undead through a forbidden art. Immune to all negative effects such as death, poison, curses, and illusions. Mental corruption has not occurred due to the influence of 「Mind Hub」.
My head hurt. Though since I had no brain, it was probably just my imagination.
Then, soon enough, I stopped lamenting my lot and decided to first understand my surroundings.
I had simply been flustered by the sudden situation. In any case, it was an avatar I had thought dead, so nothing had really changed.
As I looked around, I was able to notice what was different from before.
First, despite being in darkness without a single trace of light, I could see clearly.
No, should I even call this “seeing”?
Just in case, I stuck a finger bone into my eye socket.
Hmm. As expected, it was empty.
I pulled out the finger I had been poking around my eye socket with and looked forward again.
Even though I had no eyeballs, there was no hindrance at all to seeing.
Not only that, but unlike a human, whose field of vision was limited by the focus of the pupils, the entire frontal area toward which my eye sockets faced entered my sight at once.
And I could sense the vitality around me.
Yes, I could clearly sense a rat going in and out of a mouse hole behind the back of my skull.
This was probably one of the effects of 「Rotten Heart」 as well.
After roughly checking it, I found that it was a skill containing the general traits of an “undead,” from resistance to mental attacks and cold, to undead infection and hatred toward living beings.
‘Since 「Mind Hub」 can filter out negative effects for me, it shouldn’t matter.’
The place I was in seemed to be a large underground storeroom.
I roughly looked around the old basement-like surroundings and approached the place where I had sensed the rat.
‘Ah, you scared me! What are these things!’
There, undead like myself were standing in rows.
There were piles of miscellaneous junk in the middle, and because they had been standing vacantly in the darkness without moving an inch, I had not noticed them until now.
Starting with zombies, there were even skeletons armed with bows or wearing armor.
As I examined them for a moment, the rat I had sensed earlier scurried out and approached one zombie.
Then it bit off a little toe that had been dangling loosely and slipped back into the mouse hole.
‘Ugh... disgusting...’
As I shuddered like that, the sight of the zombies somehow caught my eye, so I examined them more closely.
...There were not only adult men and women, but elderly people and children too.
‘These bastards couldn’t have...’
I recalled my memories.
The scenes I had seen from the moment I entered the village, and while walking around the village the next day.
...There had been no children anywhere.
And the biggest reason I had thought it was a slash-and-burn farmers’ village the moment I first saw it: the fields attached to the village.
While going around to help with the village work, I had not seen a single person working in the fields.
At the time, because I knew nothing about farming, I had unconsciously let it pass, but...
‘These bastards swallowed an entire village and settled down here!’
I trembled with rage at their viciousness.
At the same time, a sigh came out at how hopeless it was to figure out what to do.
‘Of course, I can’t sigh. No, enough of that already!’
This entire village was no different from enemy territory occupied by black mages.
Judging by the fact that there were undead who looked like knights as well as villagers, they were likely bastards who had disguised the place as an ordinary slash-and-burn village to deceive the eyes around them while plotting something.
And I had been prey that, without knowing I was inside a monster’s maw, had cheerfully trotted right in.
Thinking back on it now, the questions the village chief had asked seemed to have been meant to determine whether I was someone whose sudden disappearance would cause no problems.
The one-day grace period must have been the process of seeing whether eating this fellow would bring any trouble.
‘How can I deal with these bastards?’
When I realized that I had been murdered, and when I later discovered I had become undead, of course I was annoyed at having been stabbed in the back, but I had not been this angry.
Even though, thanks to 「Mind Hub」, my emotions were filtered and the shock was not great, seeing that even children had been sacrificed made it impossible not to feel disgusted.
These bastards had crossed the line by far.
If I had not known, that would be one thing, but now that I knew, I could not just let it pass.
Above all, I was undead now, so what did I have to lose?
If I could screw over the bastards who had stabbed me in the back, that would be great. If I tried and failed, then there was nothing I could do about it.
‘First, should I gather information?’
In any case, if there was one thing I had, it was time.
***
For the next few days, I searched the underground storeroom where I was locked up.
Though even that was only a little over a day in Earth time.
There seemed to have originally been two entrances, but one had completely collapsed and could not be used.
In effect, there was only one passage, the one the village chief and his disciples used to come and go.
‘Whoa, how many are there in total?’
Next, I examined the undead who were with me.
Most of the zombies seemed to have been ordinary people like the villagers, but there were also quite a few skeletons heavily armed with all sorts of weapons.
There were about fifty zombies alone. Including skeletal knights, there seemed to be around three hundred skeleton soldiers.
Clank, creeeak—
Along with the sound of the door opening, footsteps drew closer.
I immediately stopped moving and stood vacantly like the other undead.
After I became undead and was locked up here, I was able to learn that once every two or three days, the village chief’s disciples came down in turns to check the storeroom.
“Ugh, how long do we have to stay holed up in a mountain village like this?”
The one grumbling as he carelessly looked around the storeroom was a face I had seen once while repairing the village palisade together.
Was his name Jepi?
Somehow, even back then, I had thought he was slacking off instead of working hard. So he had been a black mage’s disciple.
“Hm?”
As if he felt something was strange, the man looked this way.
‘Did he notice?’
My heart dropped.
Though I had nothing but 「Rotten Heart」.
“Why is this thing here? Honestly, no one but me ever does their work properly. [Move over there.]”
At that moment, along with a voice that rang through my skull, I felt a force trying to move my body against my will.
And I was able to realize it immediately.
If I made up my mind, I could ignore it easily.
But it was not yet time.
I did not resist the force trying to move my body as it pleased, and obediently went over to where the other skeletons were gathered and lined up.
“Well, nothing wrong. But there’s no one here besides us anyway, so why does he make us check every time? That old geezer is so fussy.”
Jepi, who had been lazily checking the place while casually waving a glowing staff, soon left the storeroom while grumbling.
Creeeak— Clack.
Even after I heard the door lock, I stood still for several hours before carefully moving.
There was no need to hurry for nothing.
Rather than get caught by letting my guard down, it was better to be careful in everything and take my time.
Because “Hans” had more than enough time.
And this time, there had been one major gain.
The power I had felt when Jepi controlled my body.
It was an extremely familiar power.
Naturally so, since it was the same power that moved my body right now.
The mechanism that moved this undead body was different from that of ordinary living beings.
To begin with, did this body not lack muscles?
The power currently flowing through my body. What one might call “black mana” took the place of sensory organs, muscles, and so on, causing all sorts of functions to occur.
This too was likely a basic effect of 「Rotten Heart」.
And as I possessed 「Mana Affinity」, I was able to imitate the new way of using this power that I had directly felt through my body.
‘The method of controlling other undead.’
Coincidentally, around me, hundreds upon hundreds of undead had been left unattended.
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