Chapter 58: The Skeletons Are Screwed
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 58: The Skeletons Are Screwed
“Theodora! Watch out—!!!”
A dark green, blazing fireball streaked toward Theodora at high speed. She quickly ducked, narrowly avoiding the magical projectile. It flew past her and slammed into the wall, triggering a massive explosion.
BOOM—!!
The blast was powerful enough to make their ears ring and kick up a violent gust of wind, yet strangely, the stone walls of the labyrinth remained without a single scratch.
“Why is there a Skeleton Mage on the 12th floor?!”
Clad in tattered, soot-colored robes, the Skeleton Mage hovered low in the air. It held a staff in its right hand, while its left wrist was encircled by a dark green magic circle that flickered like a glowing bracelet.
That mana bracelet was a sign that the Skeleton Mage had finished preparing its spell. Once it appeared, one had to either keep a constant, wary eye on the creature or kill it immediately.
“Are you saying they don’t usually appear here?!”
Aven pulled a spear shaft from his fingertips, gripped it tight, and hurled it with all his might at the creature’s skull. It was a glancing blow, but it struck the right jaw with enough force to shatter the bone. Losing its magical flight, the floating skeleton crashed to the floor.
Clatter.
“Phew. How do these brainless bastards use magic so well?”
“Something is wrong. As far as I know, Skeleton Mages are monsters that only start appearing on the 15th floor at the earliest…”
On the 11th floor, one usually encountered skeleton grunts wielding cold steel—Skeleton Warriors with swords and shields, or Skeleton Soldiers with long spears.
On the 12th floor, the new additions were typically Skeleton Archers, who fired weak arrows with terrible accuracy, or Skeleton Snipers armed with crossbows.
Of course, their arrows were rusted and coated in potent venom; even a slight graze could send a person to the afterlife from the damage over time. That is, unless they had immediate treatment or an antidote.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
If Aven had been alone, he could have simply extended his tail and performed a 360-degree whirlwind strike to wipe them all out. However, with Theodora by his side, his movements were restricted.
There were about thirty melee skeleton grunts and one Skeleton Mage. According to Theodora, the mage shouldn't have appeared until the 15th floor. It wasn't an elite entity, just a common mob that happened to be on the stronger side.
“It would have been nice if we had a priest with holy power.”
“A priest, huh?”
Holy magic was apparently the kind used by the cathedrals. Could one use decent healing magic just by attending church? If that were true, Aven felt like he might actually consider joining.
“Aven. You said you wanted to go to the 13th floor? The state of the labyrinth is a bit strange. I think it would be better to return to the surface from the next base camp.”
“Sure, if that’s your judgment. I’m not exactly looking to go looking for trouble either.”
Aven might not have been sure about his own combat power relative to others, but Theodora was far more experienced with the labyrinth than he was. If she sensed an anomaly, escaping immediately was the best course of action. Those who stayed behind thinking they’d be fine were usually the ones who met a grim end.
“That aside, this was a dreadfully unproductive battle. Nothing to gain, nothing useful to take.”
“Um, Aven. Can you not eat those skeletons?”
“Those things? They’ve been dead for ages.”
“I see…”
“Hmm… well, let’s check them out anyway.”
Bones were hard and didn't rot, so they showed little outward change even long after death. Of course, that didn't mean bones lasted forever.
The marrow inside eventually rotted into powder, and the periosteum—the membrane connecting muscle fibers to bone—along with various other elements, differed greatly from when the creature was alive.
Ultimately, bones served to maintain body shape and produce blood. Since their strength also diminished over time, there was usually no need to consume bones that had been dead for so long.
“Let’s see…”
Aven picked up a long bone from a skeleton sprawled on the ground like trash and snapped it in half with both hands.
Crack.
“Completely hollow.”
Just as he expected, there was no marrow inside, and the structural integrity was much weaker than a normal bone. If the femur was this weak, there was no point in looking at the others.
“Nothing special here… Oh, wait a second.”
“What is it, Aven?”
“The Skeleton Mage. I’m curious how this bag of bones manages to use magic.”
Unlike the others, who either wore simple helmets or nothing at all, the Skeleton Mage wore a leather robe of a dull, murky brown.
Thanks to that, even though its jaw had been shattered and it had lost its power, it hadn't scattered in all directions. It lay on the floor, relatively intact.
“I’ll try eating it first. If it’s useless, I can just spit it out.”
“W-won’t you get sick if you just eat anything like that…?”
“I’ll give it a shot. If something goes wrong, I’m sure it can be treated.”
Theodora told him to leave the treatment to her. Aven gathered the creature’s bones into its tattered robe, opened the mouth of the Colossal Croco—which was equipped with a Titan Toad’s stomach—and dumped them in like he was discarding trash.
Rattle—
“Now, the question is how to use this.”
Normally, skeletons were just bones. In a living body, bones were the internal support structure, covered by muscle fibers, fat, and skin.
But skeletons had no muscle or flesh—only bone. So, if Aven wanted to use the Skeleton Mage’s hand, should he form it as a bone beneath his muscles? Or should he remove the arm entirely and just have the bone exposed?
And if only the bone remained, would the joints even stay connected like the Skeleton Mage’s did?
“Wait, how do these bastards’ joints even stay together in the first place?”
Looking closely, he realized these skeletons were insane. They had nothing that could be called cartilage. He had noted the rattling sound they made with every step, but how did the bones stay attached without cartilage?
For that matter, how did they move without muscles? How did they attack without a brain? He could probably write a script for an hour-long video on the "Top 100 Reasons Skeletons Can't Exist."
“It’s a Lich’s magic. A dark art that traps the souls of the dead in bone and makes them move by siphoning life force.”
“I see.”
But since this was another world, "Magic" took the #1 spot for why skeletons could exist.
“Does a Lich’s magic only work on the dead?”
“I… don’t really know. I’m not a scholar.”
“Hmm.”
Aven’s ability turned absorbed entities into a "living state." Scientifically speaking, the death of an organism was a very difficult thing to define.
Of course, from a common perspective, a creature was considered "dead" the moment its head was split open.
However, even if the head was split, the microorganisms and other life forms that made up the body continued to live and move for a short time. A body wasn't just one entity; it was like a compressed file of countless tiny living things.
If it was a fresh, un-decayed corpse, Aven could consume it, reconnect the nerves within his own body, supply nutrients, and turn it into a living part of himself again.
“This is difficult. I feel like I’m becoming a philosopher.”
“Mmm, it sounds complicated.”
“What do you think, Theodora? Should I use the skeleton’s bone like a normal bone? Or should I use it as just bone, like the skeleton does?”
“Umm… why don't you try using it like a skeleton..?”
“I see.”
He could try both and see which one worked. He had been debating which to start with, but since Theodora suggested it, he decided to try the skeleton method first.
He stripped away the musculoskeletal structure above his left elbow joint, removing skin and muscle until the humerus of his upper arm was exposed to the air. Of course, he didn't want to damage his actual structure, so he had replaced it with the bone of a monster he’d eaten earlier.
Now, all he had to do was manifest the Skeleton Mage’s left arm bone over it…
Clatter—
“Ah.”
“It didn't work?”
“Guess not…”
When he tried to manifest just the bone without cartilage or muscle, it immediately fell to the floor, the connection severed. This method was a no-go. He had suspected as much.
This time, he tried the method of treating the skeleton’s bone like a normal bone—attaching skin, fat, and muscle, and covering it with a periosteum inside his body.
After restoring his left arm to its original state, he replaced his humerus with the one he had recovered from the Skeleton Mage.
In that instant.
“Urgh…!?”
“Aven!? Are you okay?! Is something wrong?!”
“Lich… the Lich…!! Gaaah—!!!”
The moment he swapped his arm bone for the Skeleton Mage’s—which was steeped in a Lich’s dark arts—a command from the Lich slammed into his mind like a bolt of lightning.
:: Kill the living. Claim their flesh and escape death. ::
In an instant, the Lich’s gloomy, low-pitched voice burrowed into his consciousness. It felt strangely comfortable, like a parent’s whisper, making it almost impossible to resist the command. It felt as though it were ordering him to do something he desperately wanted from the bottom of his heart.
Aven shifted the internal muscles of his right arm to their maximum output and gripped his left arm with all his strength to hold himself back.
“Graaaagh…!!”
“Aven!”
“Don’t come closer! It’s dangerous right now…!!!”
He felt a slimy energy trying to crawl up his arm. He manifested a thin tail and squeezed his left bicep so hard it nearly collapsed. Finally, the sinister energy lost its momentum and was trapped within his left arm.
“Haa… huff… Fuck…! Theodora. Let me see your face for a second.”
“E-eh..?”
Theodora’s tail was puffed up to an immense size, clearly showing how startled she was.
“Phew. Yeah. Looking at something easy on the eyes makes me feel better.”
“W-what are you talking about?! So… so! What happened?!”
Aven took deep breaths for a while, then restored the crushed muscles of his left upper arm. He had been using a common Direwolf’s muscles anyway, so it didn't really matter. The skin would heal instantly with the Snowfield Troll’s blood.
“The will of the Lich who cast the dark art on the Skeleton Mage was transmitted into my head.”
“What?! The Lich’s will?!”
Theodora’s ears perked up in shock at the news.
“Yeah. It told me to kill the living and claim their flesh. Said if I collect enough flesh, I can escape death.”
“T-that… that’s impossible.”
“I know.”
When the Lich’s will had first slammed into his mind, it had felt like the most natural thing in the world, something he truly wanted to do. Even the gloomy voice had sounded trustworthy for some reason. My head must be seriously messed up, he thought.
“Ugh, that was a horrible experience.”
“A-Aven! But… what’s that on your left wrist…?”
“Huh?”
Aven looked down at his left wrist.
“Wait, this is…”
“No matter how I look at it, isn't that it..?”
It was the dark green magic circle bracelet that the Skeleton Mage had worn while it was active.
It was about the width of a finger joint, and inside, mysterious, unreadable characters were slowly rotating in a peculiar fashion.
“Wait, why is this on my wrist?”
This mark appeared on the Skeleton Mage when it was ready to fire a spell.
“Does that mean, perhaps…”
Aven extended his left hand, palm forward, toward a distant wall.
Having gained the ability to use skills, he now had a sense of what "mana" felt like.
“If I just put a little strength into it like this…”
Sizzle…
BOOM!!!
“Holy shit.”
A dark green fireball, carrying the Skeleton Mage’s characteristic gloomy and slimy energy, streaked toward the wall and exploded instantly.
Despite the distance, the impact was powerful enough to make the ground and walls tremble.
“Theodora. Did you see that just now..?”
“H-huh…?”
The skeletons were screwed. He could even chew on their bones now.