King of Dobong-gu (4)
"Whoa, is this for real?"
"Would I fake it? It means my hard work actually got recognized as an achievement."
Two weeks had passed.
Construction was finished to perfection, and after that Lahan had kept grinding away, turning out spears, swords, and shields and putting them firmly into every hand that needed one.
The biggest win of all, though, was that Se-a—who had been steadily treating the undead and poking around at every angle of research—had picked up a new skill.
"Like this… I can place it wherever I want."
Se-a flicked her arm, and a skull-shaped mark bloomed across the ground at that spot.
"An area-of-effect heal?! And the range is huge!"
"I don't have to heal them one by one anymore. Undead-only, though."
The moment she finished healing every undead wounded in the last battle, plus everyone hurt during construction—five hundred in total—an achievement unlocked and handed her a Rare-rank skill.
"If I keep healing more undead, I might get a higher-tier skill someday… but since it's an AoE skill, the next step is probably going to take a ridiculous amount of healing."
The coverage was wide enough that in a real fight I could just slap it down somewhere convenient and call it good.
An undead legion that never truly died and kept coming back. Just picturing it put me in a fantastic mood.
"At this rate, even if a real war breaks out, we could win."
We had even put together a proper organization.
Under Ttacttac-i went the skeleton army and the monster undead. Under Mari, the Cursed Skeletons. Under Lahan, the awakened zombies—each of them running their own force.
Legion Commander of the Dead
The physical abilities of subordinate undead are massively amplified.
For the record, turning every corpse in Dobong 1-dong into undead had pushed us past ten thousand, and the skill had upgraded. The rank itself didn't climb, but it was still a huge haul.
—Clack… clack-clack clack!
"Yeah, you're working hard."
Remembering him, I went looking for Ttacttac-i and found him at the head of the skeletons, running them through all kinds of military drills. Whatever he'd done in life, he had form—he looked the part.
Most of the undead raised from Dobong 1-dong's corpses were plain skeletons, so Ttacttac-i had about ninety-eight hundred soldiers under him. All of them were buffed by Legion Commander of the Dead, which made them seriously strong.
Of course they were still idiots, and Ttacttac-i desperately wanted undead who could serve as battalion or company commanders under him… but skeletons with that kind of intelligence only came from killing living humans, so I couldn't just make him any. The criminals who'd fled Bukhansan wouldn't set foot near here anymore either, so there was nothing left to work with.
"Maybe I should've left a few of them as ordinary skeletons… well, nothing to be done about it now."
Still, watching how they moved, Ttacttac-i was clearly competent. They were practicing spear-charge formations, ways to receive an enemy charge—the works. Lately he'd even made flags and was drilling long-distance communication and command with them. I could only hope it paid off.
Ttacttac-i was doing fine. Next up, time to see what Lahan was up to.
Lahan was usually out in the empty lot behind the house with the zombies, working on something.
"Behold, my master! I have drilled these zombies until they are no less disciplined than the marines!"
"Uh… they look the same to me."
Lahan was clearly doing something, but it didn't show on the surface. Then again, among the undead he had been the busiest of all, so expecting flawless zombie training on top of everything else was probably unfair.
In the end the zombies numbered twenty-seven total. Unlike Ttacttac-i's rigid formations, they seemed to move according to each individual's abilities.
"They are drilled to a razor edge. Now—all hands, attention!"
"Gruuk!"
"Gruuk!"
"Gruuk!"
"Giiik."
Ah. One of the zombies messed up.
"Giiik, who was that? Step out and get down."
"Griiieeh…"
"Lord Myungwang! Our master has graced this place with her presence in person, and you—giiik? Giiik?! You little bastard, you get a full week of wall-cleaning duty alone!"
"Grrraaagh…"
Lahan cracked the zombie once with his spine whip and went right back to discipline training.
Undead couldn't feel pain and couldn't die, so the scolding was basically meaningless. The undead seemed to know it too—they weren't scared—so I doubted it was doing anything for unit discipline. Discipline aside, though, their original personalities still peeked through. I'd half suspected that becoming undead wiped a person's self away, but apparently not.
Lahan seemed to be managing well enough in his own way. Last stop: Mari.
"Gaaah, grrraa…"
"Yeah. This place is a little… weird."
Mari had claimed the house next door as her territory. She was sitting on a sofa she'd badgered Death Weaver and Lahan into making, receiving her care—and the scene was anything but ordinary.
"Looks like you're enjoying yourself."
"Grrruu."
Cursed Skeletons in butler uniforms were changing her bandages and misting her with spray bottles to keep the humidity up… she was living in her own private world. And when exactly had those butler outfits gotten made and put on them?
"I don't mind you doing that, but don't pester Death Weaver too much."
"Graah. Aaaah."
Whatever Mari was saying was even harder to parse than Ttacttac-i. Still, the way the Cursed Skeletons dropped to their knees and paid me respect the instant she gave an order suggested she had them on a tight leash.
Mari patted the empty space beside her on the sofa, telling me to sit. The moment I did, of course she wrapped me up and started ruffling my hair. Right—come to think of it, before Se-a showed up, Mari used to fuss over me like this all the time. Lately she seemed to be working out her needs on those butler skeletons instead, and she didn't cling to me as much.
Hmm. I might have been a tiny bit disappointed.
Anyway, she didn't seem particularly focused on training the Cursed Skeletons for combat. Or maybe putting them in butler uniforms and ordering them around already meant she had them completely under control…
"You're not combat types anyway."
Cursed Skeletons were a little special. More precisely, it wasn't that they never fought—just that even walking around a battlefield was useful. True to the "cursed" in their name, living humans who got near them felt dizzy and nauseous. Look closely and they weren't only blacker than regular skeletons; a black aura seeped out of them in a constant crawl.
"Se-a had a rough time with them at first."
So I'd ordered them right away to keep the curse from leaking outside. Beyond that I didn't know how strong the effect got, but longer exposure would definitely stack worse debuffs. Scatter them across a battlefield and they earned their keep.
Which was why Mari mostly spent her time training herself. Could an undead grow further? I wasn't sure.
"Everyone's doing well."
I had no more undead left to raise, and things looked stable, so maybe it was time to expand the territory a little. I also needed more people to fill the boredom… but that could wait.
There was still the matter of the other races in Uijeongbu.
I kept an eye on Uijeongbu off and on, but nothing out of the ordinary showed up. They were just living. They weren't even sending more drones. Maybe they didn't want trouble with me either?
Ah—farming stood out. Watching them fight monsters to protect the fields, they looked fairly strong. Everything besides farming seemed to happen inside the Red Tower. Come evening they all filed in, so it was probably their lodgings too. If it ever came to a fight, hitting that place first would be smart.
On the way home after finishing my recon of Uijeongbu, a little bird made of nothing but bone flew to me.
Chirp!
"Hm? It's a Bone Bird."
One of the sparrow undead I used as surveillance drones across Dobong-gu suddenly landed on my shoulder and started crying.
"Something happen? Let's take a look."
I'd ordered the sparrows to fly to me and report whenever anything went wrong, so something had definitely gone wrong. I started checking the sparrows roaming Dobong-gu one after another…
And saw something astonishing.
"So this is that necromancer's base."
Down at the southern edge of Dobong-gu.
The boy who had vaporized the Arachne last time was coming to find me!
"Everyone, assemmmble!!!!"
Code red!
We're under attack!
Lee Eojin walked slowly.
If he ran, he could arrive in minutes. But… killing undead was never pleasant, so he dragged the time out as long as he could by walking.
At the edge of his vision something white—a bird, maybe—flickered for an instant, then shot away before he could confirm it.
Something feels off.
But he couldn't chase a bird, so he ignored it and kept walking for a few more dozen minutes. Then, at the far edge of his sight, something pale snagged his attention.
"An undead?"
The artifact transplanted in his latest surgery—the Eye of Balor—boosted his vision enormously. Distant things weren't just clear; it jacked up his dynamic visual acuity too, and it even came with a special ability. A premium piece among premium pieces.
…It would have been better if they hadn't given it to me at all.
Once you accepted something like this, refusing orders got a lot harder. That was part of the Special Safety Department's greasy scheme to keep him on a leash, though he didn't know it went that far.
Want to or not, orders were orders. Once he'd seen it, he couldn't ignore it the way he had the bird. The boy drew his sword, sprang forward lightly, and cleaved the undead in two in a single stroke.
"Tough?"
A typical necromancer's undead weren't that strong—especially ordinary skeletons. But the feel through his blade said this one wasn't ordinary.
He stepped closer for a look. Still just a plain skeleton. As expected, this wasn't a necromancer he could brush off casually.
Cutting down something that had once been human always left a bitter aftertaste. Far less than killing a real living person, of course, but managing the feeling was still hard. Lee Eojin wasn't even an adult yet, which made it worse.
"…What's this?"
The skeleton had been clutching a scrap of paper. He forced it free and opened it, but half of it had burned away in the sparks from the cut and was hard to read.
"Fri…? Talk… wants to…?"
The important parts were charred; the words made no sense. Well, it probably didn't matter. Maybe the undead had just happened to be holding it.
Lee Eojin dismissed it lightly and started walking again toward the northernmost end of Dobong-gu…
Clack. The skeleton's corpse, after he had passed, stirred and made a sound.
And beyond it, the girl watching through the skeleton's eyes shouted.
"No way! I wrote 'let's be friends, let's talk' on that paper and sent it, and he just sliced it to pieces?!"
"P-please calm yourself, my master!"
"What rank is that bastard?!"
"I cannot say with certainty, but he is likely a Legendary-class. The Special Safety Department's Flame Emperor—he is rather well known."
The Flame Emperor. Emperor of Fire, huh.
Hmph. The King of the Underworld was right here, and he dared style himself an emperor? Infuriating beyond words.
I'd been trying to play it nice…
And he just ignored a person's goodwill like that?
"That's it. All units, prepare for combat!"
How strong could he possibly be?
I'm a Mythic-rank necromancer!
Crush him with force first, talk later!
Legendary? Flame Emperor? I don't know how strong you are, but you're weaker than me.
What, like anything's going to go wrong?