This Survivor Group Is Mine Now (2)

As soon as I dragged the old man’s corpse into the Cradle of Rest, the people who had returned began to appear one by one. They spotted the collapsed young women and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rushed over in alarm.

“Ji-young! Wake up! Ji-young-ah!”

“Soon-jeong! Please open your eyes!”

“Ugh! What the—what is this slippery stuff…?”

“Something’s been sprayed everywhere… Huh? Is this blood? This is blood, isn’t it?!”

The people examining the young women soon discovered the pool of dark blood and fell into a full-blown panic. Choi Dong-seong was no different. More agitated than anyone else, he shouted at the people around him.

“W-we have to find the Leader! Everyone split up and search for him!”

“This blood… these bloodstains… could they be the Leader’s…?”

“Shut up with that ridiculous nonsense! Just go find the Leader, now!!”

The group scattered in every direction to look for their leader. Hmm. The man you’re all desperately searching for is right here, you know. As a corpse, though.

I watched the people frantically searching for their leader while I gathered up the fallen women, then reached out toward the old man’s body.

“Rise.”

This was my first time raising a man. The black energy that flowed from my hand was absorbed into the leader’s corpse. Soon, he rose to his feet and stared at me with vacant eyes—still with a hand axe embedded in his skull.

Ugh. This is straight-up horror.

I ordered Juniel to retrieve the hand axe. When she stretched out her hand, the axe stuck in the old man’s forehead began to tremble violently before flying back to her. Fresh blood trickled down again. Damn, I think I’m gonna puke.

Ji-yun, Si-eun, and Ji-su all frowned as they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stared at the risen corpse of the leader.

“Ugh… Oppa… that’s so gross…”

“Uwegh…”

You can’t even throw up, so why are you pretending?

With a wrinkled nose, I used the Form Restoration skill. The old man’s split-open forehead, which had been gaping wide enough to see inside, slowly closed. Before long, aside from his clothes being soaked in blood, he looked exactly as he had in life.

I even used the Rationality Restoration skill. Black energy extended from my hand and seeped into the old man’s head. The cloudy haze in his eyes gradually cleared, regaining focus.

“Uuuuuaaaaagh!!”

The old man flailed his arms and screamed. Then he looked at me and the four women with a completely dazed expression.

“….Huh?”

He slowly raised a hand to touch his own head.

“Huh? What? I definitely…”

Yeah, this is annoying. Explaining things to cute, pretty girls might be fun, but doing it for a middle-aged uncle like this just feels like a chore.

So ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I gave him the short version.

“You died, old man. I brought you back with my skill. From now on, you live as my thrall. Got it? That’s all the explanation you’re getting from me. For the details… yeah. Ask Ji-su. Seo Ji-su, explain it to him.”

“Y-yes! M-Master…”

Ji-su stepped forward with a reluctant expression and began giving the old man a long, rambling explanation. Good. I’ll leave the old man to her.

Now, it’s been a while since I last checked my status window. My level went up after all.

“Status window.”

It had been a long time since I last opened my status window. The higher your level, the rarer level-ups become, so I rarely bothered checking it. That aside… huh?

Everything else was about what I expected, but the amount of gold I held had changed dramatically. I remembered having only two hundred-something gold the last time I checked. Why was there suddenly so much?

The monsters Ji-yun and Si-eun had killed while we moved from the school to here couldn’t have been more than a few dozen. That should have only added a few dozen gold at most… Ah. There was the Kang Tae gang I killed last night. Did all their gold get transferred to me?

Wait. So when you kill a person, you receive all the gold they were carrying? The +95 next to the gold must be the amount recently added. That means the 95 gold the old man had was transferred to me when I killed him…

Killing someone lets you take all their gold. I still didn’t know what gold was actually used for, but since this was a game-like system, there would probably be places to spend it in the future. And if that happened…

‘People are going to start killing each other for gold. What a fucked-up system.’

I turned my attention to the Soul Jar. It currently held 80 souls. The -20 next to it indicated that twenty souls had been consumed recently. That must have been the twenty souls I gained from killing the old man, which were then subtracted when I used Rise to bring him back.

After roughly checking my own status, I opened the newly updated status window for the old man.

Hmm. A 3-star Poison Master? I thought it would be at least 4-star… I already knew what Sleeping Poison and Doping did from experience… but was that really all he had?

Where was the skill that created those Poison Humans he controlled? That was the one I wanted the most.

While I was examining the status window, the old man suddenly shrieked.

“N-no way!! I… I died?! Th-that’s impossible! Look! I’m perfectly fine and alive!”

He patted his own body, desperately denying his death. Well, I could understand. Anyone would react the same way—refusing to believe their perfectly functional body was actually dead.

I looked at the old man for a moment, then spoke to Juniel.

“Juniel. Cut off his right arm.”

At my command, Juniel charged at the old man and swung her hand axe down on his shoulder.

Schunk.

“Kuaaaaaaaaagh!”

The old man screamed as he stared at his severed right arm. Then his face filled with horror when he saw the black smoke pouring from the wound.

“Kugh… W-what is this…!!”

I picked up the severed arm and used Siphon Hand to reattach it. The arm fused back on cleanly. I spoke to the old man, who was staring blankly at his newly restored limb.

“There. Now do you understand that you’re a dead body? Hurry up and accept it. If you still don’t get it, next time I’ll cut off your head and stick it back on.”

“Ah… Ahh…”

“Hmm. Looks like you still don’t understand. Juniel, cut off this old man’s—”

“No! I understand! I get it! I understand completely!”

The old man shouted desperately. His face was filled with despair as he trembled and spoke.

“I-I understand perfectly. So please… just…”

Good. At least he understood now.

I asked him, “Old man. When I looked at your status window, I didn’t see any skill for creating ‘Poison Humans.’ What happened to it?”

“Y-you looked at my status window?”

“Ugh, you keep making me repeat myself. I told you I’m your master. Can’t a master look at his thrall’s status window?”

“If you saw my status window… you should have seen the skill for creating Poison Humans…”

“I’m telling you it wasn’t there.”

At my words, the old man opened his own status window and cried out in shock.

“Ugh! M-my sub-class… my sub-class…!!”

“What about your sub-class?”

“It… it disappeared…”

Hmm. So when someone becomes my thrall, their main class changes to “Necromancer Kang Min-gu’s Thrall,” and their previous main class becomes the new sub-class. The old sub-class just vanishes entirely.

“What was your sub-class before?”

“…Originally, the sub-class I received at the beginning was ‘Commander.’ But after it synergized with my ‘Doping’ skill and upgraded, it became a 4-star sub-class called ‘Poison Human Legion Commander’…”

Whoa. So creating the Poison Humans was an effect of the sub-class. No wonder the skill looked so good—it was a 4-star sub-class. That’s the same rank as my own Sex Supporter sub-class. And now it was gone because he became my thrall.

Damn. What a waste.

“…Recite all your skills for me.”

“My skills are Sleeping Poison and Doping. I can convert any poison I introduce into the body into either Sleeping Poison or the stat-boosting Doping skill.”

“Hmm. Those skills sound incredibly useful. But you’re only 3-star? At the very least you should have poison immunity. So many people die to poison in the early stages.”

“The Administrator who gave me the class said that because acquiring poison is difficult, it couldn’t be promoted to 4-star.”

Yeah, that made sense. Goblin poison needles weren’t exactly easy to obtain. Not every goblin even carried one. Honestly, without goblin poison, this old man would be no stronger than an ordinary civilian.

He seemed even more useless than I thought.

“…Tell me about these ‘Poison Humans.’”

“If I stacked Sleeping Poison on a target multiple times to put them in a ‘Poisoned’ state, I could raise them as a Poison Human. Once raised, they could freely use poison and would obey my commands without question.”

“The Poison Humans you raised today didn’t use any poison, though?”

“That’s because they weren’t fully poisoned when I raised them. They were incomplete. The situation was… rather urgent…”

Yeah, it was urgent. He had been naked and pinned down by Ji-su, after all.

“No wonder all the Poison Humans you raised today were young women… They were the ones you’d been drugging and raping every night with Sleeping Poison. Ah, so the severe headaches those young women suffered from were also side effects of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stacked poison?”

“…Yes. They were aftereffects of the accumulated Sleeping Poison.”

“Wow. You really are trash, old man.”

“Kugh…”

The old man lowered his head and swallowed a groan. Ji-su, Ji-yun, and Si-eun all stared at him with eyes full of contempt. Well, I couldn’t blame them.

“Then what happens to those women?” I asked, pointing at the collapsed girls.

The old man answered, “Since they are no longer Poison Humans… I believe they will wake up soon.”

Hmm. What a shame. If that sub-class effect had still been there, I could have raised an army of Poison Humans. If the old man created a large army of them, they would become mine since I was his master. That was why I bothered to raise him in the first place… but now that he was up, he didn’t seem all that useful.

It would be nice if I could undo it, but I didn’t know how to cancel a thrall contract. Sigh.

Well… he was still a respected leader among this survivor group. He wasn’t completely useless.

I spoke to the old man, who stood there with a gloomy face.

“Old man, I’m leaving this place. You will stay here and continue being the leader. Gather more people. Grow the group properly. Understand?”

“…Yes?”

“What? You don’t want to? Or would you rather follow me around?”

“N-no! I will do exactly as you say!”

In truth, bringing the old man along would have been quite useful. He could handle odd jobs, and he’d make a decent meat shield. But leaving him here as the leader of the survivor group seemed better for the long term. If it grew into a large survivor faction, it could become a significant asset to me.

I might as well run some experiments while I was at it. I still hadn’t tested whether my thralls could move freely even when far away from me. I’d use this old man to find out. I could also test the range of telepathy while I was at it.

“Old man. We’re leaving, so go outside and draw everyone’s attention. Make sure we can leave comfortably. Oh, and do you have anything that can send a signal far away?”

“Something to send a signal…?”

“Anything will do.”

The old man thought for a moment before answering.

“I don’t really have anything like that…”

“You don’t, huh. Fine. We’ll have to do it the primitive way.”

“Primitive way?”

I nodded and told him, “After we leave, I will send commands directly into your head. All you have to do is follow them exactly. Got it?”

The old man looked at me as if he didn’t understand what I was saying.

“You don’t need to understand it right now. Just do exactly what I tell you. Understand?”

The old man nodded. Whatever. For now, I’d be satisfied with having swallowed this survivor group. It was a shame, but there was nothing I could do. Not everything in the world went the way you wanted.

I sent the old man out of the Cradle of Rest and left OO Station behind.