The word "good" hung in the air, more alien in this place than any monster. Elias stared at the child. Her tiny spark of life, which had been flickering with terror, now pulsed with a steady, trusting glow on his Sense Life/Death map. This created a new, unforeseen problem.
Problem: You have acquired a dependent. Status: Non-combatant. Liability: High.
His pragmatism warred with the lingering echo of that single word. The logical course of action was clear: stabilize her, get the information he needed to return her, and remove the liability from his territory as quickly as possible. His fortress of fear was designed for one occupant.
He let the flaming spear extinguish itself in the damp soil. He then approached the child slowly, his movements deliberate. She flinched as he drew near, his bone armor clattering, but she didn't try to flee.
He knelt, bringing himself closer to her level. His Intimidating Presence was a palpable aura of menace, and he had to actively suppress his will to lessen its effect. He pointed to the gash on her leg. "That needs to be cleaned."
His voice was a gravelly rasp, startling even to himself. The girl nodded silently, her wide eyes fixed on his face, trying to reconcile the terrifying visage with the act of salvation she had just witnessed.
He moved to his small, organized collection of resources. With his Foraging skill, he had identified a broad leaf he knew as "King's Balm," which the System informed him had antiseptic properties when crushed into a paste. He prepared it methodically, his hands, once used to gliding over a keyboard, now deft at crushing herbs with a stone.
He applied the green paste to her wound. She hissed in pain but didn't pull away. He then tore a strip from his now-useless pajama shirt—a last vestige of his old life—and bandaged her leg. The work was impersonal, efficient, like repairing a faulty piece of hardware.
Yet, the child watched him with an unwavering gaze. "Thank you," she whispered.
Elias did not reply. He rose and turned his attention to the second slain prowler, the one he had killed last. The pragmatist saw a valuable resource. He began the grim work of skinning it, his obsidian knife and now his sharpened bone daggers making the task easier than his first fumbling attempt on the rabbit-creature. The hide was thick and tough. The meat was dark and stringy, but it was calories.
He worked in silence, acutely aware of the small eyes watching his every move. He was butchering a monster, a necessary act of survival. But to a child, what did this look like? He was methodically dismembering a creature in front of her. Every action he took to ensure his survival seemed to build upon his monstrous persona.
He skewered a piece of the prowler meat and cooked it over the fire. It smelled foul, but he knew he needed the energy. He ate first, a tactical decision to ensure his own strength. Then, he cooked another piece and, using two sticks as crude tongs, offered it to her.
She stared at the charred meat, then at him, and shook her head.
He understood. She was afraid of it, or perhaps of him. He set the meat on a flat, clean stone near her and retreated to the other side of the fire pit, creating distance, ceding the territory of the fire to her. He sat with his back against the earthen wall, the skull resting beside him, and simply watched. He had done all he could. Now the choice was hers.
They sat in silence for a long time. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the unsettling clatter of the bone-charms outside. Eventually, hunger won out over fear. The girl snatched the meat from the stone and wolfed it down with the desperation of a starving animal.
Once she had eaten, a sliver of strength returned to her. Elias asked the logical questions. "What is your name?"
"Elara," she whispered, her mouth greasy from the meat.
"Where is your village?"
She pointed vaguely into the oppressive darkness of the Blackwood. "Sunstone. Past the Whispering Falls." Her lip trembled. "The prowlers... they took my Papa from the path."
This confirmed his analysis. She was lost, orphaned, and her destination was somewhere in this lethal wilderness.
The logical, optimal solution remained the same: take her there, leave her, and return to his solitary fortress. It was a mission.
He spent the Skill Points he had earned. One went to Survivalist, unlocking Advanced Trap Making. He needed to be able to secure food more efficiently. The other two, he reluctantly invested in Necromancy. The skill had proven too decisive to ignore.
[Necromancy Proficiency LVL 5 Unlocked.]
[New Skill Unlocked: Animate Dead (Minor).]
[A large packet of information and instinct has been downloaded directly to your cerebral cortex.]
He felt the knowledge settle in his mind, cold and violating. He now understood the pathways of necrotic energy, how to infuse a recently deceased vessel with a sliver of Soul Essence and a single, overriding command. He could make a corpse walk. The thought was still repellent, but the Pragmatist in him catalogued it as a potent, if horrifying, new tool.
He looked at the two dead prowlers. An idea formed, monstrous and brilliant in its sheer efficiency. The journey to Sunstone would be dangerous. He had a map from the child, but he would be walking into unknown territory, sacrificing the advantage of his prepared defenses. He needed protection. He needed porters to carry the valuable hides and meat.
He would make the dead serve the living.
That night, under the perpetual twilight of the forest, he performed his darkest act yet. He dragged the two prowler carcasses into the center of his camp. Elara watched, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity, from the safety of the fire pit.
Elias placed his hands on the larger beast, the one he had killed first. He focused his will, drawing on the vast reservoir of 5.0 Soul Essence he now possessed. He followed the new, cold instinct of his Animate Dead skill, weaving the energy into the corpse's neural pathways, issuing a single, simple command: Arise. Obey. Protect the small one.
The air grew cold. The fire sputtered as if starved of oxygen. A faint, sickly green light flickered around the prowler's body. With a sound of cracking joints and tearing sinew, the dead thing began to move. It rose onto its four legs, unsteady at first, then solid. Its eyeless head lifted, but there was no life in the gesture. It was a puppet pulled by necrotic strings. A cold, unthinking automaton.
He did the same to the second prowler, binding it with the command: Arise. Obey. Carry the burdens.
Elara let out a small gasp and scrambled further back into the corner of the grave. She was now trapped in a hole with a bone-covered monster and two reanimated corpses.
Elias looked at his handiwork. Two undead monsters, enslaved to his will. One to act as a bodyguard for the child, the other a pack mule. It was the most brutally efficient solution to his logistical problems.
He had just saved a child from certain death. And to accomplish the next "good" act of returning her home safely, he had delved deeper into the arts of evil than ever before. He was creating undead abominations.
He had expected the child to scream. To see him finally for the monster he appeared to be.
Instead, after a long, silent moment, Elara crept forward. She cautiously reached out a small hand and poked the flank of the "protector" beast. It didn't react, its dead flesh cold and stiff. She looked from the animated corpse to Elias, and a new, startling expression dawned on her face. Not fear. Not awe.
It was understanding. She saw a simple truth that would be lost on any adult. The scary dogs were gone. Now, the scary dogs were on her side. Because of him.
She walked up to Elias, who stood stiffly, a necromancer overseeing his unholy creations, and she did something that shattered his logic entirely.
She hugged his leg.
Her small arms barely wrapped around his thigh, her face pressed against the rough, blood-and-dirt-stained fabric of his old pants. It was a gesture of absolute, unshakeable trust.
The Pragmatist trait offered no defense against this. His mental firewalls had no protocol for it. For the first time since his arrival, Elias felt something other than cold logic or a phantom echo of a past emotion. It was a raw, acute sense of confusion. A system error.
He was the Grave Warden. A desecrator. A necromancer. A monster. And this small child, witnessing his darkest act, had decided he was her sanctuary. The contagion of her kindness was a more baffling and terrifying force than any prowler.