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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Undead (1)
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I let out a hollow laugh as I took stock of the situation.
In truth, there wasn't much to mull over.
Hans was dead.
The connection had been completely severed, making it impossible to recall him.
While meditating and tinkering with my skills this way and that, I gained a deeper understanding of Avatar.
Avatars could regenerate after a certain period following death.
But the newly created one would be a fresh entity, with all prior progress reset to zero.
This time, the dead one had only gone through a few days of intense training, so it wasn't a huge loss, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Now it was time to figure out what had caused it.
Why had Hans, safe in that village, met his end?
And so suddenly that he hadn't even realized he was dying, even in the depths of sleep?
'Well, it's obvious enough without thinking too hard.'
If it had just been some external attack, I would've noticed something midway through.
So what was the real issue?
'That old man...'
I ground my teeth without realizing it.
I'd thought luck was on my side.
Encountering just one leopard in that dangerous forest and managing to take it down, finding a small village nearby, and having the chief treat me kindly.
Looking back, I'd been too complacent.
Strangers in an unfamiliar land.
He wasn't some harmless NPC from a game just because we'd met in a village.
But I couldn't exactly go around on high alert and bristling with suspicion either.
After all, I'd approached them first, putting myself in their debt.
'How did he do it? Slip something into the booze? Sleeping pills? But I didn't feel anything off before drifting off...'
We'd even shared the drink, and nothing unusual happened for quite a while after.
Maybe I was just overthinking it, and some unforeseen accident had occurred...
Slap!
I snapped myself out of it with a smack to the cheek.
The losses weren't that bad, objectively speaking.
A few days of Hans's efforts, the food costs from that, and the items I'd sent along that were now gone.
If anything, losing him before bigger setbacks allowed me to learn more about Avatar—a major gain.
Still, I couldn't keep thinking positively and acting carelessly forever.
The dangers of this otherworld were proven by the 20% average return rate.
If the one who'd been taken down hadn't been an avatar, I'd have died less than two days after arriving, end of story.
Time to plan a response.
Send another avatar? The Otherworld Transfer Circle had a 24-hour cooldown, so not right now.
Besides, sending one back into unknown dangers gave me pause.
Somewhere else? The circle could only target paths previous avatars had traversed.
Even far from the village, it'd still be smack in the middle of that dangerous forest.
I was pacing anxiously, caught between options, when...
...the connection to my otherworld avatar reformed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The first thing I heard was the chief's voice.
"Tch... Thought he was a useful one, but he turned out to be a total dud."
"Tell me about it. Crossing the monster forest alone, and from the way he worked, he seemed like he had some tricks up his sleeve."
"Just an Elite Skeleton? Guess I had my hopes up too high. Let's go."
"Yes, Master."
The chief's voice, conversing with someone, faded into the distance, followed by the clunk of a door locking.
I tensed up instinctively, then forced my rigid body to relax with a sigh.
"Clack—"
No, it was just my imagination.
Realizing that, my body stayed stiff, and no sigh escaped.
I was just starting to slowly check my body's state when:
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ The entity's race has been changed to 'Undead'. Acquired special skill Corrupted Heart.
I stared blankly at the message floating before me, then looked down at my body again.
It was like one of those human skeleton models from the school nurse's office.
I examined it more closely, lifting my arm bone and peering between the ribs.
And reached a conclusion.
'No heart...?'
Corrupted Heart?
Grumbling at the generic naming that ignored individual traits, I pieced together what had happened.
The chief was a necromancer who'd killed me and revived my corpse as an undead.
And 'Hans' had become a walking Elite Skeleton.
⚔ STATUS ⚔ 👤 Entity Name: Hans 🧟 Race: Undead (Elite Skeleton) 🔗 Common Traits: Mind Hub, Super Recovery 🎭 Entity Traits: Corrupted Heart, Mana Affinity 📝 Special Notes: Turned undead via forbidden sorcery. Immune to death, poison, curses, illusions, and all negative effects. Mind Hub prevented mental corruption.
My head ached. No brain, so probably just a feeling.
Shaking off the self-pity, I decided to scout the surroundings first.
I'd just been caught off guard by the sudden turn, but it was still the avatar I'd assumed dead—nothing really changed.
Looking around, I noticed differences from before.
For one, I could see perfectly despite the pitch-black darkness without a speck of light.
Was this 'seeing', though?
Curious, I stuck a finger bone into my eye socket.
Yep, empty as expected.
Pulling out the finger that had wiggled around inside, I looked ahead again.
No eyeballs, yet vision was unimpeded.
Unlike humans limited by eye focus, my entire frontal view from the sockets came into sight at once.
And I could sense life forces around me.
Yeah, a rat scurrying in and out of a hole behind me felt crystal clear.
Probably another effect of Corrupted Heart.
Checking it out, it included standard undead traits: resistance to mental attacks and cold, undead infection, hatred for the living, and more.
'With Mind Hub, I can shrug off the negatives anyway.'
This seemed to be a large underground warehouse.
Scanning the rundown basement-like space, I headed toward where I'd sensed the rat.
'Whoa, jump scare! What the hell are these?!'
There, lined up, were undead just like me.
Piles of junk in between had hidden them, and they'd stood motionless in the dark, so I hadn't noticed sooner.
Zombies to archer skeletons and armored bone warriors.
As I observed, the rat I'd sensed darted out and gnawed off a dangling pinky toe from a zombie before scampering back to its hole.
'Ugh... disgusting...'
Shuddering, my eyes lingered on the zombies, prompting a closer look.
...Adults, men and women, elders—and children.
'These bastards...'
Memories flashed back.
From entering the village to wandering it the next day.
...No children anywhere.
And the fields attached to the village—the main reason I'd pegged it as a slash-and-burn settlement.
While offering to help, I hadn't seen a single soul working them.
Back then, clueless about farming, I'd glossed over it...
'These fuckers devoured an entire village and squatted there!'
Rage trembled through my jaw at their depravity.
At the same time, uncertainty about what to do next drew a sigh.
'Not that I can sigh anymore. Whatever, enough of that.'
The whole village was basically enemy territory overrun by black mages.
With knight-like undead among them, they'd disguised it as a normal pioneer village to fool outsiders while plotting something.
I'd been clueless prey happily skipping into the monster's maw.
In hindsight, the chief's questions seemed aimed at gauging if I'd vanish without raising alarms.
That one-day grace period? Testing if eating me would cause issues.
'How do I take these guys down?'
Realizing I'd been killed, or becoming undead afterward—sure, getting backstabbed pissed me off, but not this much.
Even filtered through Mind Hub, seeing kids sacrificed hit different; revulsion was inevitable.
They'd crossed a line by miles.
Ignorance was one thing, but now that I knew, I couldn't just let it slide.
Besides, as an undead now, what did I have to lose?
Stick it to the backstabbers if I could; if not, oh well.
'First, gather intel.'
I had time to burn, after all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
For the next few days, I searched the underground warehouse holding me captive.
Earth time? Barely a day.
Two entrances originally, but one collapsed and unusable.
Essentially, only the passage the chief and his disciple used.
'Whoa, how many is this?'
Next, I inspected the other undead.
Zombies mostly seemed like ordinary villagers, but plenty of heavily armed skeletons too.
Fifty-plus zombies. Skeleton soldiers including knights? At least three hundred.
Clunk, creak—
Door opening, footsteps approaching.
I froze mid-motion, standing blankly like the rest.
Since becoming undead and trapped here, I'd learned the chief's disciples checked the warehouse every 2-3 days, alternating.
"Ugh, how long do we have to hole up in this backwater?"
The grumbler glancing around was the guy I'd seen repairing the village palisade.
Zephyr, was it?
Figured he was slacking back then; turns out he was a black mage apprentice.
"Hm?"
Sensing something off, he looked my way.
'Busted?'
My heart sank—figuratively, since Corrupted Heart only.
"Why's this one over here? Nobody does shit right without me. [Move over there.]"
A voice reverberated in my skull, a force trying to compel my body.
I realized immediately:
I could ignore it if I wanted.
But not yet.
I let the force guide me without resistance, joining the other skeletons in formation.
"Eh, all good now. Why bother checking every time when it's just us? Old man's so picky."
Zephyr waved his glowing staff half-heartedly, then left griping.
Creak—clunk
I waited hours after the lock clicked, then cautiously moved.
No need to rush.
Better careful than caught off-guard.
Hans had time aplenty.
And this time, a big breakthrough.
The force Zephyr used to control me.
Famously familiar.
It was the same as what moved my own body right now.
Undead mechanics differed from living beings.
No muscles, after all.
The power flowing through me now—so-called 'black mana'—replaced senses, muscles, everything.
Basic Corrupted Heart effect, no doubt.
With Mana Affinity, I mimicked the new control method I'd felt directly.
'How to command other undead.'
Conveniently, hundreds surrounded me, idle.