Killing was way easier now.
All I had to worry about was holding the damn shield steady and chant a thunder spell. While Vivia took care of the rest.
That was all.
And with my new armor, I didn't really have to worry much if anything about defending either. Things were easy, too easy in fact.
"Do you want to try to turn them into the undead?" Vivia asked.
A pile of hobgoblin corpses lay before us. Larger than typical goblins but still shorter than teenagers. These were brawnier and stronger but not necessarily smarter and preferred to hunt alone. So, we hunted them one by one, and just stacked them here. Twenty or so corpses.
We were doing some experiments these past few days. And after trying on about 100 or so corpses over the last week, we'd concluded two key points of my skill tree. Firstly, I could tell if the transformation was going to be successful before even trying the spell. And second, I couldn't keep using it repeatedly; if I did, I ran the risk of failing and the corpse would just disappear instead of giving me another chance at success.
"No, I don't think it'll work. They don't have any soul bits left," I said. Just the two of us, I'd dismissed the others since they were constantly draining HP.
I called the golden stuff Soul Bit. And if the corpses didn't have that, then it was exponentially impossible to turn them into proper skeleton warriors. Right now, all my skeleton warriors came out at lv 10 out of the corpse. Which was great but not necessarily that effective considering levels didn't mean shit and the stats mattered more. My own stats hadn't really improved much. I was still pretty strong by this world's standards though and I was yet to come across anyone significantly stronger than me so far.
I wasn't stupid enough to think there wouldn't be super strong people but I knew for a fact, I was strong. And I wanted to use that as a leverage to live a better life without falling prey to any particular shit. And though I was wary that the state or local nobles would come and annoy me, no one did. They were cautious and didn't really try anything to offend me, just yet.
"Cut their ears and collect that in a pouch."
She did so.
Once done, I stored everything in Spacia.
"What about the enchanted cobra?" She asked.
We hadn't faced any cobras. But I wanted to try it. These cobras were a step above the pythons, hanging beyond the marshes in rare occasions. They weren't big or strong or deadly like the Anacobras (There were more of those large thingies) but these were said to be quite formidable… for living things. Too bad I was already dead.
Enchanted cobras, as the name implied, were enchanted. They were roughly five meters in length and could kill a whole city without running out of poison. Rather scary stuff. And one of them had been sighted just past the marshes, near the large grassy lands. These snakes stayed clear of civilization but when they did venture into cities, people just died. Only undead were immune to them, and although halfdead were somewhat resistant, they couldn't really survive without proper gear and antidotes. So, this job in particular was a perfect fit for me, hence I chose it.
"You'll have to stay back a little," I said.
A dagger on one hand, a shield on the other.
I also summoned my skeleton army. Right now, I had about fifteen or so. I of course had over a hundred but I just released them. My HP couldn't keep up. I guess I had to gain levels for just HP if nothing else. HP and other stats mostly rose from strenuous activity but HP and MP in particular rose just from leveling too. A bonus for me since I relied heavily on both stats.
And yes, being able to release my undead soldiers was the second thing we found while experimenting.
Luna stayed back with Vivia. While me and the goblin squad slowly moved past the marshes, into the long grass.
Just grass and somewhat wet muddy earth beneath. Something crawled in them, I could feel it. But I couldn't trace it.
Where… I tried searching. And despite being able to see well in the dark, I couldn't find anything. My heart beat faster with every passing second. I thought I'd gotten used to this, I thought I could just do this thanks to my training and new armor but… even now, I freaked out every now and then. Things had changed, sure. But I was still the same fucking coward… Focus! Focus!
Yet, despite the uncertainties, I was rather calm, and I kept my vision firm; yeah, I was a coward but that didn't matter right now. We didn't say anything, words were unnecessary. Besides, I mostly communicated with my mind and the skeletons couldn't talk anyway.
Rustle-
There!
I lounged forward, ready to impale the snake but… "It's small," I said. Barely the size of a typical king cobra. It was thin, had a flower on top of its head and oddly large eyes? Was… cute?
Cluck- and it was biting me, wrapping over my damn hand like it was afraid or something. Oh wait, snakes were afraid of people. But wasn't this thing a literal killing machine?
Its teeth couldn't penetrate my armor, so I wasn't so sure. "Is this really our snake or did it just leave?" Because I didn't feel any other presence.
Vivia came closer, but still maintained her distance. "I believe so. Slice off the head, we have to present the head for the reward."
And I was going to do just that but the darn thing looked at me with big eyes like a cat; vertically silted but cute. Actually, it suddenly grew two ears… cat ears!
"What the fuck…it knows I like cats…" I mumbled.
It even started purring instead of hissing. Oh yeah, it definitely knew~!
"They manipulate their victims, assure the victims the snakes are safe and then kill them in their sleep," Vivia said. "Kill it."
"Looks too cute though; kind of want to keep it."
"Your choice sire. But killing it would be better. Why keep a ticking time bomb?"
"A bold statement perhaps," I shrugged.
"We won't get the reward."
"Sure, we will. We got rid of the snake," I shrugged again. "Make sure, there isn't another one of these. I heard these snakes are born in a pair, so there must be another one nearby." The snakes only mated once a century and gave birth to two children. The children were said to mate again in the following century. And yet, the damn things weren't going extinct… at least not yet.
The skeletons started searching.
Meanwhile, "Give me your ring," I said.
Vivia obliged.
I put her ring on the snake, on the snake's tail. "I read they're as intelligent as dragons. Though technically, these are more like wyverns of the dragons than dragons but whatever." I cleared my throat…. "Alright, can you understand me?" I attempted.
"Purr… Spee…" It even squeaked like a rabbit. Darn thing really knew what I liked in animals.
I could have made it into a skeleton snake but skeletons hardly ever grew, so it'd just look like a small snake and not really intimidating.
"Harm one person, and your head comes off, understood?" I took off my helmet and glared.
It stared into my eyes, nodded. The frigging snake understood alright.
"Good. Run and you're dead as well." I gave the ring back to Vivia.
She did not say a word, no.
Meanwhile- one of the skeletons stared my way. They'd found something.
I went and… big. Big, big corpse. A large snake corpse along with a small snake just like the one I had. My small snake jumped off of my hand and rubbed its face with the large dead one.
Both corpses were useless for making skeletons. But they did still hold their value in gold.
"Judging by the marks, probably holy knights. But that brings the question," Vivia paused. "What would holy knights be doing here of all places?"
Blood everywhere and the fangs were missing. No trace of venom either.
"Well, at least they did our jobs for us. Let's get paid extra in the guild," I said.
The small snake was acting quite weird. I never thought snakes or reptiles shared any kinship but I guess these ones were different? Or maybe I didn't know? I didn't care, that I did know.