“So, tell me everything you know about the giant skeleton, and just who are the people responsible for attracting its attention?”

Zhang was furious, and every adventurer in the vicinity could tell. It had just been one thing after another, and they were barely given any time to rest in between. Anyone in this situation, especially the man in charge, would be feeling particularly cranky.

After questioning the life of many adventurers, it didn’t take him long to get the full picture. It had been almost exactly as the young man that reported to him had said.

Some greedy idiots had tried to pull off a Crimson Menace and decided to sneak off for a head start. It seems that not only had they decided to sneak off during the crucial battle with the giant skeleton, but they had also discovered the invisible wall even before Erene did and kept it a secret.

Speaking of Erene, she had been discovered to be knocked unconscious at a corner of the room and had already woken up since then. That Kayden fellow wasn’t evil enough to kill her, which made him breathe a sigh of relief. If somebody had died under his orders, his reputation as a leader would plummet.

Those nutjobs that went on ahead consisted of five people, and only two made it out alive. It seems that those two had a spell orb prepared that could temporarily increase their running speed, allowing them to get away relatively unharmed. As far as Zhang was concerned, he would much rather have those two die together with their party members.

They just had to drag their sobbing and snot-covered selves all the way here, luring whatever beast that had awoken, and the adventurers would now have to face the same horrors as they did. Suffice to say, they weren’t happy.

Zhang slowly walked up to the two men who were suffering from the just anger of the other adventurers. As soon as the adventurers saw him, they slowly parted and allowed him passage, where his imposing presence would overwhelm the two men before him.

“Tell me the full story. Rest assured, if this risk can instead turn into an opportunity, nobody here would blame you. But if people die because of your stupidity, the one paying for their lives would be you.”

He didn’t raise his voice, nor did he make any threatening gestures. He was merely stating a fact, and the piercing glares of the surrounding adventurers were intimidating enough. There was no need for him to do more as the two adventurers quickly relented.

“W-wait! I’ll tell you! Please forgive us…”

“Y-yeah! We were forced by our stupid party leader! We had no choice!”

Zhang sighed.

“I didn’t come here to hear your excuses. Can you hurry up?”

The two briefly panicked before quickly retelling their story. There were many useless bits of info in there, like how the leader was apparently all to blame, but Zhang eventually understood the whole situation.

Their party had entered a massive room, not unlike the one they were in, and there was a massive pit in the ground. It was breathtakingly large, like a deep chasm to the abyss, and in it lay the giant skeleton. What was special about this skeleton was its shape.

Unlike the giant humanoid skeleton that they had faced before, this skeleton was humanoid from the waist up, and had what seemed to be a massive snake’s tail from the waist down. Of course, it was all skeletal, so it looked more like an elongated spine with hundreds of thin ribs, each growing shorter the close it got to the tip of its tail.

It was an undead Naga, and from what he had heard about it, it can still use its venom. By exhaling a breath of green mist, three of their party members were immediately knocked out, and the two cowards ran away before they could see anything else.

Now that very same Naga was heading straight towards their location, and there was no stopping it.

“Venom, huh?”

Zhang looked over at Ryan, who stood a short distance away. If it was venom they were talking about, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, wasn’t Ryan immune? This fight may have not been as difficult as he initially thought.

***

Kayden left Aisha by herself to make up with her party. It wasn’t his place to help her with this kind of thing, and he was confident she would be able to pull through. Although Bell and Lizza were somewhat new to the party, Conner and San were comrades who had fought side-by-side with her for a long time now. They should be able to find it in their hearts to forgive her.

As for what he was doing right now, the chests had finally been opened, and he was currently checking its contents together with his party off to the side.

“Impressive! How did you guys even manage to get through the stupid locks?” Kayden picked one off from the ground as he said that.

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“[Ah. Those are combination locks. It makes sense why you weren’t familiar with them. I can teach you the technique to pick one once we have the time.]” Hel responded with familiarity.

Alice was the one that replied to his earlier question.

“Easy! Cathy dispelled the magic that fortified the chests, and then we just broke them open.”

“W-wow…” Now that it had been made clear to him, Kayden could see evidence of this destruction strewn all about the platform. It seems that the whole top of the chests was completely removed and smashed to pieces. Louis’s doing, no doubt.

He reached into one of these opened chests and grasped the contents inside: Paper. Stacks upon stacks of paper, all of them with an unknown language. As if the library didn’t already have enough material for him to read, now he had even more!

Ezekiel came up and threw something at him, which Kayden caught easily once again. It was another book, although this one was a little small.

“Other than those papers, this was the only other thing in those chests. All of them look to be in the same language as those books in the library. It’s a disappointing find, but we should be able to earn some gold by selling it to the museum or some avid historian.”

Kayden flipped open the brown-leather notebook, and immediately on the first page were what looked like particularly curly runes, it read:

[Translating French to Common]

Tome of the Undead: Research Findings #3

‘Woah… Hel was right. She can translate written languages.’

Kayden immediately flipped to the next page, excited to know more. This was what it translated to:

So, it all began when I one day had this thought. Why are the undead of this world so weak? I mean, I get it, they are feared and thus hunted worldwide, but what kind of threat do they even pose? All they do is just shamble about. Heck, even a child could throw stones at it while keeping their distance.

Perhaps it was their numbers? But that doesn’t make sense. Raising the dead is the same as summoning creatures, with the added ingredient of a dead body. Just how many intact dead bodies are around for people to raise?

Even those naturally spawned undead are laughably weak. Just bring in some priests and bless the area and all of them just disappear! Heck, they would even be happily obliged to be blessed. It frees them from their curse or whatnot.

As a person blessed with necromancy magic, and as the greatest necromancer in the world, I cannot let this stand. And so with this research, I plan to recreate the perfect undead! Just you wait! I’ll make powerful, hot, vampire boys a reality!

If anyone else is reading this, probably very far into the future, how’d you like my pets? All pretty powerful right? Hah! Hope you liked fighting them, cause all you’re getting are just my failed research notes! I bet you can’t even read these! You fought so hard for nothing!

Ah, but in case you’re both a necromancer and capable of reading this language, this may be pretty useful for you. Here in this notebook, you may find some spells and rituals to create and modify the undead. Don’t let my legacy go to waste! Take over the entire world with the undead!

Just kidding <3

[You do not meet the requirements to learn these spells.]

“…Kayden, are you able to read the words?” Ezekiel asked curiously.

Kayden sighed and shut the book.

“We can sell all the other papers, but this one I recommend we do not.”

“So you can read it.”

“Uh… yes.” Kayden quickly came up with an excuse. “It seems that the language in this book is a little bit different than the books in the library. My translation ability was able to work with this one.”

Ezekiel didn’t seem to have caught on that he was lying, nor did anyone else. By his side, Cathy raised a question of her own.

“So what did it read?”

Kayden hesitated for a while but decided it was better to tell the truth on this point.

“It’s a spell book of sorts… but for necromancy.”

“Ah… that’s not… very unexpected.”

“Yeah… Well, what do you guys want to do with it? I can continue reading it to see if there are any other important details about this dungeon. Who knows? Maybe there’s a hidden treasure room.”

Ezekiel nodded. “Alright. You can hold on to it for now, but I don’t think you’ll have the time to slowly read it right now.”

He then pointed over Kayden’s shoulder, where Aisha and her party seemed to have finished what they were doing. Kayden looked back and tried to gauge Aisha’s expression.

A light smile tugged on her hips and her eyes were slightly watery. It seemed that whatever happened, it had ended well. Alas, Kayden was never wrong in his predictions.

“Let’s discuss a plan to get out of here. I don’t want to have to stay in this place any longer.” Said Conner. It was the first time Kayden had heard his voice since they last met, and it seemed like his throat got a little scorched as well. His voice was incredibly raspy.

“Well said. Does anyone have any ideas?” San also spoke with a similar, raspy voice.

“I’ll help you guys out if you need my invisibility, but I won’t be leaving yet.” Kayden reminded.

“I know. You have the fight with Brandon.” Aisha smiled as she looked over at him and spoke with a confident voice. “We’ll be staying with you then. We’ll leave when you leave.”

“What? What about your injuries? With so many of us hurt, it’s insane for you to even want to stay here. Just to remind you, the adventurers will be looking for you very soon, and they’re not going to be very happy.”

“No, she’s right,” Conner spoke up once more. His voice a bit clearer as he stood in support of his leader. “It was you that got us out of danger thanks to the deal you made. If we can’t even stay behind to help you even after all you did, we won’t be able to call ourselves adventurers.”

San, Bell, and Lisa nodded in unison. Thanks to him, they didn’t become hostages to help extort the Crimson Menace, and they wanted to repay him somehow. Those extra potions from Ryan that healed them were also because of the deal they made. Kayden wasn’t about to vehemently reject their kindness. If they wanted to endanger their lives, they could go ahead and do so, and it would help him out greatly anyway. But just more people isn’t going to be enough.

“I appreciate your help, but we still need a plan. How do we escape once my battle is over? They’re still going to be mad regardless if I win or lose.”

Aisha crossed her arms and gave a confident smirk. “Ah, don’t worry about that! I have a plan! Well, it should work if she isn’t angry at me.”

“Hmm? What’s your plan?”

“Remember my previous plan to drill an entrance into the dungeon? Well, it just so happens that we spotted what should be the hole we made. We’ll need Heather on our side if we want to do it quietly, however. Her blessing allows her to use metal magic.”

“Aha, I see. So, we’ll make use of the already made hole as an entrance. And with Cathy’s ability, we should be able to break open an exit with the help of this Heather’s ability.”

“It all rests on whether she’s willing to help, though.” Aisha reminded. “Let’s go meet up with her first.”