So, evidently some changes needed to be made. If a glorified flamethrower can almost kill me and wipe out half my army, then the situation is absolutely not satisfactory! More minions would help, maybe I can hang out on this floor for a bit longer to get stronger...
No! I can not, I swore on the breaking of my mother and the blood of my father, there can be no delays. From a certain perspective, that just proved how far away I am from actually achieving my goal. 6 years of my time has already been spent, 6 and 9 months in fact, some of those rascals may have died already!
Rather, I need to accelerate my plans. 6 years and 9 months to get basic skeletons? Unacceptable, from now on I can let nothing slow me, I cannot be prevented from attaining vengeance!
Yet still, despite knowing this, I hesitate.
In front of Bokan, the druids who had been used in order to help heal him while he was near death were forced to their knees, all other students of the first floor Academy having already fallen to his minion's death bolts. The advantage of not having to see your opponent to kill them was made much clearer when there is a large building in between you, it was just a pity Bokan had only clocked that now.
He had lost 40 of his skeletons in the fighting, only newer ones. However, with Otran contributing his knowledge of magic, Fred had managed to lead the other undead to killing the roughly 200 remaining students. The result was that Bokan had been forced to work non stop for 2 days after waking up, however his newly improved stats had been massively helpful.
Of those 200, however, Fred had spared the lives of 6 of them. Those 6 were the druids that had healed his master, and so he waited for Bokan to make a decision, and the time to make that decision had come.
If news of what had happened on this floor, and what Bokan planned to do on the floors above, ever spread then no one would help him even on pain of death in future. However, did that matter? Would dead men tell tales? Perhaps he could just claim that everyone in the tower had attacked him, that he had had no choice? One day he may even be able to eradicate this story from the history books entirely, the tower was already a relatively mysterious place.
There was a difference, however, between killing opponents and killing those who had helped him. Even between killing innocents and killing friends, even he could see that. He recalled that on his old world, the rules of chivalry were normally strictly adhered to in war time, and there were three major reasons for that.
First, cruelty against a weaker nation will likely result in far more cruelty being received if that nation ever became stronger than the original oppressor. The normal human thing is to take an arm for a hand, to observe the rate of escalation and either continue it or increase it. Simple self-preservation dictated that mercy from the first exchange was the wisest choice, for you and your descendants.
Second, if you are merciless to a surrendering opponent, the next will not surrender. It is as simple as that. Every man, woman and child will fight to their last breathe against you, working together with a terrifying rage and efficiency even in the face of obvious defeat, turning small skirmishes into pyrrhic victories.
Finally, it becomes significantly harder to fight anyone without everyone around them jumping in to help them. Already if floor 2 knew he had wiped out floor 1, they no doubt would request support from floors 3, 4 and 5 on the basis of destroying him before he got too powerful for them to handle. If he spared these 6 druids, they would tell people about his brutality, but also people would know that they could avoid his fury by joining his side. Doing do would allow him to grow his forces much faster in the long run, and thus have significant advantages.
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Still, killing these 6 here would both improve his skills and his power. Already he was nervous about how many losses he might take on floor 2, floor 1 had only fallen so easily due to surprise. If he and all his skeletons were to battle against the 300 students on floor 1 on an open field in "fair" combat, not only would the students win, they would likely kill every single one of his minions with ease! A single lightning mage of Otran's power could destroy all 205 of Bokan's undead at the literal speed of lightning.
Meaning Bokan was far from overwhelmingly powerful. Most magic users gained defensive and healing options, however Bokan had not, and although his skeletons could recover from virtually anything in time, they weren't able to receive sudden boosts of healing or defence.
For the first time, he became somewhat regretful about the fact that he hadn't invested more into stamina. No! Such thoughts would mire him down in mediocrity, he could not allow his maximum power to be held back by such waste.
Still, the question remained. What to do with these 6.
Bokan had to recognize the possibility that he would never gain what he needed to enact his vengeance, or that he wouldn't manage it in the time he had. Was it really so terrible to ask for help? Surely there existed a particularly powerful wizard who could traverse space?
The other option was, of course, technology. Bokan had no idea how far he was from building one of those strange space ships that were spoken about in the ancient records of the "last" empire, however if they did exist and were possible then surely he was perfectly suited for building one? After all, his minions never tired, and he was already able to give them human-level minds. Additionally, they were all able to share thoughts and memories with one another perfectly. It was quite mana-intensive to do so, but it was possible. That degree of cooperation was impossible with normal humans, and who knew how many possible researchers he could have by the time he reached the top of this tower?
Receiving help, not receiving help and trying to advance technology enough were all risky paths to take, there seemed no guaranteed way for him to achieve his revenge. Thinking about the countless stars in the sky just made him more furious, and the spell that transported him here had already entirely dissipated, even if he went back to his family home he wouldn't be able to study it for clues.
Just being able to travel to other planets wasn't enough, he needed to find his old planet also. He had given himself 480 months to do so from the moment he left, and already he'd spent just over 81 months. Less than 83% of his time remained, yet he felt as though he had barely made any progress. The question was not could he afford to have mercy, it was if he could afford not to.
What would be more valuable when he had 10% of his time left, having had 211 skeletons at the end of the 1st floor, or having 205 skeletons and 6 druids, 6 people to spread word of his mercy?
However, there was another problem to take into consideration, and it was one that his experience on his old world couldn't easily help him to resolve.
The geas.
Had the druids of fully understood the situation, their geas would not have permitted them to heal him even if the alternative was the rulers losing 6 druids. Of course, the magic maintaining the growing undead was not continually coming from him so killing him wouldn't be enough to destroy them, however simply removing the leader who had been behind the death of just over 300 of the empire's magic users would still be worth more than their lives.
By this point they probably understood more of who he was, but the geas evidently didn't think they were capable of killing him at this moment so it would bide its time to force them to attack him at the one moment it most mattered. Most likely, that would be when he next needed serious healing.
So long as he was only slightly injured, he could likely rely on them for healing. If he released them, they would report him and the empire would send a contingent of anti-magickers to the tower to destroy him, and the geas might even silence them. Even if it didn't, it would prevent anyone short of those who were already thoroughly defeated from surrendering to him.
While thinking, he felt almost as though someone was crying out in his thoughts, but they felt far, far away. Strange, he would have to investigate it when he had time.
In conclusion, these 6 needed to die, but only because of the geas they were inflicted with, otherwise he would have released them to tell as many people as possible that he spared those who helped him. He didn't feel bad at all, and strangely that bothered him, but he had no time for deep self reflection, he had vengeance to secure and an empire to topple!