One week later, I had long left the area where the villagers hunt. Sadly, my life didn’t get much better. Deep into the woods, the number and strength of beasts grew to values I couldn’t handle, so I was forced to go towards the road. Then, I found a temporary balance. Not close enough to the road to be seen and not so deep that the beasts would be level 10 or higher.
Actually, if I was forced into a corner, my undead could probably deal with a level 11 beast, but not without some sacrifice. Hence, I was stuck in my comfort zone, harvesting the lives of beasts of levels 6 to 9. I did meet with two level 10s, but they managed to escape after leaving behind some serious damage. However, this last week's endeavors weren’t without gain.
First, my undead leveled while I slowly healed my wounds. That damn broken rib – Yeah, I finally accepted that it’s broken – it’s still keeping my health 8 points below max. Skelly-1 is level 4, while three others went up to level 3. My level is still at 4, though.
Then, my greatest achievement. I summoned ten more skeletons. Actually, it was twelve but two died for a level 10 beast. Of my ten new minions, four are already at level 2 while the rest are young skeletons at level 1. Fortunately, my bony portfolio also increased to four different types of skeletons. The leading group was still the former boars, which I decided to call carriers, with five undead. Next, came the wolfies with four undead, then the monkeys with three, and the foxes with two undead.
Aside from moving silently, the foxes didn’t add much, but the monkeys were surprisingly useful. They could climb trees and add another layer to our scouting abilities. For now, my goal was to consolidate my power and grow my undead to twenty before going deeper into the forest.
However, I was now plagued by another problem, health. Just yesterday, my health, which had been static at 72, suddenly dropped to 70. I can’t say for sure what is causing the drop but I have a good guess. My parents were always talking about how having good habits would prevent diseases and health deficiency, but I never paid much attention to it – I just ate my greens and exercised. If this sudden drop is really the so-called health deficiency, then the lack of good habits is the problem. Obviously, I’m not lacking exercise, so it should be my diet and living conditions.
Improving my living conditions is but a dream right now, thus I can only focus on eating better, which means diversifying my intake – I’m only eating meat right now. Therefore, I need to come up with a solution before this starts affecting my health in the long term. Since I can’t start eating the forest plants casually, the only other option should be buying from a village or city.
The smart choice would be the village where the chance of meeting someone who can identify my class is lower – also because it would be easier to silence them in case I was discovered, but I won’t admit this. However, I’m afraid to implicate the villagers since there is a big chance of Golden Star, which is the name of this country, destroying it to avoid trouble, while they wouldn’t dare to do so to an entire city. Hence, my only option is to buy from a city. Maybe I could even get a few healing potions to deal with my broken rib.
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That’s the reason why I’m heading towards the Lunar Market, the second biggest city in the country, which happens to be the closest city north of my village.
I know it’s a stupid idea, but I think I can pull it off. I just need to be careful.
***
Four days later, I could already see the gates and huge buildings of the Lunar Market. The city was probably a thousand or even more times bigger than the village. I really couldn’t imagine how life on it would even be, but I would never do more than imagining. I’m impulsive and inconsequential, but I’m not stupid. I would never dare to enter the city. Who knew if they had necromancy protections or detectors in the gates?
So, why was I here? My plan had never been to enter the city. Instead, I want to contact and try to make a deal with one of the merchants that comes to the city. As someone who grow up in a village close to the lunar road, I knew all sorts of merchants. In fact, I would dare to say that I could roughly identify their assets, business, and origin just by observing. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that four to ten merchants would pass by our village on the way to the Lunar Market every single week. That’s how I got that damn crystal in the first place.
Therefore, I just had to find the right merchant, one who was young and had yet to make a name. Of course, I would also have to be careful when approaching such a person on the road. The best option is to make contact when no one else is around, but I don’t exactly look like a reliable person, do I? I mean, I’m using rags and all of my clothes have some kind of blood stain.
However, I have something that no ambitious upstart merchant would resist; lots of cores and beast’s materials. So, I waited by the road, two or three kilometers from the city, if I’m not wrong.
It took another two days to find a suitable merchant. By then, I had summoned another two undead, which put my little army numbers at 16. Additionally, three of my level 1 skeletons had leveled up by 1.
The young man I was targeting only had a small cart pulled by a donkey. The poor boy could not even afford a horse - as if I was anywhere richer than him. Actually, I was several times poorer. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t run after looking at my ‘garments’.
After confirming with my undead monkeys that there were no other people nearby, I finally approached him. Slowly, I walked to him from a good distance to give the man a chance to prepare himself. Startling him would only gather bad feelings, so I approached him honestly.
“Stop right there!”
He was pointing a magical weapon my way and trying to put on a dangerous expression, but his shaking legs gave away his true feelings. Of course, no sane person would ever dare to travel the lunar road carrying valuables without any means of defense. While the wealthiest merchants would hire guards for protection, the more humble would go with magical weapons or magical scrolls. Both were great options but of completely different prices. With the former being on the steep end.
“Hey… I’m not trying to rob you. I just want to do business…” I stopped to avoid frightening him further.
I wasn’t always this brave, but spending time with the dead changes people, as does getting ravaged by beasts. The old me would never stand straight at the aim of a common weapon, much less a magical one.
“That’s what a thief would say… If you want to do business, go to the city.”
He was… right, but I couldn’t just give up, could I?