Alaster slept well that night. His dreams were filled with torment of those that destroyed his family. He dreamt of reuniting with Evelyn. He dreamt of growing strong enough that none would dare to bother him or his.

It was a good night that ended all too soon.

Just before the break of dawn, one of Alaster's Shadow Assassins, tasked with patrolling around the city, sounded a mental alarm, shaking Alaster from his rest quite violently.

With a strong sense of irritation and annoyance, Alaster looked through the Shadow's eyes and caught sight of the Shadow's alarm.

Undead.

Naturally occurring Undead were rare but feared. For good reason. They were static, incapable of growing stronger, but they did not need to.

For the dead to rise on their own, they needed a strong catalyst. This catalyst could be anything. Anything from a lot of dead being around an area of high Mana concentration, to something as simple as someone spilling a bottle of liquid Mana on the ground or in a river.

Natural Undead took many forms, both humanoid and not. The term encompassed any Undead that was unbound to a person. There were even stories and history of Natural Undead being intentionally raised. They were usually mindless and sought out all sentient life, which made them easy to direct towards a target.

Natural Undead were typically much stronger than Undead Minions. While a dozen Minions might be able to defeat the average Adept, their Natural counterparts could do the same with just two. While that was still quite weak, there had never been a recorded case of Natural Undead that did not appear in groups of several hundred. To make it worse, most Natural Undead were capable of infecting those they kill, allowing the dead to rise again and refill their reserves.

Due to this, entire Kingdoms took even rumors of Natural Undead very seriously and offer vast fortunes to those that provide accurate information on them. The Alderman of Alaster home village, Pinefall, had an ancestor who did not need to work for two generations due to providing the location of an Undead Horde.

Despite the good dream, Alaster felt his mood turn sour. Not because of the single Zombie, but because it was single.

It was a scout.

Which implied that there was an intelligent Undead commanding it. That was an issue. Mindless hordes could wipe out villages and threaten cities. An intelligent horde could wipe out cities and threaten nations.

Intelligent Natural Undead took just as many forms as their dumber kind, though typically appeared humanoid, vaguely. Each one had varying levels of intelligence, but they all shared a single characteristic. They could create their own Undead.

The common title for them was ‘Lich', though that was not their actual name, as they were simply too broad to classify. However, the title stuck.

Each Lich had a different personality as well. Some preferred a smaller army of powerful elites, while others wanted a massive army of weaker Undead. Some raised more Monstrous Undead while others raised more Humanoid Undead.

Regardless of their preferences, any Undead Horde with a Lich was bound to be larger than ordinary and much more of a risk. Alaster vaguely remembered hearing that similar to how Adventurers were ranked, certain threats were also ranked. However, each Threat Rank would be equal to a hundred of similarly ranked Adventurers.

A Mindless Horde was typically ranked C or B, depending on size and composition. But an Intelligent Horde was an A Rank Threat at the minimum.

Gilmore might be a city built for a siege, but an Intelligent Horde was still cause for concern. It would not fall. The people of Galmore would emerge victorious. Of that, Alaster was certain. But how many would die? How much would the city suffer? And would they be able to withstand the next Monster attack? Or the one after that?

Despite the danger this single Zombie represented, Alaster could not help. But be curious. As a Necrotic Magic User, Natural Undead presented a research subject that none would pass up. Unfortunately, while Alaster was studying the Zombie through the incorporeal eyes of the Shadow, it was not as efficient as being there personally.

Alaster pitched to run over there and study the creature in person. But he restrained himself. He had lessons to attend. Lessons with a person that was apparently extremely difficult to pin down. He did not want to miss a single one.

But, just because he could not go himself, at least at the moment, did not mean he wanted to simply pass up the chance. Who knew when another would come along, if ever?

Nor did Alaster want to allow the Galmorians to act on the threat, which they undoubtedly would. But evidence by the Zombie simply being there, that close to the city, despite still being nearly fifteen miles away, implied that Azemar did not know it was there. Else, his suits of armor on patrol would have dispatched it already.

Of course, Alaster would warn them if the Horde came too close, but until such a time, he wanted every moment that could be spared. Every moment Alaster examined this singular Zombie slowly wander; he learned something new about the dead. Nothing major, but Alaster was excited to see what he could learn from the Horde, or the Lich itself.

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Unfortunately, with the arrival of the Zombie, Alaster had to accelerate some of his plans. Which meant he had to stop his study for now.

Alaster ordered the Shadow to follow the Zombie, while he ordered a few of the city Shadows to exit and patrol the forests. He wanted to know if there were any other scouts.

Getting out of bed, Alaster had his armor form up around him as he left his room. He had not had the chance to get new clothes yet, but the armor would suffice for now. And luckily, any odor simply vanished from his body upon use of [Death Embrace], it was still not as effective as a proper bath, but at least he was more pleasant to be around than a pile of manure.

The sun was just beginning to rise above the horizon and had yet to crest the massive walls. Alaster was one of only a few wandering the streets, though many of the workshops still buzzed with activity. Alaster doubted they were ever truly still.

His destination was the small workshop that had caught his interest the night before. It was close enough to the Elder's home that Alaster decided to walk. While he had seen these streets through his Shadows’ eyes, seeing them in person was very different. The senses of the dead were different than the living after all.

Despite being a city built for war, it was very well designed and built. The road was the most uniform and even he had seen in any settlement, almost to the point of having no edges. The buildings were just as uniform. Alaster suspected that the Earth Mages that built the city had plenty of practice after constantly repairing the walls.

As it was, there were currently a couple dozen Chimeras attacking the Northern walls, they caused only a few casualties, which were all quickly pulled back and healed. But their attacks were doing quite a bit of damage to the fortifications. Their powerful lion heads bit large chunks out of the reinforced stone while their claws left deep grooves. Their goat heads on their back breathed fire that melted stone, leaving it red and deformed.

Just about the only part of each chimera that wasn’t causing damage to the walls was their snakehead tails, which whipped around them, biting at any defender that came too close or was too slow. Chimera venom was one of the more difficult to cure through magic, but surprisingly easy to create a mundane cure. Most of the ingredients are either typically found in a common garden, growing as a weed wherever it can, or gathered from most wet surfaces.

Alaster watched through a Shadow for a moment before he returned to his walk. It still amazed him how efficient the defenders of Galmore were. It was obvious they would be, but it still impressed him. They were all individually strong and capable, but working together, they easily tore through the threats presented.

The common saying was that it would take ten Adepts to defeat an Expert, though there were countless details that could drastically change that outcome. But Alaster suspected that saying could be changed to just five Galmorian Adepts against a single Expert elsewhere.

It was not just the way they worked together either. Any fortification would have units that train and work together in order to build cohesion and improve effectiveness. Those units tended to be a tad awkward when working with other units. But for the Galmorian Soldiers, they seamlessly changed their strategy as the Soldiers came and went.

In just a short twenty-minute walk, Alaster arrived at the workshop tucked between two much larger workshops. The sun was just beginning to peak out above the wall, but the alley leading to the target building was still shrouded in darkness, not that it posed any obstacle to Alaster with his [Seeker Sight].

Alaster calmly walked forward and knocked loudly on the heavy door. Peaking underneath with the singular Shadow accompanying him, Alaster saw the young woman look up from drawing a new blueprint with curiosity.

She set down her pencil and stood up. Unlike Colius, the clutter in this researcher was organized and left clear paths. She opened the door slightly, only revealing her face.

“Yes?” She shyly asked.

“Hello, I would like to hear about a particular project you designed.” Alaster greeted as warmly as he could, he must have done it wrong because her shy demeanor turned hostile.

“Not another one. Go away, I don’t have time for anymore insults.”

She attempted to close the door, but Alaster stuck his armored foot in the way.

“I don’t understand your hostility, but I similarly don’t have time for insults. My interest is genuine, and quite persistent.”

She thought for a moment before sighing, likely realizing that the armored giant before her would continue to interrupt her work if she did not answer his questions, which she was right about.

“Fine, but don’t touch anything.” She firmly warned as she opened the door and stepped back.

Alaster entered the brightly lit room, ducking slightly to make it through the door. The room was just as he had previously seen it the night before, though she did not know that.

“Who are you anyway?” She asked, sitting back down at her desk but facing her visitor.

“I’m Alaster, and you?”

“You came here without even knowing my name?”

“I heard rumors about one of your projects, that it.”

She sighed again, “My name is Claire. Now what project, as you can see, I am working on quite a few.”

Alaster smirked as his helmet melted away, “That one behind hanging over your desk.”

She glanced over her shoulder, “Should have known.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you sure you aren’t here to make fun or insult me or my work?”

“Quite sure.”

The young woman, likely in her mid-twenties, flicked away a stray black hair that had gotten out of her ponytail.

“What exactly do you want to know?”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Alaster suggested, wanting to know everything.

“I have work to do, pressing work that can’t wait for Storytime.”

Alaster summoned one of the many Gold Coins from his Ring of Holding and flicked it over to her.

“Tell me about it.” Alaster pressured, which upon catching the coin, Claire easily allowed.

“Alright then. Well, it’s not actually my design, not really. It is actually a design from an ancient document. So ancient that it predated everything else in history. As you know, that in itself isn’t that wonderous. Records are constantly being destroyed either by Monsters or people.

But this truly was ancient, and even then, I’m fairly positive that it was copied from an even older source, and even again. Who knows how ancient the original is!” She was beginning to get excited.

“That alone would have made it a desirable object for historians but few others. But what caught my attention was what it said. Now the age caused much of it to become unreadable, but from what I could make out, it was a description of a weapon that allowed even a child to kill powerful Monsters.

From the wording, I imagine that the weapon was everywhere and used to be common knowledge and used. Due to that, the actual description was vague, but it was enough to allow me to begin making prototypes.”

“What is it called?”

“The document called it many different things; I believe different slang words or different variants. But the actual term was quite simple but precise.

It was called a Firearm.”