In the nearly two weeks since Luna departed, Julian had managed four trips out to gather corpses. Including the losses taken in unfavorable fights, he now had fourteen smiler zombies waiting outside the gate as he prepared for another expedition. Of course, smilers weren’t the only enemy he’d found out there, but since they were the only ones which managed to threaten him, he kept them as his main undead force.
When it came to Skills, the need to personally participate in combat had dwindled with every additional zombie. His crossbow Skill had finally leveled when one of his overwatch attempts managed to actually hurt one of the monsters, but other than that he hadn’t seen much progress in personal combat. At this point his spear’s main purpose was to speed up the battles, and occasionally secure a perfect corpse with which to unlock Corpse Stitching. He’d had mixed results; out of the fourteen zombies he’d raised, a whole five had been good enough to progress the Skill.
He mentally sighed at the slow progress, but at least it was still progress. If the explosive growth he’d experienced on entering this world had been sustainable, very few people would still be in the Town of Beginnings; he’d have to get used to slow and steady. Heading out of the gate, he bade Denise farewell before he was quickly surrounded by his undead. With the numbers available to him, he kept the zombies spread out in two circular ranks around him. The inner rank had four of the creatures in the same square formation he had first used, about six feet away from him. The outer ten were spread in a roughshod circle about twelve feet out.
The double ranks worked extremely well. While the smilers would approach his formation with caution, they were still distinct from real animals in that they never retreated; once they had his scent they would fight to the death to bring him down, regardless of the impossibility of breaking through his wall. One undead would slow a monster down, and before they could do serious harm they’d be swarmed by the living corpses.
And that’s exactly how Julian’s first hunt of the day went. One of the demonic dogs emerged from a copse of trees nearby and barreled at his group. It slowed when it processed that it faced an entire horde of its raised kin, but it never stopped. It tried to aim straight for Julian, but a thought was all it took to direct a zombie into its path. A gory grin tore out hunks of utterly useless undead flesh, while the zombie’s own teeth only tore into the loose skin and fat around the smiler’s throat. While the two brawled, eight of Julian’s other zombies moved to join the melee; their approach distracted the creature enough that its next attack failed to even gore the zombie. Then the horde arrived, and the battle was practically over.
The smiler tried to dodge and catch blows on its claws and maw, but against nine assailants it barely slowed the tide. Several of the zombies were raised from perfect corpses, one of which tore out the smiler’s throat before any real damage could build up. Julian was ecstatic; the corpse had no real damage to the musculature or skeleton, so it would probably count as a perfect corpse. It seemed his “perfect” undead might have reached a critical mass from which they’d continue to replenish themselves, and massively increase his Skill unlock rate.
Fortunately he’d taken the time, and some of the silver he’d acquired hunting smilers, to procure a simple but sturdy stretcher for the corpses which was pulled along by one of the zombies at the back of his formation. With his first catch of the day secured, he happily continued further away from the hamlet, looking for more prizes. As the light faded he had the joy of two more easy battles against singular monsters, one even rewarding him with another perfect corpse. This was looking to be a great haul.
Of course, in his success he had gotten a little cocky. It wasn’t a brash arrogance, so much as a simple lack of appropriate attention to his surroundings; his wandering had taken him out well past his usual hunting grounds, further into the wilds. A screaming howl sounded on the wind, and his head immediately jerked up as he attempted to find the source of the haunting yell under the dim moonlight. It was not long before his face blanched, not that one could tell given the pale lighting; there were at least eight of the demonic beasts loping toward him.
Julian’s thoughts, rather than terror for himself as might have been warranted, turned to fear for his recently raised minions. Raising the dead had proven a slow process, and against eight of the beasts his casualties could run high. He reorganized the undead into a shallow arrow-head formation, the wings no more than a few feet behind the front, with him at the tip, planted his spear in the ground nearby, and drew his crossbow; perhaps this wasn’t an optimal formation to guarantee his health, but he’d not allow his losses to mount too high.
As the pack barreled toward him, Julian breathed out, leveled his crossbow, and released. At the head of the pack a smiler’s head surged forward as it attempted to bite the missile out of the air, but its head snapped back, and it fell behind its kin. The necromancer nodded as he glanced about, assuring himself that his forces were in formation. Then he picked up his spear and readied for the oncoming charge; he was too slow.
Two monsters bore down on him before his spear was ready to intercept. One held back, conserving energy after the charge, while the other barreled straight into him. Its teeth tore at his leg, shredding the leather and his skin, but he tore his leg out before it was seriously harmed. While more monsters piled in all around and his assailant tried to press forward, one of Julian’s fully-intact zombies dove on the creature which had attacked him. Undead teeth clamped tight around the back of the smiler’s neck, and Julian heard a snap before the monster dropped to the ground.
Around him the undead clashed with their living counterparts, but Julian was focused on the more cautious smiler that had also snuck inside his guard. The monster was no longer focused on him, so he shuffled backward to make some space, then stepped forward with an easy spear thrust. A cry of pain was released from the demonic beast as his weapon pierced its open flank, but instead of following up on his success, Julian took a guarded stance and did his best to keep an eye on the chaotic battlefield.
His caution was immediately rewarded, as he was able to redirect one of the stragglers. His spear drew lines across its perfect white teeth as he directed its leap to the side; it missed him entirely and landed amidst the undead. And the undead were in a frenzy. Several smilers fell to the gnashing teeth of the undead, which sought throats, guts, and other weak points with no fear for their own well-being. One grievously injured monster swung a barely-attached arm at the necromancer while he deflected its ally, shredding the last strap holding his leather armor together and leaving deep scratches in his skin, but under the effects of adrenaline Julian didn’t even register the blow.
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The man standing in front of his own cannon fodder did, however, notice when another smiler tore into his side, just above his hip. Bones creaked and cracked and flesh tore as he released a great shout of pain, stumbling under the weight of the smiler. Almost instantaneously the beast was overwhelmed by a pair of perfect zombies, but even as it fell it bore an almost human look of pride above its perpetual grin.
As the necromancer struggled, his undead continued to slaughter their living counterparts. Had he been paying attention to something other than his own horrifically painful injury and the enemies right in front of him, he might’ve felt pride at their performance; as he was in fact distracted by those things, adrenaline and fear kept the entirety of his pained focus on the two surviving smilers. His cautious assault failed to break through the ribcage of one of the survivors, but instead of trying again, he kept his defense ready and allowed his zombies to do their work.
Their work did not take long. In moments, the necromancer was again only surrounded by the dead and the undead. His arms trembled while the adrenaline wore off, but he forced himself to focus and take stock. There was a massive gash in his side; he used some of his first aid supplies to sterilize it to the best of his ability and bind it tight. The pain was bad, but he could push through it, at least until he made it back to the village. One of his zombies was also missing significant amounts of extraneous flesh, but he had no way to repair that. He hoped Corpse Stitching would allow him to do so in the future.
As for his hunt, he would call this trip a great success, despite his injuries. His sled was now loaded with eleven corpses, five of which were in perfect enough condition he figured they’d qualify for the Skill unlock. With the refrigeration room Sarah was allowing him to borrow, he thought he could raise all of them before they deteriorated. That left one control slot open, which he would fill with the most intact corpse from the other six available.
The necromancer grinned and started the trek back to the village.
***
The sound of groaning wood was followed by an earth-shaking crash as Luna felled yet another Lesser Treant Lord. Creatures like this were useless for her primary Skills, but they provided a good opportunity to train up some of those that were falling behind. Like Toughness – she tended not to close to melee in the first place, let alone take hits from most enemies. Her armor currently lay in her camp, hidden high in the canopy, but she moved to her pack which was only a branch or two up and took out a healing potion; training Toughness was a pain not just for the literal reasons, but for the resources required to do it efficiently and safely.
Still, she was happy enough to pay. Every rank of Toughness made it that much harder to kill her, and pain was a much better price than her life. Against the bludgeoning blows of treants her fur didn’t even get very bloody, though the bruises would last even once the most impactful damage was healed. She sighed and spent a few minutes tracking down yet another Lesser Treant Lord. Fortunately she could tell they were lesser by their size, so she didn’t have to split the experience with an identification Skill. As with every other fight of the day, she dropped her bag of useful supplies off in a nearby but reasonably safe location, and approached with neither weapons nor armor.
The towering creature, formed of twisted vines like mutated muscles without skin, roared at her approach. It sounded like a thousand thick branches snapping in rapid succession, the snapping cracks blending together into a penetrating shockwave that could kill lesser foes. Luna was not a lesser foe. Shockwaves bounced harmlessly off her, an annoyance, and her approach continued unimpeded.
A slow creature, it took the treant a moment to adjust to her proximity. She had to deliberately allow its fists, formed of trunks thicker than her entire body, to crash down on her. As in her last dozen “battles”, the opening blow did nothing; fists smashed into her upraised arm, but since the treant held some effort in reserve for defense, its blow couldn’t harm her through her Constitution. When she held still after its blow, without any sign of reciprocation, it grew bolder, and its second attack came down with all the might it could muster.
Luna’s eyes widened before she dove to the side, recognizing the blow as too great to take outright; it seemed this treant could hit a bit harder than some she had fought. A wave of dirt, grass, and wood chips flew out from where it hit, glancing off her toughened skin. This was the real problem with training Toughness, far worse than the cost of potions; one had to take damage without being killed outright. She shook her head, and got to work finding the exact amount of effort needed to redirect a blow enough to harm her, but not break her.
It took several minutes. Guessing the effort needed too low just once was a recipe for immediate death, so she slowly let the dumb brute’s slams come closer and closer, until one caught her legs. It was only a glancing blow, but that was enough to tear her knee out of place. She cursed, the pain overwhelming her sense of success, before darting forward, mostly on her good leg, to strike the very raw lumber. She ducked between its legs, then jumped up its back until she reached its neck. She didn’t know why these plant monsters still had the weaknesses of a humanoid, but she didn’t complain as she tore the thick root that made up its spine straight out of its neck. Unlike a human spine it came out mostly intact, with bits of the root network that made up its brain attached to the very end.
The sound of groaning wood was followed by an earth-shaking crash as Luna felled yet another Lesser Treant Lord. She limped her way to her pack, and withdrew a bright-red colored flask, the contents of which she quickly drank. A shudder passed through her at the truly horrid taste, but disgust was quickly drowned out as her injured leg started itching with the fury of a thousand angry bees. This time the healing took the better part of an hour, and she was miserable the entire time. When the sensation finally faded, she groaned and stood up, hesitantly ready to continue training Toughness.
That’s when she heard, and felt, a thump. And another one. And a few more, all spaced apart like the slowed-down gait of a walking humanoid. She armored up with the light leathers she’d packed, and started heading for the noise, keeping to the brush and the shadows of trees. What she found had her concerned, to say the least. Walking through the forest was another lesser treant lord, about twenty feet tall, and it was covered in black flames. Screams sounded from its throat, and as it fell, dozens of lesser denizens of the forest swarmed over and around it. Several caught fire, but the casualties didn’t slow the stampede; something had them well and truly terrified.
She waited, hidden in the trees, until she caught a glimpse of what was driving the stampede. Before it came fully into sight, the world filled with the sound of all-encompassing static. The vibrations made her teeth buzz against each other in her maw, but she didn’t retreat; she had to know what exactly was coming. When the static was the only sound left around her, she finally saw them. Several pulsating balls of amalgamated limbs, eyes, mouths, and other flesh surged across the ground, their unnatural movements more like micro-teleportations than locomotion. Everywhere they went, small cracks formed in the air itself, or perhaps in something more fundamental, but the cracks only lasted moments before sealing.
Void monsters. From the feeling they gave off, these ones were of a lower tier than her, but that was little comfort. Not when the static was still growing stronger. She needed to get help from the Wild Hunt proper, but they likely couldn’t make it back in time to guarantee her new apprentice’s survival against the beasts. After a moment she cursed and started to run deeper into the Wilds, steering wide of any sign of the tell-tale static. Barth would just have to run away and survive until she came back with reinforcements.