Elena turned around with furrowed brows upon realizing that somebody was coming.  Meanwhile, Acton and Vince were looking at the forest with panicked faces. “This… Did you bring us here?” Vince asked with a dark face.

“We did bring you here. Is something wrong with this place?” Dred asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Is there a desert nearby?” Vince asked for confirmation, his body shuddering all along.

“Yes, we came through the edge of it.”

By the time he stopped speaking, Vince’s forehead was covered in sweat. Wiping it, he said, “This forest is called the Forest of the Lost. Nobody who dared to enter this forest returned. Legends say that Death dwells in it. There were rumors about walking corpses on the edge of the forest. But such things are impossible. We don’t know what-”

“Impossible? Haha, you are wrong. Even I can make corpses walk. It’s nothing hard. Once you can control Mana, it’s as simple as snapping your fingers. Now that you are saying this, I’ve noticed that the dark and the fire element is much denser here. It’s getting closer,” Elena interrupted and enlightened him by facts, showing excitement.

Vince’s common sense cracked when he heard the words of a ‘powerful Mage’, though he couldn’t help but question her words in his mind. “W-Why the hell are you grinning? This isn’t fun!” Vince shouted, starting to lose it. He never took part in a real battle or fight. The thought of meeting something truly dangerous, scared him a lot.

“Don’t be afraid. I need you and although cowardly, you don’t seem to be a bad person. Well, not for now. So I’ll protect your puny life,” Elena said as she jumped off of Dred’s back and stood in front of Vince and Acton. Such arrogant words… but I have to keep up a face, she thought with a chuckle.

“Thank you!” Vince shouted. Seeing his vehement reaction, Elena and her friends too thought the same thing, he would definitely do bad things to save his life… “Maybe I should kill him, after all,” she mumbled in a low voice. “Well, I shouldn’t make assumptions. He might be different.”

The trees started creaking as the gentle wind was swaying them. A bad odor hit everyone’s nose, turning the humans’ expressions into disgusted ones. As beings of darkness, Elena and her friends had no problems with it. The footsteps disappeared long ago since the person in question has been looking at them without doing anything for a good while.

Raising her right hand, showing a smile, Elena waved at the long, black haired guy. Inspect.

Name: O’ Sru Ha

Race: Human

Level: 102

Threat Level: 0

Class: Necromancer

Specialization: Creator

“Oh! Your level is really high, considering the standards of your planet…” Elena said in a delighted tone before looking at Acton and Vince with a frown. Shrugging them off, she focused back at Sru.

“What brings you to us?” she asked with a smile.

A grin spread on his face upon hearing her question. Grabbing his hair, he tied it into a ponytail. “I haven’t had any visitors in a long time thanks to the rumors. Now so many of you came here by yourselves. This is just amazing if you ask me! I didn’t want to leave this forest, but the lack of humans started to screw with my tests. You know, it’s hard to learn necromancy without practice, and I need corpses to do it. What do you say?”

“That you are an idiot,” Audrey laughed at him.

“Who are you, redhead? I’ll give you special treatment,” Sru pointed at her, visibly angered by her remark.

“Why so angry? She just said the truth, right? Sis?” Jake asked with a chuckle, giving a new nickname to Elena.

“Sis… that is actually good! Yeah! Let’s call her Sis from now on,” Audrey caught his words, just as Jake planned. “And we can call Dred big bro! No… that doesn’t sound right from my mouth… I’ll stay with brother or Dred, I guess,” she muttered, looking at Dred from the corners of her eyes.

“Now I’ve got a Bro! Woah! It feels nice-” Jake started but when two huge paws coiled around his body, he froze on the spot. “W-Why are you hugging me, in your bear form? Though this is nice, I’d rather be hugged by Audrey.”

“Brothers should love each other!” Dred said with a chuckle, squeezing Jake’s body.

“A- Ah! Let go of me! You are no brother to me, you are killing me!” Jake shouted. Elena just shook her head, not minding what she was called. It feels rather nice, she thought, looking at a crack in the dry ground.

“You people are really shameless. Ignoring me, huh? Fine, I’ll give all of you a painful death!” Sru shouted, his face red. Lines of corpses ran towards them from the forest, completely encircling them. Cleaning her nails, Elena ignored him. Her shadow spread out in a circle and connected with the corpses. Ekilsta finished its job at the same time, giving her access.

“Kill him,” she commanded the corpses. Like the obedient toys they were, they charged towards Sru, very much to his surprise. “What the hell? No! Attack them!” he shouted, but was overrun by the corpses. They bit into his arms, his legs, tearing off large chunks of meat. His blood dyed the ground red and covered the corpses’ mouth too. He kept screaming, trying to get back his control over his minions, but it was for naught.

Sighing loudly, Elena walked towards him. Standing over him, she sighed loudly, “We could have gotten along if not for your wrong decision. In your next life, learn to measure up your opponents.” The light in his eyes slowly faded out. Feeling a corpse reaching his gut, tearing it out to drag it away and another reaching his heart, he felt rather happy to die after so much pain.

A strange smile spread on his face in his last moment, just like most people, who died while seeing Elena. It was a strange effect of her race. “Let’s go,” Dred took the lead and went ahead of everyone. “Where are we going?” Audrey tilted her head to the side, having a better mood after seeing that she had one more common thing with Jake.

“To the necromancer’s base. Dred can smell it,” Elena replied, throwing her black hair over her shoulders.

“What about them?” Jake asked, pointing at Vince and Acton. Acton looked fine, but Vince seemed to be a complete mess. The contents of his stomach decorated the ground, leaving his stomach empty. “Follow us or stay here alone,” Elena remarked, waiting for an answer. After telling Acton what she said, he agreed to follow her before Acton could do as much as utter a word.

They had to walk for a few hundred meters before reaching a black door, which had a stair behind it. “We are going underground,” Dred said, scaring Vince. Opening the door with his bear paw, he tried to get through the door, but he was too big. Switching to his panther form in front of everyone, he continued without any trouble.

Changing his size was impossible in other forms. They walked through the long and dark corridor until reaching an iron door. Seeing that it had a keyhole, Dred raised his right paw and used his full strength to smash it. The door broke out of its case and crashed against the wall. “Amazing,” Acton mumbled in his language.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

There was one path on the left and one on the right. Turning around, Elena looked at the corpses that were following her without her command. “Where should we go?” she asked, flicking the chin of one of them. It stood unmoving, not reacting to her question. “Meh, you are too stupid. He surely had better zombies than you,” she turned around.

“I feel stronger presences on the left, so that might be his laboratory, while the rooms on the right are his living quarter. Let’s check if he has something good at first,” Dred advised. Nodding her head, Elena followed him. But even after checking everything, they didn’t find anything good, other than the pieces of equipment the victims had. But that was useless to Elena, so she just ignored them.

On the left, they found another iron door, which seemed to be much thicker than the one before. Dred opened it in the same manner, ignoring the possibility of an opened door for the second time. Seeing Elena’s stare, he said, “What? It’s quicker than trying to open it.”

“That’s true…”

Shaking her head, she entered the circular room. Audrey was so focused on the twelve metal doors in front of them, that she bumped into Elena and stepped on her right heel. “Ah, sorry. Sister~”

“I see that you are trying to annoy me with it, but I don’t mind if you call me sister, so it won’t work,” Elena clarified her thoughts about Audrey’s teasing.

“How sad and happy at the same time. Here I thought that you would be annoyed by it, but it’s good to know that you consider me a sister,” she commented, rolling a lock of her red hair around her finger.

“Don’t look at me that way, brother~” Elena said with a chuckle, looking at Jake.

“I wasn’t looking,” he denied the truth.

Shrugging her shoulders, Elena closed her eyes and used her sense, ignoring the scenery in front of them. There were twelve doors in the circular room, which had a diameter of fifty meters. In the middle of it was a stone table where the corpse of a female laid. Its chest was cut open. Stepping closer, Elena saw two hearts in its chest, one of them only half connected to the late woman’s veins.

“What kind of messy creature was this guy building? I feel a bit sorry for those who died here,” Elena mumbled with furrowed brows. “I’m starting to understand why people don’t like necromancers, though… it’s not like I’ve never done bad things,” she laughed.

Bones were thrown on the ground, along with rotten organs and limbs. Stepping over them, Elena broke through the first door and found a short corridor. At the end of it was a cell where a few walking corpses resided. Thanks to their low levels, she was able to sense even their body structure. She went through another ten of the rooms where she found different types of corpses.

“Let’s see what is in this last odd room. This has got a much thicker door and I feel a strange flow of Mana too,” Dred mumbled, leading the others towards it. After breaking through the door, they found a huge ice block with a formation around carved into the ground around it.

A corpse was in the middle of it, its eyes closed and its body chained to a stone bed. The first thing Dred did was to stomp on the ground and break the formation. Using Fire Magic, he started to melt the ice.

“What are you doing?! Don’t free it!” Vince shouted, seeing what they were trying to do.

“You can leave if you don’t like it, but I am curious, so I’m going to free this thing,” he replied, placing his other paw too on the ice. Seeing that it was slowly melting, Vince turned more and more nervous. Touching his shoulder, Acton said, “I think that you can calm down. They are truly powerful. We won’t be in danger and I have my gun too.”

“What did he say?” Elena asked, raising a brow.

“He just soothed me,” Vince replied, visibly calmer than before.

“You don’t really trust us, it seems,” she shrugged, seeing that Acton managed to calm him down with just a few words.

“N-No, it’s not that, I just-”

“You don’t need to look for excuses. You don’t know us, so it is natural,” she cut off his words. Knowing that it was pointless to speak any further, he left it at that.

When the ice melted around the corpse’s head, it opened its eyes to look around.

“Haaah, I’m back,” it whispered. Shaking its body, the ice broke around it, but the chains seemed to be too much for it.

“Hello, little one. Do you know anything? What is your name, if you have any?” Dred asked as he broke the chains, his shadow looming over the corpse’s head.

Raising its hands, it looked at its fingers. Scratching the top of its head, it made a thoughtful face. “I’m… I don’t remember anything. Who am I?”

“What is strange is that it speaks our language,” Elena remarked.

Sitting up, the corpse suddenly shouted, “AH! I know it! That guy called me Cor! I’m Cor! Yes, yes I am! Hahaha! Who am I?” it asked again in the next second, forgetting everything.

“...”

“Oh! I’m Cor! I was a… man. Was I? What was I? What am I now?” he broke his neck, tilting his head too much to the side.

“So, you are Cor, a man in the past and possibly a human. You are an undead zombie now,” Dred enlightened the creature. Inspect.

Name: Cor

Race: Zombie

Level: 82

Threat Level: 0

Class: None

Specialization: None

He has quite a high level. He was surely free before. I wonder what happened. Tch, Elena killed the guy too quickly. I should have stopped her, after all, Dred thought, growling in a low voice.

“Why are you unhappy?” knowing what his growling meant, Elena asked.

“You screwed up! We should have dragged that guy here and ask questions about this world and he could have told us about this corpse too.”

“I’m sorry…” she hung her head and apologized

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m called Dred. She is Elena, she is Audrey, and he is Jake. You don’t have to remember the other two,” he quickly introduced themselves to Cor. This guy is completely empty headed at the moment. If we can manipulate him to join us, he might be useful in the future. Even if as Audrey’s or Jake’s underling, Dred planned ahead.

“Dred, Elena, Audrey, Jake. I remember! Haha. Okay… and? What should I do now? I had to eat those who were introduced to me by… by who? Do I have to eat you four?” he asked, tilting his head even further to the side.

“No. We freed you so you are indebted to us. The one who told you to eat others was called Sru. Do you remember anything?” Dred reasoned, seeing that Cor’s mind was still unstable.

“What do I do if I’m indebted?”

“You work hard until you repay it,” Dred said with a chuckle. Cor jumped up from the stone table. He had a few patches of white hair on the top of his head tied into a ponytail. The whites of his eyes and his pupils were completely red. There was a long scar running through from the middle of his forehead to his left cheek, and another one that went from his left cheek to his chin, across his dry lips.

His skin was dry and a bit wrinkly, but fine otherwise. Unlike the other corpses, he didn’t have such a strong odor. He had a black ring on his left hand and a dark green cloth covering his top half. Metal armor covered his shoulders, which seemed to be of high quality. He also had dark brown pants and knee-high metal boots, with skulls carved into the part that protected his knees.

There was a big, round shield tied onto his back, which was as big as his upper body.  He had a necklace around his neck, with a skull shaped emblem. His dark green shirt had a few emblems on it, showing his ranks, probably in some kind of military. Behind his shield was a mace, which ended in a pointy blade.

Undead creatures and zombies couldn’t use Magic since they consumed the Mana of the world to keep moving and in better cases, thinking. In turn, they had great Magical Resistances and Physical Resistances, making it hard to kill them. The better types of zombies were able to regenerate too and the quicker it was, the more dangerous they were. The only well-known spell they were able to use was Body Enchantment since it stayed within their bodies.

Reaching towards his right pocket, he pulled out a black glove and put it on his right hand. “What is that for?” Dred asked in his curiosity.

“What? Oh? What is this for? Wait… where did this come from?” Cor asked with an equally curious and surprised face.

“You pulled it out of your pocket just now,” Jake remarked, catching Cor’s attention. Stepping closer, Cor smelled him and then moved towards Audrey. His lips being only a few centimeters away from her face, he licked his lips as he said, “Your scent. You seem to be delicious-” before he could say any more, Jake kicked him in the side, making him crash into the wall.

“Don’t you dare to touch her.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, her head hung down. The uprising corners of her lips didn’t escape Jake’s attention.

“That was quite enjoyable,” Cor said as he crawled out of the hole in the wall, his body smoking. When the thick smoke dispersed around him, everyone was left with dumbfounded faces.

His body was covered in a thick, gray colored texture from head to toe, which looked like an armor from the outside. The texture covering his head looked like a skull and his eyes were missing. Looking down, he made a surprised face.

Is his armor moving along with his body? That’s strange, Elena thought with a frown. Appearing in front of him, she knocked on his chest. A metallic clicking sound echoed in the room. Using a quarter of her strength, she punched Cor in the chest. Although he crashed into the wall, he had no wounds or cracks on his body, which was a great feat, considering the difference in strength.

“Cool! You are great!” she couldn’t help but exclaim, feeling happy to see such a thing.

“Why are you hitting me?” Cor asked with a frown.

“I’m sorry, but we had to test your armor,” she replied with a bright smile on her face.

“Oh, okay then,” Cor simply agreed, not minding it. He had a past which he didn’t remember. Who was he or where he came from was a question he wanted to find out. After stating this, Elena told him that she could help him, but in turn, he would have to sell his soul.

“Soul? What is it? Do I have it?”

“You have,” Elena replied with a chuckle. Looking at Dred, she raised a brow. “Shall we?”

Transforming into his demon form, a grin formed on Dred’s face…