“Ahem ahem... AAAAA—” Clearing my throat after sneakily approaching a deer, I activated the skill I had spent the whole night getting, [Instil Fear], and screamed at the deer, who froze up for a few seconds before running away.

“So, it work’s if I scream... I wonder if just talking normally or whispering while activating it would give the same effect?” I wondered to myself.

It had been a long night for me... not that my nights were normally short, but I had done a lot after leaving the village after checking up on my men.

It was a few hours after dawn right now, but after practicing with my long sword for a few hours, I had started practicing with infusing my vocal cords with mana.

Initially I had started by using [Mana Strengthening] on them, but only after a few attempts I realised that strengthening them did literally nothing... well, other than making them harder to slice through, but that really wasn’t what I was trying to do.

Then I focused some of my mana on them normally, and started spewing out some mana from my mouth like how Ojciec Lasu described it, and after a few hours of trying, I had gotten [Instil Fear]!

And weirdly enough, it didn’t start at Z rank like all of my other skills had, but at G rank instead!

And after a bit of research, which is a convoluted way of saying I just asked Rifu-san about it, I learned that, if you get a new skill that is related to some of your other skills, that skill will start as higher ranked than normal, and as [Instil Fear] was related to both Mana Control and Mana Strengthening, I had gotten it at G rank from the get go!

Not to mention the fact that my mana control skill had also gotten an upgrade through my experimentation tonight, and all the previous nights, and became F rank!

Not that I could really tell the difference between the G rank version and the F rank version thought...

I mean... sure, my mana seemed more... reactive to my will, but I never really had problems controlling mana... other than the times Rifu-san was trying to teach me some basic spells but we can ignore those times.

I have books on basic magic anyways, I just need to finish learning how to read imperial or goblin, and I should be able to learn how to cast basic spells like fireball and such... assuming that I am able to understand their concepts, which I dearly hope I do!

Otherwise... I am going to be put in a really weird spot when some random guy from my land that doesn’t even have a class learns how to cast lightning or some other weird spell while the only spells, I am casting are simple things like focusing mana on my fist so I can punch a tree harder!

Not that mana strengthening is a spell but... it uses mana, it’s close enough!

“I should really return now...” I muttered as I looked at the sun.

The sun was slowly going up, and in a few hours, it’d reach its summit in the sky, which would be around the same amount of time it takes me to return back to Lublin.

So, I set on my back to the village.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how deep I was in the forest. I knew that I was quite deep, but how deep exactly? No idea.

But I knew which turns I had taken from where so I should be able to reach the village after a bit of walking.

And reach the village after a few hours I did!

Entering the large clearing around the village walls filled with farmlands, I quickly passed by farmers tending to their village, and saw their faces scrounge as I did so.

“...Yeah, I really need to change my muscles again...” I muttered to myself, and made a mental note of it.

I didn’t know how, but even though my muscles started deteriorating, I could always use them as long as they weren’t totally dried out, though whenever I changed them with new ones, I always became amazed of how efficient and great normal muscles were.

I had, of course, looked into ways of keeping bacteria out of my body, or simply stopping my muscles and other organs, like eyes and ears, from rotting but doing that through magical means was... impossible, for now.

I had seen the inscriptions Krone, the ex-goblin shaman, had put on his undead that somehow stopped them from decaying, but I couldn’t replicate those.

Not that I hadn’t tried to, I just couldn’t as the inscriptions I had gotten on my hands were always broken, or deteriorated in some way or the other, and I couldn’t exactly ask Krone for help either as... well, I had dethroned the guy, and ordered surgeries on him to stop him from using his mana, which was like purposefully crippling someone in this world.

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And, at first me and Rifu-san, had assumed Krone had some acolytes under him that also knew some necromancy but... nope!

He was just simply controlling dozens of undead by himself which is... impressive to say the least.

Realising very early on that I couldn’t get any help from Krone, I, of course, went and asked Rifu-san to teach me some magical ways to keep my body from decaying but... she was unhelpful in that regard. Which was a first.

I mean... her people were advanced in preserving meat, and their efficient usage of ice, water, and wind magic to keep their stockpiles frozen impressed me, but... I didn’t want my muscles to be dry and cold.

To move efficiently, my muscles needed to be wet and warm, not frozen.

She then recommended some other preservation methods for me, which I experimented on, but things like vinegar, alcohol, and brine were just... useless to me as they’d either dry my muscles out, or destroy them slowly after extended periods of time.

The only preservation method that was at least semi-useful was using honey!

It would keep my muscles fresh and wet while its anti-bacterial properties would keep my muscles from rotting, and becoming useless for weeks!

I could continue using a body for a month, if not longer if it was coated generously in honey!

But the problem is that it’d be only useful if I had coated all of my muscles generously in honey and, while there was a convenient hive of very large bees near the goblin village, I didn’t have the time to start harvesting them before I left the goblin village, and apparently plant people didn’t enjoy honey that much, so Rifu-san didn’t have a lot of honey in her domain that she could give me either... I mean, she did have a lot of it, but it wasn’t produced in large quantities, and was a bit expensive as it was seen as a weird luxury product.

Like blue cheese. It’s literally covered in mold, and most people are put off by it, but there are still people who like to eat it. So, there’s a market for it.

Though, comparing honey to blue cheese is probably not a good way to compare how honey is treated in Rifu-san’s domain as... there’s definitely a blue cheese counterpart in her territory that looks, smells and tastes equally as disgusting as blue cheese, and is also equally popular.

*Creak~*

With a soft creaking the guard’s manning the walls opened the village gates for me, and then escorted me to the mayor’s mansion.

And as this time, I was walking through the street, even more people started at me in confusion and awe.

Were they scared of me? Did they find a deity walking through the streets of their village weird? Or were they simply looking at the source of that hellish stench? No clue. Probably a bit of all 3. But they locked their eyes on me non the less, but they’d get used to my presence.

And hopefully they’d do it soon as I was planning on returning to this place quite a few times.

As I was about to enter the mayor’s mansion, I looked up at the sky.

“It’s noon. Perfect timing!” I muttered to myself.

In English of course. No need to go and ask Rifu-san to translate my mutterings into Elk-men language or whatever it was actually called. Not that I particularly cared.

I mean, I had learned what the goblin language was called like a week ago, but I’ve already forgotten it. If I learned the true name of this language, it’d be out of my head in a week too!

*Creak~*

With another soft creaking sound, I entered the mayor’s mansion, and was immediately greeted by the stylish butler from last night.

“Welcome, Lord William. I have been assigned to be your guide and helper for rest of the day, if you have any wishes, please tell them to me.” He said, and I nodded at him.

“Is Priest Elijah in the mansion?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“No, Lord William, but I can send someone to inform him of your wish to see him if you want me to?”

“That would be great. But before that, can you guide me to a room where I can await his arrival?” I asked, and the butler nodded his head.

“Of course, Lord William, if you’ll follow—” The butler started, but stopped after hearing a weird soon.

*Thud thud thud—*

Weird thud sounds started coming from the corridor opposite to the one he was pointing towards, and after a few moments, a golem appeared from the corner, and I handed it my Long Sword.

“Well then, lead the way.” I told the butler, who was looking at the golem in surprise.

Though, I don’t know why. Afterall, he knew that my golems were around. But he may have just assumed my control over them were not that great... though, to be frank there was no way for him to know that I was actively controlling 50 golems, with majority of them being a week’s journey away from where we were.

Then, the butler led me to a balcony on the second floor of the mansion, and I sat there waiting with the butler standing away from me, on the other side of the balcony.

Not that I could blame him though.

After not more than 10-15 minutes though, Priest Elijah walked into the balcony overlooking the village with a familiar face wearing priestly clothes—Jarek, the man who was supposed to be a hunter.

“Welcome Priest Elijah, and Jarek...” I said, greeting them and Priest Elijah and Jarek responded in kind.

“Greetings Lord William.” They said together, though Jarek stammered a bit, but I didn’t mind.

And as soon as they sat down on their chairs, some maids brought a few cups of what I assumed to be tea, and a few baked goods like cookies, though I was doubtful about how much sugar they had in them.

But not caring for the maids, I turned my head to Priest Elijah and Jarek, and asked a question that I was curious about.

“Priest Elijah, I thought you were the only priest in town? Did hunter Jarek get ascended?” And as I asked so, Priest Elijah nodded, and I could practically see Jarek’s soul leaving his body.

“Yes, Lord William, Brother Jarek has joined the church in leu of recent events, such as Ojciec Lasu promising to provide you with a priest that is knowledgeable of the local environment, and my lack of knowledge of the surrounding forests, and what is beyond it.” Priest Elijah said, turning his head to Priest Jarek, and I did so as well.

“Then, does that mean you are ready to set out right now Priest Jarek? I assume Ojciec Lasu has told you the details of our deal, right?” I asked him, and while Priest Jarek nodded, and gave me words of affirmation, I could see he was having a really bad time.

I wasn’t sure if he had been forced into joining his god’s church, but even if he wasn’t, it was clear that he really didn’t want to journey with me and my men for days on end, for the next few months... oh well, what a shame.