Gerhart let go of Lenny’s collar and dropped him to the ground with a disgusted face.

“So, saying you want to leave gets you out of the dungeon?”

Gerhart looked at Mognog for confirmation. Mognog nodded.

“Hey, stop moving your hands, kiddo. It makes it hard to talk.”

After getting Ritzy to stop bobbing his head, Mognog, with the help of Ritzy, faced Gerhart.

“Yep.”

“Then, why didn’t this guy try to leave?”

Gerahrt poked at Lenny’s half-dead body with the tip of his shoe.

“If he’s insane enough, the dungeon doesn’t pick it up. But this time, it was because he didn’t clear it. He entered on his own while you were inside after clearing it, but doing that makes it impossible for him to leave on his own.”

“Wait, what would have happened if he succeeded in killing us?”

Gerhart couldn’t suppress his doubts as he looked at Lenny in confusion.

Ritzy raised his hands slightly, which made it look like Mognog shrugged.

“Okay, that was uncanny, kiddo, because exactly that’s what I thought about doing. Anyways. He would have probably gotten stuck until he died, at which point the dungeon would have reset. Or he would have been allowed to leave.”

Gerhart scrunched his eyebrows.

“Why couldn’t either of the two have happened?”

Ritzy moved his hands to emulate a shrug again.

“It depends on the wills of the Gods.”

“Wait, you mean the Gods were watching us?”

Another shrug-like movement on Ritzy’s part followed Gerhart’s question before Mognog answered.

“They could be. The Gods aren’t like us, archer boy. There’s no use trying to guess what they’re up to at any moment. Besides, they set up the dungeons as trials for mortals. Why wouldn’t they watch?”

Gerhart furrowed his brow in deep thought for a few moments. Mognog spoke before anyone else could say anything.

“I would love to teach you two kids all about the world as I know it, but we don’t have time. Now, kiddo, can you reanimate this guy if we kill him?”

Ritzy pointed at Lenny with one of his fingers before raising and turning Mognog’s head so the skull faced himself.

“Hmm. The short answer is, I don’t know.”

Ritzy continued deliberating, even after giving his answer.

“But I’m looking forward to giving it a try.”

Ritzy grinned as he handed over Mognog to Gerhart.

After doing that, Ritzy quickly grabbed his dagger and slit Lenny’s throat without hesitation.

Lenny, who was already on the verge of death, plopped down on the ground without an ounce of life left within him. Ritzy flipped him over on his back, not even wincing in disgust at the man’s burned skin coming off at his touch.

Ritzy shook away the skin, flesh, and blood he got on his hands and wiped them on the wet ground to get them somewhat clean. He then grabbed the dagger again and held it in front of his other hand.

“Storage of Darkness, guide the soul of this pitiful one back to its place of mortality and help them give honor to Your name!”

Ritzy uttered a chant with some of his remaining mana and used its power as he slit his palm and placed that palm on Lenny’s forehead.

Ritzy felt his mana surge into Lenny and removed his hand. His blood had formed a red circle in the middle of Lenny’s forehead. The circle was the most basic and rudimental symbol of the Storage of Darkness, the Beginning and the End, of Alamandrax, the Origin.

And the fact that it appeared without Ritzy drawing it was proof that his reanimation ritual had gotten off to a good start. And with how simple the ritual was, it was practically guaranteed to be a success since the first step was also the last.

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However, Ritzy had learned that succeeding didn’t necessarily mean succeeding. All of his previous attempts at summoning were more than enough proof of that. But he couldn’t completely get rid of all hope as he watched the circle emit a faint glow before sinking into Lenny’s forehead and leaving a black circle in its place.

A moment later, Lenny’s eye glowed with a faint blue light. Nothing happened with his charred eye socket.

And then, as if zapped with lightning, Lenny’s body twitched and jolted before settling down into deathly stillness again. But only temporarily.

Lenny sat up like he was awoken by the sound of his children screaming. He stared straight ahead with an empty gaze as his body underwent what looked like a mix between rapid decay, mummification, and dehydration.

Then, when the process seemed to have finished, Lenny turned his rotten neck with creaking sounds to look at Ritzy before snarling and trying to launch himself at him. But the combination of Ritzy being prepared and the incompetence of Lenny’s rotten body prevented Lenny from doing anything other than falling on the ground.

The zombie got back up, but not all the way. Lenny stopped in a bestial crouch as he growled and hissed at Ritzy and Gerhart, wariness apparent in its body language.

“Kiddo….”

“Yeah, I know. Another failure.”

Ritzy sighed and slumped his shoulders as he wrapped his hand and sheathed his dagger.

“No, I was going to say I don’t think that’s Lenny. I think you got someone else’s soul. Something else’s.”

“That’s ridiculous. Only the soul belonging to the body can fit inside the body if I do it like this. Lenny’s soul probably went a little crazy from dying. It’s nothing weird about it. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why this kind of reanimation is taboo.”

Gerhart looked at Ritzy with confusion.

“If it’s taboo, why do you know how to do it? And isn’t there another way to reanimate him?”

“Of course, I know how to do it. I’m the future greatest necromancer in history. And there are several other ways to use dead bodies and reanimate them. This is just the fastest and most efficient, even if it leaves the undead a little lacking. For example, you can do this cool thing where you strip the body of its physical identity. It requires a whole ritual just for the setup, but it basically leaves the body bare so that it can inhabit any kind of soul or spirit. Though, only weak, mindless ones would ever think of inhabiting that kind of body–”

“Kiddo!”

Mognog stopped the fanatical necromancer from blabbering on about necromancy for too long.

“Yeah?”

Ritzy was a little dissatisfied about being interrupted in the middle of his talk about necromancy, but it wasn’t the first time it had happened, so he didn’t care too much. He also understood why Mognog had done it. They were under pressure, after all.

“That’s great and all. But can you control this one?”

Ritzy tilted his head as he looked at the dried-up zombie that had been Lenny. Only his remaining eye was mostly intact. It had taken on a glassy, marble-like shine, and it was filled with a scared ferocity as the zombie glared at Ritzy.

Ritzy closed his eyes and stretched his senses toward the zombie.

“Yep. I can give it orders. It seems like it’s only following its base instincts, so we should be fine. But it also means I can’t give it any detailed orders.”

Ritzy opened his eyes and looked at Mognog.

“What do you want me to tell it?”

Mognog glanced at Talia, lying on the bed in the air behind Ritzy. More specially, he looked at Talia’s boots.

“When you say you can’t give it any detailed orders, what do you mean?”

“Eh… I can’t really tell. I just know it’s not smart.”

“Alright. Would it be possible to turn it into a distraction?”

“Maybe.”

“We’re going to need Talia’s shoes and a good pair of sticks. I don’t know if it will work, but if it does, it should give us some time and lighten the number of people coming after us, so be quick about it.”

Gerhart shrugged before handing Mognog back to Ritzy, who stayed in place to watch over the Lenny zombie and eventually prevent it from going on a rampage or going out of control and fleeing into the woods.

“It’s kinda cute, don’t you think, Mognog?”

“...”

“If you ignore the fact that it’s Lenny, of course.”

For Ritzy’s sake, Mognog tried to ignore that and try to see the zombie as it was, without caring about its previous identity as Lenny, the Ranger-turned-crazed-vengeful murderer. But he couldn’t see what Ritzy saw. He only saw a beast-like, mostly mindless, and ugly zombie. Its dry, leathery skin, wrapped over its skeleton like a shirt glued to a hanger, was something Mognog didn’t even want to think about, much less watch.

Mognog would have shivered if he had a body just by watching the zombie.

“Kiddo, are all zombies like this?”

Ritzy tilted his head, not quite understanding what Mognog meant at first.

“Oh, you mean the tightness and mummification?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope. Usually, they aren’t any different from how they were when they died or reanimated. Lenny should have become a walking pile of dead and about to start rotting meat.”

“I see…”

Gerhart came back with a pair of sticks that fit Mognog’s requirements, so Ritzy moved the Deathbed over and pulled off Talia’s shoes. Then, under Mognog’s guidance, attached those shoes to the sticks and gave the sticks to the zombie.

“Will it work, kiddo?”

“Yep. This is simple.”

Ritzy pointed in a direction slightly deviating from where they were planning to go and focused on the zombie. He used some of his remaining mana as he looked at the zombie.

“Go in that direction and make footprints with the sticks. Walk without stopping. If there’s an object or something in the way, walk around it. And if someone stops you, fight back.”

Ritzy looked at Mognog.

“That should do it, right?”

“Yep. It’s good enough. Let’s get going now.”

Ritzy watched the zombie take off for a few moments before he joined Gerhart in a march into the forest while carrying Mognog.