Dale stayed on Celanese Road that ran behind the Walmart. He had no interest in being on the highway right now. If he could keep himself away from massive groups of people, he could probably minimize his monster involvement. The things seemed to be congregating where large groups of people were.

“Let’s see. Gremlins, kobolds, and orcs so far. Whoops, bugbears. Can’t forget those assholes. That means most of what’s out there so far is humanoid-ish.” Dale mumbled to himself.

The nasty little imp stared at him and was about to speak. Dale shot it a dirty look. It smirked and went back to flying ahead of him to make sure he got a nose full of stink.

Dale gripped his spear and stared at the little monstrosity.

Warning: Death of a familiar through intentional attack will result in the loss of the use of magic.

Dale rolled his eyes. Looks like his nemesis gets the last laugh this round. Although that new ability looks like if he put some points into it, it could be awesome. He should at least see if he could learn to use magic instead of throwing it away to get rid of a nuisance. There was such a low barrier for entry to magic that it was mind boggling.

He passed another abandoned truck. About a few meters ahead of him there was an overturned car that looked bad. Thankfully, whatever the magic did to neutralize technology rendered gas non-combustible. Something must have happened with whoever was driving the car.

Dale got close and looked inside. There was some blood and broken glass but there wasn’t anyone still in the car. It seemed they had either been dragged out by saviors or victimizers.

Dale continued onward. A wind picked up, clearing the air of the little monstrosity’s stench. However, what it substituted that with was the sickly-sweet stench of decay.

Dale turned. “Please, tell me you didn’t.” Four shambling assemblies of rot and death stumbled among the trees on the side of the road.

“Zombies. Of course, you’d write in zombies.” Dale rolled his eyes. A kobold looked to be running from them. Dale watched as the kobold bounded towards him, eyes wild and hands waving in the air.

“Save me!” It cried out in a high-pitched voice.

Stolen novel; please report.

Dale really wanted to stab the little monster but held himself back. It was talking. He could use a talking kobold.

“What did you do to deserve being chased?” Dale asked, staring hard at the little monster.

“I didn’t-.” The kobold started to say. Dale stared harder and the words cut off. The kobold shot a look back then turned to stare pleadingly at Dale. “It was a house. We attacked a house. All of a sudden, dead things started coming back to life!”

“Necromancer.” Dale remarked. He turned to his own familiar. “How the hell do you become a necromancer?”

“Oh great-.” The imp began.

Dale grabbed the little monster.

“Erp!” It cried out.

“Look, you can either answer my question and I will actively try and feed you and care for you. OR you can continue your little fuck-fuck games and I will let you starve. Something like you can live a long time on very little food.” Dale threatened.

The imp puffed itself up to speak but after a second it sighed. “Fine, asshole, there is an ability. You have to sleep next to a corpse to unlock it. It’s called affinity for death.”

“How long do they remain on target?” Dale asked, staring at the shambling corpses.

The imp shrugged. “Not sure.” It explained.

The only way beyond this is through. Dale told himself like a mantra. Something told him the imp could have very easily made a guess. It was a shit deal, but what could he do? It was at least being honest with him. It seemed that part of the familiar bond was that they could lie to each other, but the other one would know if they were lying. While Dale didn’t plan on murdering the little shit stain, he wouldn’t go out of his way to offer it more than it barely needed to survive.

Dale looked at the little kobold. “Swear service to me.”

“Service? I won’t be your slave!” The little lizard thing cried out.

“I didn’t say slave, I said service. You work for me for six months. In exchange, I save your life now.” Dale laid out.

Binding Soul Oath: You have pledged to save the life of Ichnick, shaman of the Olegy Tribe. In return, Ichnick will serve as a personal attendant and may not harm anyone you designate as safe during that time.

Some litrpg tropes were extremely useful. Like binding verbal agreements.

It didn’t take long and Ichnick agreed to the oath. Dale proceeded toward the walking corpses. They must have been very low level because he very quickly dispatched them with the spear. He also chopped off their heads then kicked them away to be sure.

The trio made their way into the woods along the trail the zombies left to be sure one wasn’t just stuck on a tree limb out there somewhere. They didn’t see any so headed back to the road. Dale needed to get back to his kids and daylight was burning. The sun was already at its peak in the sky. That put the time a little after one in the afternoon.

Telling time by the sun was easy if you knew sunrise and sunset. Thankfully, being a Wiccan, Dale had a calendar that told him all the rises and sets. Sun, moon, and various planets. He had about seven hours until it was too dark and he’d have to be at least proficient with magic.

“Okay, Ichnick. Let’s talk about magic…” Dale stated. He saw the imp’s affronted look. There was no damn way Dale was going to trust the imp to help him unlock the secrets of the new way of life.