In what felt like no time at all Megumi awoke to the sound of a knock at her door. She sat up abruptly, and glanced around anxiously. Trouble already? Megu can't even get a couple hours of sleep! She hopped out of the bed and grabbed her staff while sending the undead who had been watching over her to open the door.

Poro-tan was on the other side and she breathed a sigh of relief when it was him and not a horde of enemies rushing at her. She had been having a bad dream when the knock came and that didn't help her mood. "What is it, Poro-tan? Trouble?"

"Nothing too bad. A group of six more thieves came, I killed all of them but one, and the undead are holding him downstairs. You wanted to question them right?"

Megumi had been thinking about that last thought since she had come to bed and had changed her mind. It was unlikely that any of the lower level thieves would provide her with solid information and she had a good feeling about the information they had gotten from the mage. "Megu has a plan. We're going to need a lot of help to fight the upcoming battles."

"You plan on marching on their stronghold with some undead? It did work against the monk, it's probably not a bad idea. How many can you control at once anyway?"

He didn't have the ability to spy on her stats like she did with him. Sometimes she forgot about that. "Right now, Megu can control up to 50 weak undead. We're going to stay here and kill every thief that comes in until tomorrow evening in which case we'll move on their base," she replied.

Poro-tan nodded and the two of them headed downstairs. A scruffy, half-starved looking man struggled against two undead who were holding him down, but he was clearly helpless. She hadn't lost any of her minions when the new group of enemies had come, her companion must've acted swiftly.

"P-Please! Just let me go! I won't say anything! I swear!"

Megumi didn't say anything to the pleading man who was sobbing and cast Raise Undead on his five dead companions who lay on the floor in various places. The man began to sob loudly as he saw his former companions get back up off the ground. The thief actually pissed himself when she stepped over to him. "How many of you drop off goods at this location each day?"

"I-If I tell you... will you let me live?" The man was trembling and snot was running down his dirty face.

"We'll see," she lied.

"A-All of us drop off the things we steal at the fence in this shop." he stammered.

She stared down at the man with a frown on her face. She was deep in thought. Fifty. So that means we've already lost most of what would have been coming. This guild is a lot bigger than Megu would have thought. Aurora is a pretty large city, though. She paced back and forth in front of the nervous man for a moment. "That doesn't answer Megu's question. How many people are in your guild? Megu won't ask again so nicely."

"I d-don't know how many exactly... more than 100 total. The higher-ups don't tell us much. I was just working my way up, I only just joined the guild recently! Please! Just let me go!"

Megumi turned her back and gave Poro-tan a nod. With a grim expression on his face he drew his sword and ran the man through with it. A thud sounded behind her as the body hit the floor. She took a breath and then turned around to raise the man as an undead. "Megu is going to go check the other bodies and see if there are more that can be raised. We're going to need as many as possible for what Megu has planned. If any more show up, kill them discreetly if possible. If we can cover up the fatal wounds we can have an easier time."

"The glowing green eyes are going to be a problem, aren't they?" Poro-tan said.

She nodded slowly. It was an unfortunate side effect of her spell that her minions had a slight green glow to their eyes after she raised them. There wasn't really anything she could do about it though other than have them keep their faces pointed toward the ground. The glow was fairly faint, anyway and it wouldn't be like they would light up the night when they needed to move. "We'll worry about that when the time comes. After I'm done upstairs, I'm going to get some more sleep."

She didn't wait for his reply and headed to the second floor of the building. She made her way to where the dead had been piled and had one of her minions dig through the pile of bodies. There were several suitable candidates and she was able to raise another 8 minions, bringing her total up to 20. She headed back to the room with her body guard and had the majority of her small army spread themselves out between the first two floors of the building.

Megumi was going to use the undead to get close to and hopefully infiltrate the enemy stronghold. The idea was that if the enemies saw their allies approaching, they would have their guards down. By the time they realized what was happening, she would kill the sentries and add them to her number. With a bit of luck, they could sweep through the enemy stronghold like a plague.

It was time that she upgraded her abilities. She had five TPs to burn and intended to make them count. Her undead weren't very strong, it was time to change that. She placed three TPs into the new skill, Undead Mastery. With three points, it substantially raised the fighting power of her minions. Satisfied with what she had done, she moved on. A strong defense was always the best offense, and she couldn't ignore the fact that Magic Skin had saved her life again and again. The problem with the spell was that it drained her MP like crazy when she took a heavy blow. She placed one point into the skill, which would help with that a little.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Megumi also had to recognize that she might need a larger army of undead sometime soon, and so she placed the final TP into Raise Undead. This brought her limit up to 55 undead. Tomorrow would be a big day and she and the army she had amassed would be taking down the thieves guild. Once that was all done and over with, it was time to take down the king and topple the nation. She could hardly wait to see the look on the old man's face when she killed him. It would be wonderful. Megumi grinned and reached into her pack, pulling out her treasure. She opened the old book and flipped to the page with her family portrait on it. She ran her fingers delicately over the faces of her parents and then her sister.

I can't bring you back, but I will make them all suffer for what happened to us. She closed her eyes and drifted into sleep after just a few minutes.

Spoiler: Hideki's Stats

Name Hideki (Poro-kun) Level 026 (46,322/49,541 EXP to next Level) Class Warrior HP 1763/1925 MP 75/75 TP 1 Adventurer Rank B Attributes Vitality 71 Magic 30 Endurance 60 Magic Resistance 36 Strength 58 Luck 6 Agility 50   Dexterity 45 Passive Skills • Warrior's Essence - Level 5 (+50 HP regeneration/min)

• Sword Mastery - Level 7 (+70% proficiency with swords)

• Tiger Style - Level 2

• Turtle Style - Level 2

• Stalwart - Level 1 (+10% natural defense)

• Fortify Health - Level 3 (+150 HP)

• Adrenaline - Level 1 (Killing an enemy gains you one stack of Adrenaline. Each stack adds +1 to Strength, Vitality, and Agility for 3 minutes. Maximum stacks: 5) Active Skills • Holy Blade - Level 1 (Envelope blade in holy aura for 15 seconds)

• Shockwave - Level 3 (Release shockwave from blade)

Spoiler: Megumi

Name Megumi Level 028 (55,220/59,230 EXP to next Level) Class Necromancer HP 475/475 MP 1500/1500 TP 0 Villain Rank C     Adventurer Rank D Attributes Vitality 19 Magic 79 Endurance 11 Magic Resistance 52 Strength 6 Luck 19 Agility 9   Dexterity 10 Passive Skills • Mage's Essence - Level 6 (+180 MP regeneration/min)

• Fortify MP - Level 2 (+100 MP) Active Skills • None Necromancer Magic

• Sanguine Infusion (50 MP) - Level 15 (Absorb life essence of recently deceased, 15% chance to gain +1 TP from human victims [Cap reached. Lvl Requirement for Lvl 16, (50)])

• Corpse Explosion (30 MP) - Level 7 - (+70% damage from explosion)

• Corpse Absorbtion (10 MP) - Level 1 (Absorb a corpse's essence. Recover 80 MP)

• Raise Undead (20 MP) - Level 11 (Raise weak undead to fight for you. Max: 55)

• Undead Mastery - Level 3 (+15% to stats of Raised Undead)

• Summon Blood Golem (500 MP) - Level 1 (Raise a Golem to fight by your side by using the blood of the fallen. Max: 1)

• Blood Golem Mastery - Level 2 (+8 Minutes to summon duration. +10% defense, +10% attack power)

• Soul Trap (350 MP) - Level 1 (Trap soul of a recently defeated foe. Max: 1 [Cap reached. Lvl Requirement for Lvl 2: (30)] )

• Soul Trap Mastery - Level 7 (+28 to all stats of Summoned Soul, except luck. Max level reached. Lvl requirement for Lvl 8: 50)

• Spirit Barrier (100 MP) - Level 2 (Erect a barrier using souls of the dead for fuel. Blocks spells and projectiles)

• Magic Skin - Level 5 (Actively consumes MP to negate physical and magical damage. Higher levels lower the MP cost)

• Decay (120 MP) - Level 5 - (25% chance of success. Causes body to rot from the inside out causing extreme pain and slowing movement at joints)

• Siphon (70 MP) - Level 1 - (Drain health of enemy at a rate of 10 HP/second for up to 5 seconds. 30% chance of success.)

• Eldritch Blast (75 MP) - Level 13 (Unleashes a roiling ball of Eldritch energy that burns its subject on contact for 5 seconds)