Experiments

After a lot of back and forth, I was some how able to convince Brianna that I merely wanted to pay my respects to the Mayor's son. Due to my panic stricken lie, I had forgotten that I had used his corpse as my minion and sent him to the woods. I was already trying to invoke my heightened awareness to try give myself time to think of an excuse when Brianna interrupted me.

"That is very kind of you. They have already buried him with a ceremony after a hunter came upon the corpse. He was in bad shape I hear, he must of fought till the very end."

"D-definitely gave it h-his all and then m-more."

Luckily she misunderstood my slip of the tongue and had thought I was just giving him undying praise. Well I technically am I guess? He was undying for a while there wasn't he? Anyways, with that it seemed that I gained a few brownie points and she sent me off with directions. Now I found myself in front of the grave of Richard Remus, that was the name of the guard that fought the Draft with me.

The cemetery was farther outside the town, this worked in my favor as I came here to do a few things that could be seen as.... unscrupulous. Other than getting some more meat shields, I also wanted to get more clarity on my [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞] skill. 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘖𝘗 𝘗𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘴....

I had already discovered that with my current stats a zombie would last approximately half a day in this world. I don't know if it would increase with level ups or other passive skills, so for now I had to go under the assumption they only have half a day.

That takes me to my next question, can I reuse a zombie after it expires? It would be ideal if all I had to do was recast [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞] on them after they fell, but for some reason I didn't think this messed up world would make it that easy. However, I wanted to know for sure. With that resolve I dug up the shallow grave with my hands until I saw a part of his head poke out.

Oddly enough the scent of decaying flesh didn't bother me. I wonder when I got such a strong stomach? I used to dry heave at moderately stinky garbage, but for some reason this didn't bother me. 𝘐𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝙉𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧? 𝘐 𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘣 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩.

While the smell didn't bother me, digging up this poor fellow and staring directly into those dead eyes did. I hadn't noticed at first, but my hands were shaking quite badly. My heart seemed to be beating out of my chest and I instinctively wanted to turn away. 𝘕𝘰! 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮! 𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩! 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮! 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴! 𝘔𝘌! 𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘪𝘧 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦.

With that I stood up and looked directly into those dead eyes.

"Forgive me...Richard. Arise and serve me."

"....................should of fucken knew it wouldn't be that easy. Sorry again Richard and thanks."

With this I knew that once a zombie went down, it could not be brought back. Maybe there is a skill that allows me to circumvent this, but for now corpses were essentially one time consumables. I put Richard back in his grave and covered him back up. After saying thanks once again I moved onto another grave.

I continued my testing. The next test, can I cast [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞] without seeing the target? I looked down at the dirt and cast my spell.

"Arise and serve me."

"........"

Nothing seemed to happen. Guess I need line of sight? I apologized to the lady, Gertrude, and started digging. Soon I saw white peeping through the dirt. It looks like she has been here for a while, she was no longer a corpse, but a skeleton. I guess this will let me answer another question I had, how fresh does the target have to be for [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞] to work?

"Arise and serve me."

"......."

Well shit... I guess it requires a corpse not a skeleton. Maybe that is the difference between [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞] and the [𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐧] skill I saw earlier when I was allocating points. I'd have to come back here and try this again once I got that skill. Now that I think about it, the zombies had that black blood coming out of them when I cast [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞]. Perhaps the spell converts their blood into that black blood? Skeletons don't have blood so there is nothing to convert maybe?

In any case, I now know that I can't cast [𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞] on skeletons. I probably need a moderately fresh corpse, though how fresh..... I don't know. Looking around the cemetery I noticed most of the grave sites looked very much like Gertrude's, the dirt had been untouched for quite sometime.

As I scanned the area I noticed one area that resembled Richard's grave. I suddenly remembered there was another guard with us at that time.... he had lost a good portion of his head as I remember. The incident happened quite a while ago though....

"Please.... please be so fresh and so clean."