8 Chapter 8: Ending at the Prologue
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[Issei Hyoudou]
Title: Future Oppai Dragon Emperor.
Stats:
Vit: 12
Str: 8
Agi: 11
End: 7
Int: 4
Wis: 3
Cha: 2
Luc: 50
Opinion - Embarrassed.
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So this is the protagonist huh? How... enviable . The wielder of the Longinus boosted gear. The least impressive and untalented Longinus user I remember. The only thing even slightly remarkable about him is his bravery born from his stupidity.
An unintelligent pervert, I am surprised he wasn't arrested yet. I guess that luck stat counts for something.
Boosted gear huh? Such a powerful ability, that it managed to carry this idiot that high. Granted his future luck was the MVP but the boosted gear was even able to turn even someone like Issei of all people into a powerhouse.
What I wouldn't do to get my hands on it...
Just as these dark thoughts were entering my mind I heard the ding of the system chime.
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[New Quest: Ending at the beginning.]
Condition: Kill Issei Hyoudou.
Reward: Boosted Gear
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...
...A chance to get the boosted gear. A Longinus, a weapon capable of killing gods.
But the question is whether I am willing to kill someone innocent for it.
I don't hate Issei, granted I do dislike him for his immense perversity and the fucking boob dragon sthick but. He isn't really that bad of a person. In fact I did find him slightly entertaining in my previous life if not a bit intolerable.
Am I really willing to kill him to get the boosted gear?
...
...I am.
Does he deserve to die? No, certainly not.
I could try to make up justifications for what I am about to do but it doesn't matter. I will not try to fool myself.
Although I don't like it. I am willing to kill Issei for his sacred gear. The boosted gear is simply too valuable. I am willing to end his life to take what was supposed to be his "birthright". I am willing to end his story for my benefit.
I may dislike killing someone innocent, but that doesn't mean I won't if I need to.
Sorry Issei, tough luck.
Before Issei could even blink I summoned an iron knife into my hands and shoved it through Issei's neck and killed him instantly.
[You have slain Issei +10 EXP]
Before even a drop of blood was able to be spilled I pulled his corpse into my inventory along with the knife. After killing him I mechanically resumed walking back to my house.
Today, Rias was too late in recruiting Issei and the fallen angels got to him first. They killed him and disintegrated his body. That was what happened today.
As I was walking back so my body started trembling.
Did I feel guilty or bad about killing Issei? No, not really, killing an innocent bystander left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth but that was all. No, instead it was all overshadowed by the joy of getting my hands on the boosted gear. I was literally vibrating in excitement.
I quickly checked my inventory for it and took it out before realizing. It wasn't bound to me. Instead, in my hand was a large green-red crystal. Quickly I observed it.
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[Boosted Gear]
A Longinus class sacred gear containing the soul of the Red Dragon Emperor Ddraig Goch. Wielders of the Boosted Gear have the ability to access the abilities of Ddraig and the ability to boost their capabilities by drawing energy from the dimensional gap.
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[Cannot equip the sacred gear to due class conflict.]
Great , fucking great I have the Boosted Gear literally in the palm of my hand and I can't even use it. Just fucking awesome. I put it back into my inventory, I would figure out how to handle it later. Now I had a more pressing issue.
I am a necromancer without undead. A necromancer without a horde.
But how the fuck do I get corpses? In Japan, they mostly practice cremation so there aren't any conventional graveyards I can rob. Unless I want to reanimate some ashes at least.
Now, there should be an abandoned Church with a graveyard in town and Christians practice burial but...
I don't feel particularly suicidal today. I know for a full fact that that place is swarmed by exorcists and Fallen Angels. And I don't think they would welcome me barging into their secret hideout.
So that avenue is closed. There is the option of robbing some mortuaries but... That really seems like more trouble than it is worth.
So, how do I get corpses exactly? I can't just up and kill innocent people and add them to my horde. I may be willing to kill innocents but that doesn't mean I want to.
But... What about people that aren't innocent? After all, there must be some people that are killers and rapists, and those people have a denser aura of cursed energy around them.
Hopefully, observe will let me discern whether they are scumbags or not.
So, instead of dungeon diving for now I instead kept strolling the streets in search of people with a lot of curses on them. But I can't really base it off that solely.
After a bit of strolling around I found a potential candidate. And after using observe on them I found out that my observe does not, in fact, display that much information.
Sigh, the woes of a modern necromancer. Can't even find corpses.
I have a feeling that if my cursed energy mastery was higher but I had no idea how to level that up.
Currently, with my level of Cursed Energy control, it is hard for me to completely discern Cursed Energy, maybe at a higher level I would be able to create some custom techniques for this but now I am at a loss. How do I increase my Cursed Energy control exactly?
Hmm, I will have to figure that out sooner or later but for now, I still have an avenue for getting undead. After all, my Create Undead skill did say that I can create Skeleton Dogs. Though it was slightly harder to find dogs since they have basically zero to no Cursed Energy.
But soon I found my first dog. Sneaking up behind it I put one hand on its snout and restrained it with the other before using drain life on it. After a few seconds, the dog stopped struggling and I got the kill notification. Putting the corpse down I raised my hand and gestured toward the corpse.
'Create Undead'
For the first time, I channeled my Innate Cursed Technique. A portion of my cursed energy split off from my body and turned into black-green wisps of cursed energy that entered the corpse. As the energy invaded the corpse it rapidly decayed as the bones that were left started changing before the skeleton of the dog rose up.
*Woof!*
[ You have created Undead: {Skeleton Dog Lv.1} ]
It looked very unnerving from a normal viewpoint yet the dog looked quite charming to me. Thankfully all of the flesh had rotted off and vaporized so it did not smell. But I was very excited, I had successfully gotten my first minion. I bent down and patted its head, I felt the connection between me and it so I knew its loyalty and obedience and did not fear getting bit.
*Arf!* *Arf!*
The skeledog looked overjoyed at my head pats even though it probably shouldn't be able to. What a funny little fella. You know what, since he is my first undead he deserves a name. Besides, I never had a pet.
"How about Fido? Do you like that boy?"
*Arf!* *Arf!*
It seems he does. Petting him on the head once more I checked his stats.
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[Fido - Lv. 1]
Race: Skeleton Dog
Vit: 3
Str: 4
Agi: 8
End: 5
Int: 1
Wis: 1
Tutorial: Undead can be healed and strengthened with cursed energy. Any enemy one of your undead slays, the exp will be split between you and the undead. Once an undead reaches its level cap it can be promoted.
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Not satisfied with the numbers I raised 4 more dogs making it now 5. I could raise more but I wanted to save my slots for actual human skeletons next. I didn't bother naming the rest though.
Also, I gained a new skill after getting my undead.
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[Shadow Storage]
You can store your undead in your shadow. The amount of undead that can be stored at one once is your Wis/5.
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Well, that solves the problem of transportation and storage I guess. Though I have no idea why that skill suddenly popped up, it's not like I have any shadow-related skills or anything. I only have one working theory but that one doesn't make sense.
But I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. If it is a freebie and it isn't hurting me then it's good. Activating the skill my shadow extended and I commanded my dogs to enter it and they did like jumping into a pool of water.
After they disappeared into my shadow like water it was made of water I could vaguely feel their presence in my shadow. Now I could take them grinding to see how they fare.
And that's exactly what I did when I returned home.
I took my dogs to the dungeon both to level them up and level myself up. And to test the combat strength of my dwoggo's.
And this led me to discover why Necromancy was my innate cursed technique. There is just a special kind of satisfaction you feel when you just sit back and let your minions grind for you.
I didn't choose the necromancer life, it chose me.
Alone, a skeleton dog might be weaker than a zombie but together? They can just tear it apart like a pack of hungry hyenas. Though the sight was rather brutal as they ripped the zombie apart I still cackled like a madman at the sight.
I just had to make just that they only fought one or two zombies at once, any more and I would just thin them down myself before letting my boys take them.
They also leveled up decently fast which was nice, though their stat growths were not very enviable, even worse than my class as a human.
After my Skeledogs were strong enough to handle their own after an hour of power leveling, I left them on their own to scavenge throughout the dungeon as I did something far more important.
I sat down and started watching an anime I downloaded onto my phone. But after an hour or so of binging this world's anime I noticed my Skeledogs stopped leveling so I called them back to me. And upon inspecting them I realized something.
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[Skeleton Dog - LV10(Max)]
[Tutorial: There are racial level caps on undead that prevent them from leveling up before evolving. Max-level undead can be promoted by the necromancer at any time as long as the conditions are met.]
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'Promotion' I put my hand forward and used the mental command engraved into my mind.
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[Races Available]
[Rotten Hound]
Large zombie dogs covered in rotten flesh and powerful muscles. Their strong fang-covered jaws can inflict poison and disease. They are vulnerable to flame.
[Skeleton Wolf]
Large skeleton wolves, made up of dense and powerful bones and razor-sharp fangs. Agile and relatively intelligent hunters.
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Only two huh? It seems like I will have to work my way up to get more races available. Now it seems like my current best bet here is to turn the 4 into rotten hounds and Fido into a bone wolf so can lead them with his increased intelligence.
After promoting them the 4 dogs grew flesh over their bones, albeit bleeding rotten flesh they looked like large Dobermans with blank white eyes and snarling jaws.
As for Fido, he got even larger his bones got denser and turned more wolf-like even though they didn't really obey rational biology with bone ears and claws. There was a flickering green flame in its eyes. He reached slightly above my waist in height.
Indeed, necromancy is awesome.
Authors note: Your comments and interactions helps motivate me so please write what you thought about the chapter in the comments. I am open to suggestions to help improve my fics.
Also, if anyone has interesting ideas for the random gatcha I will be glad to include those ideas if I like them. You can also recommend characters for the occasional companion card mc may pull from the gatcha.
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