First Bone Undead

Looking around the very similar woods, I grimaced as I quickly realized that I had gotten myself lost and in fact did not know the way to the graveyard. If I did not hurry, the sun would soon come up and I would be late for breakfast and even possibly the lesson after. Turning around, I glanced at my Undead Hashoret Mouse. "I suppose you wouldn't happen to know the way to the graveyard, would ya?"

Getting no response I returned my focus to trying to find my way to the graveyard. I knew it lied to the North of the village, and I maybe should've made my way back to a road so that I could follow the path to the graveyard. It would totally be a whole lot easier than me blindly stumbling along. Hell if I wasn't careful, I may end up not being able to find my way back to Hothal Aldu at all.

After another twenty minutes of aimlessly wandering through the woods, I finally had a somewhat bright idea. 'My system has my stats, my skills, and even an inventory. What if it has a map as well?'

Upon thinking this I immediately thought of a map. 'Map'

After roughly ten seconds of waiting, a map finally appeared in my vision. I quickly noticed that the map appeared to be showing everything about the world that I knew, for instance though I knew I lived on the continent of Elvadera, however the entire continent did not appear on my map. Instead, a small tiny location appeared to be glowing surrounded by darkness of the unknown. As I mentally commanded the map to zoom in on the seeable dot, eventually the name Undarthu Kingdom appeared sprawled across the dot. After I got closer, I quickly noticed that the dot that was glowing was not the entire map of the kingdom, but instead a small region to the south of the Undarthu Kingdom.

Before I continued zooming in, I decided to take a small look around and realized that, though the Undarthu Kingdom was outlined, almost all of it was grayed out with only mountain ranges, major rivers, and major cities that I knew of. Returning my focus to the glowing region, I continued zooming in, eventually seeing the transparent name of Hackthorn Barony appeared sprawled across the land. Once more I quickly looked through curiosity to see what was shown.

I quickly saw the landscape of the Hackthorn Barony, noticing the giant river, the rolling field of grain, the multitude of forests, and the large town, five villages, and roughly thirty hamlets in its entirety. As I explored, I noticed that most of the barony was covered in a gray like fog, much like most of the Undarthu Kingdom. I once again saw a glowing dot, but this was closer to one of the five villages.

Using my almighty wisdom I figured that the dot represented me, along with a region of the world that I could see. Zooming in, I was finally able to see the direction I needed to take to get back to Hothal Aldu, and I was also able to find the way I needed to go to get to the graveyard.

As for the region that was enlightened on my map, I noticed that it appeared to represent a few short miles around my surroundings. It was a pity really, it would be extremely cool to be able to see what was going on in the village even though I wasn't there.

Making sure I was facing the right way, and glad that luck appeared to have smiled upon me by the fact that I hadn't ended up on the southside of Hothal Aldu, and was actually somewhat close to the graveyard; I closed my map and began my journey.

After several tens of minutes, I finally arrived along the decorative stone wall that stood roughly waist high and surrounded the entire graveyard. Looking behind me, I saw my corpse undead slowly shuffling along as it tried to keep up with me. "Hurry up there poky, we don't have all night. Hey! That's it! We'll call you Poky"

Smiling to myself, I felt pure delight upon coming up with such a great name. Though Poky didn't give any definitive reaction, I felt that he seemed happy by the fact that I had given him a name.

Climbing over the wall, I began making my way through the field of gravestones, attempting to look for a non-recently buried corpse so as not to desecrate anyone that would still be looked over by family and friends.

I finally came across a very old gravestone that was so worn down that I couldn't even make out the name or dates on it. Glancing over, I was satisfied to see that Poky was able to make his way over the stone wall and had kept up with me somewhat.

"Dig it up Poky." I pointed towards the front of the grave where the deceased person's remains should be.

I leaned against a different gravestone as I watched Poky begin using his claws to dig through the soil, and as the hour ticked by, he finally hit the coffin, or the rotten remains of the coffin anyways.

Hopping down into the hole that Poky had dug, I quickly began pulling away the rotten wood until I could finally see the pearly white skeleton that lay beneath. Raising my hand above the skeletal remains, I activated my Summon Feeble Bone Creature skill. "Arise legionnaire and serve the untiring horde."

Upon the completence of my utterance, green necrotic mana poured out of my hand while I watched as my mana drained from 14/15 to 9/15 before the cloud of mana gathered around the skeleton. As the mana coalesced onto and within the skeleton, I watched as a green, fiery ball of mana formed within both eye sockets of the skeleton, and more of the mana began to gather at all of the skeleton's joints, appearing to be forming magical ligaments for the monster.

However, that was not all. I quickly noticed that the skeleton was shrinking, while two small horns formed atop its skull. Finally after the skeleton finished its transformation, what stood before me was a small, hunched back, demonic looking skeleton, with its fingers having sharpened to claws. The creature stood no taller than my waste, and I could almost believe that I sensed nothing more than pure evil emanating from it. The Feeble Bone Creature also stood there, watching me, just like Poky had done when I first animated him.

Activating my [Inspect] skill, I was quite curious to see the difference between the two undead.

<[ Feeble Bone Creature ]>

10 HP

[Damage]

-1 (Scratch)

-2 (Bite)

<[ Skills ]>

[Undeath] (Passive)

-Immune to cold, poison, blood damage, hunger, stress, fear, pain, exhaustion

[Shade Vision] (Passive)

-Undead can see in the absence of light, nothing escapes their ever vigilant and eternal watch

[Hollow Existence 1] (Passive)

-Due to no internal or external tissues, slashing attacks do nearly nothing (90% resistance to slashing attacks)

[Hollow Existence 2] (Passive)

-Due to no internal or external tissues, stabbing attacks glance off bones (50% resistance to stabbing attacks)

[Hollow Existence 3] (Passive)

-Due to no internal or external tissues, piercing attacks have no tissue to pierce and are blocked by bone (60% resistance to piercing attacks)

[Hollow Existence 4] (Passive)

-Due to no internal or external tissues, there is no cushioning. (Crushing attacks deal 400% damage)

<[ Description ]>

[A monstrosity that defies the will of the gods, and spits on the laws of both the world, and of life. Death favors those who strike it down. Execute with extreme prejudice.]

'Damn, this skeleton not only has less health, but it has one less attack method, deals less damage, and doesn't even have a status effect to inflict upon the enemy. I mean ya it does have immunity to blood damage, and can see in absence of light, and has a lot of debuffs against most other attacks, but that is all really canceled out by the extreme amount of damage it could take in a crushing blow. Other than that, there isn't anything else that could make this a better choice to have compared to the Poky's type.'

I mean, having more undead to serve me is always great, and the fact that it won't corrupt the animals and monsters I send it to hunt and collect resources from is a major plus too. The only problem lies in the fact that should I end up in combat against other people, the Poky and his kind are the better choice than this weakling.

Now the last undead to summon would be a Feeble Spirit, but I don't have enough mana to do that at the moment, plus the sun will be coming up in a few hours. Looking at the two undead, I began thinking of where he could hide them. I knew that the reason the villagers put their cemetery in the North was because slightly farther along, past the cemetery lay a dead end gorge formed by the rolling hills. This acted like a barrier and led to no one coming or going in this direction, and I figured somewhere up there would be the perfect spot to hide his undeads.

Glancing at the moon, I figured I would have enough time to get there and then get back before breakfast was finished being served at the Guild Hall. "Come on you two" I called out before sprinting Northward, and vaulting over the waist high wall.

I quickly noticed that my Feeble Bone Creature was keeping up with me with complete ease, and I finally realized what made it so different from Poky. After roughly twenty minutes of straight running, we finally arrived at the entrance to the gorge. Slowing down, I turned to look behind us and immediately noticed that Poky wasn't there.

Looking at the Feeble Bone Creature, I asked, "How fast can you go?" This caused my little minion to tilt its head at me in what I could only assume was confusion, but it did not respond to me as I waited to see if it could speak.

Eventually realizing that I would get no response, I sighed at my own stupidity before pointing towards a bent tree a ways down the path we had come. "Run there and back quickly."

The Feeble Bone Creature immediately took off in a full sprint, and I watched as it turned into a blur, running as fast as the wind. 'No human would be able to keep up with it if it's this fast.'

By the time my Feeble Bone Creature returned, I had already come up with a name for it. "From today onwards, you shall be forever known as White Death."

White Death twitched slightly in what I could only assume as its version of a happy dance, and I felt quite smug being able to come up with names for both my little god spitters. Turning to look off in the distance, I finally saw Poky taking his sweet ass time coming to me.

Looking back at White Death, I pointed towards the gorge. "I want you and Poky to either find or make a cave deep within the gorge for us to use as a base. Once that's done, the two of you will begin hunting animals, and once you have killed them, will take them back and store them in the cave. Actually, you will hunt the animals and bring them back. I want Poky to protect the cave from any other creatures that may come to take our hunts. Work together, and please, don't let Poky infect and turn them all into lesser undead. Also stay out of sight, don't let any humans see you. Better yet, just stay away from the village and the nearby hamlets."

After I finished giving my commands, I began making my way back to Hothal Aldu, passing Poky who I then directed to go to White Death. I hoped the two could somehow communicate and relay my commands between each other, but we'll see if that happens when I come to check up on them again.

As I made my way back, I made sure to grab several different herbs I saw along the way so I could lower suspicion amongst the guards as to why I was outside. After passing through the gate, and nearing the guild hall, I immediately smacked myself in the head to my stupidity.

I had forgotten to have the two push the dirt back into White Death's empty grave. Hopefully no one would go to the graveyard tomorrow, and I would be able to send the two to deal with it next evening.