Hungry Necromancer

"I didn't plan on taking over-"

"Of course not, you never plan anything!"

"It was just one of those in the moment kind of things y'know?"

"Yes, I know, most of your actions are results of 'those kinds of things'."

Anselm is upset. Upset for the right reasons too.

I wasn't supposed to take up the mantle of leadership in Carbina. What I was supposed to do was get out of Carbina once the route to Aste was open, I was meant to get out with as many rewards and riches as I could carry too. There is a general goal that drew us to the centre of this March.

"Don't you realize you're being pursued by the Synagogue? Their messages about you had long arrived in Carbina even before we did."

He shakes his head furiously, "It won't be difficult to follow your trail on a map Lord Asher. Once they learn that Carbina is open to Aste we'll be having visitors for sure!"

"How do you even know there are people after us? How do you know the Synagogue hasn't dismissed that Diviners claims?"

I pause hearing the words leave my mouth for the first time and decide that's dumb, "Okay, okay, not that one. I can see they'd take him very seriously what with the dead Mayor and a population clamouring for my presence so I can resurrect their loved one's spirits." I sigh. He's right.

"Still, if the Cultists were the ones keeping them from visiting Carbina I doubt they'd be any trouble for us to handle."

"Perhaps they'd be very easy to kill with your new abilities, but their deaths will reaffirm your power and cause the Synagogue and other towns and villages to take you a lot more seriously than we need."

He huffs, exhausted from trying to make me see reason, "We have to leave, Asher, and soon."

Before I can begin to properly think about the matter, the chamber doors burst open and a man spills forth on his knees, panting and coughing, terribly out of breath.

"Lord Ash!"

"What is it?" I can already tell it's bad news by the mere looks of him.

"My Lord, we've been ambushed at the route, Cultists, they are everywhere!"

"Ughh! Anselm quickly!" I yell, bursting out of the room and out into the Halls.

When I come upon the stairs leading down into the village, I increase my speed and dive off the first of the stairs and into the air.

Anselm is prepared and quickly catches me mid fall before flying off at speed to where we're needed.

"I think we might have to stay a while yet, Anselm."

Over the wind I barely hear his grumbles and objections, but they're there, and he is right yet again.

***

On our arrival I can clearly see that the assailants are Cultists attacking in broad daylight. The men down there have quickly repurposed the wood boards for the station I ordered built to protect themselves from their attackers. It's impressive.

Anselm lets me drop at a safe distance while he goes on to pull off some of the attention from the building crew and their guards.

The Ghoul I summoned earlier, well, about twelve hours ago, has fallen over with inactivity. This means I have to consider range when casting it.

It's the same with the Zombies too unfortunately. I will need to find a fix to this as the system didn't give me much of an explanation to how far I could send my undead, yet another annoyance.

Quickly I start strangling and snapping the necks of the Cultists with Death Grip, they aren't that numerous, only about fifteen in number and they don't even have magic.

Crushing another skull, I idly wonder if the leader I killed was the last one in Carbina's vicinity. That would be fortunate but I doubt my luck is that good, besides, there were four other camps to consider, we've only cleared the one and Leriva mentioned she received a scar trying to kill one of their leaders.

There's a good chance that every camp has a single magic wielding and distributing leader at the centre of it.

However, I needn't be worried; I know how to handle combat them now, and I have the numbers to do it; every dead body that drops to the ground now will rise up as a part of my little army.

In fact, I look forward to my assaults on the other camps.

I'd get to test out more spells in battle and level up some more, the system recognized when I whenever I was in battle somehow and begins to rack up exp for my levels. This was the only way I could grow, that and with Lotar's boons.

I have yet to hear from the 'Great Spirit Wolf', but I'm assured it is watching.

Finally, the last of the Cultists drops dead and the builders and guards are free to come out of their broken defence.

"Thank you, Lord Ash." A gruff looking man says, bowing his head in appreciation.

However…

"You said that monster would protect us!"

This man pushes past the obvious carpenter that thanked me and jabs an accusatory finger in my face. "When those Cultists came with their mouths frothing and their chanting, it did nothing! We lost Aren just trying to send for help, actual help!"

After his outbursts he finds himself once more and shuts up, gulping as he staggered back.

Slapping on a tender and nurturing smile I say, "Yes, you are right, I promised this creature would protect you…no, I promised I would protect you yet not a day after my people are dying."

Stepping forward I snatch his hand from where it hung and clasp it in mine, "I apologize deeply for the loss of your friend. He will be avenged and I will personally see to it and I will also see to it that there are safer working conditions for you and your colleagues. You have more than my word on this, you have my action."

I let his hand go and start walking westward, where I know for certain the next camp lie. "Anselm, stay with them, protect them if anything happens."

"Are you seriously doing this?" his voice is pleading, begging for me not to be serious. Unfortunately…

"Yes, it is apparent I can't have Zombies or Ghouls on ranged assignments, in the first place they aren't even that intelligent." I sigh, disappointed I couldn't stretch the limits of the system, "You will have to stay behind, you have my word I'll be fine."

He rolls his eyes at me and scoffs, "A few people call you Lord all day and now you think you're some honourable noble?" he snickers, "'My word' Quit the play acting and be fast about this, I don't want another crippling situation." This time he outright laughs at the puns he makes at my expense.

"You know you used to call me Great Mage, right? Where's that Anselm?"

"Gone…" he starts, mirth and joy draining from his voice and face, "Along with all hope of being truly alive again."

Right.

For a moment I want to give him hope, to tell him that the spells I've unlocked will simply getting better and better with each level and that soon enough I'll be strong enough to rip his soul right of the ether and stick it into any body I please, that I'd be able to give him life once more.

But I know better than to be naïve, hope like that would only torture him, torture him cruelly.

***

Before I leave for the next camp, I make sure to raise all the dead at the scene. A starting crew would be helpful in my efforts. Although, I found their pace slow and terribly annoying.

Just like Anselm, they expended the mana imbued in them faster if they are moving about too much. Sure, they can charge in and run faster than a normal human but it only lasts so long before they simply fall over from expending all the borrowed mana.

Hopefully the fix to this is increasing my mana capacity as well as becoming familiar with the spell itself, otherwise I'm stuck with a Zombie army that can't even march a mile.

As a result, it takes me quite a bit to make it over to the next camp. I resolve to look for alternative means to store and transport these corpses.

A morbid thought but one prevalent to my continued growth as a Necromancer.

This camp is unlike the other. Instead of an incline it is surrounded and enshrouded by tall bushes, much taller than any of the other shrubbery around. It is glaringly obvious to spot.

I transform two of the fifteen corpses laying on the floor into Ghouls and the rest into Zombies with quick spell casting. A little something I've realized about this system is that its I am not strictly bound to rules and the rules I am bound to are not are not revealed to me.

Because of that I can do things like challenge myself to see how fast I can cast a spell, see how good I can get with it until I don't need the words to activate it any longer.

This is something I played around with especially with Summon Spirit. The spell is now subject to my imagination; if I wanted, I could make only Anselm's head physical or his torso, but I couldn't control how long the spell lasted or how fast mana was consumed, the system did that.

Sending in my little horde, my Ambush is a clear success; none of the Cultists present are ready for an attack.

The Ghouls immediately chopped through vulnerable Cultist after Cultist, slicing and dicing tendons, artery's and limbs with their ridiculously sharp nails.

As they advance, so do I, completely unperturbed as the path is made clear for my step. The ground is soaked in blood, guts and fresh corpses, corpses I enlist in my growing Zombie army.