The Ruined Death Knight

The priestess and the old man indirectly urged Danzel and Shiro to leave the graveyard and show the rest of the village, but Danzel refused, as he had seen and said enough.

Although he wasn't sure if they were saying the truth about there not being a map for the resources or the land, Danzel gave them 1 week to finish one.

In fact, he told them that till it was done, no one is allowed to go out of the village.

Once he said that, made the 2 of them put worrying faces with the masked girl swinging her tails around. Taking it as a sign of stress.

Danzel knew very well their situation and what it meant to forbid them to stay inside the village. There was a finite amount of food and the longer it took them to replace the food, the more stress would the people will suffer.

Which was bound to make some do irrational things.

Such as attacking him or Shiro.

Through them getting food would be good for him too as Shiro needed to eat quite a lot.

Despite the haired buffalo being extremely large, that could feed a family for weeks, Danzel wastes lots of meat that could be eaten and Shiro eats like a whole family.

For now, he had enough food for her as he raided that ice troll settlement, but he would much prefer to have a guaranteed income of food for Shiro.

So the bringing for food was good, but even then he decided to put more pressure.

Wherever it would backfire or not, Danzel had just to wait and see.

And as of now, he had enough stuff to keep him busy.

With an incredible amount of corpses in front of him, he could finally start practicing [Great Rune of Ruined Vessel] and maybe perfect it to carve into his body.

Although he still needed to perfect [Great Rune of World Gaia], he put that to the side to work on the other great rune.

Although the Gaia rune was extremely powerful, it took a lot of a body to have such a rune.

One great rune could be carved for almost everybody, but two needed much greater skills of a runesmith and a superior body. There were several further reasons as to why that was the case but in short.

As of now, Danzel could only carve 1 great rune on his body.

Albeit the [Great Rune of Ruined Vessel] description was rather vague, it sounded like it had way more potential that the [Great Rune of World Gaia].

And as he lacked the current skills to remove a great rune without harming his body, Danzel wanted the [Great Rune of Ruined Vessel] to be of the [Perfect] quality.

Much better would have been [Beyond Perfection] quality.

But till yet, he failed to create a single rune out of such quality.

'Though a pity, [Perfect] quality is enough' he thought to himself.

[Perfect] quality meant that the rune reached the peak performance that the original creator intended.

[Beyond Perfection] he guessed that the rune will surpass one of the creators. At least that was his guess.

He once aimed to achieve such quality but ended up failing.

He could naturally make a rune stronger with his knowledge, but that would be by changing the rune, which at this point would make a different rune.

Which made him give up on reaching this point.

For now, he focused on achieving just the [Perfect] quality.

Which meant digging up the corpses out.

Of course, he let his Draugr do such a job.

Wearing bone armor created by the [Undead's Bone Armor] spell, they dug through snow and earth with their rune-strengthened weapons to find the remains of those "fox people".

Of course, there were a few minor problems.

Compared to the corpses that Danzel had worked on before, the remains of those "fox people" weren't in the best condition.

If it weren't for his [Undead Reconstruction] spell, then most of those corpses would have been useless to him.

The spell did restore the cracks and missing bones, but with such a long time passing, the bones naturally weaken. Albeit not to the point that carving a great rune would be impossible.

Which left him with digging out the corpses, carving runes into them, and then raising them as Draugr's.

Rinse and repeat.

Which put Shiro into an awkward situation.

In the time that Danzel was carving, he called for a period of self-study.

Danzel gave Shiro one of his spatial storage rings that contained the books, before leaving her to do her own thing.

As for her safety, with Baron as her guard, none will manage to harm her.

At worst, Baron will hold the villagers long enough before the other Anabast come.

Shiro herself was strong that could unleash quite a dangerous magic if she put her magic into it.

So he wasn't worried about anything happening to her.

And as days passed full of carving and raising the dead, he was informed that Shiro was spending her time with the "lords".

Which were none other than the Anabast.

When he first heard what his Draugrs call the Anabast, he was both confused and curious as to why they named those 5 like this.

He also heard the news that Shiro used her healing magic on a few of the "fox people".

Other than that, Talon reported that few are plotting against him, but honestly, he couldn't care less.

Making the next few days just him sitting there and carving bones without much pause.

And by the time he raised more than 100 Draugrs with the [Great Rune of Ruined Vessel], on the sixth day, a young girl with short hair came to him, escorted by his Draugrs.

Canceling his [Rune Vision] to observe his runes, Danzel finally noticed the unfamiliar presence behind him.

Turning his head to the side, Danzel watched a terrified young girl looking at him.

"...Aren't the girl that was with those 2?" Danzel said as he cast [Greater Raise Undead] on the corpse that he was working on.

His dead mana entered the corpses, giving them strength and a pair of flaring eyes in his eye sockets.

"Go join the others." Danzel said to the newly created Draugr as he sent further instructions mentally to it.

Walking towards the girl, he looked down at her, making look extremely oppressive to her.

"What have you come here, girl." Danzel said as his ethereal eyes flared up.

With one of her shaking abnormally, the girl handed with the other hand a piece of the rolled-up leather piece.

"A-As promised...the map that you asked for."

Looking at the piece of leather, Danzel fell silent as he took it from her hands and opened the roll of leather.

Revealing the contents of the other role, it was indeed a map.

Though somewhat rough compared to other ones that he had seen, it was readable enough and seemed like a lot of effort was put into it, despite seeming inferior to other maps that he had seen.

'It seems like the skull and mask on top of those houses is this village, as for the mine and the place of that dark crystal to be much further away than I expected. No wonder those guys used mostly axes. The simple lack the supply.'

If he had to complain, was the number of mountains that was drawn on the map. But other than that, there were also a few locations where other villages were drawn with an "O" and an "X" on top.

"Hey, girl, what are those "O" and "X" suppose to be?" Danzel asked despite having a faint guess as to what it can be.

"Ehm... the "O" are other villages of our race that we were able to confirm. With the "X"...being the Ice Troll hunter's villages...though they told me that as they keep it to themself, this information might be outdated." The girl said while avoiding Danzel's gaze.

"Mhm..." Danzel nodded before gazing at the girl more carefully.

More specifically, he gazed at her shaking.

'This feeling...miasma?' Danzel thought before finally recognizing the girl.

Raising his hand, Danzel places his hand on top of her shoulder before stepping one step closer to her.

"Aghhhh!" The girl screamed out of fear and pain.

"You are that girl, from that village, are you not."

Though not fully unleashed, Danzel let loose some amount of his death aura. Making the girl, Alka, have a pale face.

"So you remember me..." Alka said in a whisper.

"Of course, I remember you. You swung an axe at me if I remember right. Nonetheless, how could I mistake my own miasma?" Danzel said as dead mana run through his arm.

Making Alka freeze in fear of the similar sight.

She imagined her arm and shoulder decaying rapidly and dying shortly after, making her shut her eyes closed, though what she didn't expect was that instead of pain, she felt the opposite.

The pain from the death mark on her shoulder and hand that plagued her mind these days seemed to complete.

And once she opened her eyes, the pressure on her shoulder vanished. For a split second, she also wished that the big bad primordial god of death in front of her would also vanish.

Though she was severely disappointed.

"You heard the consequences of going against me as you were there when I told you. Even then, that priestess girl should also spread the word to the village. And yet here you are in front of me?" Danzel said with his cold voice as he stared down at her.

"Girl, what is your name?"

"A-Alka..." Alka said with a shaking voice as she imagine herself being killed in 10 different ways.

"Alka is it? Know that if you were someone from this village, I would have cut your head and picked someone else to pair up your heads. Though my curiosity prevents me from doing as such. So tell me, why did you come in front of me and not hide? Or did you think that I would have forgotten you?"

"..." Alka looked down at her feet in silence before speaking up.

"I...I had to." She finally spoke.

To others, those few words might not have been a satisfying answer. And it was the same for Danzel.

But that didn't mean he couldn't imagine her position.

"Hmm, though that is my guess. Were you pressured to be in front of me? I can imagine them saying that you led us here and that it is your fault that we are here. How wrong am I?"

Hearing what Danzel said, Alka's mouth opened up in shock.

Making it clear enough that he was either point on or at least close enough.

And as the girl, Alka explained her situation to him after being told so to do it, Danzel could only shake his head.

'Complete morons...' He thought internally.

Though Alka was supported by the priestess, she was in the end outside with the supposed mark of death.

Those with not much magic knowledge could easily mistake and connect things that look similar.

In short, her "mark of death" was thought of as a tracking spell.

Why he found those people as pure idiots, was from the rules he set in.

Based on the rules, if he really went and kill Alka, he would also kill someone else.

As for why he brought back his miasma from her shoulder and let her live till this long, it wasn't him showing favorite, but a small thought.

Waking closer to her, Danzel looked at her while speaking in his cold voice.

"To avoid death, what would you do, Alka? I will be willing to let you live if you serve. Though if you are unwilling, I shall meet the expectations of the people who sended you here." Danzel said as he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Ask a fell silent upon such words.

"Choose, in what state do you want to serve? As living? Or as one of the dead?"

Albeit he didn't necessarily need her for the task that he had in mind.

It would still be a waste not to use her.