The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time

Vandalieu was on his third day of rest, but the Undead t.i.tans were busy at work, as if making up for all of the time that they had spent idle up until now.

「Lumberjacks cut treeeees!」(t.i.tan)

『GYIIIIH!』(Ent)

Holding their axes in both hands, the t.i.tans swung them into the trunk of a large tree. And then the tree... the Ent, the monster that the tree had transformed into, screamed.

The t.i.tans took no notice of the Ent swinging its branches around as a final act of resistance, and in the end, the felling of the Ent was complete.

「Boss! What’re we doing with this tree?」(t.i.tan)

『Put it where we’re gathering the timber! The Holy Son is resting for now!』(t.i.tan)

「Roooger!」(t.i.tan)

The Undead t.i.tans cut off the Ent’s smaller branches and carried these along with the trunk to the place where the timber was being gathered. These t.i.tans had been『lumberjacks』while they were alive, and even though they were now only made of bones and rotting flesh, they worked at a brisk pace.

「We have to hurry and exterminate all of the other monsters in Talosheim!」(t.i.tan)

「Yeah, since the Holy Son is here now!」(t.i.tan)

『Aaah, I want to hurry and go get the salt!』(t.i.tan)

They were working to clear the outer districts of Talosheim, which were being encroached upon by the forest of the Devil’s Nests outside, and turn them back into ruins. Vandalieu, the Holy Son, had told them that he would repair the buildings of Talosheim and restore them to their original state.

『Show him how we work!』(t.i.tan)

With the former lumberjacks leading the way, the t.i.tans defeated the monsters attacking them to defend their territory one after another, cutting down the trees as they went.

Before the t.i.tans discovered the tunnel leading into Duke Hartner’s* territory in the Orbaume Kingdom, Talosheim had been a city-nation isolated from the outside world by the Boundary Mountain Range.

The royal capital’s population was five thousand, and there were only three small villages with populations numbering in the hundreds. Other than capable adventurers like the【Sword King】Borkus and the Knights’ Order of the Church led by the【Saint】Jeena, there were no specialized military personnel or battle technicians.

All of the soldiers, including the city guards, did those duties as their secondary occupation; they normally worked as miners or fishermen.

Upon learning this, one would think that even for a country of t.i.tans who were born with great physical strength and st.u.r.dy bodies, their military strength was too low. But the reality was different.

All of Talosheim’s industries were dependent on the Devil’s Nests and Dungeons, other than its agriculture.

Lumberjacks gathered lumber by felling Ents, Treants and High Treants in Devil’s Nests and Dungeons.

Fishermen hunted aquatic monsters using tridents.

Even miners would obtain metals from veins in Devil’s Nests and Dungeons that were crawling with monsters, so they had to fight and defeat the monsters in their way on their own.

The vast majority of Talosheim’s population of five thousand was made of capable fighters possessing battle-related skills.

Even the farmers who should have been an exception to this possessed enough fighting strength to kill any dangerous wild beasts that went after their crops with their bare hands; they were not to be laughed at.

After learning these facts about Talosheim, Vandalieu and the Ghouls wondered,「Why did the Mirg shield-nation pick a fight with a country like this?」

After all, over ninety percent of Talosheim’s five thousand civilians were combatants capable of killing a soldier of the Mirg army in a single attack. Such powerful enemies would be waiting for them in a st.u.r.dy fortress of a city.

It was as clear as day that any country that attempted to capture Talosheim would suffer several times the number of losses that the t.i.tans would.

Talosheim had few mages capable of using the t.i.tans’ unique magic as t.i.tans possessed little affinity for the various attributes of magic, but even the Mirg shield-nation’s army was largely made of knights and soldiers; they didn’t have many mages either.

The Mirg shield-nation and the Amid Empire behind it seemed to have dispatched their troops after only looking at Talosheim’s exterior appearance; they certainly hadn’t done any detailed a.n.a.lysis on the city. As a result, though the Mirg shield-nation had been victorious, it suffered historically unprecedented losses including the loss of a magic spear that was a national treasure.

It was a foolish-sounding story, but regardless of these past events, the Undead t.i.tans continued to clear Talosheim of non-Undead monsters.

Around this time, Vandalieu was in the ruins of the Adventurers’ Guild, reading a book. The archives of the Church of Vida and the small branch of the Mages’ Guild had either been set alight or plundered, but the archives of this place had been left alone. Even now, two hundred years later, there were numerous books that were still intact.

The Church had probably been burned down because of the religious reasons behind the war, and though the Mages’ Guild was small, there was a chance that those of the Guild had been conducting their own research, so the archives had been plundered. But there had been no reason to destroy the archives of the Adventurers’ Guild. Well, it could have simply been because the Mirg shield-nation had been forced to retreat before they were able to.

And one of the Undead t.i.tans had told Vandalieu that there should be a book in these archives about Dhampirs.

Incidentally, there had been a Magic Item left in the Adventurers’ Guild that was able to issue registration cards for those registered with the Guild, but it couldn’t be activated. It seemed that only Guild personnel could use it.

If Vandalieu had been able to register himself here, he would have been able to become an adventurer while keeping his t.i.tle, skills and Mana pool hidden, but life wasn’t always easy.

But investigating the details about his own race was more important.

「I can finally learn some things about myself.」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu didn’t know anything about himself other than the fact that he was born between the Subordinate Vampire Valen and the Dark Elf Darcia. He had always wanted to find out more about himself if he had the chance.

First, he wanted to find out his life expectancy so he would know how long he could be expected to live. This would allow him to plan his life out.

In the unlikely event that his life expectancy was shorter than a human’s, it would be a big problem. He could extend his lifespan, using【Youth Transformation】on himself, but if Dhampirs turned out to be creatures that lived without aging and then suddenly died when they reached their thirtieth birthday, that would be problematic. It was unlikely, but Vandalieu wanted to know, just in case.

「... I can really read it.」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu’s eyes followed the text as he inhaled the scent of old paper. He learned that Dhampirs had the special characteristic of inheriting the qualities of their parents very strongly.

The pattern of inheritance apparently grew even stronger when both parents belonged to races created by Vida.

「So that means I have quite a bit of talent in unarmed fighting and archery, just like my parents.」(Vandalieu)

It was possible that Vandalieu had an apt.i.tude for archery like Darcia and Valen’s unarmed fighting techniques that relied on his claws. It was unlikely that he would be able to use spiritual magic, however, as he didn’t possess an affinity for the other attributes of magic.

That would always be true unless spirits of the death-attribute, which had never existed before, suddenly started appearing. Lemures were familiars created using Vandalieu’s Mana; they didn’t count as spirits.

「Hmm? Could it be... I’ve inherited Father’s resistance to the sun as well? In that case, won’t I be fine making my body structure more Vampire-like by using【Bloodsucking】to drink more blood?」(Vandalieu)

Newborn Dhampirs possessed none of the weaknesses of Vampires, but repeatedly using【Bloodsucking】made their const.i.tutions more like their Vampire parents. As a cost to the power they gained by doing so, they gained the Vampires’ weaknesses as well.

However, Vandalieu’s father had been a man known to be resistant to the sun. And apparently Subordinate Vampires only possessed special Vampire abilities related to the body, but they also possessed none of Vampires’ other weaknesses.

This meant that Vandalieu could obtain the Vampires’ power at no risk to himself.

「Alright, I’ll drink lots of blood from now on.」(Vandalieu)

Up until now, he had succ.u.mbed to the temptation of drinking the blood of the monsters whenever their corpses were being drained of blood. There was no particular reason to resist this temptation, and if it led to him gaining power, there was really no reason to hesitate to drink it.

If he became able to fight with his claws like his father, his mother would probably be happy as well.

「And the main thing, the lifespan is... dependent on the race of the parent that isn’t a Vampire?」(Vandalieu)

That was what had been written. The way Dhampirs lived varied greatly depending on their parents, and their lifespans also varied depending on the race of the non-Vampire parent.

If the parent was a human with a lifespan of 100 years, the Dhampir would live between 300 to 500 years; if the parent was a Dwarf with a lifespan of 200 years, the Dhampir would live between 600 to 1000 years; if the parent was an Elf with a lifespan of 500 years, the Dhampir would live between 1500 to 2000 years.

As a general rule, it seemed to be between three and five times the lifespan of the non-Vampire parent’s race.

Incidentally, all of these values had been deduced by researchers of the distant past who had used life-attribute magic to investigate multiple Dhampir specimens. The information’s authenticity was a little questionable. However, it seemed that Vandalieu would be able to live for a long time... as long as he wasn’t killed.

「Now that I think about it, how long do Dark Elves live?」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu wanted to ask Darcia, but she was currently asleep inside her bone fragment. He wandered around the archives, wondering if there might be a book written about Dark Elves, and fortunately he happened to find the book he was looking for.

About a third of it had been rendered unreadable by mold, but he was able to find out the piece of information that he wanted.

『Dark Elves were born as a race that the G.o.ddess Vida hoped would be stronger than Elves, so all of their abilities are superior to those of Elves. As such, their lifespans are long; they can live for a thousand years in contrast to the five-hundred-year lifespan of Elves.』

... At worst, Vandalieu would live three thousand years; at best, five thousand. As long as he survived, he could becoming a living witness to history.

「A length of time longer than the entire Christian Era... I can’t imagine it.」(Vandalieu)

His sense of time was just as it had been when he was a human, so he imagined that it could even become difficult to live for so long. At the very least, it seemed that it would be some time before he lived through the fourth lifetime promised to him by Rodcorte.

「I wonder what that G.o.d was thinking when he reincarnated me as a Dhampir? Well, he cursed me so that I would commit suicide in despair; I’m sure he didn’t think about things like lifespans.」(Vandalieu)

In fact, if he hadn’t been able to use death-attribute magic, he would have been finished the moment Darcia died. He wouldn’t have had to even go as far as to commit suicide; he would have simply starved to death.

Even in the book, it had been written that the majority of Dhampirs died long before they reached the end of their lifespan. Considering that, Vandalieu could understand why he had been reincarnated as a Dhampir.

「Now then, I wonder if there’s a book about adventurers?」(Vandalieu)

The Talosheim branch of the Adventurers’ Guild was supposedly set up here by the Orbaume Kingdom’s Adventurers’ Guild, so the systems used by the Talosheim branch should be mostly the same.

The doc.u.ments here were from two hundred years ago, but since many races like Dwarves and t.i.tans lived for over two hundred years, things should be mostly the same other than some minor details... If the systems had changed drastically in the past two hundred years, Vandalieu would just have to consider himself unfortunate.

「Here it is... It seems to be mostly the same as the Mirg shield-nation’s Guild.」(Vandalieu)

The systems and rules weren’t much different from what he had heard from Kachia and spirits of the adventurers that he had killed. It seemed that Guilds were the same even when they were in different countries.

There were two differences. The first was the treatment of the races created by Vida, and the other was regarding the training school for adventurers.

In the Orbaume Kingdom’s Adventurers’ Guild, some of the races created by Vida, such as Dark Elves and t.i.tans, were treated as people. However, the races created when Vida procreated with monsters such as Lamias, Scylla, Arachne, Devils, Oni and, notably, Vampires – were generally considered monsters.

This was because these races often harmed humans or had long histories of conflict against human countries.

However, some friendly clans of these races also existed, and it was forbidden to harm members of clans that the nation had declared to be allied clans.

「... Hmm, even though they’re enemies with the Amid Empire, the way they treat the races created by Vida isn’t the exact opposite, huh.」(Vandalieu)

Considering the fact that the Orbaume Kingdom had been trading commercially with Talosheim, it was difficult to imagine that the G.o.ddess Vida was thought of in a very negative way. And the Orbaume Kingdom’s relationships with each of the other races may have changed in the last two thousand years.

For now, Vandalieu decided that he would ask about these things once he entered human society.

「The next thing is regarding the adventurers’ training school... I never imagined that I’d be going back to school in another world.」(Vandalieu)

In the Orbaume Kingdom’s Guilds, there were educational inst.i.tutions that trained adventurers, though such inst.i.tutions didn’t exist in the Adventurers’ Guild of the Amid Empire and its nations.

That was because the Orbaume Kingdom had more adventurers, and also more Devil’s Nests and Dungeons where adventurers worked.

Of course, the fact that being an adventurer came with occupational hazards was the same in the Orbaume Kingdom. If an inexperienced adventurer went on a reckless adventure and died, the responsibility wasn’t on the country or the Guild.

People who became adventurers were people with great confidence in their abilities or those who were very poor... Orphans, those who had lost their jobs while still young or the third or fourth sons of farming or merchant families who had no chance of succeeding the family business, those kinds of people. Though this was cruel to say, they were such people that society would not suffer a great loss if they died.

However, in the distant past, a vast majority of newly-registered adventurers died within a year of registration, and many retired before reaching D-cla.s.s or higher.

It would be problematic if the Adventurers’ Guild was to build up a negative reputation due to these statistics and the number of capable adventurers stopped increasing. If the poor saw no hope in becoming adventurers and decided to turn to crime instead, that would also cause great problems for the nation.

In addition to this, if there weren’t enough people to thin the monster populations in the Devil’s Nests, not only would there be a shortage of valuable monster materials, but the monster populations could even overflow, jeopardizing the nation’s safety.

And so the nation provided funds for adventurers’ training schools to be established. The idea was to teach them at least a certain level of knowledge, train their fighting abilities and thus reduce the rate of casualties among new adventurers.

This experiment was a great success; the rate of newly-registered adventurers dying within a year of their registration dropped by eighty percent and the ratio of adventurers making it to D-cla.s.s and above increased several times over.

In addition, the nation was able to use exceptional adventurers as special escorts and privately-employed mages; only good had come out of the establishment of these training schools.

After reading this far, Vandalieu looked up from the book.

「I guess I’m a bad person for thinking that this bit sounds suspicious.」(Vandalieu)

He could understand the rate of adventurers dying within a year of their registration decreasing, but what about the rate of adventurers dying within the second year? Just how much had the ratio of adventurers reaching D-cla.s.s or above increased by?

In the first place, why were there no specific numbers given in the information?

「Well, whatever.」(Vandalieu)

The reason Vandalieu wanted to become an adventurer wasn’t because of his ideals or because it was just his dream. It was merely the simplest way to secure himself a position in society, and he could even earn money by doing what he had been doing up until now... Hunting monsters and bandits.

Most importantly, it was the occupation that most easily allowed him to make a name for himself.

And so Vandalieu ignored the dark side of the Adventurers’ Guild that he was starting to see, and lowered his gaze once more to read what had been written about the adventurers’ training school system.

The schools were credit-based, and one could attend between one and three years. As long as one earned the minimum number of credits and had the headmaster’s permission, he or she could graduate at any time.

There weren’t any particular requirements to enroll at the schools; only the entrance fees and tuition fees needed to be paid. There was even a deferred payment system for those who couldn’t pay these fees in advance where they would pay the fees off after graduating.

And the most important thing for Vandalieu was how the school system dealt with minors.

『However, minors cannot advance to F-cla.s.s or above if they have not graduated from an adventurer training school.』

In the Adventurers’ Guild, adventurers were separated into eight cla.s.ses based on their abilities and past achievements. The lowest, G-cla.s.s, were newcomers who possessed only their registration cards; the only requests they could accept were non-combat-related requests in the city... what would be referred to as manual labor in j.a.pan. Even the pay was worse than in j.a.pan.

Requests that could possibly include combat, even if they were requests like gathering medicinal plants outside, could only be accepted at F-cla.s.s or above.

「Basically, if I want to aim higher and gain money and fame, I have to attend the adventurers’ training school since I’m underage.」(Vandalieu)

As Vandalieu was currently almost three years of age, he was, of course, a minor. He had decided that he would only go to the Orbaume Kingdom after obtaining the resurrection device beneath Talosheim’s royal castle and reviving Darcia, but he had no intention of spending more than ten years doing that.

Therefore, he would definitely still be a minor by the time he registered at the Adventurers’ Guild.

「School... I wonder if I can live an enjoyable school life this time?」(Vandalieu)

He had no confidence at all to say that he could.

During his childhood on Earth, even his uncle was forced to allow him to receive compulsory education, and when he was on the verge of entering high school, his uncle had pressured him by saying,「You’re only allowed to choose from public high schools. And if you fail your exam, then go and work.」But even so, Vandalieu had managed to attend high school.

However, because of his family environment around the time he was attending elementary school, he was unable to invite friends over to play and he couldn’t even go to others’ houses to play because he was scared of his uncle’s fists. And he couldn’t make any friends in the first place because of his strange behavior due to his abnormal emotional state.

On top of that, the teachers didn’t think highly of him either and though his grades were normal, there was an image of him being a problematic child. Things never changed as he entered middle school, and by the time he entered high school and was able to rebel against his uncle to some extent, he had already given up on a「bright, enjoyable school life.」

Would he be able to make friends at this school? He still had no confidence that he would be able to interact well with anyone other than the Undead and Ghouls.

「I attract attention as a user of a newly-discovered type of magic, and become someone that my schoolmates look up to... No, I can’t imagine that.」(Vandalieu)

He could only imagine his magic causing himself to be alienated and isolated even further.

「... I’m fine with being a loner. It’s not like there are going to be any flashy school events, and since it’s a credit-based system, if I don’t find it enjoyable I can just get the minimum credits and graduate right away.」(Vandalieu)

And then all he would need to do was gather money and fame by going hunting for monsters in Dungeons with Sam and the other Undead, right? He had plenty of friends. He was the Ghoul King, after all.

In fact, wasn’t he quite socially successful?

Building up such defensive walls in his heart, he closed the book. Ah, he really didn’t want to go to school.

As he decided to go and play with Bone Man and the others to distract himself from his dark mood and put the book back in its place, another book caught his sight by chance.

「A study on Undead?」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu picked up that book and decided to continue reading.

The Undead created by Vandalieu, including Bone Man, played and trained around Sam when not fighting.

They would have practice battles against each other, dodge stones thrown at them by Bone Monkey and enjoy Bone Bird’s acrobatic flying displays.

『Juuuh....』(Bone Man)

Vandalieu called out to Bone Man, who had been left behind by his companions as the only one unable to surpa.s.s Rank 3.

「I found a way that might be able to make you stronger today, so I’m thinking of trying it out.」(Vandalieu)

『Juuh...?』(Bone Man)

With a bow on his back, a sword at his hip and the leather armor and shield as his defense, Bone Man looked like a splendid skeleton soldier, but the spirits inhabiting his bones were those of rats.

Perhaps because of this, Bone Man’s Swordsmanship and Shield Technique skills were still level 1 and he seemed unable to increase them any further. After reading the book, Vandalieu thought that this might be the same reason that he was still Rank 3 even though he had reached level 100.

『There are a number of conditions that might need to be met to create a powerful Undead. The most common of these is for the spirits inhabiting the dead body to match the body itself, or otherwise possess a good affinity with it.』

In Lambda, there are cases where even after a dead body reanimated to become an Undead, the spirit inhabiting the body is not the original owner of that body.

Not only would the body be inhabited by someone else’s spirit, but it is common for it to be inhabited by the spirits of small animals rather than a human. But in such cases, it would generally be a weak Rank 1 or 2 Undead.

A human spirit possessing the corpse of a beast wouldn’t suddenly gain the beast’s reflexes and fighting instincts; in fact, it would take all of its effort trying to move in a body with a different bone structure.

And if the beast possesses body parts that humans do not have... such as a long tail, wings or a second head, the human spirit would have too much to deal with.

It is the same when animal spirits inhabited a human’s body; they wouldn’t be able to use its hands correctly unless they were very intelligent animals, and the spirits of quadrupedal animals would find it difficult to walk on two legs. Using tools would be out of the question.

Perhaps it would be easier to imagine it as putting the brain of a human in a beast, and putting the brain of a beast in a human.

Considering that, the rat spirits inside Bone Man could be considered exceptionally skilled. It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to call them geniuses among rats.

Rats use their front paws skillfully, but even so, being able to use a bow and arrows, a sword and a shield was impressive. The rat spirits were clearly more intelligent than the average Goblin.

But unfortunately, there was a limit to their abilities. Well, since they were spirits, they could probably overcome those limits given hundreds of years, but Vandalieu wasn’t willing to wait that long.

And so Vandalieu thought,「Since Bone Man is a human’s body with a rat’s brain in it, if I add a human’s spirit into it, doesn’t that solve the problem?」

He would carefully select human spirits whose bodies had died long ago, whose empty souls wouldn’t contain any personalities, emotions or memories. Fortunately, this place was a historical battlefield and it was simple to gather such spirits.

「Now then, I’m going to add more spirits.」(Vandalieu)

『Juuh... Juuoooh...』(Bone Man)

As Vandalieu inserted the fragments of spirits, Bone Man’s body absorbed more and more, like a sponge sucking up water.

Bone Man didn’t seem to be suffering; in fact, his jawbone was clicking in pleasure and the fire in his eye sockets was flickering, so Vandalieu added more and more.

『Grrr?』(Bone Wolf)

『Geeeeh...』(Bone Bird)

As Bone Wolf and Bone Bird watched their companion with curiosity, more spirits began to possess the human bones that made up Bone Man’s body.

And then it suddenly happened.

「Hmm?!」(Vandalieu)

Something seemed to click into place. It was the sensation of puzzle pieces being thrown randomly into a box and coming together by coincidence to complete the puzzle.

『JUUUUUH... Ah, my lord... my loooord...』(Bone Man)

Bone Man’s body didn’t show any obvious changes like his body starting to glow or releasing an ominous presence, and its appearance was still that of a skeleton soldier, but somehow, the dull, rat-like noises he had been making were replaced by spoken words.

「Could it be, your Rank increased?」(Vandalieu)

Some monsters’ intelligence drastically increases when their Rank increases. Though there are many cases where adventurers mistakenly attribute this to being the result of the experience gained by the monsters from leveling up or becoming smarter as a result of studying. But there are monsters that suddenly become able to use magic or speak words after leveling up.

Many of those are Undead.

The reason for this was that the souls become accustomed to the dead bodies they inhabit and regain their memories and techniques.

『Juuh, my lord.』(Bone Man)

Bone Man gave a rat-like squeak instead of a yes in reply to Vandalieu’s question as he nodded.

『Because of your divine work, my lord, my Rank has increased and I have become a Rank 4 Skeleton Knight, juuh.』(Bone Man)

He spoke in a rich, flowing, baritone voice that would likely be terrifying if he were to shout. The squeaking at the end of his sentence was a little disappointing, however.

But where had his manner of speaking come from? His movements were unexpectedly refined... Perhaps there had been some knights of the Mirg shield-nation among the spirit fragments that Vandalieu had put into him, and that was the source of this.

Vandalieu thought he had carefully selected empty souls so that Bone Man wouldn’t be taken over by some strange malice or hatred, but it was possible that their memories had been restored when they fused with the spirits already inside Bone Man.

It seemed that the【Death-Attribute Charm】was taking its full effect, but if he were to behave like a knight of the Mirg shield-nation, that might cause trouble with Borkus and the other Undead t.i.tans of Talosheim.

「Well then, have you regained your memories of your past life?」(Vandalieu)

When Vandalieu asked to make sure, Bone Man nodded and replied,「Juuh, I remember.」

『It happened when I returned to my family with food to feed them. It attacked me and caught me by surprise. Unable to use any techniques, I was tormented, toyed around with and then it abandoned me without even finishing me off. It had already satisfied itself after killing my family; tormenting me was nothing but『amus.e.m.e.nt.』That fiendish cat! JUOOOOOOOH!』(Bone Man)

「... Hmm, cats do those sorts of things, don’t they.」(Vandalieu)

The idea that humans are the only ones that take lives needlessly – Upon hearing Bone Man’s story, Vandalieu learned that this idea was only a fantasy.

Leaving that aside, it seemed that the spirit fragments had only affected the tone of Bone Man’s voice; he seemed to have no memories of the Mirg shield-nation, so there was nothing to worry about.

Incidentally, Vandalieu liked both dogs and cats and『owning a pet one day』was one of his dreams.

「But don’t kill cats needlessly.」(Vandalieu)

『Juuh, certainly, my lord.』(Bone Man)

It was good that Bone Man was so obedient. A future ma.s.s-murder of domestic cats in the Orbaume Kingdom had been avoided. Vandalieu wasn’t sure whether there were domesticated dogs and cats in Lambda, however.

Most of the day had pa.s.sed already, so Vandalieu spent some time playing with Bone Man and the other Undead. He enjoyed himself, throwing monster bones for Bone Wolf and Bone Bear to compete over and fetch, grabbing onto Bone Bird’s legs to take a leisurely flight around the sky and being groomed by Bone Monkey.

『JUOOOOOH!』(Bone Man)

Saria and Rita, who had returned from hunting, probably... tilted their heads in confusion at the sight of Bone Man sprinting at full speed, letting out a war cry. Though they couldn’t do so physically or visibly.

『Bocchan, Bone Man is running... why is that?』(Saria)

『Some kind of training... It wouldn’t be something like that, would it?』(Rita)

Bone Man’s cardiopulmonary function wouldn’t increase by running around at full speed.

「Ah, I had an idea to build this and he seems to have taken a liking to it.」(Vandalieu)

『... Why?』(Saria)

「The rat spirits that act as Bone Man’s base probably had some hamster-like traits.」(Vandalieu)

『Ham... ster, as in star*?』(Rita)

Inside a hamster wheel that Vandalieu had thought to build by using【Golem Trans.m.u.tation】on some spare wood, Bone Man happily spent the next short while running to his heart’s content.

Bone Man’s Rank has increased after having new spirits added. Normally, Skeleton Knights are monsters created by knights becoming Undead after death. Bone Man’s base is made of rat spirits, but the fact that it has『sworn loyalty to a specific person』and the fact that the new spirits added to it included those of knights have caused it to become a Skeleton Knight.

Though his outwards appearance is no different, his Attribute Values and intelligence have increased significantly, and though he previously could not level up some skills no matter how much experience he gained, he can now do so.

In addition, he has gained the pa.s.sive function of the Knight Job,【Enhanced Attribute Values: Loyalty.】 This skill enhances the Attribute Values of the bearer as long has the bearer obeys the commands of the person he or she has sworn to serve (usually a lord); in Bone Man’s case, his lord is Vandalieu.

Skeleton Knights often possess martial-type skills and commanding skills at a high level and can become a Rank 5 Skeleton General or a Rank 6 Skeleton Lord by commanding subordinates. But in cases where they are employed (before or after death) by someone who rules an entire nation, such as a king or emperor, they become Undead with court ranks attached to their names, such as Skeleton Baron.