The undead scratched the question in the crystallized ground using his fingernail.

"..."

Olive was staring at the words in disbelief.

It was his own fault...

That monstrosity of an undead came here after someone spotted the illusion he had created to test the young elf...

It was all his fault...

[Now, I will take you to my master.]

Another sentence got scratched into the crystallized earth.

[You don't have to help us, but just so you know, if you refuse, I will go straight to that crowd of panicking life essence scrambling about fifteen miles away and subdue every single one of them for my master to question.]

"I... I'll help..."

That threat seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Olive nodded in defeat.

"Take me to your master."

He asked in a shaking voice.

"Graough...!"

The blue undead suddenly nodes to himself, and without any written explanation, he raised his hand and focused on his index finger.

His eyes glowed with white light and he squinted them as if he was considering something important.

Then the monster nodded and delicately tapped Olive's forehead with the tip of his fingernail.

"...GUHAH...!"

The old elf wheezed from the sudden pain.

It felt like his head got pierced by a scorching nail.

He couldn't see it, but the spot where he got poked became a jet black dot and lightning-like black lines began continuously spreading from it, covering his whole face with a black web-like pattern within few seconds.

Olive's eyes flashed white and he lost consciousness.

"Graough... (Tsk...) Graough... (So it has to be diluted with water and herbs after all...)"

Zombie clicked his tongue and sighed in disappointment.

Truth to be told he could produce venom not only from his teeth but nails too, and with that, he tried making the smallest amount of venom possible to recreate the effect of death's ichor, but even so he couldn't simply replicate the skill blocking properties of a properly made mixture.

Thankfully he at least didn't kill the elf and just knocked him out, but honestly, that had a lot more to do with the elf's resistance than with Zombie's ability to hold back.

The blue undead stood up and walked away from his captive.

He had to go for quite the distance just to pick up his right arm that got flung a good distance away from the center of their battlefield and then returned to his victim.

"Graough... (The stitches melted off...)

Zombie glanced at his right arm and sighed.

Then he picked up the loose arm with his teeth and leaned down for the unconscious elf.

He picked him up by the long blond hair and threw him over his back like a traveling sack.

"Ghaough. (Seems like Cranberry is patiently waiting for me.) Ghaough... (So cute...)"

He murmured to himself watching the life signature of his master pulsating impatiently in the distance, but not showing a sign of movement.

/Proficiency level reached

/Master's skill upgrade

Charm (level 23)

A message popped up after his comment, causing him to frown.

"Ghaough...! (Oh come on! Now she knows that I was checking up on her...!)"

Zombie groaned and shook his head.

Without wasting any more time he started running back to their group.

Thankfully, even while unconscious, Olive was tough enough to not die from the burden caused by the overwhelming speed since Zombie had totally forgotten to consider the side effects of his skill-enhanced movement.

...

Meanwhile, the three Dandelions were glancing impatiently at the red-haired girl.

"Young lady, are you sure that it's alright to stay here? If the elves defeated your corpse puppet and are preparing to attack us, we'd better..."

"Shut up. As if some flames could get rid of my Zombie!"

Shanks once again tried to reason with Cranberry, but the girl had none of it.

In a very short amount of time, the earth shook from explosions and the insane heatwave blew past their group, setting the rotting forest in front of them on fire, but the red-haired girl didn't even budge.

She stubbornly stayed in place glaring at the spot where she last saw her blue undead.

"Zombie told me that he will bring someone here, so that means he will bring someone here. Both of us always keep our word."

She declared with a cold frown, in a way that completely rejected even the idea of her servant getting destroyed.

That had left the Dandelions in a really awkward position.

The flames and the heatwave affected them far more than they did Cranberry, since she was fireproof to begin with.

Shanks and Rotte had to throw away their weapons that heated up in an instant, and poor Uresha got scalded by her own armor when the full plate started glowing reddish.

She was being treated with all the medicine that the adventurers had on them, although even those had to be cooled down since the liquids - just like weapons - got near the boiling point.

Suddenly a blur of blue light appeared out of nowhere and stopped right before the group, causing the earth to tremble.

"Ghaough! (Master, I've returned!) Ghaough? (Did you miss me?)"

Barely clothed Zombie growled happily towards Cranberry, even though his voice was muffled by his own right hand that he was holding in his mouth.

Cranberry carefully observed him without saying anything.

Her eyes moved up and down as if she was studying Zombie's body from head to toe.

"You got me worried, some of our shared skills leveled up again."

Cranberry sighed and shook her head.

"Graough. (I brought someone we can question.)"

Zombie dropped his right hand and smiled, he then placed Olive's body by Cranberry's feet.

"And this is...?"

Cranberry glanced at the beaten-up elf who was barely breathing and looked back up at Zombie's muscular stomach.

"Graough. (Living with the strongest life signature in the entire forest.) Graough, graough? (I don't know what he was doing away from the rest, but he should be the leader, right?) Graough! (He should know something about Lairs!)"

"...haa..."

Hearing his explanation, Cranberry slowly breathed out and started massaging her forehead.

"You can localize anyone by seeing their life signature, but you didn't check whether Lairs is around...?"

The red-haired girl asked calmly, with a hint of disbelief.

"Graough? (Why wouldn't I try that?) Graough! (It was the first thing I did!) Graough, graough. (But there was no trace of her anywhere, so I decided to ask around.) Graough! (Those living dared to attack even you!) Graough! (They probably did something to Lairs!)"