Acht hid in his master's shadow and watched as Rino completely annihilated the snake lady with his shadow magic. His previous fear about meeting the living cave guardian vanished, and for once, he was happy to be under the powerful lich's protection even if Rino was his murderer.

He never had a decent life when he was alive. However, as strange as it sounded, Acht felt that he could appreciate the new chance at living after his death under the leadership of this magician.

Rino was merciless. He did not waste time killing the lamia. All he needed was this snake's skin for premium leather to make himself better shoes and maybe a new mantle. Who was he kidding? He wasn't going to make a new mantle. Rino was simply going to repair this to the best of his abilities. A gift from Noir should not be so easily replaced.

Without even chanting, Rino conjured a sharp shadow slicer and hacked the lamia's head off. He had no idea if lamias regenerated and grew new heads like their cousin hydras, but the lich used fire to burn the spot that he decapitated the guardian for safe measure.

The snake lady did not have time to scream or react as her body went slack.

Rino couldn't move even after the lamia boss was dead. In the distance, he could hear the panicked fluttering of gargoyle wings as the lamia died. What would happen to the ecology in this living cave now? Rino wasn't sure, but first, he had to dismantle the fresh corpse.

"Mutt," he summoned, and the sabre tooth wolf appeared from his shadow, casting his injured master a glance of worry and a small whine.

Rino grimaced at the damage he suffered. Even with high-speed regeneration, healing so many broken bones would take a while. Not to mention the hole in his mantle where the bitch bit was still there. His shoulder joint was still melted, and Rino couldn't move an inch without assistance.

It was more accurate to say that every other bone was broken or smashed apart from his skull. He would rather deal with a severed head than a smashed body like this again. It was faster to reattach his head than piece the thousands of broken pieces all over.

It took Rino nearly ten minutes before he was fully healed. By that time, the gargoyles were busy fighting among each other, and some attacked Rino. Mutt did his job and tore them apart, but not without suffering some damage when the school of gargoyles ganged on the sabre tooth wolf.

In a confined space, Mutt could not unleash his full power, and Rino had to reward the loyal hound for putting up a good fight until the lich was ready to face them on his own.

Without warning, the gargoyles picking on Mutt crashed to the ground as Mutt braced himself for one more round of sneak attack. The gargoyles had very sharp claws that dug into his shadow body painfully, but for the sake of buying his master time, Mutt persevered. Their deaths accompanied by stab holes through their chests made the large wolf wag his tail happily.

"Master!"

Rino nodded and patted the wolf, who shrank in size, trotting up to the lich's side. The remaining gargoyles who saw how easily their comrades died wisely fled. It was obvious from the reaction of the protectors that the cave ecology would fall apart with a boss. 

Hence, the first thing Rino did was convert those dead gargoyles into shadow minions. Even if these monsters weren't very intelligent, they would make good cave guards. Rino called dibs on the resources of this cave, and he was the guardian of this living cave. He would hunt the other creatures in the cave to convert them into slaves, but first, there was a lamia to skin.

He might not be a professional at skinning animals, but Rino worked fluidly using magic to separate the scaly skin from the flesh. The lamia blood was a strange shade of green, but Rino ignored that. Decapitated lamia would not make good shadow minions. Rino learned that bodies should remain intact after the mistake he made with the bandits. There was no way to make her his cave manager now. He did not want to deal with a skinless spectre lamia. That was a nightmarish image even for him.

In no time at all, Rino had his lamia skin. It wasn't a lot, considering how the guardian was only half a snake. However, the snakeskin was definitely a lot stronger than regular monster skin. If it could not be damaged by fire magic, Rino had very high hopes for this piece of leather.

Leaving the lamia corpse behind, Rino summoned Mutt and the nine bandit spectres. They had collecting and hunting to do before Rino returned to his lousy hut and started his tannery construction.

"Bring all the loose ores you can find and kill anything that moves. I'm taking over this cave."

His ten minions spread out to carry out different tasks. Acht took half of his sworn brothers to scout and gather loose ores while Mutt led the more bloodthirsty ex-bandits to slaughter gargoyles and bats.

In less than two hours before the sun rose, Rino looked at his newly recruited shadow minions. Unlike human undead, monsters simply became shadow monsters or a zombified versions of themselves while they were alive. 

The bats were ghoul bats now, befitting of their aggressive nature. They looked almost the same as how they did when they were alive, except for glowing purple eyes instead of red. At the same time, they seem to develop teleporting abilities as an undead with a knack for using dark magic slicers with their wings.

The gargoyles remained mostly the same as they did, but Rino saw their immunity to mushroom spores now. They were stronger physically, and their eyes glowed purple, but nothing much changed. They were still creepy to look at.

Before Rino left the cave for good, he chipped some strange green glowing ore with a funny smell and stored everything he wanted in the shadow sack. That was everything he wanted from the cave.

It was time to head back and start the tannery construction.