Samael fell down onto the pebbles by the river, breathing heavily as he stared at the blood pooling from the fatal wound on the creatures head. This was his first true kill in this world. In any world for that matter, he was not a hunter on Earth and although he was no vegetarian, any meat he ate had stopped moving long before he came across it.

There were moral ramifications of killing, though Samael had trouble feeling bad, especially as his leg hurt like hell. Samael rolled up his trouser leg and looked at the wound beneath it. Teeth marks and the outline of the dog’s jaw could be seen running from the back of his calf, round towards his upper shin. Many of the teeth had punctured the skin and a faint amount of blood leaked out from the wound. A nasty looking bruise started to cover the whole area as well.

Overall the wound itself wasn’t actually that bad. From the pain, Samael had expected to find his leg shredded and gouged, the minor wound he had revealed instead was a pleasant surprise. There was nothing he could do about potential infection however. Thinking it better that letting the dog’s slobber remain on the wound, Samael stood up and hobbled over to the river, washing the wound and wiping it with the shirt retrieved from the end of his one-time net.

Whilst cleaning the wound, Samael mentally brought up the messages from the Construct. Killing the dog had apparently netted him the opportunity to level up his class, and also rank up his {Reanimate Dead} Skill. Not wasting any time, Samael immediately agreed to the level up.

Congratulations!

You are now a [Necromancer Lvl 2]

You have been awarded a free stat point.

‘Well that was slightly disappointing.’ Samael thought. ‘Where are my new skills?’

The only benefit he could find from levelling up his class was the single skill point it awarded. ‘Sure that’s nice’ Samael admitted to himself, ‘but having an actual useful spell to defend myself with would be a godsend right now!’

Lamenting his missing skill, Samael mentally turned to the other message to upgrade the rank of {Reanimate Dead}, however when he did so he found that it was... missing. His {Instinctual Interface} skill made summoning the boxes a trivial task, but he was not having difficulty with this, the message was just gone.

‘The box had said I gained enough essence. Is this essence shared between my class and skills? A resource to allocate to one or the other?’ Samael theorised. It made the most sense. If essence was a currency and he spent it all on his class level, he must not have enough left over to spend on the skill rank. ‘Learn something new every day I suppose...’

Returning to the body of the dog, Samael still felt an excited buzz at the thought of what he could do now. Activating his {Reanimate Dead} Skill, Samael’s hands began moving as the green runic circle of light surrounded him. Thirty seconds later a bolt of green energy hit the wild dog.

You have reanimated [Wild Dog Lvl 4]

Samael could instantly feel the connection between them as the string that now formed in his mind pointed directly at the body in front of him. Unlike the rat however, Samael had been able to sense the drop in his mana when he used the spell. The connection between himself and the corpse was also slightly thicker, and Samael sensed that it was slightly more expensive to maintain than with the small rodents.

‘It is much bigger, maybe it needs more juice to remain active?’ Samael thought. Giving his reanimated minion a mental nudge, the body in front of him instantly stood at attention, awaiting further orders. Samael smiled at the sight, he wasn’t alone in the woods any more.

Limping over to look at what started the encounter, Samael saw that the fish, which had been flapping on the river bank, had stopped moving quite so vigorously, but still looked like it was breathing in short sharp bursts. Using his newfound capacity for killing things, Samael knocked its head against a rock to put it out of its misery.

This was not a sad moment for Samael however, he was too hungry for that. Instead he was wishing he had lemon to squeeze over it after finding a way to cook it! There was a brief message from the Construct when the fish died, however apparently killing a [Trout lvl 1] did not provide enough essence to level anything.

*

After trying and failing to start a fire, Samael sat overlooking the river, trying not to be too squeamish as he tucked into some sushi. Behind him Samael’s pet pooch was gazing out into the trees, commanded to keep an eye out for any dangers. It had been several hours since Samael had cast the spell and he felt like perhaps twenty percent of his mana had been used in maintaining the reanimation.

His original plan was to permanently keep the dog as his guardian, until he found a better one, however the mana drain complicated things. There was nothing stopping him from just re-establishing the connection once his mana had returned as far as he knew, however it did mean he would have to plan to be without its help for part of the day.

Throwing away the parts of the fish too mangled to be of use, Samael set out to head further on upstream, his pet thrall close behind. It was early afternoon and Samael wanted to see if there was any type of shelter to be found that was more comfy than his last chosen spot in the dirt. Once found, he planned on braking the connection to the body of the wild dog and re-establish it before dark. That way, he could have some protection and a look out for when he slept.

*

The river snaked its way through the forest, meandering gently around the hills, when it wasn’t crashing violently over rocks. Samael kept tight to the river’s bank, keeping an eye out for anything of note. Travelling along the water source, Samael saw many more woodland creatures than he had the previous day. Rabbits, foxes, deer, they all fled as soon as they saw Samael hobbling along next to a fearsome predator in a sad looking state. Samael ignored them all for now, intent on finding some sort of safe space before doing something adventurous.

After roughly two hours of walking, Samael decided to stop and give his bitten and throbbing leg a rest. There was a slight overhang of rock by the river, not enough to provide true shelter, but enough to keep the rain off if the still sunny weather turned bad. Dropping down to sit on a small patch of moist grass, Samael let out a groan as the weight came off his leg. After a quick inspection, it didn’t look infected, though the bruising was quite impressive.

After a brief 5 minute rest, Samael climbed to his feet once more and looked over at his reanimated thrall. It stood still, unnaturally standing on all fours as though taxidermied, instead of sitting down like a normal dog would have. Checking to make sure there were no threats creeping up on him, Samael cut the connection, causing the body to flop over. Luckily no one saw him have to subsequently lunge to catch the body before it could fall into the water.

Samael made a face as his hand touched the cold coat of the dog, thoroughly washing his hands in the water afterwards to get any flecks of blood off. It was late afternoon and Samael had about sixty percent of his mana left. He hoped it would only take an hour or two to recharge, and whilst he waited, he spent his time finding another forked branch to try and recreate his earlier success with the net.

*

When nightfall came, Samael was fully charged mana wise and only still semi hungry. It had taken about an hour to fully recover his mana whilst he spent the time thrusting the net into the water to try and scoop out some dinner, having only minor success.

Casting the spell once more, Samael re-established the connection and ordered the wild dog to sit on a vantage point and guard him from any dangers that might threaten him. Hoping this command was enough for the thrall to understand and obey, Samael wrapped his arms around himself and lent back to fall asleep, the soothing sound of the water masking the night time noises which had kept him awake the previous night.

*

Gently opening his eyes to the morning light, Samael was pleased to find he was not mauled to death in his sleep. Feeling the connection in his mind, he could still sense the wild dog sitting on the same spot he had left it, the string connecting them still extracting mana. Samael felt slightly tired in that strange way, and he estimated there was about thirty percent of his mana left after the thrall’s night time vigil.

After getting up and checking the immediate area was safe, Samael broke the connection once more to recharge. Having no other pressing matters to attend to, he once again began his amateur fishing, having slightly more success this time in the early morning and netting another level 1 trout. Samael spent another hour and a half resting, in which his mana recovered and his soaked shirt dried in the sun. Then with plenty of the day still to go, Samael reanimated his dead dog and strode off into the woods, taking care to memorise landmarks so he could find his way back.

Samael was curious to see if he could hunt anything with his new pet, maybe bagging himself another level if he found something good. There was still the issue of not being able to cook anything he found of course, though Samael decided to cross that bridge when he came to it.

*

Carefully and gingery, the deer strode between the trees, sticking to the path it knew would lead to water. Every snap of a twig or crunch of a leaf made its ears twist around. Too much noise and the deer would pause its movement and turn in the direction, trying to see any threats before they got close.

The water held life but also dangers. Predators stalked the water, hunting and killing.

Many snaps. Many crunches. The deer snapped its head around to see a predator charging it! Running out from behind a tree to the side. The deer leapt away. It would run. It would live. There was a path away from the threat and it would take it to escape. Disaster! Another predator stepped out ahead, blocking the new path.

A mighty leap! It sailed and flew, kicking the new predator in its head in passing. The path ahead was free. The deer would live!

*

“Argh!” Samael yelled as the deer kicked him straight in the face. The plan had walked flawlessly up until that point. His thrall had chased the deer down the path and Samael was waiting to block it and hurl a rock down at its head. Instead of stopping in surprise like he had been counting on, the animal had chosen to try and jump over him, using his face as a springboard to do so.

Samael fell to the ground as the undead dog raced after the deer, not receiving any commands to stop.

“Yup. That’s guna bruise.” He said to no one, rubbing his forehead. The graceful sounds of the deer and the crashing menace of his mindless pet chasing it disappeared into the distance and Samael was left alone. Or so he thought. Upon hearing the sound of hurried footfalls, Samael barely had time to turn around before a great mass of muscle and teeth was upon him, turning him from hunter to prey.

Yelling out loud, Samael struggled to keep the snarling biting face away from his own, pushing the grey fur of the creature away with one arm, whilst thrusting back the creatures muzzle with the other. ‘Help!’ Samael’s panicked command reached out. The beast twisted and turned its head, trying to bite Samael’s arm and face in turn and winning in the struggle. It was too strong and Samael could see the teeth getting closer as he felt its hot breath against his skin.

A figure dashing in from the distance ploughed straight into the creature, knocking it off Samael, and engaging it in a vicious and deadly fight. As fast as he could, Samael crawled away and stood back up, once on his feet, he stared at the fearsome grey wolf which was in a brutal fight with his reanimated dog. Hearing howl’s echo across the woodland, Samael turned around to see in the distance a wolf pack dashing towards him through the trees.

Not having a better idea in the millisecond he had left, Samael ran to the nearest tree and began to climb. It was a thick one with few branches close to the ground but he managed all the same, motivated by the sounds of jaws snapping shut close to his feet. Once high enough, Samael sat panting against a branch, observing the sight below him. His own dog was still in a fight with the wolf from before, completely outmatched by a creature twice its size but persevering as only a mindless undead thing could do.

The rest of the wolf pack gathered around his tree looking up at him with hunger. After a few moments of searching for a way up to him, the pack split off, leaving two behind as the rest went to help their pack mate.

Outnumbered and outclassed, Samael’s undead dog faced gnashing teeth from all sides. Its flesh was slowly torn off, along with a back leg, then one of its forelegs. Still it tried valiantly to fight on, snapping at any wolf that approached it from the front. Several of the wolves had many bite marks and scratches on them, but none were at death’s door. Perhaps thinking the dog no longer posed any danger, one of the wolves stepped in range to finish the fight.

“Bite its neck!” Samael yelled out, both vocally and through the connection between them. Unable to disobey a direct command, the dog lunged forwards, using its remaining back leg to launch itself towards the wolf in front of it, ignoring any kind of defence in favour of an all-out last attack. Surprised, its target was unable to dodge in time and the dog managed to lock its jaw around the wolf’s neck.

Howling in pain, the wolf tried shaking the dog loose as its pack mates rushed forwards. The literal death grip of the dog’s jaw did not relent however, even when the other beasts ripped its body apart, tearing its torso away to leave the head still clamped onto the now whimpering wolf. The largest one, the wolf who jumped on Samael and started this whole thing, used its powerful jaw on the remaining head, crushing it and causing the connection in Samael’s mind to snap.

Your reanimated [Wild Dog Lvl 4] has been slain.

‘Thanks…’ Samael thought, not really needing the notification when he could see his former dog spread out all over the ground in front of him.

It seemed it was not ripped apart in vain however, the wolf that it had clamped onto was now lying on the ground, a ferocious gouge had been taken out of its neck, spilling its blood all over the ground. After several moments the beast stopped twitching, its pack mates whimpered and nuzzled at the now unmoving corpse.

Congratulations!

You have killed [Wolf Lvl 4]

Essence Absorbed

Congratulations!

You have gained enough essence to rank up your skill {Reanimate Dead} Rank 1

Rank Skill? Yes/No

Samael dismissed the notifications, instead staring intently at the dead body in front of him. He saw his chance and after bracing himself against the tree, began to cast {Reanimate Dead}. His limbs moved to cast the spell, thankfully not unbalancing him and causing Samael to fall. After thirty seconds the green light shot out of his hands and struck the fresh corpse on the ground in front of him.

Its pack mates jumped back at the light, before looking at Samael up in the tree, several of them snarling. Samael ignored them however, as he felt the connection in his mind form with the corpse. Looking with hope at the dead creature in front of him, Samael gave it its first command.

The larger wolf had returned to nuzzle at its fallen comrade’s side, mourning its loss. It was therefore totally unprepared for when its former friend and ally rose up suddenly and tore open its throat. So complete was its surprise that rather than fighting back, it backed away from the now walking corpse in front of it, as the rest of the pack mates yelped and backed away from Samael’s new thrall. The large wolf collapsed onto the ground, not making a sound, as if it was unable to process the impossible betrayal that had occurred against it.

Unsure what was happening, the pack seemed unwilling to fight and were distressed enough that they had turned from a deadly hunting force into a collection of scared cubs. With their leader dead, and the fright of their former pack mate turning against them, the wolves scattered as soon as Samael’s new thrall charged amongst them. The wolves beneath Samael also decided against staying, loping off after their pack into the woods.

With relief flooding his body, Samael allowed the notifications from the Construct to enter his vision, as the sound of wolf howl’s faded into the distance.

Congratulations!

You have killed [Alpha Wolf Lvl 5]

Essence Absorbed

Congratulations!

You have gained enough essence to level up your class [Necromancer Lvl 2]

Level Class? Yes/No

Congratulations!

You have gained enough essence to rank up your skill {Reanimate Dead} Rank 1

Rank Skill? Yes/No