Emil read through all of the System notifications. This was now the second time that his Sheet had fully appeared on its own, since Alterum had given him his powers. Along with the increases it had directly pointed out, Undead Creation, Death Magic, Soul Manipulation, and Spell Manipulation had all leveled up.

To increase the level of four different abilities at once was already a fantastic development. But even more important than that was the new stat he had acquired, Soul Durability. It had been listed under his General Info, but he had no clue as to what to make of it.

Soul Durability? Emil asked himself as he focused on it. He placed a hand on where the top of his chest met the base of his neck. It was inside there that the core of his soul now rested, right in the center below his collarbone. It had to relate to that, he could feel it.

Emil could surmise that at one hundred percent Soul Durability, his soul was at perfect condition. What he wasn’t sure of yet was what exactly would cause that number to decrease. Did the core itself need to be directly damaged? Or perhaps it would still go down if the rest of his body got hurt, even if his soul remained untouched? And if it decreased, what could allow him to get back up to a hundred percent?

He definitely had a fair amount of questions that needed to be answered. But as Emil sat up from the fridge, he realized that it could wait. He was still in the morgue, a part of the hospital that any of the employees could walk into at any point. He stared around the room, his vision now back to that of a normal human.

However, he seemed to no longer be able to use Mana-sense. It was strange, Emil had hoped that ability would carry over from the merging of bodies. In the short time he had it while possessing Theo’s body, he had gotten quite used to how convenient it was.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that the System had his rank now put as an Undead Human? And thus, that made him inherently different from the undead he had created? But even so, as a full undead himself, surely he could now give himself that ability through the modification of his own body.

Emil realized that by now, a few minutes had passed since he first opened his eyes. He still was holding that first breath, but felt no need to breathe further. Curious, he let it out, but chose not to inhale again. As Emil got out of the fridge, he heard the familiar sound of Theo flying in its original roach body.

It went up to him, before the tiny undead exactly flew around in small circles. In returning to its old form, it had lost the ability to speak. But even so, its joy in being reunited with him was evident. He reached out, and let the roach buzz around his hand and brush against his fingers. Emil smiled as it did so.

He pulled his hand back, and pressed his palm against his chest. What he felt was not the thumping of a living heart. It was also not the same as the pulses the undead fake heart had made inside Theo.

Click, click, click, click

The clicks were even in their rhythm. But they did not seem like the smooth ticking from the gears of a clock. No, he could feel that they were rough. He cringed a little as it felt like bone was scraping against bone inside of him. Emil then finally tried to take another breath, however, his chest did not move as he did so.

He immediately let it out to take an even deeper one, but there was still nothing. If his lungs were truly functional, his chest should have moved with their expansion. But they hadn’t, and remained as still as stone. Were his attempts at breathing simply in his head? Or was there now something else that let him take air in and out, besides his lungs?

Emil was curious, but only curious. When he had previously increased his Rank to Half-Undead, his first reaction was to panic about his appearance. But at present, he felt no such fear or really worries of any kind. He rubbed his fingers against the skin on his chest, shoulders, and down each arm. All around his skin was rough and had a texture akin to sandpaper. It still felt thin though, and tight against his frame. He studied his entire body. From the outside, a few other changes were evident.

Most of Theo’s old exoskeleton was seemingly focused on the cavity he had cut open. But some of the burnt flesh he had observed before the spell was now also covered by what had been the insectoid shell. Emil traced a finger against where the crack in his skull had been, and that too felt like it had been covered.

Interesting. That was all Emil thought to himself as he glanced around for a mirror to see what his full reflection looked like. He was soon able to find a reflective surface in the morgue, and looked at his face. When he had been alive, Emil would have looked sick or sleep-deprived with his pale skin and sunken eyes.

But now, his flesh was paper-thin against his skull. To the point of being able to see the outline of his teeth as he moved his jaw around. His pupils were enlarged. While his eyes had a bloody appearance and a blue-gray haze over them. As Emil shifted his gaze around, his eyes did not follow. No matter which direction he looked, they did not react, instead remaining fixed in place.

“One, two, three. Three, two, one,” Emil whispered to himself. His words had a rasp to them, but otherwise sounded clear. But his mouth had only kinda moved as he spoke. He then smiled as widely as he could, and instead, all his body did was a slight grin.

It was strange. Since to him, he felt like his mouth was wide open and fully stretched. But when he looked at the reflection, it was clearly closed with barely pulled lips. Emil then looked down at his hands, and flexed his fingers. In contrast to what else he had just tried, they actually seemed to move perfectly fine.

From these little tests, Emil was able to conclude something about being an Undead Human. It was that from his perspective, his body would remain fully functional and be able to effectively use each of his senses. But at the same time, it would visually seem dead and barely able to operate.

It was only through the powers that came through being undead, that his body could still be able to move correctly while not actually moving correctly. Emil thought about the dark tendrils that had formed and spread across him, and wondered if they were the cause that allowed this to happen.

Emil then grabbed a nearby sheet of white cloth, and pulled it over his shoulders to cover his body. He willed for Theo to come over to him, and carried the roach. Part of him was tempted to see if he could be able to recover the personal effects he had previously left behind inside the hospital. But after a moment to think about it, he decided against it for two reasons.

The first was that he wouldn’t be sure where to look. Since he had left most of it with the unconscious Captain Maynard. So between the time he had exited the hospital and now, who knew what happened to it all after the captain eventually woke up or if someone had found his sleeping body first. Perhaps it had been returned to the storage units, but he wouldn’t know for sure unless he checked for himself.

The second reason was quite simple, and it was that he didn’t really believe there was anything he actually needed. He had already taken away the most important things related to his powers. As such, aside from clothes and a couple of little things, there was just the money he had been on his person. Which frankly, wouldn’t be much of a loss. Since he had thankfully made the decision to keep most of the money in the larger bag still at his camp, rather than in his personal satchel. So there wasn’t anything of real value he would miss.

With that concluded, he decided that it was now time for him to leave the hospital. Since the windows in the hallway could be opened from the inside, getting out without being seen would be easy. He would then just need to take the long way and go around the actual town to walk over to his camp.

He peered out into the corridor, to check if there was anyone currently within sight. Emil then walked out of the morgue, opened a window, and simply exited the hospital. He wouldn’t be able to relock outside, but he was sure that the workers would just assume it got blown open from the blizzard. While he walked into the high winds and snow, he barely noticed the freezing snowstorm as he began to get lost in his own thoughts.

When I get to the camp, I’ll gather up all my stuff and the golems. I’ll probably keep them idle and just toss them in my bags. That’ll be a lot more convenient for me. I should be able to carry everything. Since one benefit of undeath means that I no longer need things like food, water, and whatnot. So I can just leave behind anything like that. Afterwards, I guess I could just leave and head east? Emil asked himself.

He didn’t think there was much else for him left to do in this town. He wouldn’t be able to take any further direct action against Flumdea or the Order now, since Alterum had been clear about how that would end.

He wasn’t sure what kind of effects his actions would end up having on the people of the town. But he hoped that if nothing else, they would be able to sleep a bit more comfortably. Now that Hadwin was dead, the incidents of dead children would come to a stop unless he was soon replaced. And even then, with Mayor Duran dead as well, the Order would hopefully not be able to have someone in power keep the cover-up and shield their actions.

Emil eventually reached his camp. It ended up taking him a bit longer than he had expected, due to being slowed down by the high winds and built-up snow on the ground. But he was able to push through, and looked over his camp. The trees around had somewhat protected it from the snow, but not entirely.

He dug through the snow and collected everything he wanted in one spot, and cast aside the rest. Emil ditched the cloth he had been wearing, and exchanged it for a proper set of clothing. He supposed that he technically didn’t need clothes as an undead, but he preferred haiving them over being nude. After that, he put all the stuff he had decided to keep into one large bag.

“Alrighty then,” Emil said aloud. He was now done with what he had wanted to do in the camp. Theo was underneath his clothing to protect it from the blizzard, and he now carried the large bag. He could barely even felt its weight on his back. He crouched down to grab a stick, and began to carve into the snow. After a few minutes, he finished his crude drawing. From his memory, he had created a very rough map of the world.

Emil was currently in the Second South region of the Kingdom of Mendac. He marked the approximate location of the town as an X. Then he made a smaller x to mark where he more or less estimated Alterum’s lair was.

The Kingdom of Mendac was an eastern nation in the Major Continent, and considered the head nation of the Eastern League. To the north and south was the Minor Continent and the Holy Archipelago respectively. But his main interest was what was to the east of Alterum’s prison, specifcally, the ‘far east’.

He tried to draw a straight line from the smaller x to the right of his rough map. There were two nations that shared the eastern border of the Kingdom of Mendac. They were the Elven Federation and Vermilia. Thankfully, he was far enough south that even if his map was off in its proportions, it was safe to say that to the direct east was Vermilia.

Even farther east of that was simply the ocean, so that nation seemed to be where Alterum’s tooth currently rested. But Vermila was still a fairly large nation with many port cities along its coast. So the area that would encompass his search would be fairly wide. Emil brushed away the map with a foot, and straightened back up.

There would be just one issue, and that was his lack of transportation. To get to the eastern border of the Kingdom of Mendac on foot would take way too long. Emil tried to do the math in his head to make an educated guess on how long it would take that way.

He approximated that the distance between his current location and the shared border was somewhere around 500 to 600 miles. So if he were to walk non-stop, it would take him about a week or so? On one hand, on paper, that actually didn’t sound so bad. But on the other hand, that would translate to a couple hundred hours of doing nothing but walk.

But he didn’t necessarily have to go there on foot. With the silver he had, it wouldn’t be enough for a horse-drawn carriage, much less an arcane carriage. But for a single horse on its own, perhaps it would be enough money.

If he went to buy one, he would need to get a mask or something first. His winter clothing already fully covered everything below the neck, so all he needed was to hide his face. But to buy a mask would also require a face covering first. Perhaps he could cut some cloth and use that. Emil thought about it for a little longer, before he simply shook his head.

He was a Necromancer, which meant that there was another option aside from buying transportation. If he could get his hands on the corpse of a large animal, or several smaller bodies, then he could simply make his own undead to ride on. Finding said animals would be a bit tricky in middle of winter, but he figured that it could be doable.

Emil looked out toward the direction of the town. The blizzard heavily lowered visibility, but he could imagine all the smoke rising up from it as fires were kept lit for warmth. He decided that for now, he would walk to create some more distance between himself and the town. Perhaps if he was farther away, it would be easier to find animals. Any creatures around here would likely be wary of humans due to living near the town.

With that decided, Emil shifted the bag on his back. He turned away from the camp, and began to walk into the snowy forest. Emil was ready to put the town behind him, for now, to embark on the next stage of his journey.