When Emil had left the camp, it had been in the middle of the night during a blizzard. Now, it was the next afternoon with calm winds and only a partially cloudy sky. The undisturbed snow all around him sparkled under the sun’s light. It would always be a pretty sight to him, but at that moment, he was not appreciating that beauty.

Instead, his attention was focused on the torn-up corpse in front of him. It was a large, male elk. The center of its body was mostly gone, save for ribs that had been picked clean. The rest of its body had many spots that were torn up as well. Along with the ribs, parts of the bone in its frontal legs were also visible. He looked at the small cloud of death that hung above it.

Emil touched it, and reviewed the elk’s final moments. It had been foraging for grasses buried under the snow, when a hail of icicles stabbed into the side of its body. The sudden attack caused the elk to panic, and bolt in a random direction.

But as its warm blood melted the ice and made them fall out, it didn’t take long for it to bleed out and collapse. That was the end of the vision when the elk died. This had happened when the sun was barely fully up, so a couple of hours ago.

Emil then gathered up the death cloud, and focused it into a new memory orb. It was the first one of a big creature he had made since the flame boar. So he was glad to have a new orb that was on the larger side. This would bring his total collection of memory orbs to five.

In his head, he grouped them based on their size. He had four small orbs, each one roughly the same size as a grape. They had all been collected from masses of insects. And now, this elk provided a medium orb, which was a bit smaller than his palm. Then the one he had previously created from all the flame boar and nearby creatures was what he would consider a large orb. That had been a bit larger than his fist.

He put away the new memory orb, and began to study the dead elk and its surroundings some more. Around its body were all sorts of tracks from various animals, big and small. Probably scavengers who had come around to take their share of the free meal.

But the tracks didn’t really indicate what kind of creature actually attacked the elk. The icicles it had been attacked with were obviously unnatural. But from the memory of its death, whatever shot them through the air had not been close enough to the elk to have been within view. Emil figured that there were a few possible options, however.

The first could be a Mage that specialized in Ice Magic, also known as cryomancy. But he figured that theory was unlikely. For one he didn’t see any shoe prints around the corpse, but the elk also did not have antlers cut off nor its fur removed. So unless someone simply enjoyed the kill for the sake of it alone, he figured that other options would be likelier.

It could have been a magical beast of some kind, one with an affinity for ice. Emil couldn’t be sure about that from the evidence in front of him though. He had only previously recognized that the flame boar were magical due to the burns that followed their path. Otherwise, he had thought their tracks to be like any other boar.

And now, even if one of the tracks in front of him had been from a magical creature, he couldn’t tell any ice or such it left behind from the nature post-blizzard ground. However, aside from leftover evidence of their crude magic, there was another way to track them.

Emil had heard that there were subtle differences between the paw print of a normal animal and its magical counterpart. But he had never studied in that field, so he wouldn’t know what to look for in that respect. Now, he did kinda regret not at least taking it as an elective course when he had been a student at First light Academy.

Then there was the last option, which was a monster. In the Kingdom of Mendac, monsters were a rare sight. When one was discovered, it would be immediately destroyed. Something which was then followed up by an extensive search for any others. It was through this tight method of control that potential populations of monsters were nipped in the bud before they could reproduce and expand.

But there were always types of monsters that would always spawn into existence no matter what kind of action was taken. The public reason for this was a subject of constant academic debate. Though from Alterum’s lesson, he now knew that it was due to the effects of the Haze and its interactions with the Upper Layer.

In this case, Emil wondered if perhaps it was an ice elemental. Those were something he did know quite a bit about. When he had been a Mage with Intermediate Summoning, he had learned about the process that goes behind summoning elementals. Though at that point, he hadn’t yet acquired the ability to summon them himself.

But he knew that wild elementals were highly territorial, and would definitely attack a large animal even if it was just minding its own business. In the elk’s vision, he hadn’t noticed anything that gave chase as the animal ran away. This would fit an elemental’s behavior, since it would have no reason to follow once something left its territory.

Emil looked over at the direction the elk had ran here from. He believed that his current path was close enough to the east. Something he estimated by using the sun as a reference point in the morning and the north star after the blizzard had ended last night. So he believed that way was southeast but perhaps closer to south. If he kept going forward as he had been, he should avoid being near where this animal had been attacked.

Hmm, I am a little curious to see what it is. If it’s a magical beast of some kind, then I could harvest whichever body part gives its powers. But if my hunch is right, and it is an elemental, then that actually gives me an idea. What would happen if I tried to use Undead Creation after killing it? Would that even work, since elementals aren’t really living beings in a biological sense? Emil asked himself. If it didn’t work, he could also still potentially harvest its remains for valuable parts.

He looked down at the dead elk. Emil then decided that before anything else, he wanted to raise it as an undead. He had hoped to find a big animal that he could use as a mount, and here was one before him. Though a large chunk of its flesh was missing, that was something he could still work with.

Flesh Manipulation hasn’t leveled up yet, but Undead Creation reached level 3. So I shouldn’t have any issues in making it undead, especially if I use the memory orb I just made from its death. Let’s see here. Emil thought to himself as he sat down in front of the corpse, and took off his bag.

He repeated his by now usual process for the creation of an undead. Emil first created threads of Mana to string through the elk. He then decided to use Flesh Manipulation to stretch out the skin and flesh to cover the largest injuries. He was especially focused on its back. At the same time, he also used the ability to strengthen the gnawed ribcage underneath. Just to be safe, he also used extra Mana strings for its partially remade midsection.

-50 Mana

-35 Mana

He looked at the notification and noted that this took nearly a third of his total Mana Level. Once that was done, there was just one last step. Emil then drew all the power out of the memory orb, and used the death energy to empower the new undead. After the corpse fully absorbed the death energy, he stood up and took a step back.

The elk’s legs twitched once, twice, and then began to shift. It got off its side and steadily stood up off the ground, snow fell off its fur as it moved. Emil appraised the undead elk once it had risen up to its full height. If he didn’t count its large antlers, the elk’s tallest point was its shoulders. He estimated that at point, the elk was just over five feet tall.

Emil felt Theo wriggle underneath his clothes, and lifted his shirt to let it out. The roach flew toward the head of its newest brethren in undeath. It stayed in the air about half a foot away from it, and neither moved for a moment.

Then the undead elk began to slightly bob its head up and down at the roach. Seemingly satisfied by this, Theo flew over the elk’s head and landed on it. The roach then seemed to make itself comfortable right at the base of its right antler. From Emil’s perspective, he had sensed that it was neither direct thoughts nor feelings that had passed between the two. But instead, it felt like a simple kind of inherent understanding.

Emil rubbed his hand against the elk’s side in an attempt to brush off the leftover snow still on it. He felt frozen blood against his palm as he did so, which covered large chunks of its fur. There was a heavy metallic scent in the air. But the freezing cold would have helped slow down its decomposition and the associated smells that would bring.

Maybe now I’ll be able to see how being an undead affects decomposition though. Theo’s roach body is too small for me to tell, and I’ve never had a bigger undead for an extended period yet. But between my own body and now this elk, the next couple of days will be interesting. I never did manage to get an actual notebook and quill to log my experiments though, huh?

He would need to keep it all in his head. But if there was one thing his time at First Light Academy had taught him, it was to be good at memorizing his notes. To that end, he made a mental note of the current state of his body and the elk. He decided that his routine would now include a daily check-up around this time at noon. So that he could see how their walking corpses changed on a day-to-day basis as they remained exposed to the elements. However, there was also another matter for him to think about.

“I guess you need a name, huh?” Emil remarked as he place his hand on his chin. There was Theo the roach, whose full name he had borrowed from an old neighbor’s cat. And Alf the golem, whose name he had picked on a whim. Both had followed the theme of a long name and a shortened nickname, along with various titles of course. He thought about what would be a potentially good name for the undead elk. It was a male, which was obvious enough from its large antlers.

“How about Raymond, or Ray for short?” Emil asked himself, and took a moment to decide how he felt about it. “Yeah, I think I like the sound of that. Then from here on, you will be Raymond, Supreme Pack Leader, and my personal mount.”

As he made its name official, he walked around to the side of the elk. It lowered itself in response to his will, and Emil hoisted himself onto its back. Once all the way up, he placed his hands on its shoulder as he steadied himself. When he did get balanced and comfortable, Theo moved over from the elk’s head and sat in front of him on its shoulder. He looked around, pleased with himself.

With a thought, Emil had Ray take a few tests. They moved around for a few minutes, just to be sure that the elk had no trouble walking. Though when he had tried to have his new mount sprint at full speed, he had nearly fallen right off as it leaped over a fallen tree. Emil had never ridden a horse before, so his lack of practice was now clearly evident. But if nothing else, at least nobody had been around to see him fumble like that.

But once it was all said and done, he did feel comfortable with riding Ray at a moderate pace. It would definitely beat out just walking on foot. Especially when it came to difficult terrain like deep snow, fallen trees, thick brush, and the like.

He eventually turned the undead elk back toward the direction it had attacked. Emil was still curious about what exactly its assailant had been, and if it was something that he could use. His Mana Level was full, so that wouldn’t be an issue. Even if it was an ice elemental or a monster of similar strength, he believed that his abilities were strong enough to defeat it.

There was also one more thing. Emil wanted to test just what exactly being undead did for him in terms of combat. He wanted to see how it impacted his casting of Death Magic, which had previously caused a rebound effect when he used it before. He even wanted to find out how being undead impacted his physical body. Emil had still retained his sense of touch, did that extend to any kind of pain if he was injured?

The more he thought about it, the more the questions inside him begged to be answered. His mind already made up, Emil decided to have Ray begin to head in that direction.