Emil had barely been able to hold on as Ray ran at full speed and bounded across the land. During the ride, there were multiple instances where he had nearly fallen off the elk. But at the very least, it also gave him a good distraction from the gnawing hunger inside him. As they drew closer to the origin of the scent of baked goods, he had the undead mount slow down. There was what seemed like the entrance to a cave within sight. At his behest, Ray carried its master into the cave.

As they walked in, Emil gulped as a new wave of delicious smells wafted into his nose. He had to resist the urge to immediately throw himself off the elk’s back towards their source. His eyes looked around, and eventually rested on a scattered pile of bodies.

He counted precisely half a dozen wolves. Their mostly rotted corpses were infested with countless maggots. Emil wondered if perhaps this was the same pack of wolves that had killed the deer for a moment. But after a few moments, decided that these predators would have already been dead for long while. He believed that the deer’s corpse had only been there for less than a day, while these corpses had clearly been here for several.

He also realized something else though. A putrid odor of decay should have rocked the Necromancer’s nostrils, but there was none of that. There was only the continued appetite for the aroma of freshly made bread.

Emil looked up to see that the clouds of their deaths had risen up and stuck onto the cave’s ceiling. They hadn’t yet coagulated into one large miasma. But they had begun that process, as whisps of the thick fogs were loosely connected to one another. The ceiling wasn’t very high up, so from Ray’s back, he would still be able to touch them. Emil reached one hand up to the one most directly above.

The proceeding vision was one of drawn-out anguish. It had not been some other predators or even the ice elemental that had killed these wolves. But simply disease that rendered them too weak to hunt or even move. The wolf whose eyes he shared had died a slow death as it lost the strength to even stand to go and drink water.

Compared to the direct pain of the other death visions, this one affected him in a different way. Animals getting killed and eaten was just the way of nature. And while this too was fundamentally nature taking its course, it still sat with Emil uncomfortably. When the vision finished, he took in this individual wolf’s death energy into himself.

+40 Mana acquired

Conversion into a usable form is required

Estimated conversion time: forty minutes

As it was absorbed into his body, the scent of delicious breads immediately fell sharply in potency. It was still there, but now Emil didn’t have to try nearly as hard to keep the sense of hunger in check. He recalled the first time he had consumed a cloud of death energy.

Back then, drawing it through his fingers and palms had taken every bit of his focus. But now he had just done so through a single hand, and was able to absorb it with ease. He supposed that aside from the stats that the System provided, this was just another measure of how used he had become to his abilities.

Emil looked at the clouds of death for the next five wolves. One by one, he absorbed four of them. With every one that he consumed, both the delicious smells and his appetite faded away. Eventually, they were fully gone and out of his mind.

Each of the wolves’ deaths provided approximately forty Mana. So by the time all the conversions were finished, he would bring his Mana Level back up to 205/300. If he took in the sixth and final one as well, then that would have brought it up to 245 total Mana. However, Emil had already decided to save it instead.

Now, there was still quite a bit of time left for his Mana conversions to finish. So he would need to wait until then to start with what he wanted to do next. Emil commanded his undead elk to exit the cave and step outside. It was now what he believed to be late afternoon. This meant that with how early night came during winter, there were only so many hours of daylight left.

The night itself wouldn’t really bother him, since Emil had no need for sleep now and could see just fine in the dark. But a lifetime of being human came with the habit of focusing his productivity around day time. Twenty-one years of living like that was a tough routine to break after all. He stared up at the sky, and a realization came to mind.

Huh… what date is it again? With what the newspaper in the tavern said, hmm. Oh, wait, hold on. It’s barely more than another week until my twenty-second birthday, isn’t it? How did I forget about my own birthday? Emil thought to himself.

He did the math again in his head, and confirmed that it was only another ten days until he turned twenty-two. But with everything that happened to him recently, his birthday had been the last thing on his mind. In ten more days, he would normally have spent that special day back home with his family. However, he would instead be out here, away from them. And they in turn would spend that day still in belief that he had mysteriously died in that ancient dungeon.

Emil could already see how they would mourn him. How they wouldn’t even have a proper grave to grieve before, without a body buried. Any progress they had made in dealing with the aftermath of his supposed death would immediately be thrown out the window on his birthday. As this reality came to him, he should have cried, should hav e felt his heart twist and ache. Yet, he felt cold to it.

Emil was just as emotionally distant from his own family’s sorrow as he was from an animal’s death. He gritted his teeth. His frustration towards this inability to properly feel the emotions the should have was definitely there. So what was wrong with him then? Why could he feel this upset with himself, but not the guilt and sadness he believed he should feel?

As Ray and Emil passed by a tree, he angrily smashed his fist against its truck. If the issue was that he could no longer feel emotions as an undead, he’d be able to understand that. But that wasn’t the case. Frustration, anger, annoyance, he could definitely feel all of it. It was only emotions for the sake of others, that his mind simply responded with cold nothingness.

Emil’s thoughts rolled around each other in a storm of conflicted emotions. But beyond that, there was a part of him that remained detached and completely logical. He hated that even while this upset, he couldn’t stop it. That beyond the thinking of a normal human, his undead mind refused to fully let go into the sea of chaotic emotions and thoughts.

He knew that nothing would change the fact that this was how things were. Alterum had been upfront about this happening once he became undead, after all. And when he had died and become a ghost, it was he who voluntarily jumped back onto this path. He had made his bed and chosen to lie in it, he shouldn’t complain that it would be as uncomfortable as expected.

Emil tightened his fist, and then slowly relaxed them. He closed his eyes and focused on taking slow, deliberate breaths. After several minutes of this passed, he managed to calm back down. He had taken the time to come to grips with his emotions, and get his train of thought back on track.

Maybe, just maybe, this could actually be for the best. I can’t say for sure yet what my new emotional capacities are like for other people, until I actually interact with someone as an undead. It’ll be something that will require caution on my part though, to keep my undead hidden. However, meeting and talking to another human is not a matter of if, but when. Emil felt the urge to pace around. But without functional legs, he subconsciously willed for Ray to do so in his stead.

But assuming that I just truly can’t feel much of all for others, it’ll mean that my every decision should be based on the most logical response, right? Plus it’s not like I’ll instantly have no regard for other people like a monster. I still know right from wrong, and it at least feels like I still fully understand ethics. I think… it means I can still be empathetic towards others even if I can’t be sympathetic. At least, I think that’s how that works? He asked himself.

By now, it felt like a bit over half an hour had already passed. So on that note, Emil decided that it was time to return to the cave. The Mana conversion he began earlier would be finished at any minute now. He willed Ray to turn back towards the entrance, and they soon walked back into it.

Once inside, the Necromancer looked at the last cloud of death, and plunged both hands into it. He repeated the same procedure he had done for the dear’s, and tied it into a concentrated tendril. Emil connected to the incomplete one he had started before, and finished it. It was now fully done and attached like the other leg’s.

-30 Mana

Now that both were complete, a sensation came over him. It was as though something suddenly clicked into place. He was able to feel his legs again. They were still missing any flesh or bones, but he could flex and move the tendrils themselves. Emil could also feel the cold and dry air again on them.

Soul Durability: +10%

And that was a System notification Emil was more than glad to see appear in front of him. A sense of relief washed over him. The dull ache and pain that he had been ignoring disappeared from his hip. But beyond that, something inside him felt whole again. The closest thing he could compare to it was like the feeling he had after getting comfortably full from a hot, hearty meal. He then decided to test something.

The Necromancer kept one hand on Ray, and slowly shifted toward the ground. He placed the ends of both tendrils on the cave floor, and tried to stand on them. Emil then immediately felt them collapse under his body weight, and nearly fell all the way down. He was thankful for his decision to hold onto the elk, or else he would have simply collapsed right there and then.

But that alone was enough to prove something to him. While the tendrils provided movement and sensations for his body in lieu of functional nerves and muscles, they were not enough on their own. He would still need physical parts to be able to function and be able to move around normally. Emil hoisted himself back onto Ray’s back, and glanced over to the corpses of the wolves. He then looked down at his arms.

They were ice-cold husks of skin and bone with little meat in between. Yet even so, his hands and individual fingers worked perfectly fine. The Undead Human wondered just how much his legs would actually need in order to work in the same way. At this point, he cared little for appearances. Anyone that laid eyes upon him would easily be able to tell that he was a walking corpse. So as long as his legs were fully functional again, the form didn’t matter as much.

Emil had Ray kneel down beside the nearest corpse, and he got off the elk. Even while up close to the writhing maggots that covered the dead wolf, they didn’t bother him in the least. He grabbed onto one of its back legs, and after a few moments of tugging, was able to rip it right off its body. Blood and insects were scattered across both himself and the ground, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He then quickly repeated the same thing for its other back leg.

The Necromancer held onto both of the cut-off legs and pushed them against the left side of his hip, around the tendril for his own left leg. He had grabbed two just in case one didn’t provide enough material. Emil then began to concentrate on a spell with Flesh Manipulation. He didn’t want to simply stick these wolf legs onto himself and call it a day. But instead, they would be recycled and made into a more human-like limb.

As he focused, the flesh and bones of the legs became something akin to clay. They were components for him to mold and change into his desired shape. Muscles snapped as the tendrils of death took their place, and bones stretched and condensed as needed. Blood dripped out as clumps of fur fell off.

-70 Mana

Emil had now completed the spell, and successfully formed a leg made of primarily bone. There was no muscle tissue. He only had a layer of skin tightly around the skeletal limb. It had toes that seemed to work fine as he tested them. However, he hadn’t bothered with adding toenails. So to anyone that looked, what Emil had now would effectively be compared to the leg of a mummy. And to their hypothetical credit, that comparison wasn’t really inaccurate.

But before he moved on to the next leg, he still needed to double-check that this one worked. Emil grabbed onto his undead elk’s body. He then carefully pulled with his arms and pushed himself up with the single leg.

Once he was fully upright, he was able to prove that this new limb could at least hold most of his body weight without any issues. Emil then decided to push it further, and jumped. And as his foot landed back on the ground, he was glad to not feel it break or otherwise fail. He nodded to himself, satisfied, and then let himself back down onto the floor.

-70 Mana

With a total of 140 Mana spent, Emil finished the construction of his right leg. With this, he had used up more than half of all the Mana he absorbed from the wolves. His Mana Level was now already back down to 75/300, but that was fine for the moment.

Without Ray’s assistance, Emil slowly and steadily got up from the cave floor and stood on his own two feet. He took a few cautious steps forward, and smiled as he did so without any problems. Sure, it had only been a few hours since he lost his legs from his battle with the ice elemental. But to be back in business was still a good feeling. Emil grabbed onto the elk’s shoulder, and proudly swung his freshly made legs around its back.

He then glanced back, and deliberated. Though his legs had been the only limbs fully cut off, other parts of his body had also been damaged. While he was here, he could still harvest other parts of wolf flesh to mend those injuries as well. Most importantly, there was still the exposed object which was his heavily modified, undead heart.

The other damaged sections, he could ignore. But that was one part that he decided to take seriously. Emil hopped back off Ray’s back, and returned to the nearest corpse. He recast Flesh Manipulation, and spent another 10 Mana. He was able to fill in the hole in his chest with solid bone, and covered it with a layer of skin.

Once that was done, he remounted his faithful steed. With a command from him, they exited the cave and put the pack of dead wolves behind them. When they walked back outside, Emil paused and began to think. Now that his most immediate problem had been solved, he needed to decide what he wanted to do next.

On one hand, he had gotten off track from his main goal of heading toward the far east. But on the other hand, there was still that third scent he had smelled. It was fainter now that he had more Mana, but Emil could still detect it.

If a dead deer smelled like barbequed meat, and a pack of wolves like fresh bread, he was curious about what kind of animal’s death smelled purely sweet. There was also the fact that his Mana Level was currently just about a fifth of its total. So to go over to this last source of death to gather more wouldn’t be a bad idea before he continued his journey. After he thought about it for a little longer, Emil finally came to a decision. They would go to the source of the sweet smell before moving on.