It took about an hour or so of walking until the forest eventually became less dense. Emil approached his undead, who had arrived before their master and patiently waited. The giant spider still in his arms, he dropped it onto the snow and willed for Theo to come over.

“Alright, let’s do this,” the Necromancer said aloud. He first began by prepping the spider’s body. Strings of Mana were formed in its abdomen, to connect to its head and legs.

-20 Mana

Emil then cut open an incision into its body, and had his roach crawl inside. Once it had done so, he brought out one of his freshly formed memory orbs. He drew out its power, and transferred it to the arachnid corpse. With both hands placed on it, he closed his eyes and concentrated.

Like before, the spell would start with the creation of a brand new undead. And as soon as it was made, he would force it to break back down and reform around Theo. Since this was a more standard undead compared to the one empowered with unholy fire, this process proved to be comparatively more effortless than it had been at that time. With its body now complete, the new Theo began to stand up.

Before it had merely been the Emperor of Insects. But now, arachnids too could be counted amongst the undead’s domain. Emil knew that this was blatant favoritism towards the roach-now-spider. But it was and would always be his first undead, and thus held a special place in his dead heart.

Once Theo the giant spider had fully risen, Emil went over to his elk. He drew out Mana from one to replace the amount he just spent. It was enough to decrease its size from medium to small. After that, the rest of the memory orbs were placed inside his bag. The Undead Human then climbed onto his mound, where Theo then jumped onto its back to sit directly behind him. With all of that now settled, they resumed their walk through the woods.

Emil and his companions had been traveling for a few more hours when he noticed something. His nose detected death in the air, and a lot of it. With his Mana Level full, it didn’t have any associated smells with it. Yet he could still sense it nonetheless, just out of what felt like sheer quantity.

When he looked around for the direction it came from, his expression formed into a frown. Emil had been careful to keep a healthy distance from any roads. To that end, he remained mindful of where any were as they walked. But now, it seemed like the source of this large amount of death was in the direction of one such road.

A little wary, he urged for Ray to switch paths and head toward it. It wouldn’t take them too long to get there. But he wanted to proceed with caution. Out of all the things that could potentially cause a lot of death on human roads, none of them was something he wanted to recklessly waltz into.

They cut their way through the woods, and steadily approached the road. The scent led him to the base of a fairly steep hill. As the cobblestone pathway was now before him, Emil’s jaw dropped. He slowly dismounted from his elk’s back, and stepped forward. A flock of crows flew away as he approached.

About two dozen corpses littered the area in front of him. Men and women, dressed in armor. Puddles of dried blood were pooled under most of them. Some of them were covered in burns, while others had arrows stuck into their bodies. They were scattered around two carriages, whose doors lazily moved with the wind.

Clouds of death hung over each of the bodies. But even that wasn’t what gripped the Necromancer’s attention. Four ghosts hung around the bloody scene, each one clearly dressed in the same manner as the others. They hadn’t noticed Emil, as they were too preoccupied with their own regrets and sorrow. Each of them lamented their griefs aloud.

“I failed, I couldn’t fulfill my duties. It’s my fault, I should have been stronger.”

“My lady, I never told her my true feelings. Where is she, what happened to her?”

“Why am I still here? I thought I… I thought I…”

“What will happen to my family? My wife, my son, what will happen to them without me?”

Emil sensed no other souls present. Aside from these four spirits, it seemed all the others had already managed to move on. He looked down at the body now directly in front of him. A young man, around his age, maybe even a bit younger. Though it was hard to tell from his facial features alone.

His eyes and nose were missing, likely pecked and ripped off by the birds. He had died on his side, both of his arms laid out in front of him. Blood caked the large gash that went across his chest. On the tunic he wore, there was a symbol etched into the left side of his chest. It was what looked like a dove with its wings fully spread. The Undead Human reached out to touch the cloud of death that hung over this person.

This man had been one member of a noblewoman’s escort of guards. They were all tired and groggy from the difficulties that came with winter travel. When their group reached this hill, nobody had been prepared for the sudden ambush that befell them.

A volley of arrows, fireballs, and bolts of lightning rained down upon them. Several of them died before they even realized what was happening. After that initial culling of their numbers, their attackers came out of the opposite side of the woodwork with their weapons ready.

Their two groups would have had a similar amount of fighters. But with the surprise attack and the disarray it caused, it was a one-sided massacre. This young man barely had time to draw his own sword before he was swiftly cut down. The ambushers didn’t even ease his pain with a quick death, however. Instead, they had moved on and left him to bleed out onto the stones.

“Bandits,” he quietly muttered to himself as he pulled his hand away. “That was what the newspaper had talked about. Vermila’s rising amount of bandits lurking in the wilderness outside their big towns and cities.”

Emil now remembered what it was he had forgotten. Though it would have been better if this had never occurred to serve as a reminder. He shook his head as he then looked back toward the ghosts. His current emotional state as he took it all in was hard to pin down.

When he was alive, his heart would have ached for their sake. He might have fallen to his knees and wondered how something like this could even have happened. But while he did feel like this was an unnecessary loss of life, his feelings didn’t go much deeper than that. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but a small part of him wanted to leave it at that. To simply shrug with neutral acknowledgment, and then walk away.

Emil ignored that part of himself. He remembered the promise he had made himself, to always remember his humanity, no matter what. He decided that while he was here, perhaps the Necromancer could ease their pain. He could see what it would take to help them in whatever way they need.

Emil walked up to the nearest one, the spirit of a woman who had been bemoaning her lack of strength. For a few moments, he thought about what he wanted to say to her. Emil decided to keep it simple and straight to the point.

“You were attacked by bandits?” Emil asked. He knew the answer, of course. But that last word seemed to capture the ghost’s attention. She looked up from the floor where her corpse still lay. One side of the body was completely covered in deep burns. It was now that she noticed him for the first time.

“Murderers, thieves, brigands. They killed my men, they robbed us for everything we had. And I wasn’t able to protect any of them. I wasn’t even able to protect our lady and take her to safety,” she tightened her fists as she scolded herself.

Emil touched her cloud of death to watch her final moments. Her name was Jule, and she had been the leader of these guards. Despite her self-admonishment, he watched through her eyes as she fought with the ferocity of a lioness to the very end.

Her spear had shone with magical might as she did battle. Her body and weapon enhanced with the abilities that came from one with the Spearman Class. While outnumbered and surrounded, she had managed to kill four bandits before a pillar of flames appeared and engulfed her. It was as she burned to death that the last stand of the guards was wiped out.

Once the vision finished, he noted that the bodies of the dead bandits were not anywhere within sight. Emil assumed that they had been taken somewhere by the rest of the bandits. He shook his head as he spoke up again, and received the dead woman’s gaze.

“I understand how you’re feeling, at least somewhat. A group of people I was with died in front of me, and nothing I could have said or done would have stopped it. But I wasn’t their leader, like you were with your own group. Yet I-” He began.

“What kind of leader am I!?” Jule’s ghost cried as she threw her hands up. She gestured towards all the bodies around. The other ghosts seemed slightly perturbed by her sudden outburst. But their attention on here and Emil was fleeting, as they quickly returned to muttering to themselves.

“A real leader would have been prepared! A real leader would have always been wary of danger! Would have kept her troops ready! But I did none of that. I heard of the reported increase in attacks, but never took them seriously. I am no leader. I was just a fool who couldn’t even protect her men or her lady. A fool who was too weak to make amends for her carelessness and fulfill her duty.”

The spirit turned away from Emil, and fell onto her knees. She continued to utter curses at herself under her breath. He looked down at her for a little bit, unsure of what to do next. With some slight hesitation, he reached down to place a hand on her shoulder. Emil felt a pull at the top of his chest, as his own soul touched the ghost’s. He felt her sorrow, her regret, and self-hatred. The brunt of every negative emotion she felt was directed at herself.

“What happened wasn’t your fault. Not a single ounce of blame falls on you. All of it should be on those who were willing to spill innocent blood for no reason but to satisfy their own greed.” Emil spoke not just through his vocal speech, but through his soul as well.

Behind each word he said were his direct thoughts and feelings. His sense of justice. Even his dream of a world where someday, none would fear having their lives forcibly stolen away from them. The total weight of it all was communicated in a way that normal words could never truly convey.

The ghost turned back to look at him. Emil could feel that his message did have an effect. For the moment, at least, the constant loop of intense guilt had been paused. But he didn’t leave it at that, as he continued to speak.

“No, you didn’t deserve what happened. And you definitely don’t deserve to be trapped in this world as a ghost because of it.” Emil clenched his other hand into a fist. He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone carried a wave of quiet anger.

He looked between the corpses and the ghosts present. All of their lives had been caught short. A lot of them didn’t even have the basic mercy of quick deaths, and instead died filled with pain and fear. They likely weren’t the first victims of the bandits. But they would almost definitely not be the last. Not unless someone stopped them for good.

It was at that moment that Emil decided that he would be that someone. He had acted as the avenger of the victimized dead before. And though the circumstances were different this time, he was willing to take that role again. To build a kingdom and army of undead for Alterum would be an ambitious goal that will take a long time.

So as he took steps to reach that point, he could still impart good to the world. Until the day came that he was needed for large-scale change across the world, this could be his purpose. He could be the one to make sure that even the dead still got their pound of flesh from those who wronged them. Emil was still connected to the ghost as these thoughts went through his mind, and they too were directly shared with her. He took a step back from her, and loudly addressed all of the ghosts.

“Do you all really want to remain trapped in this world? Do you want to sit here and drown in your own sorrow? When do you think you’ll be able to move on then? On the day that the ones who killed you are finally brought to justice? What if they never face retribution? What if they’re never caught? What if one of them dares think they can walk away at some point, and peacefully live out the rest of their own life? What will you do then, huh?”

All four spirits stared at the Undead Human, their full attention on him. He could sense their doubts and worries. They did not want to remain here forever. When their companions died, they had seen their souls go to the afterlife. But not them, they were still bound to this plane.

“Do you need justice to be at peace? Fine, I can do you one better” He didn’t think about his words before he uttered them. He simply said what felt right to him. “I’ll give you the chance the avenge yourselves. To personally drive a sword through the hearts of those who murdered you. They took your lives, so you can exact payback by taking theirs in return!”

He was surrounded by a road covered in corpses. Which meant he was surrounded by bodies that could all be raised as undead. The Necromancer wasn’t sure exactly how many he could create with the current levels of his abilities. But he had been able to make Mayor Duran undead with half a soul. If nothing else, he was already more powerful now than when he performed that act.

“Justice?” One of the ghosts eventually asked, after a minute of silence.

“Yes! Justice!” Another one excitedly replied.

“Justice! Justice! Justice!” All the spirits chanted the word together in unison. Their spectral forms seemed to almost glow from their growing passion. With a push in the right direction, their cries of misery turned into one of passionate fervor.

“Alright then,” Emil said with a nod. He then had the four ghosts stand together in front of him, shoulder to shoulder. He placed both of his hands on the group, and closed his eyes. All parts of the environment seemed to fade away as he concentrated on nothing else but their collective souls.

Both Undead Creation and Soul Manipulation had leveled up since he made the mayor into an undead. At that time, he had split the man’s soul between his knowledge and his personality. Of which the former had been used to complete the resurrection of his body.

Emil had an idea, but it would be a risk. Through his soul, he shared it with the ghosts for their permission. They responded with feelings of affirmation and willingness to do whatever it took. Through that cooperation, the ease with which he could cast Soul Manipulation was exceptionally enhanced.

He wanted to try seeing just how much he could split their souls, and still remain able to make their bodies undead. If possible, Emil wanted enough pieces to resurrect every corpse around him. He had two reasons to want this. The first was a poetic one, that the body of each of the dead would have their fair chance at enacting vengeance. The second was more practical. With about two dozen undead fighters behind him, he was sure the bandits wouldn’t stand a chance.

The risk he had thought about was the safety of the ghosts. Even if his plan succeeded, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to reform their souls after splitting them into so many pieces. But even with that risk being a very real possibility, the four ghosts were still willing to try it anyway. They would remain trapped on this plane either way. But at least this way, they would have the chance to make something from their deaths.

To get it all done would take him both a lot of time and Mana. But without a rush and the abundance of death energy around him, both would be a non-issue. Emil sent a mental command to Theo. He wanted it to explore the woods and look for any signs of where the bandits went. If this road was part of their hunting grounds, then there was a chance they hadn’t gone too far.

As soon as it found anything, it would return here to report back. Once Theo was back and his work here had finished, he knew what he wanted to do. Under the cover of darkness provided by night, they would launch their own surprise assault on the bandits. With that plan in place, Emil began to channel his magic on the ghosts.