The Ruined Death Knight

Forcefully removing the soul essence of the corpse, Danzel went ahead and cast [Greater Raise Undead] to the corpse.

His expectation of doing that was of course to see a new Draugr come to be.

His dead mana flew out of his body and traveled towards the corpse and under his gaze, he would have frowned if he could.

Moments later, the corpses shook before starting to move once more.

Naturally, Danzel broke the ice with the use of his sword, allowing the newly awakened undead to rise to his feet, gazing with his hollow eyes toward his creator.

"Why?" Danzel said as he put his hand towards the undead in front of him, making his status appear.

[Status]

Name: ----

Race: Skeleton

Level: 1

Class: -----

Sub-Class: ----

Health: 200

Mana: 10

Attribute Points: 0

Attributes: Strength: 4 Agility: 2 Intelligence: 1 Endurance: 3

Talents: [Undead] [Undead Servant] [Subordinate of Death Knight]

...

"Why a skeleton?" Danzel said as he put his hand away, looking at the skeleton confused.

'Not only that, but the skeleton even has 1 less strength that the usual skeletons. Is it because of the lack of soul essence? But why?'

Danzel wasn't convinced.

He then commanded some nearby undead of his to bring two other corpses to him.

Once they arrived, Danzel this time cast [Lesser Raise Undead] to one corpse while to the other, he put his own dead mana to forcibly raise the corpse.

Of course, that was done after he pulled out their soul essence completely.

The results were not as he expected.

The spell, [Lesser Raise Undead] had the same result as his [Greater Raise Undead]. A skeleton that was even weaker than normal.

On the other hand, his forcing his dead mana on the undead made a skeleton that had around 25-30 stats on each attribute except for intelligence.

For a 1st-tier being, such stats weren't that bad.

The problem lay that the usual skeletons that he raised were much stronger than this one.

"That doesn't make sense." Danzel sheathed his sword and crossed his hands, confused at the skeleton in front of him.

He was almost sure that the reason why the first 2 skeletons were so weak was that the spell itself wasn't designed to raise corpses like this. A fundamental level of a flaw in the base of the spell.

As of why the corpses even raised as his undead was from the dead mana that was cast in the spell. Danzel also suspected that if he weren't a Death Knight, he wouldn't even raise the corpse as the amount of dead mana wasn't that much.

As for why it worked...it was probably because his miasma was just that strong.

What he did was nothing more like abusing a broken machine to fix something. But because of how high quality the machine was, it still managed to get things done when it was supposed to have not...

As for the third skeleton, he could have dismissed the problem by saying that the lack of soul essence affected the strength of raising the undead.

If he thought like that, he would have been a fool and a failure as a necromancer.

While Danzel wasn't a seasoned veteran at magic, he still knew his stuff.

If what he created was some other kind of undead, he would have different thoughts.

But since what he created was a skeleton.

He was confident that something different was in play. Something he wasn't aware of.

After all, a skeleton was an undead that had no soul.

The soul essence was located inside a soul according to the status description.

Raising his hand, Danzel used the knowledge of [Grasp of the Undying] and slowly made the ethereal hand come out of his hand directly with difficulty.

He slowly guided the hand to grab the skull of the skeletons one by one and crash it.

And that was without closing his hand at all, compared to [Grasp of the Undying].

"I am missing something...but that confirms it." Danzel said as he returned the ethereal hand back.

Danzel opened his status window and gazed at it with his ethereal eyes.

Then he closed the status, just to open it a moment later.

He repeated that action in silence.

Closing and re-opening the status window time and time again.

That action repeated till at one moment, his dark green ethereal eyes flared up and the soul essence of his hand hovered just barely outside.

And in the next instance, without a millisecond of a pause, the moment the status window opened, he pushed his one hand as fast as possible towards the status window.

The sole sudden movement causes the wind to blow and push away the little furniture that the house to the side.

But Danzel didn't care about some stupid furniture getting ruined.

After all, it wasn't his.

What he cared, about was that currently, at this exact moment.

His hand touched the status screen physically for just an instance.

An instance that wasn't even a second long.

Danzel touched the window before his hand passed right through just how it usually was supposed to do.

"I always thought it was weird and suspected it...how a skeleton has a mind of its own. And a soul at that...also this status that none else can see and it's only I who is capable to see it."

"Also those annoying illusion that I keep seeing and how their appearance is getting delayed when I use an attack that damage soul essence."

In the next moment, his death aura together with his dead mana came out and drowned the room.

His hand clenched as he stared at the status window.

"I am no anomaly or a talented individual, an undead who just happend to have this status window..."Danzel said as he looked at the status window.

"Someone, whoever it is, fiddled with my own creation. There is no doubt, there is someone who fiddled with my soul..."

That was the only logical answer that Danzel could think of.

He had realized this fact ever since he was in the cursed lack.

The first indication was his talent, [Sin of Wrath].

But he had no proof. The talent also had mentioned that he has to do something to receive it, so he couldn't have written it off that someone gives it to me he naturally got it as the reward of some action.

If even it could be called a reward.

But with the knowledge he has gathered and his experience.

It proved to him that he wasn't a natural-born undead, despite Velkir insisting on him being one.

A natural anomaly at that too.

'I could also be wrong, but this status window is too unnatural.'

"Also the fact that skeletons can't have souls is too early to think so as a fact. They might be a way for a skeleton to host a soul and I simply don't know...a natural way at that." Danzel thought, cursing internally at the lack of presence of seamless Lich missing.

If someone knew about this, Danzel was sure the shameless Lich would know more than him.

'That's right.' Danzel said internally as he calmed down and gathered his death aura and dead mana back to his body.

'I can't be sure wherever that is the case, despite the status window being abnormal.'

After calming down, Danzel left the house and aimlessly walked around the village he was "liberated ", with various thoughts in mind.

He gazed at his undead working upon his orders, the fox people who were desperately trying to be of help to his undead despite being afraid of them and not even ordered to do as such.

He also remembered how the warriors of the fox people also suggested to a begging level to hunt down the remaining ice trolls and shamans.

Danzel understood what kind of desperate thoughts they might have, so he let them help around to ease their nerves. Receiving something without giving anything to its benefactor could awaken one's worry.

It was but natural.

But despite that, Danzel didn't trust those guys a single bit. That's why he sends his Anabast together with the fox people and a few Draugrs to chase the ice trolls.

Of course, unless the fox people were idiots, they would have picked up his distrust towards them, possibly making them work harder despite there being no need to.

Danzel didn't care what they thought about him.

So long they didn't complain in front of him or make things difficult for him, they would keep their life.

He passed and watched how his undead and those guys worked.

The former showed more enthusiasm than the latter and the new fox people that were previously the food and plaything of this village were shaking like a rabbit inside the mouth of a predator.

He interacted a bit with his Draugrs, about what kind of items they found, corpses, and the amount of food. He also tried to speak with a few of the fox people with similar topics, but their distress made him leave to continue their work.

Only once he was outside the village, he looked towards the sky as white as the frozen lands.

He didn't know what to make of the information that he learned.

Who gave him the status window?

What are the illusions?

Did someone mess with his soul?

If yes, why?

For what cause?

Did it also give him the status?

For what reason?

But what if none one messed with my soul?

What is the status window? Why give him such power?

What was the source of that power?

Such thoughts plagued his mind and bounced around, making him have a stream of possible scenarios.

He spends aimlessly staring at the sky thinking of such thoughts, before getting tired of the possible possibilities that are possible.

In the end, he decided the take that he would take such thoughts.

"Sigh~Do I even want to know?" Danzel said as if he asking himself.

Noticing the confused tone of their liege, the Anabast came out of his shadows and asked worryingly.

"I everything alright, o thee creator?" Talon took the lead to ask.

Danzel looked at his Anabast, making his eye sockets that unknowing to him have their ethereal flames extinguish, to ignite once more and flare as usual with the dark green color.

"Yes, everything is as it is supposed to be." Danzel said and turned around and went to the village.

"Come, I will make an exception today and have our magic lesson early..." Danzel said with his cold tone towards Anabast.

Hearing that, the Anabast became excited from the inside and followed silently behind him.

Danzel smiled at how those guys reacted from the inside.