Of Arms and Arcane Chapter 237

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Section after section of wall did I raise, all of them tilted at a slight angle towards the graveyard, so if the undead tried to scale the wall, they would have to do it on a wall slanted against them.

At first, I raised one section of the wall and waited for any undead response from the graveyard at the ruckus I made with the moving earth, but even after waiting for a whole five minutes, there was nothing. I then carefully proceeded with another, then another, until I felt confident that there would be no response from the denizens of the graveyard.

From there, I kept going until I found a steady pace that would not deplete my mana to the point that I was not able to defend myself.

But despite my ruckus not catching the attention of the undead, it did catch the attention of the nearby village’s hunter and a few other passing villagers who were brave enough to check out the noise near the graveyard.

Each ti, I explained to them that I was setting up a wall to block in the undead if they, for whatever reason, broke out of the graveyard. They accepted my reason with a shrug and went on their way, but it seems like word got back to the village of what I was doing, and villagers who had nothing better to do ca to watch work while having so drinks and snacks.

I suppose that when all the chores are done for the day, the most interesting sight was a rcenary mage raising walls around a graveyard. However, the upside of having an audience was that they shared their drinks and snacks with when I took a break and chatted with them. Luckily, the mask provided by the Steward’s Guild had a removable bottom half, so I could eat.

When chatting with the villagers, the subject of my lodging ca up because I estimated that I would not be able to finish the wall by today, the son of the village’s tavern was there and offered a room and board at a discount, which I gladly accepted.

Towards the end of the day, the villagers got bored and went to do their own thing. As for , I was tired, sweaty, hungry, and three-quarters of the way done with the wall. So I decided to retire for the day.

I got to the inn, scarfed down a hearty bowl of stew with bread, paid extra for a hot bath, and for my clothes to be laundered before crashing into bed and sleeping for the night.

***

The next morning, after another hearty al, I was back at it with the wall raising and was done just before noon. And after a short break, I waved goodbye to the villagers who ca out to watch and vaulted over the wall in an aura-powered jump.

On the other side, I unsheathed my sword and proceeded to the graveyard.

As I got closer to the graveyard entrance, I could see the shambling corpses and skeletons of the undead either standing around and staring off into nothing, or just ambling around aimlessly, but even when I was in line of sight, none of them paid any mind, which did not make much sense to .

In the academy and any form of literature I read on the undead, especially mindless ones like the ones before , they should be attacking on sight. So this told that they were benignly controlled by sothing, most likely the Death Knight.

I raised my sword and advanced forward, ready to react to any attack, but the undead did not react to until I set foot past the graveyard entrance. The mont I did, all the undead turned to and started shambling in my direction, but that was not what worried .

What worried was that the mont I crossed the entrance threshold, I felt a pressure on my mind. It was a subtle pressure that I am sure most people would not have noticed, but after much training with my Primal Aura and having the whispers in my head enticing to use the full extent of my power, I could recognize the influence on my mind.

I did not know what the influence was trying to compel to do, and I did not want to find out. With a flex of will, I squashed the budding influence on my mind and backed away from the entrance, and the mont I did, I saw the undead lose interest in and shambled along to do whatever it was that undead did.

With this first encounter in the graveyard, I now understood why the hunter said that any wildlife that entered never ca out again, and why there was no noise. If a normal animal with next to no ntal defence or higher intelligence ca under whatever that influence was, I could only guess that they got torn apart by the shambling undead without even a token resistance.

Knowing what I know now, I wondered if I could exploit the undead, not paying attention to until I enter the graveyard.

I conjured a Stone Bullet and shot it at the nearest undead. It was a half-rotten corpse, and when my Stone Bullet hit its head, it burst like a ripe lon, spraying rotten brain matter on the other undead around it.

But even as that undead collapsed to the ground, the other undead did not even react to it.

This brought a smile to my face as I sheathed my sword and spun up so spells for an easy undead cleanup job.