Chapter 53: “Hang In There, Life Points!”
There had been a server-wide event or something, apparently. Before she knew it, the registration period was already over—or more like the event itself passed her by; the maintenance that followed it was the first time she had even heard of it.
Blanc had a routine of going to the underground lake, hunting lizardmen, then spending XP on her bats, rinse and repeat. When the number of lizardmen dropped too low, she would travel a little bit further to find a different group of monsters to farm. The further away from the lake she got, the more XP she earned; maybe the lizardmen had lost a turf war and were driven all the way to their current home or something. If that was really what happened, then the further she traveled, the better the living conditions were, meaning it was very possible that following the underground water vein would eventually lead her outside. Her random theory that the castle was on some kind of super highland suddenly gained some traction.
The bats didn’t get any particularly different builds. She couldn’t imagine herself using individual bats for different tasks, so it made more sense for all nine to be raised approximately the same; it made things simpler regardless of whether she decided to have them all act in concert or split into smaller teams. There was absolutely no connection to the fact that Blanc couldn’t tell them apart.
“But, hm. I kinda feel like, one bat could take out a lizardman solo; they exude that kind of aura now… If all nine went out, I bet they could wipe out a village on their own.”
The amount of XP Blanc had used on each bat was already close to how much she’d spent on herself. And she wasn’t sure what caused this, but at some point even her [Vampiric Magic] showed up in their list of available skills, so she had them learn it to test out skills before she took them herself. She also taught them [Mental Magic], which synergized well with [Vampiric Magic]; this appeared in their trees after she got [Summoning] and [Necromancy] at the count’s recommendation. She was vaguely aware that the conditions for learning a skill were related to other learned skills and an individual’s race, but the fact that a follower’s skills might be reliant on the lord’s skills as well was something she had completely missed. Because of this, she couldn’t only spend XP on the bats, but as a result it would become much harder to earn XP from the lizardmen.
“That is the state of things. It must happen eventually, regardless of the path you take. If it is for the sake of improving your strength, then those lizards are still useful,” the count responded after Blanc consulted with him.
“Oh, hmm, like how?”
“Indeed; you have learned [Necromancy]’s [Bind Soul]? Then use [Necromancy] to raise lizardmen corpses; if you succeed at [Subordinating] them, then you will have undying soldiers.”
“I… see… But undead, huh…”