CHAPTER 394: Discovery
"Nooooooooooo…"
I awoke hearing Rose's scream and saw a fire outside. My friends stirred next to me and I opened the carriage door, jumping outside while mentally preparing a shield. It was still dark but I couldn't hear the sound of combat, nor could I see any attackers.
Rose was kneeling next to a burning corpse, looking distressed, but all of my tier three's seemed to be fine. Hatsumi was even standing next to Rose and patting her on the head.
"What happened?" I asked, as I rushed towards her.
"Koyuki? Oh, did I wake you? I am so sorry!" Rose said quickly.
"What's going on?" Helena asked behind me.
"Where are the enemies?" Skadi asked.
"I have released the Iron Beaks!" Cassie said.
"No no no! There is no attack! I am sorry!" Rose said.
"Um, what's with the burning corpse?" I asked.
"I played with my new undead, the one I made accidently when I bit your attacker and it burned. I found that he had some poison in his mouth, hidden in a fake tooth! I was so excited and then the poison spilled and the zombie swallowed it…"
"He burned just from swallowing it? That's a bit concerning, this could make it a potent weapon against existing undead." I said.
By now my other tier threes and Valeria had joined us and watched the burning corpse.
"Hm. I wonder if it would work on a tier three as well? Perhaps it could be suppressed with your own magic? However, it is a disturbing discovery regardless." Kaito stated.
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"At least it kills the living too, so I can keep biting them as long as they are alive." Hatsumi mused.
"If you had doused the fire with water, maybe it would have lived." Cassie suggested.
"Oh." Rose said. "I, uh, I think you might be right. I did not lose the link to it right away, I guess I could have saved it…"
"I will analyse the bit we got from the first guy's mouth. We can also ask Cathleen to give us this poison, if she collected it from their captives, then I can analyse it. After that we can run tests and better prepare for it." Cassie said.
I nodded. It was a disturbing development but it would need more research to figure out how bad it was and how we could counter it.
"I guess all of you need to check your food from now on." I said.
"Meow!" All the cats sounded distressed.
"Maybe you can check it with some necrotic mana first? There should be a way to figure out if a corpse is safe to eat." I added.
"I am sorry for waking you all." Rose said.
"It's ok." I assure her. "You discovered something useful, your undead has served a purpose and you can help me raise some of the goblins if you want to."
"We also need to train your bite so you don't accidently kill and turn more enemies." Hatsumi said.
Rose nodded. "Yes, Hatsumi. I just wanted him dead when I saw him attack Koyuki…"
Hatsumi patted her on the head again. "That is fine, we haven't trained your bite a lot yet."
Since it was still night we returned to the wagon to get a bit more sleep. As we settled down again Valeria asked: "Can you just go back to sleep? Aren't your bodies awake after such an incident?"
"It was just a false alarm, things like that happen." Helena said.
"But the fire made it feel a bit more real than just waking to some noise…" Valeria added.
"True but we are surrounded by undead who keep us safe. How could I have trouble sleeping with all them out there watching over us?" I asked.
Personally I had no trouble falling asleep again and the next time I opened my eyes it was morning. The night had been quiet and Rose seemed a bit happier, Hatsumi had done a good job of consoling her. Breakfast was rather simple and quick, then we were on the road again.
Valeria's presence was worth a lot, since entering the city with over 100 zombies would have been a bit problematic otherwise. Even though the guards had been informed about us, it was a rather large force which tended to cause concerns.
Once we arrived at Valeria's home there was plenty of work to do! All the new zombies needed a proper cleaning and if possible weapons. I did have a deal with Duchess Cathleen for some wood but I still needed a smith to create spears, shields and possibly bows.
Other than my existing zombies I also had fresh corpses to prepare and I had to decide what to do with them. While Cassie was offered a lab by Valeria there were about 50 corpses left and preparing all would take time. Additionally Cassie was busy looking at the new poison. Some of the corpses would likely remain frozen until we returned to the academy, maybe even all of them.
Next I had my self-defence snake plan, which required a snake corpse. Valeria promised to help me search for one and contacted the local adventurers guild. I knew that there were bigger snakes inside the Korrah Forest, hopefully they had some smaller ones too. Ideally I would need a corpse of a monster, in good condition, which was small enough to coil around my forearm and could be worn under a long sleeved jacket.
Another issue we had was transport for all of my new zombies. While they could walk I wanted some more wagons. We had plans to leave in about a week, so hopefully we could arrange something by then. It was certainly looking to be a rather busy week we had ahead of us.