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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 time, 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 came to watch me work while having some drinks and snacks.
I suppose that when all the chores are done for the day, the most interesting sight was a mercenary mage raising walls around a graveyard. However, the upside of having an audience was that they shared their drinks and snacks with me 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 came 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 me 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 me, 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 meal, 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 came out to watch me 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 me any mind, which did not make much sense to me.
In the academy and any form of literature I read on the undead, especially mindless ones like the ones before me, they should be attacking me on sight. So this told me that they were benignly controlled by something, 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 me until I set foot past the graveyard entrance. The moment I did, all the undead turned to me and started shambling in my direction, but that was not what worried me.
What worried me was that the moment 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 me 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 me 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 moment I did, I saw the undead lose interest in me 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 came out again, and why there was no noise. If a normal animal with next to no mental defence or higher intelligence came 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 me 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 melon, 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 some spells for an easy undead cleanup job.