Chapter 7: Skeletal Construction
Kaito stood amidst the messy pile of bone parts, his bony hand pressing onto the scattered remains one by one.
[Undead Resurrection]
The Authority activated, and the bones on the ground clicked and clacked as they repositioned themselves.
Broken ribs spliced back together; scattered finger bones hopped back into line.
A skeleton with a previously shattered sternum stood up again. It looked down blankly at its now-intact chest.
Then, it turned its head to look at the "brother" next to it who had just smashed it to pieces, and raised the stick in its hand again.
Kaito, with quick eyes and quicker hands, slammed a soul command down on it.
"Stop!"
The skeleton's raised stick froze in mid-air. The Soul Fire in its sockets flickered, confused as to why the Ruler wouldn't let it take revenge.
Kaito breathed a sigh of relief.
Good. Memories are retained.
This meant the experience from every battle wouldn't be wasted. Even death was just a small setback on the road to growth.
One by one, he resurrected the skeletons who had failed in the "internal competition."
It took half a day, but all one hundred skeletons completed their advancement and stood neatly in the forest clearing.
One hundred Tier 1 Skeleton Soldiers.
An army that was absolutely obedient, tireless, and fearless of death was taking shape.
Kaito stood before the ranks, an unprecedented sense of pride burning in his Soul Fire.
He was no longer the unlucky bastard who had just crossed over and was chased all over the mountain by a villager.
Now, he was at least the Village Chief of Undead Village.
"We have an army now too!"
Kaito paced back and forth, the Soul Fire in his sockets sparkling.
"A hundred soldiers. On Earth, that's a company-level unit!"
In high spirits, he began assigning tasks with bold strokes.
He picked out the six elite units that had evolved earliest and reached Tier 2.
"No. 1, No. 6. You two lead fifty Skeleton Soldiers and continue expanding into the forest!"
"No. 2 through No. 5. You four take the remaining fifty and help me build the territory!"
Skeletons didn't need houses, but Kaito did.
He needed a base, a symbol, a starting point for undead civilization.
He wanted to establish his own Undead Kingdom right here.
However, ideals are full-bodied, but reality is bare-boned.
Kaito soon discovered that commanding a hundred Tier 1 Skeleton Soldiers to fight and commanding them to do construction were two completely different concepts.
He pointed to a clearing and ordered ten Skeleton Soldiers.
"Dig the foundation! Dig a pit three skeletons long and ten skeletons wide!"
The command was clear.
The ten Skeleton Soldiers immediately sprang into action, using bone swords and shields as shovels, clunk-clunking as they started digging.
Efficiency was high, but the situation quickly spiraled out of control.
One skeleton, while digging, developed a profound interest in the dirt underground.
It dove headfirst into the hole, burying itself completely until only two feet were left kicking outside.
Another skeleton saw its companion swallowed by the earth. Instead of pulling it out, it started filling the hole with more dirt, even patting it down with its bone shield to pack the companion in tighter.
"You idiot! I told you to dig, not bury yourself!"
"And you! If you're not going to save him, fine, but why are you filling him in?!"
Kaito's Soul Fire throbbed violently.
He rushed over to pull the unlucky bastard out of the dirt. The buried skeleton shook its head, dirt cascading down, and then continued digging with its bone sword as if nothing had happened.
Kaito turned to look at the other side.
The twenty Skeleton Soldiers in charge of logging were even more "special."
They didn't understand chopping from the base. They only knew how to hack randomly at the trunk.
One skeleton, feeling unsatisfied hacking from below, climbed up the tree using both hands and feet onto a branch.
Then, it swung its bone sword vigorously at the very branch it was sitting on.
"What the hell are you doing?! Who told you to climb up there?! Get down!"
Before Kaito finished speaking—Crack! The branch snapped.
The Skeleton Soldier fell along with half the tree trunk, shattering into a pile of parts on impact.
A few companions below gathered around, watching the pile of bones slowly reassemble into a Skeleton Soldier before they went back to chopping trees.
Kaito face-palmed his skull, feeling the temperature of his Soul Fire rise by several degrees.
The construction team was the heavyweight champion of stupidity.
Twenty Skeleton Soldiers were in charge of moving logs and building the frame.
The skeletons in the pit hadn't climbed out yet when the transport skeletons threw heavy logs straight down.
BOOM! The muffled sound of shattering bones came from below.
"Stop! Stop! There are people down there!"
Kaito rushed over.
"They haven't come out yet, and you're throwing logs down?! Are you trying to murder them?!"
The log-throwing skeleton tilted its head, Soul Fire flickering in confusion. It pointed into the pit, then at the logs on the side, wearing an innocent expression that said, Am I not completing the mission?
Kaito ran back and forth across the territory like a foreman whose heart was breaking.
He finally understood why everywhere the Undead Scourge went became ruins.
Looking at the chaotic, accident-prone construction site before him, Kaito fell into deep thought.
He looked at his group of Skeleton Soldiers—who had some IQ but not much—and then at No. 2 through No. 5, who had evolved to Tier 2 and were visibly smarter.
Since Skeleton Soldiers can evolve through combat...
Could they... evolve through work?
Just as he thought this, a strong sense of danger struck him.
Kaito whipped his head around, only to see a large tree that had been hacked until it was teetering.
It was making a tooth-aching creaaak sound as it slowly fell in his direction.
"Holy sh*t!"
Kaito bolted. having received feedback from one hundred Tier 1s and six Tier 2s, he was now also at Tier 1 level, so his speed was extremely fast.
THUD!
The massive trunk smashed into the spot where he had just been standing, shaking the ground.
Still shaken, Kaito turned back, the Soul Fire in his sockets burning furiously as he roared:
"Who did that?!"
No. 2 silently raised a bony hand and pointed to a skeleton next to the tree—one that had just been smashed into parts by the recoil.
Kaito walked over, his face (skull) dark, and activated [Undead Resurrection].
After the skeleton stood up again, Kaito said nothing. He picked it up directly, threw it into the freshly dug foundation pit, and personally filled it in with dirt, leaving only its head exposed.
"You're not coming out until this time tomorrow! Do you hear me?!"
The buried skeleton blinked its Soul Fire and let out a wronged Gah.
Having done all this, Kaito called all the logging skeletons over.
Pointing to an intact large tree, he began a step-by-step personal tutorial.
"Watch closely! First, saw a bottom cut on the side of the fall direction!"
"Then, saw a top cut right above it to form a wedge notch!"
"Finally, saw a felling cut on the opposite side. When the tree starts to lean, retreat quickly! Got it?!"
Kaito demonstrated once, then pointed at the punished skeleton head in the ground.
"Next time this happens, you'll end up like him—a bone pillar for our foundation!"