674 Progress (2/2)

Magically created bones were foundationally no different from magically created ice or earth. It would simply be a transformation of magic and elements. I felt that Conservation being able to succeed with inventing this new spell was actually connected to the power of death becoming one of the new four major elements of Hell. Otherwise, undead magic grandmasters from the past would never have missed such an important opportunity.

Since Conservation resided in the Ice Plane, and was already a powerful Undead Emperor, such an accidental invention probably didn't mean much to her. This was because she could already casually summon as much cannon fodder as she wanted. However, this would be an incredibly important new foundational stone for all of undead magic.

”…You, as expected of being the only new Undead Emperor in the past 3,000 years. You're truly incredible, incredible.”

Sandro appeared rather scary with his eyes open. However, his delight that came from his heart was real. I even felt rather awkward about taking the credit, but now wasn't a good time to tell him that it was actually Conservation that had invented this spell, which would bring up the topic that we had intentionally ignored: the missing Undead Emperor Conservation.

Conservation had become my slave and an infinite mana battery for my Yongye City. I was even having an undead magic magical engineering factory being constructed with her at the core. This was a core plan of mine for concretely raising my personal combat strength. I would never be willing to stop this.

Ahem, let's get back on topic. At the very least, Sandro was quite obviously pleased when he left. We had also gained significantly.

Harloys was now one step closer to becoming an Undead Emperor herself. I also gained more ideas about my future death magic sword. As Sandro was an old artifact, he truly possessed an immense amount of knowledge. Since we now had shared mutual benefits, he wouldn't be stingy with his knowledge. He answered all of our questions about undead magic. His experience and knowledge from countless millennia helped us greatly.

It would be quite rare that anyone could guide us at our knowledge level, and if we accidentally took a wrong path, it might take several years, several decades, or even several centuries to fix.

As I gradually drained more and more knowledge from Conservation, along with unlocking more of Aso's memories, I was gaining a tremendous amount of undead magic knowledge.

Harloys, Aso, Conservation, Sandro, and myself. The combined knowledge of five Undead Emperors was all before me. It was likely that my four powers would become unbalanced. My knowledge in all the other magical fields couldn't even come close to comparing to my undead magic knowledge.

But after learning so much, shouldn't I be showing off some things as well…?

Anyways, I felt that I could now do a little something that would perhaps even shock everyone with all this undead magic knowledge.

”You should first focus on obtaining a Myth-ranked weapon and entering SemiGod rank. You're quite ambitious to want four magic swords, but you haven't even fully completed a single one. You might run into a powerful enemy who will instantly kill you at any time. Not only that, I'm getting impatient.”

”Hey, isn't this all because it's too difficult, so I'm taking things slowly…? Wait... You're getting impatient? Are you about to make a breakthrough? You've discovered a method to break through to the next power level?”

I paused in surprise at Harloys' words, but then felt delight. A magical pet's power level was permanently magically bound to be impossible to surpass her master's power level. But since she was feeling impatient, her next breakthrough would mean a tremendous difference in power level.

”I want to try. There should be at least a 50-60% guarantee. It's also thanks to you…”

I was rather surprised to hear this. While other types of breakthroughs could rely on taking certain potions or reading secret technique manuals, breakthroughs to become an Undead Emperor, which would surpass the Creator Goddesses' own limits, would mean creating one's truly unique path. How could Harloys possibly have relied on me?

”Not only have I also learned so much knowledge from the different Undead Emperors, this half-living, half-dead physical body you gave me has been a great help.”

For once, the silly cat wasn't acting tsundere. It seemed that she had much to exclaim about. I supposed that transforming between the living and the undead a few times would indeed help one gain a better understanding of the power of death.

”Alright, I'll do my best to improve my power level quickly. At least, I'm quite satisfied with my progress on my ice magic sword…”

My personal residence was already filled with all sorts of ice sculptures and drawings of snowy scenes. These weren't resources for my ice magic sword, but rather tools I was using to deepen my memories of the Northlands. As the Ice Treader, and in order to sculpt my Northlands ice magic sword, I would need to remember many past memories and disasters.

But sometimes, when you thought about past disasters and misfortunes, thinking that your current life was so wonderful, new disasters would instantly come to visit you.

It was now right after the new year, so all the governmental departments were having a short vacation. But when the government started operating again, I received nothing but bad news.

As for calamities in the Northlands, I would of course have to mention the yearly beast stampede.

”Our major winter hunt squadron was ambushed by the beasts? How are our losses?”

Sandro's visit had caused me to set aside all other matters, so I left Reyne and the others in charge of the winter hunt. I was heartbroken to learn that Kelly showed no mercy on me, as she took away all of my spending money like she'd promised…

Ahem, I meant that I definitely hadn't thought that our Mist Alliance's current military forces would actually lose against the beasts!

”…The beast stampede was much smaller than expected. We barely suffered any losses. However, Her Highness Reyne felt that something was wrong with the situation. This is a letter that she personally wrote.”

The messenger instantly left after handing me the letter, which I started perusing.

Reyne wrote using simple and direct words. Basically, there was indeed something off about the beast stampede. The stampede was less than one-third the expected size, yet it unhesitatingly attacked the large Mist Alliance army.

Beasts also had their own wild intelligence. They would avoid fully equipped military squadrons, and instead go to hunt weaker prey, such as regular villages. Since Reyne's army had such an obvious numerical advantage, the beast stampede shouldn't have tried to attack the main fighting force.

But, not only did the beast stampede attack the winter hunt squadron, the beasts instantly ran away after the initial ambush, but not very quickly. Instead of hiding deep in the mountains, the beasts remained within sight as if they were luring Reyne's army into following them. Reyne and I both instantly thought of classical guerilla warfare and kiting tactics that would primarily be used for buying time.

I couldn't help but recall those strangely distorted noodle-like devils. This was definitely all because of the devils' schemes. But, just what were they up to? Did they really think that the beast stampede could pose a serious threat to the Mist Alliance?

The beast stampede was a lot smaller than expected. However, I didn't think that this was good news at all. The druids had long since come to the conclusion that large numbers of ordinary wild beasts would transform into magical beasts due to the increased Elemental Tide. These magical beasts would be even more difficult to deal with than usual due to being in a stampede. Not only that, the magical beasts would increase in power level, rate of reproduction, and require much more food. These magical beasts would ravenously come out to hunt, so it was expected that their numbers would rapidly increase.

Reyne's calculations had been made with the previous year's beast stampede as the base number. Meanwhile, my calculations were more than double her expected numbers. This meant that more than 80% of the expected beast stampede had suddenly vanished, while the remaining beasts were trying to stall the Mist Alliance's major winter hunt squadron. Who would believe that there was no scheme behind this?

”Where has the beast stampede's main force gone…?

”Where else could they go? If they're not in the Mist Kingdom, they've definitely gone to another country. This will bring great trouble for other countries in the Northlands.”

”…Harloys, please don't say things so directly. Didn't you notice that I was trying my best to forget about this possibility? If my family's dogs bite someone else, I'll have to take responsibility!”

”Why don't you just refuse to admit anything? It's not like it'll be the first time for you.”

”Excellent idea. I'll write back immediately to Reyne that Elven Empress Harloys suggests— Silly cat, please don't bite me on the head! Do you still want to become an Undead Emperor or not!”