Chương 42: Retainer with Flesh

Late that night, the village was completely quiet. The exhausted militiamen were finally sleeping in their warm cabins, and the massive pile of beast carcasses from the siege was safely locked away in the new smoking sheds. Up in the castle, Jack was still awake. He was at his desk, staring at a piece of parchment. He held a piece of charcoal, listing his current military forces. The Beast Tide was broken, but the spring was approaching fast. When the snow melted, the mountain passes would open.

Merchants would arrive, and worse, the tax collectors and the Holy Church's inquisitors may follow. Jack looked at his list. He had over twenty peasant militiamen armed with spears. He had his fifteen skeletal workers in the Night Shift. He had his armored skeleton guards—Rusty, Dusty, and Bones. Three more skeletons. And he had Grim, the giant undead Alpha Wolf. It was a strong defense for a poor village. But Jack was frowning. He drew a dark line through the words 'skeletons' and 'wolf'.

The siege had taught him a harsh lesson about the limits of his own mind. Skeletons and dead beasts were incredibly strong. They never got tired, and they felt absolutely no pain. But they were completely mindless. They possessed zero instincts. When Jack commanded Grim to wind the ballista, or when he told Bones to swing a sword, he had to mentally drive their bodies like heavily complicated machinery. If a dire wolf lunged, Bones wouldn't block it unless Jack specifically thought,'Raise your sword and block.'

Jack had to send micro-commands for every single step, swing, and dodge. During the chaos of the beast attack, trying to manage the village defenses while actively puppeting his undead had pushed his brain to the absolute breaking point. If the Holy Church came into his valley this spring with highly trained, intelligent soldiers, Jack could not afford to manually control every single sword swing. And they definitely won't get fooled like this.

"I need a general," Jack whispered into the quiet room.

"Someone who knows how to fight on their own." He stood up, grabbed his cane, and walked over to the corner of his bedroom. He kicked the rug aside, revealing the trapdoor. He pulled it open. He walked slowly through the main chamber. In the dark common guard niches, the fifteen skeletons of the Night Shift were standing perfectly still and waiting for their next labor command. Jack bypassed them entirely.

He walked past the broken stone wall in the corner of the crypt—the exact wall Rusty had smashed through to reveal the toxic coal vein. He moved much deeper into the subterranean structure, heading toward the very back of the crypts. This section was entirely different from the common guard niches. These were the sacred tombs of the elite family mages and their sworn, high-ranking mage guards. Jack raised his candle, walking slowly down the quiet aisle.

Ornate stone sarcophagi were lined up in perfect rows across the floor. Above each tomb, a brass plaque was mounted on the wall, listing the name, age, magic type, and final core level of the person resting inside. Jack didn't need to read them all tonight. He knew exactly who he was looking for. He stopped at a smaller stone tomb near the back wall. He wiped a thin layer of dust from the brass plaque.

"Elias Varna. Sworn Guard. Age 34. Fire Mage. Layer One of the Iron Core." Jack stared at the name, his mind flashing back to the night of the bandit raid weeks ago. During that desperate battle, Jack had come down here and tried to raise Elias to help defend the castle. The result had been a complete disaster. Because Jack had only possessed a Grey Core at the time, Elias's dead body had violently rejected the death mana.

A shockwave of residual, dormant fire energy had erupted from the corpse, throwing Jack across the room, giving him a severe nosebleed, and nearly shattering his soul. According to his grandfather's hidden journal, raising an intelligent undead required two things. First, the 'Law of Permission.' Because Elias was an elite sworn guard who had taken a blood oath to the Frost-Grip family in life, the permission was permanently granted. His soul would not resist the family's magic.

The second rule, however, was the spiritual weight. A necromancer could not dominate a corpse that had a higher core level than their own.

"But things are different now," Jack muttered to himself. Jack closed his eyes and focused inward. Instead of a flickering, cloudy spark, he felt the heavy density of the Iron Core resting securely in his chest. He was finally on the exact same spiritual tier as the man in the tomb. Jack wedged his cane under the stone lid of the sarcophagus and pushed. The mortar had crumbled long ago, and the lid slid back just enough to expose the remains inside. Lying in the dark was a perfectly preserved human body.

The elite mages of the family were preserved using rare magical herbs so that their flesh wouldn't rot away like the normal peasant guards. Elias Varna was pale, cold, and frozen solid by the ambient temperature of the deep crypts, but his muscles and skin were completely intact. According to the journal, raising a corpse that still possessed its flesh was a completely different task than raising bare bones. Bone was just an empty framework. It accepted mana easily.

But flesh, muscles, and a preserved brain held a deep stubbornness. Jack took a deep breath. He reached out and placed his bare hand directly onto Elias's cold forehead. Jack pulled a thread of mana from his new Iron Core, pushed it down his arm, and forced it into the corpse. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. The reaction was immediate. When Jack raised the castle guards, the mana flowed into their dry bones like water pouring into an empty cup.

But pushing magic into Elias felt like trying to force thick liquid through solid rock. The dead flesh heavily resisted the foreign energy. Jack gritted his teeth as a sharp, stabbing pressure spiked behind his eyes. It wasn't a spiritual rejection this time; it was purely physical. The stiff muscles and preserved tendons were refusing to move. Jack didn't back down. He drew a massive wave of energy from his dense Iron Core and slammed it downward.

He used the sheer, overwhelming weight of his new tier to completely crush the passive resistance of the cold dead body. The body in the tomb violently arched its back. The sound of frozen joints popping was terrible. The amount of mana required to fill the flesh was astronomical. Jack felt his massive Iron Core draining rapidly. Raising this one man was taking more energy than raising Rusty, Dusty, Bones, and Grim combined. Suddenly, Elias's eyes snapped open.

They were completely empty and dull, devoid of any human light. The dead man slowly sat up inside the stone sarcophagus. His head tilted slightly to the side, waiting for a command. Jack took a step back, breathing heavily. His chest ached from the massive magical output, but a triumphant smile spread across his face. He had done it. He had a flesh-bound undead.

"Step out," Jack commanded mentally. Elias swung his legs over the edge of the stone tomb and stood up on the cold floor. He was wearing the decayed remains of a high-quality leather tunic. His movements were slightly stiff at first, but there was a distinct, grounded heaviness to his posture that the skeletons lacked. Jack needed to test the limits of his new creation immediately. He needed to know if the massive mana cost was actually worth it. He mentally summoned Bones to the main chamber.

A few moments later, the tall skeleton walked into the crypt, wearing his iron armor and carrying an iron sword. Jack pointed at Bones. He looked at Elias and gave a single, incredibly simple mental command.

"Fight him." Then, Jack turned his full focus to Bones. To make the skeleton attack, Jack had to actively puppet him.

'Step forward with your right foot,' Jack commanded Bones mentally.

'Raise your sword high. Cleave straight down at his neck.' Bones obeyed blindly, stepping forward and swinging his iron sword in a wide arc exactly as Jack dictated. Jack quickly braced himself, preparing to send the dozens of micro-commands required to make Elias step back, raise his arms, and dodge. He prepared for the heavy mental burden he always felt when fighting with multiple units. The burden never came. Without a single additional instruction from Jack, Elias moved.

The dead guard launched himself forward with terrifying speed. He didn't just stand there waiting for Jack to tell him to dodge. The dead man's body reacted entirely on its own. Jack watched in sudden shock as Elias raised his right hand. A faint, dark red glow flickered deep within the dead man's palm. The battle instincts of the preserved Fire Mage were kicking in automatically. He was preparing to cast a close-range fire spell right inside the crypt.

"Physical combat only! No magic!" Jack quickly commanded Elias, fearing the fire would damage the crypt or severely drain his own core reserves. Elias instantly closed his hand, extinguishing the spark. His combat instincts adapted flawlessly without missing a beat. He ducked smoothly under Bones's descending blade, letting the iron pass inches over his head. He stepped perfectly inside the skeleton's guard.

With brutal efficiency, Elias grabbed Bones by the armored collar, swept his right leg behind the skeleton's knee, and slammed Bones onto the hard stone floor. Before Bones could even attempt to raise his sword again, Elias dropped his knee onto the skeleton's chest and raised his fist, ready to smash the skull into powder.

"Halt!" Jack shouted out loud, completely stunned. Elias froze instantly, his fist hovering mere inches above Bones's face. Jack leaned against the wall of the crypt, his heart pounding with pure relief. He started to laugh. It was an exhausted laugh that echoed off the ancient stone walls. The secret to autonomy was the flesh. Because Elias still had his muscles, his tendons, and most importantly, his preserved brain, his physical muscle memory was entirely intact.

The body still remembered exactly how to balance, how to parry, and how to execute lethal, elite combat maneuvers. Jack didn't have to puppet him. He didn't have to think about footwork or dodging. He simply gave Elias a target, and the dead man's retained battle instincts flawlessly handled the execution. The mental burden on Jack was practically zero. It felt like giving an order to a highly trained soldier, rather than trying to operate a complex machine.

"You are going to be incredibly useful," Jack said, looking at the silent, deadly figure standing over the skeleton. Jack commanded Bones to get up and return to his alcove in the main hall. Then, he turned his full attention back to Elias. Combat autonomy was a massive victory, but there was one final test. It was the ultimate, most demanding technique of the Iron Core stage mentioned in the journal.

If Jack wanted Elias to act as his general and bodyguard in the daylight, the dead man could not be entirely silent. If a powerful fighter never spoke a single word to the villagers or visiting merchants, it would quickly draw deep suspicion. People would start asking questions Jack couldn't answer. Jack stepped closer to Elias. He focused his mind entirely.

"Speak," Jack commanded. He didn't just send the mental order. Jack had to actively use his mana to force the dead man to function. He pushed his magic directly into Elias's chest, forcing the dead diaphragm to pull air into the lungs. Then, he forced the chest to compress, pushing the air back up the throat while simultaneously tightening the preserved vocal cords. But there was a massive physical obstacle. Elias had been resting in the deep crypts for who knows how long.

His internal organs, his throat, and his vocal cords were not just stiff; they were completely frozen solid. To make him speak, Jack's mana didn't just have to move the muscles; it had to forcefully thaw the ice-locked tissues in his throat just enough to allow them to vibrate. The mental effort required to manually operate a frozen human respiratory system was staggering. Jack felt a vicious, stabbing pain at the base of his skull.

His Iron Core throbbed wildly, dumping a massive amount of burning energy into the dead man's throat just to overcome the deep freeze. Elias's mouth opened slightly. A rasping sound came out.

"S… speak," Elias repeated. The voice was incredibly hoarse, like two stones grinding together, but it was definitively human speech. The moment the word left Elias's mouth, Jack violently severed the connection. Jack dropped straight to his knees on the cold stone floor. He grabbed his head with both hands, gasping for air as if he had just sprinted up a mountain. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision. The sheer drain on his soul was terrifying.

Jack stayed on his knees for several minutes until his breathing finally steadied and the severe headache faded into a dull ache. He slowly used his cane to pull himself back to his feet.

"Alright," Jack wheezed, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"So you can speak. But I am never doing that for casual conversation." The test was a complete success, but it revealed a very hard limit. Jack could make Elias say a few sentences to establish a cover story in front of a crowd, but he could never sustain a long conversation. It would drain his Iron Core dry and likely cause him to pass out. Jack looked at the silent man standing perfectly still in the room.

He had an autonomous fighter who looked completely human, retained all of his high-level combat instincts, and could speak just enough to fool an observer. He had exactly what he needed to survive the complex political threats that spring would surely bring.

"Follow me," Jack commanded mentally.