There had been a server-wide event or something, apparently. Before she knew it, the registration period was already over—or more like the event itself passed her by; the maintenance that followed it was the first time she had even heard of it.
Blanc had a routine of going to the underground lake, hunting lizardmen, then spending XP on her bats, rinse and repeat. When the number of lizardmen dropped too low, she would travel a little bit further to find a different group of monsters to farm. The further away from the lake she got, the more XP she earned; maybe the lizardmen had lost a turf war and were driven all the way to their current home or something. If that was really what happened, then the further she traveled, the better the living conditions were, meaning it was very possible that following the underground water vein would eventually lead her outside. Her random theory that the castle was on some kind of super highland suddenly gained some traction.
The bats didn’t get any particularly different builds. She couldn’t imagine herself using individual bats for different tasks, so it made more sense for all nine to be raised approximately the same; it made things simpler regardless of whether she decided to have them all act in concert or split into smaller teams. There was absolutely no connection to the fact that Blanc couldn’t tell them apart.
“But, hm. I kinda feel like, one bat could take out a lizardman solo; they exude that kind of aura now… If all nine went out, I bet they could wipe out a village on their own.”
The amount of XP Blanc had used on each bat was already close to how much she’d spent on herself. And she wasn’t sure what caused this, but at some point even her [Vampiric Magic] showed up in their list of available skills, so she had them learn it to test out skills before she took them herself. She also taught them [Mental Magic], which synergized well with [Vampiric Magic]; this appeared in their trees after she got [Summoning] and [Necromancy] at the count’s recommendation. She was vaguely aware that the conditions for learning a skill were related to other learned skills and an individual’s race, but the fact that a follower’s skills might be reliant on the lord’s skills as well was something she had completely missed. Because of this, she couldn’t only spend XP on the bats, but as a result it would become much harder to earn XP from the lizardmen.
“That is the state of things. It must happen eventually, regardless of the path you take. If it is for the sake of improving your strength, then those lizards are still useful,” the count responded after Blanc consulted with him.
“Oh, hmm, like how?”
“Indeed; you have learned [Necromancy]’s [Bind Soul]? Then use [Necromancy] to raise lizardmen corpses; if you succeed at [Subordinating] them, then you will have undying soldiers.”
“I… see… But undead, huh…”
Blanc wasn’t very happy at the prospect of having zombies tagging along with her.“If I give those undead lizardmen my blood, can I turn them into Revenants?”
“Hmm… Normally, lizardmen are considered superior to the human races. Therefore, lizardmen zombies are similarly superior to human zombies… or they should be. In that light, it is hard to think you would be successful… but you lose nothing by trying. If you fail, you will only lose some of your vitality. If you use too much, heal yourself promptly.”
Vampires and vitality? Blanc thought the two words didn’t belong together, but in game terms he probably meant LP. In other words, for vampires, the act of imparting their own blood translates into a cost paid with LP.
“I getcha! All right, I’ll go give it a shot!”
＊
The place where she excitedly decided to experiment was at the underground lake where she found her first lizardmen. As far as Blanc knew, the lizardmen here were the weakest; that meant that when raised as undead, they should be weaker as well. If so, then there was a better chance of them being able to reincarnate using her blood too.
“[Mist].”
After letting the mist spread, Blanc let off a [Fear] at the raised ground she presumed were homes. Sneaking a glance at the lake, there were lizardmen in there that shrunk back in terror.
“[Thunderbolt]!”
She used [Lightning Magic] to take out each lizardman one by one. Within Blanc’s arsenal, it could leave behind the most pristine corpses. After repeating this numerous times, she got her hands on three largely undamaged lizardman bodies. She considered storing them in her inventory, but based on what she read in the skill details for [Necromancy] and [Bind Soul], they said something about how the soul only stayed in the body right after it died, so she changed her mind. She didn’t remember ever getting a [Soul] item after storing a corpse in her inventory, meaning she didn’t know where the soul went when a dead body was put into an inventory.
The bodies were all carried to the shore by the bats. Normally, that would be physically impossible, but three of her bats were able to hold up one lizardman body. And it was more of a problem with balance; if it were only a matter of weight, a single bat could handle it. The bats had become massively powerful after having so much XP invested in them.
The lizardman corpses were laid down on the underground lake’s beach.
“Uhh, [Necromancy].”
A pitch black haze leaked out from the corpses. Even though there was barely any light around the lake, she could somehow tell that this stuff was even darker. It was probably some kind of effect rather than an actual loss of light. The haze enveloped the bodies, then she heard a wooshing noise, like the sound of air being expelled. She could no longer make out the lizardmen. A few seconds passed like that, then the haze started to fade away naturally.
Then the lizardmen stood up. Or only their bones did.
“Only their skeletons are left!!!”
However, the bones clearly belonged to lizardmen. Their silhouettes, with their tails and the shapes of their heads, brought to mind dinosaurs from picture books.
“Ehh, I guess it’s better than zombies… Alrighty, [Subordinate].”
<<Lizardman Skeleton has been successfully tamed.>>
<<A condition has been met. Permit reincarnation into Squire Zombie?>>
“Um, do not permit.”
<<Lizardman Skeleton has been successfully tamed.>>
<<A condition has been met. Permit reincarnation into Squire Zombie?>>
“Are they gonna make me do this for each one? Do not permit.”
<<Lizardman Skeleton has been successfully tamed.>>
<<A condition has been met. Permit reincarnation into Squire Zombie?>>
“Nuh uh, do not permit.”
She considered letting one of them reincarnate into a zombie, but decided not to. Most groups of three consisted of two who got along real well and a leftover, a third wheel; going out of her way to create the impetus for such a divide to form felt wrong.
“I didn’t expect being asked about it… I got to make the ultimate decision for myself…”
However, NPCs couldn’t receive system messages. Which means that for all the count’s [Subordinated] zombies, either there was some other method for triggering it, or they were actually just unilaterally forced into becoming Squire Zombies. In which case, it’s possible there weren’t any NPC vampires with tamed skeletons.
“…So, no one knows what would happen if I gave blood to these skeletons…?”
The count had already assured her: Even if she failed, all she’d lose is LP. In which case, giving out enough for the three shouldn’t be a problem.
Blanc cut her finger on one of her canines, then rubbed her blood on the foreheads of the three lizardman skeletons.
“Oh wait, these aren’t canines, they’re actually fangs!”
She was immediately overcome with weakness, making her entire body going limp and causing her to unintentionally fall to her knees. She checked and definitely had lost LP. Furthermore, even though her max LP had gone up quite a bit by this point, she suddenly lost half of it.
“That’s a huuuge chunk… You left out that part, coach…”
She wondered how she could teach a vampire count inside of a game the importance of “Ho-Ren-So.”
<<Your followers have fulfilled the conditions for reincarnation. Initializing reincarnation.>>
The skeletons standing before her became dyed in red.
“Oooh? It’s like they’re powering up… I was worried it might fail. Hang in there, Life Points!”
Their color wasn’t the only thing that changed; a bunch of little spikes rose up on their spines, from their backs down to their tails; their fingers and toes tapered into sharp claws; and all their bones became thicker, stouter. To cap off the transformation, two little horns sprouted up from the backs of their heads.
“Holy… cow—! They look wicked! They’re totally different now! What the heck! Umm… ‘Spartoi, sown ones’…? Seriously, what the hell are these…? Did I plant some seeds or something?”
Their race name was a complete mystery to Blanc, but in any case, she successfully reincarnated them.
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