With a bow on his back, a sword at his hip and the leather armor and shield as his defense, Bone Man looked like a splendid skeleton soldier, but the spirits inhabiting his bones were those of rats.


Perhaps because of this, Bone Man’s Swordsmanship and Shield Technique skills were still level 1 and he seemed unable to increase them any further. After reading the book, Vandalieu thought that this might be the same reason that he was still Rank 3 even though he had reached level 100.

『There are a number of conditions that might need to be met to create a powerful Undead. The most common of these is for the spirits inhabiting the dead body to match the body itself, or otherwise possess a good affinity with it.』

In Lambda, there are cases where even after a dead body reanimated to become an Undead, the spirit inhabiting the body is not the original owner of that body.

Not only would the body be inhabited by someone else’s spirit, but it is common for it to be inhabited by the spirits of small animals rather than a human. But in such cases, it would generally be a weak Rank 1 or 2 Undead.

A human spirit possessing the corpse of a beast wouldn’t suddenly gain the beast’s reflexes and fighting instincts; in fact, it would take all of its effort trying to move in a body with a different bone structure.

And if the beast possesses body parts that humans do not have… such as a long tail, wings or a second head, the human spirit would have too much to deal with.

It is the same when animal spirits inhabited a human’s body; they wouldn’t be able to use its hands correctly unless they were very intelligent animals, and the spirits of quadrupedal animals would find it difficult to walk on two legs. Using tools would be out of the question.

Perhaps it would be easier to imagine it as putting the brain of a human in a beast, and putting the brain of a beast in a human.

Considering that, the rat spirits inside Bone Man could be considered exceptionally skilled. It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to call them geniuses among rats.

Rats use their front paws skillfully, but even so, being able to use a bow and arrows, a sword and a shield was impressive. The rat spirits were clearly more intelligent than the average Goblin.

But unfortunately, there was a limit to their abilities. Well, since they were spirits, they could probably overcome those limits given hundreds of years, but Vandalieu wasn’t willing to wait that long.

And so Vandalieu thought,「Since Bone Man is a human’s body with a rat’s brain in it, if I add a human’s spirit into it, doesn’t that solve the problem?」

He would carefully select human spirits whose bodies had died long ago, whose empty souls wouldn’t contain any personalities, emotions or memories. Fortunately, this place was a historical battlefield and it was simple to gather such spirits.

「Now then, I’m going to add more spirits.」(Vandalieu)

『Juuh… Juuoooh…』(Bone Man)

TLN: “Juuh” seems to be the sound a rat makes when squeaking in Japanese.


As Vandalieu inserted the fragments of spirits, Bone Man’s body absorbed more and more, like a sponge sucking up water.

Bone Man didn’t seem to be suffering; in fact, his jawbone was clicking in pleasure and the fire in his eye sockets was flickering, so Vandalieu added more and more.

『Grrr?』(Bone Wolf)

『Geeeeh…』(Bone Bird)

As Bone Wolf and Bone Bird watched their companion with curiosity, more spirits began to possess the human bones that made up Bone Man’s body.

And then it suddenly happened.

「Hmm?!」(Vandalieu)

Something seemed to click into place. It was the sensation of puzzle pieces being thrown randomly into a box and coming together by coincidence to complete the puzzle.

『JUUUUUH… Ah, my lord… my loooord…』(Bone Man)

Bone Man’s body didn’t show any obvious changes like his body starting to glow or releasing an ominous presence, and its appearance was still that of a skeleton soldier, but somehow, the dull, rat-like noises he had been making were replaced by spoken words.

「Could it be, your Rank increased?」(Vandalieu)

Some monsters’ intelligence drastically increases when their Rank increases. Though there are many cases where adventurers mistakenly attribute this to being the result of the experience gained by the monsters from leveling up or becoming smarter as a result of studying. But there are monsters that suddenly become able to use magic or speak words after leveling up.

Many of those are Undead.

The reason for this was that the souls become accustomed to the dead bodies they inhabit and regain their memories and techniques.

『Juuh, my lord.』(Bone Man)

Bone Man gave a rat-like squeak instead of a yes in reply to Vandalieu’s question as he nodded.

『Because of your divine work, my lord, my Rank has increased and I have become a Rank 4 Skeleton Knight, juuh.』(Bone Man)

He spoke in a rich, flowing, baritone voice that would likely be terrifying if he were to shout. The squeaking at the end of his sentence was a little disappointing, however.

But where had his manner of speaking come from? His movements were unexpectedly refined… Perhaps there had been some knights of the Mirg shield-nation among the spirit fragments that Vandalieu had put into him, and that was the source of this.

Vandalieu thought he had carefully selected empty souls so that Bone Man wouldn’t be taken over by some strange malice or hatred, but it was possible that their memories had been restored when they fused with the spirits already inside Bone Man.

It seemed that the【Death-Attribute Charm】was taking its full effect, but if he were to behave like a knight of the Mirg shield-nation, that might cause trouble with Borkus and the other Undead Titans of Talosheim.

「Well then, have you regained your memories of your past life?」(Vandalieu)

When Vandalieu asked to make sure, Bone Man nodded and replied,「Juuh, I remember.」

『It happened when I returned to my family with food to feed them. It attacked me and caught me by surprise. Unable to use any techniques, I was tormented, toyed around with and then it abandoned me without even finishing me off. It had already satisfied itself after killing my family; tormenting me was nothing but『amusement.』That fiendish cat! JUOOOOOOOH!』(Bone Man)

「… Hmm, cats do those sorts of things, don’t they.」(Vandalieu)

The idea that humans are the only ones that take lives needlessly – Upon hearing Bone Man’s story, Vandalieu learned that this idea was only a fantasy.

Leaving that aside, it seemed that the spirit fragments had only affected the tone of Bone Man’s voice; he seemed to have no memories of the Mirg shield-nation, so there was nothing to worry about.