episode_0060

“Wow, you’re really persistent.”

I was sick of seeing the troll whose heart had finally stopped.

To be honest, all I did was use curses and black magic, but I lost a few skeletons, so there was nothing I could do. The fact that it took a long time was a bonus.

“Wow!”

But unlike me, who was disgusted, the village guards and villagers were cheering like crazy.

“Baron! Baron! Baron!”

They were even cheering as they used my name, which they usually called me more often, or the title Baron instead of Warlock.

In addition, the guards and villagers who had tried to run away secretly returned and joined the procession of cheering people. They hugged each other and ran around, happy that they had survived.

“… … Well, good job catching it.”

And, looking at that, I felt embarrassed and felt that my choice to subdue the troll was the right one. Although the decision to subdue it was not entirely with good intentions.

Anyway, I left the cheering villagers behind and immediately started cleaning up the surroundings.

We collected the remains of the skeleton that had been smashed to pieces by the troll and prepared to take the troll’s body. Although it was not completely intact, there was no damage to the bones. It was a very good situation as a material for a skeleton.

There is no confirmation yet on how to use a skeleton made from a large monster, but since it is a large monster, it is clear that making a skeleton from a skeleton will be useful in many ways. Moreover, in some ways, it could be seen as a special entity called a large monster, so it seemed like it could be used to create a Skeleton Knight.

What is the level of Skeleton Knight’s performance? While I was waiting, the skeletons took the troll’s body, and I went straight into the village.

“Wow… … . Is that really a troll?”

“It looks disgusting, just like I heard. I’m glad the Baron caught such a monster. Otherwise, we would all have become refugees this winter.”

“Are you lucky if you are a refugee? I heard that troll eating and tracking skills are that good. They say they will find it somehow and eat it all up. If it weren’t for the Baron, we could have just died. Hey, the Baron is coming! Thank you Baron!”

When I brought the giant troll’s body into the village, the villagers seemed to be welcoming a hero who had returned from winning some kind of war. The road leading to the blacksmith shop was open, and people were standing around clapping their hands at me. Some bowed down to their waists, saying thank you.

I felt embarrassed for no reason, but as I watched the researchers working hard to put the wooden blocks back into the R&D headquarters, my embarrassment disappeared and I felt satisfied. I even heard calls to immediately resume research that had been paused, which doubled my satisfaction.

I headed to the blacksmith shop with a happy smile on my face at the researchers’ very favorable attitude and at having obtained a new material, a troll corpse, and immediately tried to enter the workroom.

“… … Ah.”

However, the problem was that our blacksmith shop did not have a door that could accommodate a troll who was twice as tall as me in terms of height. There is a large door so that the cart skeletons can move, but the troll carcass is now so large that multiple cart skeletons must be used at the same time.

“Oh! I caught a troll and it needs to be repaired.”

In the end, there was no choice but to destroy the blacksmith shop and workshop in order to take the troll body to the workshop. It was an ironic situation where a troll was caught outside the village and the entire village was fine, but only my blacksmith shop was destroyed.

I felt sick to my stomach thinking about repairs, but I tried to keep my composure thinking about making a skeleton out of a troll.

Okay, let’s make the door a little bigger so more people can come in at once!

Anyway, even if I made a skeleton in the studio later, it would be a problem when I would have to go out, so it seemed better to think about modifying it in advance.

Anyway, after destroying the blacksmith shop and carrying the troll body to the workshop, I decided to restore the skeletons first. Since the dreadful winter didn’t last long, there was a need to prepare supplies in advance.

In the spring, farming tools to break the frozen ground would be sold out, and there would be a lot of people working on repairing houses that had accumulated damage throughout the winter. In order to digest all the items they wanted, it would have been better to prepare them little by little from now on. If you just set the shape and do the finishing work right before spring comes, the quality of the product will be excellent and it will be possible to digest the initial quantity quickly.

However, skeleton recovery could not begin immediately. This is because those who had evacuated from the threat of trolls have returned. Of course, my parents and Ziena were among them.

“Son!”

“Boss!”

Mom and Ziena rushed towards me and immediately checked all over my body. It seemed as if he was worried that there might be some injury.

“Phew, I’m glad. If the boss gets hurt, who will pay that salary?”

No, it seemed like Jiena was more worried about her salary than me.

“Son.”

The moment I smiled at the sight of Jiena still remaining calm even after going through a dangerous situation, the voice of my mother next to me became very, very cold. With 100% probability, it was a signal signaling the beginning of nagging time.

“What on earth is going on with your mind? … !”

And then, as I expected, the nagging started. It’s dangerous, so why go there? Shouldn’t we all just run away together? Besides, why don’t you make me tell that to Jiena, etc. All kinds of nagging noises were pounding into my ears.

However, the nagging didn’t last as long as I thought. I thought I would get some more nagging for doing something dangerous, but after the short nagging, my mom gently hugged me.

“Still… … . good job. The mother is proud that her son protected the village.”

Regardless of the reason or outcome, my mom patted me on the back, saying I did a good job, perhaps nagging her to express her dissatisfaction with making me worry. I could understand well, so I just nodded without saying anything.

Anyway, after the brief nagging time, mom looked at the situation around her.

The mother frowned as she looked at the pile of broken skeletons and the troll corpse underneath.

“A lot of the skeletons are broken… … .”

“Uh. Still, I think I can recover about half of it.”

“Didn’t you say that you can fix a skeleton with just your dark magic?”

“Yes, but… … . Also, if it’s too damaged, it can’t be repaired.”

Although it is possible to repair a skeleton with only dark magic, the problem is that it is impossible to repair something that has been horribly damaged.

A skeleton that was chewed up by a troll and left in pieces in the troll’s stomach, a skeleton that was crushed and broken by a blow, a skeleton that was half-crushed in the troll’s grasp, etc. Skeletons that were severely damaged in various ways were impossible to repair.

Still, it seemed possible that quite a few skeletons could be restored and used again. And, in that list of skeletons, there was also a skeleton that I sent to my mom to use.

There were skeletons used for domestic work, named bone stones, and skeletons used in bakeries. My mother also looked at me in surprise, as if she had found the skeleton. It was as if they were asking why a boner who should be at home was here.

“Did you take Bonedol with you?”

“I took everything I had just in case. Would you like to take me with you while I’m here?”

Seeing my mother nod reflexively, I quickly used my dark magic to restore the bone stone and the bakery’s skeleton. The skeletons that were lying scattered as if they had been torn apart suddenly rose up.

“It looks like there’s a lot to do, so Mom, I’ll just go.”

“Uh. See you at home in the evening.”

“Come on time!”

Mom gave me a light hug once again and returned with a skeleton for domestic work and a skeleton for use in the bakery.

“… … You shouldn’t go.”

“Eh!”

And then, he secretly caught Jiena, who was trying to follow her mother home. Now that the blacksmith shop has been destroyed to move the troll body, where are you going?

“Take some skeletons and just roughly reinforce the entrance to the blacksmith shop. Don’t let the cold wind come in. Repairs should be done properly later.”

“Yes… … .”

Jiena, who was sullen at the loss of new work, dragged the skeletons away with her arms and ears drooping.

After Giena left and closed the door to the studio, she immediately began restoring the shattered skeletons. In the process, a bunch of dark magic escaped. It was to the point where I had to use some of the blood essence that I had saved as a spare.

After investing such a huge amount of dark magic to restore about half of the shattered skeletons, there were no more skeletons that could be restored.

There were skeletons that were impossible to repair for various reasons, ranging from skeletons that had completely lost ribs or vertebrae, making restoration meaningless, to skeletons that were completely shattered, so it would be easier to build a new one than to use black magic. In fact, it would be more correct to say that all that remains are the remains of skeletons.

Still, it wasn’t just a waste. This is because the remains of the skeleton could be used as materials when making other skeletons.

Since it was a bone strongly imbued with the energy of death, including the black magic that had been accumulated through use so far, it was suitable as a material for a skeleton. If that material was used, the skeleton could be made stronger.

Of course, because the efficiency was so miserable, I had no intention of destroying the intact skeleton. Even if an entire skeleton was used, the strengthening level did not exceed 5%.

In addition to making special skeletons like now, there were skeletons that were broken to the point where restoration was impossible.

“First of all, we have to start by crushing the irreparable skeleton bone fragments.”

In order to use the skeleton bone fragments as material, it was necessary to first grind them very finely, so the restored skeletons were used to grind the bone fragments. By breaking the heated iron with a hard hammer and rubbing it with a whetstone, it was turned into fine powder. The problem was that the bones were very hard, so the whetstone would grind along with them.

Anyway, after creating a lot of gray bone powder, I immediately started making the troll’s corpse into a skeleton. It was the same as usual, starting with cursing to melt the skin, muscles, internal organs, etc. and absorb them into the bones.

“If you add bone powder now… … .”

The moment the skin and muscles melted and were absorbed into the bones, gray bone powder was evenly scattered over the troll carcass. Then, the melted things mixed with the bone powder and looked like they were bubbling. Little by little black smoke flew out, but the black magic and energy of death were not all absorbed and were spewed out into the air.

Still, a lot of it was sprayed into the air and scattered, but some of it was absorbed into the troll’s body. I don’t know if that’s why, but the bones that were normally a normal gray color changed to a slightly darker color. It became a little closer to black than gray.

For a moment, I felt amazed by the appearance that was different from usual, and continued the production of the skeleton by putting in all the necessary materials to make it.

Only after consuming as much material and time as the size of a troll, which is a large monster, was it possible to create a proper skeleton using the troll’s body. That too, as an entity belonging to the Skeleton Knight.

The Troll Skeleton Knight was born, with intelligence inferior to that of a mage but superior to that of a regular skeleton, and the ability to use various techniques using dark magic just like knights use mana.

“Mm, stop!”

However, before they could rejoice at the birth of the Troll Skeleton Knight, they had no choice but to urgently stop the Troll Skeleton’s movements. Although the size of the workroom was large enough to accommodate troll corpses, it was not high enough to produce troll skeletons.

Fortunately, I stopped just before the troll skeleton’s head smashed through part of the ceiling and breathed a sigh of relief.

“… … How do I use this?”

And, I was wondering how I could use this giant skeleton.