The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon-Chapter 286: Unearth (6)

One week remained. I already knew how I would spend it.

I looked down the vast tunnel. "Let's study this place while we can."

The tunnel's far end was hidden beyond sight. The record said it linked six cities. Recalling only what I had seen so far, it was enough to pique my curiosity.

Isaac asked me, "I'll head into the passage. What about you?"

"You mean we should split up?"

"Exactly. No need to stay together. The place is huge, and we've got a week. Let's use the time efficiently."

"Then I'll stay here."

This was the so-called secure zone. My eyes returned to the cages filled with abandoned bones.

Fwoosh!

After filling Isaac with mana, I let him go. I stood before the colossal bones locked in the cubic cages.

"..."

Perhaps it was reckless. Even the smallest among them was larger than a troll. I had the Lord of Bones skill, yet I had only ever raised a wolf cub before. Still, if I were going to spend a week here, I might as well observe and see what happened.

I examined the broken fragments wedged between massive teeth, piece by piece. The fingers had been crushed in a giant's grasp.

Crunch!

I bent a bar aside, prying open the maw of a giant beast. Then I stepped in and matched the fragments.

"Humans...?" I mumbled.

The inhabitants had used this place as an execution ground or a torture chamber. Their experiments and diversions had not been limited to monsters.

I tossed the human remains aside and turned my focus to the beasts. I wandered among the shins, claws, teeth, and twisted bones. Though many shapes were strange and unfamiliar, they did not feel distant.

I looked up. Despite their collapsed state, I was a dwarf compared to the beasts in height. Some of their leg bones were as thick as pillars.

Even after a thousand years, their teeth remained sharp. Instead of menace, I felt a strange familiarity. I grasped the bones with hands accustomed to hilts. Through human eyes, I traced the ancient creatures' structure.

These monsters had once roamed the earth a millennium ago. Dust on the bones stirred something deep within me, pushing old emotions back into the shallows of my memories.

Cla...tt...er...

The massive lower jaw shifted on its own. It startled me, and I grabbed hold of it as it creaked upward again.

"This is..." I trailed off.

Bones that had been frozen for a thousand years were moving.

[Skill: Lord of Bones Lv.? activated.]

[You have moved the bones of an ancient monster.]

[Skill EXP has greatly increased.]

Impossible. I remembered when I couldn't move even a young troll's corpse. I hadn't even tried this time.

Creaaaak.

A three-meter wing bone groaned and moved upward. Just recalling their lives seemed enough. The bones stirred slowly to my presence.

[Skill EXP has increased.]

No memories surfaced fully—only fragments drifted through: sorrow, curse, birth, answer, rotten blood, compromise, thirst, choice...

Clatter.

A massive tail scraped the floor and curled. Although it was broken, I knew what it had once been. Notifications flooded my vision, and chimes echoed in my head.

[Skill Level Up.]

[Lord of Bones Lv. 1 → Lv. 2]

[— Your understanding of bones has increased.

— Increased chance to seize enemy bones during battle. Seizable range expanded.

— You can assemble more complex bone structures.

— Race: Skeleton base Affection toward you +5.

— Control power increased to 50.

— You can now train controlled entities. Training increases Affection and ability.]

[Assimilation Rate has decreased.]

[68.49% → 66.31%...]

A wave of vertigo struck me. First, there was the sharp collapse of my world whenever assimilation dropped. Then, the unease and confusion of losing more than two percent at once hit me.

Clatter. Clatter. Clatter...

Bones moved everywhere. Or perhaps they didn't. I couldn't tell if I was commanding them, or if the dizziness made it seem so. Their erased lives pressed vividly against me. It was as if time itself had left gaps in my mind.

[Skill Level Up.]

[Lord of Bones Lv. 2 → Lv. 3]

[— Race: Skeleton base Affection toward you +10.

— Control power increased to 250.]

The moment the skill leveled again, the bones stopped moving.

Thud.

"..."

I realized why the skill's growth had been so stunted and why control had been so weak. Lord of Bones was not about tying strings to corpses. They already knew how to move. All I had to do was watch the forms they had enacted tens of thousands of times in life.

Creak.

A creature with a neck over two meters long lowered its head to me. I touched its massive skull with one finger.

Someday...

I felt like I had wronged them grievously. Perhaps I could command them, but I did not want to.

[Special perk acquired: Link Exchange (A).]

[You can now share the controlled entity's perception of the world.]

[— Control Power increased to 350.

— If a linked entity dies, you will suffer temporary perception impairment.]

Rage, grief, despair, terror, rage... The moment the perk activated, their screams poured into my skull.

How did Gith-Za-Rai endure this?

***

Clack! Clack!

"Hey! Wake up! What are you doing lying there?"

"..."

"You said you'd study the bones. What disaster did you unleash?"

I looked at the cages I had torn open with my own hands.

Crackle.

"Stop stretching your wrists. It's your head that needs loosening."

"I'm fine."

"Not at all. You've turned this place into a wreck."

That was a side effect of my first attempt at Link Exchange. If I explained, Isaac would only insist I raise the bones as soldiers.

Fortunately, he didn't press me, so I asked, "Did you find what you wanted?"

"Of course. I've already scouted the path to Erast."

"Erast... because of Rubia?"

He nodded. "Naturally. She's the human you care so much about. We had to check it first. By the way, did you realize? Today makes seven days."

Seven days had passed already.

"T&T should have sent word by now. Go topside and check."

***

Someone in a black hood stood before me. The lord introduced him as a T&T courier, then excused himself.

"Greetings."

Red eyes gleamed beneath the hood. He wasn't human. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Could it be a tiger descendant? No... a small leopard," Isaac concluded.

I had never heard of the race. Before I could ask Isaac more, the courier pushed back his hood. For a moment, I thought of Sharunian, a catfolk, but his arms and legs were longer and slimmer. Dark round spots dotted his tawny skin. There was a peculiar elegance to him.

Isaac whined, "What a waste to hide that frame beneath a hood. Short, blunt creatures can't stand beauty, so they hunt them to pieces..."

Those red eyes blinked and looked at me.

I asked on impulse, "Is it safe for you to go around like that?"

We stood in the heart of a prosperous city. As Isaac said, human eyes would not be kind.

However, he shook his head. "There is no human faster than I."

"Hmm." Arguing the point felt petty, so I asked him, "What did Rena say?"

Swoosh.

The leopard reached into his hood to grab something and held it out. It was a letter, sealed tight.

The leopard explained, "I am only a courier. I don't know what's written. If you need to reach another branch, go to the small crossroads behind the old Far Elf Forest Inn. It'll be the fourth house on the right, the one with the flat gray roof."

With that, the leopard slipped away in a blink.

Fwoosh!

"What a prim little stare," Isaac commented.

"Your type?" I asked.

"Why? Does it bother you?"

I ignored him, slit the seal, and unfolded the letter. "To our distant allies."

I paused. Isaac's warning to broaden my view resurfaced.

Had Rena and Isaac been looking at a larger picture while I lagged behind?

"What are you doing? Read the whole thing."

I read each elegant line carefully. T&T had approached the marquis and handed over all information. The marquis immediately acquired the diamonds, and he was now properly making Biblio's life miserable.

Isaac brimmed with excitement. "That's a win. Sounds like they cleaned out the rats inside the guild, too."

I nodded and turned the page. With Biblio cornered, he could no longer preside as judge over the lordship trial. The emperor's southern tour would delay Erast's ruling.

I knew the timing. Gith-Za-Rai would descend and assassinate the emperor in the south in three months from now. The delay rattled me.

"So long... I expected the marquis to come."

Isaac didn't bat an eye. He nodded as if this was the line he'd been waiting for. "See? It fits, doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"Exactly what you said. Sending the marquis would be the natural move, and a perfect excuse to halt the investigation."

True. There was no guarantee that a marquis would rule in Rubia's favor.

"They won't allow even a sliver of chance?"

"Now you're talking. They mean to seat Erast's lord as a slave to their line, no matter what. Why do you think the ghosts were prowling, just as you described?"

"..."

"I was going anyway, but this solidifies it. We need to tear the place apart. Put the Merchants' Guild membership on hold. I'm dying to see what honey they've hidden."

Old memories surfaced.

Hard to believe the imperial secrets were right.

Something did show up.

They told us to be thorough during Sardia Week, starting yesterday.

Erast was a small city in the south, and yet it was a place where imperial ghosts, each at least the equal of an imperial captain, prepared for contingencies. With Isaac, I might pry out the secret. If not, Rubia would remain pinned in a past of slow suffering.

"Not coming?" Isaac asked.

"Give me a moment."

Broaden your view.

Repeating Isaac's words to myself, I went to the lord. "When does Baron Chandler return?"

The Grassmere lord, ten years younger than before, was startled. "You even know my son? With the sorcerer's curse broken, I intend to call him back early."

The curse no longer passed on.

"Then you plan to hand him the title?"

The lord nodded. "Of course. The sooner he adjusts to this seat, the better. Surely I've earned a little leisure now?"

Pride and expectation colored his face and voice. He couldn't imagine his child being devoured by a larva. Before the worm could feed, I would take that hand for my own utility.

***

The route to Erast was a straight line. No shortcut could beat a direct underground road. While traveling with Isaac, I remembered some things. He had never truly disliked Rubia. In some ways, he knew her heart better than I did. Without him, I would never have thought to take her to that frivolous tea party in the capital, the one she secretly enjoyed.

Isaac noticed I was deep in thought. "What are you thinking about?"

"When you were human... did you ever... marry?" I asked.

Perched on my helm, Isaac hammered it with his beak, laughing until it shook.

Kang! Kang! Kang! Kang!

"Khahaha! Ha! Hahahahaha!"

Once he was spent, he sighed out an answer that was not an answer at all. "Not telling."

"..."

I knew it was a foolish question the moment it left my tongue. Still, I could have sworn his beak curled at the edges.

Isaac changed the subject. "Isn't it strange? The tunnels link to each city's inner keep. Every single one is rooted in the center."

"Mm..."

He was right. The passages were a thousand years old, but not all six citadels could be that old.

"Why do the keeps happen to sit on those spots?"

Isaac didn't really want my opinion. He was arranging his own.

"I don't know... Maybe later generations rebuilt new keeps atop the ruins of the ancients' fortresses?"

Afraid of the Apostles, the ancients dug tunnels from their walls. The fortresses later fell; once the Apostles were gone, new humans raised keeps on the debris.

Surprisingly, he agreed. "Could be."

"And what do you think?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he pointed ahead.

"It's Erast. We made it in under a day. Up we go."

We climbed the ladders strung like spider silk, one rung at a time.

I could have vaulted up with a single burst of force, but the ceiling above Erast felt strangely like a night sky, and I hesitated. "There's no barrier, right?"

"I dispelled them last time. Just lift it," Isaac replied.

Rumble...

I set my hands on top of it and raised the lid. Light flooded in.

Carefully, I looked around and saw books lining every wall.

"Erast... Library?"

Rumble!

The hatch sealed behind us as if it had never existed. All I saw was a flat, low floor with no handle or lever in sight.