As soon as Tybalt had connected to him, the necromancer knew who he was speaking with.

  “Master, it is an honor to speak with you from the other side,” Heimar said.

  “Well, I’m glad you made the transition successfully,” Tybalt replied. “I couldn’t be completely certain my ailment would work as intended, since you were the first test subjects. But since you’re talking to me, I’m very pleased.”

  “Likewise, sir. My friend, Raybeck, was not quite as lucky as I, but he has been speaking in chopped up fragments. It’s my hope that he will recover his full capacity soon enough.”

  Tybalt frowned. A semi-intelligent undead? Is that possible? I’ll check on him after this.

  “I hope so as well,” the necromancer sent. “Tell me about your situation otherwise. I received a number of alerts from the system over the last several days, but I was recovering from a serious stab wound. I want to know everything that’s happened.”

  “Very well, master. I dare say that the situation for the mining camp is deteriorating as much as you could have hoped.” Heimar spoke with a relish that Tybalt did not recall him showing back when the old man was human.

  Typical undead shift toward sadism, I guess.

  “When we were still alive,” Heimar continued, “Raybeck and I contaminated as much of the camp’s resource pool as we could. Food, water, wine, tools, medical supplies, you name it. After my revival, I continued to do it.”

  Tybalt frowned. He didn’t know if the alcohol in the wine would make contaminating it with the virus a moot point.

  Plus, drinking a bloodborne virus isn’t really a good transmission method…

  Then he shrugged. That didn’t really matter. His assets were just doing literally everything they could think of. That could only be a good thing.

  “I appreciate your thoroughness,” the necromancer sent. He reached out with his necromantic senses. The distance didn’t seem to matter at all to his ability to detect his own. “I can sense a significant number of undead in and around your location. So it’s thanks to your hard work that I gained multiple levels in my class while I was unconscious.”

  “It pleases me to hear it; there are nearly a hundred of us now,” Heimar replied.

  “Around half of the mine’s workforce!” Tybalt grinned. He could sense that there were dozens of people still infected at the moment, which meant he would soon control a majority of the miners.

  “Unfortunately, that does lead me to the minor difficulties in our effort. The virus did not successfully transform every person who sickened. Approximately fifty of the individuals simply died from it. Even worse, their bodies appear to have been destroyed. We attempted to dig the deceased up in the night, in case they were simply unusually weak undead that were having trouble emerging from their graves. We repeatedly found that those who did not emerge on their own were simply gone. Their bodies seem to have turned to dust.”

  “That is what failure in the use of my skill looks like,” Tybalt replied. He had never experienced failure with Generate Undead himself before, but he knew what to expect from Unholy Forces. Given that he was not physically present for these transformations, he wasn’t surprised that there was a failure rate.

  Still, almost one-third failure is… bad. Not bad enough to prevent me from using the virus as a weapon of war, but quite high if I was, say, relatively short of bodies to use. Like right now. At most, I have access to these miners and the dead from the skirmish around the village, plus whatever animals Baldwin can wrangle.

  “There was more, master,” Heimar continued. “Those who survive, around forty, are sick with your virus and have simply fought harder, have somewhat stronger resistance, than the rest of us.”

  Tybalt was nodding along. This was to be expected.

  Then Heimar dropped the bombshell.

  “But another eight men took sick, appear to have fully recovered from the virus, and have been caring for those others.”

  Tybalt swallowed. That isn’t supposed to happen. I… really can’t have it. Too many survivors is the one thing I can’t afford.

  He would need to make his pestilence more lethal.

  If that number of people could survive such a thorough exposure to his virus, they could not only warn others about the effects, but they might also begin to understand the mechanisms of the disease. In the long run, herd immunity was also an issue, but Tybalt wasn’t thinking about that.

  If anyone simply figured out how his pestilence was spreading, that alone would be a disaster. There were always clever people in the world. Some of them sometimes even made it into positions where their competence would matter! Hadn’t there been someone Mariella met in officer training who came up with the idea of boiling medical equipment?

  I’ll have to modify the virus and also kill off these survivors. At least there aren’t many of them. He calmed and considered the numbers. So, it’s roughly fifty percent true success—transition into undead—twenty-five percent minor failure—bodies disintegrated after death—twenty-one percent undecided, still sick… and about four percent are the lucky fuckers who survived my power. That’s way too high for my liking, but maybe I can cut the rate to less than one percent, given that it’s starting out at what seems like an objectively low number. Heimar already did the work of making sure they had the maximum exposure possible to my virus. So the solution has to be in changing the virus itself, rather than hoping for circumstances that are somehow better…

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  “Master?” Heimar asked, his voice cautious. He still didn’t know what the necromancer was like, whether he was the type of leader to take bad news out on the messenger or something.

  “Was there any other bad news?” Tybalt sent. “Or just this matter of the survivors?”

  “Nothing else, I think,” Heimar replied. “Another note. From what I have seen, around one in twenty of those who turned have retained their intelligence. I do not count those like Raybeck who cannot truly make themselves understood. But I have no context to know whether that is a good or bad result.”

  The necromancer smiled and let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

  “It’s good.”

  Not as strong as Tybalt’s own results, but considering that he hadn’t needed to be in person or even nearby to make this happen, it was remarkable.

  The failure rate was pretty bad, considering I haven’t had a single person disintegrate when I used Generate Undead on them, but this high rate of intelligence more than makes up for it. This will allow me to build a real army. I need to start attacking some of the towns on the edge of the Salt Waste as soon as possible.

  “There is one more thing, master,” Heimar sent.

  “Yes?” Tybalt replied.

  “We have been waiting to take action against the remaining survivors. We hoped to receive your orders first.”

  The necromancer had the sense that by “we,” Heimar meant himself. The old man seemed to be a leader among his peers, even in death.

  “If you can wait, then don’t do it yet,” Tybalt sent. “I would like to be there when it happens. Unless there’s an urgency to your situation that you haven’t mentioned.”

  “No, we can wait,” Heimar replied. “The group has been hiding out in the salt mines, only coming out to bring in newborn undead. Concealing ourselves feels less and less necessary, the more the number of healthy people dwindles, but we’ve been disciplined about enforcing it. Just waiting for you. Biding our time.”

  “Good. I’ll try to come soon.”

  The necromancer would go that night if he could. It was an easy way to get some additional experience, maybe a full level or two if he slaughtered the remaining forty-eight people. He seemed to only get experience from his undead killing people if he was in proximity, as he had learned from Baldwin’s activities during the first attack on the miners. So this needed to be handled in person if at all possible.

  Plus, if Tybalt killed the miners rather than letting the pestilence do its work, he would avoid losing any more bodies to the virus’s absurd one-third failure rate. He could just use Generate Undead and turn the remaining humans at his own pace. His mana reserves had grown substantially with the levels he’d acquired, so it shouldn’t take more than a day.

  Perhaps most importantly, he might be able to complete the quest the angel had given him.

  “One more question,” Tybalt sent. “How many soldiers are still alive?”

  “No more than two,” Heimar sent instantly. “Those two are among those still sick, not the recovered. I have monitored that situation carefully, anticipating that those who could put up the most resistance would be of special interest. There weren’t many proper soldiers left after their ordeal at the beastfolk village in any case, but your virus devastated those who made it here. They shouldn’t have used those contaminated medical supplies.” A dark amusement animated his telepathic voice.

  “Well done,” the necromancer sent, adding a telepathic chuckle. “Do you happen to know which two soldiers are still alive by name?”

  It was a matter of curiosity more than anything else. Tybalt wanted to know who were the last men standing from his squad. Who would be his final victims from the old group?

  Heimar told him, and a dark smile lit up the necromancer’s features.

  Given that I already killed Graven and Volusia, these two are just the pair I’d have wanted to see. Lord Mudo is smiling upon me.

  There were still other details to work out, but it was nice when life—or, more realistically, the gods—sometimes gave him little, unexpected rewards.

  Tybalt called up the quest that Lord Mudo’s angel had given him just after he acquired his classes.

  It’s like I thought. The necromancer scowled. I’m stuck.

  There were only two enemy soldiers still alive. Two soldiers, plus Mariella, in a state of limbo.

  The fire mage wasn’t yet “converted to the service of Death God Mudo” in the quest’s terms. She had already fought against the Kingdom on the side of worshipers of the Death God, but it seemed the angel or the system was holding Tybalt to a higher standard.

  At this rate,I’m going to fail the quest. Mariella returning to the Kingdom would probably be a disaster for other reasons, of course. She could actually die or get tortured like Vidalia thinks. But somehow I don’t believe it would really happen. Or maybe I just really don’t want to believe. Mariella and I have defied the odds together before. Vidalia thought there was a strong chance that Mariella wouldn’t even fight alongside me against the squad. Her predictions are more like really good guesses than anything else. Of course, even assuming Mariella doesn’t get tortured or killed, it would still be nice to get some reassurance that I’ve won her over, rather than just giving her a few orgasms and some memories. If she does go back to the Kingdom and her family, the pressure will be on for her to turn against me. Against us. She knows too much for that to be an acceptable outcome… I wish she’d just stay. The three of us fit together like puzzle pieces. I’m sure Mariella can feel it too.

  He looked down at Vidalia’s peaceful, sleeping face.

  I’ll figure it out, he silently promised her. He didn’t know how. Think about it later.

  Tybalt forced himself to begin going through his system notifications.

  Meanwhile, Patreon just keeps getting further ahead...