“Is he mad? Does he not understand how much more dangerous the lower floors are? He is too weak right now. He needs to stay here and grow stronger first.”

Chinami listens to Volpe with only part of her attention. She grins sadly while watching the matriarch pace around her room with a rather noticeably frustrated expression.

“The patriarch has spoken. It is your obligation to follow his directions.”

Volpe screams. “Why do I have to follow his directions! Shouldn't I be allowed to keep him here! After all, I’m the Matriarch!”

Chinami sighs.

“His logic is sound, Volpe. The kitsune are too strong and useful to be taken further down the floors. There will be no challenge for him. His leveling will slow to a crawl if we are available for him.”

Volpe bites her lip and releases an annoyed growl, “He was leveling fast with the corpses. I’m certain a few months of additional training would help.”

Chinami’s tails flick around her as her expression turns slightly grim. “He has been here for two months already. The dungeon is getting more dangerous and unpredictable as time continues. The sooner he goes down, the safer he will be.”

“Mmhhh... Ughhhh, I know you’re right.” Volpe forces out before sitting down on the cold floor with her back to the wall. Her expression is sad and exhausted. Her tails move and cover up her body, as though to hide from Chinami.

“I have all this power and I’m helpless to assist him.”

Chinami stares at the now moping Matriarch. She could cheer her up with any number of skills, but that alone would only be temporary. That is why words tend to be the best in these situations.

“The Patriarch will be fine. He seems rather capable, and our goddess wouldn't send someone without the potential to save us. You’ve even said before, that his ability to learn to command aura is faster than any you have ever taught.”

Volpe sighs and looks up. Her expression is still sad, but not nearly as emotional as before. She can only hope that Quasi will grow and prosper, especially since he will need to become far stronger if he is to defeat the ninth floor boss.

_____________________________________________________________________

Mimir, you'd think the guy would modify these floor transitions to be better. Like really, he can create entire floors, species, civilizations, but he can't add a little bit of decor. It's not hard either. Throw in some spooky lanterns or fill the ceiling with glowing crystal. Add some nice stairs, several dozen statues of himself… and of course, most important of all, a fucking escalator.

“Why make this next floor so much lower than the previous ones? Like really, how hard can it be to make an escalator? Twelve hours of walking is too much already.”

Jessica moves her head from her homework and looks at me. ”What’s an escalator?” she asks.

I frown at her and immediately point at the book titled Human Anatomy. “I’ll tell you later when you learn that normal humans don’t have two fucking hearts, twenty-two ribs, and three absa-fucking-lutely useless gallbladders. Like, what the fuck?”

I shake my head and massage my temples. “At least I have extra livers to give away if somebody needs them… Darrow put your hand down. You don't need a fucking liver.”

The aforementioned Gejan frowns and lowers his hand while the others around him begin snickering.

I'm surrounded by bored idiots. They’re the second most dangerous kind of idiot.

I scratch my head, crack my neck, and look over at the undead elites that I had created, each one holding my knowledge and a specific skill set. Though all are as silent as Joker and none are as intelligent as the uncontrollable shit named Mule.

“Suck a dick, Mule.”

Cannot follow order: Order interferes with Priority Directive.

“Fine, be a teenager. Just don't come running back to daddy when you get injured.”

…

“Jessica, stop looking at me and focus on your homework.”

She takes a moment to give me the look, before returning to her book.

I sigh and open up my character information.

The past two months have been rather busy for me. Well, more like the first month. The first month is actually where I leveled the most and then I began to plateau and slow down on the second month. Training, without actual experience, slows down the speed of learning by a rather significant amount i’ve come to learn.

Regardless, I did level and gain four new skills as well as unlock the Charisma and Resistance stats. The charisma stat seems useless to me as the only skill it scales off of is [Dismiss Charm]... which is useless considering the awesome and confusing power of aura.

Resistance, on the other hand, is actually a direct percentage to magic damage. I am actually 17% resilient to magic damage, which, now that I think about it, is not that useful for me. I shouldn't be in a position where that resilience should even take effect.

Annoyed with the long walk, I look around and quickly find Zorren keeping pace with the procession. His expression is unusually tense.

“Zorren, what can you tell me about the fifth floor?”

The Gejan [Berserker] looks up at me in surprise. “Did you not ask the Kitsune?”

I roll my eyes. “Of course not. How am I supposed to level if I have a lot of time to plan? I need to handicap myself or I won't struggle.”

The [Berserkers] eyes turn a hint of red as his one good hand creates a fist.

“Your struggle will cost the lives of those who follow you!” he roars.

Jeez, you anger easily.

“Not will. The word you are looking for is might. I’m almost entirely confident in my ability to keep people alive and growing stronger.” I say.

Zorren bares his teeth before quickly relaxing as he activates the skill he uses to calm himself. His fist relaxes and gives me a sad look.

“A third of our initial procession had died on the fifth floor. We will not be allowed to rest and will need to constantly fight. The enemy will not allow us to breathe easily for even a second.”

“Enemy, what enemy?” I ask.

His face turns grim.

“The fifth floor is wh-” he begins, but stops as I raise my hand. My eyes are glued to the screen that just popped up.

“Well… shit.”

____________________________________________________________

The fifth floor is absolutely not what I expected. Granted, I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but a zombie wasteland was not one of them.

So here I am, standing near the entrance, gazing at the flat terrain and the rather increasingly densely packed number of undead of various types, many of them looking as though they were originally of a short humanoid species.

I analyze one of them.

Welp, now I've seen everything. They have goddamn goblins… which means they might have fairies in this world. Now, if they have fairies… hmmmm.

“You’re having that look again.” Jessica says beside me.

I give her an annoyed glare before turning to Zorren.

“So, Zorren, how did you get through this floor before?”

He looks at me, confused. “I ran!” he exclaims.

I massage the temples of my head. “I meant the first procession. The thousand person Gejan group that is supposed to be on the sixth floor.”

He points in the far distance where the undead concentration begins to mass up in large clumps before covering the entire ground in their bodies.

“The entrance to the sixth floor is past all of them. We fought for two days straight to get through. A lot had died in the process, even some of the elites.”

“Shit. By elites, do you mean Gejan over level one hundred?”

He nods.

Fuck, I can handle the fodder, but the elites may be a problem.

Looking around quickly, I notice that our location currently has very few undead in the vicinity. Granted, they are shambling towards us, but their levels are all under fifty with many of them having non-combat classes.

I raise my hand and imbue my voice.

“We’re making camp here. Berosus and my other undead will defend our location. In twelve hours, we will be marching for two days straight. Sleep and eat.”

My words are heard loudly and from a distance. The Gejan react immediately and begin setting up a perimeter. As they do that, I start moving towards the shambling zombies.

______________________________________________________________

Zombies would be a pretty good term to describe them. They are slow. They can only shamble because the skin and meat which is still clinging to them hampers their natural movements, as they are meant to be skeletal. But, more important than that, they are dumb. They see me and then they begin shambling towards me. I place Joker in my path and the zombies ignore him and continue coming towards me.

Curious, I open up my senses to the connections of mana. Joker has a strong string of mana pumping into him from me and a weak one from the floor itself. He even has the [Minor Undead Regeneration] passive on him, which means he can passively heal.

As for the zombie, they have a connection only from the ground.

I scratch my chin before extending my hand. “Hmmm,” I mutter to myself “Let's see if this will work.”

I focus my mana to my hand and activate [Raise Undead] towards the Zombie. My skill ultimately fails, but I do notice that the connection the Zombie has with the ground had wavered during my spell.

Interesting.

I call up half my mana pool and activate [Raise Undead]. My mana explodes out of me and into the undead. The connection the undead had to the ground is ripped apart as my own connection forms with the undead.

The undead stops moving and I feel its attempt to fight my will. Of course, I crush its feeble attempt and the undead becomes mine.

…

What, no level?

…

Fine, be that way. I’ll just keep experimenting.

“Joker, destroy the undead in the vicinity.”

Joker moves quickly, his scythed blades slicing bone apart with ease. The undead around me die quickly, their bodies collapsing once their skulls are damaged. Of course, this is only temporary. I can already sense mana still being pumped into the destroyed remains. The skulls will be repaired and the bodies will rise again. But before that, I can already feel my own connection forming with each individual bone.

I extend my hand. “[Create Bone Scorpion]”

Mana blasts out in front of me and creates an outline. The bones from the recently destroyed corpses turn into dust and fuel my summons.

After a minute, the zombies are all gone and the only thing left in its wake is a Bone Scorpion under my command. With a mental order, I stop supplying the Bone Scorpion with mana and only allow a mental connection to form.

“Ohhh yeah, looks like this will be a lot easier than I thought.” I say aloud as I notice that the Bone Scorpion has enough mana regeneration from the floor to stay alive.

With a smile and two undead at my side, I begin walking towards more zombies in the distance. As for the undead Goblin [Cook], I ordered him back to base.

____________________________________________________________

Every time Jessica thinks that nothing more will surprise her, her expectations are brutally destroyed by the [Hero].

Not moments ago, the Gejan made camp, set up a large bonfire, and were in the process of preparing food. Then a short undead with decaying flesh shows up, begins grabbing cooking supplies and then starts cooking.

Yes, an undead, a being that cannot consume food because they are technically dead, is cooking a meal for everyone. What's more, the undead is doing so with exceptional skill and handling. Adding spices, water, cutting up meats, peeling vegetables. There are no wasted movements and Jessica can even sense the silent activations of skills being used.

A skill which apparently decreases the time to cook from two hours to only ten minutes. In ten minutes, plates of bone and wood are filled with a thick creamy soup and given to all those present. Taking the bowl, Jessica takes a sip and cant help but feel amazed and invigorated. The soup is amazing and is clearly enhanced with a skill.

“Haha, this is amazing.” Darrow voices as he chugs the contents of the bowl down his throat.

“Oy, idiot, you’re going to burn yourself.” Lilly voices aloud while taking small sips.

Darrow burps. “I’m a [Gejan Guardian] now. I have over a hundred endurance. This is nothing for me now!” he yells before standing up and giving the empty bowl to the undead which fills it up right away.

Jessica sips her soup slowly before halting all movement as she notices a dozen glowing purple lights in the far distance.