The Ruined Death Knight

Walking back to the castle failing to catch the rats, Danzel felt incredibly frustrated.

He had watched countless times how those three had fought before, but it turned out that the elf and the rogue had hidden their abilities.

If he had known that the archers could shoot out invisible arrows that didn't make any sound at all, he could even easily dodged the attack that broke his leg.

After all, he was able to see the moment when she released the attack on him. Making the whole situation all the more frustrating for him.

It was as if you watched someone moves as if he was throwing a rock at you, but not seeing the rock itself coming right to your face!

As for the rogue's strange magic, Danzel didn't find it that difficult to deal with.

Though it was the first time he saw this sort of magic, it didn't really threaten him.

He could even just let the daggers pierce his body and only protect his head and he would have come out fine. The reason he blocked them was that he was on guard against this sort of new magic.

"If only the runes had even recharged the shields, I would even have caught them..." He mumbled in frustration as he passed the undead guards guarding the gate of the wall.

Walking towards the castle, Danzel recalled all his undead to come back and watch over the castle that to aimlessly looking through the forest.

Even if by some miracle they manage to find those two when he himself lost them, they would only be destroyed by the duo of 3rd-tiers.

"Krrghh..."

As he was about to enter the castle gates, Skull Claw came to him with a growl that to Danzel looked as if whipping for her failure.

"You did well, biting that sucker once was good enough, go and patrol the surroundings in case they return." Danzel said as he ignored her whipping.

He didn't believe that those two will return to either finish the job or save their druid in the name of friendship.

He just gave the order just in case and to get rid of Skull Claw clinking to him.

He wasn't in the mood to entertain the big Death Hound at all.

Walking down the hallway and meeting his various creation patrolling, Danzel finally ended up in his bedroom of Wilhelm.

And before he could enter the room, he heard a loud slapping noise.

*Baaah! Baaah! Baah!

"You bastard! I finally found a decent bed after so long and yet you! You and the other two rats decide to betray us!? Stupid old hooligans of the woods. Take that and that!"

Upon entering the room, the first thing that Danzel took notice of was how Vanessa was continuously slapping the druid at his cheeks in the corner of the room to oblivion.

Each slap moved his whole head to either side, making one wonder wherever his head is going to fly out or not.

The druid's cheeks were swollen black, mixed with his tears and blood. The man was trying to say something, but all that came out were some uncomprehensive words.

Danzel guessed that the druid was trying to say something like "please stop" or "help me" or even "I will talk so stop".

Watching someone of the 3rd-tier being reduced to such a state, even Danzel felt slightly bad for the man.

Sure, he was cruel, but not to this extent!

Though he did come with the aim of forcing the druid to talk and relief his frustration by inflicting him some amount of pain, he wasn't a monster to reduce a man like him to such a state!

'If you don't want to make him talk, just kill him already! He is probably better off than being slapped by you!'

One also had to remember that Vanessa, who despised how she looked, was a 4th-tier pugilist!

Her slaps carried behind several tons worth of weight.

Fortunately for the druid, upon hearing Danzel's armor, Vanessa let the druid fall to the ground while turning to look at Danzel.

"How about the other two?"

"They escaped..." Danzel said while shaking his head, further fueling Vanessa's anger.

And the target of relieving that anger is only the druid who blacked out to escape the torture and had to reawaken to continue being slapped by Vanessa.

With the druid being of the 3rd-tier, he had an incredible amount of vitality and a tough body, making even bolts of crossbows useless against his iron skin.

Sadly, such a constitution didn't help him much in his current situation.

"Ple-ases! St-mpo!"

Ignoring the cries of the unfortunate man, Danzel walked toward Wilhelm who had a face full of pity towards the druid.

"Sir Wilhelm, have you been harmed...?" Danzel said with a cold tone.

"No, other than the bed's roof falling on top of me, I received no other harm thanks to you..." He said before turning and bowing down to the necromancer.

"If it weren't for you noticing their treason, I would probably be already dead. Thanks for saving my life."

"Mhm..." Danzel nodded, too embarrassed to say that he was the reason that the roof of his bed fell on top of him.

"How do our current plans look like?" Danzel asked while ignoring the slapping noises in the background.

"I already informed the army and my household. After reinforcements come to look after the castle, we will head back to the capital of the Dynasty."

"I see...then if my presence isn't needed any longer, I will look out in case they return."

Turning his back to leave, Wilhelm was about to call him out to stay as his bodyguard though out the night but stopped midway.

Throughout the years of living in his house with a golden spoon and all the knowledge that one needed to reach the 3rd-tier, it was his first assassination attempt aiming for his life.

Frightened and paranoid, he would very much like to have a strong man on the side of his bed.

But after seeing that the dark knight was being escorted by two Draugrs, he was reminded that he was a Necromancer.

Seeing him leaving, Wilhelm couldn't help but gaze at the beautiful dark elve in the corner, slapping a poor man's teeth out of his mouth.

'...I should maintain a barrier instead of sleeping today.' He thought while starting his spell.

Meanwhile, in a room where there was a dining table several meters long with many seats and several large windows in the walls, allowing for a splendid view while enjoying one's dinner, the room was now occupied by several undead and their master.

The latter was seated in the middle seat of the table.

Danzel did say that he would patrol the surroundings, but that was merely a lie to be alone.

Though the Draugrs proved to be incompetent in seeing through the stealth skills of the rogue, in the end, it didn't matter.

As Vanessa will be with the noble and even that guy would be wary unless he was an idiot, he doubted he would fall into danger.

Just in case, he ordered Skull Claw to stay near their room to keep watch with his third eye that had the ability similar to his [Eyes of the Damned] skill.

His being there was just overkill and unnecessary.

Instead, he decided to spend his time and relief his frustration with one of his favorite hobbies.

Spending his wealth.

And by that, he didn't mean any gold of any sort.

Ever since he had worked as a runesmith in his first year, he was gaining so many gold and silver coins, that in his eyes, they became meaningless.

A merchant could have found out how to reinvest that wealth back then to make a profit and earn useful magic items.

Alas, Danzel was neither then nor now a merchant.

No, the wealth that he was talking about was his XP!

The current him had a bit more than 8 000 000 XP. An amount that was quite enormous considering the amount he spent to raise his class and other skills.

The current him was honestly dying to upgrade one of his 3rd-tier skills into the 4th-tier.

But he forced himself to reject the pleasure of upgrading them.

He had decided that after becoming a [Death Knight] and upgrading his main class he would go and raise his various skills on the 4th tier.

The reason for this decision was of gaining more information on the route he was going towards.

Learning what he was best suited for would help him adjust the modifications of his future skills.

Of course, that was based in the 4th-tied was actually another modification or something completely different.

He was also satisfied with the current level of his skills.

Sure, he could go and try to upgrade everything to Lv.9 and make the best version of his current self.

But not only would this increase his urge to make his skill reach the 4th-tier, but it would also not increase the options that he had.

Coming to the conclusion of learning a few new skills and trying his luck in finding a [Great Rune]

Pressing at the [Skills] in his status, a long page of several skills and their cost appeared in front of him.

They were a total of 55 skills to purchase.

Danzel's first instinct was to buy the whole 'store' first, then think later.

Danzel though knew that this was merely a trap to make him waste his XP on useless skills that he might never use.

They were skills like [Aim Javelin] which increased his accuracy in throwing spear-like weapons.

[Inspect Corpse], a skill that helped one see through the detailed damage of a corpse.

[Strangle], a skill which passively increases the strength of his hand when he was choking someone...

And many more skills similar in usefulness to those 3 examples.

Danzel knew that gaining XP was hard and without the [Rune of Harvest] helping him, making such progress might have taken him a year or two.

The more skills he had, the more XP he had to spend after all.

And as far as he was aware, as long as a skill was registered on the "skill page", it would always be there waiting to be purchased.

Though he might have to prioritize what skills to cultivate now, in the future he could always go back and buy them.

He was undead after all.

An immortal being.

So being forced to pick the more talented child among his many, Danzel found 3 skills that he decided to learn.

Them being the following:

[Curse of Nature]

[Wall of Bones]

[Heavy Strike]

...

2 out of the 3 skills were unlocked by increasing his [Black Guard] class.

Those obvious being [Curse of Nature] and [Wall of Bones]

What [Curse of Nature] did was simply to lower the defense of one enemy against the basic elements such as fire and ice.

Looking as it is, the skill, being a spell, didn't do much than allow his "deadly fireball" to become much fiercer.

What Danzel saw in this skill though was its potential.

The curse essentially lowered one defense against elements. So once he reached the modification stage and chooses [Dead Mana Affinity] and [Soul Affinity]. The chance of lowering his enemy's defense against those two affinities was high.

It was an obvious choice to make.

[Bone of Walls] in comparison was just as it sounded.

Using dead mana, he could create a wall of bones to appear from the ground.

Compared to [Earth Wall] (that is now [Stone Wall]), it isn't as tough.

But where they were downsides, there were also benefits.

The strong point of [Wall of Bones] was that it didn't need any materials to make the wall appear.

Danzel was also inspired by Velkir's earth manipulation and how he created a whole base in a matter of seconds.

So what he decided to do was to make the skill [Stone Wall] be for building purposes and the [Wall of Bones] for combat.

And since it was a Death spell, it also benefited from various amplifiers that he had.

As for his last choice of skills, it was quite the basic one, costing only 2000 XP.

[Heavy Strike]

A skill he witness in his early skeleton days back in the cursed lake.

He had finally chosen to get it after a total of 3 years.

It wasn't a particularly strong skill, as its cost may betray.

But it was quite easy to use and could turn out to become a skill similar to [Mortal Reminder] in the modification stage.

So with the addition of a total of 3 new skills in his arsenal, he glanced at his [Dead Rune Knowledge] talent.

Specifically in the option that had a price tag of [1 000 000 XP].