Chapter 65

“If anyone else here wants to lecture me about gods like that one did, speak up now. I’ll send you home.”

At Jaeha’s words, they hesitated for a moment before raising their hands. About ten people returned to their original world, leaving five behind.

“Humans generally despise beings called undead, don’t they. They want to keep living, but they don’t want to become undead—there are bound to be many humans who think that contradictorily.”

Gersia muttered while gazing at the place where the people had returned.

“Well, what did I say? Why are you trying to set the mood all by yourself?”

“Ahem.”

Then Jaeha smiled and looked at the five people in front of him.

“What are you going to do? Decide quickly. Just by looking at you, it seems you don’t have much life left in you.”

Whether Jaeha’s words served as a trigger or not, two more returned to their own world, and the remaining three decided to stay.

Jaeha then asked them about this and that. Like the other Corpse Puppet and Gersia, they too had come over from the continent of Fantasia.

And they said they had personal grudges as well. But Jaeha didn’t pay much mind to those—once the arrangements were complete, he began preparing to turn them into jiangshi.

Jaeha pulled out the large adamantium vat he’d made when treating Chrise and Denny’s injuries last time, asked Undine for water, and began dumping a load of poisons into the water filling the vat.

In an instant, the poisonous solution for creating jiangshi was prepared, and Jaeha immediately laid the newly summoned individuals into it. Then, using Corpse Puppetry, he selected the 23rd item on the list.

Next, he laid another one into the poisonous solution and selected the 24th item, and finally began production on the 25th item as well.

[23. None — Beginning production.]

[If ‘Heavenly Poison’ is not injected into the corpse within 24 hours, production will fail.]

[The state of the poison used for jiangshi creation is High-Rank, so production time is greatly reduced.]

[If ‘Heavenly Poison’ is not injected into the corpse within 6 hours, production will fail.]

[24. None — Beginning production.]

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[25. None — Beginning production.]

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“Good. Six hours is just right.”

Nodding, Jaeha rose from his seat and met eyes with the jiangshi who had been watching the jiangshi creation from a corner with fascination. Jaeha paused to think for a moment.

‘I wonder if I could swap them out for the newly created jiangshi too.’

With that thought, Jaeha used the Jiangshi Art and began flipping through the lists, and eventually discovered that it was indeed possible.

‘For now, I’ll leave them be and decide after seeing the finished results.’

Having made that decision, Jaeha resolved to wait for the jiangshi to be completed without saying much else.

* * *

Nearly six hours later, Jaeha came back down to the sparring ground. There, the existing jiangshi and Gersia were watching the jiangshi being newly created.

“What kind of reaction do the poisons have that makes the body become this hard?”

Gersia answered Seirin’s question.

“It’s no exaggeration to say poison and medicine are separated by a hair’s breadth. Certain diseases can be treated using poison. Looking at that, one could say poison and medicine are essentially the same.”

“Still, unlike medicine, poison kills you if you eat it.”

“Eat too much medicine at once and most people die too. Looking at that, if you only know the proper way to use poison, it should be entirely possible to use it as medicine.”

“So then, countless poisons work together to produce an effect like medicine—is that it?”

“Probably so. Even from my position, it’s quite fascinating. Of course, it seems mana is what makes it possible, but the poison likely plays a major role too.”

“The poison’s role is greater than mana’s, I’d say. Mana can be lacking, but poison can’t. Mana makes the poison seep into each tissue and cell. And the poison’s role is to harden those cells.”

“I see.”

“But this is curious. How do you make them obey after they become jiangshi?”

“I don’t know the method either. If you’re curious, go look up black magic in your world. And what I use is a skill. To be honest, you could say the system handles all of that on its own.”

“I see.”

Gersia nodded. Then began muttering.

“That thing called martial arts was also extremely interesting.”

“Martial arts?”

“Yes. Looking at the principle, it’s a technique that gathers mana in a place called the dantian¹ in the human body, then circulates it through the pathways of qi—in simple terms, the blood vessels—to manipulate mana.”

“Yeah.”

“What surprised me was the organ called the dantian. Creating a virtual organ that doesn’t actually exist and using it like a heart—that amazed me. And I was equally amazed by the efficiency of that fabricated organ.”

“The middle dantian commonly used in magic. It has efficiency on a completely different level from the heart.”

“Right. That’s what surprised me. And the idea of using the blood vessels is also incredibly novel and efficient. The mana loss within the body is less than 1%. And since it’s inside the body, it’s definitely easier to control.”

Just then, a window appeared before Jaeha’s eyes.

[23. Mu has been completed.]

[24. Mu has been completed.]

[25. Mu has been completed.]

“It’s done.”

Ignoring Gersia’s words, Jaeha immediately checked on the jiangshi. They still hadn’t regained consciousness, but Jaeha was able to view their information.

‘I guess I can see it now that the jiangshi arts have evolved.’

He hadn’t been able to see the information of the existing jiangshi before, but now he could. Jaeha tried to check the existing jiangshi’s information first, but that wasn’t possible.

‘Seems like I can only see the information of the newly created jiangshi.’

Thinking that, Jaeha checked the jiangshi’s information.

[Chen]

[Trait: Knight]

[LV: 10]

[Total Ability: 1000]

[Skill: Imperial Swordsmanship]

[23. Mu]

[Rain]

[Trait: Mage]

[LV: 10]

[Total Ability: 1505]

[Skill: Magic (Circles 1–4)]

[24. Mu]

[Vivian]

[Trait: Warrior]

[LV: 10]

[Total Ability: 999]

[Skill: Riviera Family Swordsmanship]

[25. Mu]

“Hmm. So the level is fixed.”

After checking the information, Jaeha quietly thought for a moment. When Jaeha showed no particular reaction, Gersia asked him.

“Why no reaction?”

“It’s a bit different from what I expected.”

“Different how?”

“Just…… there’s too little here.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Jaeha didn’t know what the Total Ability of the existing jiangshi was, and he couldn’t see it either. But seeing that it was far lower than he’d expected, his anticipation couldn’t help but dim somewhat.

“Maybe it’s because the originals weren’t that great.”

With that thought, Jaeha relayed what he’d seen to Sia and Gersia.

“Hmm. They certainly are on the low side.”

“Right.”

“But I can sense circles from that woman. Is she a mage?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Oh, I never mentioned their skills.”

“They have skills?”

“I guess the techniques they were learning in life turned into skills when they became jiangshi.”

“That woman is Circle 4?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Circle 4…… Not very high.”

“For now, I’ll have to wait until they wake up.”

With that, Jaeha began waiting for the jiangshi to awaken.

* * *

About an hour later, they came to their senses. The awakened jiangshi showed no particular resistance toward Jaeha. It seemed that after becoming jiangshi, the system’s influence had erased their rebelliousness and such.

Jaeha began asking them all sorts of questions. Their lives had been quite tragic.

The gist of it was similar: they’d lived ordinary lives as commoners in childhood, their parents were killed by someone, they barely survived death and grew relatively strong while investigating, then got caught by certain people and their bodies were left badly damaged—that sort of recurring story.

Of course, not all three jiangshi had identical stories, but they followed a similar thread. Rain the mage was a bit different, though.

In any case, after hearing their circumstances to some extent, Jaeha asked them.

“Do you know what kind of power you have?”

At Jaeha’s question, the jiangshi thought for a moment. Then they looked at Jaeha and spoke.

“I think I know, in fragments.”

“In fragments?”

“Yes……”

“Well, go on. Say whatever it is.”

“I…… gained the ability to control my body.”

“Control your body?”

“Yes. As I mentioned earlier, I studied swordsmanship in my lifetime. Of course, it was only at the level the Empire publicly taught its army, so it wasn’t anything special. In any case, I can say I’ve become better at wielding it.”

“Hmm.”

Jaeha thought for a moment, then spoke.

“Chrise.”

“Yes.”

“Spar with this one.”

At that, Chrise nodded, rose from the seat, and walked over to where Jaeha was.

“W-Wait a moment. With Chrise?”

Chen was taken aback by Jaeha’s words.

“Try it.”

At that, Chen immediately stood up.

Chapter 12

The result was far more surprising than expected. Chrise’s attacks came at him with far more ferocity and power than anticipated, but Chen managed to parry them—clumsily, but successfully.

“It doesn’t seem like a lie that they can control their body better now.”

“From what I can see, it seems to have elevated their existing talent to an extraordinary level.”

“Why do you think that?”

At Jaeha’s question, Gersia spoke.

“If it were merely about controlling the body better, that wouldn’t explain how this jiangshi named Chrise was draining the opponent’s ability dry during the spar.”

“That’s true.”

“In any case, that’s what I believe.”

“Certainly. Then let the others spar as well. Vivian, you said you were a mercenary, right?”

“Yes.”

“Vivian, Beat will spar with you. Rain, Amy will handle you.”

“Understood.”

“Yes.”

And so they split into two teams and the sparring resumed. By the time it was over, Jaeha had no choice but to revise his thinking.

“So to put it simply, No. 23 raises talent, No. 24 allows better control of mana, and No. 25 raises talent too, but only to a mediocre degree—though it grants tremendous physical toughness.”

“That’s a fair way to summarize it.”

“You managed to make them fit together pretty well.”

With that thought, Jaeha decided he couldn’t keep calling them No. 23 and No. 24 forever, so he figured he’d give them names.