*THUNK*

*crack*

The first target got skewered through the back of his head so that the ice spear came out of his mouth and shattered the bottle he was rising to his mouth.

”!!!!”

For a full second, every bandit by the campfire was silent…

”…splinter…”

*CRACK*

Ludier shadow’s eerie whisper was carried by the water – only to be followed by the dead bandit’s body to be turned into a pincushion for the icicles.

”WHAT IN THE…?”

*stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab* *stab*

As the initial shock turned into panic and all men jumped up at their feet, throwing the food and drinks to the side and reaching for their weapons, all of them without exception were impaled by the ice spear, leaving no one free.

”…this doesn’t feel good… why are you all so weak…? How were you able to murder my family…? Splinter.”

The shadow landed in front of the campfire and asked whoever was lucky – or unlucky – enough to survive the initial attack… but in the end, Ludier immediately turned all but two of the survivors into the grotesque, gory ice sculptures.

”Just as I expected… the unique shadows of the few who had them dispersed into nothingness the moment they died… Still… maybe I can experiment on the bodies…?”

With no worries of getting discovered anymore, Zoemi casually walked through the nightmarish landscape while looking between the mutilated bodies.

”Shadow theater, corpse puppet.”

First, he reached out his shadow towards the mana stones in the lake, just as Ludier’s shadow was doing to make sure his mana wouldn’t drain immediately as it did the last time he used it and then chanted the incantation.

”Huh…? HUH…?!”

The moment that the black-haired boy used the spell on the closest bandit’s corpse, he immediately gained access to all of the deceased man’s memories and was able to make him move again as if he was a puppet on a string.

It felt COMPLETELY different than how things happened with Ludier’s shadow who had a will of his own!

”…is… this the actual corpse puppet spell…? But then, what in the world happened with you…?”

Utterly confused Zoemi furrowed his brows, looking at himself looking over at Ludier’s shadow through the eyes of the partially frozen and very much skewered from every possible angle bandit.

”…I don’t understand the question… I am myself…”

Ludier’s shadow puppet shrugged its shoulders and responded in a rather indifferent voice.

|Yeah… I have no access to him at all…|

Zoemi furrowed his brows, thinking to himself in concern – but then focused on the corpse puppet and made some promising discoveries.

The corpse puppet skill used on the commoner bandit must have been different from the supposedly identical one he used on the unique shadow of Ludier Galamroze because, unlike that one, it had cost basically no mana.

The black-haired boy even wanted to channel more of it into the bandit’s corpse but he soon discovered that there was a limit to how much it will take.

When he tried cramming in even a tiny bit more – the ice covering the corpse had broken off and all the wounds started healing up.

”Well, well, well…”

Zoemi breathed out in amazement, observing the changes in the bandit’s body, as once the wounds from the Ludier’s assault have healed up completely and the mana didn’t stop flowing, the corpse had started getting younger and younger until his physical appearance became that of a man in his early thirties or late twenties at the earliest.

”Outstanding…! Why does it feel so intuitive…? I wonder if…?”

The black-haired boy glanced at the other deceased bandits and an idea appeared in his mind.

Something had to be done with the bodies after all, or the next person visiting the lake would be up for quite a scare…

”Shadow web connect, corpse puppet.”

Zoemi couldn’t help himself from experimenting, and not only did he connect himself to all the remaining corpses, but he turned them into puppets the very next second – and the amount of mana he used was barely equal to a single fireball…!

”…p-please…! S-spare me…!”

One of the two bandits left alive – the one who didn’t lose his consciousness – groaned as the coldness of the spear was numbing his guts that it was piercing through.

”Oh, yes, those ones – turns out we don’t need them at all – deal with them as you see fit.”

Zoemi glanced at the man and then shrugged his shoulders, facing the murky shadow puppet, and tapped the side of his head to signify that he had all the memories of the remaining bandits, using only slightly more mana to heal them all up.

There literally was no reason to leave the others alive…

”…splinter…”

*STAB*

”GHHH…!”

…and Ludier wasn’t going to do that in the first place either, killing both bandits immediately, without a moment of hesitation.

”Corpse puppet.”

…similarly, the black-haired boy didn’t hesitate to turn them into puppets either…

”I see…”

Zoemi nodded to himself, furrowing his brows as the influx of new memories entered his mind.

”Can we go… Kill the others then…?”

The shadow puppet asked in an eerily eager voice.

”No. Killing everyone without any explanation will only lead to unnecessary problems. Instead, we can use the three that left – plus the nobleman from earlier – while they are still alive to expose the real masterminds and then deal with them accordingly. The leader of those bandits is the one dealing with the clients most of the time, but those here did overhear many interesting things… Which includes the revelation that the fire magician although he seems to be someone important, isn’t the one pulling the strings.”

Zoemi shook his head and dismissed the request on the spot.

”…then… What are we supposed to do now…?”

Ludier’s shadow asked, clearly eager to go as far as he could with his unfinished revenge as soon as possible.

”Now we have three weeks before the fire magician comes here and we will be able to make progress with your business… Hmm… Hold on a moment, I want to check something.”

The black-haired boy spoke with hesitation, looking between one of the magicless corpse puppets and Ludier’s shadow.

”Say… what if we try putting you in one of those?”

”I refuse… They are the ones who killed my family, I’d rather be destroyed.”

Zoemi asked pointing between the two but ended up getting immediately shot down by the unique shadow who was getting better and better at speaking fluently.

”Alright, noted. I was just asking… When there’s that much of them, it gets difficult to spread my attention through all of them. It would take a lot of practice to… Ah. Why don’t we try this then? Sentinel.”

Zoemi nodded, accepting Ludier’s decision without any qualms, and started to tub his chin – before he suddenly straightened his back, coming up with another idea and conjuring the sphere of murky darkness.

”Hey, there, little one? How do you feel about possessing a body?”

”~?”

The black-haired boy started patting the sphere and asked, feeling it tilt under his palm in confusion.

”You are both my spells, so with a little bit of experimenting…”

Zoemi squinted his eyes, reaching his shadow towards the sentinel and the first bandit that he had taken possession of, connecting them and…

”…”

After a few minutes of silence, the sentinel disappeared and the boy lost direct control over the corpse puppet at the same time – leaving only the connection between him and the hidden sentinel.

”…? …! !!!”

On the other hand, the corpse puppet made out of the bandit straightened his back and raised his hands curiously, only to be amazed by the fact that it can move them around and immediately started joyously testing the range of the body’s movement.

”It… seems to be working well enough… Sentinel.”

While the first one was moving around all excitedly, Zoemi ended up conjuring the next sentinel and putting it into another corpse puppet, and then again and again.

Before he was done with the last available body, he was completely free of the burden of splitting his attention between multiple bodies at once, and instead gained twelve silent, but very happy semi-autonomous followers.

”What are we going to do now, kid?”

Ludier’s shadow asked again, begrudgingly watching the corpses of the bandits he killed just a moment before prancing about all happily like innocent lambs.

”I want to check up on Reo just in case, and then we’ll see. Little ones, can you use magic in that state? You do have unique shadows now and all…”

The black-haired boy furrowed his brows and decided, before turning to his new underlings making them stop whatever they were doing and turn to him attentively, and after a little bit of hesitation…

”Message spell?”

”Message spell.”

”…message spell.”

”Message spell!”

”Message spell.”

”Message spell…”

”Message spell.”

”Message spell!”

”Message spell.”

”Message spell…?”

”Message spell.”

”…message spell…”

All twelve of them contacted Zoemi using the communication spell, before…

”Stone spear.”

”Wind blade?”

”Water spear.”

”Darkness blade.”

”Stone missile…”

”…stone… blade…?”

”Wind bubble!”

”Stone armor.”

”…wind missile…”

”Muffle.”

”Muffle!”

”Earth wall.”

As it turned out, the sentinels that possessed the corpse puppets had lost most of the abilities that Zoemi put into them originally but ended up getting different spells instead – most likely ones corresponding to the natural predisposition of the bodies they inhabited, which was a rather interesting thing to discover.

”How about mana absorption, does that still work like the message spell?”

Zoemi asked and the group turned right around, facing the crystal-filled lake.

Not even a minute passed when a few of the mana crystals closest to the shore flickered, as the corpse puppets refilled their meager mana reservoirs and immidiately started sending Zoemi any and all excess that they gained.

The influx of mana flowing to him through his puppets was certainly as unexpected as it was welcomed.

”…this is amazing…”

The black-haired boy gasped, covering his mouth with one hand while imagining all the possibilities that opened up for him.

”…”

While he was at it, Zoemi’s eyes ended up inadvertently moving towards the shining mana crystals…

There were so many of them just… waiting… to be used to enlarge his mana reservoir…

”No. Not yet. I don’t want the fire magician to get suspicious.”

Zoemi shook his head, turning away from the lake so that he wouldn’t fall for the temptation.

”I’m going to check on Reo now, and then we will go straight to Horeo… while we are at it, we should think how to deal with Benevirau too…”

He breathed out trying to regain his composure and declared and everyone in his group nodded silently.