[Skeleton Soldier (Lv. 7)]
Before I knew it, I had leveled up. I had also defeated a Lesser Goblin and claimed its longsword, so I was feeling pretty good.
“Grrrr!”
A pair of crimson eyes flashed between the bushes, and another Black Hound leaped out.
This one was slightly larger than the others—a leader-class individual.
[Black Hound (Lv. 6)]
‘Oh, perfect timing.’
I clacked my jaw in delight. My mismatched legs had been making my pelvis feel twisted for a while now, and it had been incredibly uncomfortable.
The beast charged the instant it saw me.
“Woof!”
It was fast.
But—
‘I’m not slow anymore either.’
I pushed off with my left leg and sprang sideways.
At the same time, I shot out my left arm and caught the beast by the scruff of its neck.
The difference was undeniable.
My old self would have missed that opportunity, but my left hand, enhanced by the Goblin Captain’s strength and dexterity bonuses, seized its hide with perfect precision.
[Skill: Underhanded Pickpocketing (Lv. 2) activated!]
Why was my pickpocketing skill activating now?
Ah. The instant I grabbed the back of its neck, my ability to exploit its opening became noticeably sharper.
Keeping a tight grip on its neck, I drove my longsword into its flank.
Thrust! Stab!
“Yelp!”
[You have defeated Black Hound (Lv. 6).]
[Experience acquired.]
It was a clean kill.
I skillfully dismantled one of the beast’s hind legs. This time, it was the right one.
Without hesitation, I pulled off my human right leg.
‘Urgh...!’
The sickening sensation of tearing away living flesh—no, living bone—was still there, but the result was worth it.
[Transplant successful!]
[Your physical balance has been corrected.]
[Agility has greatly increased.]
[Set-effect skill, Beast’s Sprint (Lv. 3), has been unlocked.]
Oh, I even got a set effect?
More importantly, I was finally free from my mismatched-leg problem.
I jumped in place several times.
Both of my legs now possessed the reverse-jointed structure of a Black Hound’s hind legs.
My walking posture resembled a werewolf-like beastkin more than a human now, but my mobility was incomparable to before.
The instant I kicked off the ground, my body sprang forward as lightly as a feather.
‘At this speed, I could outrun most knights.’
Making a jaw-clacking sound that vaguely resembled humming, I continued down the path.
I had grown considerably taller, and my balance while walking was now perfect.
Even my appearance looked fairly impressive.
My left arm was reinforced with a goblin’s bones, while my lower body consisted of the agile legs of a magical beast.
With the horned helmet I had picked up sitting on my head, I might have looked grotesque to an ordinary person, but from a gamer’s perspective, I looked rather...
‘...Not bad.’
It was efficient.
An evolution optimized for combat.
If I continued replacing my bones and growing stronger like this, wouldn’t I eventually become an existence even more perfect than a human?
The human body was frail. It became sick, grew old, and bled to death after being struck by a sword.
But this body could continue growing stronger forever, as long as I replaced its parts.
Maybe I didn’t necessarily have to become human again...
...No.
What was I thinking?
Such a dangerous thought had probably crossed my mind only because the thrill of growing stronger had gone to my head.
Filled with confidence, I was striding forward with unusually light steps when it happened.
Grrrrumble.
‘...Huh?’
I heard a strange sound.
No, I didn’t have a stomach, so there hadn’t actually been any sound.
Nevertheless, a dreadful, hollow hunger surged upward from the pit of my nonexistent stomach.
It was an emptiness blooming somewhere inside my vacant abdomen, deep within my spine.
‘What was that feeling just now?’
Was I hungry?
Impossible.
How could I feel hungry when I didn’t even have a stomach?
Yet this sensation was unmistakably hunger.
A steaming bowl of blood-sausage soup appeared in my mind. If I poured in some radish-kimchi broth and mixed it with rice, I felt as though I wouldn’t need anything else in the world...
‘This is driving me crazy. They say Koreans run on rice, but does that still apply inside a game?’
I shook my head, trying to clear away those useless thoughts.
But the farther I walked, the more intense my hunger became, until it turned into severe dizziness.
My vision blurred.
‘Damn it. Why would a pile of bones even have an appetite...?’
The strength drained from my legs.
Even my newly modified Black Hound legs began to buckle.
Staggering, I leaned my shoulder against a tree trunk.
My vision flickered, and crimson warning messages filled my sight.
[Warning! Mana depleted.]
[You have left the Necromancer’s domain.]
[Mana supply has been interrupted.]
‘Ah...’
You could have warned me a little sooner, damn it.
At the edge of my collapsing vision, I saw something running toward me.
Clatter! Clatter! Clatter!
A white skeleton was racing toward me as fast as it could.
It was that foolish Orc Skeleton—the one I thought I had left behind.
The last thing I heard was the clacking of its jaw as it caught my falling body.
Then the world went black.
Ding-dong!
The cheerful sound of a doorbell rang in my ears.
‘It’s here!’
I sprang out of bed and raced to the front door.
When I opened it, a delivery driver wearing a helmet held out a chicken box that gleamed with golden light.
The rich aroma of oil.
The magnificent sight of crispy fried batter.
Overwhelmed with emotion, I grabbed a drumstick and took a huge bite.
Crunch.
Huh?
The texture was strange.
Had fried chicken always tasted like this?
No—had it even possessed a taste?
My memories...
“...”
My eyes snapped open.
There was no fried chicken.
All I could see was the familiar canopy of the forest and the crimson moonlight filtering through the leaves.
[You have returned to the Necromancer’s domain.]
[Emergency Power-Saving Mode has been deactivated.]
[Current mana remaining: 3%.]
I had definitely collapsed after running out of mana.
When I tried to sit up, my joints creaked. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken.
Clatter! Clatter!
A loud noise came from beside me.
Turning my head, I found an enormous figure crouching there and looking down at me.
It was the Orc Skeleton.
‘Were you the one who brought me back?’
Nod! Nod!
It nodded so furiously that its jaw looked ready to fall off.
It had been quite a distance from where I collapsed to this place.
It must have gone through a lot of trouble dragging my limp body all the way back here.
‘Thanks. You saved my life.’
When I patted its shoulder, it proudly thumped its own rib cage with a fist.
Despite being as large as a mountain, it behaved exactly like a puppy.
The touching moment did not last long, however. I calmly analyzed my situation.
‘This is serious.’
I felt around the area below my sternum.
Inside my empty rib cage, a mana circuit running along my spine was faintly pulsing.
This wasn’t my own mana.
I was merely receiving mana transmitted from somewhere else, like a device connected to Wi-Fi.
‘So I’m nothing more than a kite tied to a string.’
The Necromancer Malak had established a mana-supply network throughout this area.
The moment I left its range, I crashed like a drone with a dead battery.
At this rate, there was no way I could search for the Chameleon Slime. The cave where the slime lived was outside this domain.
But allowing myself to be dragged to Malak’s tower and turned into a test subject was even less appealing.
‘I need to become independent.’
Somehow, I had to obtain a power source of my own.
As I pondered the problem, the Orc Skeleton cautiously held something out to me.
Thrust.
‘Huh?’
Resting on its rough palm was a dark-red crystal about the size of my thumb.
Its light was murky, but I could clearly sense the faint mana within it.
‘This is...’
[Low-Grade Magic Stone: Black Hound]
[Contains a small amount of mana.]
It had undoubtedly come from the corpse of the Black Hound leader I had killed earlier.
Magic stones were crystals of mana that formed near a monster’s heart.
They were normally used as a source of income, but right now, this one was more precious to me than anything else.
‘You saved this? For me?’
Nod! Nod!
The Orc Skeleton puffed out its chest with pride.
What a thoughtful fellow.
I accepted the magic stone without hesitation.
‘I’ll gladly take it.’
I closed my hand around the magic stone and squeezed.
The hard crystal instantly vaporized and seeped into the bones of my palm.
Hiss...
A refreshing sensation spread through my dry bones, as though every joint were being filled with moisture.
[Absorbing mana from the Low-Grade Magic Stone.]
[Mana remaining: 3% → 11%]
Now I finally felt alive again.
Eleven percent.
It was nowhere near enough, but it would allow me to move around for the time being.
This still wasn’t a fundamental solution, however. I couldn’t survive indefinitely by constantly picking up and consuming magic stones.
Right—magic stones.
Crystals of mana found inside monsters.
If I could use one as a power source, I could move without relying on the Necromancer’s mana supply.
However, magic stones from weak monsters like Black Hounds were no better than disposable batteries.
What I needed was a sustainable, high-output battery.
Something like Iron Man’s Arc Reactor.
‘I need to change my plan.’
My plan to find the Chameleon Slime, disguise myself as a human, and gather information would have to be postponed.
I would collapse before I even reached the edge of the forest.
In my mind, I unfolded the world map of Dungeon & Empire.
I remembered a dungeon situated precariously close to the boundary of Malak’s domain.
[Abandoned Mine: Nest of the Forgotten Golems]
It was a farming area that players in their early teens visited after completing the tutorial.
The place was crawling with golems—artificial life-forms powered by mana.
Embedded within every golem’s chest was a Mana Core, a semipermanent power source.
What if I stole a golem’s core and transplanted it into my rib cage?
‘In theory, it should work.’
My body itself would function like a golem, meaning I would no longer have to depend on the Necromancer’s Wi-Fi signal.
‘And there’s an exploitable route inside that mine.’
In Dungeon & Empire, the mine was considered abandoned content.
The reason was simple.
Its experience efficiency was atrocious, and most of its dropped items were little more than chunks of rock.
For someone like me, it was an especially terrible location.
Golems didn’t have bones!
Why would I waste my precious time in a place that didn’t drop a single bone fragment?
That was why I had never personally farmed inside the dungeon.
However, I had always read strategy forums thoroughly. There was no telling when that information might become useful.
Area Three in particular had been nicknamed the “Minefield” by players.
If I wanted to reach the deepest part of the mine with this fragile skeleton body, I would have no choice but to exploit that area.
My gaze shifted away from the direction of the mine entrance and toward the place where the earlier battle had occurred.
I should be able to salvage useful equipment from the items dropped by the human soldiers and the remains of the goblins.
‘Good. Let’s go.’
The moment I jumped to my feet, the Orc Skeleton flinched and grabbed me around the waist.
It seemed worried that I might collapse again.
‘I know, you idiot. I’m not going to die this time. I’m just going to gather some supplies first.’
I removed its hands and headed deeper into the forest.
A short while later, I had collected two old torches abandoned by the soldiers, a piece of flint, and some dried resin stuck beneath the bark of nearby ancient trees.
It wasn’t a bad haul.
Clatter.
The Orc Skeleton tilted its head, apparently wondering why I was collecting such things.
‘Even a cheap victory requires preparation.’
Instead of explaining, I waved a hand and turned toward the mine.
My objective was set.
It was roughly two kilometers to the edge of Malak’s mana range.
From there, the entrance to the golem mine was another eight hundred meters away.
The problem was those final eight hundred meters.
Based on my calculations, the eleven percent mana supplied by the magic stone would last for only about forty minutes.
Within those forty minutes, I had to enter the mine, defeat a golem, steal its core, and complete the transplant.
‘It’ll be tight, but it isn’t impossible.’
I had cleared hundreds of time-attack dungeons in the game.
Back then, all I had needed to do was move a keyboard and mouse quickly.
This time, I would have to throw my entire body into it.
That was the only difference.
Now that my preparations were complete, I should be able to shorten the required time even further.
I began running through the forest.