The Ruined Death Knight

"What are you waiting for? Let's go!" Shiro urged Danzel with clear excitement in her voice.

Danzel could imagine where her thoughts were going. If they were houses there, that also meant that there were natives there.

Alas, he did remember that a village smoking was no sign of some celebration or festival of any sort.

"I wouldn't be so fast to get excited, Shiro." Danzel said in his cold voice.

"Why?" Shiro turned towards Danzel confused.

"..." Danzel stared at the small smoking village and drew his sword out of his scabbard.

"For now let's go and see what this place offers..." Danzel said while talking down the mountain.

Shiro stared at his ominous sword for a moment before walking behind him with both Koji and Niyuki.

...

The two took almost half an hour to walk done the rough path of the mountain.

The 4 of them rushed towards the village, though for Danzel, it was more him trying to match the speed of his two living armors.

Koji held Shiro in his arm while running at their top speed.

Thanks to Shiro's clothing made by the haired buffalo and Koji's arm having the fur of the white wolf, it was partly uncomfortable for Shiro to touch their ice-cold armor.

And once they arrived just about 300 meters away from the village, Danzel halted and looked down the snow, just to see large foot marks that couldn't have been done by a human.

'The shape suggests that the natives are humanoid, though only larger...'

"Shiro, be prepared to use your magic." Danzel said with a serious voice.

He knew by experience, that most of the time, bigger meant stronger. At least that was attribute-wise. Various beings had different attribute multipliers that had clear differences from others.

In a way, Danzel was one of them.

While humans do also get to improve their race talent and increase their attribute multiplier, Danzel as a [Mythic Undead] would always be superior to someone that has the same amount of attributes and doesn't have the multiplier to catch up to him.

Of course, attributes didn't specifically result in one's whole strength, but it was a large part of it.

And for those footprints alone, Danzel could guess that the natives were physically strong.

Of course, Shiro had other worries.

"Are you going to... kill them?" Shiro said while looking at Danzel's ominous sword.

"Maybe...though, let's first see what is happening." Danzel said as they walked towards the village at moderate speed just in case they might the natives might see them dashing towards them as a threat.

After walking for a few minutes and coming in front of the village, the first thing they came to notice was blood staining the snow and humanoid bodies that had half their bodies crashed with a few arms and legs spread around.

"W-What happend here...?" Shiro mumbled in shock upon the sight.

She was only slightly disturbed by the state of many bodies. She was already used to seeing them as her grandfather, and Agares supported their living by being a mercenary.

Danzel in turn shook his head.

'Such a mess... would even [Undead Reconstruction] even work on such bodies?' Danzel thought like a necromancer would do.

With Shiro attempting necromancy and he himself needing some bodies to carve his greater runes, they would be in need of bodies.

'I will take a look later, but for now...'

"Let's go find those natives first." Danzel said to the group.

Shiro together with Koji and Niyuki followed behind Danzel.

Entering the village, Danzel scanned the buildings, and if he could frown he would.

'The buildings are quite small for the size of the footprint of before.'

That meant that there were two possible cases.

One, the race of the natives was relatively big-footed but still as tall as a human. That wasn't impossible as he remembered that dwarfs despite their height, had quite muscular and large legs.

Though Danzel doubted that to be the case.

He found the second outcome to be more likely the case.

That being...

"Raiders." Danzel spoke out loud, as he sensed 3 presences nearby.

"Raiders? What is that?" Shiro asked confused, unaware of what it meant.

Taking a turn of their path, the three presences that Danzel sensed were in front of them.

The owners of the three presences had huge and muscular bodies, with pale blueish skin with several tattoos painted on their bodies. They had a clear humanoid body structure and the only thing that they wore was a piece of leather covering their legs and private parts.

Their heads matched their body's volume, though they had a strong jaw, and sharp teeth, with a pair of tusks growing from their mouth.

One of them in particular held someone that looked like a human but also not by his leg, raising him on top of his mouth.

And as the mouth of the one with the tusk opened-

*Cracked~!

It closed down and devoured 1/3 of the body of the human alike, crashing his head by chewing inside his mouth, resulting in bathing the tusked one in warm blood, while drinking the same blood at the same time.

"Ahhh, such warm meat, It seems that I have forgotten the taste of those cattle." The one bathed by blood said with a rough voice as he licked the blood around his face.

Seeing that, Shiro faces paled even more behind her mask, despite her already pale skin.

Though, Danzel couldn't help but see familiarity in those tusked beings.

Or rather, those guys were almost the spitting image of someone he knew for quite some time.

Their muscular body.

The pair of tusks.

And eating others like some kind of savage.

If he were not to count the tattoos on his body.

They were almost the splitting image of Sartan, the High Troll.

Well...

Almost.

"R-Rue..." Shiro whispered as he got close to Danzel's leg, trying to hide from them.

Alas, her whisper was heard by the keen senses of the tusked ones.

"Hmm? Taraka, look." One of the other tusk ones pointed at the 4 of them.

The one bathed in blood turned his gaze and stared fiercely at first at the 4 before his stare turned to one of confusion.

"Living bones? What are those weak things doing here?" The tusked one dropped the partly eaten body to the ground and picked a wooden mace that had spikes of metal. Identifying Shiro and Danzel as skeletons.

His gaze went towards Koji and Niyuki.

"Though the two of you look stronger than those bunch." The one bathed in blood said as he stepped forward.

"You will have a nice meal after all." He said as a fierce aura came out of his body, tightening his muscles and bulging them, tremendously increasing his strength.

Seeing that, Danzel stepped forward.

Seeing that, the blood bathed on their frown before his frown turned into anger.

"You dare mock me, Taraka, by letting one living bones to face me!? I kill you!!!" He yelled as he dashed towards Danzel, the ground where he was standing cracking by his seer strength.

"I will take my time eating the both of you!" Taraka said as he swung his mace towards Danzel sideways with enormous.

*Ting!!!!!

Though, Danzel only raised his sword and received the swing, resulting in Taraka's mace fiber as if hit something indestructible.

"Slow..." Danzel said with a cold voice, as his death aura came out of his body, making Tarakas every single sense scream to get away and to run away.

Though before he could, Danzel swung through the air in front of Taraka.

"You-!"

"And weak." Danzel said as a dark green wind blade cut through Taraka's body at a speed that the other two tusked ones barely managed to see it.

Taraka's whole body froze in place, but in the next moment, half of his body was cut horizontally and fell to the ground. Lifeless.

Spraying Danzel's armor and sword with bits of blood.

Though, the dead mana he was releasing quickly made the blood decay and disappear.

"Compare to him...you guys are weak." Danzel said with an ice cold voice as his flaring eyes stared at the 2 tusked ones.

"Is it because you are ice trolls and high trolls?" Danzel mumbled to himself as he gave Koji and Niyuki an internal command.

'Kill them, but don't activate the runes of your swords. They are too weak for that.'

The two nodded and dashed almost instantly towards the two ice trolls, one used an axe, and the other another mace.

Though the speed of the two was proven to be far superior to those ice trolls. Koji uses the length of his odachi-like sword to inflict long cuts while being relatively safe, whereas Niyuki was way more aggressive than Koji.

Making the effort to get closer and inflict devastating cuts with his flamberge sword.

The ice trolls stood no chance against those two.

Once Danzel was sure that their victory was determined, he used [Eyes of the Damned] to see if anyone else remained in the village.

He saw a total of 4 remaining large lights, which he guessed were other ice trolls.

But what gained his attention, was that one of those lights was chasing 3 other lights.

'They will get out of range of [Eyes of the Damned]' He sighted internally as he stared at Koji and Niyuki who just won.

"You two, protect Shiro. I will be going for a short." Danzel said, making Shiro's eyes open wide.

"Rue...where are you going?" She asked, her voice betraying how anxious she was, despite her mask hiding her facial expression.

Danzel stared at her for a moment before explaining.

"With the advantage ability that I am trying to teach you, I saw what I believe to be the natives. I will go and bring them here. The two...Koji and Niyuki should be enough to protect you."

Danzel said before turning his back to her, without letting her respond.

"If something happens...scream as loud as you can, and I will come." Danzel said as he turned into mist, and traveled toward the location of the small lights.