The Ruined Death Knight

After having Shiro eat the unseasoned meat of the haired buffalo, Danzel went ahead to see how he should go and repair Koji and Niyuki.

First, he had to decide what pieces of armor would suit them. Which was one of the few problems.

Compared to weapons which are slim in nature, armor pieces take much more space in Danzel storage rings. Sure, he had two, but even then, he didn't have a large collection of armor in his possession compared to the weapon.

That was the main reason why he had to butcher the haired buffalo in the first place and separate the suppose eatable meat and his leather.

He essentially had saved around 5 armor sets in the storage ring that Velkir gave him as a gift with the books. He mainly had them to carve runes and in times of need wear them.

The former option didn't need lots of armor as he had the [Death Rune Removal], which worked for most of his work without damaging the armor, while the latter rarely happend...

But as he had now the talent [Armor of the Death Knight], he had no need to worry about repairs as his armor bound itself in his body. So the need for hoarding armor like a goblin has lessened.

Which brought him to the second problem, the quality of the armor pieces.

The previous armors that made the body of Koji and Niyuki were ones with barely a few scratches, but the 5 armor arms in front of him had some holes and even the helmets had a few dents.

He originally was going to pick what would fit them best, but Shiro started suggesting which ones he should even if they weren't optimal.

Though Danzel decided to play along, he mainly gave those two as some kind of emotional support for Shiro anyway so that she gets distracted in front of her bleak situation.

She chose two armor hands with quite a few amount of holes and chose 2 helmets that he got from 3rd-tier experts from Berum.

They looked the same except for how one of them had a large sideways to the opening of the mouth and the other helmet near the eye.

Suggesting that one of them had a sword pushed to one's throat and the other one through his eyes...

Those were past victims of Danzel.

Shiro gave the mouth-damaged helmet to Koji and the one-eye-damaged helmet to Niyuki.

After all those unnecessary steps, Danzel went ahead and tried "repair" the runes, which mostly was a much easier process than he expect. The hard part was when the new and old runes had to be carved together as the latter resisted and the former.

Making the mana flow that Danzel was channeling quite chaotic.

If he had to describe it, it was like creating a new arm for someone and trying to make the body accept the arm.

And as runesmithing was a delicate manner of mana and symbols, the resistance was as annoying as it was fresh, which he eventually learned to bypass rather easily after getting used to it.

'If it was a few years back, I can imagine myself scratching my skull with this.' Danzel thought internally as he finished the runes of both Koji and Niyuki.

Their arms and helmets shook for a while, before gaining full control of their new "limbs"

"That took longer than I expected..." Danzel.

"Hey Rue, I got an idea for their arms..." Shiro said while pointing at the holes in the living armor.

After hearing her suggestion, Danzel sighted internally before bringing out the white-furred wolf and butchering it similar to the haired buffalo.

Storing the meat, Danzel took the fur of it and placed it around the new arm of Koji and used the bones to pierce through the fur inside the holes of the armor and shape it into a hook of both sides and tighten up.

He did the same with Niyuki, but only with haired buffalos leather instead.

The end result was of white-armed Koji and a brown-armed Niyuki.

"They look great!" Shiro said while clapping her hands.

'How did she even come up with this...' That was what Danzel thought.

In his opinion, he should have used both the haired buffalos' leather as it was much sturdier than the wolf's fur.

But oh well...

"You two -"

"Koji and Niyuki."

"Yes...you can choose one sword that you like the most." Danzel said while pulling all kinds of alchemic swords, that Azrael had supplied him.

Compared to armors, he had all kinds of different swords as the space required for them was much less and he most needed them for both his undead and runesmithing.

Koji surprisingly took one of the few rare ones, a large sword that resembled an odachi.

It was a sword that he requested Azrael specifically so that he can practice hir runes on Agare's sword. As he found the sword of Agares quite weird to carve at.

As the sword was as big as Agare's one, it was much easier to see how many runes would fit or not before going and carving runes on Agare's sword.

Niyuki, in turn, took much longer to decide what to choose and it would stare at the swords and then at him continuously.

It was to the point that Danzel thought that he couldn't process the order containing his preference, but once Niyuki looked at the sword that Koji choose, he ended up picking a flamberge that he had ages ago.

There was a time when Danzel experimented with other types of long swords to see if something will suit him better, and the flamberge was of the few he requested Azrael to make so that he can see if it fits him.

He still remembered the bandit that wielded this weapon and he still find it enough. But after trying it, he quickly gave up on it as it was awkward to use against armor, though it slashed the flesh quite easily.

The flamberge was a bit shorter than the "odachi" of Koji, but it was still relative a long sword.

He then went ahead and removed the old runes of the swords and instead he carved the [Rune of Þolian Repent] on each of them.

After seeing the power that the soul gave to a weapon, he was interested to see how far the effect would extend for a "weaker" soul. Or rather, something that was much weaker than an Archmage.

"Activate the runes when you kill something that is capable of magic." Danzel ordered those two.

'Though I would also need to test it on someone that is strong but doesn't know of magic to see how it will affect the sword. Also, erasing the rune while a soul is still trapped might be a thought worth considering...' Danzel thought, suddenly realizing why the status allowed him to gain the [Soul Torturer] talent.

Afterward, he also carved a few basic runes such as making the swords more durable, and even sequenced some in the body of the two.

During the time he was doing that, Shiro was absorbed in reading the book quickly.

Once she noticed he had finished, she made the fact that she started to feel hungry.

Brining the meat out and piercing it at his spear, the mana arms slowly rotated the meat, while Danzel put in front of him one of the ribs of the haired buffalo and shaped it like a mask in order to protect her face from snow.

At first, he shaped it with just 3 big "o" holes, 2 for the eyes and one for the mouth, but Shiro complained about being weird, making Danzel feel annoyed.

"Would you rather like your face to be hit by snow every time a storm comes or wear the mask?" Danzel said with a harsh and cold tone, taking Shiro slightly back.

"C-Can't you make the mask a bit more...artistic? Like the face of some kind of animal?" She asked while stuttering her words.

Danzel groaned internally, before shaping the bone mask to the most familiar animal he knew. A wolf with only two holes in her eyes. He made the mask in a Y shape and intentionally not made a hole for the mouth so that she wouldn't complain all the time.

He then stood up and walked behind her and pulled the hood down, revealing her long white hair, one that reminded him of Vanessa, the dark elf that spew dark flames from her hands.

"H-Hey! What are you doing!?" She complained.

"Quit..." He didn't care.

He then made several small holes in the hood and the mask, connecting the two with small rings out of bones.

He then forcefully pulled the hood up, making the mask to be in front of her face.

"Hmm... it isn't firm enough." Danzel mumbled as he channel his mana in the bone mask to shape it.

He extended 2 flat bones to press against each of her cheeks, making the mask more secure and not easily shaken off.

But as he was about to call it a well-done job, he suddenly remember the horns that Agares grew.

"Right, do you have any horns on your head?" Danzel asked while moving his head to the side and his hands crossed together.

"Ehm...yeah? Wait, how do you know about my horns." Shiro answered by reflex before the question dawned on her.

"I saw Agares growing a pair while fighting in the tower, now show me."

"Wait-"

He didn't wait, he pulled her hood and mask up and touched her head. Just extorting a portion of his strength could crash her whole head, and Shiro realized it the moment her head was gripped, making her freeze completely.

Danzel pushed a few strains of hair till he felt two hard places on her head. And there he saw 2 small dark and white horns which barely came out.

He then pulled the mask down and made two other much smaller holes where her horns were so that if they grow up, the mask wouldn't disturb them.

"Alright, that should do it, for now, I think..." Danzel said while sitting back opposite her.

Shiro stared at him as she was about to curse at him and cry at the same time.

"Don't do this again..."

Danzel in turn shrugged.

"I made the mask that it pushed at your face firmly enough to not shake and not to be too incomparable. And the small holes there is an opening enough for your horns to feel less pressure...and precocious if they grow." Danzel said.

"They won't grow...at least not yet." Shiro complained.

"Well, I don't know what your race is capable of. I never heard of a race with accelerated regeneration with horns on their head, while also looking very much... human-like." Danzel said while staring at her with his flaring ethereal eyes.

"Are you willing to enlight me of what your race is?"