The cold night wind swept across the royal graveyard as Lionel pulled his black cloak tighter around his body.
Moonlight illuminated rows upon rows of stone graves.
Silent.
Still.
Dead.
Lionel stood at the rusted gate staring at the cemetery like a man visiting old friends.
"…Damn," he muttered. "This place smells like depression."
[It's a graveyard, genius. What did you expect? Roses and happiness?]
Lionel ignored the system and stepped forward.
The rusty gate creaked open.
The moment he entered, the temperature dropped sharply.
A faint layer of dark mist covered the ground.
Even the insects were silent.
Normal people would feel fear entering a place like this at midnight.
Lionel felt excitement.
His crimson eyes scanned the graves carefully.
Nobles.
Knights.
Retired adventurers.
Forgotten soldiers.
Fresh corpses.
Old corpses.
Rich corpses.
Poor corpses.
To Lionel?
All of them were future employees.
[Host mindset evaluation updated.]
[Current Mentality: Criminal Necrophiliac Entrepreneur.]
"…That sounds illegal."
[Because it IS illegal.]
Lionel smirked.
"Good."
He walked deeper into the graveyard until he reached the older burial area near the forest.
Broken gravestones.
Collapsed statues.
Neglected tombs.
Perfect.
No guards came here.
No priests either.
Lionel crouched beside an old grave.
The name on the stone had almost faded.
Sir Roland Veckhart.
Former Royal Knight.
Lionel's smile widened slightly.
He remembered this man.
A minor knight from the original timeline.
Died protecting civilians during a monster outbreak.
A decent man.
Strong too.
"…You won't mind borrowing your bones for a while, right?"
[That is NOT how consent works.]
Lionel ignored the system again.
He placed his hand over the grave.
Dark mana slowly spread from his palm like black veins crawling across the soil.
Cold wind exploded outward.
The mist around the cemetery thickened.
Then—
Pain.
Lionel's body suddenly trembled violently.
"Ghk—!"
Dark energy surged through his veins like molten ice.
His heart pounded painfully.
The mana inside his body became unstable instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILL ACTIVATED
☠ Raise Skeleton – Lv 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The ground shook.
Cracks spread across the grave.
Lionel gritted his teeth as black smoke poured from his hand.
"Come on…"
The soil suddenly burst open.
A pale skeletal hand emerged from the grave.
Then another.
Bones slowly dragged themselves upward from the dirt.
A skull with glowing blue flames inside its eye sockets stared directly at Lionel.
The skeleton moved stiffly.
Weakly.
Pathetically.
Then it fully climbed out of the grave and stood before him.
Silence.
The skeleton tilted its head.
Lionel stared back.
"…You look like shit."
The skeleton rattled slightly.
[You look like a sleep-deprived prostitute.]
"Fair point."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FIRST UNDEAD CREATED
Name: Unnamed Skeleton
Rank: F
Condition: Extremely Fragile
Description: One solid kick can end his career.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel's eyebrow twitched.
"…That's disrespectful."
[It's accurate.]
The skeleton continued staring blankly at him.
Then suddenly—
CLACK.
Its left arm fell off.
Lionel: "…Bro."
[HAHAHAHAHAHA!]
[YOUR FIRST SOLDIER IS FALLING APART!]
[THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING.]
Lionel picked the arm up from the ground and shoved it back into place.
"…Get your life together."
The skeleton saluted.
Its arm fell off again immediately.
Silence.
Then Lionel burst out laughing.
A real laugh this time.
Not cold.
Not hateful.
Just genuine disbelief.
"This thing is terrible."
[Correction.]
[This thing is YOUR terrible.]
Lionel wiped his face while laughing softly.
For the first time since returning to the past…
The crushing pressure in his chest eased slightly.
Maybe because this felt real now.
Not a dream.
Not madness.
He truly had another chance.
The skeleton suddenly froze.
Blue flames flickered violently inside its eye sockets.
Then—
It pointed toward the forest.
Lionel's expression changed instantly.
"…What?"
Death Sense activated automatically.
His instincts screamed.
Someone was nearby.
Watching him.
Lionel's smile disappeared.
Slowly—
A figure emerged from the darkness between the trees.
Tall.
Covered in a black cloak.
Silver mask.
Dangerous aura.
Lionel's eyes narrowed sharply.
The masked figure looked at the skeleton…
Then at Lionel.
"…Necromancy."
A female voice.
Cold.
Calm.
"And here I thought the rumors were fake."
Lionel's heartbeat slowed.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
Because he knew exactly who this woman was.
And according to the original timeline—
She was never supposed to meet him this early.