My Skeleton Soldier Is Strange - Chapter 46

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 46
In the next instant, I collapsed to my knees.
“What… what is this?”
Ye-jin, who had received no explanation, rushed toward me in alarm.
Unlike usual, I wasn’t trying to tease her, but I couldn’t explain even if I wanted to.
[Absorbing power…]
The system had completely locked down my body’s movements!
I was crushed by a force far more intense than when Apep had pressed down on me earlier. This time, I couldn’t even produce a sound.
[Strength increased by 1!]
[Vitality increased by 1!]
⋮
Messages continued to flood my vision endlessly. Each one, impossibly, was a stat increase!
‘Can they really distribute power like this?’
I had experienced it a few times, but stat increases were not something one typically encountered.
At most, during the first class advancement, one or two stats corresponding to the job would rise. Everything else was hidden events, and the methods to even receive such event quests were traded at exorbitant prices.
But I…
‘When I first obtained the Overlord class, I received stat increases too… but this isn’t an additional class advancement, it’s just an event.’
I wasn’t currently undergoing a first-class advancement event. I had simply stumbled upon an event related to my original class.
And furthermore.
[Possessed Skill: Skeleton Soldier Summoning evolves.]
[You can now summon a total of two skeleton soldiers.]
After the storm of stat increases subsided, my skill evolved as well.
[Will you summon the second skeleton soldier?]
And finally, the force that had been crushing me vanished.
“Second skeleton soldier, summon.”
My tone was uncharacteristically irritable. After being crushed by power consecutively, a burning desire to grow stronger surged through me.
“W-what’s happening? A second skeleton soldier?”
“My skill was enhanced.”
I spoke curtly, but Ye-jin understood and gasped in astonishment.
She had been shocked more than once by Dercan, whom I had summoned.
Every time she tried to adapt, I evolved again, so she had grown accustomed to reacting so frequently that sometimes she felt like a machine programmed to express surprise.
‘But another skeleton soldier at the same level as Dercan is being summoned?’
[A special incantation will be automatically vocalized to summon the second skeleton soldier.]
I chanted the incantation to summon the second skeleton soldier. I wasn’t singing.
Soon, my voice resonated, vibrating the air around me. As the incantation reached its crescendo, darkness suddenly engulfed everything. A pitch-black night sky swallowed all existence.
Within the darkness, only I radiated a crimson glow. The obsidian darkness tried to consume me, but my intense aura was powerful enough to devour even the darkness itself. Like a solitary red candle burning in the void, I emitted light without wavering.
Around me, the melody of the incantation echoed once more. The power emanating from my voice vibrated the air, creating ripples.
At that very moment, a single point of crimson light bloomed from my body as if cutting through the darkness with a blade. The darkness trembled and retreated from that radiant center.
Gradually, the form of an object began to reveal itself, centered around that luminescence.
[The coffin of the second skeleton soldier is summoned.]
It was an ancient sarcophagus. The coffin bore a rough surface that mimicked the texture of aged wood. Deep fissures and gouges carried the full weight of countless centuries.
The hiss of serpents whispered ceaselessly at the edge of hearing, seeping from within the stone casket. It was a growl laden with pure malice. Vengeance resonated through that voice, and madness lingered in every note.
―Thoom… Thoom….
The air surrounding the coffin rippled, and a dark violet mist began to coalesce and rise.
The way it writhed—as though drawing breath itself—sent chills cascading down my spine.
A peculiar odor permeated the air.
“Ugh.”
Ye-jin let out a soft groan at the sight. The blatantly ominous atmosphere seemed to unsettle her deeply.
And as for me.
‘Why does it have to be so grandiose?’
When I first summoned Dercan, there was nothing like this. Blood-red mist simply appeared, and he materialized without ceremony.
A coffin? What was this supposed to be? Dercan had never required one—not on his first summoning, not now. The skill was “Summon Legendary Skeletal Soldier,” not “Summon Legendary Skeletal Soldier in a Coffin.”
‘At this rate, next time I’ll probably summon an entire graveyard.’
My thoughts spiraled endlessly. And for good reason.
―Creeeeak.
Only now was the coffin lid finally beginning to open.
―Creeeeeeak.
The coffin opened at a glacial pace—if this happened every time I summoned him….
―Creeeeeeeeak.
“Should I just smash it?”
I was serious. Unless this was some new self-destructive skill designed to burst my own patience before the enemy even arrived, there was no excuse for this.
As the lid swung open, the mist erupted with far greater intensity.
The surge of energy from the darkness consumed everything around it.
―Shhhhhhh.
‘Apep, you were right.’
I swallowed the urge to set the mist ablaze on the spot.
A powerful, dark force was awakening.
Through the haze, white bone began to materialize.
“Finally!”
Ye-jin cried out from beside me. It seemed my frustration was not mine alone.
But what emerged from that coffin was.
Bone—yellowed and fractured.
That’s right. Not a “skeletal soldier,” but mere “bone.”
The bone moved slowly, gradually taking on the form of a skull.
A pristine cranium appeared first.
Empty eye sockets blazed with an eerie blue luminescence.
The lifeless jawbone began to clatter and move.
Serpentine skeletal coils rose and wrapped around the skull’s frame.
The razor-sharp bone structures merged with the skull, creating a grotesque amalgamation.
Venomous fangs clattered against one another with a sickening clang.
“Hey, if you don’t finish summoning right now, I’m leaving you behind.”
―Clatter-clatter-clatter!
In that instant, the bones that had been assembling leisurely suddenly began clicking together with urgent haste.
[The Ancient Dark Sorcerer Arulan is revived by the Overlord’s power.]
Upon seeing the message, both Jae-beom and Ye-jin thought the same thing simultaneously.
‘So he really was intentionally summoning himself slowly…?’
Though they still had no idea what kind of being he was, both Jae-beom and Ye-jin had already grown to dislike Arulan.
Genuinely.
* * *
The second skeletal soldier, Arulan.
Arulan, who had once served as an ancient dark sorcerer,
‘Ancient?’
To Jae-beom’s knowledge, there were no NPCs classified as “ancient beings” in Evern Online. In Evern Online, “ancient” existed only as part of the world’s lore and setting.
―Tap… tap….
“If you don’t want to die, walk faster. You’re not even at the level cap.”
―Tap-tap-tap-tap!
There was no excuse about being a sorcerer and walking slowly. Jae-beom and Ye-jin’s patience had already dwindled to nearly zero.
“Huh, so you’re a sorcerer?”
He wondered why a “soldier” would be a sorcerer, but if he was part of an ancient mage battalion, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
While Arulan summoned himself at that glacial pace, Jae-beom examined his form carefully.
The robe was ancient and tattered in places, with sections falling away. Between the fabric fluttering in the wind, white bone repeatedly appeared and disappeared.
Even from the face concealed by the worn cloth, bone fragments occasionally gleamed. Empty eye sockets burned with an eerie light in the darkness.
‘Worn as it is, the robe itself seems like a decent item.’
The robe, saturated with the essence of sorcery, seemed to writhe as if alive and breathing. Through occasional tears, ancient scrolls and old tomes peeked out before vanishing again. He appeared to be adorned with artifacts imbued with ancient magic across his entire form.
In his hand was gripped a staff of corroded, rusted lattice design. The staff, embedded with a crystal orb, radiated an intense presence even in the darkness as it caught the light.
“….”
For a brief moment, Jae-beom considered prying off that crystal and embedding it in his own staff, but abandoned the thought.
He had no desire to be swept up in something catastrophic again while enhancing items. Since Arulan was a legendary-tier skeletal soldier, that crystal likely came with some grandiose lore attached to it.
―Click… clack.
Then Arulan’s jaw clattered.
―New… master.
“Hmm.”
And he spoke in a slow but distinct voice. Upon hearing it, Ye-jin simply accepted that this skeleton was no ordinary soldier, but Jae-beom’s thoughts diverged.
“Hey.”
―Mas… ter?
“You’re a sorcerer, aren’t you.”
―Yes… I am.
“Then you need to cast spells too—is it really okay to speak so disjointedly like that?”
―…When casting… automatic incantation.
From Arulan’s skeletal visage came an unmistakable aura of ‘Is that really your first concern?’
“Tch.”
The sluggish summoning already irritated me, and his manner of speech was no better than Dercan’s. I’d expected more from a mage, but this seemed to be a matter of sheer ability.
―Thud!
At that moment, Arulan slowly bent his body and knelt before me.
―I pledge my loyalty….
The instant his knees touched the ground, his tattered robes rustled loudly and billowed dramatically. The hem of his garment fluttered like a painting caught in the wind.
And as I watched the slow, theatrical flutter,
“Don’t drag out something like this.”
―I swear my allegiance.
Arulan finished his oath in a voice that seemed, whether by illusion or not, tinged with urgency.
“Fine. Get up.”
―Snap!
Arulan rose swiftly this time, different from before. He seemed to understand that my patience had worn thin.
‘Still, his combat prowess should be decent, right?’
Since he was the second skeletal warrior I’d summoned, he might be stronger than Dercan, or perhaps Dercan, who had grown steadily, might be the stronger one.
“Dercan.”
―Whoooosh. Clang!
Perhaps sensing my frustration with Arulan’s summoning process, Dercan’s appearance was remarkably swift.
He practically burst forth before the mist had even fully dissipated.
―Master….
“Good. If you’d also been slow to summon, I’d have been genuinely furious.”
―….
A satisfied expression flickered across Dercan’s face once more.
“Then.”
―Tap-tap-tap-tap!
Before I could even finish speaking, Arulan and Dercan simultaneously began walking and creating distance between themselves.
“Engage.”
―….
―….
Arulan and Dercan’s gazes met simultaneously. They seemed to be assessing each other, gauging their opponent’s full strength.
From that alone, I could tell that Dercan and Arulan didn’t know each other.
―Master… .
And then Dercan opened his mouth, looking toward me. Just as I, Arulan, and even Ye-jin turned their attention to me simultaneously.
―Hyaaaah!
Dercan charged toward Arulan!
―!
It was a move that neither Arulan nor even Ye-jin and I had anticipated.
Dercan had realized that to fight a mage, he needed to close the distance, and he’d exploited me to narrow the gap between them!
―Coward!
Arulan raised his staff a moment too late. Instead of chanting a spell, he conjured several mana spheres.
It was a technique mages employed in moments of desperation.
Yet.
“Enough.”
Jae-beom’s command cut through the space between the two skeletal soldiers.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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