The undead retreated under water, leaving only a dark spot where he had stood.
He wasn’t a rabid beast, he could bid his time and come back later, before making any decision on his next course of action, he would try and clear the other two ways of their fake flesh growths.
He seemed to be walking a little bit faster now, or rather, the weightlessness he felt in water wasn’t quite as pronounced as when he had first stepped into it.
Arriving back amidst his fellow undeads just a little bit faster thanks to this, he instantly went to work, this task too appeared to be going smoother than before.
Whilst fighting the ever growing flesh, he brought up the purple panel, feeling like it might have something to do with the sudden improvements.
Certainly enough, a previously empty spot now had a few things written in it.
The skill section had multiple sub-parts but for now, only the first, nameless one was filled.
Considering what Loimos had noticed improvements on, the skills he saw made perfect sense, there were even a few skills he had obtained but hadn’t noticed anything when partaking in the related activity.
Climbing, moving underwater, ripping apart and sneaking around to mention the most prominent ones.
Even though the other two ways were obstructed by much more of the fleshy substances, doing it for long enough would guarantee that he would eventually reach his goal.
The distant falling of debris now seemed much less frequent, the sound of the zombies and skeletons were inadvertently making seemed much more prominent as well.
Just as he was about to begin with one of the two paths, the undeads all stopped dead in their tracks, as though a switch had just been flipped, they all moved directly toward the Loimos, or rather, toward the wall he was facing.
Instantly, they put their weak bodies to work and began to tear the false flesh apart, clawing and biting at it.
With their assistance, the entirety of the path was cleared in little time, at least, little time for a bunch of undeads without clocks.
Moving some rocks, the faint lighting of the room allowed them to see what was hidden behind, this path got smaller and smaller, ending with a dead end.
Resting against the wall of this dead end, was another undead, which rose to its feet the instant it realised a way out had opened.
Unlike Loimos and the rest, which could seem to all be coming from human remains or something of similar build, this one was much larger, nearly two meters tall with thick bones.
Pieces of petrified muscles and bits of dry skin still stuck to it in certain places, its skull had a distinct shape, somewhat elongated toward the back.
Its lower jaw wasn’t holding on as it should anymore, hanging loosely.
He arrived on the shore, there was no sand on this part, only humid grass, which had been flattened by the repeated passages of various goblins doing the same thing as him over the years.
It was a surprise grass even persisted to grow here.
He could see the reflection of the dim sun up above, making for a beautiful sight.
’I should take her here during the night, I am sure she’ll love it’ smiling by himself as he got lost in reveries, he shook his head and prepared for the first filling of the buckets.
Something moved in the water.
"Mmh? Someone here?" he spoke aloud, he could have just assumed it was a fish or something, but for some reason, he instantly believed that it was someone else.
Maybe the way it sounded reminded him of when he went for a swim himself, or perhaps he unconsciously caught a sight of a figure standing upright.
The night was dark but not the darkest it could get, with the water reflecting some of the light, he felt confident that someone wouldn’t be able to hide very well in the lake.
"Need some help?"
"No?" he grew a bit scared, his mind running wild with multiple possibilities, most completely improbable.
He backed off from the edges of the water, grasping both of the buckets with only one hand, he pulled out a knife made of stone from the beast pelt tied around his waist.
"You better not be trying to be funny, I’ll seriously stab you!" he warned in the dead of night, it would be a shame if some joke ended in bloodshed.
Puffing his chest and standing as tall as he could, he knew that if something was lurking around, appearing stronger than you did could dissuade it.
He hadn’t gotten the pelt he was wearing by sitting back and lazing around.
’Huh? What’s this?’ his gaze landing on something in the water.
It had been standing there for gods know how long, it had been remaining so still that it had merged into the surroundings perfectly.
With the light coming from behind it, he couldn’t tell for sure what it was, but the fact that streaks of light could somehow pass through its body freaked him out beyond comprehension.
Raising his arms aggressively, he slowly backed off, not wanting any sort of business with whatever this thing was.
It remained perfectly still nonetheless.