After about fifteen minutes, Eric finally clawed his way out of the despair that had swallowed him.
He closed the book and placed it back exactly where he had taken it from.
He wasn't the type to mope forever — not even in undeath. If he couldn't turn back into a human, then fine. He'd settle for revenge.
His revenge… and the revenge owed to the soul whose body he now inhabited.
His dull gaze drifted to the poisoned spike lying on the floor, and a thought clicked into place.
'If this thing's meant for intruders… maybe it can kill the Warlock'
Eric crouched and picked up the spike.
He moved quietly around the room, rubbing the poisonous residue onto places a hand would naturally touch: the chair's armrest, the edge of the table, the drawer handle, the spot beside the lamp.
Each smear shimmered faintly in the dim, bluish glow — easy to miss unless you knew exactly what you were looking for.
'Good. Lighting's terrible in here. Perfect for murder,' he thought, spreading it thin with the precision of someone applying paint… or butter.
(He briefly wondered if the warlock preferred salty or unsalted death, but decided it didn't matter.)
When he finished, he slid the spike behind a bookshelf, hiding the evidence.
'He touches any of this, it'll stick to his hands. Then he'll eat something, scratch his face, pick his nose — whatever weird thing he does — and that'll be the end of him.'
Eric gave the room one last look, taking in the quiet shelves, the stale scent of rot mixed with old ink, and the dim, cold glow from the stone in the corner. Everything looked undisturbed again, exactly as it should.
Satisfied, he slipped out and made his way back to his cell.
He eased the cell door shut behind him and lowered himself to the floor beside the other zombie.
'Now I wait,' he thought.
The next day passed without incident.
The warlock returned from wherever he had slithered off to, looking just as irritable and exhausted as always, and barked out his usual commands.
The zombies obeyed without question, shuffling back to the mines to haul whatever materials he needed.
The pattern repeated itself again the following day, and then the day after. Three days of perfect routine, perfect silence, and absolutely no sign that the poison had done anything at all.
By the end of the second day, Eric had begun to doubt the entire plan. Maybe the poison dried out too quickly.
Maybe the warlock was simply too twisted to die from something as normal as poison. The longer nothing happened, the more those doubts gnawed at him.
On the third morning, the hunched old man shuffled in at his usual time, cane tapping sharply against the stone floor. His face looked as sour as ever—wrinkled, pinched, and permanently offended by the existence of everything around him.
"Go and mine, sla—"
His voice cracked, sharp and sudden.
He froze in place.
A faint tremor crept through his arm, then spread across his shoulders like a shiver of something breaking loose beneath the skin. For a heartbeat he simply stood there, rigid and confused.
Then—
"Guh—!"
His whole body lurched. He staggered forward, fingers clawing desperately at his chest as if trying to rip something out of it.
The cane slipped from his grasp and clattered loudly across the stone floor just as he collapsed to his knees, choking on a wet, bubbling sound that barely resembled breath.
The first cough tore out of him like a rupture. A spray of dark, congealed blood splattered the stones—thick, heavy, and foul-smelling, as though it had fermented inside him for years.
He gagged, spasmed, then hacked again.
More blood spilled from his mouth, but this time it wasn't just liquid. Soft, shredded chunks of tissue slapped against the ground—stringy pieces that looked far too fresh to have come from anything dead, yet far too decayed to belong to the living.
Another convulsion wracked him, his spine arching unnaturally as more rot poured out of his throat in a choking, gurgling stream.
Eric blinked.
The scene before him was… bloody. Far bloodier than anything he'd prepared himself for.
The man toppled onto his side, legs twitching and kicking weakly like a dying insect pinned to the ground.
His fingers raked across the dirt, nails carving pale grooves into the stone as he instinctively tried to crawl away—leaving behind a smeared, glistening trail of red.
A final sound tore out of him, something caught between a scream and a strangled choke.
Then he went still.
The chamber fell silent, the kind of heavy, suffocating quiet that follows when something violent finally stops moving.
'…Holy crap. That poison is brutal, 'Eric thought, eyes fixed on the slack, twisted corpse. 'I didn't expect it to melt him from the inside.'
More importantly, the constant pressure in his skull—the invisible leash that had puppeted his every movement—vanished entirely.
He was free.
Eric stepped out of the cell. For a moment, he simply stood over the corpse. Back on Earth, touching a dead body would've sent him retching into a trash can. But now?
"I'm literally a corpse myself. Can't be picky."
He crouched without hesitation, ignoring the warm puddle spreading beneath the cloak, and began rummaging through the pockets.
His stiff fingers tugged until he freed a small leather pouch from the warlock's belt. Inside, copper and silver coins clinked together in a messy jumble.
He had no idea how much they were worth, but money was money—and considering he was a half-rotten corpse with zero worldly possessions, anything was better than nothing.
Next, he pulled out a small leather-bound notebook. The cover was stiff, tacky-dry, and unmistakably stained with old blood. Eric opened it.
Day 1 — Beauty Elixir attempt. Ratios wrong. Need more fresh young blood. Children preferred. Under ten ideal.
He turned the page.
Day 2 — Blood still weak. Must kidnap two or three more. Their screams are irritating.
Eric's jaw clenched. He shut the book immediately.
'…Yeah. Garbage.'
He tossed it aside; it hit the floor with a wet slap, sinking into a pool of blood.
Finally, his attention drifted to the staff.
If this guy was a warlock, then surely he had something interesting. Otherwise, what was even the point of being a creepy old mage? Sure enough, at the top was a black gem—polished, ominously glossy, and looking like it had opinions about him.
'Huh… is this some kind of magic stone? 'Eric poked it.
Nothing exploded.
Good enough.
He tucked the staff under his arm like a broom he'd casually stolen and turned toward the library.
If he was stuck in a corpse-body for who knew how long… he might as well learn how this damned world worked.
*****
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