Chapter 101: Where’s My Giant Corpse?!
Morning, in the young girl’s dim bedroom.
A ray of sunlight leaked through the gap in the curtains, and with the sun’s angle outside, it shone perfectly onto the sleeping young girl’s peaceful face as she lay on the table.
As if disturbed by the sudden bright light while having a sweet dream, the sleeping young girl unwillingly turned her head and finally struggled to open her eyes, only to see the glaring sunlight that had leaked through the gap in the curtains.
[Did I oversleep? What time is it now?]
Her consciousness slowly regained its strength, Kazumi sat up from the table and began to move her neck, which felt a bit stiff from sleeping in a slumped position for a long time.
At some point, this way of sleeping had become normal for Kazumi.
Probably relying on her short sleep time, Kazumi would always stay up late at night reading or devising plans. She would only go to bed when she was too sleepy. But more often than not, she would get lost in her books, delaying sleep, and finally “died” on the table, half-asleep and half-dazed.
[What’s with today? Did I oversleep this much?]
The sleep duration, which felt significantly different from usual, made Kazumi a bit strange. She fumbled around on the table twice and finally found her mobile phone among a pile of fallen books. She turned on the screen to check the time.
“It’s 10:30. Is it because of the change in my abilities…”
Kazumi frowned slightly at the numbers on the phone screen. She didn’t expect to have slept for seven hours today. She knew that as her abilities gradually awakened, Kazumi’s usual sleep time was controlled to about four hours, and it didn’t affect her normal life at all, just like a civilian who had slept for eight hours.
But today, she had slept for a record seven hours. The only explanation was the change in her body caused by putting the corpse in the Black Coffin yesterday.
Specifically, the faint black gas that flowed within her body had become more concentrated, and her body temperature, which was not high to begin with, had dropped a bit more.
She reached out and summoned the system panel that only she could see. Kazumi wanted to check what had happened and determine if such a change would affect her.
The data and numbers on the system panel were still not much different from before. At first glance, apart from the addition of [Ghoul x2] in the troop column of the territory panel, there were no major changes.
[Wait, right here!!]
But after Kazumi scanned it carefully, she was surprised to find that the territory size column had changed from the previous meager 1.6 something to a number starting with 3.
This sudden change immediately energized Kazumi. She raised her hand, summoned the Black Coffin, opened the lid, and began to check the situation inside.
A dense death aura rushed towards her, instantly refreshing the slightly dizzy Kazumi from her prolonged sleep. With one hand on the edge of the coffin, Kazumi stuck her head inside, wanting to see the condition of the corpse from yesterday.
Then, the young girl only saw two packed ghouls and dust and debris all over the place.
“…”
“Where’s the corpse?! Where’s my giant corpse? Did you eat him!! I’m talking to you, Little Black!!”
Kazumi was now full of questions. The corpse that had been placed inside well yesterday had disappeared overnight. Had it been eaten by these two gluttonous ghouls?
She reached out to move the ghoul named Little Black, who had been given its name after being petted all night. She searched its hollow abdomen but found no remaining corpse pieces or fabric.
This result made Kazumi even stranger. She casually threw the innocent Little Black down and frowned in thought.
She had previously ordered the two not to touch the corpse. Now, she ruled out the possibility of them disobeying her orders and eating the corpse. If the corpse had not been eaten by the ghouls, and the Black Coffin was hidden in the异空间 (other dimension/space), Kazumi really couldn’t imagine who could have taken something from inside.
[Unless, the Black Coffin ate it itself?!]
A thought flashed through Kazumi’s mind, and then it became clearer and clearer.
Recalling the black gas flowing within the corpse yesterday, Kazumi seemed to know the reason for all this. The corpse had probably been decomposed into death aura by the Black Coffin and then used to expand the surrounding异空间 (other dimension/space).
She turned her head to look at the inside of the coffin, which was clearly a bit larger than before. Kazumi had a somewhat strange expression. Compared to before, when it could barely fit an adult, it was now basically doubled in size.
She knew that when they first put the ghouls in, both of them could only be squeezed together in a strange posture. However, undead creatures would not care about such things. But now, both of them knew to find their own side and crouch to absorb the death aura.
But Kazumi’s strangeness didn’t stop there. If she calculated based on the current growth rate, digesting a corpse could expand the area by nearly 1.5 square meters. Then, in the future, wouldn’t she be carrying a territory around with her?
Of course, Kazumi also knew that things were not that simple. The importance of death aura to a territory was self-evident. It was basically the most precious basic resource. The expansion of rotten soil, the construction of buildings, the production of undead creatures, and technological research—all of these required death aura.
Even the normal development of a territory needed to be filled with death aura. Corpses or undead creatures could absorb and convert death aura, forming a simple food chain. Buildings like Graveyard Hills and Burying Grounds could even increase the overall aura concentration of the territory.
Therefore, Kazumi felt that the act of the Black Coffin directly digesting corpses without even leaving any residue was somewhat like “draining the pond to catch the fish.”
[Hmm, is it doing this to quickly open up a normal-sized territory?]
Kazumi pondered, resting her chin, and came up with a relatively reasonable explanation for herself.
However, if her abilities were in this state now, it meant that her need for corpses was much greater than she had imagined. Developing a territory large enough to build a Graveyard Hill would require a considerable number of corpses. Would Uncle Fukada agree if she told him about it?
New worries surfaced in her mind. Kazumi shook her head, crawled out of the coffin, raised her hand to put the Black Coffin away, and turned to consider the action plan for the new plan she had set yesterday.
She casually picked up her mobile phone from the table, opened the messages, and a faint smile appeared on her lips. She clicked on the red little flame avatar that had sent her a lot of messages a long time ago.
