Chapter 75: Expensive Corpse

By evening, Ethan was on the couch idly scrolling through his phone with Lila beside him doing the same— her head rested against his shoulder as the sat in silence. He was considering putting the phone down completely when the academy seal pushed a new message through placing itself on top of the screen...

When he clicked on the notification, he was redirected to a page that looked like an application form had been filled.

{INTER-CLASS TOURNAMENT — PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE}

{Class 1-A roster has been acknowledged}

{Participant Name: Ethan Shaw}

{Awakened Class: Necromancer (Restricted)}

{Your opponent has yet to be verified.}

{Detailed rules pending}

{Preparation Time: 30 days}

Lila set her phone down and sat up. "It dropped."

Ethan nodded, then leaned back on the couch, feeling the cyclops’ weight in his shadow. "Yeah. Seems we’ll get the rules later after all."

When they went to their rooms, he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Maybe I’ll train with the cyclops tomorrow..."

***

By morning, they woke up, had breakfast and went to the East grounds together.

Lila claimed a seat on the low wall with a drink as she sipped and looked at him.

"Been a while since we came here together," she said, "I’m guessing you’re going to train with the corpses today?"

Ethan flexed his wrist. "Yeah. I killed and raised a Devil class remember? So far the only experience I have with it is sending it to kill an iron golem." He paused... "i raised that too by the way."

Lila huffed and rolled her eyes. It was expected. Very Ethan-like...

Ethan rolled his shoulders, checked his pool out of habit, and reached into Storage.

This time, Lila noticed that his shadow extended when the Cyclops prepared to come out.

The cyclops raised one hand first, then another, and placed them on the ground as it pulled itself out from it...

Ethan felt its presence immediately. The cyclops sat in his link like a boulder. Unlike Bef, or the raven, this one was genuinely impossible to ignore.

The beast shifted its posture as dust cleared under it, and a Lila felt a shudder crawl up her spine. "This feels like some kind of zombie movie." She took one look at the beast before speaking again. "It’s hands though—"

Ethan shot her a look. "Do NOT underestimate these hands. This shit is fully capable of smashing you to bits. Wayyyy stronger than it looks"

Lila looked at him. "You may be exaggerating a little bit there but sure." She shifted on top the wall. "So, what is it? Some kind of.... One eyed beast?"

"It’s a Cyclops," Ethan corrected.

"A Cyclops huh," she repeated, feeling the weight in her mouth, "what rank?"

"B rank."

Lila whistled. "You killed a B rank monster all by yourself? You must be stronger than I give you credit for..."

"Well, not really. I had some help with a couple of corpses I obtained earlier."

"Can I see those ones too?"

The memory of how he used the crawlers to kill the cyclops resurfaced in his mind and he almost gagged. "No."

She frowned. "Rude."

"Trust me, you should be thankful you didn’t."

He turned to the cyclops and starred running commands through it...

Go forward. Stop,Turn, guard high, guard low. The Cyclops obeyed with a smoothness than non of his past undead possessed. All the simple commands held true, but he wanted to try something else...

He pointed at the lampost on the far side of the field. "Strike that post over there. Don’t be too hard on it."

The cyclops moved towards the lampost, and struck it.

**BANG**

The slender hand moved in a blur that actually made Lila’s eyes widen. But when the beast moved away, Ethan saw that it bent the post.

"Shit. I said don’t be too hard on it." He ran a hand through his hair. "Can you... straighten it or something? Like..." he used his hand to made a stretching gesture, and the cyclops looked at him in mild confusion before moving towards the post and straightening it.

The post groaned, and when the beast moved, it took a crooked form. Ethan looked at it for a long moment, then shrugged. "Eh, good enough."

He opened his system and watched his Death Energy tick downwards.

```

[Death Energy: 1084 / 1200]

```

Ethan made it move away from the lampost and went back to movement commands.

At this point, it was the strongest undead in his legion. It was also the most expensive as he noted giving commands needed more focus and precision than the wolves or raven, like using a PS one controller to play a game in PS 5.

"You look tired," Lila called.

"That’s because i’m draining faster." He kept his eyes on the cyclops. "Probably because it’s in a higher class than I am..."

"Then get it over with. Before i’m forced to drag your unconscious ass back to the dorm."

He ran a few more movement commands and finally dismissed the cyclops back into storage. When he did, it felt like he had finally dropped something heavy and he involuntarily heaved a relieved sigh.

Lila hopped off the wall, sensing that he was done. "So that’s your tournament monster."

"One of them, no guarantee that I’ll use it though. It costs more energy, and I have an iron golem." He began walking as Lila followed. "Then there’s the rules to consider as well. Being a restricted class isn’t going to make it easy."

Lila hummed. "Makes sense. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy either..."

Back at the dorm they ate in silence while they made occasioanl small talk.

"So," she asked looking at him over the rim of her cup. "You have a stronger corpse now. You think you’re going to need more?"

Ethan stayed silent for a while. "Because the cyclops is the strongest one I’ve got doesn’t mean it’s the strongest thing out there. So yes, I’ll be needing more..."

Lila set her cup down. "Corpse Hunter huh..."

"That’s the idea."

They talked a bit more after that, and went ahead to to do the dishes when they finished.

When the plates were clean and the sun had completely set, they stopped at the split in the short hall to their rooms

Lila stopped at her door and Ethan stopped at his, his hands on the door handle.

She hesitated, then stepped in. When Ethan noticed he turned his head and when he did, she curled her fingers into his shirt, stood on her toes and kisses him.

Once again, Ethan was caught completely off guard as he just stood there with his eyes wide. When she pulled back, she looked down refusing to meet his gaze.

"Goodnight."

She went into her room and locked it.

Ethan stood there a second longer, then entered his own room, shut the door, and lay down on the bed as he stared at the ceiling.

He replayed the kiss over and over in his mind, and wgen he turned his head and saw that she wasn’t there, he looked back towards the ceiling.

She would have been here right now, taking up space on the bed, clinging to him as she slowly doze off.

He sighed. One thought skipped into his minds.

"I kind of miss her here..."