One of my zombies was trying to leave.

  This was new.

  Zombies, in my experience, were very stupid and very loyal—much like an exceptionally well-trained but deeply confused dog. They did what they were told, stayed where they were put, and never, under any circumstances, tried to make independent life choices.

  Yet here we were.

  One of my kobold corpses was wandering toward the exit with the lazy, absentminded shuffle of a man who had just walked into a room and forgotten why. Another had decided that a section of the wall had deeply wronged it and was now battering its forehead against the stone with the persistence of an exceptionally stupid woodpecker.

  A third was attempting to walk in two different directions at once, shifting from foot to foot and turning his head each direction with a determination that only the truly stupid possess.

  And the fourth, a goblin, had just latched its tiny teeth into the arm of a very much alive orc.

  The orc, one of my boss room guards, let out a startled bellow and flailed, trying to shake it off like a man who had just discovered a very aggressive raccoon attached to his sleeve. When that failed, he did the only reasonable thing left—he hurled the zombie clear across the room.

  The goblin corpse hit the ground with an unceremonious thud, twitched, and immediately got back to its feet. It swayed there for a moment, as if reorienting itself. Then, without a sound, it simply wandered off in a completely new direction.

  The orc stared after it.

  I stared after it.

  Grib, meanwhile, had been watching the fight with his hands on his knees, occasionally throwing little punches in the air like a spectator trying to coach a brawl only he understood. At the sound of his name, he perked up and turned. “Yes, Boss?”

  I gestured at the mess. "How long has this been happening?"

  Grib scratched his chin. “Mmm. Since…” He squinted at the nearest zombie, as if it might provide an answer. “Maybe two meals ago?”

  I frowned. "You haven’t eaten a meal since I brought you back to life."

  Grib nodded solemnly. “Right. So… someone else’s two meals ago.”

  I stared at him.

  "Who exactly are you measuring time by?"

  He pointed at one of the orc zombies, which was currently chewing on its own hand with no real interest in stopping.

  Behind him, the goblin zombie twitched. Not the usual random nerve spasm—something off-time, something that didn’t fit the pattern of magical reanimation. Like a clock that had just skipped a second.

  A slow, creeping itch settled at the back of my skull. Something was off. Something I didn’t like.

  I let out a slow breath. "Is it just these four?"

  Grib hesitated. Then: “Maybe little bit.”

  Which, as I had come to learn, meant "absolutely not just these four."

  I sighed. One problem at a time.

  A loud, frustrated yell echoed from the lower halls.

  I turned my head.

  Grib perked up. "Ah. Food fight."

  I stared at him.

  Grib nodded solemnly. "Not fun kind."

  Right. The other problem. Starvation.

  The one that, apparently, was now escalating into violence.

  I turned back to the pile of zombies, two still tangled together, one still trying to exit reality, and one dedicated to fighting the wall.

  I sighed and crossed my arms. "Alright. Sit."

  Nothing happened.

  "Sit," I repeated, with the kind of patience normally reserved for people trying to reason with furniture.

  The goblin zombie, mid-wriggle, twitched and—against all odds—plopped itself onto the floor with a boneless sort of compliance. The kobold zombie beside it wobbled for a second and then did the same, mostly by falling over.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  "...Good zombies?"

  They stared back with dull eyes in response.

  “Alright, then.”

  They didn’t move again. Didn’t try to wander off, didn’t keep gnawing on each other, just… sat. If you ignored the decay, the twitching, and the occasional vacant stare, it almost looked like obedience.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Not exactly comforting. But it was something.

  Lately, that had been happening more. Magic working without me digging through the System’s clunky UI. Most of them, I just focused and it went. No menu, no prompts. The System used to chime in regularly. Now it barely whispered. I wasn’t sure if that meant it was breaking, settling, or just giving up on me—but honestly, I didn’t miss its smug little popups.

  [System Notification]

  Helpful Hint: Did you know? Zombies do not require sleep!

  I stared at the floating text. "...Thanks," I sighed. "Deeply relevant."

  Maybe I’d overextended. I still couldn’t bring back more than a single soul, but I’d been bringing all of our fallen back as zombies. Maybe there was some sort of inherent limit? But that was a problem for future Edgar. Poor son of a bitch.

  For now, there was a much more immediate one.

  The Sepulcher stretched out around us, all dark stone and cold, silent alcoves filled with the bones of people long forgotten. Blue torches flickered in their sconces, casting skeletal shadows across the chamber floor.

  It might have been eerily beautiful if not for the fact that it currently contained a very large, very angry orc holding what looked like the last piece of dried meat in the entire dungeon.

  Rugar, the largest and loudest of the orcs, stood in the center of the chamber, gripping the food like someone had just tried to rob him at knifepoint. Opposite him, a cluster of kobolds bristled, tails flicking, baring their teeth.

  Krix, the closest thing to a reasonable leader the kobolds had, stood at the front, arms crossed.

  "This unfair," he snapped. "Orcs eat more than share."

  Rugar rolled his shoulders. "We bigger."

  Krix’s tail flicked. "And?"

  Rugar frowned. "We bigger," he repeated, as if that should have ended the conversation. "We need more food."

  Krix hissed, but before he could say anything, I raised a hand. "Alright, let’s back up. Clearly, this is a matter of perspective."

  I took a measured step forward, voice even and businesslike—the same tone I used when explaining why a customer’s expired coupon could not, in fact, be used to purchase a lawnmower.

  "On one hand," I gestured to Rugar, "yes, orcs need more food. That is a biological fact. On the other, if you eat everything, the kobolds will starve, and dead kobolds don’t find food."

  Rugar frowned. "Then we eat them."

  Krix lunged.

  I raised a skeletal hand just in time, catching Krix mid-pounce with a pulse of magic that locked him in the air. He hung there, snarling, feet scraping against nothing.

  "I swear to whatever dark gods are still listening," I said through gritted teeth, "if anyone else tries to kill someone before we solve the problem, I will be replacing my throne cushions with corpses."

  The room fell into tense silence.

  I lowered my hand, letting Krix drop not-so-gracefully to the ground.

  "Better," I muttered. Then, in the same calm, customer-service-friendly voice that once prevented me from strangling a man over a return policy, I turned back to Rugar.

  "So, let’s try again," I said. "How much food do we actually have left?"

  A kobold in the back, scrawny and nervous, hesitantly raised a claw. "Enough for… maybe two days?"

  "Three, if we ration," another added.

  "One, if orcs eat first," Krix snapped.

  Rugar growled. "We bigger. We need more—"

  I slammed my staff against the stone.

  A wave of mana rushed outward, bright and electric, sending up a storm of sparks that flickered in the cold air. The torches flared violently, shadows stretching long and jagged along the walls.

  "Enough!"

  The word boomed through the Sepulcher, rolling through the air like distant thunder. The mana in the room pressed in, sharp and heavy, curling at the edges of every living thing.

  For one, perfect second, no one moved.

  The orcs flinched. The kobolds froze.

  Even the zombies stilled, heads subtly turning toward me, as if something in the magic had reached into whatever was left of them and pulled.

  And then, I saw Krix.

  His ears were low, his claws clenched. Not bristling, not snarling. Just watching.

  He’d been with me almost from the beginning. Not as long as Grib, but long enough. Long enough to have fought for me. Long enough to have believed in me, even after I’d turned his chieftain into a smouldering tower of kobold barbecue.

  And for the first time since that moment, he looked at me the way he must have once looked at Big Chief.

  The magic recoiled back into my bones. The weight of it lingered in the air, thinning like smoke after a fire.

  Beside him, Grib pressed a slime to his cheek. Not looking at me. Not looking at anyone, really. Just idly smushing the creature against Krix’s face like that would somehow fix things.

  Krix didn’t react. His eyes were still locked on me.

  I had scared him. I had scared all of them. All except Grib. Grib, who still saw his boss and not… whatever the others saw.

  That wasn’t what I wanted. I just... needed them to stop. I hadn’t meant—

  Damn it.

  "Look." It came out quieter this time. Steadier. "I get it. Everyone’s hungry. Tempers are high. But fighting over what little we have isn’t going to fix it. We need actual solutions."

  A long silence.

  Then, from Grib: "Maybe we take food from humans?"

  I turned to look at him.

  "...What?"

  Grib shrugged. "Raid humans. Steal food. Easy."

  I stared at him. "Grib, we’re in a dungeon."

  Grib nodded eagerly. "Yes!"

  "We can’t leave the dungeon."

  Grib blinked at me. Then, very slowly, he tilted his head.

  "Bosses can’t leave dungeon," he said, as if speaking to a particularly dim child. "We not boss."

  I opened my mouth. Paused. Closed it. Opened it again.

  “You’re telling me… You can leave the dungeon?”

  Grib stared at me, unblinking. "Yes?"

  I ran a skeletal hand down my face. "Okay. Hold on. Let’s—let’s walk this back a second." I pointed at him. "You. Undead goblin that you are."

  "Yes," Grib said proudly.

  "You’re telling me that you can just... walk out?"

  Grib nodded.

  "And the reason I’ve never thought of this before is because—?"

  Grib shrugged. "Dunno. You never ask."

  "I never asked."

  I had tested it. I knew I couldn’t leave—the system had made that very clear. But I’d never considered sending anyone else.

  Why?

  The thought sat uneasily in my skull, like a puzzle piece I should’ve noticed was missing.

  I exhaled. "Fine. Show me."