Hundreds of undead stopped their movements and turned their heads in unison towards the rustling bush.
Hundreds of pairs of empty eye sockets fixed on the three small children.
“Hic…!”
Ellie swallowed a scream involuntarily, and Leo and Tommy froze on the spot, unable to move.
At that moment, the Death Knight slowly approached the children.
Clang – Clang –
The sound of obsidian armor colliding echoed loudly in the quiet forest.
He approached the bush and looked at the frightened children.
‘…What should I do?’
The children’s thoughts were focused on one thing now.
‘We’re dead now….’
Their bodies were already frozen with fear, and they couldn’t even think of running away.
“…”
On the other hand, the Death Knight stood silently for a moment, looking down at the children.
Fierce calculations were being made in his mind.
What should I do with these children?
This was the moment he was most concerned about.
Looking at the children, he noticed they were too small. There was no point in turning them into ghouls.
However, he couldn’t let them go as they were.
The construction of the fake dungeon was not yet complete.
What if these children went down and spread rumors to other humans?
It would disrupt the construction.
“…”
The longer the Death Knight’s silence lasted, the greater the children’s fear became.
“Hooaaang! Mommy!”
Finally, Ellie, unable to bear the fear, burst into tears first.
“!”
When the child cried, the Death Knight was flustered.
Time was running out.
He had to build the dungeon as soon as possible, and he couldn’t delay the construction for trivial reasons.
“…”
The Death Knight pondered.
He thought and thought again.
What would Celia have done?
She probably would have killed them.
But the Death Knight didn’t want to kill them.
Then, what would a Goblin Lord have done?
He didn’t want to think that far.
“…”
What if it was Necros?
“!”
The Death Knight finally seemed to have found the answer.
If he thought from Necros’s perspective, there was only one answer.
He untied a small pouch he wore at his waist.
Then, he took out one gold coin at a time and offered them to the children.
“Th-this is…?”
Leo was rather bewildered by the sudden situation.
Why would a monster suddenly give out gold coins?
At least they weren’t trying to kill them, so it was a relief?
But the Death Knight didn’t just give out gold coins.
He gestured with his chin to a nearby Skeleton.
The commanded Skeleton quickly brought three small shovels and politely placed one in each of the children’s hands.
The children now had shovels in their hands.
* * *
“Is… is this right? Leo?”
Tommy whispered to Leo with a look of incomprehension, alternating between the small shovel in his hand and the pile of dirt in front of him.
Leo, Tommy, and Ellie were now digging side by side, mixed in with hundreds of skeletons.
“…I don’t know. Just do as you’re told for now.”
Leo replied curtly and dug diligently.
The situation was still surreal.
The leader monster in obsidian armor was watching them from a distance, and monsters around them were constantly carrying dirt.
But one thing was certain.
‘For now… I’m not dead.’
This fact alone allowed the children to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Still… why are they making us do this?”
Tommy asked in an anxious voice, and Leo snapped back while digging dirt.
“Stop talking and just dig! Don’t you see that boss guy staring at us?”
No matter how young he was, Leo was perceptive.
It was a relief that they weren’t being killed immediately, but if they angered that terrifying boss monster, anything could happen.
He instinctively realized that these small shovels might become tools for digging their own graves.
‘If I don’t work hard, I’ll die!’
With that thought, Leo dug with all his might.
Meanwhile, Ellie’s situation was slightly different.
After digging a few times, she began to gather fine dirt in her hands and play with it.
“Here, this is a dirt cake, and this is dirt soup. Eat a lot, Mr. Skull!”
Ellie had designated a skeleton who was silently carrying dirt next to her as a guest and started playing house.
She made plates with small pebbles and decorated them with leaves, setting up her own small feast.
“Ellie! What are you doing! You’ll get in trouble!”
Leo exclaimed in dismay, trying to stop his sister, but Ellie paid him no mind.
What was even more surprising was the skeleton’s reaction.
The skeleton Ellie had designated stopped carrying dirt and sat obediently in front of the ‘dirt cake’ she had prepared.
“Here, please eat. It’s delicious!”
Ellie presented the dirt cake decorated with leaves to the skeleton.
The skeleton hesitated for a moment.
His gaze flickered between Ellie’s dirt cake and the Death Knight watching him from afar.
“Clap…”
The skeleton seemed to ponder for a moment, tilting his head with a clatter.
Then, he raised his bony hand and mimicked picking up the dirt cake.
“Wow!”
A bright smile bloomed on Ellie’s face. She was delighted with the skeleton who participated in her game.
However, the smile didn’t last long.
After mimicking picking up the dirt cake, the skeleton immediately remembered his task.
He had to remove the dirt.
To him, the dirt cake made by Ellie was simply a part of the dirt he had to deal with.
Without hesitation, he dumped the dirt cake he had been holding so precious into his carrying basket.
At the same time, he began to scrape and collect the other dirt dishes Ellie had meticulously prepared into the basket with his shovel.
It was a very clean and efficient cleanup.
“…”
Ellie could only stare blankly at the sight of her meticulously prepared feast being cleaned up in an instant.
“Hing… my cake…”
Tears welled up in Ellie’s eyes, and her lips pouted.
It was sadness and betrayal at the destruction of her hard work.
Thus, Ellie experienced the cold world of society at a young age.
This bitter realization was not just for Ellie.
Tommy and Leo were also experiencing the harshness of society.
“How long do we have to do this? My arms are going to fall off…”
Tommy complained, wiping his sweat-drenched forehead.
It was fascinating and scary at first, but now it was just hard and tedious labor.
The skeletons, seemingly tireless, moved at the same pace.
Moreover, there was no end in sight to the work.
However, Leo continued to dig silently.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t hard.
But Leo thought it was a reasonable price to pay.
After all, hadn’t they already received gold coins?
In his pocket, he held a heavy and cold gold coin, the first he had ever touched.
It wasn’t just a coin.
It was the reward for this arduous labor.
Leo vaguely knew how great it was to earn a gold coin for just a few times of digging like this.
It was money that his father had trouble getting even after digging for herbs for days.
‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world.’
Leo remembered his father’s words.
If you receive money, you must work.
That was the world of adults and the rules of society.
Even if the employer was a monster, a contract was a contract.
Thus, the children were growing taller in their own way without realizing it, learning the sanctity of labor and the cruelty of capitalism at a construction site in the deep forest, working alongside hundreds of undead.
* * *
As dawn broke, the Death Knight gave each of the children another gold coin.
“…”
And the Death Knight turned his back without a word.
The children were momentarily dumbfounded, but since the shovels had been repossessed, they assumed the work was over and began to leave the forest without looking back.
On the way home, the children were silent.
The fatigue from working all night and the surreal weight of the gold coins in their pockets.
And the lingering fear of never wanting to experience that again mingled to create a strange feeling.
“We’re home…”
As Leo opened the creaking door of their house, his parents, who had waited up all night for their son and daughter, rushed out.
“Leo! Ellie! Where on earth have you been all night!”
Leo and Ellie’s mother hugged them with a tearful voice. Their father’s face was also a mixture of worry and anger.
“Mom, Dad! We earned money!”
Leo knew he was going to be scolded, but he proudly took out the gold coins from his pocket.
Leo and Ellie received a total of four gold coins.
At that moment, their parents’ expressions stiffened.
The father snatched the gold coins from Leo’s hand and narrowed his eyes.
They were real gold coins. And there were four of them.
It was a large sum of money that was hard to come by by simply digging for herbs.
“…Leo. Where did you get this?”
Their parents’ voices dropped low.
“We earned it by working! In the forest!”
Leo excitedly began to recount the night’s events.
“We went to the forest, and there were so many monsters! We were all digging, and a very big boss skeleton wearing black armor gave us gold coins!”
“That’s right! We also played dirt cake!”
Ellie chimed in.
As the children’s unbelievable story unfolded, their parents’ faces grew increasingly grim.
Worry turned into suspicion, and suspicion turned into anger.
“Leo!”
The father roared.
“Now is not the time for games! Tell the truth! Where did you steal these gold coins from?!”
“No! It’s the truth!”
Leo’s eyes glistened with indignation. Why wouldn’t anyone believe him when he was telling the truth?
Leo’s mother sighed and calmed her husband.
“Honey, calm down. The children wouldn’t do that.”
She crouched down to the children’s eye level and asked gently.
“Did you see any Imperial soldiers when you went into the forest?”
Leo nodded.
He had secretly snuck into the forest, but it was true that he had seen soldiers.
At Leo’s words, his parents came to their own conclusion.
They thought the children were lying to avoid getting scolded.
‘Yes, that’s it. A soldier must have coincidentally met our children and given them gold coins.’
That was a much more realistic and comforting conclusion than receiving gold coins from monsters.
“I understand.”
Soon, as if reading his wife’s thoughts, he sighed and opened his mouth.
“From now on, you must never sneak out at night. And this time, it’s fortunate that it was soldiers, but you shouldn’t accept anything from strangers carelessly. Understand?”
“Mr. Skeleton gave it to us…”
The children felt wronged by their parents’ disbelief. Still, feeling relieved that they wouldn’t be scolded further, they nodded.
Meanwhile, a completely different scene was unfolding in Tommy’s house.
Tommy’s father, reeking of alcohol, yelled at his son, but then his eyes widened when he saw the gold coins Tommy produced.
“Wh-what is this?”
He picked up the gold coins with trembling hands. It was real gold.
And there were two of them.
Tommy told his father exactly what had happened.
However, Tommy’s father half-listened to his son’s words.
The nonsense about skeletons and monsters wasn’t important.
Only one fact occupied his mind.
‘At night… if you go to the forest, you can earn gold coins.’
His greedy eyes gleamed.
Even his young son had earned two gold coins overnight.
So, how much more could he earn if he went as an adult?
Ten coins? No, twenty?
Maybe he could earn enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.
“Yes, yes. You did so well, my son.”
Unlike usual, he stroked Tommy’s head as if praising him.
But his true feelings were different.
‘This is an opportunity!’
The hope of earning gold coins and being able to drink all day without working bloomed.
He sent Tommy to his room, then pocketed the gold coins from the table. Then he picked up an old hunting axe hung on the wall.
That night, in the deep night, when even the moonlight was obscured by clouds, Tommy’s father, heavily drunk, headed into the forest as his son had said.
The forest was eerie, but his steps were light.
This was because he was filled with the hope of becoming rich and greed.
After wandering for a long time, he finally heard a faint sound.
It seemed to be the place his son had mentioned.
He started running wildly, axe in hand.
Soon, upon reaching the source of the sound, he swallowed dryly.
Tommy’s words were true.
Indeed, hundreds of monsters were digging in perfect unison. And in the center stood a colossal being in obsidian armor.
‘…It was real.’
Fear enveloped his entire body, but greed for gold coins blinded his reason.
‘They must be digging for treasure. If I take care of that thing, it will all be mine!’
In his drunken state, he made foolish and fatal judgment. He adjusted his grip on the axe, shouted, and charged.
“Yaaaaaa!”
His powerful roar split the silent forest.
He rushed towards the Death Knight, towards the windfall that would change his life.
But the moment he shouted.
Everything stopped.
*Thwack-*
A giant sword flew from somewhere and pierced his heart accurately.
He didn’t even have time to realize when it flew or how it was lodged.
“Gur… hck…”
Blood mixed with his breath escaped his mouth.
The last thing he saw was the Death Knight.
His consciousness sank into darkness.
A moment later.
The Death Knight approached the fallen man.
Construction was delayed yesterday due to the children.
He needed more manpower, and a fresh human appeared on his own.
As he drew the sword from the corpse, the corpse began to move.
Having been killed by the Death Knight, he was transformed into a ghoul.
Tommy’s father, reborn as a ghoul.
The ghoul picked up the shovel handed to him by the Death Knight and began to join the horde of undead.
And he began an eternal labor.
Only the rusting sound of shovels echoed in the forest again.
As if nothing had happened.
