Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

CHAPTER 375: Collecting Parts

Before we collected the crawler parts for my new undead we had lunch. Hatsumi grilled cheese filled sausages and served them inside a piece of bread. She had even brought some mustard as condiment. It was a delicious and convenient meal that did not need any cutlery.

Afterwards it was time to find the right monster parts. The torso Helena had mentioned was the center piece and it came with a working head. The abdomen was a more problematic part. While we searched it allowed me to learn a bit more about crawlers.

They looked mostly like a big ant but my knowledge about ants was limited. The crawlers had two mandibles they could use in combat and their mouths could spit acid, however their tank seemed to be all the way in the back. Their abdomen was rather large and housed some organs as well as their acid. I had wrongly assumed that more things happen inside the torso but I had no idea what that actually did. It had a pipe to the abdomen where the acid flowed and a second pipe towards its stomach. It also handled the legs and the movement of the creature.

An undead did not need organs so would it be possible to just use the entire abdomen as a tank? Was any of the spitting mechanisms located there or was that something the torso or the head accomplished? Further, how creative could my undead be before the raise dead spell stopped working? I did manage a headless wolf but this time I was modifying a large part of the creature.

"Does anyone know crawlers work internally?" I asked, while staring at a piece of abdomen on the ground.

"I don't know much but what are you looking for?" Helena replied.

"How much abdomen do we need? Could it spit if it were just a tank?" I wondered.

"Uh, no idea." Helena replied.

"Perhaps it contracts something in the abdomen to spit?" Kaito suggested.

"Wait, Cassie has harvested some of the acid inside the tunnel." I looked around and spotted Cassie collecting a leg. I jogged towards her and asked: "Cassie, do you know how the acid spitting works? Did you see an acid tank?"

"Um, not really. I just collected the fluid from holes where it was leaking and Skadi cut a bit deeper to get more. I have not looked at the actual part where it stores it. There was not enough time to truly cut into those bugs especially since their plates are pretty hard. What is more interesting for alchemy is the acid gland itself and Skadi got one of those. I am not sure how much acid they store and how quickly the gland refills it to be honest." Cassie replied.

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"The acid gland was attached to some sort of sac, it reminded me a bit of a stomach. You know, I don't think actual ants spit, that is a crawler thing." Skadi added.

"Aren't there some spitting ants?" Cassie asked.

"I believe those are fist sized monsters from the desert." Kaito said.

"Ok, none of that helps unfortunately. How much abdomen do we need to keep their spitting capabilities?" I asked.

"It's not like you have a lot of choice, most of the squishy pits are pretty squished." Garm stated.

"And be careful when you touch the remaining parts. There might be acid on them." Rose warned.

"We can use water magic to clean the parts." I suggested.

We went back to collecting parts and started a pile for the abdomen. Since the ant had two pipes, one for food and one for acid, I wondered if I could use both for spitting? Both ended in the mouth and while I was not sure if both were acid proof I wanted necrotic water, something the entire undead would be fine with.

"Ok, so my plan is to get enough fleshy bits and make them into tanks, then connect them to the pipes inside the torso. Further we need armour plates to form a protected abdomen and maybe a few parts to patch up a bit of damage here and there. Then we need six legs that fit. So they should be about the same size and we need three left legs and three right legs." I stated, while looking at the growing pile of parts.

As I stared at the pile of legs I heard a suspicious sound and lifted some of them to investigate. Two eyes stared at me.

"Ivy…" I said, while looking at the feline.

"Meow?" Came the innocent sounding reply. I grabbed her by the neck and lifted her from the pile. Ivy dropped a piece of leg in the process and looked longingly at her fallen treat.

I sighed. "Look, there are enough pieces we don't need, eat those." I told Ivy, then I placed her at the ground. She quickly grabbed the bit she had lost and ran off, tail held high.

"Ok, back to finding the best parts…" I said. Thankfully there were more than enough legs. While the cats acted rather dramatic and chewed on a lot of parts they had not actually damaged the most crucial pieces. It made me wonder how much of their behaviour was just a game for them. I had a feeling they were deliberately avoiding the best pieces since they understood that me raising a new undead would be beneficial for our group.

My friends and non-feline undead helped sort the bits and soon we had a proper amount of materials to use. Then came the process of washing them and finally we covered them in ice for preservation. Thankfully it was cold enough that keeping them frozen was easy and did not require constant mana upkeep.

It took us over an hour but we were finally done and ready to move on! The collapsed hole was undisturbed and Garm did not hear anything that sounded like crawlers trying to break free. For now our blockade held and we were free to leave.

"So, how do we find these undead?" I asked as we assembled at the horses. Rose and Hatsumi were still loading the crawler parts on Garm's back and securing it with ice and rope. "Actually, how are you going to ride Garm now?" I asked the two vampires.

"We can just walk." Hatsumi suggested.

"We could fit two people on a horse although the saddle is not really meant for that." Cassie suggested.

"I can't use a normal saddle anyway with my uniform, I have to sit sideways. It worked well on Garm but I am fine walking." Hatsumi stated.

"Why are you in a maid uniform when we adventure?" Rose asked.

"Because I am Koyuki's dutiful maid." Hatsumi replied with a smile.

I sighed. "Ok. I guess you can move rather fast anyway on your own, especially as a spellblade. Rose, you want to join me on Coffee? At least once we are out of the forest, until then we all walk. Which brings me back to the question: Where are the undead?"

"I guess my nose is in demand." Garm's left head stated while the right head started sniffing. "This way." He pointed deeper into the forest with his paw.