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The next morning, Gu Su slowly opened his eyes in the tent.
The crude wooden bed was indeed hard, and it had left his back a little sore.
But last night, he'd replaced all the hay on the bed with the down he'd taken from the Harpies' nest. It had wrapped him in softness and chased away the chill, so he'd slept fairly comfortably and shaken off most of his fatigue.
Thinking back to last night, after he'd finished tending to the Weird Tree, building the cultivation rack, marking the Empty Grave, and dealing with a whole pile of other chores, he'd practically collapsed into bed. He hadn't had the energy to think about anything else.
In the middle of the night, he'd vaguely heard rustling outside the tent. It might have been the Skeleton Squad on patrol, or branches swaying in the wind, but there hadn't been any harsh noises, and his rest hadn't been disturbed at all.
It was clear that his skeletons were doing a great job. They'd guarded the territory tightly and hadn't let anything unusual get close.
Gu Su stretched and loosened his stiff limbs. His bones gave a few faint cracks.
Then he lifted the tent flap and ambled outside.
As soon as he stepped out, he ran into the returning squad.
The Skeleton Squad he'd sent to Mall to gather materials was pushing a pickup truck loaded with supplies through the Graveyard's gate.
Five skeletons marched forward in stiff, perfectly synchronized steps, pushing the truck steadily without the slightest delay. The cargo bed was piled high with supplies, nearly overflowing, and even the cab was crammed full.
Gu Su walked over and glanced inside. Besides the metal, wood, and stone he'd specifically told them to collect, there were plenty of things he hadn't expected at all. They were jumbled together, but still stacked fairly neatly.
Right in the cab, he spotted several mostly intact plastic chairs. A thin layer of dust covered the seats, but they weren't damaged and could still be used.
A plastic mannequin was wedged beside them—the kind used to display clothes in a clothing store. Its head lolled to one side, one arm lay broken beside it, and mud covered its body. There was something inexplicably eerie about it, yet it had been placed carefully in a prominent spot, without a scratch.
A bag of weeds hung from the mannequin's hand. The leaves, flowers, grasses, and roots had all been sorted separately.
Gu Su paused before realizing what they were. Herbs, maybe?
He hadn't told the skeletons to bring any of these things back, yet they'd bundled everything together and hauled it here without leaving so much as a scrap behind.
Gu Su raised an eyebrow and wondered to himself.
It seemed something about the Skeleton Squad had changed. Given how rigid the skeletons had been before, they would never have brought back anything they hadn't been told to collect.
He raised his eyes and looked around the territory. What he saw made the changes even more obvious.
In just one night, the Graveyard had grown another ring larger. It now covered a full acre and a half, far bigger than the basketball-court-sized Graveyard he'd started with.
There had been a new development over by Deadwood Forest, too. Two more dead trees had appeared among the sparse ones. Their bare branches pointed straight up, and their bark was cracked and dry, yet they gave off a faint aura of death. Even at night, the Corruption Mycelium had clearly been expanding the territory in secret, adding more deadwood.
A few pieces of lumber had appeared beneath the trees as well. They were the wood Deadwood Forest produced each day, though no one had collected it yet.
At the same time, something had changed beneath the Weird Tree not far from the tent.
Many branches of different sizes and lengths had been stuck into the ground beneath it, arranged in an orderly pattern. Stripped rats, snakes, and lizards hung from every branch. Their bodies still held a faint warmth, so they must have been prepared recently.
With his keen eyesight, Gu Su could clearly see faint black wisps slowly rising from the creatures' bodies, like strands of smoke, and being drawn into the Weird Tree's branches. They were replenishing, bit by bit, the aura the tree had lost while repairing itself.
The Weird Tree's branches also looked more lustrous than yesterday. Its ink-dark leaves swayed gently, and he could even feel a faint breeze stirring the Giant Lily seeds and sending them drifting around.
Looking up at the Weird Tree's branches, he saw several fist-sized crows made of nothing but bones. They tilted their bare heads and stared straight at him. A faint red glow shone deep in their dark eye sockets, but they made no move and behaved themselves.
Gu Su paused, then realized what they were: the new unit he'd marked at the Empty Grave in Deadwood Forest yesterday.
Scout White Crows. He hadn't expected them to hatch after just one night.
His gaze shifted to the area near the wall. Several rough logs had been assembled into a simple rack, with several hides stretched out to dry on it. The hides had been scraped clean of every trace of debris and carefully smoothed flat. They swayed gently in the breeze.
The hides had been dried neatly and skillfully. The skeletons definitely hadn't learned that from him.
Skeletons always followed orders rigidly. They weren't capable of such careful work.
One strange thing after another left Gu Su full of questions.
What had happened last night? How had the territory changed so much while he slept?
The Skeleton Squad, the Weird Tree, the White Crows, and even the hides drying on the rack—all of it seemed off.
Suppressing his questions, Gu Su walked over to the returning skeletons and pointed at the plastic chairs and mannequin on the truck. Curiosity colored his voice as he asked, "Why did you think to bring these things back? I never told you to."
As he spoke, Gu Su moved closer, hoping to read the skeleton's—
The skeleton at the front immediately stopped what it was doing and made a strange sound. It answered Gu Su at once. "Ashes said these things might be useful, so he told us to pack them all up and bring them back."
"Ashes?" Gu Su froze, surprise on his face. He'd never heard that name before, and his confusion deepened.
But what surprised him even more was that the skeletons had grown brains?
Since when could they talk? Were these really brainless skeletons?
The skeleton remained expressionless and slowly added, "Ashes is the little leader of our Skeleton Squad."
Only then did Gu Su understand.
He'd forgotten that once the Grave Mound's population reached its limit, one undead creature would automatically be promoted to little leader, responsible for leading the squad and helping carry out orders.
It seemed this one named Ashes was the newly appointed little leader.
Once he'd figured that out, some of his confusion eased. He asked, "Then where is he now?"
"Reporting to you, sir, Ashes is exploring the third floor of Mall. He told us to bring the supplies back first." The skeleton answered honestly, its voice completely flat. It was clear that was all it knew; it couldn't tell him anything more.
Gu Su nodded, already making plans. He instructed the skeleton, "All right, I understand.
"When you go back, tell Ashes to come see me."
"Yes, sir." The skeleton gave a stiff nod.
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