Still in the small greenhouse, Hel lay quietly on Niv's lap, eyes closed as if drifting into sleep.
Yet at this moment, her full attention was focused on the little magic tutor.
The first batch of undead to arrive wasn't large—only a little over a thousand, all fairly uniform in strength, and all were unranked ordinary zombies.
Most of them had been transformed from ordinary villagers, with a smaller portion consisting of lightly armored adventurers.
Of course, even the adventurers were just low-level fodder.
Hel controlled the little magic tutor, checking each of their attributes and magical tags, and the results were uneventful.
All gray tags.
Even these low-level cannon fodder weren't worth the attention of the Death Witch—none of them had the black tags associated with the Death Witch.
This meant Hel could safely claim them without worry.
Behind the little tutor was a new undead summoning array, linked directly to Hel's undead space.
There, Sebas had already drawn the receiving array. Once Hel verified the undead, he would summon those who met the criteria.
However, this batch of undead couldn't be processed in the usual way.
Over three months had passed since the outbreak in the Free Kingdom, and these zombies had long gone from fresh corpses to old, preserved meat.
Even if Hel handled them personally, she couldn't reliably use their blood to summon blood bats.
Thus, Hel had a different plan for this batch.
Her goal of the skeleton path remained unchanged. If she could fuse Hakikyo to rank six, equivalent to a King-level powerhouse, with his explosive skills and golden equipment, and then replace his tags with stronger ones, he could dominate among the King-level undead.
Only the few perverted ones with Witch tags would be able to rival him.
In this way, she wouldn't have to worry too much about the War Witch's threats.
As for the remaining old corpses… honestly, Hel didn't have a cuboid body type that could consume decaying meat to restore hunger.
But among the undead, there were ways to handle these corpses effectively.
Of course, now wasn't the time to deal with the corpses, because another wave of zombies was incoming.
Hel had to focus fully to protect her mind—er, rather, to ensure no suspicious zombie slipped by.
And indeed, among the large number of zombies, a few interesting ones appeared.
Some were church monks, many of whom practiced life-based magic.
After becoming zombies, whether because they only converted to ordinary zombies or because life magic clashed with death magic, their attributes shifted to death affinity, but they still retained life-based spells.
These life-magic tags were a huge help to Hel, who had life magic power but didn't know how to apply it.
Unfortunately, their elemental crystals had already turned into death-element ones, which was regrettable.
Previously, Hel had purchased low-tier magic cores from the Golden Marquis, most of which were four-element types, and derivative elements like ice and rock were less than one percent, while rare life elements were even fewer.
Even if she used all the life-element crystals to boost herself, she would only reach the level of a one-star intermediate life mage, far weaker compared to other attributes.
But the world rarely grants good fortune. Hel was already fortunate to acquire a batch of magical tags.
In the following days, the undead converted by the arrays grew explosively, leaving Hel completely stretched thin.
Her main body was entrusted to Niv and the others, while she concentrated entirely on controlling the little magic tutor—truly feeling like a workhorse laboring overtime.
Days passed like this until, when Hel finally returned to her main body, her vision went black, and she fainted completely.
When she awoke, she found herself lying in bed.
Niv, Anna, and Lily were all anxiously around her.
Aven was busy with city defense and couldn't leave, and Sebas was still trapped in the undead space.
"How long was I unconscious?" Hel asked hoarsely, her voice dry like a person lost in the desert for days without water.
"Master, a day and a night has passed," Niv said, gently helping her sit up.
Anna picked up a small transparent glass vial from the bedside table.
The vial was delicate, marked with the church's seal—not from Heim Castle.
Inside was a transparent liquid emitting a vibrant emerald glow, not like radioactive water, but full of vitality.
As Anna shook the vial gently, threads of emerald light slowly swirled inside, dotted with sparkling points resembling starlight.
The threads intertwined to form what looked like a miniature galaxy.
It was quite beautiful.
Anna skillfully poured some of the liquid into a glass, diluted it slightly with water, and handed it to Hel.
"Young master, would you like to drink some water?"
Hel stared at the glowing liquid in the glass, instinctively swallowing. Her body craved it.
Yet her cautious nature prompted her to ask,
"What… is this?"
Niv smiled, sitting at the bedside, and explained,
"It's a mid-tier Holy Recovery Water from the church."
"What? Recovery water? Are you sure? Feeding recovery water to an undead mage—won't it just purify me on the spot?"