After comparing all prices, Dezen chose one of the merchant companies, and sold them the crops. The money he earned Dezen used to buy things making his live more convenient, and more pleasant, like soaps with a nice scents, or better seasonings.
Luckily, he didn't have to deal with the baron, or any of his people.
Besides his wallet, Dezen's control over the forest was also getting bigger. He already turned over half of his saved corpses into undead, and started making a list of creatures worth hunting down. However, finding their lairs wasn't easy, so he had to wait several days, for his undead to do this.
The first creatures he decided to kill, were wendigos - humanoid beings, with black skin, two skulls, one inside and one outside their heads, and horns like those of the deers.
Dezen went with his undead himself, not wanting to get too used to the safety of controlling an undead from home. Alex also went with him, but he was controlling one of the human undead, since Dezen didn't want to risk him getting hurt.
With them, went 15 undead. Some with shapes changed to humanoid, some with their natural. They set out, and Dezen started wondering how different mentally it will be for him, from his past travels to the forest. Since the village get the barrier's protection, spell making magical creatures afraid of humans was no longer kept working. Until now, he hasn't been really put in such a situation, so his mindset was different than before, a little scared of what might happen.
The lairs of wendigos are big parts of the forests, they took as their own. To mark them, they leave marks of their claws on the trees, making them easy to recognize. Also, using magic unique to them, like the magic vankers have, they change their colour to grey and black, and make them able to inform wendigos if something enters their territory.
Without stopping they entered the lair, waiting for the wendigos to come and protect their home. It happened soon, and after undead noticed them, they started using long distance spells, killing most of them before they even got close. What was left, was spared intentionally, to train their fighting skills at smaller distances.
Dezen standing before his undead, was the first one the animals reached, but he had nothing fear about, as he activated over 10 defensive spells, just for this fight. None of them were creating some light, energy, or anything, so the first wendigo that hit him was surprised, when his bones almost broke from the impact. Dezen wasn't wasting time, and immediately counterattacked, together with his undead. In a few moves they killed it, and then started fighting with the remaining ones.
Wanting to test his spells strengthening undead, Dezen didn't engage in the next combats, but stayed behind his undead, and observed them.
His undead ended it quickly - undead had number superiority, and better quality, so it was natural.
After they ended, Dezen created more undead, and they set out to their next target.
***
When Dezen came back to his home, he was satisfied with the outcome of this hunt. Everything he wanted was accomplished, that is, getting new undead, testing his spells, and most important, improving cooperation of his undead. Although, the latter still had room for development, but Dezen already have plans regarding it.
The area around the village was quite safe, with no animals besides bugs and birds. Thus, Dezen wanted to turn part of it into a battleground, for his undead to improve their battle skills.
***
After resting, Dezen went to the church, to get to one of the Church of Alen fortresses. He wanted to ask how they want to use his undead in the future, and how many of them will they want, so he could make plans matching it.
After asking these questions and getting answers, Dezen went to buy a few things, and use something similar to the internet, where he could get informations about the mandies and other creatures from Replacements. Reading about their abilities, and their ways to bypass securities made him worried. Beings that can change your senses, or afraid of something that is harmless, some even give people new organs, or can cause natural calamities. The worse part was that number of the Replacements is slowly raising, and so more of them and new creatures appear. Dezen was worried not only about himself, but even more about his brother, what made him wonder how to better protect him.
After he calmed down, Dezen then read about the creatures he really may encounter, if he leaves the village. The Church even added to these informations spells designed to fight and detect them. Of course, Dezen was already training them, but there were still new ones made.
***
In the next few days, Dezen focused on developing his own skinwalker. He made this decision, because mandies started entering the forest, and after testing their reaction to this creation, they got at least uncomfortable, some even scared. This outcome gave Dezen hope that he can really keep them out of the human habitats with fear. However, development was hard, and Dezen lacked a lot of necessary knowledge to turn mandies into living puppets, what would make them really scared. But there were still some small achievements. Mostly thanks to his undead, who were developing necromancy for Dezen and doing reserches on their own, saving him a lot of time. Overall, his skinwalkers got stronger, make corpses "alive" better, and even got the ability to control living beings, without hurting them. Unluckily, he cannot test it on mandies, because they suicide before every attempt.
Besides that creation, Dezen had antoher projects, like building his own bunker deep under the ground, making his undead more intelligent, or creating safe zones in the forest.
The latter wasn't really necessary, but Dezen has a security paranoia, and so, he decided to build them, just in case he will really need them. He even send an undead to the Aren, to buy furniture for them.
***
Entering the town, Dezen couldn't roam the streets, but had to stay in some giant, new building, where most of the shops in the Aren moved. There, sellers were protected by spells, formations, guarding mages on the balconies, and enchanted bars, between them and the buyers.
Additionally, at the entrance Dezen's undead was approached by normal human soldier, in an enchanted armour.
He said in a friendly tone.
- Welcome in the Aren. My name is Zack. I am here here to watch you during your visit. What are you here for?
- Hello. I want to buy furniture. Nothing more.
- I see. - Zack pointed direction of the shops where Dezen is going, and continued talking. Dezen, partly because of culture, engaged, wondering if it is some tactic to check knowledge of visitors, to filter the real people from mandies.
At first they were talking about where Dezen is from, how is he dealing with today's world, and his travel. Then, Dezen got curious and asked about this place itself.
- Is it building connecting all the entrances to the Aren? Well, except the ones for nobles and other important people. I can feel it was made with space magic, but not much more.
- As a normal human, I don't know much about magic, nor am I informed about things connected with it, but yes, they do. But I don't really know much more.
- Thank you. And what about people? Do they feel safe now?
- Much more, than at the begging. We created set of actions people should do to stay safe, and new "devices", let's call them like that, to inform each other about detection of any mandy, and so on.
- And other creatures from Replacements? Do they appear close to Aren?
- No. Luckily not.
Dezen entered the queue, and started talking with Zack about more pleasant subjects, before leaving the undead.