I approached Hatsumi, who was sitting next to the fire, petting Nyx. "Hatsumi, I heard you had a plan for the shaman's corpse."

"Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention that earlier. The shaman was throwing around quite a bit of lightning. I think the corpse is magical enough for a decent undead." She replied.

"What about the missing head?" I wondered.

"We do have the head. It's just not attached. I don't see why you could not combine them with some necromancy." Hatsumi replied.

"Hm. A more damaged body is harder to animate. I wonder if we can sew the head back on?" I mused.

"The Iron Beaks work and you just formed chickens from a bunch of bones. They are not always from the same chicken." Helena pointed out.

I nodded. "True. But they are not very complex and they are skeletons. The bones are sort of magically connected anyway. The zombie spell assumes all parts are attached. Hey, we could do a shaman skeleton."

"Would that not be a waste? The magical skeleton does not compare to Frank, for example. I think your zombies did turn out better overall." Helena said.

She did have a point. I wanted more skeletons originally but our experiments were much more effective with zombie variations. With an actual body you could do a lot more modifications it seemed.

"I could sew the head back on with some thread. Maybe you go for a vampiric undead? The blood could help connect the two parts." Hatsumi suggested.

"We need Skadi for that. And probably Cassie's alchemy. I guess we can keep the body on ice for now." I replied.

"I have organised a box where the body is stored. We just have to renew the ice inside periodically." Hatsumi said.

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"Good job." I praised her.

"What if we throw some blood inside the box as well?" Helena suggested.

"I think we want to wait for Cassie's modifications to the blood." I replied.

"I suppose we will see her in two days. We can just visit the students' camp, right?" Helena asked.

"I am sure Sarah won't have a problem with it."

"There is one other thing." Hatsumi said.

"Yes?" I asked.

"The goblin zombies seem to have a slight water affinity. They are not draugrs. But they are a bit more than normal zombies. Maybe because of the heavy rain?" Hatsumi wondered.

"Hm. I suppose I might have pushed some water mana into the spell too. I was keeping my water shield active, so I converted some of my mana to the water affinity. The rain would help, I guess. Was the storm magical? Do you think the goblins could have created that? It certainly helped the lightning magic." I wondered.

Helena frowned. "A storm is complicated. It would need wind and water mana. Do you think the shaman was dual affinity? Or did he have help?"

"They attacked from the water. It is possible they had further help from a water mage." Hatsumi speculated.

I sighed. "It is never simple. We should tell Sarah about our speculations."

"I can do that." Helena volunteered.

While she told Sarah I inspected my new horde. Some of them had suffered damage during the battle and I used my undead heal to help them recover faster. They used the weapons and armour from the original goblins. The quality was not the best but at least they were all armed. I wondered what I could do if I gave them proper spears and shields. Undead could form a great shield wall since they would hold their ground no matter what. Of course, to get the most out of them you needed a good commander.

"If we could make a T3 goblin we could have it command this force…" I mused.

Hatsumi smiled. "That would be great. Since the corpse is from a mage there is some potential but it might need additional resources."

I nodded. "We can wait until we are at the academy again. Let's see what Cassie and Skadi say when they arrive."

"You know, you could create more T3 cats and put them in charge of squads." Hatsumi suggested.

I groaned. "Nyx damaged herself by elevating the cats. While it did heal I am hesitant to try that again soon. And are cats truly the best squad commanders? I think they are better as bodyguards."

"But just imagine it! An army where every squad has a goblin with a cat on their head, giving orders." Hatsumi teased.

"They would probably eat half of their squad…" I muttered. Actually, none of my zombies had been eaten during the night. Then again, Yoru and Nyx devoured some goblins during the battle. But I would make sure to tell them not to eat my new army.

I also checked the pile of monster corpses. Most of them were too destroyed to be of any use. I suppose I had raised most of the usable corpses during the battle. We just ended up burning the pile.

After the inspection it was time for the funeral. Sarah held a short speech and Karl ignited the pyre. Then it was time to pack up and move on.

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