Everything happened so fast. The undead mage knew William was strong, but that exceeded his expectations.

The creatures the mage had summoned vanished after he was killed.

The other undead had already lost the will to fight. The two strongest members of that squad were the mage and the three-meter warrior.

Both had been killed by William. So there was no point in fighting.

“Let us live, please,” one of the undead said. “We promise not to tell anyone anything.”

William found it amusing—two undead begging for their lives. He was about to kill them too when an idea crossed his mind.

“Can I use my demonic energy to control their minds? That way I’d have two spies…”

The idea was risky because if it failed, those undead would tell the Lich about him, and that would definitely be problematic.

Still, it was worth the risk.

“I can let you live, if you’re willing to become spies for me. For that, I need to access your minds,” William said.

One of the undead protested. “If we become spies and the Lich finds out, we’re dead!”

William laughed. “If you don’t become spies, you’ll die right now anyway.”

The undead exchanged glances, and in the end, they decided to accept William’s proposal.

Of course, he wouldn’t start the mind control process right there in the middle of the road. The chance of someone appearing was low, but it still existed. He wanted to avoid that.

As they walked together away from there, William checked the experience and items he’d received from killing those undead.

The weapons that dropped from their bodies would be worth good money to sell, and the experience gave him practically 25% toward the next level. Little by little, he was approaching level 55, which was already pretty interesting.

“I just don’t know where I’m going to sell these weapons… They’ll clearly see they’re from the undead, and that’s going to be a problem.”

After walking deeper into the forest for a while, William stopped and began the mind control process with those undead.

It was quite simple: he placed his demonic energy inside each of their bodies, then entered their minds, altering memories and other aspects of those creatures’ minds.

The process was simpler than usual precisely because the undead didn’t try to mentally resist or protect themselves from his control.

William left a seed of his power inside each one. If he wanted, he could mentally communicate with either of them to discover things even from a distance!

“Be careful and act naturally. Remember the story I told you.”

“Understood, Master,” the undead replied, lowering their heads in respect.

Each went their separate ways. William returned to the road and headed toward the capital of knowledge. Throughout the journey, he stayed alert for any strange signs, whether from magical creatures or undead.

But what he was also actively looking for were magical beasts in the sky. He wanted a flying mount.

Unfortunately, they were rare creatures in that region, and usually flew so high it was difficult to spot anything.

As he walked along the road, William began to feel a different breeze on his face, and a smell of fish seemed to come from the distance.

A fishing village near a large lake. William stopped near the edge and looked out.

The lake was so massive it looked more like an ocean. He couldn’t see the end of it.

He pulled out the map he’d received from the priest at the monastery and checked. The lake was drawn on the map and marked as a dangerous location.

“Strange…” he thought.

If it was dangerous, why did people live nearby in small wooden houses? If it was dangerous, why could he see fishing boats on the horizon, searching for food for their families? It didn’t make sense.

William decided to take a break at that village. It seemed interesting. That lake had made him curious.

He walked over to a wooden pier where he spotted a fisherman sitting on a wooden bench, trying to catch some fish, even without his boat.

“Hello, how’s it going?” William said with a smile, trying to be as friendly as possible.

It was impossible to know if the people of that village were friendly or not. The fisherman looked at him with some caution—normal when seeing an outsider.

“Hello, young one,” the man said. “You need something?”

William sat down next to the man. Since there was no bench, he sat on the wooden pier, his feet almost touching the lake water.

“I’m a traveler and I have two questions, if you can help me. The first one is: why is this lake marked as dangerous on most maps? Second, is there a tavern to stay a few nights here?”

The man’s expression turned serious after hearing that.

“About the tavern, yes, there’s one in town, but we don’t get many visitors. And about the lake, well… it’s a long story.”

William stayed silent, waiting for the man to tell the story.

“All right, I can tell you, but I’ll keep it short, okay? I’ve got things to do today,” the man said.

“Thank you so much, sir.”

“This village has been here for a long time. They built it here because of the lake—it’s great for food, and the region is generally safe.”

“One day, a fisherman decided to go deep into the lake, where no one had gone before. He never came back. Some adventurers went to investigate, and rumors say there’s a very strong creature there—an aquatic serpent with wings.”

“But don’t worry. Nothing happens around here. It’s only dangerous if you go deep into the lake, so stay close and everything will be fine.”

The story was missing a lot of details, for sure, but William was intrigued. A serpent with wings sounded like an incredible creature.

He said goodbye to the man and headed to the tavern. The sun was already setting.

The tavern was quite simple, and the owner was surprised when he saw a visitor, since that wasn’t common.

William arranged for a room, then left the tavern to eat something at the only restaurant in the small village.

The restaurant was near the lake. William sat there and watched the sunset over the water.

“Beautiful…”

A beautiful waitress came to take his order. He ordered fried fish that was simply delicious.

It was a peaceful moment. He watched the sunset and the boats on the horizon.

William knew no one would take him to the center of the lake. That was too dangerous, and no fisherman would attempt it.

The only thing he could do was buy a boat—or rather, borrow one during the night.

“Is there anyone selling boats around here?” William asked the waitress.

“Unfortunately, no. All the boats here belong to villagers, and they don’t sell. I think you’ll only find them in bigger cities along the coast.”

“Alright, thanks.”

After eating, William returned to the tavern, pretending to go to his room.

He climbed out the window in the middle of the night. His movements were quick and silent. All the people in that village were weak, so he had no trouble going unnoticed.

William spotted several boats. Most were small, and those were exactly what he wanted.

Since he was going alone, it didn’t make sense to take a large boat that required more people to navigate.

The boat he chose was small, a rowboat.

“I guess if I destroy this boat in the process, the villagers won’t lose much,” he thought.

William pushed the boat, jumped in, and began rowing toward the center of the lake.

At first, while still close to the shore, he could hear nocturnal animals or the distant sounds from the houses.

But as he went deeper into the lake, all those sounds faded away. The only thing he could hear was the water.

William grew tense. According to the villagers, that aquatic serpent was quite powerful. He had no idea of its power level.

“Was coming here a bad idea?” William thought.

After about three hours of rowing nonstop, William reached the center of the lake.

The lake was larger than he’d thought, judging by how long it took to get there.

How did he know it was the center? He could no longer see the village, and besides, he started noticing some strange things.

The water at the center of the lake was moving, as if there were a whirlpool right in the middle.

William stopped rowing and watched the whirlpool from a distance.

“If I get closer, I could get pulled under. Is the aquatic serpent causing this, or is it something else?”

William didn’t know what to do. He stayed there for a while until something happened, even though he didn’t want it to.

The waters began moving more violently, as if the whirlpool had intensified.

“Damn it, damn it!” he shouted.

The boat started drifting toward the whirlpool, and even trying everything, William couldn’t resist. He was sucked into the whirlpool, his boat destroyed in the process.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep