I could see it as 'unimpressive wights' aren't that great of an improvement over a greater amount of ghouls, with a potentially higher cost than said ghouls. A wight like Fleshrender. Who's greatest tactics would be more akin to 'what the ghouls would do anyways'. The only advantage being able to take them back.
Fleshrender has "lab rat" written all over him. The fact he's even allowed to play at having authority over this army speaks volumes on the indifference and/or incompetence of its commander. An actually smart necromancer would use the 'unimpressive wights' as a small, elite cadre of honest-to-goodness soldiers - not cannon fodder, not RTS mobs, but SOLDIERS capable of things like sapping, shield walls, etc, etc. Those are all things you can teach, even if you'll be limited in your ability to do so if you don't have any professional guards or mercenaries at hand to train your troops.
Infiltration, tactical intervention, these are important functions for an army that shouldn't have to be delegated to a tiny officer corps of wights with superpowers - speaking of, that's what I think this guy's actual plan is.
My bet is that he thinks (perhaps with reason) that if he keeps experimenting with wight creation, he'll eventually unlock some kind of undead WMD. Fleshrender gets to stay around because he can control a large number of ghouls over a wide area, but there's already signs that he's cooking up "superior" controllers in the form of that dead-eyed wight we saw.
His obsession seems to be with extinguishing all life in this reality, because he views it as an inherently failed medium for sapience to occur within - and he refers to wights as "wounds in the world", ambulatory tears in the membrane of Life through which Death might enter.
An obvious postulate would be that he thinks that, given time and research, he can create wights who constitute "wounds" so severe that they actively banish Life from their presence. Walking wastelands that can bring about an age of Death merely by existing. Presumably, his idea of 'perfecting' the existing wights would be to purge the remaining Life within them, converting them into organisms specifically calibrated for the "perfect" world of absolute stasis which he seeks to bring about.
Ironically, when he describes Ythona as having "so much life left in her that it's sprouted", in reference to the woody structure running through her body, I think he's skating over the surface of something which is of similar significance to his imagined "mortal wounds in the world".
After all, the 'death' he's referring to doesn't seem to be the common definition of that word. He explicitly describes a force which is foreign to their reality, something which negates the cycles of decay and regrowth which he uses to define 'life'. Capital-D Death is something eternal, something which escapes the laws of entropy and, in his opinion, allows for the creation of entirely new forms and modes of being, if only the tiresome matter of Life could be done away with.
It's possible that Ythona represents an early harbinger of such things, a tree of Death growing beneath a human shell of Life-in-Death - or perhaps even a tree of Life-in-Death, a form of Life that's achieved some kind of stable reaction with Death and can thus endure. What if us reclaiming our former self empowers us in part because it provides that deviant spark of Life with a scaffolding on which to continue growing? It uses us as a measure of the past, of what Life unchallenged means/is, in order to chart its path forward into the unknown realms of Life-in-Death.
That is an interesting bit of conceptual chemistry that the Necromancer might not have considered.
It is in the nature of Life to consume and to decay, but it's also in the nature of life to procreate, and most importantly to Ythona's situation, to adapt.
You stared at Fleshrender. Did he just imply…? And he just left, apparently satisfied by something. At least enough to let those words sit for now.
No. You couldn't take it anymore. There was only so far you could be pushed. And he. Just. Kept. Pushing.
It didn't matter what you did. It didn't even really matter what he did either. You no longer cared about that. Insomuch as you needed to get him to stop, no matter what part of his head decided whatever this was. Wights could be more. Had to be. Despite what the master seems to think; not that you'd actually tell him. Let him believe what he wants. While you figure that out.
Which would be so much easier if Fleshrender wasn't pointlessly spiteful. But you had to be clever. You unfortunately weren't strong enough just yet. Maybe later, but not now. And maybe just a bit more vicious than he was. Force seemed to be the only thing he respected… as long as the person who successfully used it on him was there.
Given that the master's instructions weren't heeded. Again.
So it had to be you that did it, force him to back down. Even then, it probably wouldn't stick for long. Except for the humiliation of being defeated, maybe. And him just ignoring just what it meant, with whatever excuse he could come up with.
Hopefully that 'revenge' seeking wouldn't kick in soon, and your (hopefully) future defeat of Fleshrender would be enough to buy you enough time to actually back up a new status quo however you did manage it; you were kind of going to wing it. Or more accurately, you planned on taking whatever advantage you could, win with trickery more than just brute strength. Maybe skill. It would have to be enough. Worst case… your healing should take care of it?
If you can get enough food for it. You couldn't really rely on hiding extra food in your room. But that's something you planned for. You just needed a base amount, enough to last you however long it took; your rations should work to help. Then you could work your way to your stash, that you had slowly built up. And somewhat rotated through. Thanks to the outside patrols, you could just sort of… hide stashes of things, not just food, in the abandoned buildings. At least somewhat protected from wandering ghouls. Especially since you've seen more around. Bringing them back when you could.
You remembered enough cooking, after practicing, about meat preservation techniques.
So bit by bit, you set aside some rations. Meat that you had mostly hunted instead of your master given allotment, maybe out a bit of over abundant caution, and prepared it. It wasn't a whole lot, but it was enough. Even with you eating up some of it. You could almost swear that Fleshrender was shorting you. Well, he'll no doubt be bragging about it if he was, eventually.
You actually had a few stash locations, so if one was found, you wouldn't lose it all. Not that anyone had any reason to check, but there was always a chance that someone would find your hiding spots, that could actually get at it. It's not like you had a whole lot of time to squirrel it away. Though you're pretty sure you remembered them all unlike what you vaguely remembered about those unintentional tree planters.
Still, you should have enough. Especially as you could finally, finally not be suffocated by his presence. So much easier to fight, when you weren't forced to freeze, or that extra 'weight' pressing down on you. Extra 'room' to think. One less advantage for Fleshrender to have. Which might actually be why he's so confident of himself; he found a way to push his weight around enough that things were easy for him.
You still managed to claw your way up in strength, despite that oppression. Or maybe because of it? No, it didn't really matter, though you wouldn't give him credit for it. At most, you could say it gave you directions to focus on. The more immediately useful things. Concrete points of weakness to shore up.
Well, in addition to activities that made you, you. That made you Ythona. And really, that too was a 'rebellion' against Fleshrender. But not against the master; he certainly never forbid it. In fact, found it interesting. So it didn't matter what Fleshrender thought about that.
Not to anyone besides Fleshrender, at least. Despite his attempts to convince others, by force.
Rather than actually having any merit to them at all.
It was just unfortunate that you weren't quite ready to actually manage taking the weight of the millstone around your neck he represented, one that you would gladly have him shoulder alone, let him be his own dead weight. Before you became a deader wight.
But you felt ever closer to freeing yourself from him. Soon? Yes, soon. Maybe working on the Domination thing will help a bit? Not to attack Fleshrender, but to negate his effect on you? It did feel like you were close to another breakthrough there. If that's not just you getting used to it.
It's not like you really knew anything else, that would help. Some kind of equivalent to your increased regeneration. But then, it's not like that would matter too much in the fight itself. The aftermath however? Of course it would. And you'd carefully take full advantage of that.
Skill and trickery would have to win the day. Just enough deceit to bridge the gap. Fleshrender would probably hate it. But then, wouldn't that be a positive? As long as you didn't solely rely on him hating it as a factor in decision making, that should be fine. And you had no intention of revolving your life around him like that. You would be yourself, not whatever that would end up being.
He deserved to be forgotten. You'd much rather remember other things, even when it hurt to know, what you lost. It would probably hurt you even more if you could never remember what you had lost. Left without closure to who you used to be.
I think I got originally inspired by an update a few back, but just finished up this one. Besides, Fleshrender would probably say something else after that point. Some slight changes, let it fit 'after' the current update, at least theoretically. Probably a bit further down the timeline, given a few lines. Specifically the 'close to a breakthrough' on Domination. Which does actually fit with controlling more ghouls at once, with the latest vote. Doesn't necessarily mean she's at the next level point. Of course, cue hilarity in hindsight if the next arc ends up with that actually leveling up. Not out of the question for that to happen, really.
I'm just going to assume it was Fleshrender saying something akin to 'not needing rations' or similar. Some kind of jerk statement of pushing his weight around.
Would have been 'anchor around your neck', but millstone felt more like it'd fit with the area Ythona is from. More a feeling, since I don't think there was anything one way or another? Besides, it does somewhat make a nice reference, unintentional as it was when putting it down. Not quite perfect, but still fitting.
And now to wait until inspiration hits for another Omake. Don't really have anything specifically just yet in mind.
