Pretty good actually

The badger is sent out to attack the goblins from the other side, drawing their attention away from your hiding spot. Your zombie actually manages to get all the way to the group of goblins without being attacked and using the element of surprise against them, sends them into such disarray that one of the spear wielding ones dies before the goblins start fighting back. While the goblins are so "preoccupied" you yourself sneak to the archer who's now unprotected, your staff in the right hand, casting spells with the other(you only need one hand for Soul trap and your Orb, although casting two spells at once doesn't work). While you draw nearer you cast Soul trap at the archer, he doesn't notice it since it can't be felt, and then prepare an Orb, as you stand just behind the goblin you fire your spell into the ones fighting your badger and, still using your own surprise effect, strike at the archer with your staff. A quick swipe at the legs causes your adversary to fall to the ground, allowing you two quick kicks to the sides, followed by a stab to the chin as the perplexed range-fighter tries to get up. After you finish the enemy with a stong overhead hit to his own head you turn to the remaining three goblins, only to find one of them falling in the exact moment you look. The two remaining goblins have caught on to you attacking their group as well and separate, the cleaver one stays with the badger, apparently hoping to somehow kill the undead beast that managed to fight off four goblins at once, while the last spear wielder comes running at you. Spears are actually quite useful weapons, their reach advantage should not be undervalued, but this is no spear, it's a goblin spear while your staff is a rather tall one, long story short: the battle is easy for you, you just keep the goblin out of his own reach with quick jabs until he stumbles to the ground whereupon you're above him and end the fight with a few kicks and a sideways swing at the chest, not before quickly firing a Soul trap at him though. Your fight ends just soon enough for you to yell "wait!" at the badly wounded badger who goes in for the kill as well and quickly cast another Soul trap.

Once the battle is truly over you finally direct your attention to the cage and the animal inside. It may take you a few minutes to kill the wolf with your spell (you're not going to directly fight it) and revive it as a zombie afterwards, thus killing your badger, but you're sure it was worth the wait. In all your past lives, you never pushed yourself to do so much, hunted so much, worked so hard to get a powerful zombie, you just never had the motivation you have this time, seeing a silver lining that might allow you to do something before you inevitably die long before generating the necrogy for a skeleton has truly helped you. A propos "never hunted so much", you remember that players can "level-up" by killing enough and getting experience, can NPCs do that as well?

Level 3 Necromancer
Human, NPC, Explicit
Experience to level up – 127
Attributes:
Strength 16 > 17 Dexterity 20 > 21 Endurance 16 > 17
Charisma 22 > 23 Manipulation 25 > 27 Appearance 18 > 19
Perception 20 > 21 Intelligence 36 > 38 Wisdom 30 > 32
Skills:
Staff 20
Knife 10
Commanding 16
Smithing 10
Cooking 10
Feats:
Grave robber - You may sometimes loot remains of fallen enemies as bones or rarely even whole bodies.
Aspirant of undeath - You receive 20% less damage from dark magic, but double the damage from light magic and cannot be healed by it .
Newbie Necromant: Can store up to 100 necromantic energy and produces 1 per day.
Necromantic energy transfer: You may transfer your necomantic energy into a fitting medium.
Spells:
Raise corpse: Reanimate a dead body to fight for you. Costs 60 mana.
Orb of Necromancy: Fires an orb of raw necromantic energy, travelling a distance equal to wisdom in metres and dealing (Int/2 + Wis/2)/2 necromantic damage. Costs 10 mana.
Soul trap: Targets grant an amount of necromantic energy equal to 10% of their health upon ****. Costs 20 mana.
*Minion soul trap: Allows targeted minion to automatically produce a Soul trap effect on enemies killed by them. Lasts for 1 minute. Costs 20 mana.
Necromancy:
Create Skeleton: 50 necromantic energy

Yes they can, you are now level 3, all your attributes increased, especially the magical ones and Manipulation, fitting for a necromancer. In other news your Commanding skill climbed to 16, although the absence of a marker for the increase indicates that that happens unrelated to levelling up. The perhaps most important change however, happened in the spells section, Minion soul trap, that should prove highly useful for further farming, you still need 16 necrogy to your skeleton, and not only that a wolf will be a better hunter than a badger, he will also be able to kill the prey himself.

It takes about thirty minutes to farm the remaining necrogy, your wolf does most of the work, you just occasionaly cast your new spell on him and pick up the loot. Once you have your fifty points however, you finally begin using some real necromancy. You never did this before, haven't even heard of it, but you still know exactly what to do: you stretch out your right arm and concentrate on the necromantic energy inside you, that vortex of **** and magic intertwined, calling it forth and pouring it in the form of your thoughts, the skeleton you wish to raise from the ground. Soon, a green mist emanates from the palm of your hand, flowing to the ground a few steps ahead of you, simultaneously seeping into the earth and forming a small pool of green vapour. After a few seconds all the energy has left you, the stream of mist from your hand ceases, but just as that happens a skeletal hand bursts through the ground, soon followed by another arm which works with the first one to hoist the entire skeleton from the earth, enshrouded in green mist. At last the skeleton bows down to the ground and pulls a weapon from amidst the now evaporating pool of green, a two-handed battle-axe that is clearly worn down by the tooth of time, once a great weapon it is now just a shadow of it's former glory. Your skeleton looks at you with the small blueish/whitish balls of light that are it's eyes, nothing else on it isn't bone, "can you hear me?", you ask, it nods, "can you talk?", it shakes its head, "will you do as I say?", it nods, "are you my minion?", it nods.

You quickly learn that you new vassal very clearly has limits, he's only barely smarter than the zombies you had so far, is slow to move, his bones often creak and he gives of a general air of vulnerability, as though a too strong wind would be enough to end him. Irregardless you send your now two minions out to hunt for you, hungry for more of them, even if they seem as weak as this one. As soon as you see your skeleton hunt you no longer suspect it to be not that great in a fight but rather know it to be so, it's to slow to be of great use in the hunt or a battle, you decide to have the skeleton pick up the loot for you as your spells mana would only be wasted on it. While your minions take care of hunting and you only absentmindedly cast the Minion soul trap spell on the wolf, you take another look at the character sheet in case it updated:

Necromancy:
Create Skeleton: 50 necromantic energy
Skeletons are weak, brittle and not very smart but without hunger, fear or pain and absolutely loyal. Although basic skeletons are cheap they are unpopular as minions since they are very **** in combat and unfit for other roles. (Additional abilities are unlocked by increasing )
Create Skeleton builder: 100 necromantic energy, 1 Skeleton
Create Skeleton fighter: 200 necromantic energy, 1 Skeleton
Create Skeleton mage: 500 necromantic energy, 1 Skeleton

these are the only changes you find, apparently having (or summoning) a minion unlocks a short desription and more advanced versions. At least you now know what to do next, summoning more skeletons.

Over the next hours your still small army of minions steadily and slowly grows, at some point you order your skeletons to drive as much small prey as possible to a certain area where it is then killed by the wolf, thus speeding up the whole farming process.

Eventually you call for an end to the killing, tallying everything you have amassed: a squadron of eight skeletons, each armed with ancient and worn down two-handed or one-handed weapons, your truly useful zombie-wolf, plentiful amounts of animal hides and meats, dozens of rabbits, 6 foxes and two badgers, and even a few bones from when you looted enemies yourself. Looking in your character menu you note that your necrogy is already at 34 again. Satisfied with your work for today you finally head back to your cave.

The travel back home wasn't much to speak of, with a whole group of clambering and clattering skeletons stealth is of course no option, but the sheer number of your minions seems to have deterred any would be attackers.
As you finally reach your cave the sun has already started setting and you have remembered that this night won't be the most pleasant one, you have no real place to sleep and not even the wood for a fire, so yes, the night will be cold and uncomfortable. Your dinner isn't much better, you gulp down a bit of raw rabbit meat, thankful food poisoning from raw meat was removed a long time ago. Once this last affair is settled you lie down to sleep in the darkness that is your cave by night and command your minions to watch over you while you sleep.