Chapter 37

Oh! My God (2)

"Seriously, you just don't know how to stay still."

Two days had passed since Corax had confined Ian and me to the private room.
Ignoring Ian's complaints as he smacked the back of my head, I reviewed the spell formula drawn across the floor once more.

"You should've just said okay and left it at that. Why did you have to pick another fight there too?"

"How was I supposed to know he'd really lock us up?"

"Yeah, real impressive!"

After shouting that, Ian cried out again a moment later as if the absurdity had only just hit him.

"No, but then you should've been the only one locked up! Why the hell was I dragged in too when I was just standing there?!"

The one who answered Ian's resentment wasn't me, but someone beyond the wall.

"It was the captain's order. Since you are acting as his guardian, he said you must remain in the same room."

"So they say."

When I gestured toward the knights standing guard beyond the iron door, Ian seemed to lose anything else he wanted to say.

"I should've run away.... I should've escaped earlier.... Why the hell did I think this was worth it...."

"You're being noisy, Uncle."

Ignoring my words, Ian continued grumbling before eventually turning around and grabbing a liquor bottle from the cabinet.

'At least they weren't lying when they said they'd provide every convenience.'

That was what I thought as I looked around the neatly organized room.
Aside from the crude iron door, the private chamber was no different from an ordinary guest room.
Pai visited every other day and brought almost everything we requested.

"Just quietly eat the food they give you and return to the main house. It's not exactly a bad outcome, is it?"

It almost felt as though Corax himself were saying that to me.

'But I can't just stay shut in here forever.'

I recalled the undead that had drifted in from beyond the barrier.
A disgusting patchwork thing that could barely even be called necromancy.
Yet the flow of demonic energy maintaining that form possessed an all-too-familiar structure.

'It was forcibly fused with the Soul-Returning Art and twisted beyond recognition, but that construction formula was one I created myself.'

Two hundred years ago, I personally developed that spirit-body construction formula to arm the five million vengeful souls that followed me.
Something I created for the people of the north who died from the plague was now killing northerners instead.

I could never allow that.

"So what exactly are you doing over there the moment you get locked up?"

"Can't you tell? I'm using necromancy."

As I answered Ian, the detection formula I had been drawing over the past two days was finally complete across the floor.

"Necromancy? Looks no different from magic to me."

"There's barely any difference in practice. The only distinction is whether you use mana or demonic energy."

Even so, mana and demonic energy originated from entirely different sources.
One used a formless power without will, while the other dealt with beings that possessed a clear will of their own.
That was why necromancers often compared themselves not to mages, but to spirit masters or summoners.

'Though I'm probably the only necromancer left who approaches it that way.'

Thinking of the Empire's necromancers made my sigh deepen further.

But only for a moment.

After giving the formula one final inspection, I poured the black energy surging from my heart into the spell array.

[Your guide makes its request, so become a lantern and illuminate the way.]

Wooooong—!

The formulas and geometric patterns glowed blue and began moving according to my will.

What I summoned with that brief incantation was a spirit that roamed the skies: a Banshee.

After engraving her rune at the center of the formula, I used it as a foundation to create a detection network.

"Ohhh, this is...!"

The spell array that had been shining blue completely warped and unfolded into an entirely new form.

What eventually appeared was a topographical map showing the barrier and the surrounding region.

Countless blue lights flickered throughout the three-dimensional map.

"A large-scale reconnaissance spell! Necromancy can do something like this too?"

"It's simply outputting the images seen through the Banshee's eyes using the formula. It's basic necromancy."

"Then what are those clusters of light?"

"Souls."

As I spoke, I pointed at the clusters of light glowing in different colors.

"The blue ones are spirit bodies. The red ones are souls inhabiting corpses. White ones are living souls."

"...You're saying this is displaying all of that in real time? Every living creature and undead existing across the entire area?"

"That's right."

At my casual answer, Ian seemed speechless for a moment.

"...So there was a reason those Imperial bastards were so obsessed with necromancy."

"Does it really look that impressive?"

I asked in confusion at Ian's astonished reaction, but his answer came immediately.

"A large-scale detection formula that shows the entire battlefield situation at a glance. It's indispensable in war."

"Ah, that's true...."

I nodded while recalling the days when I overturned the continent.

The enemy army's troop formations transmitted in real time.

Simply rearranging the undead forces in response had been enough to sweep the allied armies away like candles before the wind.

"If you wanted to recreate this with magic, you'd need someone at the level of a Magic Tower professor."

"Wouldn't spirit masters or summoners do it more easily?"

"Those are exceptions. Systematic training for them is impossible."

'As if necromancers are any different.'

The amateurs raised by the Empire, and the unidentified idiots threatening us now.

The fact that such things were called necromancers alongside me was profoundly irritating.

Two hundred years ago, things were at least a little better....

I clicked my tongue sharply, cutting off the thought.

My comrades, whose existence was no longer preserved even through oral tradition, let alone written records.

There was nothing to gain from lamenting it now.

'More importantly....'

My worries deepened further as I looked at the red dots displayed on the soul map connected to the Banshee.

'Their numbers are still increasing.'

The red dots multiplied one by one.

And in proportion to that, the reactions of the living souls scattered throughout the forest were disappearing.

In other words, they were hunting the monsters in the forest and turning them into undead.

'Judging by the numbers, they'll attack soon. At the shortest, maybe even within a week....'

The rate at which the undead were multiplying.
The additional red dots entering from outside.

Comparing their numbers with the barrier defense forces gave me a rough estimate.

'Then somehow, I have to get outside before that happens....'

Thinking that, I looked toward the tightly shut iron door.

....

Two knights stood guard outside my room door.
After two days of behaving quietly without complaint, their vigilance had probably started to loosen.

'Maybe it's time to start laying the groundwork.'

Smiling wickedly like any proper necromancer, I walked right up to the iron door.

"Hey, you knights out there!"

"L-Lord Klein."

Startled by the sudden voice from behind them, the knights visibly flinched.
I had stayed completely silent for two days before suddenly speaking up, so their reaction was understandable.

"You've had a rough time because of me, huh?"

After I said that, an answer came a moment later.

"There's no need for you to concern yourself with it."

"Still, it's got to be boring. There's still some time left before your shift change, right?"

"Th-that's true, but...."

"Well, I'm getting restless too, so let's just sit around and chat a little. What do you say?"

At those words, the knights stared blankly at each other for a moment.

The young lord of the Leinrant family wants to talk.
A duke's son? To us? Why?
Can we even do that?
Well... there wasn't any order saying we couldn't.

'They're not rejecting me outright.'

They looked flustered, but not unwilling.
Sensing that, I immediately pressed further in a subtle tone.

"It's your first time meeting a necromancer like me, isn't it?"

The reply came quickly.

"We've met plenty before."

"Killed even more."

The barrier knights' aversion toward necromancers.
But the cause wasn't necromancy itself.

It was the combat methods necromancers used.

The Soul-Returning Art, which revived corpses of the dead and used them as weapons.
Modern necromancers relied on that as their primary weapon, which was why they were despised and forced to lurk in the shadows.

But things were different with an original like me.

"I'm not talking about those low-level fools who fight with zombies and ghouls. I mean real necromancers."

"...You mean, Young Lord, that you do not handle corpses?"

"I don't. I swear it on my honor."

Honor.

The moment I brought out the perfect weapon for persuading knights, their expressions changed.

'I seriously don't understand it.'

Even while marveling at the way they practically lived and died by the word honor, I continued tempting them.

"Unlike those people, I deal with souls."

At that, one of the knights twitched.

"S-souls?"

"You handle the souls of the dead?"

When the other knight echoed the question, I smiled knowingly.

"Yeah. For example...."

I pointed at the knight standing on the left.

"Like the one sitting on your shoulder."

It was just a casually spoken sentence.

But the instant those words left my mouth, silence fell between the two knights.

Then, after a moment—

"I-I think you're trying to make fun of me, and I won't fall for it."

"T-That's right! Listening to a necromancer's—"

"Your shoulder's been stiff for a while now, hasn't it?"

The moment I cut him off with that question, an even deeper silence descended.

'Hey, what the hell! Hurry up and say no!'

'No, but....'

'Wait, don't tell me your shoulder really has been stiff?!'

With my head poking through the bars between them, the two knights exchanged frantic glances.

"Knights are more sensitive to their own physical condition than anyone else. So you can't exactly deny it, can you?"

Faced with undeniable logic, the knight flinched before slowly nodding.

"I... cannot deny it. But this is...!"

"Because you're tired?"

I cut off what he was about to say and broke into a broad grin.

Then I simply stared at him in silence with that smile still on my face.

"Are you sure?"

Another long silence followed.

'Seeing them get shaken this easily by superstition, they really are northerners.'

Harsh cold. Endless missions. Constant battle.
People who lived under the constant threat of death naturally feared supernatural things like superstitions and legends all the more.
They were easily influenced by spirits and ghosts.

And coincidentally, those things happened to be my specialty as a necromancer.

"You want to get rid of it, don't you?"

After a long pause, the knight nodded.

By now his face had gone completely pale.

"Before you sleep, light a candle, press your thumb against the area below your solar plexus, and take deep breaths. The tightness should ease up a little."

The knight stared at me after hearing that.

"Something like that... really works?"

I examined the cautious look on his face.
Judging by his expression alone, he looked no different from middle-aged women visiting fortune tellers.

'Back when I was active, people used to tell me to stop pulling crap like this.'

Even while recalling memories from my youthful previous life, the smile on my face refused to disappear.

"It's a simple memorial rite. You've got nothing to lose, so give it a try."

Just then, two more knights appeared for the shift change.

While they were busy handing over duties, I quietly raised a thumbs-up toward the window.

— Hehe!

The child sitting on the knight's shoulder answered my greeting with a cheerful thumbs-up of his own.

"So, ghosts really do exist?"

The moment I returned inside, Ian asked the question, and I nodded.

"In frozen wastelands, the ones who die most often are children."

"So what, then? You weren't bluffing? Those knights were actually haunted?"

"Rather than ghosts.... they're closer to guardian spirits."

I brushed off Ian's incredulous question and once more watched the knights walking away in the distance.

"Huh? Somehow my shoulder actually does feel lighter...."

"Don't say stuff like that! That's seriously creepy...!"

As the knight rolled his stiff right shoulder around, his empty left hand swayed at his side.

— Hehe!

The little ghost child who had been sitting on the knight's shoulder was now tightly holding that empty hand while toddling after him.

"The son he sent on ahead is protecting the father who guards the barrier."

"...Since those knights are natives here, I suppose stories like that aren't uncommon."

Listening to Ian's understanding response, I watched the two figures walk away.

The father continued walking while tilting his head in confusion, and the child silently protected his back.

Really, the people here never change, no matter how much time passes.