Chapter 138. Ear-ling (5)

Click-

With just a single snap of the necromancer's fingers, the world turned upside down.

Woooooo-

The staggering undead.

Clack! Clack!

Skeletons brandishing spears and swords.

Clank!

Knights whose rotten flesh was covered by smooth plate armor.

Giants pieced together from corpses.

Translucent ghosts and vampires baring their teeth.

Even an amorphous mass of corpses that looked as if an entire cemetery had been overturned and poured out.

Hundreds, thousands, perhaps even more.

The wave of the dead had already surrounded the elven delegation.

Literally, they were already surrounded.

They appeared suddenly, as if they had always been there.

Not bursting from the ground, nor summoned from a special magic circle.

“…O, fairies.”

Delegation leader Ashkel felt a chill run down her neck and lowered her stance.

“If there is a hell, it might look like this.”

She raised her gently curved sword.

“But we do not fear death.”

It was the beginning of the battle.

Kieeeee-!

A Grave Knight charges.

Shield forward, a broadsword with a wide blade resting on top of it.

Ashkel didn't move her feet, only her head, to dodge the sword.

As the sword tip that grazed past tried to follow, she swung her own.

Clang!

Two sword strikes.

One to knock away the shield.

One to thrust her sword into the wide-open chest of the Grave Knight.

Kieek-!

With a sharp elven curved sword, she stabs and twists the part where the shoulder and chest connect.

The rotten arm fell off, armor and all.

The moment she was about to cut its neck, the Grave Knight disappeared.

“…Huh?”

Ashkel paused for a moment.

An illusion?

A curse? Or a phantom?

No.

The sensation of cutting through the neck was vivid.

Unless all her five senses were being played with, that Grave Knight just now was a definite entity.

“A-Ashkel Meyer! These bastards…!”

“They keep disappearing, is it, is it a curse?”

“It's not a curse. They are really disappearing!”

Her subordinates shouted.

Ashkel clenched her teeth.

She thought it was plausible for them to appear out of thin air.

She had heard that high-ranking necromancers could do similar things.

She had also heard the rumor about the Vampire Duke's Skeleton Dragon, which burst out of a portal and wiped out dozens of knights with a single breath.

But to disappear just a hair's breadth before being killed?

Was that possible?

Another Grave Knight charges.

Ashkel put her thoughts aside and commanded.

“Fight! Do not fear death! Our mission is not victory or survival. We just need to see and hear as much as possible!”

There was no choice.

Only to fight and fight again.

They could not win.

How could a mere twenty or so fairies stop a wave of thousands of undead?

Moreover, the necromancer's skill was so outstanding that the undead, despite being undead, were organically tightening the encirclement and showing movements to wear down their stamina.

Overcoming such a numerical and tactical disadvantage would only be possible for a high-ranking mage from the Senate or a royal who handles spirits.

‘It doesn't matter.’

Death was not to be feared anyway.

Because even if she died here, her soul would return to Paradise and inhabit a new body.

“Uaaaargh!”

The subordinate who had lamented the lack of women in the open-air bath fell.

“Ashkel! Ash…kyaaaaah!”

The fairy who had laughed about making several men impotent also collapsed, clutching her bleeding neck.

Swish!

The arm that had been swinging the sword madly suddenly felt light.

She looked back to see a vampire holding her severed arm.

The next moment, her body flew with an impact.

It was the kick of a Necro Ogre.

“Keuk…!”

Her ribs break.

Her knee was shattered.

With one arm gone and the other in tatters, Ashkel was captured.

She had expected death, but the undead stopped attacking the moment they captured her.

She raised her head.

The masked human necromancer was in front of her.

“Heh, kill me.”

This is it.

Ashkel smiled.

Smiling with a mouth half-full of broken teeth was painful, but she still managed to laugh.

“You know what? We fairies have good memories. You, human necromancer. I've memorized your face.”

Because she knew this was not the end.

Because her next life was guaranteed.

For the chosen elves of Paradise, that was not a superstition or a belief, but a reality.

Therefore, the human necromancer's end was as good as decided.

“I will make you feel pain for eternity. You will be in a state of neither living nor dead. We are immortal, and your pain will also be immortal.”

“Kihit.”

The necromancer laughed.

He beckoned with his finger.

“Bring them.”

The Necro Ogres dragged something over.

The dying subordinates of the delegation, with their limbs severed.

Ashkel felt something was strange.

Not a single one was dead.

The subordinates, who had received first aid before dying, were gasping for breath, unconscious.

The necromancer turned around.

“You said you don't fear death, didn't you?”

He said.

“Now you will have to.”

A dagger slit the throat of a subordinate fairy.

“……Ah.”

Ashkel groaned.

On the necromancer's palm.

A magic stone was glowing ominously, sucking something out of the subordinate fairy.

Even without any knowledge of necromancy, she could tell what it was.

He was sucking out the soul.

The soul of the dead fairy that should have returned to Paradise.

“You continue your lives by killing the new generation. Unfortunately, these people will no longer be able to participate in that noble cycle of reincarnation.”

“Necromancer, I will remember your face.”

“Ah, my face?”

The necromancer took off his mask.

Black hair.

Sharp eyes.

The face of a pale human youth, as if he hadn't seen much sun.

“Well, do as you please. I'll let you, just you, go alive.”

When she opened her eyes, her brethren were welcoming her.

She had returned to Paradise.

A new body.

With a young and clean flesh.

“We will revise the strategy for the Great Holy War.”

The Senate announced soon after hearing Ashkel's report.

“We will change the first target from the Empire to the Vampire Archduchy. And we will issue a kill order on the human necromancer under his command.”

* * *

Does absolute evil exist?

This is a question that has tormented countless philosophers, along with the existence of God, the good and evil of man, and the beginning and end of the soul.

I have no desire to dare step into that battlefield that has continued for thousands of years.

Nevertheless, if I must take a side on good and evil, I would at least classify the elves, especially the Paradise elves, on the side of evil.

All of them possess what is commonly called a ‘broken trait’.

A trait with the grand name of [Immortal Reincarnation].

The reality is gruesome beyond belief.

This beautiful race that has lived for thousands of years switches to a young body every time they die.

Literally.

A special spell is cast on the souls of the fairies.

The spell immediately sends the soul of the fairy to the center of Paradise upon its death.

The soul that has flown there inhabits a new body in a state of suspended animation, prepared in advance, and begins a new life.

The problem is the source of the bodies.

Even the high and mighty fairy race does not possess genetic engineering technology advanced enough to create clones.

The bodies that they inhabit are none other than those of young elves.

That's right.

The social structure of the elves is like an eternal wheel where the new generation becomes the sacrifice for the old.

The elves who have stolen young bodies live in Paradise, give birth to many children, and raise them until they become adults.

Thus, countless more sacrifices are born, deformed or unsuitable individuals are filtered out, healthy bodies are selected, and the cycle of reincarnation repeats.

Only a few chosen young people who have shown outstanding abilities are allowed to newly get on that wheel of reincarnation.

“…It's unsettling.”

There's no way such a terrible society would look good in Luark's eyes.

“What is?”

“I'm talking about the elven delegation. The one we parted with in Wolfskrig.”

Alina said, tapping her glass.

Seeing her slightly flushed face, I asked without thinking.

“Are you drunk?”

“My lord, what blasphemy are you speaking to a cleric?”

The glass she is holding is a beer mug.

Filled with dwarven beer.

It has a high alcohol content, but she has been chugging it like water for a while now.

The Luark Church does not forbid alcohol, but is it okay for her to drink like that?

The question I had for the archbishop in the Imperial Capital once again lingers in my mind.

Anyway, if she says she's not drunk, then I guess it's fine.

“I learned from books that elves are benevolent, love peace, and have been long-time friends of the Empire.”

“I see.”

“Maybe that's why, but the soldiers and immigrants all seemed to love them. They were saying that the most handsome men and beautiful women of the continent were gathered in one place.”

Well, the Paradise elves are beautiful on the outside.

It's not strange for people who don't know that the secret to maintaining that appearance is a hideous custom to fall in love at first sight.

“Hmph, honestly. A bunch of lustful eyes. Turning their eyes away when the hero of the century and the saint who led them here is right beside them?”

“…Let's go back to the story about the elves. What color did you see?”

“It was a dull black light. A color I had never seen before.”

Alina emptied her beer mug in one gulp and continued.

“Even the beastman warchief we fought in Gunterburk before was not this bad.”

“I see.”

There's a reason I label certain traits as ‘broken’.

There are tens of thousands of traits in Warlord Conquest.

Among them, many are useless, and about 30 percent are of the type that act as a penalty.

The ‘Archangel Trait’ series of the Imperial Heroes are all broken traits.

The [The Scales of Good and Evil of the Four Angels] that Alina possesses is one of the top-tier mind-reading traits in terms of performance.

The fact that the determination of good and evil is based on the Luark Church is a flaw, but except for a few special cases, it doesn't deviate much from general moral standards, so it doesn't really matter.

“You knew as well, my lord?”

Alina asked.

I nodded my head.

Is there any need to hide it?

She is the most trustworthy person.

There are only two people in this world who know my second identity.

Alina and Olif.

I have no secrets from these two who almost worship me, except for the matter of the Outer Gods and the sacred relics.

So I explained.

What kind of mask they wear.

What the reality of those who imitate eternal life is.

And also how those who refused to submit to that order were exiled and formed tribes.

“The Paradise elves… a cursed race. To think that such bastards were roaming the imperial lands wearing masks.”

“Don't worry about it.”

After all, I've dealt with all of them except for one.

Tribus' [Soul Absorption] can extract and store not only soul cores but also the souls of the dead, or the thoughts of a suffering target.

Until now, I hadn't used it because I felt a bit reluctant to freely extract someone's soul, but it's a different story with fairies.

Just in case she might suspect me, the last one she met, I sent back the fairy who was the representative of the delegation.

The Vampire Archduchy, which unknowingly took the aggro, will have a headache, but…

Well, I can just give them a hint.

After all, the Duke is now my subordinate.

Just then, someone knocked on the door.

It was the 1st Battalion Commander, Damas.

“My lord.”

“Is it all loaded?”

“Yes. We've filled all the remaining carts. We've also loaded them onto the mules' backs.”

“Then let's depart.”

The reason we briefly stopped at this Karnburk Fortress was to transport a large amount of peat.

The area around Karnburk, one of the fortresses obtained through this expedition, is a natural treasure trove for peat production.

While the expedition was subjugating the orcs and returning, the immigrants began peat production.

Thanks to that, a considerable amount was produced, and now it's time to gather it and go back.

The tens of tons of peat is the fuel that will become the driving force of Wolfskrig's industrialization.

The expedition arrived in Wolfskrig after a fifteen-day march.

It had been exactly seven months since we left for the east.

I immediately summoned old man Poodle, the head of the Kambad Merchant Guild, Bart, and the key executives.

With crises closing in from all sides, the time has come to develop the domain once again.