TNRSF 04

Chapter 4

Necromancer

“Hey, what is this, a skeleton?”

“Change formation! Gather in one place! Hurry!”

To think that the young master, whom everyone assumed had no power at all, was using necromancy.

Dalton’s mercenaries, though flustered, moved in perfect unison to form up.

Those with swords moved to the front while those with crossbows went to the rear, all while encircling him, their protection target.

In the meantime, the skeletons Klein had summoned surrounded their position in a circle.

“There are no ranged weapons.”

“But why do they look like that? Are those black things bones?”

Black skulls shrouded in murky smoke.

Looking at them, one of the mercenaries muttered to himself.

“Skeletons are raised from the bones of corpses, right? But there aren’t any here….”

They had scouted this place in advance and stayed here for several days.

During that time, they had not seen so much as a single fox cub, let alone bones—so how had these skeletons been created?

“Ha! Hahaha! Hahahaha!”

While the mercenaries were thinking that, laughter burst out from behind them.

It was the voice of their employer, Dalton.

“Skeletons? So you pinned us down with all that weight just to let out trash like these?”

Several of the mercenaries agreed with his words.

Skeletons—the most basic undead used by necromancers.

They were effective against unarmed civilians, but to trained mercenaries like themselves, they were nothing worth mentioning.

“Trash?”

However, Klein did not seem to think so, and asked Dalton in return.

“Trash, of course! Mindless piles of bones like that—I’ve smashed thousands of them during missions!”

Dalton shouted confidently.

The other mercenaries, including the one whose ankle had been crushed, also fiddled with their weapons as if they had hit the jackpot.

“Damn it, to think I’d lose my leg to something like a skeleton…!”

“Heh heh heh, I’ll make sure to get you back for this later.”

In the meantime, the man in charge of commanding the mercenary unit spoke to the assembled troops.

“Deal with the ones blocking the front first, then break through the rest. Load crossbows!”

The crossbows that had been aimed at the young master were now turned toward the skeletons.

“Fire—!”

Tutututut-!

At the command, ten crossbows fired at once.

Their crossbows were on par with those of first-line troops, and their aim was precise.

There was no way hastily assembled skeletons made from buried bones could withstand those quarrels.

…At least, that should have been the case.

Kakang-!

A metallic sound that should never have been heard echoed through the forest.

When the crossbow bolts they had fired were blocked, the mercenaries’ eyes widened.

“W-wait. What was that just now?”

“A shield? It wasn’t there earlier…!”

A shield blocking Klein’s front.

It had been formed on the spot as the black smoke enveloping the skeletons condensed together.

“Two hundred years really is a long time. To think there isn’t a single person who recognizes these undead.”

The voice of the young master Klein sent a chill down their spines.

The face of Klein, smiling as he looked at them, was no longer that of a boy.

“First unit, release defensive formation. Prepare to charge.”

Chwarreuk-!

At Klein’s command, the black skeletons shrouded in smoke drew their swords.

Their movements were disciplined, like a trained army.

Seeing that, the mercenaries’ faces turned pale.

“If they were ordinary skeletons, it’d make sense for you to think that way.”

With his arms crossed, Klein watched them and smiled faintly before continuing.

“But if they’re my skeletons, then it’s a different story.”

All the quarrels that had been preloaded onto the strings had already been expended.

“Charge.”

As if confirming that fact, the young master immediately gave the attack order to the skeletons surrounding them.

“Kiyaaah—!”

The skeletons cloaked in black smoke charged at the mercenary group from all directions.

“H-hey, wait a second?!”

They were running.

That fact alone doubled the shock felt by the mercenaries.

Skeletons were supposed to shuffle slowly and swing their weapons sluggishly.

Unless deployed in overwhelming numbers, they were not considered particularly threatening undead.

“Stop reloading! Drop the crossbows! Close combat!”

“Are you insane?! Why are skeletons running?!”

Everything they thought they knew was being completely overturned.

The mercenaries who had been trying to load the next quarrel hurriedly reached for their axes.

But the skeletons did not wait for them and immediately plunged in, shattering their formation.

Tukwang-!

That was not all.

Some skeletons dodged the swinging axes, while others stole the axes instead and buried them into their opponents’ heads.

“Aaagh?!”

“Damn it, these aren’t skeletons! They’re monsters!”

“This bastard knew my movements and did it on purpose…?! Kraaagh!”

Tactics, speed, coordination.

In every aspect, the skeletons completely overwhelmed the mercenaries.

Watching that scene, Dalton ran toward the battlefield, muttering that it made no sense.

“Pathetic fools, you can’t even stop a few skeletons—what the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Saying that, Dalton forced his way into the front line and swung his sword at one of the skeletons.

Sgeok-!

Regardless of his personality, he too was a knight who had reached a high level of mastery.

Unable to block the upward swing, the skeleton’s body vanished in large chunks.

“Smash their heads! If you do that, those bastards won’t be able to get back up—!”

Before he could finish speaking, Dalton suddenly twisted his head to the side.

Chwaak-!

A sword slashed through the space where his head had been just moments before.

It was the very skeleton whose upper body he had blown away a moment earlier.

“W-what…?!”

The black smoke clinging to the black skull was restoring the skeleton’s body.

“It looks like you had your own way of dealing with ones made from corpses.”

Watching the shocked Dalton, Klein smiled in satisfaction.

“But coincidentally, these ones aren’t made from corpses—they’re made from magic power.”

At the same time he said that, five skeletons rushed straight at Dalton.

***

“Damn it, they resurrect even after dying! This is…!”

The mercenaries, more than half of them already dead and sprawled on the ground, and Dalton, completely surrounded.

Watching that, I broke into a broad smile.

“If I had merely handled mindless dolls, the continent wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble trying to kill me.”

As I looked at the soldiers appearing before me once more, my smile deepened.

This was the greatest reason why I, Akimond, had once swept across the continent.

Not corpses that would rot and decay with time, but spiritual bodies composed of mana—numbering in the millions.

And every single one of those countless undead was not a horde of mindless zombies, but a true army capable of executing formations and tactics.

“Uaaaaaah—!”

By the time most of the mercenaries had turned into corpses.

Dalton, exploding with all his mana, charged straight at me.

“Hoo?”

“No matter how powerful the undead you summon, if you kill the caster, it’s over!”

Dalton’s hands, covered in wounds all over his body, held a sword gleaming with a sharp, cold edge.

‘Haha, well now.’

An unforgettable scene from the past overlapped before my eyes.

Was it not just like that moment?

Berkel charging at me.

And me, Akimond, my heart pierced by that sword.

“This distance is a swordsman’s domain—!”

But now, things were different.

Unlike before, when I had died helplessly without being able to respond, now I could see it.

The sword path, the direction, the density of mana.

Everything contained within that bastard.

Sgeok-!

I drew my sword and swung it as my body flowed.

The sword I swung cleanly severed both of Dalton’s hands.

“……Huh?”

Dalton looked at me as he stared at his two hands floating limply in the air.

“A necromancer… using a sword…?”

I had slashed upward, yet my sword was already back in its scabbard.

A speed Dalton’s eyes could not even register.

Without even grasping what had happened, he took the second strike to his chest.

Piing-!

The Leinrant secret art executed together with the draw—Meteor Sword.

The blade sliced through the chainmail worn underneath like paper and drew a long diagonal line across his chest.

Thud.

Dalton collapsed, his strength gone.

And I looked at the corpses of the mercenaries.

“If you kill the caster, all of a necromancer’s creations lose their power. Akimond was defeated because he failed to overcome that weakness.”

I looked at the undead, their task finished, waiting for my command.

Soldiers created not from corpses, but from mana.

This was the power of my past self, Akimond.

Turning my gaze again, I looked at the sword in my hand.

An overwhelming talent that allowed me to perfectly master another’s techniques just by seeing them once.

This was the power of my present self, Klein Leinrant.

“To think the one who overcame that weakness just happened to be of your bloodline. Isn’t it ironic, Berkel.”

I smiled bitterly and sheathed my sword.

A sudden reincarnation and a second life.

I had wanted to live peacefully, but the bloodline of my nemesis ultimately refused to leave me alone.

“Since I’ve been reborn in this body, I can’t just treat it as someone else’s problem.”

Gripping the crest engraved on my chest, I smiled.

It felt as though all the worries and anguish I had struggled with until now were finally being sorted out.

“I’ll tear down and rebuild this ruined household myself!”

“Then how about this story, Miss Arin? The other day, when the young master was at the monastery….”

“Ahahahaha! Did that really happen?”

Inside Klein’s carriage.

Having just recovered from her motion sickness, Arin, brimming with excitement, was completely absorbed in Priest Garrison’s story.

“Sir Dunkel, you should listen too! When the young master was little, what happened was—!”

“I’ll listen later.”

While the two of them were engrossed in stories about Klein’s childhood, Dunkel’s gaze was directed elsewhere.

“Why aren’t they coming back yet?”

“Did something go wrong?”

“What do we do? Until it’s over, no one can….”

“Why is it taking so long…!”

Three hours had passed since Klein and Dalton disappeared.

The nobles, having finished their hunt and returned, were glancing uneasily into the forest.

‘As I thought, there was another scheme.’

With the host, Dalton, not returning.

Seizing the opportunity, Dunkel approached the groom and spoke.

“I will go look for Lord Dalton and the young master. Prepare a horse—.”

“P-please wait a moment, Sir Dunkel!”

One of the nobles tried desperately to stop him, but Dunkel was the commander of the Red Carriage Knights under Heinkel.

“What is it.”

“T-that is…. You are still assigned to the duty of guarding our honored guests….”

Startled by the piercing glare of his eyes, the noble was unable to continue speaking.

“With the other knights already returned, I judge that no further escort is necessary.”

“B-but still!”

“And I am the young master Klein’s escort knight. I cannot leave the young master alone any longer.”

Faced with the sharp gaze of a knight of commander rank, the others had no choice but to back down as well.

In the end, having been given a horse, Dunkel walked toward Klein’s carriage with a stiff expression.

“Sir Knight, what’s going on?”

Arin, nibbling on the cookies Klein had given her in one corner of the carriage, asked.

“It seems the young master is delayed beyond schedule, so I intend to go look for him. As for the priest….”

“The priest left earlier.”

At Arin’s words, Dunkel froze and looked back at the carriage.

“At some point—no, without even saying anything—where did he…?”

“He looked really serious! He said his bad feeling was right!”

At her words, Dunkel recalled what Klein had said before leaving.

‘I don’t know why that man insisted on following us all the way here.’

“…Don’t tell me, the Order is still after the young master?!”

Assuming the worst, Dunkel quickly turned and mounted his horse.

“Have a safe trip~!”

Leaving behind Arin’s innocent farewell, Dunkel spurred his horse into a gallop.

In the place where he had been standing, a scroll torn cleanly in half lay on the ground.