Chapter 19
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: 6. Ella
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"...Corpse manipulation?"
One of the assassins muttered under his breath. Those were his last words.
The cult leader's corpse, under Broker's control, jerked into motion.
Forcing its broken neck upright, its arms twisted unnaturally behind it.
Pop!
The joints snapped backward as blue threads of mana spilled from its fingers. The threads coiled around the assassins, squeezing tight.
"Dodge—!"
One assassin's neck wrenched apart as the threads ensnared him.
The other fumbled for his dagger, but the cult leader's corpse kicked off the wall, spun through the air, and slammed a heel into him.
"Guh—?!"
Boom!
The assassin's body cratered into the wall. Just as he struggled to wrench himself free,
the cult leader lashed out with its leg again.
The same kick. But this one hammered down from above like driving a spike.
Boom!!
The embedded assassin's chest caved in. The entire clash lasted less than ten seconds.
The room fell silent once more. The air hung thick with the stench of blood and dust.
Ella, blood trickling from her wounds, threw her arms around me.
"Cult Leader...?"
She stared at the cult leader's crumbling corpse.
Its neck lolled at a grotesque angle, and the leg that had delivered the final kick had bone jutting through the flesh.
No matter how you sliced it, the sight was a far cry from anything holy.
"...!"
The corpse creaked as it swiveled its head.
Footsteps echoed from downstairs—more intruders closing in.
[Kill them all?]
I gave the slightest nod—enough for Broker to catch, but no one else.
Long threads unraveled from the cult leader's grip. The instant they pierced the dead assassins, the corpses lurched to their feet on their own.
Broker's power. He converted his mana into threads to puppet his targets.
Same principle as manipulating his avatars. Except this time, he limited it to corpses.
The undead leaped out the window.
They hit the ground, sprang back up, and smashed through more windows to charge the intruders.
"Wh-what the hell is this?!"
"Sorcerer! He's controlling them with mana!"
Screams and clashing steel erupted from the mansion as the corpses clashed with the fresh wave of attackers from below.
It took over an hour to stamp out the chaos.
In the meantime, Ella and I slipped away to safety.
Eisenheim Central Square.
As dawn broke, thousands packed the plaza.
The raid had been too loud to ignore. Believers weren't the only ones—ordinary folk had gathered too.
At the forefront stood the cult leader. Pristine, as if he'd never been attacked.
'I swapped the doll for a corpse before bed.'
Broker had crafted that doll.
The raid had trashed the corpse, not the doll.
I watched Ella's face. Confusion flickered in her eyes.
'She caught on?'
"The empire's darkness... has finally shown its face."
I noticed her gaze lingering on the cult leader's limbs.
Exposed joint areas on the doll. Hidden by clothes and shadows, though.
Futile grasping for proof.
Broker didn't care. He puppeteered the doll to whip up the crowd.
"The empire denies God! They fear the miracle that defies death! Why? Because the truth would shatter their fabricated power!"
The cult leader flung his arms wide. The mansion blazed behind him.
Backlight bathed his rant in an eerie mysticism.
"But I survived! By God's grace! This is His message! No more backing down!"
Murmurs rippled through the throng.
"Last night, they came for my life. They failed. God shielded me!"
He jabbed a finger at the intruders' heads dangling nearby.
The mansion raiders. All impaled on stakes.
"Now we choose! Bow to imperial tyranny, or rise in God's name!"
A straight-up call to rebel against the empire.
We'd built faith through healings and resurrections, but that was the limit.
Couldn't brainwash them to blindly obey every word.
Most here sought free treatment.
Too lukewarm for true fanaticism.
Yelling "Rebel now!" would fall flat.
Broker and I knew it well.
But what about this?
"God promises eternal life! All who resist the empire will earn it for their deeds!"
Resurrection for anyone terrorizing the empire.
[Get ready.]
The cult leader yanked one head from the stakes.
A believer dragged over the matching body and dumped it on the platform.
"God will guide us to paradise. Therefore..."
He set the head in place. I body-jacked the intruder's corpse on cue.
The neck fused and began regenerating.
Fully restored, I cried out in feigned shock from inside it.
"Wh-what is this place? I was definitely dead—?!"
Stab!
The cult leader impaled my heart.
"Believe! God promised us eternal life, so we must brave death to crush the empire—the emperor himself."
I twisted my face in agony and spewed blood.
"Gah...! H-how—"
I shifted my consciousness back to Rion's body.
The cult leader loomed, clutching the intruder's heart.
Blood poured. Gore reeked.
Revive a man, slay him again. The spectacle ignited the plaza in frenzy.
"Th-then! What must I do to save my wife? Can you save her too?!"
"M-me too! My son...!"
"My daughter died! How—how can I bring her back?!"
Desperate cries from the crowd.
They'd come chasing rumors of miracles.
The cult leader threw his arms wide atop the masses and bellowed.
"Reunite with your lost kin? Topple the empire! God vows eternal life—topple the empire!"
He hammered the words home.
"God cares not for methods!"
Crunch!
He pulverized the heart in his fist and sealed it.
"Offer the emperor's head to God."
When did it start?
The cult leader's unnatural movements.
Ella's suspicions about him.
That moment probably marked the beginning—and the clincher—of all her doubts.
Two days after the raid.
The cult leader holed up in the mansion. Morning and afternoon healings vanished.
Otherwise, Ella's days in Eisenheim rolled on unchanged.
Or maybe not.
Since that night, she couldn't sleep.
The jerky motions. Talking with a snapped neck.
The healings that abruptly stopped after the attack.
The nagging questions kept her awake.
"Rion, you up?"
No reply. He seemed out cold.
Ella sat up in bed. She studied Rion's sleeping face beside her.
Moonlight confirmed it—her little brother.
"Rion... you're really you, right?"
The next morning, Ella prepped breakfast quieter than usual.
Rion sat at the table, tearing into bread.
"Rion, remember that cat we had? Hill."
Rion glanced up.
"Yeah. How could I forget? Adorable. Broke my heart when it died."
He slathered jam on his bread without a hitch.
They'd raised a dog, not a cat.
And its name was Hir—from an old word for "hill."
Rion had found the pup and picked the name.
"Rion, what about her nickname? Hill."
Rion paused, thinking.
"Hir! It's Hir. Come on, you think I'd mess that up?"
"Right. Hir. Just stretching out Hill, y'know."
Ella pressed on. One question. Two. Three.
Wallpaper in their old house. Rion's favorite toy.
He nailed every answer.
All wrong.
The only things he got spot-on? Her words from that chat with the cult leader.
Her head spun.
"Sis? You okay?"
"Ah... yeah. Nothing. Just a little dizzy."
Ella bolted to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face.
Tried soothing her goosebumped skin.
'No. No. It's Rion. Memory's just fuzzy right now, but it's him.'
Trust Rion. Don't doubt her brother.
"Sis, you good?"
Rion had sidled up beside her.
"Fine..."
She froze mid-word.
Rion wore a chilling smile.
"When did you figure it out?"