King of Dobong-gu (3)
The news that a drone had attacked me turned the whole house upside down.
"How dare they attack Master! If you would only send me, Lahan, I shall slaughter every last one of them!"
Clack! Clack-clack!
"Grrraaagh…"
"If it's a drone, does that mean it was a human? But it looks a little strange."
While Lahan, Ttacttac-i, and Mari vented their fury in turn, Se-a — who had restored the drone with her skill — turned it over in her hands, examining it from every angle.
"It seems to run on magic stones."
"So it's a magic-engineering device?"
My life-support capsule had been built with magic-engineering too. The field was still immature, but using magic stones as an energy source was entirely possible. Tear open a life-support capsule and you'd find a magic-stone battery inside.
"I don't think so. It doesn't look like a magic-stone battery — more like it's using the magic stone itself."
"Ah. That rings a bell."
Lahan, who had been watching for his moment from behind, carefully spoke up. As the very man who had once imprisoned Se-a, he still shrank like a scolded child whenever he stood in front of her.
"Master, are you by any chance familiar with elves and dwarves?"
"You mean the fantasy ones?"
"After the Day of Ruin, they crossed over through certain gates. Their numbers are few, but they are said to be allied with one another."
"What? For real?"
Hold on — we were suddenly veering into fantasy territory?
"To be precise, they are not elves and dwarves, but the Fairy Folk and the Dwarf Folk."
Ah. So just pointy-eared people and short people, then.
Come to think of it, some monsters could talk, and a few were clever enough to be tamed. Death Weaver was living proof. If goblins could speak, they were practically a different race already. Looked at that way, it made sense.
"They have occupied the city of Uijeongbu and made it their home."
"Eek — that's right above us."
"Fortunately, Seoul has the Special Safety Department, so they have not dared to push further. However, given that we have suddenly become an active power in the area, they appear to be taking an interest."
Fair enough. If thousands of skeletons suddenly started roaming around in the neighborhood below yours, you'd want to know what was going on too.
"It looks like they found this drone somewhere and modified it to run on magic stones. Do you think a dwarf did it?"
Their technical skill seemed pretty impressive. Or maybe there were Awakened among them — classes that specialized in machinery weren't out of the question.
"Hmm. Should we go scout them out ourselves?"
"In my humble opinion, it would be wiser to send the crows."
"Yeah?"
At that, I called the crows in and got them ready. The beads I'd fitted into their eyes during the last battle had vanished, so I needed to prepare fresh ones.
"Oil up their wings a bit… Ah, can you make some beads for their eyes?"
"At once."
With his skill, Lahan quickly produced gleaming black pearls. I fitted them into each crow's eyes one by one and sent them out.
"Wait, you can make gemstones too?"
"Far easier than metal, Master. Ah — speaking of which, I fashioned a few as ornaments for a dress. Would you care to see them?"
"Ooh. Later, later."
I pulled out a map and watched the world through the eyes of the crows as they flew toward Uijeongbu.
Tens of minutes later, riding the air currents at speed, the flock of crows soon discovered something unusual.
A vast red tower — but tilted to one side, hanging crookedly in the air.
"That's not human architecture, is it?"
"It would appear not. Structurally, it is a building that cannot support its own weight."
Through the use of Spirit Possession, Lahan shared my vision and added his commentary.
Clack! Rattle-rattle.
"Senior says that place looks like their main base."
"Why?"
Clack-clack!
Ttacttac-i's explanation went like this. In life, he had been a scout who drove a truck all over the place collecting resources. He had wandered through every kind of danger zone — and he had even poked his nose into Uijeongbu once.
Clack!
"At the time, he saw fairies and dwarves pouring out of that enormous tower in droves. He fled the area immediately afterward, so he doesn't know the details — but still."
Oh-ho.
So that tower was definitely an important building.
After a little more time passed, small, dark-skinned dwarves and lean, vicious-looking elves really did walk out from inside.
Hmm. They definitely looked different from the elves and dwarves of fantasy. Less like subspecies of humanity and more like entirely separate races that merely happened to look humanoid.
Either way, their forces did not look small by any measure.
Which meant what I needed to do was…
"Go forth! Crow Number Seventy-Six!"
Caw!
The last of the newly undead crows took wing toward Uijeongbu. I had caught every crow I could find in the area and turned them all into undead — a reconnaissance unit of seventy-six. Not just carrion crows, either; a mix of species had ended up in the flock, but that hardly mattered.
And while I was at it, I grabbed every sparrow and pigeon I saw and set them to watching the surroundings, in case anything like that drone came around again.
"Maybe I should round up the rats next?"
Then I'd end up with more rat undead than skeletons. That felt a little off.
"Hmm. So we shouldn't poke Uijeongbu first, then?"
"They attacked Master. Surely some form of response is warranted?"
But it didn't seem intentional, which made things murky. The explosion hadn't been meant to kill me — just to destroy the evidence. Still, they had done me harm, so I couldn't exactly roll out the welcome mat.
"For now, we just watch. If we shoot down every drone, we get all the information and they get none."
That settled the matter of Uijeongbu's otherworldly faction. If anything strange turned up, a crow would fly back and report, and I could always check through Spirit Possession then.
"First, let's finish the plan to take over Dobong-gu."
And so the drone explosion incident came to a close.
"Hold still."
"Ugh… I told you I don't need to wash!"
"Nonsense. Of course you do."
I was currently trapped in the shower, being forcibly bathed. By whom? Se-a, obviously.
I was pretty sure she had been terrified of me at first… How did it come to this? These days she treated me like something between a little sister and a stray cat she'd adopted.
"And I used to be a man— ah!"
"Are you going to keep talking nonsense?"
I had told Lee Se-a that I used to be a man, and she flatly refused to believe me. A completely different reaction from the undead, who obeyed me without question. Honestly, that was one of Se-a's better qualities. Talking to Lahan, who agreed with every single thing I said, got old fast. You needed a little back-and-forth for conversation to be fun.
"Uuuugh. My body's cold, so it's fine. I don't sweat, so I'm not dirty!"
"A girl shouldn't have a cold body."
Despite all my protests, I was scrubbed within an inch of my life.
Haaah. It really doesn't matter…
My bodily functions had slowed to a crawl. I didn't sweat, I didn't produce sebum, and no waste came out of me. I was genuinely soft and clean — and Se-a still forced me into a bath once a day.
At first, seeing Se-a naked had been mortifying enough to make things difficult. But that was only the first time. After that, it stopped being an issue.
Bath finished, I sprawled out in the living room with a warm body and let my thoughts wander.
"Human desires keep fading on me."
Appetite, the need for sleep, lust — all gone. Not that I couldn't eat, or sleep, or do anything indecent if I felt like it… Still. I really was becoming less and less human. Even my way of thinking felt more undead by the day.
If anything remained, it was a craving for pretty things.
"Death Weaver, Lahan. Thanks."
"It was merely my duty as Myungwang's subordinate."
A dress born from the marriage of Lahan's material creation and Death Weaver's thread and craftsmanship. Black, like before — but the violet gemstones set throughout elevated it to another level of elegance.
If the previous one had felt like the modest daughter of a minor medieval barony, this one made me look like the cherished eldest daughter of a Renaissance-era ducal house. Mari had fussed over my hair, braiding it this way and that until it was thoroughly adorable.
I turned this way and that for no particular reason, watching my reflection in the mirror.
"Heh heh."
The masculinity of my old self had all but faded away. I had forgotten even my former name, and now I lived as a little girl… Honestly, though, I felt nothing much about it. My previous life hadn't exactly been a good situation, even putting it generously.
"You look truly beautiful, Necromancer."
"Do I? Heehee."
And so another day came to a peaceful close. I had discovered a new faction, but there was nothing I could do about them right away.
"Alright — let's take it easy today!"
There was still plenty of work left, but I had earned a rest.
"Everyone, go play today."
"Yay!"
"I am eternally grateful for Master's boundless grace!"
Clack-clack!
Grrroooh.
Crunch. Crack…
"Aaaagh!"
"You'll endure this much pain."
Lee Eojin, a hunter of the Special Safety Department, was undergoing a procedure in a hidden room beneath the National Assembly Building.
"Hhk… haah…"
"This surgery was a success. The artifact has been perfectly embedded."
"So now… even both my eyes are no longer my own body."
"Don't be so ungrateful. Those prosthetic eyes are your body now."
A white-haired old man in a crisp doctor's coat looked down at Lee Eojin, examining his newly artificial eyes.
"Your skill… never ceases to amaze me."
"Hardly. You're the impressive one, out there doing the hard work. I merely play with my hands indoors."
A hidden talent of the Special Safety Department. Known simply as "the Doctor," his real name never spoken, he possessed a genius for medicine. Naturally, he had obtained a class to match. With a skill that transplanted artifacts into the human body, he had just completed Lee Eojin's fifth surgery.
The necromancer in Dobong-gu had never noticed, but from the moment Lee Eojin fought the Arachne, countless artifacts had already been implanted in his body. Both legs, his heart, his lungs — and now his eyes.
The Special Safety Department was pushing him to the absolute limit.
"It's getting close. This is the edge. One more implant and your body will collapse."
"Then I'll train harder before that happens."
"Foolish boy."
The Doctor was blunt, a little short on emotion — but at his core, he was a kind man. Sensing that quiet, understated comfort, Lee Eojin managed a faint smile.
"What mission did they give you this time?"
"An investigation of Dobong-gu."
Lee Eojin gritted his teeth through the pain that still hadn't fully faded and recalled the objective he had been assigned.
"Apparently a necromancer has become active in Dobong-gu. The information came from interrogating a criminal who fled Bukhansan."
"And you're to investigate that?"
"That, and more…"
The boy's eyes were heavy with exhaustion, yet they burned with a fierce sense of justice.
"If possible — the elimination of the necromancer as well."