Chapter 61
Chapter 61
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Eden's Daughter
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The sky over the World Tree Forest where Yggdrasil took root.
The dark clouds that had blanketed it finally cleared, revealing a brilliant blue expanse.
And arched across that sky was a single rainbow.
Beneath the vividly glowing rainbow.
A vast, empty wasteland lay exposed, everything swept away.
This was a place where lush, towering trees should have thrived.
But now, nothing remained but barren desolation.
Atop the wasteland.
A tiny doll sat upon a bloodstained garment.
The doll clutched the cloth tenderly with its small hands.
The doll's true identity was the Curse Demon King.
Eden Yuphéra.
In blocking Leyzon's fusion magic, she had expended vast amounts of darkness and curses.
As a result, Eden had reverted to her original form.
One person approached and stood before the doll.
Flap—
A white bat alighted on his shoulder.
It was Leyzon and Syria, having undone their undead fusion.
"Eden."
Eden looked up.
"Now, tell me. What happened?"
Leyzon had no idea what had befallen Eden.
So he decided to hear it from her.
What had happened to her, and why she had ended up like this.
In Leyzon's memories, Eden had been a doll with a languid expression.
She was the type to sit by the window, quietly watching people pass by and enjoying her own time.
She never bothered anyone.
Though undead, Eden truly loved people.
So it was hard to believe that such an Eden had obliterated the entire city of Nosys.
Leyzon carefully lifted Eden in both hands.
"...Leyzon."
The doll's thread-sewn mouth parted slightly.
"Won't you pick up my clothes too? They're the most precious thing to me."
Leyzon gathered the blood-soaked garment Eden had been wearing.
Then he sat with her at the edge of the forest.
Already, blades of grass were sprouting across the wasteland.
This was the forest of Yggdrasil, the essence of life itself—what else to expect?
It was absurd regenerative power.
No doubt, in a few months, it would reclaim its former glory.
Leyzon tore his gaze from the sight and turned to Eden.
Now was the time to hear her story.
"I had a daughter."
Daughter.
An undead like him could never sire life.
"She was..."
"Yeah, I found her."
One day, passing through the western Miedan Mountains.
He had discovered a human child in a basket.
"But she's my daughter."
Eden had raised the child in the western city of Nosys.
"Radis Yuphéra."
Her name meant "shining star" in the ancient tongue.
"She's the child I raised myself."
A human child raised by an undead.
Eden's eyes trembled faintly as she recalled her daughter.
"Daddy."
"Daddy, what are we eating today?"
"Daddy, look at this! The girl next door gave me these clothes she doesn't wear anymore. Pretty, right?"
"Daddy, I've grown this tall. I might catch up to you soon!"
True to her name, Radis was incredibly bright and cheerful.
Whenever she discovered something, she'd rush to Eden, chattering away.
A bundle of curiosity.
That was Radis.
"Must be like her daddy."
Eden's ears still rang with her daughter's voice.
But now, it was a voice she could never hear again.
"My daughter found someone she was seeing."
Over the past eighteen years.
Eden had lived in Nosys.
Her daughter, now of marriageable age, had found someone she loved.
"That's when she gave me these clothes. She saved up bit by bit from her daily work. Said Daddy had to look the sharpest at the wedding."
Leyzon now understood why she called these clothes her most precious possession.
"So, I wanted to be in human form for my daughter's wedding."
Not as a doll, but as a human.
Thanks to Radis, Eden had yearned to become human like her.
"That's why I set out to find you before the wedding, Leyzon."
"I wanted to tell you about my daughter too."
Leyzon was like a parent to Eden.
She hoped Leyzon would bless her daughter's marriage as well.
Eden had set off on her journey immediately.
But before she even reached the capital.
She received terrible news.
A necromancer pursued by the Empire had hidden in Nosys.
And he had sacrificed the villagers' lives to summon something that should never have returned to this world.
Leyzon swallowed hard.
"Then..."
"...By the time I rushed back, Radis had been offered as a sacrifice too. She became food for the apostle summoned by the Evil Transcendent."
The necromancer had tampered with forbidden power.
Something that should never exist in this world.
Something even more grotesque than the undead.
The monster born as payment for summoning the Evil Transcendent.
The apostle.
Leyzon's face hardened.
He knew well the danger of the Evil Transcendent.
After all, it appeared in the bad ending route of Dungeon Replay.
"So I killed the apostle."
Fueled by rage, Eden tore it apart.
Then she retrieved her daughter's corpse from its guts.
Clutching her daughter's head, Eden spent a long time alone like that.
Soon after, imperial troops arrived.
Invaders trampling the village filled with memories of her daughter.
Eden impaled them all with darkness and curses, killing them.
The imperial forces kept coming.
Eden killed them again and again.
Before long, she was known by the moniker Curse Demon King.
Then one day.
"A necromancer was among the imperial troops, hired by someone to take me down."
"I tried to kill the necromancer too, but then I remembered something."
"...Undead."
Leyzon grasped what Eden was getting at.
She had thought to revive Radis as an undead.
But there was another reason Leyzon didn't respond immediately.
"Those devoured by the apostle of the Evil Transcendent can't have their souls recovered."
To raise the dead as undead, a soul is required.
Reviving a body without a soul is merely animating a doll.
Eden despaired.
"I thought about dying."
Before long, her rage turned inward.
If only she hadn't had that foolish dream of becoming human.
She could have protected her daughter here.
"But seeing the clothes my daughter gave me, I couldn't."
She couldn't bear to tear the garment her daughter had chosen herself.
"So I thought of you, Leyzon."
Leyzon possessed exceptional undead creation skills.
Maybe he could do it.
Eden clung to faint hope.
"I thought surely you could turn Radis into an undead."
Leyzon fell silent.
"Is that why we had that promise?"
"To be precise, when I made up my mind, she came to me first."
Leyzon's eyes widened.
She.
"Tessa."
An unexpected name slipped from Eden's mouth.
"Tessa? That kid's still alive?"
Syria reacted at the name.
As if hearing it after a very long time.
And Leyzon knew the name too.
The last of his five undead.
The one about whom he knew the least.
Tessa Miriji.
Known as the degraded version of a goddess.
The undead, Ghost Bride.
"Tessa told me to wait until you learned of my situation and came yourself, Leyzon."
Of course, Leyzon knew nothing of this.
'I'm not the real Leyzon.'
The current Leyzon had no idea what the real one had done.
Syria tilted her head.
"Huh, that's weird. I never sensed Tessa coming near you all this time."
Syria had spent the longest time near Leyzon among all the undead.
Leyzon turned to her.
"Never sensed her?"
"Yeah. If it was Tessa's aura, I'd have noticed with how sensitive I am to it."
"I've never felt anything like that around you, Leyzon."
Syria looked puzzled.
Something felt off about the situation.
'The real Leyzon never ordered Tessa?'
Then Tessa had acted on her own.
'...Why?'
What reason did Tessa have to keep Eden tied to Nosys?
He didn't know.
Not enough information.
'Guess I have to meet Tessa myself.'
Leyzon swallowed a groan.
Tessa wielded soul power.
Meeting her might resolve the issue with the Resonance World too.
But he didn't know where she was.
"I waited like that, and then I sensed your presence nearby."
As Leyzon approached from the west.
Eden felt it and finally left Nosys.
Thinking he had come to keep his promise.
"But you don't remember the promise now."
But Leyzon had lost his memories.
To be exact, this Leyzon had no such recollection.
Eden's form began to crumble.
"It's okay. I've known for a while..."
Vitality faded from Eden.
"I knew."
It was something she should have given up on long ago.
She had only just accepted it now.
Eden decided to face reality.
"Hmph."
Hanok snorted sympathetically.
Syria gazed at her with conflicted eyes.
But.
Leyzon blinked calmly.
"Eden, you're mistaken about one thing."
Leyzon spoke as if it were no big deal.
"I know a way to revive your daughter."
Eden's despairing face jerked up.
"What?"
Eden asked in shock.
Her eyes fixed on Leyzon.
He meant it sincerely.
"R-Really?"
Eden's tiny hand clutched Leyzon's collar tightly.
"Yeah. If undead is fine, then it's not impossible."
Eden knew she was making an absurd demand.
Her daughter, devoured by the Evil Transcendent.
From the moment the necromancer declared it impossible, Eden had already given up deep down.
She had just clung to it desperately, lacking the will to endure otherwise.
But now Leyzon promised to keep that vow.
A vow he himself had never even made.
"I'm a necromancer."
The being that turns the impossible possible.
The transcendent of death, necromancer.
Leyzon's lips curved up.
"Time to show you what a professional can do."
And those words.
Were salvation finally come to Eden.