Chapter 202
Chapter 202
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 201
Chapter Title: Uninvited Guest
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“Did I really teach you magic like this?”
The Black Necromancer stuck out her tongue in admiration after I showed her a few spells created by my future self.
We had been drinking coffee, but before I knew it, we were sipping wine.
Her slightly drunken, flushed face showed a new side of her, mixed with the traits I knew, which put my mind at ease.
She had always regretted not being able to drink alcohol in her ghost state.
“Wow, I’m really amazing.”
Even so, glimpses of the fool I remembered made me miss the original Black Necromancer.
“Most black mages know of you. I heard Dante tried to recruit you separately but failed.”
“Of course. They wouldn’t pass up on someone like me.”
She smirked smugly, pleased. At this time, she was holed up in her lab alone, so her desire for recognition was especially strong.
Watching her tilt her glass happily, I finally asked the same question again.
“So, why are you studying necromancy so diligently?”
“Oh.”
The Black Necromancer, who had dodged the question earlier as if she’d forgotten, now spilled it without hesitation—perhaps because of the alcohol, or maybe she remembered.
“The story of the child who wanted Remegaton. You’ve heard it, right?”
“Yes.”
The tale of the girl who wished to see her mother again, lost too soon, and received Remegaton from the Archdemon Learic.
“It’s similar. My parents died when I was very young.”
“...”
Clink.
Her glass trembled slightly.
The emotion in her eyes wasn’t simple longing.
“They said they’d always be with me. Not to worry, that even in death, they’d stay by my side.”
“...”
“At first, I wondered if it was true. Were my parents’ souls really with me?”
The girl who started down the path of necromancy began in a way that was tragic yet mundane.
“That’s how I learned about Remegaton. There was a kid just like me.”
A sudden question arose. The Black Necromancer spoke as if about someone else, but wasn’t she the descendant of that girl?
‘Does she not know at this time?’
Thinking it possible, I rested my chin and focused on her story again.
“So that’s why I started learning necromancy while searching for Remegaton?”
A faint blush colored her face, visible through the translucent black veil.
“But isn’t it funny? Know what’s ridiculous?”
“What?”
The Black Necromancer gave a self-deprecating smile and answered flatly.
“I forgot. Until just now.”
“...”
“Yeah. Right, I learned necromancy to see my parents. Pretty hilarious, huh.”
But even as she said it, there was no great emotional fluctuation.
People often run so hard they forget the direction they started in.
Stories of earning money for family only to make it one’s whole life were practically clichés.
“The more I learned, the more I thought I just wasn’t good enough yet to see them.”
“...”
“Before I knew it, that didn’t matter anymore. Necromancy itself was just fun. Like inhaling drugs.”
“Yeah.”
Listening to her felt like hearing a confession.
Was it the same for her? She rolled up her sleeve slightly, revealing her white wrist.
Scars remained there from countless needle marks.
“The blood of the child who wanted Remegaton from Archdemon Learic flows in me.”
“I know. You’re her descendant.”
“Heh, did my future self explain it that way?”
Shaking her head drunkenly, she replied.
“That child never married or had kids.”
“...?”
I didn’t understand, but she explained easily.
“When I found her corpse, her resentment was so strong she wailed around it endlessly. Her obsession with life kept the body from rotting for centuries, thanks to her soul.”
Before entering Dream Demon Manor.
I recalled mentioning it to the Black Necromancer. When I said she might be the descendant, her expression had darkened noticeably.
“I tried making the evil spirit child mine, but failed. She was too powerful; I had to dissipate her.”
“Then.”
Her gaze shifted from her glass to me.
“Yeah, I transplanted all the girl’s blood into myself. Took about a year, I think.”
Words failed me.
Her obsession with necromancy sent chills down my spine.
“Why would you do that?”
Even the Black Necromancer, not a Corpse Sorcerer, injecting the girl’s blood into herself.
She laughed as if it were obvious.
“I didn’t know how Remegaton recognizes its owner. It was groundwork for handling it properly later.”
I couldn’t speak.
Now I understood a little why she hid her past so fiercely.
“So? Disgusted by me now?”
She was a woman who’d screamed she was uglier than I knew.
I hadn’t gotten clear answers then, but hearing it directly from her...
“My view of you has changed.”
I truly felt she’d walked the complete opposite path from mine.
“Sorry to my future self.”
Even saying that, she downed her drink as if relieved.
Then, as if glad about something, she glanced at me.
“But it’s okay, right?”
“...”
“You figured it out.”
A brief silence.
The Black Necromancer’s gaze, serene until moments ago, sharpened like a blade honed on a whetstone.
Our hands slowly moved toward the staffs at our sides.
Our mana began to boil slowly but surely, priming to shoot at each other like simmering water.
Crash!
The dining room door shattered, fragments flying as Han So tumbled in. The golden shield I’d given him was split in half after less than a day, but he clutched his treasured Fierce Heavenly Dance Spear tightly, vowing to protect it.
The Black Necromancer’s and my eyes turned to the entrance simultaneously.
Like gunslingers in the Old West who’d been about to draw on each other, interrupted.
The muzzles called staffs pointed toward the door.
There stood a woman leading six corpses.
“Luanes?”
Among them, my eyes went to the smallest body.
Her radiant blonde hair was gone.
Heralhazard, who drove the Griffin Kingdom to near ruin. Then formed Dante to save the continent with black magic.
Seeing his corpse stirred faint unrest, but my expression didn’t change.
Thinking of Mule from Room 109, who’d said goodbye and suicided, made me question what this Dream Demon Manor really was.
“B-Be careful! Those corpses aren’t normal!”
Han So scrambled up desperately, regaining his stance.
But the Black Necromancer voiced doubt.
“What’s this? Everyone stayed in their rooms, but she killed them all?”
The Corpse Sorcerer giggled chillingly. But seeing Mule’s corpse, I had a rough idea.
“She sent corpses.”
Dead bodies weren’t bound by rules, after all.
-24. If a guest dies, their room unlocks. Until then, entry is forbidden even with the occupant’s permission.
Corpses were mere objects.
It easily explained how she infiltrated rooms and slaughtered the others.
“Hee hee. So many quality corpses. This really is heaven!”
The woman laughed maniacally, scanning us—then her face hardened.
Then.
“Six.”
She counted the corpses she controlled.
Her thin finger, scarred from stitches, pointed at Han So.
“Seven.”
Next, the Black Necromancer.
“Eight.”
Then me.
“Nine.”
Then herself.
“Ten.”
Finally.
“Dumb brute.”
Even Jortu, already prey on the fourth floor.
“Eleven.”
A chilling silence fell.
The Corpse Sorcerer scratched her chin with the finger that had pointed one by one.
“There are ten rooms.”
Rooms 101 to 110.
Ten guests invited here, but we counted eleven people.
“Huh?”
Startled, Han So counted himself, then stepped back in chill realization.
“Rule 2, 27. An uninvited guest is here?”
-27. Guest rooms go up to 110. There is no 111. If you find 111 and someone staying there, kill them immediately. They are an uninvited guest.
“Wh-who!”
Panicked, Han So backed away, eyeing us warily too.
That’s why I hadn’t said anything.
Mentioning it earlier would shatter our fragile alliance.
Eyes met with the Black Necromancer.
I shrugged at her demanding gaze and opened my mouth.
“Listing the rules, I had several questions.”
Dream Demon Manor had countless rules. Seemingly lax, yet some held absolute power.
The vague ones seemed to urge exploiting them, like keys to riddles.
Well, in fact.
The manor’s rules were the key to solving this case.
“I, Deus Verdi, am staying in 110.”
I was from the farthest future.
“109 was Mule.”
The next timeline after mine.
“108 is the Corpse Sorcerer.”
I’d seen him crawl there after Jortu beat him.
“107 had the deceased Jortu.”
“Wh-what does that matter?”
Han So asked uncertainly, but I calmly recalled Jortu and Han So’s first meeting.
“Jortu called the martial god Han So a middle-aged man.”
- In my knowledge, Han So is a fairly aged middle-aged man?
In Jortu’s timeline, Han So was middle-aged.
“If we generously say Han So in Jortu’s 107 era was forty-nine.”
“...”
Suddenly calculating eras from ages, Han So gaped dumbly.
But he seemed to follow the conversation.
“In my 110 era, Han So closed his eyes at eighty-five.”
“Eek?!”
Han So’s reaction to his death was entertaining, but not the point.
“Ultimately, there’s about a thirty-six-year gap between 107 and 110.”
Assuming middle-aged means 40-49, the margin for error wouldn’t be large.
“Don’t you find that odd?”
Glancing at the Black Necromancer, she listened with amusement.
“The Black Necromancer I know is at most thirty. But Jortu in 107 and I have at least a thirty-six-year gap.”
Han So struggled to keep up, but the Corpse Sorcerer’s eyes gleamed as if she knew.
I didn’t know my exact age in my era, but the Black Necromancer was my age or a year or two older.
A year passed, making me twenty-nine.
But the Black Necromancer before me now was eighteen.
“107: Jortu.”
Like.
“108: Corpse Sorcerer.”
A judge.
“109: Mule.”
Delivering a sentence flatly.
“110: Deus Verdi.”
Ruling.
“Per Dream Demon Manor Rule 11.”
-11. Higher room numbers mean guests from later timelines.
The uninvited guest here is.
“If you were truly invited, your room would be between 107 and 110.”
The eighteen-year-old Black Necromancer—you.