Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Predator
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Deia left.
In the silence that returned, I first cleaned up the spilled tea.
The tea spread irregularly across the floor, almost like the shape of Deia's emotions submerged in anger.
‘Dealing with that type has always been tricky.’
A sigh escaped me.
Even back in school in my past life, people with intense emotions or wide emotional swings were hard to handle.
It felt like we were complete opposites.
But it also left a lingering unease—some found me frustrating, threw tantrums, and eventually gave up, while others just got angry instead.
‘This time, it was my fault, though.’
No, it was Deius's fault, but since I'd taken over his body, there was no helping it.
Personally, I wanted to rebuild my relationship with Deia, so I planned to put up with her grumbling as much as possible for now.
It could be seen as resolving her lingering resentment, like I'd learned from dealing with ghosts.
‘Family, huh.’
My relationships with my family in my past life couldn't even be called good as an empty compliment.
My shaman grandmother.
My mom, who hated that grandmother with a vengeance.
Mom despised the mere fact that I could see ghosts and, upon hearing I could only live a full life by becoming a shaman, shipped me off to Grandma's house entirely.
Even so, Dad would visit me occasionally.
I didn't know the details, but he worked as a manager at a big factory.
Each time he came, the number of employee-like ghosts trailing behind him grew one by one.
As a kid back then, I asked about it without thinking.
Dad's face filled with fear, and he never came to see me again.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't lonely.
If I had no illusions about family, that would just be fooling myself to an absurd degree.
“This time, I can do a little better.”
With that resolve, I cleaned up the tea, steadied my mind, and sat back down.
I didn't need to go to work or prepare lectures, but I was still busy.
‘It’s a shame I couldn’t bring the items I was researching.’
If I’d known, I wouldn’t have used the academy-provided tools.
All my research成果 were academy property, so I had no choice but to leave them behind.
‘Even if it costs money, I need to use my own stuff from now on.’
That said, I wasn’t exactly flush with cash.
I vowed to do so once money came in, but for now, I held out my palm and began drawing in mana onto it.
The blue mana bubbled up like foam, popping intermittently, then gradually turned black.
The purple mana began clumping together, forming a beautiful sphere.
The key was the white light inside the sphere. The light, wrapped like filling in rice cake dough by the black mana, was my soul given form.
Whose? Obviously mine.
‘To be precise, the mana is protecting the soul.’
In this world, it was called black magic.
On this continent, black magic was something to be shunned, an art one shouldn’t learn lightly, but I had no choice but to learn it.
Because with Deius Verdi’s pathetically talentless body, I couldn’t offer any help against the disasters coming to this continent.
No matter how hard I tried, in every other area, the protagonist’s allies were superior versions of me.
For example, in pure magic, even compared to my fiancée, Erika Bright, I fell short.
She had the potential to reach the rank of grand magus.
Financially, the Verdi family wasn’t anything special either.
We lived well in the northern borderlands, but to central nobles, we were just one of the riffraff.
We only got decent treatment because we constantly fended off invading barbarians in the border region.
The one way I could help the protagonist—or rather, survive this damn game—was through black magic.
I overflowed with talent in that field.
I want to be precise here.
It wasn’t that Deius Verdi had talent; it was that I, Kim Shin-woo, did.
Black magic included countless spells dealing with the dead, like necromancy or curses.
An art aimed at inflicting pain on enemies, cursing them, and achieving total destruction.
Created purely for selfish desires, it was banned by royal law, but in the city where Robern was, it traded under the table, so acquiring it wasn’t hard.
‘I’ve mastered the basics of necromancy.’
Everyone living on this continent accumulates at least a little mana in their body.
Because the air on the continent contains trace amounts of mana.
If you can accumulate more than others and transform it within yourself, you’re a mage.
In short, it’s safe to say people live their entire lives immersed in mana.
Is it just the body soaked in mana?
No.
A person’s soul is also steeped in mana throughout life, and the necromancy I wield is based on exactly that.
[Kekekek! Verdi’s retard! You’re back!]
[Look at him get chewed out by his little sister right away!]
[Of course! The crazy bastard suggested screwing his own sister!]
[Kukukuku! I showed him Deia naked in his dreams, that’s why!]
[Where’d he learn to ask his sister to suck him off after seeing that!]
The damn evil spirits circling noisily around me.
‘I’ve thought this before, but this mansion has way too many ghosts.’
I don’t know what the Verdi family did, but this place was a haunted hotspot through and through.
“Hoo.”
Good thing it worked out.
Scrall had come to warn me before I started this.
I didn’t need to lure in useful ghosts.
From the black sphere encasing my soul on my palm, a hand stretched out.
Crack!
It precisely snagged one of the spirits laughing among themselves around me.
The one who claimed to have shown Deia naked in my dream.
[Kieek! W-what!]
[He got caught?]
The other evil spirits were startled too, but the caught one’s face was the best sight.
I clenched my fist, twisting it.
Kwaduduk!
[Kwaaaaaaah!]
A wretched, utterly wretched scream enveloped the entire mansion. Not bad for a soprano opera singer.
Though no living person would hear it.
To the dead, it was noise disturbing their rest.
“Assemble.”
Ghosts gathered from the walls, floor, ceiling, drawn by the scream.
Some were just wanderers unable to leave, but unfortunately, most were evil spirits.
[Verdi! Verdi! Verdi!]
Some mindlessly chanted the family name.
[Can I just nibble one hand?]
[I, I like tongues.]
Some wanted to eat people.
[Insolent! How dare you disturb my rest!]
[Verdi’s wastrel? Hah, the one utterly lacking noble dignity has returned.]
Some looked like nobles.
All the spirits, whether quietly resting or biding their time, filled the room.
[The Verdi retard who chased skirts without talent is back?]
[Why didn’t you tell me? It’s so fun going into that bastard’s dreams!]
[Kekekek! Let’s play hard again, Deius!]
[How about pissing the bed in your sleep!]
Being dead must dull their senses.
Didn’t they see the soul caught in my mana?
“I’m not the Deius you knew.”
They hadn’t expected a reply; their gazes flickered toward me.
During the three months living here as a Verdi, just like in my past life, I’d pretended not to see the ghosts.
But no need now.
“The soul holds mana.”
That’s why ghosts’ supernatural phenomena take physical form.
“Conversely.”
The captured evil spirit was absorbed and vanished.
The black mana sphere swirled small on my palm.
“It means you’re all mana clumps with wills.”
[R-run!]
A perceptive noble ghost turned to flee, but it was too late.
The moment you entered this room, your future was gone.
The dead are most beautiful as the dead.
With a sinister sneer, I tightened my grip and declared.
“You worthless scraps I thought were good for nothing—at least one of you is useful.”
Souls began getting sucked toward the sphere. They screamed they’d escape, but couldn’t resist the pull and were drawn in.
I felt mana surging through my body. The faint powers of those who’d wielded mana in life—like mages or knights—came sweetly, like delicacies.
Something I couldn’t do with academy souls.
“It’s dwindled a bit, though.”
Were the ghosts’ mana merging with mine?
I thought all the mansion’s ghosts had come, but far from it.
The ones who showed up were all mediocre evil spirits.
“Pathetic lot.”
Clenching my fist tight, I declared.
“I’ll devour every last one of you.”