Chapter 80
Chapter 80
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 79
Chapter Title: The Price of Volta's Life
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"How truly regrettable."
"How could a human do such a thing?"
As we stepped out of Hernu's house, the Magic Inquisitors lamented with pity. The two who had accompanied me as escorts both frowned, clearly seeing a corpse like this for the first time.
"......"
Yet, their gazes subtly drifted toward me, as if hoping I might have noticed something.
After a moment of thought, I turned the question back on them.
"The corpses are preserved in varying states of decay."
Both of them had their own knowledge in this field. After all, they were the ones who carried out executions.
The inquisitor named Tema, with his long jaw, answered.
"You're right. Judging by the state of the corpses and the writhing bugs, it started from the torso, then left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg."
The inquisitor Doben, with the mole on his lip, nodded in agreement with Tema.
Their opinions aligned, and I shared the same view.
"I could sense black magic on the corpses. Someone deliberately used magic to preserve them in that manner."
It wasn't the work of evil spirits.
I had realized that the moment I saw the corpses.
'No matter how you look at it, it seemed like the deed of evil spirits. In this case, someone intentionally staged it to look that way.'
The reason I had come here in the first place was concern over a malevolent spirit that might encompass the entire kingdom.
But upon arrival, that wasn't the case.
Someone had fabricated bizarre phenomena to make it appear as if evil spirits had caused the incident.
'Why?'
My contemplation deepened, but I had to stop because of the two watching me warily—the black mage that I was.
In this current climate, such an incident could only harm me, so they seemed unsure how I might react.
If word got out, the position of black mages would plummet to the worst possible state, naturally.
I had implanted the perception through holy power that I was different from ordinary black mages, but that didn't mean I was completely free from scrutiny.
"For now, it would be best to investigate the residents of Fernan about Volta."
An hour later, I suggested we meet back here, and they immediately saluted and moved briskly.
Perhaps because I had defeated Magic Judge Tairn, the inquisitors harbored a strange fear toward me.
I reentered the house.
Hernu, the mother, hadn't had a proper meal; she was just scooping up millet like rice to barely get by.
I thought I should give her some food later as I secretly checked Volta's corpse in the front yard, which was no different from a garbage dump.
The decomposition states of the body parts varied, and they had been preserved that way.
It struck me as quite grotesque, but the most important thing was.
'There's no face.'
Where had the cleanly severed face from the torso gone?
And another thing.
'There's no soul either.'
Even checking through Remegaton for any dormant souls, nothing appeared.
Even if it had awakened as an evil spirit, since it hadn't been long since death, it should have been wandering near the body.
In such cases, there were two possibilities.
Volta's soul had completely dissipated.
Or.
'It might still be alive.'
It was an incident riddled with too many inconsistencies.
Why had the culprit cast such complex magic on the corpse?
Why had the culprit dismembered Volta's body and placed the parts at the eastern, western, southern, and northern extremities of the Griffin Kingdom?
I had come assuming it was a simple evil spirit outbreak, but it turned out to be the work of a black mage.
It left a bad taste.
It felt like standing blankly atop someone's shadow, a chill subtly grazing my nape.
"What are you doing?"
Just then, Hernu, Volta's mother, poked her head out right beside me.
She had been chewing millet moments ago, and now she stared at me intently with her mouth smeared.
Her atmosphere was subtly different from before.
Without any particular agitation, I asked.
"What kind of son was Volta?"
At my question, Hernu slightly bowed her head and replied.
"I couldn't even flatteringly call him a good boy. He hung around with the local thugs, stole money, beat up kids, and swiped food."
"......"
"So, honestly, the villagers didn't mourn his death much. In fact, they were glad the delinquents had fled now that Volta had met such a gruesome end."
Hernu grabbed my hand tightly, tears welling in her eyes.
"My son was a worthless rascal, that's true, but he didn't do anything bad enough to deserve dying like this. The goddess is so heartless!"
The tremor in her voice, the brimming tears, the frail grip of the old woman that seemed about to snap.
"Please catch the one who did this to my son."
"......Understood."
With that, I stepped outside again. There was no need to linger further.
I briefly checked the souls drifting around the area, but most were harmless to people and would naturally enter repose with time.
One hour later.
Tema and Doben returned. They wore strange expressions, and the information they brought was similar.
All badmouthing about Volta.
"They say he had sticky fingers. Beyond just stealing things, he got caught robbing people."
"Not only that, but beating people up with his gang was his daily routine. They said no one dared leave their homes at night if they heard Volta's voice outside."
"There were so many incidents, and he'd been hauled to the guards multiple times. Each time, his old mother came and knelt, begging forgiveness."
"His father was cut from the same cloth. An alcoholic who died late one night by smashing his head on a rock after falling."
"No traces of black magic were found elsewhere in the village. This seems like a trickier case than expected."
As specialists in handling black mages, the two explained the situation quickly and coldly.
I praised them for gathering such clean, extensive information while subtly glancing up at the sky.
Night had already fallen.
Cloudy skies, on the verge of rain.
The fishermen's boats had already hauled in their nets and were docked. Those who returned early seemed to be gathered noisily at the village tavern.
"What do you two think is the most important aspect of this case?"
At my question, long-jawed Tema answered as if he'd been waiting.
"I think it's the preservation of the corpses. They weren't just killed; some unique mechanism was applied."
However, he hadn't reached the reason behind it.
This time, Doben, with the mole on his lip, standing beside him, offered a different view.
"The body parts were spread across east, west, south, and north. Personally, I suspect it might be a large-scale magic circle encompassing the entire kingdom."
According to Doben, the scale was massive. Magic circles involving corpses were typically summoning arrays.
Not half-formed evil spirits of the Griffin Kingdom.
But real demons could emerge.
Both opinions were reasonable in their own way. But if pressed, they lacked full persuasiveness.
I subtly turned my gaze to the black necromancer. She had been silently scanning the surroundings, lips pressed tight, but when our eyes met, she let out a faint groan as she spoke.
[Hmm, in my opinion, the problem is how excessively unique the situation is.]
I nodded at her words.
"Overly radical and flashy, yet lacking substance."
Different timelines for the corpses?
Impressive at first glance, but if it was a black mage rather than evil spirits, it wasn't particularly difficult.
Body parts scattered east, west, south, north?
With enough people, relocating them wasn't hard.
As Doben said, it could be a demon-summoning magic circle.
But conversely.
A magic circle spanning the entire Griffin Kingdom, activated with just one corpse?
Bluntly put, the materials were insufficient.
So, in my personal view, there was one thing the culprit behind this incident wanted.
"They deliberately made the incident flashy to draw someone out."
A black mage.
I suspected a corpse sorcerer was calling for me.
Remembering the timing right after I became a necromancer only reinforced that feeling.
"You mean you, Necromancer?"
"Indeed."
Neither looked fully convinced, but I was growing certain.
Because I had game knowledge they lacked.
As Retry progressed into its latter half, the story deepened profoundly.
The setting of souls piling up across the continent after death wasn't something I learned upon becoming a necromancer.
It had been revealed through related episodes in the game.
The Griffin Kingdom was fiercely hostile to black mages.
But conversely, it was the perfect hiding spot for capable ones.
The evil spirits of Griffin blocked black magic at its root, leaving citizens ignorant.
I glanced at the black necromancer.
She was a prime example.
A necromancer hiding in the Griffin Kingdom, endlessly pursuing her research.
In any case.
In the game, there was a black mage organization living in the sewers beneath the Griffin Kingdom's capital: Dante.
'Dante is involved.'
Self-proclaimed rational black mages. They avoided the eyes of the Magic Inquisitors and caused no major harm to people.
Unlike selfish black mages, they believed all knowledge and learning demanded a price.
Thus, they didn't kill indiscriminately. If they did, they paid the price—that was them.
But if so.
I turned my head slightly to look at Hernu's house.
I had a feeling I knew who had taken the price for Volta's life.