Dawn of the Dead?

A dead silence lay over the underground chamber. I set the five little rats two to each side and one in the middle, arranged them into symmetry, and sank into thought.

Disposal...

A fine needle through the heart, then a current run through to burn it out for the finishing stroke, and it would be done. The simplest method of all, in truth, was to punch through the skull and strike the brain directly—but that was impossible. If a corpse's damage ran too high, it dragged the Implementation Rate down with it. Lose one arm, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a single percent of mana spent came back as something like seven-tenths of a percent in implementation; a wound to the brain, depending on its severity, could fall as low as a tenth of a percent.

A headless corpse was garbage so wretchedly inefficient that cost hardly entered the question. Unless the need was desperate, no black mage alive would try to enslave one. The students issued these bodies would notice the discrepancy at once and come complaining to me through the department office. Assignments and the midterm were carried out with the corpses they had been given, and they would be furious at being singled out for different treatment from the rest.

The proper course, of course, would have been to report the matter to the headmaster, Princess Elizabeth, and have five new corpses brought in. Do that, though, and I would have to confess the truth of my ability. Had the imperial household not inspected them separately when they were delivered, I could have lied my way through easily enough. They had, and so I needed a pretext that would hold.

It isn't an ability they could turn back against me merely by learning of it...

Even so, nothing good would come of letting it leak.

At the end of that long deliberation, I decided to hold off, for the time being, on truly making corpses of these five rats—already dropped into suspended animation with fine needles through their hearts. Frankly, I coveted the knowledge of how that state was induced far too much. Learn the method, and there would be ample ways to use it. In time it might even serve as solid insurance. For a mortal, there is no disguise more perfect than death.

The judgment was not without its grounds. All five of the rats in suspended animation were ordinary people, born without a shred of mana. They could hardly dare terrorism inside an academy watched day and night by the imperial knight order and the mage corps, rotating through their shifts without pause. If they meant to do real damage, they would wait until after the corpses had been assigned to the students.

Seen in that light...

The suspended animation they were under now would most likely lift on its own next week, when the third week's lecture in Black Magic was held. That they knew the schedule at all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meant there was a collaborator on the inside, and catching that collaborator was how I would get what I wanted.

So if I push back the day they're issued...

The timetable would tangle of its own accord. Then the collaborator would come down to the basement again, to use a second time whatever means it was that induced the suspended animation.

Even if it isn't that exact day, they're likely to wake sometime in the third week. They'll be caught. They have to be.

And if no bite came then, I would have no choice but to make genuine corpses of them and hand them out to the students.

There was, of course, a strong chance that the state did not lift after some number of days, but on a cycle of a single day. With that in mind I stroked my altar and opened the Underworld Gate. If I assumed a daily cycle rather than a release some days out, I would have to keep watch without a break, or the sparks would land on me. So long as no one died, for instance, the imperial household would have no pretext on which to seize me.

Creak.

A pitch-dark door opened, uncanny patterns carved across its face. What glimmered faintly beyond it was the far side of the Netherworld's first floor. The difference from dawn this morning was this: at both corners of the nameplate set above the door, something strange, shaped like a human ear, had jutted suddenly into view.

I murmured the keywords low, toward those ears. It did not have to be the tongue of Ernese. So long as a language had a framework, any one of them would serve. Even if I cast the words in the Korean or the English kept in Lee Seojin's memory, the meaning would reach those ears intact.

A moment later, across the gate, the hazy scenery drew itself shut, and a grotesque scarecrow appeared—so many pairs of eyes clinging to its body that they could not be counted.

"Payment on the spot. The term is ten days. The article of trade will be a loan."

The anomaly's name—no, its alias—was Peephole. Borrow its halved ability, and the visual information of watching or surveilling a chosen place could be cast upon an object one designated.

The countless eyes stuck all over its body closed at once. Was that, in its own fashion, a greeting offered to me? With a sour look I waved, cut off my mana, and shut the Underworld Gate.

The price of borrowing the ability for ten days would already have been paid in certain objects of value lingering in the Subspace, chosen at random. Converted into coin, that worth came to roughly forty-four million bern.

It was the same the first time Ferzen traded with the Netherworld...

The favor the anomalies showed was unfamiliar enough to unsettle me. Could being loved by the beings of the Netherworld be the effect of some special ability that had never been written down?

I called up the Status Window and looked.

It was still plastered over with question marks. I set the thought aside for the moment and designated this underground chamber as the place for the halved ability of the Netherworld anomaly, Peephole. Then I drew a small hand mirror from the Subspace and linked it, so that the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠visual information the ability watched and observed would be cast upon the glass.

Done.

What showed clearly was not my own face looking in, but the underground scene studded with glowstones. I laid the bodies in their coffins, left the basement, and stopped by the department office, where I told Alphonse outright to write a notice and post it on the board: the corpses would be distributed after next week's third-week lecture.

"Ah, Professor."

"Have you something to say?"

"Yes. It's... your wife has come to see you."

"Euphemia?"

"I can't be certain, since I've never properly seen her, but she didn't seem the sort to impersonate your wife, so I told her she might go up to the faculty office on the fourth floor..."

"Very well. Carry on."

"Yes, sir!"

What wind had blown Euphemia all the way to the Academy? Carrying a faint puzzlement with me, I started up the stairs.

Click. Click-click-click.

"What..."

Main building of the Academy, fourth floor, Room 404. Before the faculty office with the name Ferzen von Schweig Ruerug written upon it, Euphemia took hold of the handle and turned it, but the door would not open. She had come up because she had not heard that he had left for the day.

Where has he gone...

A letter stamped with the crest of Brutein had arrived at the mansion. The attendant who brought it had said the matter was not urgent, but Euphemia had come all the same, partly to see for herself what sort of place the Academy was—the place where she would be working.

If I wait, he'll come.

Today was a day without lectures. Even if they had missed each other, surely he would appear if she waited only a little. With that thought she stood awkwardly before the door and glanced about. Almost no one was passing, so she need not mind stray eyes, and she counted that a true mercy.

It hurts...

Had it been a mistake to walk, rather than take a carriage, for the sake of learning the capital's streets? At the smarting pain climbing her lower back, Euphemia reached around and rubbed there gently. In truth, if she turned yesterday's memory over, what ought to ache was not her back but her lower belly. She laid her left hand lightly over her stomach, blinked those golden eyes that were hers alone, and brought the right hand down from her waist.

This is...

She drew the two hands apart and looked at the span they held—the length from her entrance to where her womb lay—and her face went tight with revulsion. She had never once seen another man's, yet instinct was enough to tell her this was a brutal length, past all reason. True to a man with a cold and cruel side: that part of him was violent beyond measure.

Of course, it was rather absurd of her to be astonished by it only now.

The door beside her burst open.

Euphemia dropped both hands in a hurry and flinched. A woman was stepping out of Room 403, next to 404. Euphemia caught up her skirt and offered an elegant greeting, assembling what formality she could.

"You are..."

"My name is Euphemia El Lorraine Ruerug."

That she did not introduce herself as Ferzen's wife was a matter of pride, in its own way.

Silence circled. She had given her name; courtesy demanded the other do the same. The woman who had come out of Room 403 did not. She only swept Euphemia with an unpleasant look, as if appraising goods.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"If you mean to advertise that the two of you are lovebirds, I suppose that's your affair. But if you intend to hide it, shouldn't you hide it properly?"

At the words, and at the finger indicating the vicinity of her nape, Euphemia startled and set to rights the clothing she had loosened. She had sweated a little on the walk, and once she was sure almost no one was about, she had undone the knot that closed her collar, meaning only to cool herself for a moment. That had been the trouble.

Honestly. Not a scrap of manners...

Leaving a mark where it would show of its own accord, nape or no nape, was an act without consideration. She cursed the absent Ferzen in her heart and flushed.

"You're rather pitiful yourself."

"Pardon?"

"I know Ruerug is a poor domain, but I can't see why you needed to go seducing a man like that."

There had been no such thing. The whole of it had been coercion from the start. Did it not look that way through a third person's eyes? Then again, even to her own mind it was hard to believe: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that Brutein's direct heir had come all the way up to Ruerug, provoked a territorial war, and then forced a marriage.

"You're not wrong."

That was a separate matter. She knew perfectly well that the woman before her had spoken with a thorn in the words.

"We had met only once, and yet I never imagined he would cross from Brutein all the way to Ruerug, determined to take me to wife by any means he could."

She did not so much deny it as add a little flesh to the tale and agree outright. The woman was probably of some noble house, ignorant of his true face, familiar only with the part wrapped for show, and secretly yearning for him all the while. A protest would not take, not even a grain of it, and so it seemed better to scratch at her this way.

A twitch. Uriel did, in fact, frown, and lifted the brim of her hat a little. She meant to spit out a word—

"Euphemia."

At the familiar man's voice behind her, she unfortunately could not.

"Why have you come here?"

Ferzen passed them by as if Uriel were not there at all.

"This..."

"A letter from my elder brother?"

"They said it wasn't urgent."

"I see. Let us go in, then."

He unlocked the faculty office and, with a perfectly natural affection, laid a hand upon his wife's waist and led her inside.

The door shut with a flat clap. Left alone in the corridor, Uriel worked through several expressions of irritation and displeasure, then turned her back roughly and went click-click down the ramp on her heels.

It would soon be time for her lecture. Somehow she felt that if she opened her mouth, only words with an edge on them would come out. Better, then, to cover a moderate stretch of the material, toss them two new assignments, and be done.