The King of Rotten Things
One drop, two drops—rain that had been tapping against our bodies—
In an instant became a torrential downpour so fierce it was hard even to keep our eyes open, hammering the earth without mercy.
And then—
"Taoist Seo Chan-hui!"
"His Majesty urgently requests your presence!"
It seemed we weren't the only ones who'd seen that shadow just now. Soldiers bustling about came into view.
But even as they kept shouting, Huey stood motionless, staring only in the direction where the shadow had appeared moments before. Lucy and I exchanged a glance, then took a step toward him.
"Huey."
"Master."
If what Hyeonjin had told us was true, there was no point in the three of us acting alone here.
When Lucy and I called out, tapping his waist, Huey finally clenched his teeth and reluctantly nodded.
"…Let's go."
And so, after stopping by the Taoist hall to grab our weapons, we found ourselves outside the village's southern gate wall—facing the king, who for some reason was already fully armed and waiting for us.
"I had no intention of summoning outsiders if I could help it, but given the circumstances, I have taken the liberty of calling upon you despite the discourtesy."
"We would have been disappointed if you hadn't, Your Majesty."
"The Taoist Master and Deputy Taoist Master are already surveying the situation nearby. First—how much do you know?"
"…All we've seen are the shadows of two dragons just now."
"I see."
After briefly watching the soldiers moving busily around us, the king met Huey's eyes.
"Chan-hui. Do you remember? The dragon corpses you saw after you woke."
"As if I could forget."
Huey added with a pained expression, "Because their bodies never decayed and retained their strength no matter how much time passed, you had no choice but to bury them, didn't you?"
"Indeed."
At Huey's answer, the king nodded with a bitter face and spoke again.
"Living Dead… was it? The things Deputy Taoist Master Lee Cheonyu had been researching until a few days ago."
Apparently the king had taken quite an interest, since they were a type of monster never before discovered in these woods.
"I suspect they may have become like that for the same reason as those Living Dead."
This morning, the yin energy—the aura of death—that had spread through the forest concentrated into one place. And right after that, with a rumbling of the earth, the shadows of two dragons appeared—so the explanation went.
"No. They won't be Living Dead."
I shook my head and cut in.
"Living Dead are literally just corpses that move. Could mere walking corpses radiate a presence so overwhelming even I flinched? Impossible. I think something must have intervened. Don't you, Huey?"
I asked Huey, who had been quietly watching me.
"You saw something, didn't you? No—you're still seeing it, aren't you?"
Even I hadn't sensed a thing until right before the roar reached us. But Huey had clearly been seeing something long before that.
"Chan-hui. Is what she says true?"
"Master. Is Ren telling the truth?"
Under the gazes of the king, me, and Lucy, Huey let out a long sigh and nodded.
"…It's true. I don't know why, but I can see black energy rising into the sky."
At the words "black energy," I recalled the altar we'd seen on the road to Enis—that altar made of human bones, left abandoned as if it had already served its purpose.
"There are three in total. Two from Mira and Bari, the two dragons. And the remaining one is moving deep in the forest over there."
…Not one, but three.
Right after, a cluster of lightning bolts crashed down not far away with a thunderous roar. At a sight that could never be called a natural phenomenon, everyone present swallowed hard.
"…It seems we'll need to split our forces."
The king nodded, breaking the brief silence that had followed.
"Soldiers will be meaningless against dragons. Aside from the personnel needed to operate the Dragon-Slaying Spears, Chan-hui—I'll leave the rest to you."
"…Your Majesty."
At the king's words, Huey indicated his refusal, as if he intended to go to where the two dragons were as well.
"In that state, what do you plan to accomplish standing before dragons?"
"……"
"I will buy you as much time as I can. Do what you are capable of doing now."
With that, the king rose from his seat and began to walk.
"If you're late, there won't even be scraps left for you—so move quickly, Taoist Seo Chan-hui."
"…I accept your command."
And toward that king, Huey bowed at the waist, quietly expressing his gratitude.
And so, in the pouring rain—
"…I'll leave a trail as I move, so please follow carefully."
"Understood!"
"All units! Follow Taoist Seo Chan-hui!"
Huey approached those who seemed to hold fairly high positions and explained the situation. Even though it was the king's order, they followed him with complete sincerity, without a shred of doubt.
The Taoists made sense—he'd once been Taoist Master, after all. But even the warriors they called martial artists following him like that was rather unexpected.
"…He should act like that more often."
"Indeed. If he were even half that reliable normally, it would be something."
Lucy and I muttered as we watched Huey's back.
"Ren! Lucy! Let's go ahead!"
Huey called out that if we matched pace with the others it'd take forever, so the three of us should move first. And so, as we ran through the forest following him—
A flash of light cut the dark.
"What a mess."
Apparently things had already started over there—the ground shook as lightning bolts began crashing down everywhere.
"Looks like we've got a welcoming party over here too."
Who knew when they'd been buried—corpses of beasts of every shape began surging up from the earth.
"They sure buried a lot of them."
"…Let's deal with them quickly and go. The one ahead is pulling away faster."
A bipedal wolf with claws a full meter long. A monkey that climbed tall trees with long hook-like hands, swinging a mace-like tail. A rabbit that used grotesquely oversized hind legs to launch itself at us like a projectile. And more—brown bears and every other beast we'd seen while passing through the forest, their corpses rising and moving.
"Don't waste your strength. Against undead right now, I'm the best one for the job."
These were different from the Living Dead I'd seen when I'd gone out investigating with Cheonyu not long ago. And for good reason. From the corpses right in front of us, I could feel a piercing, flesh-cutting hostility.
"Where do you get off, you corpse bastards, standing up and giving me dirty looks. Dirty looks."
"…Corpses can't understand speech, Ren."
"Lucy. Even if they weren't corpses, they still wouldn't understand."
I gathered the purifying flames kindled on my wings fully before my chest—
"You're in the way, so get lost—!"
—and blasted them toward the ground.
Whether the firepower was insufficient or they were just too big, the purification failed. But there was no need to deal with each of them one by one right now.
"Let's go!"
I shouted as the Living Dead horde was engulfed in flames and couldn't move. The ones coming up behind us would handle them anyway.
And so, after running for a long while, shaking off the Living Dead that kept endlessly surging from the earth, a sensation like insects crawling all over my body hit me.
"Over there!"
Right after, hearing Huey's voice pointing to a large clearing ahead, I focused every nerve and swept the surrounding presence.
"One of them! Humanoid!"
Excluding the Living Dead horde behind us, the only presence I could sense was one of slight build. But even from a distance, it was clear.
"…It's a strong one."
The fact that something standing right ahead of us was a being that wouldn't fall far short even compared to the two dragons rampaging on the other side.
And so, after running a while toward the presence that had stopped still, waiting for us as if it no longer intended to hide—we could see an old man standing in the open clearing, quietly looking in our direction.
"…I waited because you tracked me so precisely I wondered what was going on."
An old man draped in a garish purple robe over a black suit adorned with red decorations here and there looked at us with pale skin and flashing purple eyes.
"What an unexpected harvest."
More precisely—at me and Lucy.
"Greetings, detestable children of the gods."
Sweeping back his hair gone completely white, the old man radiating a dreadful aura began introducing himself to us.
"My name is Elaha."
A name that rang out clearly even through the pouring rain.
Elaha…? Impossible… He was supposed to be dead…
Judging by how shocked Dana was, he clearly wasn't ordinary.
"Some have taken to calling me this: the King of Rotten Things."
The King of Rotten Things.
I remembered hearing it once in a fairy tale the director used to read to the orphanage children. Long, long ago—a being said to have corrupted the living to death, and raised the dead to form a legion alone. And the origin of what came to be called the Living Dead. Had he not been defeated by the first Hero, he would have been called the cause of every Living Dead in the world.
By another name—
"…Necromancer."
Corpse mage. Necromancer.