The Necromancer's Confession

Even now, skeletons and zombies kept pouring from the black hole torn open in the sky. They clumped together at a single point, swelling into a single massive bulk that grew larger by the second.

Duke Arhen drew his sword as he glared at the giant zombie that had already swollen past twenty meters.

"That thing is far too large to leave to the knights and soldiers. I'll handle it myself. Go ahead and deal with the necromancer. I'll finish this as quickly as I can and catch up."

I looked at the giant zombie. The presence rolling off it rivaled Duke Arhen's own. Leaving it alone was dangerous. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Leaving the necromancer alone was worse.

"I'm counting on you, Duke Arhen."

"Father. Please don't push yourself too hard."

We left the giant zombie to Duke Arhen and headed for the Lily Garden.

The Lily Garden.

True to its name, it was a garden where lilies bloomed in extravagant profusion. Bathed in blue moonlight, the place was so beautiful it looked almost computer-generated.

"This garden is something else."

"My late mother designed it. It's famous as the most beautiful garden in the Cobalt Kingdom. Seeing it again after so long is a welcome sight. It would have been perfect without that wretched thing sitting in the middle of it."

At the garden's center, in a resting pavilion, the necromancer sat. Beside him, a demon contractor writhed in silent agony under the torment of maggots.

What snagged my gaze was what floated behind the necromancer's back. A transparent glass coffin hovered faintly in midair. Inside it, a long silver-haired woman lay with her eyes closed. A beauty that did not seem to belong to this world. There was no way I wouldn't know who she was.

"…Yuria."

The necromancer looked at me. He rose to his feet.

Clank. Rattle-rattle. Clank. Clank.

Countless chains surrounded him — chains crawling across the ground, chains shooting skyward. Every one of them originated from the glass coffin that held Yuria.

"I thought something about him looked familiar earlier… now I see it. That's Mistress's shadow magic. Something else is mixed in with it, which is why I was slow to recognize it."

Melissa spoke. She was an Aura Master and an Archmage both — more of an expert in magic than I was.

I gripped Hwaryeonbido in my left hand and Stormbreaker in my right, and walked forward. The necromancer struck the ground with his staff.

Boom!

Undead appeared.

Two Death Knights. One Lich.

Top-tier undead that put zombies and skeletons to shame.

The Death Knights were Kyle and Claudia. The Lich was Sharnell — I recognized her at once from the robe.

"Necromancer."

Ordinarily I would have charged without a word and opened the fight then and there.

He was a fake either way. Talking was meaningless.

But right now, I had to ask.

"Why is Yuria dead? Did you kill her?"

The necromancer's brow twitched.

"Did I kill Yuria? You call that a question? Would you kill Yuria?"

"Then answer the question. Why is she dead?"

"I have no reason to answer you."

The necromancer pointed his staff at me. Chains and undead surged toward me at once.

"Master!!"

Melissa cast. Stone walls erupted from the earth to block the chains. It was useless. The chains punched straight through the walls and flew at me.

I released both weapons. Hwaryeonbido and Stormbreaker fused into one. Then the finely shattered pieces of Stormbreaker clung to my body and became armor.

Death Knights Kyle and Claudia charged together. I seized a sword in each hand and rushed them.

"Melissa. You take the Lich."

Lich Sharnell cast flame magic from the rear. Dozens of fireballs tore through the dark air. Melissa blasted rocks into them with magic and shot them down. Boom! Boom! Boom! Flames exploded in midair.

"You're asking a lot. That Lich is at least upper-rank Archmage."

The Death Knights swung from both sides. Trusting Stormbreaker, I abandoned defense.

Clang! Crack!

Stormbreaker did not betray me. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tore a little, but it held against the Death Knights' blades.

Crackle.

Red lightning flared from the swords in both hands.

Noecheonryu — Lightning Flash.

Kyle's head fell. Claudia was split clean through at the waist. Both my arms trembled. Lightning Flash was never meant to be used like this.

The path is open. Pushing myself was worth it.

I was about to charge the necromancer when headless Kyle's torso blocked my path, and Claudia's upper half — legs gone — crawled across the ground on her arms and tried to drive a blade into my back.

I ignored Claudia and slipped past Kyle's side. His sword carved across my ribs. Thanks to the armor I was fine — or so I wanted to say. Part of Kyle's sword aura had seeped inside the armor. He had woven the principles of the Weight Amplification Technique into his blade energy.

As expected of Kyle. Even dead, his talent with the sword hasn't faded.

I ignored the throbbing in my side and locked eyes on the necromancer ahead.

Shadows rippled at his feet and spread in every direction. The ground swallowed by shadow turned thick and bog-like.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

My ankles sank into the shadow mire. Moving became a nightmare.

"What are you standing around for?!"

Melissa, still locked with Lich Sharnell, shouted. Her magic soaked into the earth. An instant later, the ground exploded. Dirt, stones, and the shadow mire blasted apart. The earth returned to solid ground.

I drove forward, pouring power into both hands.

Noecheonryu — Gale Thunder.

I even used Charna.

I meant to kill him in a single breath.

Rattle-rattle-rattle.

Chains hidden in the shadows suddenly erupted and snared my ankles. I nearly pitched forward and barely caught my balance. I glared at the chains around my ankles and swung. They severed — and another chain bound the opposite leg.

The moment my balance broke and my body swayed, chains rushed in from every direction and wrapped me tight.

…Damn it. I should have ignored the chains and just swung…

I forced the excitement down. I still had options. This might even work out. If I played it right, I could draw out his carelessness.

Times like this, I'm glad I have the Acting trait.

The Acting trait was surprisingly useful in combat — for fakes, for example. Against someone of similar level, it fooled them nine times out of ten.

"Master!!"

Melissa cried out. She tried to reach me, but Lich Sharnell blocked her. Just holding Sharnell off looked like all she could manage.

The necromancer didn't spare Melissa so much as a glance. He worked the black chains coiled around my body. Crunch! Crunch! The black chains crushed and tore at Stormbreaker.

"…Those don't seem like ordinary magic chains. What the hell are they?"

"Shadow Chain Gleipnir. A relic once used by an ancient shadow mage."

"There was a relic like that?"

"This world is vast. What you know is only a fraction of it."

Crrrack!

The armor tore. Using the chains, the necromancer pulled the smartphone from my pants pocket. With expectant eyes, he carefully took hold of it.

Now… no. Not yet. He still isn't fully off guard.

The necromancer powered on the phone with practiced fingers and flicked his thumb across the screen, switching displays.

I knew exactly what he was doing. He was looking for the Amusement Life app.

Can't find the Amusement Life icon? It's not like I hid it.

His finger tapped and tapped where the Amusement Life icon should have been. From the way his pupils wavered, he wasn't looking at the icon and pressing it — he was guessing at its location and pressing. The Amusement Life app did not respond to the necromancer's finger.

"……Damn it."

The voice was thick with pure despair.

The shadow chains binding my entire body came loose.

The necromancer's face twisted in shock. As expected — he didn't know my skills. I drove the sword in my left hand through his chest and raised the sword in my right high overhead. I stopped short of taking his head.

Because he had closed his eyes as if he had given up on everything.

"Hey. Are you really me? You're just going to die over something this small? If I were you, I'd have clawed and fought to the end."

"I'm a fake. I pinned a sliver of hope on the Amusement Life app… and just now, even that hope collapsed. I cannot save Yuria."

"…If you're going to die anyway, answer my question. Why did Yuria die?"

The necromancer opened his eyes again. He looked at me with blood-red eyes, then stepped back. Clutching his pierced chest with one hand, he reached toward the glass coffin that held Yuria.

"Yuria was murdered by the Demon King. Her soul was annihilated — I barely managed to bring back her body alone. Because her soul was destroyed, even necromancy couldn't revive her. If only I'd had the power of the Amusement Life app… I could have saved her…"

"The Demon King got ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her? Did you invade the Demon World?"

"Eugene Frucus. No — Seong Yujin. The original story is already twisted. Drop the assumption that the Demon King is in the Demon World."

"……Don't tell me. The Demon King is in the human world?"

"In my memory, the Demon King was in the human world. I don't know the exact location. But I have a guess."

"Where?"

"I don't want to tell you… but."

The necromancer looked at Yuria in the glass coffin and let out a long breath.

"I'll tell you for the sake of this world's Yuria. Labyrinth City Labit. The Demon King is probably there. I obtained the shadow chains from the lowest floor of the Labit Dungeon as well. Give Shadow Chain Gleipnir to Yuria."

"Anything else? What about Priscilla or Dulibard?"

"There's no more time to talk. Holding on has its limits… and there's something I have to do before I disappear."

He raised his staff and pointed at the sky — more precisely, at the blue moon hanging in the night sky.

Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle!

From the shadows on the ground, hundreds of chains shot upward toward the moon.

"I knew you were hiding there from the start. Pay the price for toying with me. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠price is your life."

Space rippled. Then came a wet, repeated sound of something being pierced through.

I opened Heavenly Eye and looked up. A formless demon that had been hiding in the wavering space was being run through by hundreds of chains, dying.

Shadow Chain Gleipnir…. Something capable of killing a formless demon…. An absurd relic. I have to find it and give it to Yuria.

As the demon died, the labyrinth-ification of the Arhen estate unraveled. At the same time, the necromancer's body began to fade slowly from the tips of his feet.

He didn't so much as glance at me. He opened the glass coffin and quietly pulled Yuria's corpse into a tight embrace.

"Seong Yujin. Don't make the same mistake I did."

The necromancer vanished together with Yuria. The rampaging zombies vanished as well. In the now-silent Lily Garden, only a cool wind blew.