Chapter 396: Looking Up at the Ground (2)
Chapter 396: Looking Up at the Ground (2)
I was checking the corpses as Calavera told me to, but there was very little I could actually do.
I wasn't a necromancer. The only information I could glean from examining a cadaver was that the white parts were bone and the rest was just rotting flesh.
In this situation, my role was simple: once Calavera finished making eye contact with a half-rotten skull and set it down, I would move it far away so he wouldn't check the same one twice.
The stench of death was constant, and because the insects and scavengers hadn't finished off the rotting meat clinging to the remains, my hands were frequently coated in a slick, sticky filth. Aside from that, it was just a simple, repetitive task.
Since the work itself wasn't difficult, the real problem was something else—the fear of the outcome. The nagging doubt that even after all this, we might end up with nothing.
Calavera didn't say it out loud, but he likely felt the same way. If he didn't, he wouldn't be performing such a meticulous investigation on every single body.
A typical necromancer would have to converse with each lingering soul to extract information, so this would be a common sight. But the being here was Calavera, the most preeminent of necromancers.
To him, souls were not equals. They were merely objects to be dominated.
Of course, a few powerful souls could escape his control, but such beings were extremely rare, and there was no way these guys were among them. Normally, he had the power to summon the dead before a multitude of casualties and extort whatever secrets they were hiding.
Yet, here was Calavera, performing a manual, one-by-one inspection. He was hoping against hope that a soul too weak to answer a summons might still be there, or perhaps that some residual thoughts remained even if the soul was gone.
That was how desperately they were trying to extract information from this scene. The mere fact that two doctors associated with the Factory Deep Underground had appeared made this an incident of shared peril.
However, I wasn't sure if he viewed the situation as dangerously as I did. Calavera hadn't personally faced those two doctors who were actually one. Still, the fact that they were connected to the "underground" was enough common ground for him to take this seriously.
In the midst of this, another skull was slowly placed on the ground. The Ruler of Death laid the body down gently, showing a modicum of respect for the deceased. It was a gesture only Calavera could make—someone capable of total dominion over a person's end, yet who chose not to abuse that power and instead respected the dead.
Once that check was finished, I looked at Calavera. My eyes asked the question: ‘Is this skull a bust, too?’
“....”
Calavera said nothing and moved toward the next skull.
A bust, then.
Having confirmed the result, I immediately kicked the skull on the ground, sending it skittering toward the pile of finished remains. I didn't care whether Calavera showed respect to the dead or not. To me, these guys were just terrorists—trash corpses with not even a soul left in them.
Calavera used to tell me to show respect, saying their sins in life were atoned for by death. We used to get into heated arguments over my refusal. But that was a long time ago.
Now, I didn't complain about him showing respect to such unworthy beings, and he didn't nag me for treating the corpses roughly. Because of our deep bond, we simply ignored our parallel, unchanging opinions.
I should have moved on to the next body since the last one had served its purpose, but even after the skull landed in the pile, Calavera didn't pick up the next one. Instead, he glared with sharp eyes at the field of corpses, about a third of which still remained.
“What is it?”
“...Something is suspicious.”
“I already told you this whole situation is suspicious.”
I’d said that from the very beginning. What more could be suspicious now?
“...Lee Ha-ram. I have one question.”
This guy wasn't even answering me. Well, Calavera was always like that, so it didn't really matter.
“What?”
“When you fought these people, was there anything strange? Did their emotions seem thin, or did they move sluggishly as if being controlled?”
Hmm. Strange behavior. I searched my memories of the battle for a moment.
“Nothing much, other than them being as hyped up as if they were on drugs. They were just ordinary terrorists, though they were suspiciously cruel.”
When I answered, Calavera fell back into thought without a word.
I wanted to press him on what he was thinking that made him stop working, but I knew I wouldn't get a straight answer anyway, so I just waited.
We had started the work around dusk, and by the time the moon above had tilted a bit further, he finally spoke, as if his thoughts had reached a conclusion.
“...A necromancer. Yes. By any chance, did either of those two scientists seem like a necromancer?”
“I don't think so. They didn't use any abilities like that. They were just flesh monsters with freakishly high regeneration and transformation.”
If they had necromancy, magic, or superpowers, they would have used them in the fight. If they didn't use them because they were too awkward for combat, then I wouldn't know.
“...Then where are they using the souls they've gathered? How? For what purpose?”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?” I snapped.
Even for someone as generous as me, it was irritating when he kept his thoughts to himself and then started spouting nonsense. As I barked at him for muttering incomprehensible things, Calavera finally broke his contemplative posture.
“...I see. This is a question I cannot answer alone.”
He stared at me intently for a moment, then leaned down to pick up a skull rolling on the ground before speaking again.
“There are no souls in these remains. Not even residual thoughts.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“This phenomenon occurs when a long time has passed since death and the connection has naturally faded, or...”
Calavera, who hadn't been reacting to my words at all, suddenly cut himself off and tapped the skull with his finger.
“An external force capable of acting upon the soul intervened.”
“So that's why you suspected one of them was a necromancer?”
Finally, the conversation had reached a language I could understand.
“Yes. I didn't realize it at first, but it became clear the more I examined the bodies. Their souls and thoughts didn't vanish naturally. It's as if a violent necromancer forcibly ripped their resisting souls from their bodies, leaving unnatural marks behind.”
As he continued his explanation, he held the skull out toward me, as if telling me to see the unnatural marks for myself. Of course, to me, it just looked like an ordinary skull, so I had no idea what he was talking about. I suppose it looks different to an expert's eyes.
Anyway, that wasn't the important part.
“Was it to hide information?”
The reason for doing such a thing. That was likely the answer. Seeing as they hadn't used such abilities in the fight against me, their necromantic skills probably weren't that great. If they went out of their way to collect all the souls, there didn't seem to be any other reason.
I spoke with conviction, but Calavera shook his head.
“...The reason I have doubts is that even that is suspicious.”
He handed me the skull he was holding.
“Hmm?”
I reflexively took the skull, letting out a questioning grunt. Having handed it over, Calavera picked up a new skull from the ground and continued.
“If it were for concealment, they could have just erased their memories or placed a geas while leaving the souls intact. Why choose a method that involves cruelly and forcibly ripping out this many souls? It would consume an immense amount of power.”
There seemed to be something fishy, but since I wasn't a necromancer, I didn't know. I toyed with the skull in my hand, trying to interpret Calavera’s words. If I swapped a few terms, I could probably make sense of it. Uh... so, to summarize...
“Forcing souls out of bodies is inefficient?”
Why use this method when there are better ones? Is that it?
“Exactly. A being capable of doing such a thing to this many people... why would such a powerful entity go through the trouble of forcibly harvesting souls that, judging by the traces left on the bodies, were incredibly weak? That is the question.”
Calavera continued his explanation while picking up more skulls. However, he no longer showed the same level of focus as before. He had likely already concluded that nothing could be gained from this mountain of corpses. He had realized that an opponent capable of this wouldn't accidentally miss a soul or two.
I had considered that possibility myself once we were more than halfway through the bodies.
“Sigh.”
A sigh escaped me as the possibility I’d feared became reality. If even Calavera came up empty, then there was no way for us to quietly track these guys on our own. Whether it was intentional or accidental, these lunatics had bypassed even soul detection—the most niche tracking method. Even if we brought in Awakened Prohibition to use psychometry on this area, there was no guarantee we’d get any information. They might have even wiped the past information ingrained in objects using a method we didn't know.
Of course, that was just a possibility, so I’d still call Prohibition to check.
“...What a pain in the ass your organization is.”
Facing a bleak future, I stared blankly at the skull. Until now, I’d thought of it as a mere object. To my eyes, it looked no different from any other ordinary skull rolling around a battlefield. But Calavera had looked at it and described the soul being cruelly ripped away.
If I had to guess, his eyes probably saw wounds like animal claw marks or defects like torn skin on the bone.
“I don't see anything special, no matter how much I look.”
Muttering to myself, I made eye contact with the skull reflecting the moonlight. Perhaps for the first time, I did so with a sincere heart.
About a minute passed as I tried to imitate Calavera.
As expected, I didn't get it. To my eyes, it was just a skull.
Just as I was about to toss the skull back onto the pile—
Zing.
“Ugh.”
Pain flared. A pain so intense I couldn't help but cry out. It was a sudden, sharp agony that struck in a normal situation, not during combat. It was enough to make me stop in my tracks and drop the skull.
What is this?
A headache bloomed. It felt like needles were being driven into my entire brain. Like a spoon had been shoved up my nose to stir my gray matter. A headache like a physical assault pierced through my skull.
Dominated by the pain, I pressed both hands to my eyes. The place where the indescribable agony flared wasn't just my head.
My eyes hurt. It felt like countless insects were eating them. Something squirming was crawling over my eyeballs. An incomprehensible sensation—yet one that could only be described that way—was transmitted as pure pain.
Aside from that initial scream, I couldn't even make a sound. It was as if the part of my brain responsible for speech had been lost. I simply clutched my eyes and endured the pain. I writhed, pressing my palms against my eyeballs, weathering the agony.
How much time had passed?
In the process, the hands covering my eyes slipped. My sweat-soaked palms slid down my face, and the world opened up between my fingers.
It was a Blue World.
Everything was blue. The sky, the ground, my fingers, the moon.
In that eerie, cobalt-toned world, they were looking at me.
The torn, mangled corpses—lying on the ground, yet somehow standing—were staring at me. They glowed with a light close to white, watching me in human form.
They had no faces. Some had the area above their necks ripped away by a powerful force, leaving only fluttering, raw edges. Some looked as if the skin had been peeled from their faces, wearing faceless expressions. Some had holes in their faces that seemed ready to swallow everything.
They looked at me, their colors distinct from the blue.
No, they weren't moving. I was the one looking. Because I was looking at them, they were looking at me.
I knew. I didn't know why, but it was natural knowledge.
I don't know. I don't know.
What the hell is this?
Don't look at me.
You guys tried to kill me, too.
Your deaths were just an accident.
Don't look at me with those faces.
Why are you making those faces?
Don't look at me.
I...
I...
Did what I had to do.
The pain intensified. They drew closer. The faceless ones, facing me. My head felt like it was going to split open.
Yet, I could do nothing. My legs wouldn't move, nor would my body. My mouth wouldn't open. My eyes wouldn't close. All I could do was move my hands to cover my eyes.
Even so, my hands slipped away. The Blue World filled my vision. Everyone in existence was... looking at me.
The condemnation from everything descended upon me, manifesting as pain.
How do I know this?
As I screamed soundlessly, enduring, and tried to pull my hands back up—I saw him.
A man with a face. One who did not condemn me.
A man with a face, wearing a wooden board around his neck, looking at me with a sad expression. Our eyes met. He looked at me slowly. He didn't blame me. He slowly bowed his head once.
Then, he slowly waved his hand, pointing at the ground. The ground where he stood.
After repeating this a few times, he bowed to me one last time.
“Gasp!”
“Did you get dust in your eye?”
Along with Calavera’s annoying voice in my ear, I returned to the original world.
The world was not blue. The faceless ones were not looking at me. The world I returned to was a desolate, corpse-rotting place of rock piles and skulls.
Was it a dream, then?
No, it wasn't. My intuition, honed by countless phenomena, told me that what just happened was real. It was another vision, one I hadn't seen with my own eyes.
Therefore, I stepped forward. To the place the last, non-condemning being had shown me.
A spot on the ground where nothing seemed to be. The place where the man with the face and the board around his neck had bowed to me.
I began to dig. I didn't answer Calavera’s question about what I was doing. I just quietly dug into the earth.
How much time had passed? Probably not long. The moon was in the same position as when I’d started digging.
But when I emerged from The Hole, I had a companion who hadn't been with us before.
“Calavera. Check this person.”
I spoke as I carefully handed the body in my arms to Calavera. It was a heavily damaged corpse that could barely maintain a human shape, with a wooden board hanging around its neck.
Calavera took the body, expressing a moment of doubt, but his expression quickly shifted as he began to do something. Something I couldn't see or perceive.
There must be a soul left in that body. Of course there would be.
I just knew.
* * *
“You lent him your eyes, didn't you?”
“No, he took them on his own. It's the third time. He can do that much.”
“I can't. I'm not interested. That's not the problem—those Voyeurs won't see it that way, will they?”
“Since when did you start caring about them?”
“It's the kind of timing where I should care.”
“Change your perspective. Like they do.”
“It's not a matter of perspective, it's a matter of dimensions.”
“It's the same to them. Choices are meaningless, and the outcome is fixed. That's why we act.”
“Don't lump me in with you. It's just that I don't like those things. I'm not interested in solids.”
“That is proof that we are of one essence.”