The Crowned Wave
[It seems something happened at the mansion.]
Manus spoke as he watched the confused zombies. Beside him, Javier was stroking his beard with evident satisfaction.
"Heh heh, this counts as a lopsided victory, does it not! All that long preparation hasn't gone to waste."
[……]
Manus stared at him in silence, then turned his head away. Javier connected to the Meat Golem's residual consciousness and issued his orders.
"Now's your chance! Push them all the way to the ground!"
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The Meat Golems heaved their massive bodies forward, ramming into the zombies like war chariots.
The zombies' strained formation crumbled as if soft tofu were being punched clean through, and Manus's skeletons followed close behind, finishing off the fallen.
"Keep going! Keep—……huh?"
Javier, barking orders in a frenzy, felt his gaze drift toward the mansion.
Someone was walking out onto the balcony.
A skull crowned with flickering flame sat atop his head, and a cape of shadowless darkness draped half his body. In his right hand he held a white greatsword; in his left, Prince's crown.
[……I see. So the zombies were neutralized because of him.]
Manus spotted him as well and murmured under his breath. But then the eyes of Javier, standing at his side, began to tremble with fear.
"Th-that bastard, why is he over there……!"
[An acquaintance of yours?]
At that moment, the man on the balcony lifted Pier's skull off and flipped it back behind his neck.
His hair swayed, and a boy with a face still touched by youth looked out.
He's that young?
That the man who had cleaved him in a single strike was a boy so green—Javier's shock tipped over outright into jealousy.
What on earth was he?
As he stared in a daze, Javier's pupils widened all over again. The boy was setting down the greatsword and raising the crown toward his own head.
He can't possibly mean to put that on?
The corners of Javier's mouth curled all the way to his ears.
Prince's crown was the power to become king of the zombies. If a human recklessly wore it, his mind would be torn apart and he'd end up a vegetable.
Even Prince—the crown's true owner, an Ancient Undead—could not endure the pressure of its consciousness, and had to operate his true body and his vessels separately. A human wearing that crown was guaranteed to break.
A golden opportunity—destroying an enemy without lifting a finger!
Javier's nostrils quivered as he watched the boy with breathless anticipation.
Put it on. Put it on. Put it on. Hurry up and put it on!
The boy raised the crown high.
And then, without a moment's hesitation, he set it upon his own head.
Kukukukukukukukuku!
A torrential surge of Jet-Black began erupting from his body.
[You madman!]
Prince dragged himself forward on his knees, crawling laboriously onto the terrace. With Simon's Absolute Command—kneel—still in force, crawling was the best he could do.
[What on earth are you thinking! We're Legionified now—if you die, I die with you!]
Prince's gaze shot toward Pier's skull hanging behind Simon's back.
[You've lost it too, Pier! He's your contractor! Why aren't you stopping him?]
[Kheheh! If you know nothing, then shut up and watch.]
Pier's skull, hanging upside down, grinned.
[This is the fool who donned me on his very first try, after all.]
[What?]
Kuuuuuuuuu—
The Jet-Black that had been overflowing around him like a detonation settled into stillness.
Simon swayed as he took a step, then braced himself against the wall and pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Hooooooooh."
His eyes flushed a brilliant gold, the same color as the crown. Strange patterns took shape within his pupils.
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. And then—
"───────────!!"
An incomprehensible shriek erupted from him, a sound impossible to believe had come from a human throat.
The entire battlefield froze at that cry.
Perfect silence flowed through a space packed with thousands upon thousands of bodies. Every zombie that had been standing like dolls with severed strings lifted its head and looked at Simon.
Beneath his falling hair, Simon's eyes gleamed as if aflame with madness, and the corners of his mouth curled upward as if drunk on it.
That is……!
Pier felt a shudder rise from the deepest part of his being.
The vicious overlord who had worn a mask, hidden his name, shaken the continent to its roots, and vanished into the dark.
Richard's face began to overlap with Simon's.
[All of you.]
Simon looked down upon the zombies and spoke.
[Follow me.]
Kukukukukukukuku!
Kukukukukukukukukukukukukukukuku!
Manus and Javier flinched and staggered back a step.
The zombies began to change. Their hollow, unfocused eyes flooded with gold, and their teeth and claws darkened to a blue-black hue. Soon, a dark blue-black haze was streaming from every body.
-Kieeeeee!
-Uooooooo!
The dead roared.
Seen from the sky above, it would have looked like a vast blue wildfire igniting all at once.
-Kyaaaaaak!
-Kiiii!
Without a single exception.
Every zombie in this place began reproducing Simon's Jet-Black within their own bodies. Every last one of them had fallen under the dominion of the crowned Simon.
[Ha.]
Prince slumped back against the wall, utterly dumbfounded.
[……Ha, haha!]
Nothing came out but hollow laughter.
Something that even he, an Ancient Undead, could not accomplish—and an ordinary human had just pulled it off, that easily?
Woong.
Simon stepped up onto the balcony railing and leapt. The zombies came surging in a flood, clambering over one another, raising hills and mountains of their own bodies to catch him.
As though to ensure this transcendent being never touched the filthy dirt below.
[Advance.]
Kukukukukukukukukukuku!
The black wave carrying Simon began to move.
Like a living wave, it drew back once—then surged forward, bending and racing ahead from the very crest where Simon stood.
The zombies around the wave carrying Simon joined the flow with shrieks of their own. The tide of fused bodies swelled larger and larger until it rivaled the mansion at its rear.
The zombies ran, bearing their king upon them.
The raging flood swept in.
Impossible!
Javier trembled, and trembled again, at a sight he had never once witnessed in his life.
That's not undead control anymore—that's something else entirely!
In the black wave bearing Simon, countless blue eyes rolled back in their sockets, all of them fixed on Javier.
A terrible, unfamiliar dread. Javier felt himself drenched head to toe in cold sweat before he even realized it.
Simon rode the crest of the wave and let out a long, slow breath.
"Pier."
[Yes, my lord!]
He raised the Sword of Ruin upright.
The first things to eliminate were the Meat Golems. The black wave of zombies crashed into the first golem at the very front.
Kwakwakwakwakwakwaam!
Wave met golem. Zombies splashed upward like sea spray.
The golem's huge bulk was swallowed by the wave, leaving only its head poking out. Simon, riding the tide past it, swung the greatsword and cut it off.
[Next.]
The wave of zombies banked hard toward the Meat Golem on the flank. The skeletons swung their weapons in resistance, but they could not fight the current; they were swept under and swallowed.
The black wave drowned everything around it in deepest darkness, leaving only the Meat Golems' faces bobbing above the surface.
Simon harvested them the way one reaps ripe grain.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The heads of the mighty Meat Golems—which had cost him only a single loss this entire battle—flew one after another. Every time the wave reached out, the skeletons' formations collapsed and the golems toppled.
"Th-this is! Impossible!"
Javier screamed, clawing at his own hair in desperation.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
No exceptions.
In less than a single minute, Simon had ridden the wave through their lines and destroyed every last Meat Golem. Javier's legs gave out beneath him, and he crumpled to the ground.
-Kieeeeee!
-Uooooo!
The zombies let loose a colossal roar of celebration. Simon, perched at the summit, casually rested the greatsword against his shoulder.
"……Kill him."
Javier, sprawled on the ground, shivered violently and looked around.
"What are you doing, Manus! Kill that bas——"
Shriiing.
Javier never finished the word. A black sword-stroke flashed, and his head soared high into the sky.
[I knew from the very beginning.]
Clack.
Manus slid his sword into its sheath as he spoke.
[That you were using me—of that much, at least, I was always aware.]
Javier's severed head rolled across the dirt and came to rest.
Manus walked slowly toward Simon. The skeletons surrounding his path parted to clear the way, like a miracle of Moses.
[Young king. What is your name?]
Simon lifted his chin.
"Simon Polentia."
[I am Manus, a knight of the Talhern Empire.]
He raised his sword straight upright.
[The meaning and destiny of my existence is to complete my vengeance upon Kizen. I ask that you hand over that crown.]
"Vengeance?"
His golden eyes flashing, Simon grinned.
"Sorry, but that's none of my business."
[……]
"I've heard the rough story about you—Swordmaster of the former Empire. Leading the undead of Deathland to take revenge on Kizen? Do you genuinely believe that has any chance of working?"
At the words chance of working, Manus's mouth clamped shut.
"In short, you cannot beat Nephthys. The essence of what you're planning is nothing but a rampage. While your army marches on Kizen, how many thousands of civilians do you think will die along the way?"
The Empire was already gone.
If Manus's rebellion had even the faintest sliver of a chance at success, Simon would not have sneered. It might have been a revolution.
But with nothing but Deathland and Manus's own forces, Kizen could never be broken.
The ending was already written.
In the end, Manus would only be threatening the lives of the Empire's descendants—people struggling along without even knowing the name of the Empire they inherited—and of every generation after them.
"You're a being that's already vanished from history. For something like that to drag up ancient grievances and wreck the lives and livelihoods of descendants who are living well now—that's a contradiction. There's no meaning in it for you, no justice, no profit, no honor. Let me say it one more time. It's just—"
The corners of Simon's mouth curled up.
"A pathetic, sniveling tantrum."
[Then—!]
Manus swept his blade.
A line of light cut across the black wave beneath Simon's feet, and with a shaaak! it split in two.
Simon's body lurched into the air, but zombies came swarming up like larvae from the other half of the wave, catching his legs.
[Then how am I to comfort the souls of the imperial citizens who were unjustly sacrificed to Kizen!]
"And who's going to comfort the souls of all the people who'll be sacrificed to your tantrum, then? Loyalty, souls, justice—it all just sounds like your stubbornness to me. So here's what I'll say."
Simon raised the greatsword upright.
"So that no souls are ever offered up to your stale, meaningless tantrum—that is why I fight."
[……Then it seems further words are pointless.]
Manus spread his legs shoulder-width and lowered his blade at a diagonal. Simon lifted his free left hand, the one not gripping the greatsword.
-Kyaaaaaak!
-Kiiii!
The zombies of Deathland roared and howled.
Manus, facing them down, felt a chill crawl up his spine.
How could he ever forget.
The ten necromancers who had shattered the finest army of Talhern.
And the three most overwhelming among them—the ones called Legion Commanders.
My comrades—was this the sensation you felt, too?
Ten thousand pairs of eyes in the black wave were all glaring at Manus.