The Empty Nest
His throat burned. His muscles creaked and groaned in protest.
Simon was in the throes of a battle that had pushed his entire body past every limit it had. He had no idea how long he'd been fighting, or how many undead he'd cut down along the way.
[Can you keep going?]
Even now, the Grand Duke — that monster of stamina and willpower — was still breathing steadily. She had slaughtered several times more undead than Simon had, and yet there she was, matching his pace, worrying over him.
How could he possibly complain at a time like this? Simon gritted his teeth and shouted.
"I'll follow you to death itself!"
Behind the visor of her helmet, he could picture her smiling face.
[Hmph. Well, at least your eyes are first-rate.]
The Abyss. There was no telling how deep this hole went. They simply descended, endlessly descending, cutting down the Northern God's final elite guards as they went.
Screeeeeech!
He was swinging the Greatsword of Ruin like a madman, eyes fixed on the ground below, when winged serpent undead lunged at him from behind.
'Kgh!'
The instant Simon twisted his waist to throw a slash backward—
[Keep going, Lord Commander!]
Spiderwebs dropped faster than the undead could move, and far above, he could see Erzebet sweeping her arms through the air. The serpent undead were cleaved apart in mid-lunge, their bodies sliced into pieces of flesh. Simon realized at once that her webs were different from usual.
'Has a hint of Geheim slipped in?!'
Simon looked up and shouted. "Thank you, Erze!"
[Ohohoho! I shall be awaiting my reward once the war is won!]
The Ancient Undead were performing so magnificently it drew gasps. The moment any enemy appeared, Erzebet raked it apart with her webs, or Akemus swooped down and slammed it into the abyss wall.
They trailed after Simon and the Grand Duke, doing everything in their power to carry the two of them to wherever the Northern God awaited.
[Keep going!]
Prince could be seen bellowing "Hidden Card Punch!" as he sent a massive monster undead flying. At last, Simon and the Grand Duke touched down safely at the very bottom of the Abyss.
'The floor.'
Simon had almost forgotten the feeling of his feet planted on solid, level ground.
[We've made it! Come!]
"Yes!"
Having reached the bottom of the Abyss, Simon and the Grand Duke pressed forward, and her eyes gleamed within her helmet.
[This is the place, beyond all doubt! The Northern God's chamber, passed down through my ancestors. I can see every trace and feature from the stories!]
Vigor surged into her voice, and strength with it.
There was something like quiet emotion mixed in, too.
They had truly arrived. The long, long war between the Northern God and the Grand Dukes of the North — waged across centuries — was finally about to draw to a close.
[Pick up the pace!]
"Yes, ma'am!"
At the bottom of the Abyss, the attacks had ceased entirely. All that remained was to run, following the blood vessels that bulged from the ground.
And then, at last—
Where all those vessels converged, they arrived before the Northern God's chamber.
"……"
Everything was drenched in scarlet. The floor and walls writhed as if alive, and before them hung a curtain of blood-red membrane, draped from above like a veil.
[Stay close, and follow carefully.]
The Grand Duke conjured an arrow above her palm, gripped it, and flung it sharply into the air. With a whisper of steel, the arrow stretched and reshaped itself into a spear in her hand.
Creak.
Creak.
Her armor's joints groaning with each step, she moved forward. Simon raised the Greatsword of Ruin and followed.
Shhhk.
She swept aside the red curtain and stepped into the chamber first.
Thud.
He felt her footsteps halt abruptly. Simon charged in beside her, blade leading.
But Simon's steps, too, stopped dead.
The pupils of both of them were trembling violently.
"What…… is this?"
[Hahahaha! Any undead that falls into my, Prince's, hands is finished!]
Having blasted apart countless of the Northern God's undead, the legion's Ancient Undead were now walking along side by side. With no more enemies left between them and the bottom of the Abyss, the atmosphere was downright festive.
[You fight pretty well yourself, you know? Second Legion.]
Herseba addressed the small figure at her feet, where a blue rabbit was scurrying about.
[Obviously! Myung-myun!]
He looked like nothing more than a blue rabbit, but he was the ace of the Second Legion — a powerful Ancient Undead. The infamous vanguard known as the Great Snowy Cat: Pluto.
[You're the ones run ragged cleaning up after a baby Legion Commander! Myung! You'd be far stronger fighting on our Grand Duke's jet-black! Myung-myun!]
[Spare me your nonsense.]
Akemus said it with eyes like drawn blades. Pluto just laughed breezily.
[Getting so serious over a joke? Myung-myun!]
[The Young Master will rise far greater still. To have reached this height barely a year and a half after becoming a necromancer — give him another year and a half, and he will stand at the very summit of—]
[One moment, please.]
Erzebet's expression stiffened slightly.
[Something appears to have gone wrong at the Northern God's chamber.]
[Let's go!]
Prince tore ahead, and the other Ancient Undead raced after him. They too pushed through the red membrane and entered the chamber — past Simon and the Grand Duke, who stood rooted in place — and beheld the scene before them.
[Ah!]
The Northern God's chamber.
Where the Northern God should have been, there was only a massive mound of flesh, slumped over as if drained of all strength.
A corpse that did not move.
Its skin had gone slack and discolored — it had clearly been dead for a very long time.
[What is this?]
Prince's voice shook.
[Is the Northern God…… already dead?]
The Grand Duke barely managed to collect herself and removed her helmet. She approached, knelt on one knee, and examined the thing closely with her own eyes.
"This husk is indeed the Northern God. It matches my ancestors' descriptions exactly."
Her voice trembled violently.
"If the Northern God is already dead — then what have we been fighting all this time?"
'……Grand Duke.'
Simon realized he had never once seen her shaken like this.
And how could he blame her? Every truth and certainty she had lived by had just been denied, root and branch.
[I will see for myself!]
Shhhhrp!
Pier peeled away from Simon's body and walked over.
[Jin. Step aside.]
Hate stepped forward from the Second Legion. The two Managers circled slowly around the motionless god, examining it from every angle.
[Hmph!]
Pier wore a meaningful smile.
[There's no doubt this was the Northern God — but the most important piece is missing!]
"The important piece?"
[The core.]
Hate answered in his place, her headless body straightening. He was learning only now that she was female in form — her voice was a woman's.
[Only the undead core is gone. There's no sign it was shattered or destroyed.]
[Khehehe! There it is!]
Pier crossed his arms and looked at the Grand Duke.
[So don't go sulking just because you've seen an empty shell, woman. The enemy the North has been fighting all these years was without question the Northern God.]
The Grand Duke rose to her feet in silence.
"Do not mock me. Who exactly was sulking?"
[Khehehehe!]
Simon sank into thought.
Given the situation, there were really only two possibilities.
First: the Northern God had relocated its dwelling to lure them all into a trap.
Second: someone had stolen the Northern God's core and was now using its power to attack the North.
Whether the second was even realistically possible, he couldn't say. It was closer to pure fantasy.
The first was by far the more likely — and yet.
[The idea that the Northern God deliberately moved is just as hard to swallow!]
Pier said this as he ran his hand along the wall of the chamber.
[The Northern God is an undead whose body is anchored to its nest! It must have occupied this spot for at least a thousand years! And now you're telling me it abandoned a nest this well-built to spring a trap on a northern army that might never even come? It doesn't add up! With resources like that, it would be better spent making more undead troops.]
"Then what?"
[Then there must have been some compelling reason it had to move. What that reason was, only the Northern God knows.]
Erzebet shrugged her shoulders.
[Whatever the reason, fine by me. So — where exactly is the Northern God right now?]
[……]
"……"
No one could answer that.
The true location of the relocated Northern God. It was certainly somewhere in the Frost Field — but there was no way to comb through an expanse that vast.
"Pier, is there no way to extract information from that shell of the Northern God?"
At Simon's question, Pier stroked his own skull thoughtfully.
[Khehehe! Impossible, from a husk with no core! The lesser undead are merely under its dominion — they hold no information of their own!]
This time, Hate spoke.
[To get information, we'd need to capture a hive entity directly linked to the main body. Jin.]
"Then the Three Brothers."
Prince sprang to his feet.
[That Chronos guy or whatever is still out there, isn't he! He talks, and his brain clearly works! We should chase him down and grab him right now!]
[But do we have any idea where he fled?]
Just as everyone was sinking into agonized deliberation, Simon raised his hand.
"I think Grayson is calling me through our link — one moment, please."
[Oh! The Third recovered already?]
Simon opened his subspace.
Judging by the state of her he could feel through their connected minds, Grayson still seemed far from well.
Of course she was. She had been the Northern God's undead and then undergone legionification into Simon's — her entire body had been torn apart and rebuilt. Recovery was going to take considerable time.
And yet.
Kirururuk—
An undead crow he'd never seen before hopped out of the subspace. It dropped to the floor, scurried around a moment, then spotted Simon and fluttered up to perch on his shoulder.
"Grayson sent you?"
Simon asked, and linked his mind to the crow's.
In that instant—
'!'
Some kind of scene began to surface in his mind.
It was dim and blurred, like an old black-and-white film.
'Where is……?'
A sweeping view of the Abyss stretched out below.
To be precise, this was the view from the eyes of a bird flying through the sky.
Flap!
The vista shifted, so the bird was apparently still in flight. He could hear the roar of wind rushing past.
'The Abyss — where we are right now.'
Undead swarmed throughout the Abyss. It seemed to be from before the northern army and the Seventh Legion had entered.
'Huh? How far is it going?'
From this Abyss, the bird flew far to the north.
After crossing several mountain ranges, at last—
'!'
Another Abyss came into view.
Simon doubted his own eyes.
This new Abyss — most likely where the Northern God had fled — had no fewer than ten holes bored into it.
'Is that the real one?'
Zzt!
Zap!
The view changed.
Once more, the perspective of a bird flying in the sky near the old Abyss. Far below, he could see people beginning to climb the distant mountains.
'Ah — that's us!'
The northern army, and the Seventh Legion as well.
Simon could see the Grand Duke and himself from far above.
It was a relatively recent memory, from not long ago.
Flap—
Having shown him the northern army, the bird moved on.
It flew a long way to the southwest, and then—
Tap.
A snow-covered white plain. The bird alighted on a single tree standing alone in the middle of it.
'Why is it showing me this place?'
Just as Simon wondered this, still seeing through the bird's eyes—
CRUNCH!
'WHOA!'
A colossal arm shot out and snatched the bird. At the same moment, the tree was ripped from the ground, the earth heaved upward in a huge mound, and a monstrous body burst free.
Simon felt cold sweat run down his spine.
'That's……!'
A giant.
An undead giant, no less — one that looked strikingly similar to the Third Brother he had fought.
Ssshh—
The view cut off as the giant popped the bird into its mouth. A sickening crunching sound and a crawling, horrifying sensation washed over him.
And a moment later—
The perspective shifted to another bird, farther away.
The giant, having swallowed the bird, sank back into the snow — but from the way the snowfield heaved and rippled, Simon could roughly trace the direction of its movement.
And the direction the giant was heading—
'Don't tell me!'
The vision ended.
The Grand Duke and the Ancient Undead were looking at him once more.
"You insolent thing! What did you see?!"
The Grand Duke demanded, clearly on edge.
Simon caught his breath, steadied himself, and spoke.
"I found the location of the new Abyss. And—"
"And?"
Simon looked at the Grand Duke, his voice tight.
"An undead that appears to be one of the Three Brothers is heading for Bilkenos."
At those words, every face in the chamber froze.
"Try this one too, out-of-towner."
"Thank you!"
This was Bilkenos. Somewhere along the way, Camibarez had finished adapting to the North, and now sat happily munching away at snacks in a chair.
The northerners were famously wary of outsiders — yet for some reason, they were different around Camibarez.
It wasn't merely her appearance. They say a genuinely kind soul radiates that warmth without even trying. Every northerner who exchanged a few words with her found their guard melting away before they knew it.
"This is so delicious!"
She flapped her little bat wings with delight as she ate. "Thank you! Everyone from the North is so kind!"
"Glad it suits your taste!"
Only then did the warriors — who had been tensely waiting for her verdict — break into applause. These burly, muscle-bound soldiers were being utterly flustered, gesture by gesture, by a girl who barely reached their chests.
Camibarez swung her legs back and forth, then quietly gazed up at the sky.
'I hope Simon comes back soon.'
Her special lesson had ended early, so she could have returned straight to Kizen — but she had chosen to stop by the North briefly and travel back with Simon instead.
The minions had gotten approval from their superiors to allow it, and a teleportation array had been opened for her during a brief lull in the blizzard.
Bilkenos itself was unreachable through the storm, so Camibarez had traveled to a nearby city and hitched a ride on merchants' wagons to get here.
She'd even bought regional specialties from the province where her special lesson took place — gifts for Simon.
"If you can't find a place to sleep, stay in the castle."
Butler Godric said, arms crossed. "It's an emergency season — the inns will all be full. We've prepared a shelter inside the castle walls; you'll lodge there."
"Thank you so much!"
Whooooosh.
Her violet hair swayed in the wind. Having finished her sandwich, she hopped down from her seat. She sniffed the air, and her head turned.
"What is it?"
"Um……"
She pointed.
"Is that a common northern monster?"
At the far end of Bilkenos's castle wall—
"!!"
A gigantic face was staring down at them from above the ramparts, unblinking.