The Necromancer Manager (1)
The cemetery Junil had left behind was no longer the quiet, lonely place it once was. Foot traffic had increased dramatically.
“Is the elf really here?”
“Yeah, I’m positive.”
“But there’s nothing here at all?”
People who had seen the elf’s photo on the Goblin Slayer forum were comparing locations on their phones and glancing around. They weren’t causing any major disturbance, but to the elf it was extremely irritating.
I need to send them away.
Woooong…!
A flash of light crossed her emerald eyes. A massive dome-shaped barrier unfolded with her at its center.
Pop!
The dome was large enough to cover the entire graveyard and then some.
“Huh…?”
“Looks like this isn’t the place.”
It was a spell that induced recognition impairment in those without resistance. Their reason for coming grew hazy in their minds.
“What was it? Why… why did I come here again?”
“We were going to that makguksu place, right?”
“Oh.”
Before they even realized it, they had already left the cemetery behind.
At any rate, the World Tree’s reason for calling me seems like it will be resolved.
Elves were connected in consciousness to the World Tree—their primordial mother—from the moment they were born. She had instinctively understood.
She had already sent the right person.
Though that realization was only half correct.
It was true she had sent someone capable of solving the problem, but it wasn’t the person originally intended.
“…Hm?”
The elf’s eyesight was exceptionally sharp. In the distance, near a grave on the high ground, she could see a man still leaning blankly against a tombstone, staring up at the sky.
My magic… didn’t work on him.
It was strange. Any human from this world should have become bewildered and simply walked away.
His grief must run deep.
The emotion dominating him had apparently overpowered the cognitive interference.
Well. It doesn’t matter.
The elf paid him no further attention. As long as he didn’t bother her and simply stayed still, that was enough.
“No! You pointy-eared bastard! I called you here to give the quest to that guy! What the hell are you doing?!”
Ram screamed at the top of her lungs, but of course her voice couldn’t possibly reach that far.
“P-please calm down, Lady Ram. It’s not like there’s only one sub-quest. And today isn’t the only day.”
“Sam. You want to do more push-ups?”
“N-no…”
Sam was currently speaking while sprawled on the ground in a push-up position. It was humiliating, but he had no choice. The first sub-quest flying to Julian had been truly fatal.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice you flapping your wings during those push-ups earlier? Huh?”
Gasp. He’d been caught?
Sam desperately searched for an excuse.
“W-well… anyway! Julian’s status is still that of an extra. He has more Constellations than a typical F-rank, but… he won’t break a thousand.”
According to the storyboard settings, Julian was an extra. Therefore, to the Constellations he clearly appeared as one. It was as if a crudely drawn filter had been placed over him. Some Constellations were even betting on when he would die, claiming that an extra acting so boldly would perish quickly.
In other words, no matter how much Julian performed, the Constellations perceived him as an extra. Breaking through the status predetermined by the story board was extremely difficult. That was why Julian’s Constellation count hovered around nine hundred, moving sideways without progress.
“Hey… Have you never considered that reaching nine hundred in the first place is already insane? Huh? Where do you get off with that nonsense!”
Ram walked over and prodded Sam’s face with her foot.
“E-even so, it means things can’t get any worse… hehe… hehehe…”
“…Ha. Fine. Get up.”
“Yes!”
Whoosh~
Sam flapped his wings and flew upward. Ram felt a complicated mix of affection and resentment as she watched him, but she stopped talking about it.
“Fine, Sam. I’ll admit it. You did everything you could. I know it’s not your fault.”
“…Th-thank you!”
“And I’ll admit this too. Julian? You’ve got talent.”
For Ram to even acknowledge Julian was a significant concession.
“But this is as far as it goes. For an extra, that’s quite far.”
“R-right. Expanding his influence any further will be difficult.”
“Yeah.”
There was nowhere left to fall. Strangely, that thought stabilized Ram.
From now on, I just need to execute well.
Despite the small disturbance, the modern-fantasy project equipped with the latest storyboard 3.0 was a massive blockbuster created with full headquarters support. The number of gathered Constellations was equally impressive. It was currently surging up the charts inside the Fairy Corporation branch with tremendous momentum.
If they could maintain these results all the way to the finale…
Pam?
That mass-produced story fairy could be shoved straight into a coffin.
Hm? Coffin?
Something suddenly occurred to Ram.
“But Sam?”
“Yes?”
“What happens to Hae-il’s father’s body…?”
Kang Hae-il’s father’s corpse had been in this cemetery.
“Yes?”
“The necromancers took it, right?”
And the necromancers had been sourcing their corpses from this very cemetery.
“So Hae-il has to go there, doesn’t he? That was my plan, right?”
“…Y-yes, that’s correct.”
“Did you follow the plan?”
“Yes…”
“Then what happens now?”
“……”
“Alright, put these corpses into that warehouse you use.”
One of the necromancers ordered Junil. The tunnel passage he pointed to indifferently was lined with countless corpses.
What? Why are there so many corpses?
The sheer volume shocked even the Constellations, not to mention Junil himself. Even during his hero days, he had raided countless black-magic lairs, but there was always an expected range. This area should have this many corpses. A reasonable estimate. But this number far exceeded it.
These weren’t just skeletons—the bodies still had flesh attached. They looked recently deceased. There were even children among them.
These damn…
How could modern people casually lay out corpses like this? Did becoming a necromancer erase basic human conscience?
“You can store all of these, right? With your ability?”
“Ah… yes. I haven’t felt any limits yet.”
Tap.
The necromancer patted Junil’s shoulder, pleased.
“Haha. Perfect timing. Right when we finished cleaning out the cemetery, talent like you shows up? Huh?”
Indeed. The public cemetery had been their corpse supply source. Of course Junil had expected as much. The location of their hideout made it obvious.
But the corpses from the cemetery are usually just bones.
When taking bodies buried in graves, most were white skeletons. But these corpses?
They were recently dead.
Junil found it suspicious, but the answer came from the necromancers’ chatter.
Hm?
He focused mana into his ears and listened carefully.
“…I heard some of the people who died in the 4th Line incident were buried together here. These are high-quality corpses…”
Junil froze.
The 4th Line?
The 4th Line incident. While Junil’s carriage had survived, it was the goblin rampage with the highest number of casualties. It seemed this cemetery had accepted the bodies from the joint funeral. That explained the abundance of relatively recent corpses.
The necromancers laughed with delight.
“Hehehe. We won’t have to rely on those bony bastards anymore.”
“If we offer a few more kids from the nearby orphanage to the altar, we’ll be set.”
“Exactly. With corpses of this quality and red mana, we can create even higher-tier subordinates.”
“Transporting them was such a pain, but now that Ojin brought us a porter, our lives are looking up.”
Ojin was probably the man who had burned to death. They whispered about him.
“But… did you hear about how Ojin burned?”
“What?”
“They say he burned because he tried to mention our boss.”
“…Huh?”
“There’s some kind of curse, apparently.”
“……”
At those words, they suddenly clamped their mouths shut. Speaking carelessly could cause them to burn and vanish too.
“Hey, F-rank! What are you spacing out for?! Huh? From here to there. Move all of them. You said you could, right? What, can’t touch corpses?”
Tap. Tap.
One necromancer smacked a skull staff against his palm like a club and barked at him.
But I still haven’t identified the source of the magi.
He needed more time. A gathering of these pathetic necromancers wasn’t enough for the elf to speak of purification. There had to be something more.
Junil decided to play dumb for now.
“Ah… it’s just… I didn’t hear that I’d be moving corpses… ugh… blegh…!”
He pretended to retch to buy time. At the very least, he needed to find out who was in charge here. He didn’t know where the real boss was, but he could at least identify the highest rank on site.
“What? This guy isn’t F-rank, he’s F-trash-rank? Huh? Hahahaha?!”
The manager’s joke. The necromancers laughed along.
Junil immediately understood the hierarchy.
“Ah… ahahahahaha!”
“W-whoa, F-trash-rank! That’s brilliant wordplay, crossing ‘F’ with the ‘trash’ character! What a magnificent pun!”
At that moment, perhaps one of the Constellations had been shocked by the manager’s joke?
Necromancer Annihilation
🎁 Reward: 300 Feelings (FL)
Oh?
At the reward of 300 Feelings, Junil couldn’t hide his expression for a moment.
Three hundred Feelings?
The price of the narrative trick curved blade had been one Heart. This was thirty percent of that.
…What should I do?
Should he gather information for the sub-quest first? Or take this hidden quest?
Junil smiled. He realized the dilemma was pointless.
Julian’s way.
In truth, hidden quests and sub-quests weren’t so different.
“What’s wrong, newbie? Is it funny? Laugh along, kid. Don’t overthink it. Hahahaha.”
The necromancer manager, thinking Junil’s bright expression was due to his own wit, patted his shoulder.
“There, now that we’re all in a good mood, you can do it, right? Just move the corpses. It’s no big deal. They’re just lumps of meat. Humans, right? The texture changes with age, you know?”
“Um… by the way, the older brother promised me compensation.”
“What? Compensation?”
The manager’s face twisted. The necromancers exchanged glances.
Just give him a little, yeah?
We’re mages so we don’t have much strength… just throw in a few coins…
After exchanging those unspoken thoughts—
“Fine. How much?”
“Well… it’s… thirty billion.”
“What? This bastard thinks we’re playing around just because we humored him? Hey…”
Thud—
The manager placed a hand on his shoulder with a threatening air.
“You’ve been kidnapped, you idiot.”
The atmosphere turned deadly.
“Huk…”
“Say the amount properly again. Before you get nothing.”
“Thirty billion.”
“…What?”
“A Han River view apartment, you son of a bitch!”
Shuk!
The goblin dagger that had somehow appeared pierced through the necromancer manager’s chin and protruded from the back of his skull.
“!?”
“…!”
And then music that spelled death for the necromancers began to play.
Awesome BGM
“You guys are the ones…”
Junil spoke indifferently as he flicked the blood off his blade.
Plop.
“…who have been kidnapped.”