The Evolution of the Necromancer
It’s always difficult to use everything in its proper place. I planted the corpse-tree sapling in a sunny spot with Hee-sun. For the record, Harin did the digging. As she gradually turns into a beast, she seems to find a strange sense of ecstasy, pleasure, and fun in digging holes. Hearing from Areum this morning, her daily routine is almost identical to a puppy’s... she goes for walks alone, runs around, and apparently digs diligently when she’s not watching people or plowing the fields. She sleeps a lot, too.
‘Perhaps Harin is the one among my women whose personality has changed the most...’
It’s not an exaggeration; at first, she was clearly lost in the sorrow of losing her family. She also had a fairly high competitive spirit and often appeared stoic. But after living with the wolves in the meadow, her tension has become much higher, and she’s become more excited. Yes, she gets excited over the smallest things. Lately, she seems to realize it herself and tries to hide her expressions, but her tail gives everything away.
“Harin-ah, is digging fun?”
“Yes! Ah... no. I-it’s not fun. Really...”
Liar.
“Is that so? I see.”
“Yeah.”
If she doesn’t want to be caught, there’s no need to expose her. Perhaps she’s stressed about her own transformation. I decided to just stroke Harin’s back. She’s a truly cute woman when she’s happy.
“Hng...”
But for some reason, as soon as I stroked her back, she clung to me. Just like a puppy begging for more pets...
‘Half-human, half-beast... no, half-human, half-dog... is she gradually becoming a canine?’
If she starts barking, I’ll be genuinely troubled. Harin, please stay human. I don’t have a hobby for bestiality.
“Jojun. It’s connected.”
“Oh. Nice, Noona.”
Perhaps because she’s a druid, Hee-sun Noona can commune with plants. She held onto the corpse-tree and meditated for a long time before eventually turning it into her subordinate. She calls it an exchange through nature-friendly communion, but looking at how she gives orders, she definitely made it her underling.
“Shall we head down now?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m going down first! Harin, you can stay there!”
“Ah! M-Master!!! Wait for me!!”
“Huhu...”
As I jumped down recklessly, Harin overtook me, perhaps sparked by a sense of rivalry. I didn’t miss the fact that her tail was wagging as if it were incredibly excited. As expected... it seems she’s started to enjoy playing tag, too. Hee-sun Noona came down laughing, as if our playful antics were amusing.
“Hey! Son Haeun!”
“Oh? Oh. Master.”
“What are you doing?”
“Ah... well...”
The school’s basement warehouse. It’s a place where something indescribable, a mixture of divine idols and loneliness, is enshrined. It serves as Son Haeun’s workshop and private room, a playground for her, as she cannot sleep. Being a Lich, she is nothing but bones, so she neither eats nor sleeps. Thus, she spends all day holed up here, making things out of corpses brought by the Dullahan.
“Is that something you made recently?”
“Yes... I managed to piece it together, but the connection feels weak. There’s a problem.”
What she had created was a creature with bones stitched together like a human centipede. It was grotesque enough to kill most Awakened on sight.
“I don’t know what you mean by a weak connection, but take this.”
I handed Son Haeun the Corpse Parasite Tree.
“This is...”
“They say it clings to corpses to control them. It suits your class, so I gave it to you to check out.”
“Wow... I’ll take a look.”
The moment Son Haeun replied and took the Corpse Parasite Tree:
“Oh, ohhh!!”
The Corpse Parasite Tree began to latch onto Son Haeun.
“W-what is this!!!”
“Kyaaaaaa!!!!!”
Son Haeun screamed. She should have lost most of her sense of pain after becoming nothing but bones, yet she shrieked as if she were in excruciating agony. I panicked and pulled at the parasite that was tangling around her body. But the part I pulled snapped off like a lizard shedding its tail, and the rest burrowed deeper into her.
“Kyaaaaa!!!”
“Hey! Ah, fuck!!! Stop!! Stop it!! That’s an order!!”
“It hurts!!! Hurts, hurts, hurts!!!”
My command didn’t work. Son Haeun just writhed in pain, screaming. It seemed she was feeling a pain far greater than the one that comes with disobeying an order.
‘Is this... dangerous?’
The description stated that the Corpse Parasite Tree originally clings to corpses that still have brains, sucking out nutrients before putting down roots. It’s a unique creature that gains or loses intelligence depending on the host corpse. But Son Haeun has no brain or flesh. She is a complete skeleton. Although she wears clothes, she’s just a skull. There was nothing left in her body to use as nutrients. Yet, it was trying to parasitize her. That alone made no sense. This was clearly abnormal.
Furthermore, the divine idol defending our base was here. The Hyoseon Girls’ High School, where we are stationed, is protected from ghosts and other miscellaneous attacks by the divine idol. In such a place, the parasite began to run wild by merging with Son Haeun. If the divine idol were to be broken or damaged because of this... all the hard work I put into crawling through the Forest of the Missing might go to waste.
‘I have no choice but to kill her...’
I intended to finish it cleanly with Abyss Maw. The collective interest takes priority over Son Haeun’s individual life. But just then, Son Haeun, who was rolling on the floor, darted toward the divine idol placed in the center of the basement.
“You!!! You son of a bitch!!!!”
She was so fast that I barely caught her by unleashing my tentacles. But even then, Son Haeun reached out toward the idol and grabbed a handful of the ectoplasm overflowing from it. Then, she began to devour it greedily.
‘What on earth is happening...’
Upon consuming the ectoplasm, Son Haeun calmed down.
“M-Master.”
“Oh? Yeah.”
“Can I... have a little more?”
“You, you’re still Son Haeun, right? Your personality hasn’t changed, has it?”
Like the time with Alcid, the control of her body might have passed to the parasite, rendering my Soul Stigma useless. I rushed over to Son Haeun to check her stats.
‘It’s definitely her... she hasn’t changed...’
I felt slightly relieved and allowed her to consume the ectoplasm spewing from the divine idol.
“Burp...”
After gorging herself on ectoplasm for a while, she sat down blankly, seemingly full.
‘Did she supplement the nutrients she couldn’t get from Son Haeun with the ectoplasm...?’
The danger remained, so I asked her while prepared to kill her instantly.
“Hey. Son Haeun.”
“Ah... yes. I’m fine now. The pain is gone.”
“What was that just now? Where did the Corpse Parasite Tree go?”
“It’s... here... inside me...”
Son Haeun unbuttoned her shirt. Normally, a woman unbuttoning her shirt should be arousing, but since the opponent was a skeleton who only had a woman’s voice, I felt no change in my heart. No, if anything, I felt dejected.
“Here, look.”
Son Haeun opened her shirt wide to show her insides explicitly.
‘Too explicit, I can see all the bones.’
But something was strange. In her upper body, where her heart should be, the Corpse Parasite Tree had taken root. Just like a heart.
-Thump. Thump.
“Hey... it’s beating?”
“Indeed... a heartbeat... it’s been a while.”
“Hah. What is all this...”
The roots of the parasite stretched through her body like blood vessels. And the main body of the parasite, curled around the ectoplasm at the location of her heart. Perhaps it’s because her class is a Lich. Maybe that’s why the undead-related item reacted.
“Hmm... I feel like I can use my skills better.”
“Really? In what way?”
“Well... skills just feel like using superpowers.”
“That’s true.”
“But... it’s not that... this... it’s like knowledge is flowing into my head... I can break down the skills... and the truth contained within them is being transmitted.”
“Hah....”
“Here... look at this.”
Son Haeun reached out toward an unidentified corpse on the desk. Then, black death energy erupted from her hand and raised the corpse back up.
“Ugh... Ughhh...”
“Is that... a skill?”
“No... it’s not a skill. It’s just... I just handled the magic power.”
“What...?”
“Magic? No... Necromancy. Yes, I didn’t use a skill just now... I used Necromancy...”
“E-explain... explain it in more detail.”
“For now... the knowledge I acquired immediately is related to corpse resuscitation, so...”
To summarize her explanation simply, she said she is currently transforming from a psychic into a mage. To explain in order, she said that when the Corpse Parasite Tree first attempted to merge, it demanded nutrients in exchange for some profane knowledge. So, Son Haeun, who instinctively felt she could live if she ate the ectoplasm, consumed it, and then the parasite transmitted the profane knowledge and went quiet again. Honestly, she said she doesn’t know what’s what herself... she was just surprised by the new knowledge.
‘Skills are essentially outputting a set amount of power by consuming a set amount of mana to produce a set effect...’
In short, the usage method, mana consumption, and resulting phenomenon of a skill are fixed. Even if you can apply them appropriately, you cannot change the fundamentals. Because we are just borrowing power and using it without knowing the principles behind the skills. For example, in the case of my Tentacle Ejection, I don’t know by what principle I can draw upon Kashnakas’s authority to summon tentacles. I just act according to the skill description and cause the same phenomenon as described. Just like how I don’t know how a microwave warms food, but when I press the button, the food comes out warm.
However, those who are not bound by the system, like Hellus, Pharus, or Zieg, can use their power in various ways. They can apply, utilize, and change it freely without being bound by fixed frames. They are beings who have stepped outside the system’s framework. And now, Son Haeun has taken half a step into that same stage. It meant she was moving beyond being a microwave that simply heats food by pressing a button, to a level where she could directly sense and utilize microwaves. She is breaking free from the system’s specifications.
Yes, it’s more accurate to see it as her becoming able to handle the power of magic itself.
‘Surely... the operators won’t come to take her away, right?’
I don’t know the criteria for cheating, so even this makes me fearful. But seeing as there’s no reaction for now, it doesn’t seem like they intend to take her. If so... perhaps I’ve discovered one more secret of this game.
‘True awakening beyond the system... the realm of magic, not skills...’
For now, Son Haeun is the only example, but if I can obtain items or methods that allow others to step outside the system like her later, it will become more certain. Of course, that also requires luck...
‘But I’m a lucky person.’
However, this is actually just my speculation, and perhaps Son Haeun is just weird. Since I can’t get a clear answer right now even if I think about it deeply... the Evil Gods seem busy, and they don’t answer questions about these system-like things well, so I’ll just let it slide. Yes, I’ll just keep it in a corner of my mind as ‘Oh, this happened too.’
Anyway, the situation right now seems to have improved significantly, so I gave Son Haeun a few instructions and left the basement warehouse. Now, I should show the insect-users related to the Forest of Corruption to Hellus and go see Eila and Bella. For reference, I’ve already sent both Kesia and Kekere to Hellus. Hellus’s alchemy workshop has an image of being a gathering place for peculiar individuals, so I sent the peculiar ones, Kesia and Kekere.
‘He’s an old man who uses Alcid-infected beings as workers and reagents... he’ll surely find a solution for Kekere and Kesia too...’
I should show him the slime jar, too.
‘You’re reliable, Hellus... so please, live for a long, long time...’
I prayed that he would be able to obtain a new body as soon as possible. That he would be able to escape the constraints of his lifespan.