First Selection
After three days underground, under the drill instructors’ oppressive atmosphere and their senseless beatings, the children’s minds were already worn ragged.
My own body was that of a boy reduced to skin and bones. If there had been a mirror, I would have looked like a skeleton draped in a layer of hide.
But appearances didn’t tell the whole story. With the death qi I had stored in this frail body, I could probably take on one drill instructor head-on.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t just one instructor in front of me. There was even a chief instructor standing on the platform.
What a monster.
The pressure radiating from the chief instructor was on a completely different level. Just from the aura alone, he felt close to the Sword Master from my previous life.
How long would I have to stay here before I could crush a monster like that?
If I still had my full strength from before, he wouldn’t have been worth worrying about. But with this pitiful body, I had to start calculating things from the ground up.
Roughly ten years, maybe...
Ten years. A long time, maybe, or maybe not. But for a necromancer who could live for centuries, ten years was only a blink. No need to rush.
Just as I was deciding it was too early to show my strength and carefully tucking my death qi away again, the chief instructor stepped forward off the platform and spoke.
“From now on, we’ll divide you into groups. Find the group assigned to you by your number and gather there.”
Even though he spoke softly, his voice rang clearly in my ears, as if it carried some sort of power.
Yet I couldn’t sense any mana from him. That only confirmed it—this world must have its own method, different from magic.
I took the number tag the instructor handed out.
44.
When I went to my group, I found ten children gathered there, myself included.
The first thing that caught my eye was a big boy who looked like he was a head taller than everyone else.
Broad shoulders, thick arms. It was hard to believe he was really the same age as me.
Did they bring the wrong kid? Maybe he’s older than the rest of us.
Beside that hulking frame stood three lackeys, all of them clinging to him with submissive expressions.
Wherever you go, there are always people who survive by leeching off the strong.
And a little apart from them stood a girl whose atmosphere was oddly different from everyone else’s.
Pale skin, cold eyes. Unlike the other children, some kind of energy flowed through her body, but it was of a different nature from the mana I knew.
Is that the power of this world? It’s fundamentally different from magic.
Mana, the more one cultivated it, would inevitably leak out from the body. Sword Masters were the sort of people whose mere presence could make ordinary folk faint.
And yet this young girl was controlling the energy she possessed so tightly that it didn’t spill out beyond her body. It wasn’t simply that she lacked strength; that much was obvious, and all the more fascinating for it.
While I was observing that energy, the girl walked over to me.
“You smell terrible.”
Her first words were completely unexpected. I blinked, momentarily flustered.
Death qi was the energy of the dead. Even the holy knights of my previous life had called it a stench and chased me for it.
Maybe she had the aptitude of a holy knight.
“I’ve been locked in solitary for three days. I had to deal with everything in the room.”
“That’s not what I mean...”
She kept studying me with suspicious eyes. I decided to change the subject and gave her my name.
“I’m Wang Saryeong.”
The original owner of this body was apparently called Han Soun. I didn’t know what the name meant, but if the owner had changed, then the name should change too.
I’d decided to use Wang Saryeong, reversing the epithet of my previous life, Saryeong Wang.
It sounded decent in this world, and more importantly, it would help me keep hold of my identity.
“And you?”
“...Jin Sohee.”
“All right, Jin Sohee. Let’s survive.”
Jin Sohee didn’t bother replying further and simply moved away from me. I wanted to ask her about that energy, but there was plenty of time. No need to force it.
We waited until every child had found their group, and at last it seemed time had come.
The chief instructor on the platform smiled cruelly and spoke again.
“There are too many trash mixed in. I’ll weed out half of you.
Kill each other until only five remain in each group. Use any means necessary. Prove yourselves by the result.”
The order had been given, but only silence spread through the training ground.
The children stared at one another in stunned confusion.
Just moments ago, they’d been cheering each other on, saying they should survive together. For little kids, it would be hard to accept being told to kill those same companions.
But that silence didn’t last long.
“Aaaaaagh!”
The big boy in my group moved first. With the rusty iron sword they’d been given earlier, he slashed into the chest of the nearest child.
That was the signal. The stillness shattered in an instant, replaced by roars and screams as the place turned into a hellscape.
Our 44th group, the first to act, was quickly engulfed in killing intent as well.
“Die!”
One of the boys who wasn’t part of the big crowd’s little clique lost his head and charged Jin Sohee.
He must have assumed that, being a girl, she would be the weakest.
But she was wrapped in that energy. If anything, she was stronger than the brute, never weaker.
THUD!
A heavy impact rang out.
The boy who charged her took Jin Sohee’s palm squarely in the chest, coughed up blood, and collapsed. She must have used her energy to wreck his insides.
At the same time, another one rushed straight at me.
Jin Sohee would be shaken by what she’d just seen, and the big boy had already gathered his lackeys around him. So he chose me—the boy who looked skin and bones.
That was an even greater misjudgment than attacking Jin Sohee. The death qi dwelling in my body was already reinforcing me, even without me actively using it.
In other words, I could finish off a kid like him with nothing more than a simple throw.
CRACK!
With a single impact, his head snapped sideways. Dead on the spot. Watching the children in the other groups, I could see their guilt at having killed someone, but I had none of that.
If I’d bothered feeling that sort of thing one by one, I would never have survived for centuries, and I certainly wouldn’t have been called the Necromancer King.
That left four from the big boy’s faction, plus me, Jin Sohee, and the boy who had fallen out of formation—seven in all. We still needed two more to drop before the group’s trial would end.
The straggler charged me. Well, on sight, I was obviously the easiest target.
“Tch. I don’t have any personal grudge against you.”
Instead, I rushed him first, smashed his jaw upward with my fist, and kicked him in the stomach.
That was the end of it. Now there were six left.
I met the big boy’s gaze. His eyes were darting rapidly. Despite his size, he wasn’t stupid.
He’d already realized that I wasn’t some mere stick figure, and that Jin Sohee was anything but ordinary.
Messing with those two would just get me killed.
I could practically see his thoughts spinning.
There were six remaining. One more had to fall before our group’s trial would be over.
Unable to imagine beating either me or Jin Sohee, the big boy suddenly turned and grabbed the neck of the smallest, scrawniest lackey.
“Huh? Boss? Why—”
“Sorry. There isn’t enough room for all four of us to survive.”
CRACK!
He flung the lackey to the ground without hesitation, then crushed down on his chest with all his strength.
The lackey’s body went limp without even managing a scream.
The remaining two lackeys stumbled back in horror, but the big boy said calmly, “That makes five.”
He flashed me a greasy smile. Cowardly, but effective. A survival strategy all the same.
By the time corpses were strewn across the training ground and the children’s screams had begun to fade, the chief instructor’s voice finally rang out.
“Enough.”
The surviving children, gasping hard, came to a stop. A few had already lost their reason and were still trying to keep fighting.
Only after the instructors knocked those ones unconscious as well did the first selection finally come to an end.
When it was over, Jin Sohee slowly came up to me.
The strange energy flowing around her body felt even sharper than before.
“What kind of martial art are you using?”
“Martial art? I’ve never learned anything like that.”
A deep question settled into Jin Sohee’s cold eyes.
“Don’t lie. That movement just now... and that strange energy coming from your body.
It doesn’t seem like martial arts, but it wasn’t ordinary strength either.”
“Well. Even I don’t know what my power is called yet.”
I looked at Jin Sohee with an amused smile.
“If you’re that curious, stick right next to me and figure it out.”
It was convenient, really. I’d been wondering about her power too.
“...I’m not interested.”
Of course, Jin Sohee pretended otherwise and shut the matter down.
Just then, the chief instructor spoke again.
“Those who passed, listen carefully. Tomorrow will be the second selection.
If the first was about testing your resolve, the second will test your talent.
If you want to pass, you’d best preserve your bodies.”
After the chief instructor left, we went into the caves assigned to each group to rest.
Just as I was thinking of freely absorbing more of this land’s death qi, the big boy approached me.
“My name’s Lee Cheolgang. I saw how you fought earlier. Why don’t you come under me?”
This bastard?