The Job Change Quest (2)

The Karma Flame spear carved through their bodies.

Flesh burned whole and sliced away—

"Kgh!"

Yet they lunged at me without a shred of concern, as if the bodies dying weren't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their own. They didn't feel pain at all.

'They're exactly like the ones I saw that day.'

Pierce their vitals, take off their heads—it didn't matter. The monsters that came on relentless until the end, until they butchered Jung Min-chul's crew. Who would have guessed their true nature was undead?

Pabababak!

I ran my spearhead through the orcs' torsos. When I couldn't tell where the necromantic artifice was inscribed, the answer was simple: smash more than seventy percent of the body, and they died on their own. Which, put the other way, meant that until then, they would never give up their hunt for the living.

"You damned, insufferable things."

Wasn't it about time you let go?

"Groooaaargh!"

The Undead High Orc Champion charged. Flame Soul Moon Blade. Fire Splinter.

The flame of Karma pierced straight through it and detonated.

"Damn it. Took me three whole minutes."

Every monster's weak point is different, but all living things share one truth: a life that loses its head cannot survive. There are surely beings beyond that law, but most of the enemies I'd faced so far had obeyed it.

'But the undead are different.'

Except for cases like the Su-do-gwi, where the artifice is carved into the brain, they keep moving even with a crushed skull or a torn-out heart. Walking death, plain and simple. The dead who couldn't stay dead, endlessly dragging the living down with them.

'Why did the High Orcs become undead, though?'

Until now, there had been two hypotheses. The first: a new breed of High Orc had been discovered, one that revived itself as undead after death. The second: someone had cast a posthumously-triggered spell upon them.

'I'd lived believing the second hypothesis.'

It was common enough for someone inside a gate to influence its monsters, and no High Orc had ever been reported reviving the same way since. That was why.

The problem was the message from moments ago.

When they'd first been summoned, they had been an ordinary High Orc legion, no doubt about it. But then a portion of the analyzed energy—

'Meaning the energy of my soul.'

—was what had warped the High Orcs into undead.

"Hold on a second…."

If that was true—then the High Orc legion that had suddenly risen that day, revived from corpses… had it all been my doing?

"…No way that's it."

I had never once acquired a necromancy-type skill, let alone used one. The sum total of the skills I'd possessed before regressing was 'Reinforcement.' If I'd had a power like that, I wouldn't have been beaten down so helplessly.

"……."

I'd reached my own answer, but the weight in my chest refused to lift.

The galaxy still streamed in brilliant splendor. Apparently it was having a hard time choosing my next opponent.

"Hey."

I spoke to the empty air—or more precisely, to the Corridor of Dimensions itself.

"You. Can you answer me?"

So it was equipped with a rather more professional query-and-response system than I'd expected. Inwardly I'd been itching to ask about the Monarch's identity, or who had sent me back in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time—but those, it seemed, were out of bounds.

'Information about me, huh….'

The 'challenger's information' it spoke of would probably be something like this.

"What's the current state of my soul, as analyzed so far?"

The thing intricately bound to the job change quest itself: the analysis of my soul.

And as I read what followed, I couldn't help but freeze.

Death energy. The aura of death itself.

My half-analyzed soul was composed of nothing else.

"Th… this is my soul?"

Even though the question was barely more than a murmur to myself, the Corridor answered.

The moment I read that explanation, my mouth went dry.

"And if… the person has no talent?"

the Corridor said, flat and toneless—

My heart felt as though it were freezing over.

'My knack for thriving in crises. Becoming humanity's last survivor. The people around me dying one after another.'

All of it became possible to explain if my soul was steeped in death energy.

"Is there no way to strip this energy out of my soul?"

In one sentence: my soul was death energy. I hated to admit it, but a deathly aura clung to me deeper than to anyone alive.

"Ha."

All this time I'd thought it was simply a vicious fate. Never once had I imagined this kind of truth was hiding beneath it.

I fought many more enemies after that, but every one of them arrived warped and twisted somewhere by the influence of the death energy within me.

A horde of undead trolls. A griffin that failed to resurrect. A corpse-devourer.

And the more of them I cut down, the clearer one fact became:

My soul was filled to the brim with death. Thoroughly, utterly.

"…What the hell ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is even the point of all this?"

Which meant…

"The class I'm going to receive—necromancer?"

Necromancer. A being that commands the dead like a flock. Unlike a summoner, there's no taming process to speak of, and no shared damage even when your minions are wounded or destroyed. A one-man army. The highest conceivable ceiling—someone who can raise an army of the dead entirely alone.

And as it happened, I even had an item that would let me master necromancy skills with ease. Introduction to Necromancy—the book of necromantic arts I'd obtained in the Graveyard of Knights.

'It's as if fate itself is shoving me toward the necromancer's path.'

Everything that composed me was telling me the same thing. Use this power. Grow stronger. Raise an army of the dead and stand against the Iron Blood Monarch and his knights. This—this—is the only real talent a nobody like you possesses.

"……."

I wanted it. Greed coiled in my gut.

The image replayed in my mind, over and over: the undead High Orcs turning Jung Min-chul's crew into hunks of meat. If I raised dozens of beings far stronger than that and placed them under my command—

'Then even the Iron Blood Monarch…'

I could win. I wouldn't need to scrape together a guild, or chain hunters to Korea, or scramble desperately to meet every catastrophe bearing down on us—

Crunch!

The instant that thought took root, I bit down on my own lip until it split. The taste of iron flooded my mouth, and my mind snapped clear.

"…Screw that!"

I remember. I remember walking through the fallen Korean peninsula. That hell, where nothing but death met the eye in every direction. The time when survival itself was a sin.

"Maybe others could live with it. Not me."

I, least of all, may use death as a tool. I must not press others' deaths into service for my own strength. Because if I did, there'd be no reason I came back at all.

Becoming a necromancer is a different beast entirely from merely learning a few necromancy skills. If it were just skills, I could exploit gate monsters and keep things contained. But the true, professional necromancers were another story. The words of those who had delved deep into that discipline had always been the same:

'They turned hunters into undead.'

They didn't stop at handling dead monsters. They looted the graves of powerful hunters—or worse, murdered them outright, then raised them to serve.

'Just like the Specter Monarch, who turned the immortals of Spirit Valley into the Su-do-gwi.'

The reason was simple. Hunters are stronger than monsters. Just as warriors train their muscles and mages research their spells, a necromancer simply wanders in search of ever-stronger corpses. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Skills of the necromantic line worm into their user's desires like this and slowly drag them into ruin.

'And merely wielding the skill does all this.'

Let alone having it engraved into the soul as a class. That hunger would never be shaken off. Not ever.

"You said there was still 1% left?"

Swallowing the blood pooled in my mouth, I glared up at the endlessly streaming galaxy.

"I'll change the outcome with that 1%."

Praying that even in this murky soul of mine, one drop of something else might be mixed in—I raised my spear.

Wuuuuuuuuung!

The stars blazed brighter than they had all trial long, summoning forth a single existence.

My final opponent. As if I hadn't already known exactly who it would be.

Light shattered, revealing a humanoid form. A giant towering several times the height of a grown man. Armor of jet black, as if forged from shadow itself.

"Been a while, hasn't it?"

The being of my deepest loathing stood before me. Granted, this was nothing but a phantom the Corridor had reconstructed from my memories.

"You son of a bitch."

My body was already primed to beat him down.

So even the Corridor strained under a 'Monarch'-class existence. Perhaps that was why the whole space had been shaking like an earthquake for some time now.

Kugugugugu!

Amid countless currents of chaos and turmoil, the Iron Blood Monarch raised his greatsword.

'Three seconds. One exchange is all I get.'

Into this single strike, I would pour everything I had.

"Flame Soul Moon Blade."

I wreathed my spear in the flame of Karma.

"Nameless Spear Art."

I channeled the essence of the spear art.

'And—'

"Reinforcement."

I flooded mana through it all, amplifying every ounce of that power.

Kugugugugugu!

Weighing this power on top of the exhaustion I'd already stacked up made my whole body scream in protest—but retreating here had never been on the table.

"This is the best I can do, right here, right now."

My foot slammed into the ground. The Iron Blood Monarch raised his greatsword.

[3]

My spear, carrying everything I am now. And the greatsword that once ended me. [2] The two blades met at the heart of the Corridor.

KWAAA-AAAAAANG—!

[1]

Amid an explosion loud enough to burst my eardrums, a faint, razor-fine sound brushed past my ear.

Psuk…!

[0]

It was the sound of my spear boring into his flank. The point had truly punched through the black armor and skewered him from within.

"Ha… haha…."

Compared to being satisfied with cracking the ornament on his helmet, that's one hell of an improvement. …Even if his greatsword still cleaved through my body all the same.

"Kghck!"

The reflexive cough came out flecked with blood. So I still couldn't beat him yet. But I wasn't worried—my growth hadn't stopped.

"Wait just a little longer… I swear I'll kill you for good!"

Gripping my dimming consciousness with both hands, I carved his figure into my eyes until the very last moment.