Episode 4: At the Crossroads of Life and Death
He opened his eyes to pitch darkness broken only by cold iron bars. It did not take long for Einzel to realize he was locked in a dungeon cell.
He combed through his memories. Out of nowhere, a band of knights had seized Peria and dragged her away. He had given chase, and then—abruptly, nothing. Next thing he knew, he had ended up here.
...Clearly, his memory was not going to be of much help.
To be frank, he was a little bewildered. A dungeon, of all places? Even the Patriarch of Luderan had chosen to simply put him down rather than bother locking him in a cage. So why a cell?
Einzel lightly bit his lip. It was stifling. He had no grasp of the situation, no idea where he was, or even what day it was.
An unsettlingly familiar sensation crept over him—the hollow feeling of being an unwitting puppet in someone else’s grand scheme, dancing on strings without his knowledge. It was a feeling he had experienced countless times before.
"...What the hell is this?"
He spoke with a dry prickle in his throat, his voice tinged with a mix of emptiness and helplessness.
Then, footsteps approached, and a figure emerged before him.
"A pleasure to see you, Hero."
Devos Serindel. A familiar face.
"...What are you doing here?"
Einzel asked on instinct. If he remembered correctly, the man before him was second-in-command of the imperial military. Why would such an esteemed figure show up down here out of the blue?
"You were pursuing my knights, I understand."
"...Those were knights of your house?"
Damn it, a slip of the tongue. He had carelessly betrayed that he was completely in the dark.
Count Devos Serindel merely gave a casual shrug.
"No, quite the contrary. They are knights under direct imperial command."
"The Imperial Palace?"
The imperial court was behind her abduction? And they threw him into a dungeon merely for giving chase?
In an instant, Einzel realized what kind of filth he had stumbled into.
"The... Shadow Knights..."
"Yes, precisely. Though our official designation differs somewhat."
A shadowy existence whispered about like an urban legend—the Emperor's hounds tasked with handling every piece of dirty work the throne needed buried. Einzel didn't know whether to be astonished that they truly existed, or horrified that Peria had become entangled in their web.
"...What is it you want?"
"For you to look away, keep your mouth shut, and live out your days. Until you die."
"I can't fathom what kind of business could possibly justify threatening the Hero like this."
At those words, Count Serindel scoffed and brushed back his hair with a sneer of naked derision.
"As if being the 'Hero' makes you so special. You are nothing more than another pawn on the board. ...Still, if you are so curious, I suppose I can enlighten you. The next Master of the Magic Tower will vanish without a trace. Forever."
"What?"
Einzel's expression twisted into a scowl.
"That is all you need to know. Drink this draught, and we will escort you back to your quarters in peace."
"...What kind of medicine is that?"
"Merely a potion to ensure you don't go babbling everywhere."
"...And if I refuse?"
"You will be tortured."
Not a single shred of emotion flickered in Count Devos Serindel's eyes.
Which meant he was speaking the cold, unvarnished truth.
"...Just what happened for things to come to this?"
"That is none of your concern."
Einzel glared daggers at him.
"...Do you have any idea what I'm about to say?"
"Who knows?"
Count Serindel added nonchalantly,
"Not that I need to care. Even if you claim you won't hold your tongue... after a single round of torture, you'll be singing a different tune."
"Is that so?"
With a savage glint lingering in his eyes, Einzel curled his lips into a rotten, venomous smirk.
"How fun."
In the end, he crossed the point of no return.
"Go ahead and try. I'm curious to see who breaks first—me, or you."
And from that day forth, the torture began.
It started simply enough: driving thick needles beneath his fingernails.
Each time a steel needle drove under the nailbed, it felt as if the cranial nerves connected to it burst into flames.
It was intensely agonizing. Yet entirely bearable.
Because he had already experienced the sensation of raw, unadulterated pain piercing directly into his brain nerves before.
Burning to death was an agony far greater than any mortal could fathom, infinitely worse than needles under a few fingernails. That much was certain.
"Is that all you've got?"
Einzel glared at his torturers through bloodshot eyes.
Terror began to seep into their expressions.
"Come on, do more. That it?"
To make matters worse, he flashed them a chilling, mocking grin, sending cold sweat pouring down their necks.
Soon, the torture intensified. Red-hot needles, glowing incandescent with white heat, were hammered deep beneath his nails.
Yet he endured even that.
Next, they pinned his fingers to the table with iron spikes and began hacking them off one by one. Every time a severed finger hit the floor, a priest stepped forward to treat the wound with divine magic so he wouldn't bleed out. Of course, the fingers never grew back.
He endured that, too.
Next, they began hacking off his wrists and ankles.
He endured that as well.
And finally, all four of his limbs were hewn away.
"P-Please... spare me. Have mercy!"
Count Serindel trembled violently, slamming his forehead against the dirt before the man standing over him.
Meanwhile, the white-haired man merely crouched in front of him, wearing an unreadable, indolent smile.
"Why should I?"
"P-Please! I swear, I will never dare cross you again!"
Before accepting this assignment, the count had never dreamed things would end up like this.
Wasn't it supposed to be a simple matter of subduing and eliminating a single enemy? With just that, the supreme command of the military would have been within his grasp. Yet... the reality before him was night and day from what he had anticipated.
Now that it had come to this, power no longer mattered. It was a matter of sheer survival. He had to stay alive, no matter what degradation it took.
"Wouldn't it be much cleaner to just kill you?"
Einzel smirked at him, his gaze dripping with sly amusement.
"Please, I beg of you, spare my life!"
"Why would I bother?"
Shivering in terror, Count Serindel dared to look ahead.
There stood the Hero who had slaughtered every last one of his subordinates, and beside him loomed a towering Corpse Golem stitched together from their butchered remains.
Noticing the direction of his gaze, Einzel let out a soft sound.
"Ah, right. I still need to clean that up. Completely slipped my mind."
With a flick of his hand, he incinerated the Corpse Golem on the spot, leaving not a trace of ash behind.
Count Serindel bit his lip until it bled. If the monster could obliterate an undead construct he had created himself in the blink of an eye, what fate awaited the one who had dared attack him?
Einzel tilted his head musingly.
"Now, what should I do with you..."
With every moment Einzel hesitated, Count Serindel felt his insides char with anxiety.
"Right. Come to think of it, I have an old debt to settle with you."
"Y-Yes? Pardon?"
What did that mean? Had they ever met before?
Einzel waved his hand dismissively, brushing the unspoken confusion aside.
"Fine, I'll let you live. But in exchange... bark like a dog."
"What?"
Count Serindel's eyes widened in shock.
"W-What do you—"
"Well, since you're so good at playing the Emperor's dog, I figured you wouldn't mind being mine for a bit."
Count Serindel buried his face into the dirt.
The humiliation was unbearable.
To think a mere criminal would subject me to this... How dare he! How dare he...!
He ground his teeth, his face contorting with all the fury he could muster, but Einzel only pressed him on without an ounce of pity.
"What are you doing? Hurry up. Ah, of course, if you'd rather preserve your honor and die like a knight..."
"N-No, not at all!"
He steeled his resolve. Pride meant nothing if he was dead.
"Woof! Woof! Woof, woof! P-Please, spare my life!"
He barked frantically, desperately imitating a dog just to cling to survival.
Einzel covered his face with one hand and burst into wild, raucous laughter.
"Pfft—bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Count Serindel watched him with uneasy, frantic eyes.
"Man, you actually did it just because I told you to. Unreal."
At those words, Count Serindel's face drained of all color, dyed in absolute dread.
"P-Please, have mercy!"
"Ah, don't worry."
Einzel held his belly, laughing until his sides ached, before continuing.
"Yeah... thanks to you, I got quite a show. Sure, of course I have to let you live. Yeah, a promise is a promise, after all."
"T-Thank you! Thank you!"
Count Serindel bowed frantically, slamming his forehead against the stones in desperate gratitude. It seemed a glimmer of hope for survival had finally appeared.
Slash.
"...Huh?"
A spray of crimson blood scattered through the air.
"I said I'd let you live. And live you shall... but I never said I'd leave you in one piece."
Einzel spoke with a grin that threatened to tear from ear to ear.
"Aaaaagh!"
Before he even realized it, all four of Count Serindel's limbs lay severed around him.
"Oh, right. If you die like this, it'll count as me killing you, and we can't have that, can we?"
Releasing a pulse of Holy Power, he sealed the gushing wounds. The raw stumps knit together instantly, leaving smooth, scarred flesh where his arms and legs had once been.
Then, the distant howling of beasts began to echo through the trees.
"Oops. Looks like they caught the scent of blood."
He remarked with a sunny, cheerful smile.
Before long, a pack of wild wolves emerged from the shadows, prowling toward them.
"Yeah, that's right. Not me—over there, boys. Over there."
Einzel grinned, gesturing toward the squirming torso.
Soon, the wolves fell upon Count Serindel, tearing into him with ravenous frenzy.
"S-Spare... me..."
To his very last breath, he gasped a desperate plea for mercy before his voice was choked out by the wet crunch of teeth.
"Oh dear, what a shame. He went and died."
He spoke in a voice devoid of even a ripple of emotion. It was as flat and vacant as cold stone.
"Well... I'll be sure to put your corpse to good use."
He drew a sword adorned with an amethyst in its hilt.
And then, everything the wolves had left behind—the mangled torso, the head, the limbs, every scrap of gnawed flesh and spilled entrails—vanished without a trace.
The remaining bones clattered and vibrated violently, snapping together in midair in an instant.
Once fully assembled, the pristine skeleton began to wrap itself in darkness, forging armor and a billowing cloak out of shadow.
It was the exact moment a Death Knight was born.
"...Oh, right."
Einzel scratched the back of his head.
"I thought there was a little rat scurrying around here... but I must be getting old. My memory's just not what it used to be."
He rested a hand casually against the trunk of a nearby tree.
"Well, whatever."
With the Death Knight at his side, he turned on his heel and walked away.
And behind the very tree where his hand had just rested, a solitary soldier remained, holding his breath in sheer, petrified silence.