Goddess of the Black Swamp (4)
An Apostle of Death — a body reduced to nothing but bone, clad in black priestly robes.
He confirmed the carriage racing toward him from afar.
Originally, the targets of the attack had been only the villages of this region. But His will was to grant rest to all living things. Even if they were merely passing through, there would be no exceptions.
In a voice no living being could believe possible, the Apostle of Death issued his command to the slaves.
Half of the Death Slaves who had been destroying the village charged toward the carriage. Beneath the black bear's claws and the wolf's blade, Death Slaves fell like autumn leaves.
Those beasts were cursed humans. The Curse of the Mad Bear and the Curse of the Mad Wolf. For the cursed, life was nothing but suffering — so why did they foolishly put off death?
The Apostle of Death decided to bestow mercy with his own hands.
The light magic Bullet of Truth, amplified by the dark magic Dark Amplification. A beam of light shot from his hand, soared into the sky, and flew in a straight line toward the black bear.
But the beam defied the Apostle's will and pierced an entirely different target. And that target did not even take damage.
No matter how many times he fired the black beams of light, nothing changed. Then he would simply have to crush them by brute force.
The Apostle of Death ordered the remaining half of the slaves still in the village, along with the creature forged by melting and melding Death Slaves together, to advance.
Groaaaaaah!
The Death Mire. A conglomeration of slaves so thoroughly decayed their bodies had gone soft and yielding. Behold the spectacle of the already dead, melted together, screaming as they tried to tear free of one another. A form that filled the living with terror at the mere sight of it. A beautiful work of art that only He could create.
It was obvious that their teeth and claws and scraps of iron would not even scratch it.
Grrrrrk!
Then, from the direction of the carriage, something over several dozen meters in length appeared. A black mass shaped roughly like a centipede, covered entirely in eyes and hands.
That creature inspired fear not only in the living, but even in the dead. Fear — an emotion that had long since rotted away and vanished — was stirring back to life inside the Apostle of Death. For a fleeting moment, he entertained the blasphemous thought that it was more beautiful than His own creations.
That thing must not be allowed to exist. It had to be crushed.
The Apostle's rage was transmitted to his other thralls. The Death Mire and the slaves flew into a frenzy and charged the enemy.
But the Death Mire was smashed to pieces in an instant.
Granted, its soft, yielding body made ordinary attacks ineffective. But when something dozens of meters long, with weight to match, barreled through like a runaway train — there was nothing to be done.
Grrrrrrrk!
A black centipede racing forward, shaking the earth with countless arms. The myriad eyes covering its body fixed on the Apostle. As the monster drew near, the Apostle of Death fired black beams of light in a mad frenzy.
They certainly had the power to pierce the creature. But the black centipede was far too massive for damage of that level to stop it.
The black centipede's great maw yawned open. And teeth that were unnaturally white and perfectly even — utterly mismatched to that grotesque form — came crashing down upon the Apostle of Death.
After the black bear Agnes and the wolf Dorothy had torn the remaining thralls to shreds, we climbed back into the carriage and entered the burned-out village.
"…It's an Apostle of Death. …A thrall of the Undead King that has only recently begun to appear. …Even the Heresy Inquisition doesn't have much information, so it's no surprise you haven't heard of them, Father."
Veronica, captain of the Special Task Force, explained as I held up the skull. Its body had vanished, leaving only the head — courtesy of the illusory entity.
At the time of Luke's Biography, the Undead King had already been destroyed. Even so, thralls of the Undead King like Death Slaves and Death Mires still remained in abundance. But among them, there had been no Apostles of Death — beings that fused holy magic and dark magic together.
"You there… humans…"
Everyone's heads turned toward the voice. Someone lay pinned beneath the rubble of a collapsed building. Dark skin and pointed ears. An androgynous appearance that made it impossible to tell whether they were male or female.
A Black Swamp Elf.
Outside the Manfred Barony, the lands surrounding the Black Swamp belonged to these elves. The Black Swamp Elves believed themselves to be descendants of the Goddess of the Black Swamp — even though they couldn't actually enter the Black Swamp itself.
"Please… pull me out…"
"…Agnes."
At Veronica's call, the black bear Agnes easily cleared away the debris. Alexander helped the elf up and sat them against a relatively intact building.
"Thank you kindly… ngh…"
"Are you an elf who lives in this village? What happened to the others?"
"Well… the children managed to evacuate safely, but… the rest… wait…"
The elf studied my face carefully.
"Is something wrong?"
"Your hair and eyes are the same color as a baby I saw some ten-odd years ago… You wouldn't happen to be the son of Baron Manfred, would you?"
This place didn't belong to the barony, but it was adjacent territory. The elves would at least know of Baron Manfred's existence.
"…That's right."
"Then that baby must have been you. It was Baroness Manfred who brought the child."
That would have been long before I possessed this body — meaning she had brought the infant Karl.
"My mother… brought me here?"
"I don't know why she came. She only spoke with our elder."
"Don't tell me that elder…"
"Passed away. Just so there's no misunderstanding — not the elder who died today. The previous one."
Today's attack by the Undead King's thralls had killed the current elder. But the one who had met Baroness Manfred and Karl was the previous elder. The previous elder had probably died of old age.
Either way, there was no way to learn about Baroness Manfred and Karl's past now. I needed to focus on the Goddess of the Black Swamp. The problem was that even that had just gotten harder.
I explained the situation to Veronica.
"To meet the Goddess of the Black Swamp, you need permission from three elf elders. One of them is already dead."
"…That complicates things."
"The other elders are probably in danger as well. These walking corpses came from the west."
The other elf villages all lay further west than this one. If the invasion had started from the west, they had likely already been overrun.
"Did they tell you what they were after?"
"They did. Said they'd come to see the Goddess, same as you lot. But wiping us out was a goal in itself."
The Undead King was one who bestowed death upon all living things. His thralls likewise left no life in their wake.
"Captain. Should we check the other villages?"
"…Searching this village would be better. …If what this person says is true, going to the other villages would be meaningless. …The Undead King's thralls destroy everything thoroughly. They leave nothing behind."
"Understood."
Veronica issued orders to the Inquisitors of the Special Task Force. Agnes the black bear was to search the village for clues. Alexander was to treat the elf's injuries.
Agnes began demolishing building rubble with terrifying force. In her wolf form, Dorothy wouldn't be able to do that kind of work the way Agnes could. Agnes, who had altered the Curse of the Mad Bear, retained her intellect in bear form. Dorothy did not.
Better to have her stay and guard Clara and Father Patrick, who were holed up in the carriage. The two of them had been so terrified by my magnificent creation that they refused to come outside. I'd tried my best to explain that it was only fear forcibly injected by the Curse of Illusion. They wouldn't even listen.
Was my creation really that frightening? Those two did seem especially cowardly. Karl had spent his whole life seeing things far worse.
The Special Task Force, on the other hand — perhaps because they all wielded powers from altered curses like me — accepted my explanation easily and asked no further questions.
Anyway, I checked inside the carriage to give Dorothy her orders. The only one trembling inside was Clara.
"…Clara."
"Eek! …Oh. Big brother."
"Where's Father Patrick?"
"Huh? I think he said he was stepping out for a moment…"
"Huh? That guy just found a horse and rode off."
"…What?"
Agnes, who had somehow returned to human form, spoke in her rough drawl. She said it like it was nothing, but Veronica's face twisted.
"He ran for it, didn't he? Those model students from the Papal Court. Most of 'em just bawl their eyes out the second real combat hits."
"…Agnes. …You saw him and didn't stop him?"
"Why would I?"
"…And how are we supposed to get back? …Who's going to vouch for us?"
"Ah…"
They were cursed. Without Father Patrick, their escort, vouching for them, getting through checkpoints in other regions would be difficult.
"…Haa. …Agnes."
"W-well… if you think about it! It's because that young master used some weird power! Right?! Young master!"
Agnes tried to deflect Veronica's anger onto me. But Veronica wasn't foolish enough to fall for that.
While the two of them bickered, I turned my gaze back to the skull in my hand. The head of the Apostle of Death. I could feel the Undead King's sorcery that had composed this apostle.
If I could decipher this magic formula, I might find a clue to break through our current situation.