Chapter 16
Chapter 16
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Necropolis Raid
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What a world.
The moment I woke up, my entire body throbbed as if it were splitting apart!
“Ugh, I’m dying…….”
This damn low stamina of mine. It hurt so much I could barely speak.
Was it normal to suffer like this from intense pain first thing in the morning just because I overdid it a bit last night?
“Bless, Pain Killer. Ngh…….”
Even using holy magic didn’t fully improve the situation. Why was this happening? It couldn’t be that I’d built up a resistance to holy magic……
Oh, right. I drank an elixir yesterday.
I recalled the stamina elixir Lania had given me before heading to the grand temple. Elixirs generally produced great effects, but once their duration ended, they placed a burden on the body for a certain period.
Especially for someone like me, whose body was weak and lacked basic stamina.
In the end, this meant I’d be groaning all morning today.
This was still short because Lania’s elixir was top-grade. If it had been a low-grade one circulating on the market, I’d be suffering from muscle pain and lethargy all day.
But still……
It was worth it for that night’s outing.
The secret hidden in the underground route of the grand temple. I’d obtained four powerful priests and a magic crystal to boot.
On top of that, I’d reconfirmed vital information from the temple’s secret library. It was a truly meaningful night, hitting one jackpot after another.
-The Necromancer Lord is an immortal being passed down through generations, possessing ‘Appraisal Eye,’ which pierces through the abilities of all living creatures.
-That power is the power of kings, the ultimate authority that allows one to stand above all who have will.
-Thus, you who have will, please defeat the Necromancer Lord and inherit that power. Appraisal Eye should be used for the living, not the dead.
These were the final words on the last page of a book I’d subtly slipped out from the tenth bookshelf yesterday.
The book was titled ‘Necromancer Lord,’ but the content grew increasingly strange toward the latter half, culminating in ‘The Appraisal Eye held by the Necromancer Lord is the best!’
So why did I pay attention to this book?
It all goes back to the third regression.
At that time, I had just broken through the first wave for the first time.
But the second wave that followed was so shocking that I fell into despair, realizing the old methods wouldn’t work to stop it.
Could the empire’s forces alone really hold it back?
While agonizing over this one day, I shifted my thinking and came up with a new tech tree: the ‘Necromancer Army friendly route.’
1. First, infiltrate the Necromancer Army’s home base, Necropolis, using stealth, and secure as much information as possible to win the Necromancer Lord’s favor.
2. Once enough information is gathered, reveal myself to the Necromancer Lord and negotiate.
Initially, the plan was simply to pull the Necromancer Army to our side and deploy them in the war against the otherworld.
But the Necromancer Lord Crock, whom I met face-to-face, was the problem. He stared intently at my face and immediately made a counteroffer.
3. Prince Claude (me) turned out to be a genius with tremendous talent in necromancy!
4. Crock, seeing through that talent, offered to personally teach me necromancy.
5. If Claude grows to earn the title of ‘Master of the Undead,’ the highest necromancer, the Necromancer Army will accept Claude’s proposal and intervene in the war against the otherworld later.
Thus, an unexpected new route opened, and I accepted the offer on the spot, allying with the Necromancer Army.
Afterward, as Crock’s disciple, I reached the pinnacle of necromancy in a mere five years.
But the empire refused to accept me, the greatest necromancer, as one of their own.
The temple in particular went berserk trying to erase my existence. Priests stormed in from morning, and later they even hired assassins to harass me day and night in a horrific ordeal.
Because of that, I failed to rally any forces besides the Necromancer Army, and in the end, I couldn’t even stop the first wave—let alone the second—concluding the third regression.
From the next regression onward, I completely erased the ‘Necromancer Army friendly route’ from my mind.
The problem was that without pulling them to our side, they would inevitably join the anti-empire faction in the ‘civil war’ that erupted midway.
So it would be best to preemptively decapitate them via assassination if possible……
But that didn’t work either.
Necromancer Lord and lich-level Necromancer Army executives had the special ability to revive even after being killed by normal means.
From then on, I pondered ways to completely annihilate them. But information on the Necromancer Army was incredibly hard to obtain. And why was that?
1. Information on the Necromancer Army was basically controlled by the temple (to prevent humans tempted by necromancy from defecting).
2. In particular, books containing info on the Necromancer Lord had all been collected by the temple and vanished from the world.
The scraps I found by scouring every library in the empire indicated that, though the lineage was now broken, there once existed a holy magic called ‘Turn Undead’—aka ultimate holy magic—that could annihilate all undead in one go.
Additionally, I learned of a priest named Entum who had clashed with the Necromancer Lord hundreds of years ago.
He ultimately lost the battle but didn’t die immediately, enduring for days to leave behind a book with crucial information on the Necromancer Lord.
3. Thus, I needed to somehow improve relations with the temple to access Entum’s book or detailed info on Turn Undead that they held.
This birthed the new tech tree: ‘Grand Temple underground route.’
I’d already confirmed via stealth that a secret space existed underground in the grand temple. In the third loop, I’d smashed through the underground door, only for fire and explosions to collapse the entire library—an experience I’d had.
Anyway, at the end of the fourth loop, I finally maxed my relations with the temple, gaining permission to enter the library and read one single book.
I agonized over choosing between Entum’s ‘Necromancer Lord’ and the book on Turn Undead, which offered a chance to completely eliminate him…… and ultimately picked Turn Undead.
Right then, training to acquire Turn Undead began.
I perfected it only at the very end of the ninth regression.
But the story doesn’t end there.
In the immediately previous ninth regression, I squeezed out time to pursue the grand temple underground route and finally read Entum’s ‘Necromancer Lord.’
But instead of weaknesses on the Necromancer Lord, the book was overflowing with info on his ‘Appraisal Eye.’
Appraisal Eye: Discerns not only the current abilities of beings before one’s eyes but also their unmanifested potential abilities.
It looked amazing at a glance, right?
But for me, who’d repeated endless regressions, it felt a bit redundant.
I’d already gone through trial and error, personally experiencing the abilities of most people who would shine in the future.
Of course, getting it in the first regression would’ve been fantastic…… but in this final regression with no second chances, its utility was diminished.
Still, no harm in having it. So I postponed the plan to storm the Necromancer Army’s headquarters and wipe them out.
As early as three years, as late as five?
As long as it was resolved before the civil war erupted six years later, it’d be fine.
But last night’s experience upended all those plans from the root.
“Prince, did you cough? Excuse me, but I’ll come in.”
At that moment, Lania knocked and entered with a wash set. I buried my face in the hot towel and let out a long sigh.
“Phew……. Thanks, Lania.”
“No problem. If you’re alright with it, may I wipe other areas for you?”
“It’s fine. I’ll handle it. More importantly…….”
I slipped the towel inside my clothes and roughly wiped my upper body as I asked,
“That elixir from yesterday worked great. You made it yourself, right?”
“Yes. We have a modest workshop in the mansion basement for producing elixirs.”
“I’ll go check it out sometime. But how many of those elixirs can you make per day?”
I already knew everything, but I had to pretend ignorance and draw out the conversation step by step. Lania pondered briefly before answering.
“It varies by type. For stamina elixirs, about fifteen bottles? It depends on material ratios and how much focus I put into making them.”
“The more focus, the better the effect?”
“Of course. The ones I gave you yesterday were made with my utmost care……. At that quality, even five per day is tough.”
“I see. Does higher quality also extend shelf life?”
Normal elixirs lost potency after five months from production.
However, a master elixir maker using peak focus could achieve over ten years of storage. Lania pondered the unexpected question before replying.
“Usually, yes, but I haven’t tested the exact limit. With mine, probably around ten years?”
“Then, even one per day is fine—could you make ‘Flame Resistance Elixirs’ that last over ten years?”
“Flame Resistance Elixirs, you say?”
Lania’s face flashed with ‘Where did you learn about that?’ before she hurriedly bowed her head.
“I shall obey your command, Prince. But as you said, only about one per day is possible. Right now, I need to steadily produce Growth Elixirs and Detoxification Elixirs for you…….”
“One per day is plenty. Skip days if something urgent comes up.”
This was one of the countermeasures for the war against the otherworld ten years from now. The biggest headache in the early waves was the flame-spewing bastards.
“Understood. But for Flame Resistance Elixirs, the materials…….”
“What? A problem?”
Lania quickly shook her head. But the issue was obvious without asking.
“The palace isn’t sending money these days, is it?”
“Pardon?”
Lania hesitated, as if struck right in the vitals.
“No, well, actually……. The palace funding stopped about six months ago.”
“How much did it used to be?”
“Eighty gold coins per month.”
“Then how are you running the mansion? Servants’ salaries, elixir materials? My living expenses?”
“We’re operating on the remaining funds of the Lunenbreth family for now. Plus, most maids are elixir makers, so we sell our elixirs to wholesalers for profit.”
“Hey, cut ties with them immediately.”