Chapter 18
Chapter 18
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Necropolis Assault
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Who’s there!”
In an instant, two liches simultaneously hurled fire and ice.
It was a sight like the frozen South Pole and a gas explosion site recreating themselves right before my eyes. I stuck out my tongue and wrapped my body in a pre-prepared defensive spell.
“As expected, you’re strong. But is it okay to do this indoors? The giant’s in pain, you know?”
Kuooooooo!
In that moment, the Necropolis let out a roar and shook its head violently. The liches hastily withdrew the spells they were about to cast, their pale blue eye lights flickering.
“Protection Magic! An Arch Priest?”
“How did a little brat like you... How did a living being sneak in here undetected!”
“Where else? Through that eye socket over there.”
I pointed to the massive hole far beyond the skull throne.
“The Necropolis only has one eyeball, right? Well, aside from that, it’s full of holes anyway.”
“Enough nonsense! I’m asking how you infiltrated this far without being detected!”
“Stealth.”
“Stealth?”
“Yeah, that kind of thing exists. Anyway, shocking, huh? A secret hidden in Quincy’s sanctuary. Coming here this fast lets you hear stuff like that.”
On top of that, adding the lich sealed beneath the grand temple... I never imagined there’d be such a grand backstory.
“Should I go there later too? Quincy’s sanctuary wasn’t even on my schedule.”
“What the hell is this little shit talking about!”
“If I grab two more crystals here, the keys will naturally all gather, right? I don’t know why the crystals act as keys... Anyway, too much to do. I’ve got tons of other tech trees to progress.”
“This bastard’s spouting nonsense!”
“How dare a living human defile the throne? Unforgivable!”
At that moment, the lich in the red cape, Azran, stepped forward.
This time, instead of elemental magic, he deployed necromancy, spewing black currents from his entire body. Soul Rush. That one’s a real pain.
But then.
“Everyone, stop!”
The Necromancer Lord rose from the throne. Azran hurriedly withdrew the black currents he had summoned and responded.
“My Lord! We must eliminate the intruder immediately!”
“I said stop. If anyone’s killing, it’ll be me, so get out of the way.”
Crock pushed past the two liches and walked toward me.
On the surface, he looked like a middle-aged man with corpse-like skin tone.
But his true nature was a sort of corpse puppet stitched together by compressing hundreds of bodies. A corpse puppet that received the authority of the death god Quincy and became the lord of the undead.
Anyway, what mattered now wasn’t that, but the fact that his eyes were heterochromatic—gold and blue.
One of those two must be the ‘Insight Eye’ I read about in the book.
“My eyes are blue too, so for subtlety, the blue one would be nice...”
“What you’re saying or how you got here doesn’t matter at all.”
Crock spoke in a chilling voice, fully setting the atmosphere.
“I can tell. Your magic has already reached its peak, and your holy magic has also arrived at a stage that can go no higher. You must have used that to infiltrate here. But what’s truly important is...”
Crock widened his two differently colored eyes and stared at my face.
“The other potential you possess.”
“Potential?”
“You have an innate talent for necromancy. No human has ever had talent like yours. So if you want to live...”
“Ah, no thanks. Stop right there.”
“Hm?”
“You’re saying I should learn necromancy directly from you, and later go far away to the necromancy army’s main base to receive the title ‘Master of Undead’ from the undead elders?”
“How did you...”
Crock’s approaching footsteps halted. I slowly prepared my spell with both hands and said.
“Anyway, the moment I arrived at Elstone Castle, this was a huge jackpot. I was so tired I thought about resting a day before moving, but good thing I didn’t.”
“What?”
“Right? If I’d come a day late, I’d have missed this crucial info. I didn’t even know the Necropolis had approached this close. Thanks to that, the round trip’s shorter—such a relief. Lately, less sleep means mornings are brutal.”
“...You can never just leave this place unscathed.”
Woooong!
In an instant, black wings sprouted from Crock’s back.
At the same time, the black smoke he released blocked the Necropolis’s eye socket. He slowly flapped his blade-like wings as a warning.
“So choose now. Rebirth as an undead with death, or submit to me and learn necromancy from me. Of course, you’d better spit out right now where you heard about our main base and the elders.”
“Eek, scary.”
I chuckled while pushing away the wing tip approaching like a stab with my finger.
“You’re definitely strong. Necromancer Lord Crock. You almost blocked a wave single-handedly before. Anyway, before we finish this, can you give me a little time?”
“Have you chosen death?”
In that moment, hazy smoke leaked from the corners of Crock’s mouth. Oh, Soul Breath? Is this guy planning to unleash everything at once?
“I don’t like wasting time. So from now on...”
“It won’t take long, so hear me out. Anyway, I didn’t plan on targeting you guys from the start this time. That Insight Eye ability was low priority too.”
“You even know about Insight Eye?”
Crock flinched for a moment and withdrew the smoke from his mouth.
“How? I never told anyone! Just how much do you know?”
“Almost everything.”
“Almost everything?”
“I know almost everything about you guys. Of course, I learned some new stuff this time, so I’m a bit uneasy, but anyway, whether enemy or ally, I know most of their abilities.”
“...Do you have Insight Eye too?”
“No, just experience.”
I shook my head.
“But those magic crystals were super tempting. You always keep two liches by your sides, right? So it’s a chance for one stone three birds—couldn’t pass that up.”
“You planned to take on all three of us at once? Ha...”
Crock sneered and slowly wrapped his massive wings around me. So I laughed along and nodded.
“Yeah. I was waiting for you three to bunch up together. If I picked you off one by one, rumors would spread and you’d never show up in front of me.”
“Rumors?”
“You know... Turn Undead?”
Without any warning whatsoever, I activated the ultimate holy spell that sends all undead to eternal rest.
At the same time, everything inside the Necropolis’s eye socket was enveloped in light.
“Ugh...”
“Agh...”
“Guh...”
The screams of the undead were swallowed by the light, fading into hazy shadows.
Simultaneously, the entire head of the Necropolis surrounding us oxidized into ashes. Thanks to that, the space beneath my feet vanished, and I began plummeting downward.
‘Slow Fall.’
In times like this, a low-speed descent spell beats high-mana flight magic. I landed softly on the squishy ground far below and looked up.
Countless ashes rained down from above.
And beyond those ashes, two sparkling magic crystals flew straight into my body and were absorbed.
“Ugh...”
A bit dizzy, but manageable. Good. That makes two more lich magic crystals acquired.
Meanwhile, amid the ashes pouring down far away, something like a golden round bead faintly glimmered. That’s probably the Necromancer Lord’s Insight Eye?
But it’s gold, not blue?
After pondering for about three seconds on the spot, I ultimately reactivated my flight magic, swooped in, snatched the bead, and returned.
“This’ll make my eye colors mismatch... But what do I even do with this?”
The bead looked exactly like a human eyeball. Wait, no way—I don’t have to gouge out my own eyeball and shove this in, do I?
But before I could think further, the eyeball in my hand oxidized into golden smoke and scattered.
“Huh?”
And the spreading smoke wrapped around my body again and was absorbed.
Just like a magic crystal.
But unlike the magic crystal with no side effects, this time my left eye throbbed intensely, and heat rushed to my face.
“Ugh, what is this... Huh?”
Right then, a skeleton soldier clutching a rusty sword climbed up from the hole directly below.
Race: Undead
Current Strength: D-
Potential Strength: C
Current Necromancy: D
Potential Necromancy: D
Ah, so this is Insight Eye.
It even shows abilities like grades with letters? Is it because I remember grading student papers as a TA back home?
Anyway, before the skeleton soldier could swing its sword, I blasted it away with wind magic.
Fwoosh!
The moment I tossed ‘Fire of Tempest’ into the hole it crawled out of, the area below turned bright red, spewing raging flames in all directions.
“Phew...”
Only after the hundred or so undead trying to climb up evaporated in the blaze did I finally catch my breath and survey my surroundings.
Where I’d fallen was around the giant’s collarbone.
The thing was so huge that Turn Undead’s range only covered its head.
As expected of the living-moving Necropolis—no, the dead-moving Necropolis?
Anyway, just inside this guy’s torso, thousands of necromancy troops waited in various types. If I left it after cutting off the head (Necromancer Lord included), the Elstone Earldom would suffer even greater damage later.
So I could exterminate them like spraying insecticide into an anthill, like just now... But doing it that way might take all night.
“Before that, let’s recharge my brain with some sugar...”
For now, I tore open a sugar bar Lania had packed in my belt pouch. Ahh, this is it—energy seeps into my whole body with every bite.
In the meantime, I saw large and small undead struggling to climb up, shoving against each other.
“So many...”
I crunched on my third sugar bar, calculating how many times I’d need to use Turn Undead to wipe them all out at once.
“Six... No, maybe seven times?”
At this rate, I’d go through all ten sugar bars and still come up short. Should’ve asked for like twenty?