The Grave of the Dead (3)
The atmosphere in the tavern grew heavy in an instant.
The usual lively chatter of the pub died down, leaving behind nothing but the clinking of spoons.
The Black Tower mages radiated an oppressive aura simply by descending the stairs.
Oscar stared at them, entirely unbothered.
Three of them.
One Level 5 woman, two Level 4 men. The woman who appeared to be their leader didn't look away from his gaze.
Her jet-black hair, as if melted from the night sky itself, fell to her waist, and her bangs were cut in a perfectly straight line just above her eyebrows.
Even the side locks swaying beside her chin were razor-straight, making her small face look even smaller.
Then, the woman averted her gaze and glared at Veronica.
One of the men behind her, noticing this, murmured quietly.
"Kiri, they're mages from the White Tower. And not just any—"
"...You don't need to tell me. I have eyes too."
"There's nothing to gain from a fight with them right now. Think of our objective."
At those words, the woman called Kiri slowly nodded and headed toward a corner of the tavern.
Afterward, the tense atmosphere gradually thawed, and the tavern grew noisy again as if nothing had happened.
Munch, munch.
Regardless of all that, Kilian, who had been diligently working through his steak, spoke up.
"Oscar. May I order another plate? This place is delicious."
"Sure, go ahead."
"I'll get the sirloin this time."
As Kilian placed his additional order, Oscar asked Veronica.
"That woman seemed to recognize you. Do you know her?"
"Well, it's not like we're strangers."
She wore a slightly uncomfortable expression as she continued.
"I told you on the way here, didn't I? That I visited the Black Tower on a tour when I was young."
"You did."
"There was a girl in my tour group back then. We got pretty close in just five short days, and we promised that the two of us would work hard and change the Black Tower together someday."
"Don't tell me..."
"You're thinking exactly right. That was Kiri Gloria. That woman right there."
So fate could twist like this.
Oscar let out a hollow laugh.
"So that's why she hates you?"
"...Probably? In the end, I chose to go to the White Tower."
The betrayal of a friend she'd promised to rebuild a magic tower with.
If she had been older, it might not have stung so badly—but for a child, it must have been devastating.
"She looks like a Level 5."
"That's right. She's a genius. The Black Tower's rapid growth owes a huge debt to her achievements."
A Level 5 mage at the same age as young Oscar.
She was a genius who wouldn't be far behind even his past self.
Suddenly curious, Oscar asked.
"There aren't more geniuses like her in our generation, are there?"
"Why wouldn't there be? I know of three more, just off the top of my head."
Three more.
Oscar didn't bother asking which towers they belonged to.
It was obvious they'd all be from the Four Great Magic Towers, excluding the White Tower.
"...But something is definitely strange here."
"What is?"
"That woman may only be a Level 5 intermediate mage, but within the Black Tower she wields enormous real power. If you had to compare, she's in a position similar to yours. Which means she should only be handling critical missions—so what business could she possibly have in a rural backwater like this?"
Similar to him, huh. With ability like hers, there was nothing she couldn't do.
All the more so in the Black Tower—not one of the traditional Four Great Towers, but a rising star.
If someone with that much influence is moving personally...
There was only one interpretation: the Black Tower was here for something important of their own.
Narrowing his eyes, Oscar finally drew up his mana.
So stealthily, and yet so faintly, that no one in the tavern could possibly notice.
I can't... hear their conversation.
An extremely refined Silence spell was draped around their group.
It was undoubtedly the handiwork of that woman, Kiri Gloria.
But there's always a way.
Oscar mirrored her mana code exactly, then punched a hole in the Silence.
A hole so tiny that only a single needle could pass through it.
He wanted to tear it wider, but doing so risked detection.
Especially since she's supposed to be a genius. Better safe than sorry.
The sharper a mage's mana detection, the more sensitive they were to this kind of erosion.
Through the pinhole he'd created, fragments of their conversation began to slip through.
-White Tower... noticed... must hurry...
-Predecessor... resurrection... ritual...
-Divine... Veronica... the other one... the young lord...
"Hold on a moment."
At that instant, the woman who had cut off their conversation sprang to her feet and abruptly whipped her head toward him.
Oscar instinctively severed his mana, but she stared at him for a long while.
Munch, munch.
Kilian, who had polished off his second plate of steak, remarked.
"Oscar. She's glaring at you something fierce."
"Did you do something?"
"What would I have done?"
Oscar gave a light reply and rose from his seat.
"Let's head back to the inn. It seems..."
He finished his sentence while meeting Kiri's eyes directly.
"Tonight is going to be a long one."
Back in their room at the inn, Oscar organized his thoughts.
So there really is something going on.
They were clearly wary of him and his group.
If they weren't doing something incriminating, they would never have bothered to care.
Above all, all that talk of resurrection and rituals was deeply unsettling no matter how he turned it over in his mind.
After all, the targets of resurrection rituals were, in most cases, of rather poor quality.
...But if.
If those young Black Tower mages are plotting something twisted yet again—
"..."
Oscar's eyes went cold in an instant.
He might very well have to stain his hands with a mage's blood tonight.
"Shall we get going?"
"It's nearly midnight. That's the hour they're said to appear."
Veronica and Kilian called to him, and the three of them slipped out of the inn and headed for the graveyard on the outskirts of the village.
After about twenty minutes of walking, the graveyard came into view.
"There's definitely something here."
The ghostly energy was dense enough to prickle his very skin.
At this level, it wouldn't be strange at all if an incredibly powerful undead burst forth at any moment.
Whether or not they sensed the same thing, Kilian and Veronica's expressions grew grave.
"It's moving."
The moment they set foot on the graveyard's soil—KRAKOOM!
A skeleton erupted from the earth and seized Oscar by the ankle.
Just as Kilian rushed over to kick the thing away—
"Wind Bullet."
THWOOOM!
The wind bullet Oscar fired punched straight through the skeleton's skull and kept going.
The soulless skeleton collapsed where it stood.
"Kilian, search the forest near the graveyard. Veronica, patrol the perimeter and intercept any skeletons heading toward the village."
"Understood."
"...I don't like being ordered around, but fine."
Once the two had departed, Oscar strolled leisurely through the graveyard.
From time to time, skeletons lurking beneath the soil burst out to ambush him, but every one of them collapsed with its skull shattered before its upper body had even fully emerged.
"..."
By the time he'd made a full circuit of the graveyard, the number of skeletons Oscar had destroyed came to twelve.
For this small mountain village, that number could well have been catastrophic.
And yet he frowned, clearly unsatisfied.
That's all of them?
Impossible.
Even now, the ghostly energy prickling his skin hadn't faded in the slightest.
And the source of that energy was unmistakably beneath the graveyard itself.
Which could only mean...
Was there a dungeon down there, of all things?
As he stood staring blankly at the dirt, Veronica returned.
"Got them all. Five were walking toward the village."
"Good work."
Kilian returned shortly after, his face strikingly different from usual—wearing an almost urgent expression.
"Oscar. I found something, and I think it might be..."
"A dungeon?"
At those words, Kilian's eyes went wide.
"How did you know?"
"The undead showing up are far too pathetic for the amount of ghostly energy we're sensing. Besides, these things weren't naturally formed from lingering grudges—they were created artificially."
Skeletons artificially manufactured by the tremendous ghostly energy seeping up from below the earth.
Oscar turned his head and said.
"Let's go. To the dungeon's entrance."
"...Will she be all right?"
He glanced sidelong at Veronica as he asked.
There was no way she could miss the meaning behind that look, and she instantly knitted her brows.
"Hey, if you've got something to say, say it to my face. Stop beating around the bush."
"Very well, I shall. Oscar, there is no telling what dangers lurk within a dungeon. To enter such a place alongside someone who knows nothing of loyalty would multiply that danger many times over. It might be better if only the two of us went."
"You really are...!"
Oscar spoke up before the two of them could start bickering again.
"Enough."
He cut in just before the fire caught, then looked at Kilian.
"I don't know what you usually think of Veronica, but at the very least, she's not the kind of person who would betray her comrades to save her own skin in a crisis."
"..."
"And above all—just as you are my comrade, so is she."
At those words, Kilian slowly nodded.
"If that is your judgment, I will say no more. And you, woman."
"My name is Veronica Frix. Not 'woman.'"
"Very well, Veronica Frix. If I offended you, I apologize."
"..."
She clicked her tongue lightly and turned her head away.
Oscar knew that wasn't a refusal of his apology—she simply had nothing to say in return either.
Well, she has always been a lone wolf, after all.
From what he'd heard, it had been even worse back in her academy days, so Kilian's suspicions weren't entirely unreasonable.
"Now, if we're done settling that, let's hurry."
Oscar murmured as he felt the ghostly energy swelling ever larger.
"If we wait any longer, it really will be too late to turn back."
"This way!"
The dungeon entrance Kilian had discovered lay quite a distance away.
It was honestly impressive that he'd found such a place in so short a time.
"There was an alien presence here, distinct from the ordinary energies of the forest. That is how I located it."
"Excellent work, warrior of the forest."
The open stone door was thickly overgrown with vines and moss.
If someone hadn't left it open, anyone passing by would never have known it was a door at all.
"Let's go in."
Taking point naturally, Oscar walked down the dungeon corridor with a frown.
It's too quiet.
An ordinary dungeon was wallpapered with monsters and traps of every kind.
But this place had no traps, and not a single monster had crossed their path since they entered.
And there are no signs of battle, either.
Oscar turned to Kilian.
"Kilian, when you opened that door—was there anything strange about it?"
"Hm? I did not open it."
Kilian shook his head.
"The door was already open when I arrived."
"...What?"
You blockhead—why are you only telling me this NOW?
Oscar's face hardened in an instant, and he shouted.
"Damn it, RUN!"
Even now, the ghostly energy swelling by the second had begun to emit an outright wailing—a shriek of anguished spirits.
If an ordinary person heard that mournful scream ringing in their ears, they would faint on the spot.
Sprinting down the corridor in a flash, they burst into a vast cavern.
A coffin?
In the center of the chamber sat a single enormous coffin.
Chains gleaming with mana were bound around it, clinking taut.
And around it stood familiar faces.
The Black Tower mages.
Arranged in a triangle around the coffin, they were continuously scattering mana as they chanted some unknown incantation.
"Kilian, take the man on the left! Veronica, stop the one on the right! We have to stop the resurrection ritual!"
"Understood!"
"Got it!"
The two of them shot off like lightning, and Oscar surged his mana as he charged at the woman radiating the most overwhelming power of all—
Kiri Gloria.
"You filthy Black Tower rats. I don't know what you're plotting this time, but—"
SHWAK!
His Wind Cutter sheared through Kiri's collar.
Having severed her ritual spell and barely dodged the attack, she contorted her face and shrieked.
"You idiot—what the hell is this about?!"
"Did you think I'd just sit back and let a resurrection ritual proceed?"
"Resurrection ritual? What nonsense are you—"
At that very moment.
VMMMMMMMM!
The coffin lid cracked open slightly, black smoke seeping from within—and the mana chains snapped, lifeless.
"No..."
As Kiri Gloria witnessed it, her eyes trembled helplessly—
KRAAAAAKOOOM!
The coffin lid rocketed skyward and slammed into the floor on the far side of the chamber.
And the being that had slumbered for so long slowly began to rise.