In truth, behind their dispatch to Sevain Village was the intervention of the king of Antros.
No matter how earnestly the people of Sevain Village petitioned, the Empire’s knight order could not simply move.
No matter how pitiable the circumstances, they could not be deployed unless an order was given.
But if it was a courteous request from a monarch, the situation changed. The subjugation force had been dispatched to Sevain Village
precisely because of the earnest plea of the king of Antros.
Of course, the Sevain territory was indisputably part of the Kingdom of Antros, so matters occurring there
ought, first and foremost, to be resolved by the Kingdom of Antros.
Unable to stand by and watch the tyranny of the wicked necromancer, the king of Antros had sent
subjugation forces twice in the past year alone. The force assembled was vast: as many as five hundred soldiers, ten royal knights,
and even a court mage. Of course, from the standpoint of the Krosen Empire,
it was not even equal to a single detachment of their knight order, but for the weak Kingdom of Antros,
it was a force that could be considered practically the entirety of their military strength.
Determined to find and subdue the wicked necromancer without fail, the subjugation force climbed the mountain
fully prepared for a long-term encampment. They, too, had already experienced two wasted expeditions.
But the result was different.
A miserable defeat for the subjugation force. And it had happened within a single hour of their arrival. The subjugation force
had to flee in utter disarray without even seeing the necromancer’s face. They had no idea how
they had been defeated.
Shushushushung.
The instant they arrived, a barrage of Magic Missiles rained down from within the cave—something they truly did not even want to think about—
and every single member of the subjugation force, without exception, was forced to retreat down the mountain with serious injuries. Magic Missiles powerful enough
to split a royal knight’s shield with a single shot.
Their mage was struck by a magical attack and knocked unconscious before the battle even began. In that case,
the plight of the ordinary soldiers was obvious without needing to see it. The troops of the subjugation force
barely managed to retreat to the village, carrying wounds great and small. What was strange was that not a single soldier
in the subjugation force had died. It was truly an astonishing thing.
“How could something like this…”
Stunned by the unexpected result, the king of Antros scraped together every remaining soldier and sent another subjugation force.
This time, he even hired mercenaries on a large scale.
But the result was the same. The complete annihilation of the subjugation force. As before, there were
no deaths, but every soldier was reduced to a battered wreck. Unable to endure it any longer, the king of Antros
finally requested aid from the Krosen Empire, and as a result, these people had been dispatched. But
Elkein thought it was only natural.
‘To think there isn’t a single paladin among the royal knights… No wonder they
couldn’t deal with a necromancer.’
After arriving at the court of the Kingdom of Antros through spatial teleportation, Elkein was faced with something absurd.
The fact was that, aside from the knight commander, there was not a single paladin among the royal knights.
That alone was astonishing, but Elkein could not hide his shock upon learning that the court mage was a greenhorn
who had only just reached the 4th Circle Expert level. A mage of that caliber would be nothing more
than an apprentice mage in the Krosen Empire.
Moreover, even the royal knight commander’s skill could not be said to be in any way superior
to the paladins he had brought with him… From his perspective, it was a force difficult to regard as belonging to a kingdom at all.
‘In any case, we’ll be the ones to catch him.’
He slowly turned his head. Beside him, a sorceress of quite lovely appearance
was gazing at the foreign scenery, her eyes sparkling without pause. A smile settled on Elkein’s face.
“Hey, Sarina. Have you thought about settling down in the Kingdom of Antros while you’re here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you see it a few days ago? Good heavens, if a 4th Circle Expert is serving as court mage,
then you, Sarina, a 5th Circle Master, would be chosen as court mage without a second thought…”
The sorceress called Sarina, pretty but with a rather fiery look to her, shook her head
as if there were nothing to consider.
“I’ll politely decline. Good heavens, was that supposed to be a palace? Lord Elkein’s mansion is bigger and
more splendid than that. I’d only heard the name—I never dreamed Antros was such a weak little country.”
“True enough.”
The village chief, who had been listening to their chatter, looked dark. In truth, Antros was a nation
hardly worthy of being called a kingdom. The Kingdom of Antros consisted only of Sevain Village and
a few other mountain villages gathered together,
and its total population was not even twenty thousand. It was, in every sense, an ultra-miniature nation. If there was any blessing,
it was that the land was so barren the nearby kingdoms did not covet it.
And the fact that the king of Antros was unusually well connected and knew many nobles of the Krosen Empire
also played a part in maintaining the kingdom. Thanks to a combination of various circumstances,
it had barely managed to keep the name of “kingdom.” So it was only natural they would hear such words.
But what could be done, when it was true they had no strength… Paying no heed to the village chief’s reaction,
Elkein and Sarina continued their conversation.
“But the fact that not one of five hundred soldiers died really is astonishing. What on earth
is he plotting?”
“How would I know what he’s thinking? But is it true that there are so many
corpses in his lair?”
Elkein nodded with a hardened expression.
“That place can only be described as hell. So you probably shouldn’t go in.”
A pout appeared on Sarina’s face.
“Oh? Are you looking down on me? I’ll have you know, I’m a war sorceress.”
Elkein shook his head as if to say that was not it.
“Listen to me. Even you wouldn’t be able to endure seeing maggots swarming over corpses,
flies blackening the exposed entrails, without vomiting up everything in your stomach.”
Having finished speaking, Elkein turned to the village chief.
“Have any of the villagers seen his face?”
He had thought the chief would shake his head, but unexpectedly, the village chief nodded.
“Most of the villagers know his face.”
Elkein’s eyes widened sharply.
“H-how is that possible?”
“Because he comes down to the village from time to time to buy things.”
A look of incomprehension appeared on his face. The necromancer’s behavior patterns were that difficult
to understand.
“What on earth does he come to buy…”
“Daily necessities. Sometimes he buys alcohol as well. He mainly takes vegetables and meat.”
“But how on earth did you realize it was him?”
The village chief looked at Elkein and grinned.
“Anyone would probably recognize at a glance that it was him. There’s nothing particularly strange about his appearance
or clothing, but he goes around with a truly dreadful monster as his porter.”
“A dreadful monster…”
“A monster in the shape of a knight wearing armor. Amazingly, its head isn’t attached to its neck,
but held in its left hand. It was an enormous monster, and in its right hand it carried
a great axe. Its strength was tremendous—one time, it simply hoisted an entire large calf on its back and carried it away.”
From the village chief’s explanation, which even involved gestures of his hands and feet, Elkein realized that the monster’s identity
was a Dullahan, an undead monster.
“That truly is astonishing. To think he regularly comes down to the village and plunders supplies…”
At Elkein’s words, the village chief shook his head.
“No, that is not the case. After buying goods, he always pays the price. No matter how trivial
the item, he never takes it without paying.”
In the end, Elkein could only let his mouth fall open. The person he was now going to face
was truly an eccentric necromancer—one who existed outside the normal category of necromancers, at that. Sarina, who had been
listening beside him, added her own comment.
“Come to think of it, his nature doesn’t seem all that bad, does it?”
“No, that’s not true.”
Elkein firmly cut off Sarina’s words. He was the only one among them who had witnessed the man’s dwelling.
Having confirmed the countless corpses there, he could not help but feel a deep hatred toward the necromancer.
He turned his head and studied the village chief’s face.
“I can’t understand the villagers selling goods to him. Do you not hate him?”
A lonely look settled on the village chief’s face.
“What choice do we have? We can only think that the dead were unlucky and met with accidents.
To be honest, life has not been that difficult lately. As long as one does not go near his dwelling,
there is no reason for people to die, and besides, he almost never causes trouble in the village.
He comes quietly and buys only what he needs. In any case, we have absolutely no way to deal with him.”
Looking at the village chief’s face, filled with helplessness, Elkein thought that he absolutely had to capture the man.
“Truly, it tastes like honey.”
After finishing his meal, Damon wiped the corners of his mouth with a satisfied expression. He did not want to sing his own praises,
but no matter how he thought about it, his cooking skills were outstanding. Using ingredients he had bought in the village,
Damon had shown off his skill for the first time in a while. As if making up for the resentment of being unable to eat for five hundred years,
he had become thoroughly absorbed in the pleasures of gastronomy.
“It really is a shame to eat this all by myself…”
Damon, patting his stomach, turned his head. There stood a headless knight, motionless.
An undead with its head tucked under its arm—a Dullahan. A smile appeared on Damon’s face.
“You look like you want to eat too. But with your head in your hand, would that even be possible?”
The Dullahan merely rolled its eyes blankly. Unlike a Death Knight, a Dullahan had no intelligence.
Like lower undead such as ghouls or wights, it was a monster that merely carried out given orders
to the letter, and it was difficult to expect anything beyond that.
For that reason, despite its fearsome combat ability, a Dullahan could only be used as a warrior
sent to the front lines. Unlike Death Knights, who served as commanders of dark armies.
Damon looked over the Dullahan’s entire body with relaxed eyes.
“Winslet. Do you know this? Your combat power now is at least ten times stronger
than when you were created by Winterdale…”
Of course, there was no way the Dullahan could answer. Winslet merely rolled its eyes stupidly.
The creature had originally been a Dullahan created by Winterdale. But after Damon completed it,
Winslet’s combat ability had increased dramatically. Though it was only a mid-grade undead monster,
it had become a powerful Dullahan capable of easily defeating an ordinary Death Knight—not one of Master level.
Damon was using that Winslet as the gatekeeper guarding his dwelling. Though he did use it
as a porter from time to time as well. Having finished his meal, Damon slowly rose to his feet.
“In any case, I’ll have to go extract mana again.”
He moved toward the room where he had stored Nidelhark’s sealing sphere.
After many twists and turns, Nidelhark’s sealing sphere had ultimately fallen into Damon’s hands.
The Death Knights, who had been searching every corner of the magical treasury Increcia, had finally found
the magical orb in which Nidelhark was sealed. Holding the sealing sphere in his hand, Damon was finally able
to be certain of his revenge.
“This is it. Now I can possess the power to stand against dragons.”
Dark mana shimmered and rose from the sealing sphere. Damon found himself captivated by it.
The mana flowing from the sealing sphere was far superior in purity to the mana he had gathered until now,
and it also possessed a powerful energy. With this, there would be more than enough to make the Death Knights stronger.
But there were still precautions to be taken…
“It seems I cannot extract more than a fixed amount at once. If the balance of the sealing sphere collapses
and Nidelhark awakens, all my efforts will have been for nothing.”
This was the conclusion Damon reached after a month of research. Within the sealing sphere,
various magical powers thought to have been cast by dragons were gathered together in their entirety,
and these acted in combination to prevent Nidelhark from awakening. If that balance were broken,
the creature would undoubtedly reveal itself in the present world once more. Recalling that fact, Damon’s eyes gleamed.
“That must never be allowed to happen.”
If Nidelhark awakened, his revenge would almost certainly succeed. There was no way that creature
did not bear a grudge against dragons… But as Damon saw it,
getting Daphne back was nothing more than a wish. There was no possibility that the Dark Demon King would leave a saintess alive.
And he himself could never prevent it. So long as he used dark mana,
there was no path for him to escape from the Demon King. Because of that, Damon had no choice but to act with the utmost caution.
“I’ll have to use the most orthodox method.”
First, he decided to use a magic circle to absorb mana little by little from the sealing sphere.
And that was soon put into practice. Thus, the mana flowing from the sealing sphere was gradually
gathered by Damon.
“With that, I completed Winslet. Along with Helbertron as well…”
It was still too early to strengthen all the Death Knights. Therefore, he had
injected mana into Helbertron first. The remaining Death Knights still had to continue treasure hunting
in Increcia. But the problem was that Helbertron had not yet become sufficiently strong.
He could barely display about fifty percent of the ability he had possessed in life. It was because Damon
had not been able to provide enough mana, and to grow stronger, he needed more mana.
But since that was a problem that would be overcome with time, Damon decided to take it easy.
Because the mana of the sealing sphere was being continuously extracted by the magic circle,
Helbertron would regain the power he had possessed in life before long.