Along with everyone.
Doil, who had wept for a long time before barely escaping that place, unexpectedly came to learn a shocking
truth. All of this had stemmed from a conspiracy of the House of Helprain, and that Emperor Rozengart the
Fourth was of one mind with them. The Emperor had long harbored a grudge against the upright Duke
Proxsia, and had already resolved to eliminate his older brother.
Doil, who learned that all authority of his house had wholly passed to the House of Helprain,
burned with a desire for revenge.
Yet nowhere was there a path for Doil—who could not even swing a sword properly—to seek vengeance.
He visited noble houses with which he had frequently interacted, but the tide had already
turned. Rather, they tried to capture Doil to curry favor with the House of Helprain, which had newly
risen as the center of power. Doil escaped from there after untold hardships. That he managed to flee
with a body untrained in swordsmanship was, in a way, nothing short of a miracle.
Thereafter, fleeing incessantly to evade the hands of pursuit became Doil's daily life. There was
no one in the world who took Doil's side. Wandering aimlessly in search of means for revenge, he
eventually resolved to learn magic. Of course, the only thing he could learn was black magic.
That was all.
As part of his plan, Doil first sought out Baron Tranbel of the Kingdom of Canduras, who was something
of a distant relative on his wife's side. He was the only one who took Doil's part. After long deliberation,
Doil entrusted his son there. Giving him a new surname that had never before existed in Truvenia.
That was what he did.
"Your surname is now Brokenhart. Of course, the same goes for me—until the day we have our revenge,
you and I shall be called Brokenhart."
After forever abandoning the surname Proxsia, Doil parted from his young son with tears streaming down.
Should he ever try to find his son later, the only clue would be the surname Brokenhart.
That would be it.
—Thereafter, I walked the path of black magic. After many twists and turns, I met my teacher, Brizzman,
and learned magic from him, arriving at the position I hold today.
Only when Doil had become a black mage of considerable ability did he at last have the leisure to search
for his son. But what Doil saw when he went to the Kingdom of Canduras was only the completely ruined
manor of the Tranbel estate. The House of Tranbel, too, had already been caught up in the aftermath of a religious
schism and destroyed. Of course, he did not even know whether his son was alive or dead.
"From today, I shall live for the annihilation of the House of Helprain."
Doil devoted his life to learning magic under the single-minded obsession of revenge. Perhaps it was only because
of such tenacity dwelling behind him that he could become a high-ranking black mage. Despite having chosen
the path of a mage at a late age. But to Doil, who counted the days consumed by vengeance, there came one day
news like a thunderbolt out of the blue.
The Duke of Helprain, blinded by the taste of power, had set his sights even on the imperial throne, only to be
purged—or so the rumor went. The House of Helprain had naturally been utterly ruined.
Every man had his throat cut without exception, and the women and children were sold into slave markets.
Doil had absurdly lost his target for revenge. The one stroke of fortune was that Sherna, the decisive
culprit behind the destruction of House Proxsia, had luckily escaped with her life. From that single
fact alone, Doil recovered his purpose in life and threw himself into magic training once more. No matter what,
he had to kill her with his own hands. But while he was training, the Dark War broke out—something Doil
could never have dreamed of.
—During the Dark War, I lost my teacher. No, to be honest, I left him to die. But thanks to that, I was able to
grow stronger. Yet there was still no way to achieve revenge. I was captured by a Sword Master serving under
Great Emperor Crossen and had to live in an underground prison for a full thirty years.
That is the truth of it.
A span of thirty years spent in darkness. Sherna had already been past sixty at the time she destroyed the
house. To hope that she was still alive was sheer absurdity, so…….
As Daemon listened to Doil's circumstances, myriad emotions gradually crossed his face. His own teacher
was a man who possessed a past no less twisted than his own…….
Daemon simply listened in silence to the story delivered like a dream. Precisely because it was only a message
stored by his teacher, Daemon knew all too well that he could not ask questions.
—This is the past I have lived. Therefore, Daemon. Should you ever meet a child bearing the surname
Brokenhart, deliver just one word for me. Tell him that his worthless father is truly sorry he could not come
to find him. And this is a request for you. Please become a strong mage. A powerful mage who can
surely defeat even a dragon, if it comes to it.
"B-But how could your disciple possibly……"
As if foreseeing this, Doil's voice continued.
—There is only one way to fight a dragon on equal terms. To become a Necromancer.
A way of fighting as one. Not a mere summoner who handles skeletons or ghouls, but a true
Necromancer. If you summon powerful demonic creatures such as Death Knights or Dark Shades and fight
alongside them, you will not be easily pushed back by a dragon. To do so,
you must learn summoning magic after becoming a high-ranking black mage of at least the 8th Circle. No matter
what happens, you……
The voice explained the process of becoming a Necromancer in relatively great detail. Perhaps that process
was something Doil had dreamed of all his life. Damon listened intently to the continuously delivered
message. Though he could not tell whether this was a dream or reality.
Then Damon lost consciousness once more.
He came to his senses quite some time later.
"Where am I now?"
A choked voice squeezed through his lips. Unable to lift his eyelids, Damon could only
gasp for breath for a long while. Something was pressing down heavily on his body, but he had no strength at all to
move and could not budge. After lying motionless for a long while, he could barely begin to make out
his surroundings. The first thing he saw after coming to his senses was a half-charred
corpse. That corpse had been pressing down on Damon's body this whole time.
Damon strained to push the corpse away. But clad in heavy plate armor, it was too heavy and would not
budge. Then Damon's gaze happened to drift toward the corpse's
face. In that instant, his eyes snapped open wide.
"I-It can't be?"
The corpse was none other than Macmillan. Though his face was horrifically distorted by fire,
Damon could still recognize it. His friend Macmillan had collapsed face-down, covering
Damon, and had died. Startled, Damon called his name.
"M-Macmillan."
Of course, there was no answer. Strangely, a faint smile lingered on his lips.
Only after seeing that smile did Damon finally recall the situation before he had lost consciousness. The accursed
fireball flying toward him in the final moment—all of it.
"I see. It was because he blocked it that I didn't die."
Sorrow flooded in, sudden and overwhelming. That Macmillan had protected him and met his end…….
The fact that all his close acquaintances had left his side without exception was truly heartbreaking.
Damon stared up at the sky, trembling, for a while. After some time, he opened his mouth.
"I'll have to add one more to my list of targets. As the first priority, at that. What was it, Verkis?
The dragon who killed my teacher and Macmillan……."
Unfortunately, the Red Dragon Verkis had no idea at all that a single human had drawn a blade of revenge
against him.
While lying down waiting only for his body to recover, a faint sound reached Damon's ears.
"What is that sound? It sounds like screams……."
After some time had passed, Damon could finally move. Gently pushing Macmillan's corpse aside,
Damon tried to slowly rise.
"Ungh."
The moment he exerted strength, every joint in his body screamed and severe pain flooded his limbs.
Yet Damon was rather glad of this fact. Feeling pain meant that his body's
condition was not so severe, so…….
Rising from his spot, Damon first examined his body. Needless to say, there was not a single uninjured spot on his entire body. Having survived that terrifying magic
attack was, in a way, nothing short of a divine blessing. No matter how much Macmillan
had protected him.
Most of his exposed skin was burned and blistered, and his hair as well as his eyebrows were completely
singed off. That his eyes had not gone blind was probably because Macmillan had shielded them with his chest.
Realizing that, fortunately, no bones were broken, Damon first surveyed his surroundings.
The vicinity was a field of corpses. The bodies of humans and orcs, the two races, tangled together and coldly
growing cold, brutally showed how fierce the battle had been.
Damon furrowed his brow.
"The situation makes it blatantly clear who won."
Had the humans won, they would not have left the strewn corpses alone. On the other hand, orcs
never collected corpses no matter what. If such a thing were to happen, it would be
nine times out of ten to use them as food. Therefore, Damon concluded that the battle had ended in an orc victory.
That was his conclusion.
He turned his gaze once more to Macmillan's corpse. So horrific that his spine was fully exposed.
Half his body had been burned away, so it must have been indescribably painful.
And yet, even so, he had not loosened the body that wrapped around Damon.
A white mist formed in Damon's eyes.
"Macmillan. Don't worry and rest easy. No matter what happens, I will avenge you."
After gazing at Macmillan for a moment, Damon checked his body once more. First, the transformative magic staff
in his right hand was intact. The crystal orb was unbroken as well, and the attached leather strap was also unharmed.
But his body was in such a disastrous state that he could not even conceive of casting magic.
"The chances of getting out are somewhat lower now."
Given the situation, this place was clearly already under orc occupation. If discovered, he would undoubtedly have to
fight a grueling battle to escape from here. Just then, a final scream was heard from afar.
The sound of a death cry reached him once more.
"For now, I should go over there and see what is happening."
With his mind set, Damon lowered his body as much as possible and began to approach.
"S-Spare me."
One soldier, scared half to death with terror, trembled and rubbed his hands together continuously. However,
those surrounding him were not a race with whom words worked. A race of short, stocky build covered in green skin
all over their bodies. Orc infantrymen wrapped in crude armor, from which protruding, lumpy muscles
exuded raw strength.
The orcs watched the soldier begging for his life with mocking gazes, chattering briefly in unintelligible
words. After a moment, one orc approached, removed the soldier's helmet, and yanked his hair straight back.
"Krk."
The soldier shrieked at the pain as if his hair were being torn out. But that too lasted only a moment; a gleaming
blade mercilessly severed the back of his neck, and the scream quickly turned into a sound of air whistling through a gap.
The soldier's face fell to the floor, intermittently spurting blood. An orc
approached and kicked the soldier's head, whose facial muscles still twitched, sending it
rolling away. The rolling head came to a stop at a place where human heads were piled up like a mountain.
"Keh. Next."
The poor prisoners could do nothing but tremble as they awaited the moment their fate was decided.
Two orc infantrymen approached, cleared away the headless torso, and the next victim was dragged to that spot.
He, too, could not escape the fate of having his head severed.
"An execution ceremony for prisoners?"
Damon watched the scene from concealment amidst piles of corpses. He had approached relatively close,
but by cleverly using blind spots, no orc had noticed him. Observing the scene for a moment,
Damon furrowed his brow.
"Pitiful."
Of course, it was not that he did not wish to save them, but he forcibly steeled his heart. The soldiers being executed
were mostly wounded soldiers captured after suffering severe injuries. He himself was not in normal physical condition,
so there was no possibility of rescuing them and escaping.