At the end of the long passage leading downward.
The stone chamber I had confirmed with my extrasensory perception was more splendid than I had expected.
On the domed ceiling of the stone chamber, a mural had been painted across the entire surface.
Unlike the passageway, it was a gorgeous mural whose colors still remained.
The mural depicted the life of a man who appeared to be a king.
It was the typical success story of a king: casting magic to purify nature, leading people to found a nation, and then donning a crown.
Beneath that splendid mural, statues of mages stood along the circular wall surrounding the stone chamber, all gazing toward the center.
At the center of the stone chamber, where the statues were looking, was a large stone coffin.
It was an ornate sarcophagus worthy of holding the owner of the mural.
Right now, that sarcophagus was open.
The coffin lid lay half-propped over the open sarcophagus.
It looked as if a corpse had opened the lid and climbed out.
It seemed like an absurd imagining, but seeing the figure sitting on the coffin lid, it was something that had actually happened.
The figure, dressed like a mage, was not one of the humanoid monsters we had been seeing all this time.
Nor was it the magical monster that had only stuck out its upper body.
I could tell by my senses as well, but even with the naked eye, it was clearly different from the Akzar monsters.
Those monsters at least looked human on the outside.
But the figure before my eyes did not look like a living person no matter how I looked at it.
Just from that mummy-like face, a skull covered only in leather, it was obvious the figure was a corpse.
“It doesn’t seem like the master of the tomb has risen again… He’s one of Soph’s companions, isn’t he?”
No answer came.
I knew even without hearing one.
The clothes that corpse was wearing were something I had seen in Soph’s memories.
Alongside the young mage, the martial artist, and Soph’s lover, there had been one more mage who had helped Soph.
[…Japmel. He was my friend.]
The corpse was his fellow mage and party member.
Come to think of it, his companion had not appeared in Soph’s final memory.
I had thought he had escaped this star with the others, but it seemed that had not been the case.
Soph said,
[It is hard to believe, but it seems even corpses can move if they are contaminated by the Demon King’s energy.]
Soph’s voice, which had trembled at the sight of his moving friend’s corpse, sank darkly.
Unlike a moment ago, his voice was calm, but I could feel the anger contained within it.
Soph seemed very angry.
I was not angry the way Soph was.
Rather, I found it fascinating that a corpse had maintained its form for tens of thousands of years, and even astonishing that the corpse was moving again.
For that corpse to be Soph’s friend.
No matter how I thought about it, this was a cruel act.
I could not be angry the same way he was, but I could join him in his anger.
Aiming my spear at the corpse, I said,
“Let’s put your companion to rest quickly.”
[…That would be best.]
Soph agreed with me.
Since he was Soph’s companion, I decided to finish him with a powerful spell.
We were indoors and there was a risk of collapse, but to prevent any unforeseen danger, an excessive attack was necessary.
If he was Soph’s companion, he deserved at least that much of a funeral offering.
The black stone attached to the tip of the spear began to glow.
The black stone I had obtained from the Control Object emitted energy for the first time.
A magic circle began to unfold around the black stone.
The energy of the black stone spread throughout the entire spear.
The spear shone and trembled violently.
Woooong.
Was the energy flowing into the spear too great?
The corpse lifted its head. The dried-up mummy looked at me. No trace of its former face remained.
The corpse that had been sitting on the coffin lid rose to its feet.
Creeeak.
Its movements were stiff, like a doll being moved.
In the standing corpse’s hand was a staff.
From the staff flowed an evil energy of the Demon King as powerful as that of the corpse itself.
It was clearly a corrupted relic.
Whoosh.
The corpse swung the staff.
It seemed to have merely swung the staff meaninglessly through the air, but the result was different.
Chwaaak!
A black line shot out from the staff and flew toward me.
[Dodge! It is a wind blade!]
“Tch!”
It had taken a long time to describe, but the time from when the corpse lifted its head until now had been extremely short.
Too short for Soph to complete his magic.
I hurriedly threw myself aside.
Even if Soph had not told me, that magic was not something I could block.
[Ugh.]
Was it the backlash from canceling the spell?
I heard Soph groan.
But now was not the time to worry about that.
The long horizontal black line flew toward me.
The color and the force I felt from it were different, but it was very similar to the wind magic Catherine used.
The moment I threw myself to the floor, the black line passed over my head.
Chwaaaak!
A wind filled with cold swept over my body.
Goosebumps rose on my skin.
I had not even touched the line, yet it felt horrifying.
Slice!
The black line that passed over my head split the wall of the stone chamber.
A long line, dozens of meters in length, was carved into the wall.
The line dug several meters deep into the stone wall.
And it did not end there.
Chiiiiik.
The stone wall began to melt around the line.
The carvings crumbled and flowed down.
As if being dissolved by strong acid or extreme heat, the carvings that had endured tens of thousands of years melted down in an instant.
“That’s a wind blade?”
[It seems to have been altered by the Demon King’s evil energy, but it is definitely Japmel’s magic! It seems undead raised by the Demon King’s power can use the magic they wielded in life.]
Was it inevitable for a mage?
For a moment, I sensed curiosity in Soph’s words.
It was absurd, but for now, the bigger problem was that the corpse could use the magic it had used while alive.
Chwaak! Chak!
Black lines continued to shoot from the staff pointed at me.
Horizontally, diagonally, vertically.
Wind magic that melted the walls kept pouring out.
I moved frantically and dodged the blades.
I rolled across the floor, kicked off the walls, and hurled myself left and right.
If the scout’s tentacles were attacks aimed at points, the wind blades were attacks made of lines.
I could now dodge the tentacle attacks without much difficulty, but these magical attacks were different.
Without my extrasensory perception, they were attacks I never would have been able to avoid.
On top of that, it did not end with simply dodging them.
“The aftereffects are no joke even when I dodge!”
The cold-laced wind that came with the blades corroded my clothes and damaged my skin.
My clothes grew worn, and my skin turned rough.
If I had not circulated dark energy to block the cold, I would certainly have collapsed.
I was blocking the cold like that, but my condition was gradually worsening.
The more the corpse launched wind blades, the more severe the cold inside the stone chamber became.
It was growing harder and harder to dodge the attacks, but I was not merely dodging either.
“Take this!”
Dodging the incoming black line, I threw my spear with all my strength.
Shwaaaak!
The spear flew like an arrow, but it failed to hit the corpse.
It was not because I had thrown it poorly.
The spear was caught in the vortex surrounding the corpse and was flung aside.
The spear clattered across the floor.
[A wind barrier. Seeing that he uses both wind blades and a wind barrier, we should assume he can use all the magic he had in life. He has no memories and no reason, yet he can use all of his magic. How in the world was this done?]
Soph’s voice came from the spear.
Now that his anger had subsided, it seemed the chronic illness of mages was acting up again.
His words were full of curiosity.
I had gone through the trouble of throwing the spear, packed full of energy, and that was what he had to say.
I shouted at Soph with all my might.
“Think about that later and use magic first!”
Soph answered me.
[I have already cast it.]
A large magic circle was drawn beneath the corpse.
It was Soph’s magic circle, created with the energy I had poured into the spear.
Kwaaaang!
The next moment, flames surging from the magic circle engulfed the corpse.
The blaze soared all the way to the ceiling.
The cold that had filled the stone chamber lessened.
I called the spear back.
Thud.
Catching the returning spear, I asked Soph,
“Did that buy us enough time?”
The opponent was a powerful undead mage set in motion by the Demon King’s power.
I did not think a spell of that level would bring him down.
I was not hoping for much.
As long as it gave us an opening to use magic with the black stone, that would be enough.
But that hope immediately vanished.
After the flames disappeared, the corpse stood there unharmed.
The magic Soph had created had failed to pierce the corpse’s defensive magic.
[That was too much to hope for.]
At Soph’s calm words, I grumbled softly.
“Didn’t you say he was your friend? You don’t even know your friend’s magical skill accurately?”
Soph answered my jab.
[He has changed after becoming a corpse, but his magical skill seems better than I remember. It appears there are still many gaps in my memory.]
When he put it that way, I had nothing to say.
The corpse cast magic again.
Shwaaak! Shwaak!
Black blades poured down, and I had to move frantically.
The corpse’s attacks were simple.
The corpse merely kept launching wind blades.
It was a simple brute-force assault, with no technique and no strategy.
But Soph and I were forced to scramble before that simple attack.
Dealing with wind blades that melted the walls in an enclosed stone chamber was harder than I had expected.
It would have been fine if Soph’s magic had worked, but all of Soph’s subsequent spells were blocked by the corpse’s magic as well.
Needless to say, the same wind magic did not work, and neither earth magic nor lightning magic could pierce the corpse’s defensive magic.
As time passed, the splendid murals and carvings all lost their original forms.
The walls and ceiling were slashed to pieces and melted down until it became impossible to tell what mural had once been painted there.
My clothes were the same.
The fabric around my arms and legs had already corroded and fallen away, and the backpack I had thrown aside was riddled with holes.
At this point, I was even worried about the box inside.
In the end, I had to use another method.
‘If Soph’s magic won’t work, there’s only one way.’
I was a mage too.
Unlike Soph, I was a close-range mage who had to touch my opponent.
Because of the vortex surrounding the corpse, it was difficult to use my magic, but it was not impossible.
Dodging the wind blades, I built up my magic.
After deciding on a destination behind the corpse, I drew an imaginary line between it and my current position.
Formulas poured forth, and a magic circle was drawn in my mind.
[Blink!]
I leaped across space.
Flaaaash!
The moment white light enveloped me, Soph’s voice rang out.
[Stop! It is dangerous where magic has been deployed—!]
Before I could hear the rest of Soph’s words, I heard an explosion.
Kwaaaang!
With the explosion, I felt myself being flung backward.
Thud.
Then came pain in my back.
I could not see it, but I was clearly embedded in the stone wall.
I was still within the white light, but I thought I understood what had happened.
The energies had collided, causing the spatial movement to fail.
After that, I must have slammed into the stone wall.
It was the kind of mistake a novice mage would make.
I was lucky just to have survived.
Enduring the pain, I waited for the light to disappear.
Flaaaash!
Fortunately, the light vanished immediately.
When the light disappeared, Soph’s companion was before my eyes.
He opened his mouth.
“Are you all right? It seems I dozed off for a moment.”
Amazingly, he was not a corpse.
He was a living mage.
“Is that so? You must have been tired.”
Soph’s voice flowed from my mouth.
The person he had spoken to was not me.
It was Soph when he was alive.
I had now entered Soph’s memory.
Friend