High-ranking undead like Death Knights were not created through magic alone.
They were made by engraving all kinds of magic circles onto a dead body and pouring the energy of death into it.
Therefore, if one possessed the knowledge and knew how to handle the energy of death, even a low-circle mage could theoretically create a Death Knight.
Raising it and controlling it was the problem, though.
- So creating one should not be much of an issue. Above all, you have me, your teacher, Purnell Penchev, do you not? Fortunate as you are, all you need to do is bring me a delicious… no, an excellent corpse without a single worry.
Purnell was beside himself with excitement now that necromancy lessons had begun.
But there were many points that made Hio uneasy if he simply took Purnell at his word.
“Can you really create undead with the body of an Abyss Monster? It’s twisted beyond recognition.”
- All the better! Would that not mean an undead stronger than ordinary undead would be born?
“…Really?”
As expected, Purnell’s way of thinking was dreadfully necromancer-like.
“Then let’s say that’s true. What about the soul? If you want to create a high-ranking undead, don’t you need a soul to match?”
- Ah, about that…
Purnell, who had been chattering away excitedly until now, suddenly grew calm when the issue of the soul came up.
- Surely there will be casualties among the imperial knights as well, no? Then we can carefully collect those souls and…
Of course. He should have known.
“You lunatic necromancer.”
No matter how intent he was on becoming stronger, this was going too far.
“I’m not doing it.”
- No, listen to me carefully. I am not saying we should take them by force. That is not only more difficult, but rather, by properly persuading souls that still harbor lingering regrets and allowing them to resolve their resentment, it becomes something positive…
* * *
For the time being, he decided to follow Purnell’s suggestion.
Well, he had been persuaded by the argument that they would not be forcing souls in, but only doing it in cases where a strong lingering attachment remained, like with Teordo last time.
Even so, it still felt unpleasant.
The knights of the empire.
Their faces as they rejoiced while shouting Hio’s name were still vivid in his mind… and to think of placing such souls into dead bodies, bodies twisted by the energy of the abyss at that, and turning them into undead.
If it had not been Purnell, who always had Hio’s best interests at heart, he would not even have listened to the end.
- It is because you have yet to command an undead legion. You still retain an instinctive aversion. In truth, you need only look at the emperor’s Death Knight, Teordo, to know. Undead are not only bad things. As long as you do well as their master so that they can be sufficiently satisfied, that is enough.
“Fine. We’ve decided to do that, so let’s move on. What am I supposed to learn, then?”
- Heh heh heh. A good question.
Purnell grinned eerily.
Fifth-circle necromancy.
According to Purnell, it was the stage where one could truly establish oneself as a one-man army, a calamity on the battlefield.
And so the first necromancy he would learn as a high-ranking necromancer was—
- Storage magic.
“…Huh?”
- What, do you expect your ancestors to carry your undead for you? You need a space to store them, do you not?
It was storage magic.
Magic that allowed him to store the undead he had created.
“You’re not wrong, but… how should I put it? It feels kind of underwhelming.”
After building up all that gravitas, it was storage magic?
It was only natural for the excitement to fizzle out.
But Purnell tilted his head from side to side as if to say that was not the case.
It seemed he wanted to wag a finger stylishly, but since he had no fingers, he was shaking his head instead.
- You speak out of ignorance. The “Undead Warehouse” is practically the symbol of a high-ranking necromancer. It is a spell that allows you to place undead under your control inside it and take them out in an instant.
“Is it similar in principle to a subspace?”
- It is different from that. Subspace belongs to spatial arts, the domain of creating space, does it not? This is, quite literally, the concept of borrowing an undead warehouse filled with the energy of death.
“If you’re borrowing it… from where? Hell?”
- Need I even say it? The Necropolis.
Now that he heard it, it seemed like an extremely useful spell.
It meant he could suddenly pull out a large-scale legion even while traveling alone.
If he had enough undead under his control to be called a legion, he could infiltrate an enemy camp by himself and turn it into a massive battlefield in an instant.
- Aside from that, there are also spells like Death Field, which mass-produces undead immediately on the battlefield, but at your current level, it will not be of much use. It would be better for you to raise your circle further and learn other spells.
“So what I’m learning now is the Undead Warehouse and the method for creating high-ranking undead.”
- Precisely. In the next raid, bring back all the useful corpses you can. Heh heh heh. We will surely be able to create a tremendous undead legion.
“…Fine. Well, let’s give it a try.”
There was no reason to hesitate.
He had learned spatial arts faster than expected, and though his power as a spatial artist might be insignificant, what mattered was the effect of the skill.
Now that he had obtained that, he could learn fifth-circle necromancy, master the remaining spells, and then search for the Book of Dragon Summoning or other divine magic.
If he kept growing little by little like that, then surely that day would come.
- First, let us engrave the pattern.
The day when he would become strong enough to face any variable.
* * *
One day, nearly two months after they had conquered the fifty-third floor of the Abyss.
Black gates appeared across the entire continent once again.
The time for another raid had come.
By now, the continent’s residents had grown fairly accustomed to them.
The fifty-fourth floor of the Abyss Gate, widely known as the Demon Realm, had opened.
As if they had been waiting, the advance party was deployed, and the area around the gate was swiftly placed under complete military control.
Naturally, the news also spread to the imperial capital, but the disturbance among the knights was minimal.
The battles within the Demon Realm were brutally difficult and required them to risk their lives.
And yet, had they not sounded victory after victory?
As a result, had their own skills not also advanced by leaps and bounds?
So they had gained quite a bit of confidence.
Not arrogance, and not carelessness.
Confidence that they could do it.
It was not very different for the Royal Knights, either.
If anything, that fervor was even stronger than in the other knight orders.
The Royal Knights were already renowned as the strongest knight order in the empire, but their passion to grow stronger burned even hotter.
It was likely due to several reasons overlapping.
If one had to name one of them, then naturally—
“Hoo… hoo…”
Claire, running while breathing roughly.
And Melissa, casually drawing alongside her.
“Are you tired? Do you want to stop?”
“No, ma’am!”
It was because they had been stimulated by the sight of those two pouring every spare moment into training.
“It’s fine. If you’re tired, you can rest. You can just stay comfortably in the back and blast fire everywhere, so why bother exhausting yourself by building stamina? Isn’t that right?”
“…N-no, ma’am!”
Melissa took especially good care of Claire.
After all, she was the female member who had joined after Melissa among all those rough men.
There were already so few of them, and the knight order was full of stiff, quiet types.
Even Damon, who talked far too much for his own good, had devoted himself only to training after being thoroughly defeated by Antipus… so naturally, Claire and Melissa could not help but grow closer.
“I don’t think you mean that. You’re tired, aren’t you? Thirsty, aren’t you? You want to rest, don’t you? If you just stop right there and lie down, it’ll be comfortable, you know?”
“No… haa… no, ma’am…!”
Of course, what it meant for Melissa to take good care of her was somewhat different from the usual meaning, but in any case, it was true that they were close.
“I can keep going!”
And so the two continued their training.
“In the end, stamina is the foundation of everything. No matter how much mana you have or how strong your mental strength is, it’s useless if your stamina is weak.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Just because someone was a long-range skill user did not mean they were treated like mages of ancient times.
They did not shut themselves in rooms and do nothing but research and study like mages, nor did they require the same high level of concentration as mages.
Skill users also underwent training as intense as that of knights and continued to temper themselves.
“This goes for everyone, but your flames in particular have a strong tendency to grow through real combat. So for now, don’t think about anything else and focus on increasing your stamina.”
“I’ll keep that in mind!”
She was not simply running, either.
With sandbags and the like attached all over her body, she had been matching Melissa’s pace and repeating nothing but running for several hours already.
Skill users were those who instinctively handled mana and made use of it, so their bodies were certainly superior to those of ordinary people. But they did not handle aura like knights, so there was no doubt that this was an indescribably grueling training regimen for Claire.
“Hoo…”
Even so, Claire did not voice a single complaint and refused to give up until the end.
Though it was still so very far away, she had a clear goal.
For that goal, she drove herself onward without end, like a towering flame burning high.
Only after a little more time had passed—
“Good. That’s enough.”
At Melissa’s words, Claire collapsed onto the ground, spread-eagled.
Her entire body was drenched in sweat, and she was in a state where she could do nothing but draw breath in and let it out.
It was only natural, given that she had squeezed her stamina to the very limit.
Melissa, who had run with Claire, was also soaked in sweat, but unlike Claire, she looked fairly composed. This was how much the difference in stamina born from experience showed.
“Once the advance party that entered the Demon Realm returns, we’ll have to prepare to go in too, so rest tomorrow. If you train, try to do something that doesn’t use stamina.”
“Hoo… yes.”
After resting for a little while, Claire got up.
She must have been so exhausted that the shape of her body remained exactly where she had been lying on the ground.
It was a mark made of sweat.
“Eek…”
Claire blushed and rubbed at it with the sole of her shoe, but it was not the kind of mark that would disappear just because she did that.
It was embarrassing, but at least there were no people around.
The only person nearby was Melissa, another woman, and this was a dedicated training ground within the imperial palace that only the Royal Knights could enter.
A sweat mark would dry quickly and disappear after a little time, so that was a relief.
In any case, was it not a natural phenomenon after training? Even if someone else saw it, it would not matter much, but still, for a young woman who still had traces of girlishness about her to leave behind a spread-eagled sweat mark…
It was a bit much.
As she tried to hide that bit of embarrassment and prepare to return—
“Hm?”
A familiar voice suddenly called her name.
“Claire?”
Claire’s head turned toward the source of that voice faster than anything else.
“Huh? It really is Claire?”
It was someone she had thought she might run into someday, but never imagined that someday would be now.
It was Hio.
As always, he was leaning on his large staff and staring over with wide eyes.
Without question, he was the number one person she did not want to meet looking like this.
Perhaps he failed to notice even the slightest bit of Claire’s feelings, because Hio approached step by step with an expression of pure delight.
“What? Those clothes are the Royal Knights’ training uniform, aren’t they? Claire, did you join the Royal Knights?”
When Hio took one step closer, Claire took one step back.
At the same time, Claire took stock of her current appearance.
She was soaked in sweat, so her red hair must be clinging messily to her face, and her training uniform was surely in a similar state.
And above all…
‘The smell! I’m going to smell like sweat!’
So absolutely not.
She absolutely, positively could not face him up close.
“Since when? No, why didn’t you tell me? Ah, I wasn’t in the palace, was I?”
But Hio’s steps were quick.
He was approaching from the entrance of the training ground with a bright smile, looking truly delighted to see her. How on earth was she supposed to stop him?
“Anyway, it’s really nice to see you here, Claire.”
To make matters worse, she had nowhere left to retreat.
It was not that her back was against a wall or anything like that. If she retreated any farther, the sweat mark imprinted on the ground in a spread-eagled shape would be laid bare before Hio.
That, truly, absolutely, must never happen.
She would rather die than show such a mark to Hio. It was an impossibility that could never be allowed to occur.
If she moved forward, there was the smell of sweat.
If she moved backward, there was the sweat mark.
And the one who saved Claire from that crisis with no way out was—
“Sigh…”
Melissa stepped forward with a small sigh.
“It has been a while, Sir Guardian Knight.”
She placed herself in front of Hio, her positioning exquisite as she blocked Claire from view.
“Yeah. It’s been a while for you too, Melissa. Two months, has it been?”
“Yes. You left immediately after the last raid, after all. More importantly, what brings you here?”
“I had something to discuss with Sylvia, so I stopped by for a bit. And since it’s about time for the Demon Realm to open again, I thought I’d see Vitalianus while I was here……”
Even as he spoke, he kept glancing behind Melissa to catch a glimpse of Claire, but each time, Melissa’s blue hair swayed and neatly concealed Claire from view.
“Lord Vitalianus should be in his office.”
“Oh, really? Thanks.”
Hio nodded and was about to pass Melissa and head toward Claire when—
Whoosh—
“……Huh?”
A sudden blizzard began to rage.
A blizzard, indoors, in late autumn no less.
It was obvious who its master was, so Hio’s gaze returned to Melissa.
“Melissa……?”
In response, Melissa merely repeated the same words.
With a fresh, bright smile that was entirely unlike her.
“Lord Vitalianus should be in his office?”
“……R-right?”
“Yes. Just in case, should you not go see him immediately?”
“Is…… that so?”
By that point, even Hio had no choice but to catch on.
Claire, backing away.
Melissa, who would never normally have done such a thing, blocking his path.
And a blizzard raging indoors.
“Ah, then I suppose I should hurry and go. Mm. Yes.”
Having roughly guessed the situation, Hio gave an awkward laugh and immediately turned his back.
“See you next time. Hahaha.”
As Hio quickly left the training hall, the sound of Purnell clicking his tongue echoed deep in his mind.
—Tsk, tsk…… Do you truly have so little consideration for a lady?
‘You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.’
For once, Hio readily admitted it.
No matter how oblivious he was in this area, even he thought he had gone too far this time.
They had made it that obvious, yet his happiness at seeing her had delayed his realization.
The sight of the two desperately trying to stop him from approaching.
The reason was obvious.
‘Claire must have had an accident during training or something.’
Who knew what exactly Hio’s image of Claire was, but he could not think of any other reason they would be so desperate to keep him from coming closer.
At those words, Purnell’s sigh echoed through Hio’s mind.
—Good grief!
And Melissa’s sigh echoed through the training hall, where the blizzard had ceased.
“……You still have a long road ahead of you, Claire.”