Oh! My God (5)
"Haahaha! Hahahahahaha—!"
I laughed.
I laughed, forgetting both the situation unfolding before my eyes and even the existence of my enemies.
Looking over each and every one of them, I laughed once more.
"Are you happy? Yes, of course you are! For you too have finally found the place where you truly belong!"
The other man, seeing my laughter, became even more arrogant as he spoke to me.
"The cult leader ordered us to extract your brain, but our thoughts differ! You are worthy of joining us!"
As the man reached his hand out to me, the first man who had spoken chimed in as well.
"Please join us, Young Master Klein! Together, let us bring about the resurrection of the great Archimond…!"
"G-great, you say?! Archimond?! Hwahahahaha?!"
I laughed again as I looked at those wretched figures praising my name and calling it noble.
"Haha, haha!? Hahahahaha!!!"
I laughed, laughed, and laughed again.
If I did not laugh, I could not endure this.
Without laughing, I could not possibly remain standing here.
'Right… Why did I think things like this wouldn't exist?'
Thinking about it again, there was nothing strange about it.
One man who had nearly driven the entire continent to destruction.
If the story of that man became twisted over time, creatures like these were bound to appear.
A religious cult born idolizing Archimond.
A false religion worshipping not a god, but a mere human.
My life, my achievements, my tragedy.
Maggots trying to use those things as an excuse to fill their own bellies.
It would be stranger if not even one group like this appeared!
"What is this?"
"Has he gone mad? Why is he suddenly…?"
Perhaps the sight of me laughing was grotesque, because the other necromancers standing in the back began murmuring among themselves.
The man staring at me with similarly disturbed eyes spoke.
"H-has fear paralyzed your reason? Or perhaps you are moved by our noble purpose—"
"Hahahaha?! Moved, yes! I'm moved, you lunatics! Hahahahaha—!"
What did that maggot just say?
Ah, I don't know.
It was too funny, truly too ridiculous for me to even process what he was saying.
"Haha… Hahahaha…!"
I had laughed so much that my breathing was beginning to seize up.
If these bastards truly intended to take my life, then surely their plan was to make me die laughing.
Otherwise—
Otherwise, there was no way they could wear those ridiculous looks and prattle on about being my successors or my believers!
The thunderous cheers were swallowed up by my laughter and gradually lost their strength.
The ecstatic expression on the man's face, and the faces of the others agreeing with him—
All of them lost momentum before my endless roaring laughter and slowly fell silent.
"Ha…!"
At last stopping my laughter, I lifted my head and let out a dry breath.
It was miserable.
Utterly miserable.
The hero who drove a sword through my heart may have fallen, but he at least left behind righteous people.
People frustrating perhaps, but still worthy of calling themselves the descendants of a hero.
But compared to that, why was what I left behind nothing but this pathetic filth?
"So in the end, I'm forced to confirm it again."
I lamented, sighed, and grieved.
I rose up to soothe the resentment of the northerners who died from the plague.
To let the world know about those who perished abandoned and ignored, I devoted my entire insignificant life.
Yet this—
These things standing before me—
Were the result of it all.
Without even understanding my sighs.
Without ever trying to know why I swept across the continent in the first place.
They were merely maggots blinded by the power and results that appeared back then, thinking only of how to fill their own stomachs…!
"What twisted resentment leaves behind… are ultimately only piles of filth like this."
In the end, this was all my life had left behind.
The end of a miserable avenger had merely scattered more of the same garbage across the world.
So how could I not laugh?
How could I not mock it?
The very fools I had despised so much—
The one who gave birth to them was none other than myself.
"Th…"
"Y-you…!"
The people standing before me could not say a word.
I did not allow them to.
Until the moment my laughter ceased, my expression froze, and my emotions died—
The necromancers facing me…
No, the fools merely pretending to be necromancers—
Would not be able to utter another word.
Kuuuuuuuu…!
The dense demonic energy that had been radiating from me ever since I appeared before them.
The black power that called upon the dead, borrowed their resentment, and acted as a medium between the world of the living and the dead.
Not once in this life had I ever released such dense demonic energy.
"How many more are there?"
The voices of the dead flowed through my vocal cords.
A chilling voice that shook the souls of the living.
Startled, the man answered me before he even realized it.
"O-of course our comrades are spread throughout the continent! Once we seize control of the Wall through this attack—!"
"Shut up."
With those short words, the man's mouth snapped shut.
"Kh…?!"
The source of necromancy was demonic energy.
And in battles between necromancers, the most important factor was the density of that demonic energy.
And the demonic energy possessed by those standing before me now was so pitiful it could scarcely even be called demonic energy.
It was utterly impossible for them to approach the aura I was releasing.
"What I asked wasn't for your self-introduction. I asked for the number of your cult members spread across the continent, their locations, your organizational structure. That kind of information."
At my words, the man took a step back and clenched his teeth.
"H-how arrogant, Young Master! Do you think we would reveal such things so easily?"
"Really? Fine then."
Kuuuuu—!
My demonic energy engulfing the underground passage tightened around their hearts.
"I'll just hear it from your comrades beyond the Wall."
Clear killing intent.
The fools sensed it and immediately assumed battle stances.
Grrrrrrr…!
Undead began appearing one by one from the distance.
Patchwork abominations stitched together from the corpses of wild beasts and monsters.
"What a pity. If someone like you, who lived as a necromancer among filthy nobles, would only understand our great cause—!"
The instant the man standing at the front said that—
Puuuk—!
Unable to tolerate it any longer, I drove an arrow straight into the top of his skull.
"Uh…?"
Unable to even let out a proper dying scream, the man's body collapsed onto the tunnel floor.
"Damn it, when did he—?!"
"Everyone, prepare for battle! Capture Young Master Klein!"
While they panicked from the unexpected ambush, I controlled the demonic energy spread throughout the cave and spoke.
[Heed my call and answer. Punish those who have defiled the souls of the living.]
Infusing my will into the demonic energy, I activated the summoning gate.
Soon, thirty skeletons revealed themselves.
Unlike before, they had been reinforced with heavy armor in an entirely new form.
Clatterrr!
The front line carried massive war shields and short gladii.
The rear line held long spears and bows.
As the skeletons formed ranks with perfect discipline, a knight clad in black armor emerged from within their wall formation.
"How can skeletons be armed like that?"
"And that… Isn't that a Death Knight?!"
Voices of agitation rose from every direction.
Yet unwilling to be cowed, the countless undead they had brought bared their teeth and threatened me.
'At most, each of them can control around ten undead… Even compared to the Empire's necromancers, they're several tiers beneath them.'
I did not know whether their entire organization was this pathetic, or whether they had simply sent the lower ranks out as cannon fodder.
Honestly, I did not care to know.
"I won't let you die peacefully, but still… consider yourselves fortunate."
As if delivering a declaration of war, I spoke while facing them.
"The bastards at the top who sent you here—I'll make them beg for death before I'm through with them."
One of the Empire's necromancers had already ended up that way, after all.
Adding that casually, I stretched my hand toward them.
"Advance."
At my short command, the skeleton legion stepped forward all at once.
Thud—! Thud—! Thud—!
The synchronized footsteps of the skeletons made them flinch, though several of the fools soon regained their composure.
"You think this narrow terrain gives you a chance?"
"How insolent. Attack!"
Their patchwork undead also charged toward the shield wall.
— KRAAAAHHHH—!
The instant the cries of the dead and the roars of monsters mixed together—
KWAANG—!
Shadow-covered weapons and masses of flesh collided, spraying blood and chunks of meat in every direction.
— KRAAAAH!
The war shields covering the front ranks blocked the massive bodies of the creatures, while the spears lined up behind them pierced through their bodies in unison.
Thududududuk—!
Arrows occasionally rained down upon the necromancers who had sent out their underlings.
"Kraaagh?!"
"Damn it, release the rest of them! Kill the caster!"
Only after two or three of their comrades had turned into corpses did they finally realize the danger, summoning dozens more zombies.
"Grrrrrrr…!"
This time, they were zombies made from humans rather than animals or monsters.
Some of them even wore the armor of Wall sentries.
Crunch! Crunch!
The rhythmically moving spears pierced through the monsters leading the charge.
Several undead crossed the shield wall and rushed toward me, but stopping them was the responsibility of the Death Knight, Hector.
Slash—!
As the knight's blade cleaved through a zombie's body, the severed section burned away before it could regenerate.
Sssizzle—!
"Damn it, there's no opening…!"
"What the hell? Necromancy can do something like this?!"
Some were horrified.
Others were consumed by fear.
The necromancy I wielded was the necromancy of Archimond—the very power they idolized.
Compared to the crude imitations forged from scraps of shallow knowledge, it displayed power on an entirely different level.
Crunch!
Three spears pierced the head of the largest monster at the front simultaneously.
Their strongest creation, bearing the fused heads of a bear and tiger.
Yet even that could not break the cohesion of this undead legion.
"Ah… Aah…!"
Only after the last patchwork abomination fell did true fear finally appear in their eyes.
"Send the zombies in! Hurry!"
Even so, a few who finally grasped the situation shouted commands toward the zombies standing throughout the tunnel.
"Kiiiii?!"
But only for a moment.
"W-what?"
Despite their orders, the zombies did not move, and panic crept into their voices.
"W-what are you doing?! Attack already! You're zombies I created…!"
"They're also zombies created from my knowledge."
When I answered in place of the silent undead, one of them lost his voice before staring at me.
"'Your knowledge'… Don't tell me…?"
Of course, I had no intention whatsoever of responding to that guess.
[I ask, so answer.]
While the skeletons and Death Knight cleaned them up, I was drawing a spell formation across the ground.
I-lololole—
What I completed was a contract seal.
The contract's targets were the souls trapped within the zombies' dead bodies.
[I sever the chains binding you and grant peace to your souls.]
I tore apart the contracts their creators had forcibly imposed using blood rituals and overlaid them with a new contract through my demonic energy.
[Deliver rightful punishment unto those who cast you into the abyss!]
The moment the chant ended, countless runes were added to the contract seal.
The names of the dead who answered the contract.
And by inscribing the name of the guide, Klein Leinrant, at the center, the contract was completed.
Paht!
With a brief tearing sound, the zombies' bodies trembled.
My Voice of the Dead restored the zombies' wills.
"Grrr?!"
The undead, having regained their original wills, turned to face those who had reduced them to this state.
Not the savagery forcibly imposed upon them—
But unmistakable killing intent aimed toward their creators.
"Uh…?"
"W-wait… right now…! Control over the undead…?!"
Did they still not understand what was happening?
Before the former casters, eyes widened in shock, could say anything more—
"KRAAAAAAAAH—!!!"
The cries of the zombies, filled with resentment and hatred, flooded the underground passage.