He had about 50 million MP left. Night had fallen by the time the horde of undead led by Vandal reached Evbejia, the closest town to the forest. It was a smallish settlement that had grown up in-between the local villages, home to around 2,000 people and the territory of Baronet Bestello. The village had walls around to keep monsters out, with the only access from gates in the east, west, south, and north—unless you could fly in.
“All of you, stay here in the forest. Bone Monkey, carry me on your back.” Vandal grabbed onto the back of an undead made from the bones of a large monkey, whom he named “Bone Monkey,” and crept up to the walls. It was only a small town of 2,000 people, placing it beneath the notice of powerful monsters or enemy nations, and the security looked more like a sieve than a dragnet. After all that time under heavy military security, a badly maintained wall in the boonies wasn’t going to keep him out.
That said, the gates were closed at night and sentries were alert. A skeleton monkey the size of a man approaching was going to set off all sorts of alarms. So Vandal ignored the gates and headed to the walls. Then he used MP to force a nearby spirit into the stone of the wall.
“Open a hole large enough for us to pass through.”
The section of the exterior “undead wall” was unable to disobey the orders of its master. It changed shaped with a soft rumbling sound, and then a hole appeared. He had 49 million MP left.
Death attribute magic skill has leveled up!
Vandal thought he heard something like that inside his head, but he still felt so dizzy. He had a headache like a hammer pounding relentlessly on his temple.
“Bone Monkey. Keep to the deserted backstreets.”
Bone Monkey started forward again, its bones clacking as it went. Its movements were uneven, paying no heed to Vandal on his back, but it wasn’t a problem. He didn’t have the strength to walk on his own, but the strength of his arms was already higher than an average adult male. His baby body was so light, he could easily support himself by clinging to Bone Monkey’s back with both hands.
They proceeded through the dim town. His Night Vision allowed him to see as though it were daytime.
“Search for my mother.” He released undead bugs to search for information and talked to the spirits wandering the city. The spirits of regular folks, when not even turned into undead, would rapidly degrade after death unless they had superior mental fortitude, so he wasn’t counting on them for anything.
“In the town square.”
Getting a response surprised him so much, his heart almost stopped.
“The square!” Bone Monkey clattered toward the destination. It came into view, and there he saw Dalshia. Right there—oh no.
“Vandal…I’m sorry.”
She was a spirit and looked ready to vanish any moment.
“Mom!”
“I’m sorry. I died. But I didn’t tell them about you.”
“What happened?” he asked.
Dalshia’s spectral form showed whip marks all across it. She proceeded to explain what happened.
She had come to Evbejia to gather information required for their trip to the dark elf village, where she and Vandal would be safe.
“You have one red eye from your father, and one purple eye from me. Everyone knows you’re a dhampir just by looking at your face,” his mother said. So she needed to avoid the roads, but also take a safe route with fewer monsters. But someone had ratted her out. Her name and description had been passed to the Church of Divine Alda, informing them that it matched the description of a dark elf adventurer who sometimes came into town. Dalshia came to Evbejia again, without any idea, and walked into an ambush laid by Baronet Bestello’s knights, monks of the church, and hired adventurers. She had resisted, but was captured.
“I fought as hard as I could, but they had adventurers who were better with the bow and elemental magic than me, and I couldn’t win,” she said. “The church whipped me, calling me a witch, and asking where my dhampir baby is.”
The church’s torture methods were terrible. They whipped her, crushed her fingers, and pressed hot brands into her flesh. That pain had actually damaged her soul, with the marks remaining on her body even after becoming a spirit.
“I stayed silent. I did well! I did it! But once they realized torture wasn’t going to break me, they burned me at the stake.”
The baronet and the church had put on a public execution, as a display of their power and to show the people what happened to those who succumb to the allure of a vampire.
“I was burnt alive. That’s how I died. I wanted to turn into a ghost and find you, but High Priest Goldan poured holy water over my ashes. So managing to cling on here is the best I could do.”
As Vandal listened to her words, despair and powerlessness started to fill him, as though his body was rotting away and his vision crumpling into nothing. If he had come looking for her yesterday, he might have made it in time. If he had gone sooner, he might have made it in time. When he was languidly napping, his mother’s beautiful brown skin had been under the lash. When he was filling up on rabbit blood, she had been seared with burning brands. And when he was wandering the forest, she had been burning alive. The only remaining trace of her life was the pile of ashes and bones on the cobbles of the town square.