“Someone with absurd power who never dies is nothing more than a risk to the kingdom. Now marks the end of the era in which we are ruled by an undead king who failed to fulfill his purpose. We could have left you alone if you were merely a weapon, slowly rusting away. But you developed feelings for this long-eared slave when you needed to remain an object with no will of your own.
“Plans have already been laid to reveal your true nature to the people, that you are a human-eating undead parasite who took root in our kingdom. You joined forces with the Demon King and attempted to destroy the country. I was the one who defeated the two of you. The council of wisemen has already been disbanded, and Rodacoff belongs entirely to me now. The dark, hidden history of the past royal families, the mountain of corpses they left behind during their research into death magic…it will all support my claims!”
As Fudolf finished, the court mages began firing orbs of magic at Zoras.
If he dodged, if he blocked, they would see that as resistance and then kill Elsie. All Zoras could do was stand, letting the orbs of magic slam into his body.
After taking dozens of strikes, he fell to the ground covered in blood, but he was still clinging to consciousness.
“Tsk, still alive?” said Fudolf. “What a sturdy and frightening monster you are. You there, help out! You must still have mana left.”
“Ah!” The magic user holding Elsie looked up when Fudolf called him.
That’s when it happened. Elsie rushed out of the magic user’s grip.
“Grab the long ear!” shouted Fudolf. The magic users quickly encircled Elsie, but she threw herself to the ground, smashing her head against a rock nearby. Blood poured from the wound, and her body spasmed.
“Elsie…?” said Zoras in disbelief.
It was self-inflicted. She had been taken hostage, and that act was her last resistance.
“What a nuisance…but I meant to kill her anyway,” said Fudolf. “Oh well. The king no longer has the strength to fight back. Finish him now. Get over there and remove his head.”
Then thoughts appeared in Zoras’s mind.
“Your Majesty… Please avenge me. This world is too filled with evil.”
It was Elsie’s last thought as she passed away. The words were faint, but they rang clearly in Zoras’s mind.
His eyes snapped open. That was the spell Elsie created based on dragon thought waves, Dragon Speech.
A knight raised his sword and approached Zoras. Zoras slowly sat up and swung his staff at the man’s head, cracking it open.
“Tsk, he can still move! Kill him! Everyone, attack at once!” shouted Fudolf.
The knights came at him swinging, while the mages fired magic bullets. Zoras swiftly dodged their blades, pulled up a wall of soil to block the magic, and then unleashed fire to burn them away. He took them down, one by one, until only Fudolf remained.
“No…impossible… We poisoned you, drained your mana with the barrier, threw you against the Demon King so you’d be injured, and you are still capable of…this?” Fudolf stumbled backward. Zoras’s gaze fell to Elsie’s body, then snapped back to Fudolf. “Y-Your Majesty, please remain calm! I, too, was put up to this! There are powers hidden in the shadows of the court! I’ll confess to all my crimes! A-and I have already painted you as an undead creature trying to bring calamity to the nation! You have no place in the kingdom anymore! But if I devote myself to the task, I can—”
“Death Magic Level 10: Death.”
Zoras waved his staff, and a magic circle appeared, followed by a reaper’s skull formed of purple light that rushed straight toward Fudolf.
He screamed and tried to run from the reaper, but it quickly caught him. The moment it did, his body aged and decayed in an instant as if a hundred years had passed, then rotted away until only dust remained.
The fight was over. Zoras pulled Elsie’s body into his arms. His eyes fell on her fingers. The nails had been ripped from her pale, slender, beautiful fingers. They were bent in disconcerting angles, as if smashed with a hammer.
“Your Majesty… Please avenge me. This world is too filled with evil.”
Elsie’s words echoed in his mind.
“Elsie… I offer this world to you in tribute,” he murmured, alone in a dark forest littered with corpses.
-9-
I LOOKED DOWN at Zoras’s collapsed form, my chest heaving.
Honestly, my win against him was nothing short of a miracle. I couldn’t even believe I’d won in that situation. If we fought a hundred times, I bet I would’ve been killed in ninety-nine of them.
I pressed down on my shoulder, where my arm was still missing, and let out a deep breath.
The Ouroboros Wheel could only return your body to how it was right before you died. All it did was keep you from dying, it wasn’t for recovery. I’d blown my own arm off with a Gravity Bomb, and it was still gone.
All my potions and items evaporated in the explosion from Horus’s Destruction, meaning I couldn’t heal using an item. My only option was to find Lunaère.
I looked out at the city.
Its once elegant streets had been turned to ruins by the blast from Horus’s Destruction, and I could still see chaos dragons flying overhead.
I wondered if there were any residents who hadn’t evacuated in time, and if Pomera and everyone who went to save people were all right. I didn’t know how they’d do if they were near the epicenter of the explosion, but they were supposed to be far away. The lowest level out of any of them was still near a thousand, so I wanted to believe they were okay…
Then I saw Lunaère, standing in the remains of the castle. There was a spatial distortion in front of her.
Tentacle-like things made of black fog reached out and held a boy in midair. It seemed safe to assume that was Zero, being used as a medium by the curse.
The first thing that hit me was relief that Lunaère was okay, but then I saw the dagger gripped in her hand and pointed at herself. That in itself was ominous enough, but her brooding expression only made me more uneasy. It looked like something odd was happening, something bad.
“Lunaère-san!” I called. I leapt down and rushed to her side, where I immediately grabbed the dagger in her hands.
“Kanata!” She looked at me in shock, as if coming back to her senses.
“I beat Zoras. What…are you doing?”