Chapter 3

Chapter 1 Living Dead By the time the lord returned to the room, I’d counted to a little over twenty thousand. He was wrapped in a long jet-black robe. He checked that I was more or less the same as when he’d left, then held something out to me. “Take it.” It was a somewhat large billhook with a blade about a meter long. Blood clung to its wide black surface, and strangely, it appeared to have an odd glow. I took the blade as instructed. It was heavier than expected, with a terrible weight to it, and I staggered in spite of myself. When the lord saw me regrip it in both hands, he grunted and said, “We’re doing a test run. Come with me.” He didn’t seem to think anything was amiss. I exited the mansion with the lord, and my expression went blank as I was struck dumb by the sight that greeted me. I’d been bedridden for most of my life from a slowly debilitating mystery illness that tortured me with headaches, stomach cramps, and unceasing pain. The cause was unknown, and there was no available treatment. Not even the most famous doctors or mages could do anything about this incurable disease. I was barely ten when I stopped being able to stand on my own with any degree of steadiness, and for the few years from then until my death, my world consisted wholly of what I could see outside my bedroom window. I was ignorant and unworldly. Most of my knowledge was gleaned from the books I’d read while sick in bed. It had probably been over five years since I was last outdoors. But even I could tell that there was nothing normal about the lord’s mansion and its environs. The building was surrounded by an eerie forest so thick with vegetation that it appeared to be black. It seemed to be nighttime; the sky was dark, and a silver moon, close to being full, shone quietly in the sky. The estate was encircled by a metal fence, with long stakes on the upper portion so you couldn’t climb over it. The only existing gate looked strong and sturdy, and it was tightly shut. The lord stopped in front of me, frozen in place as I was, and raised a hand slightly. It was probably a signal, because quiet footsteps began to approach. Without turning in that direction, I sneaked a look out of the corner of my eye. What I saw made me want to cry out, but I managed to restrain myself. There were three wolves with jet-black fur. They must’ve been about half my size. With a bit of effort, I could probably ride them. The wolves fanned out as they approached the lord and gave low cries before stopping in their tracks. I could instinctively tell that these wolves—they were corpses. Actually, considering the lord’s profession, I should have assumed as much from the beginning. Their motions were lithe, and both their fangs and claws were visibly sharp, but upon closer inspection, their eyes were clouded over. It wasn’t strange for a necromancer to handle nonhuman corpses. Just as I thought… I couldn’t run away from the mansion. Even if I’d been able to escape that basement room, I’d never get far enough. Escaping without a plan would lead to definite capture. In these past few years, I hadn’t even walked properly, much less run. And if these wolves were dead like me, then I’d have no chance of outrunning them. The lord reached into an inside pocket and took out a key, then gave a short order. “Come, End. Show me your powers.” Show him…my powers? I don’t…have any powers. The billhook I’d been made to hold was heavy. If I were still alive, I’d have long since been unable to lift my arms. My silent objections were lost on him. I didn’t have the right to choose. The lord went outside, and I followed him without recourse. That nighttime forest, which I entered for the first time, was even creepier because I could see in the dark. The rustling of the wind, the cries of insects and animals—every part of it was terrifying. But the lord continued onward without hesitation down a path only he seemed to know about. Attended by the wolves at his sides, he gave off the impression of a king. No—he truly was a king. A king of the dead, served by the evil undead. And I, following behind, was no more than one of those servants. The forest showed very few signs of human intervention. Stumbling over the uneven footing, I made a desperate effort to keep up with the lord. Visibility was poor, thanks to the densely overgrown foliage and thickets. I could get stranded if I lost my way. For once, I was thankful for this body that didn’t know fatigue. I felt grateful for this inhuman flesh. But where was the lord going? What was his aim? After ten or twenty minutes of following him, I suddenly saw something shine out of the corner of my eye, from behind some bushes. The wolves on either side of the lord gave soft howls. The lord, sounding annoyed, murmured, “At last, they show up…” The bushes rustled, and a mass of black fur emerged. It was a wolf significantly larger than the ones following the lord, probably of the same species. Drooling, the pitch-black wolf directed its glaring eyes toward the lord and me. My body stiffened. This was, of course, my first time seeing a wolf in the wild. It might not have been a very worthy opponent for the lord, but I couldn’t say the same for me, someone with no experience moving his body around properly. The large black wolf didn’t immediately leap at me. Instead, it slowly began circling us, straightening up, never breaking its gaze. The lord, however, narrowed his eyes, barely reacting to the wild animal before him. After a moment, he said, “So many… Too many.” Those words finally made me realize that we were surrounded. Many pairs of eyes from all directions were staring at us. Fur black as night that blended in with the darkness; light movements that left no footfalls—it was a wolf pack. I’d forgotten that wolves were pack animals. If my body had been living, I probably would’ve collapsed from fright. But I’d already died. Without even registering shock on my face, I slowly took in our surroundings. Sixteen glowing eyes—meaning there were eight wolves. Over twice the number the lord had brought with him. However, while the lord’s expression was displeased, it was in no way fearful. The wolves tightened the circle. When the lord saw that, he simply snapped his fingers. The sorcerer, Horos Kamen, did nothing more. And his three corpse wolves leaped to attack. It felt like a nightmare. The wolf that had been protecting the lord’s right side charged to tackle the closest creature. The one to his left dug its fangs into the throat of another raging wolf, then ripped it apart. My eyes widened at the gruesome sight. We were outnumbered, but the lord’s wolves were stronger. The difference was so stark that even I, who had never been in a fight before, could tell that much. For one thing, the lord’s wolves were smaller than our foes, but the difference in their physical abilities was like night and day. The enemy’s movements were smooth and nimble, but the wolves the lord controlled were like black gusts of wind. For another, they didn’t hesitate to attack. They jumped straight at the wolves in front of them, unconcerned for their own bodies as they tore through and devoured their enemies. It felt as though they’d been programmed this way. Finally, they never let their movements slow. Even surrounded and slashed by claws, even bitten in the legs or the throat, they never flinched. In the end, they only stopped moving after killing five of the wolves in the pack, with the other three having fled deeper into the forest. The wolves gathered around the lord again, as though nothing had happened. Still, the sight didn’t inspire anything akin to loyalty within me. My eyes just bulged from their sockets at the strength—and the horror. It was said that necromancers were among the most wicked kinds of sorcerers in the world. I wasn’t exactly well versed on the topic, but necromancy, which manipulated and defiled the souls and remains of the dead, was universally taboo. In fairy tales and operas, necromancers were always the crazed antagonists. That was the extent of my knowledge, but after witnessing the power of necromancy firsthand, I understood exactly why that power was so hated, so cursed. It was altogether…blasphemous. I had no particular feelings for the wolves, but anyone would consider their master evil after witnessing the scene that had just unfolded. And perhaps I, having been resurrected by that very being, had become evil myself. Could I beat him…? Could I defeat this man, who desecrated the dead and defied the world? No—I had to defeat him. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t be long before I suffered the same fate as those pitiful wolves. The lord, inspecting the remains of the wolves his subordinates had killed, murmured, “Hmm… I don’t have enough nightwolves, but…I’ll leave these here. Let’s go.” Before, the lord had said At last. But were the nightwolves not his objective…? Still, when I thought about it, if the nightwolves had been his aim, he wouldn’t have had a reason to bring me along. He’d equipped me with a billhook but had yet to give any orders. I hadn’t even been commanded to stand in front of him and protect him nor to cut a path through the foliage. All he’d told me to do was come with him. We started walking through the forest again. There really were no signs of human life. I mulled it over: Maybe there were no people who entered the forest to begin with, but those wolves that appeared had been large. We probably weren’t anywhere near a town. We saw beasts frequently on our way through the woods. They, too, were hostile to people, and they attacked us. Maybe these were what people referred to as monsters: those creatures the lord had called nightwolves; monkeys twice my size wielding club-like objects; foxes veiled in blue flames; large boars the color of moss. I would’ve been helplessly killed by any of them, had I encountered them alone. The lord’s wolves, however, made quick work of them all. I simply watched in blank amazement. This was bad. This forest was far more dangerous than I’d imagined. Even if I could sneak past both the controlled wolves and the lord himself, and I got over the fence, I wouldn’t be able to get away. But I did learn a few things from walking along with the lord. My body, for example, obviously couldn’t feel tired, but it never even experienced a shred of pain, either. I couldn’t sense myself running out of stamina, and I didn’t need to breathe. Each of my senses seemed sharper than when I’d been human, too. It wasn’t much trouble to detect the beasts’ presence if I concentrated. This forest was deep, but there had to be a human settlement not far from it. No matter how talented of a sorcerer the lord was, he couldn’t have created that mansion using magic. Plus, he would need food and such, too. It was natural to assume at least a few people went in and out. As I organized my thoughts, I frantically followed, trying not to fall behind. And then the lord stopped once again. I heard the rustling of foliage before a large figure suddenly jumped out from among the trees. It was a bear. The bear was about half my height—maybe it was still a cub—but its developed limbs and long claws were fiendish all the same. The beasts that had appeared thus far had all been in packs, but this one seemed to be alone. It would be an easy opponent for the lord’s wolves. As I thought that, the lord surprised me and said, “Just one? …End, fight it.” …Huh? For a moment, I didn’t understand what he’d told me. Me? Fight? Given what I knew about necromancers, I should’ve anticipated this command. The undead are a necromancer’s weapons. I’d unconsciously blocked that out of my mind. I was weak and sickly. I’d never even been in a fight with a person, much less with a beast. My body wasn’t built for combat. I didn’t know how to fight. I looked at the billhook hanging from my hand. I couldn’t do it. The enemy might have been small, but it was still a bear. There was no way someone who had never gone through any training, someone without any redeeming qualities, could ever win against a bear and all the strength it possessed. The bear looked ready to rip me to shreds. Even seeing the lord’s wolves, stained in the blood of their kills, the creature made no moves to withdraw. I had a billhook, but the bear had claws. Sure, my body didn’t feel pain, but if this bear tore me apart, I wouldn’t be able to move. And was a billhook even a weapon? I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t fight this thing. When the lord saw my indecision as well as me not bringing my billhook to the ready, he said with a dubious expression, “What’s the matter? This is an order. Fight with everything you’ve got and kill it.” The command rattled my mind. I broke into a run. By the time I was aware of what I was doing, the bear was already close. My body was moving on its own. All my fear and hesitation was cast aside, and in that moment, I became a helpless observer of my own body. The hand gripping the billhook swung in a wide arc upward, then back down at the bear. In response to my sudden assault, the bear raised its front legs and took the hit. The blade dug deeply into its left foreleg. It severed flesh, and I felt the sensation of the blade striking bone. The bear roared, then charged at me headfirst, ignoring its wound. The impact shot through my whole body. I heard something tear and pop inside me. Lethal noises I’d never heard before. But my hand didn’t let go of the billhook, and I didn’t feel pain. My head moved. Without even any time to scream, I leaned forward and bit the bear on the ear. The tremendous odor of the beast pierced my thoughts, and the feeling of tough flesh and fur between my teeth made me want to vomit. My teeth shattered, and I heard an awful noise come from my jaw. The bear swung its head and drove me away. A piece of the ear I’d bitten off dropped from my mouth. The nausea and the odor both vanished from my senses immediately. In that instant, I had undoubtedly turned into a horror—one from which all would avert their eyes. My left hand moved without delay, thrusting at the right eye of the bear, which had taken a step back. Without time to feel my fingers penetrating something soft, the bear’s left front leg stuck my outstretched arm. I heard the crack of the creature’s bones breaking. The fractured leg was now protruding from my left arm. My fingertips, which I had thrust out with all my might, were broken, too. But I still felt no pain. My fingers, which had pierced the bear’s eyeballs, continued obeying the lord’s command. The bear was very powerful. Much more powerful than someone like me. I was frail to begin with—I could try until I was blue in the face and never defeat it. However, the lord’s command was far stronger. Even the most ferocious, violent magical beasts felt pain. But not me. My right hand forced the halfway-buried billhook out of the bear’s body. Blood splattered, and the bear gave a loud roar, like a wail. My vision wavered—maybe my spine had broken, too. That didn’t seem to bother me, though. My arm raised the billhook high overhead, and then, at full force as the lord commanded, I swung the blade straight toward the bear’s thick neck. At last, the bear screamed in pain and collapsed. I simply swung the billhook down again as hard as I could. The blade, its downswing not tempered in the slightest, tore through the bear’s dense fur and carved into its flesh. Blood spewed from the creature’s wounds, but my hand didn’t stop. My body was acting on its own. I was able to tell that much in my withdrawn state. The splattering blood covered my face and my eyes. But there was no pain. Actually—if I could still feel pain, I’d have been in excruciating agony right then. My arms were slender. They’d never held anything heavy, nor had they ever wielded a sword. Were my skinny arms even able to slice through the thick skin and the flesh of a wild beast? Would my jaw, which had never eaten much aside from mush, have been able to bite through a magical beast’s flesh, albeit only partway? Normally, that’d be impossible. Against a bear, I’d lose ten times out of ten. It wasn’t worth consideration. Even if I got in a lucky strike, that wouldn’t be enough to kill a bear. But right now, I was witnessing the exact opposite scene. The bear was still twitching and spasming. The billhook I’d been given had deeply wounded its flesh and even reached the bone. That had clearly been a fatal wound. How was I able to defeat this brawny beast? I guessed the main reason from the disconcerting impacts and sounds coming each time I swung the billhook down. “Enough. It is dead. Stop.” My arm, moving like it had been broken, stopped at the lord’s command. I wasn’t out of breath. No exhaustion or pain, either. No such things existed for the undead. I looked at my right arm. It was so engorged with blood that I worried it would rot and fall off in mere moments. As far as I had seen, my right arm hadn’t been struck. The damage was likely recoil from slamming the billhook into the bear as hard as I could. If I’d had a sense of pain, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up the attack. I wouldn’t have been able to put any strength into it, at least. That was the sort of wound this was. And that wasn’t all. The head-butt I’d taken in the gut when we’d first clashed and the swipe of its thick leg on my left arm had been so powerful that, if I’d been alive, they would have neutralized me in one hit. Bone protruded from my left arm, and my fingers, which had dug through the creature’s brain, were broken in unthinkable directions. I could attack with all my power without having to worry about injury, pain, or fatigue. Most likely, that was the main strength of the undead. But that didn’t mean there had been zero damage. The wounds the lord’s wolves had sustained on the way here still remained as well. My body no longer felt any of the agony that had once tormented it. Personally, that was an even greater shock than when I’d realized I’d been reborn as an undead. Also…would these wounds heal? My body was, without a doubt, not living. So what was it like to be undead…? After shooting a quick glance at the bear’s remains, the lord scrutinized me from head to toe and frowned. “So that was all… No, he did all this with a body of one who died from disease. I suppose that makes him exceptional. Even if I cannot use him now, I should make him to be useful for later. It would be premature to ascertain his talents now…” Such cruel remarks after he’d forced me into combat. The lord sighed, then touched the staff in his hand to my bloodied body. He muttered a short incantation. It was different from the healing spells holy mages had used on me so many times when I was bedridden. “Come forth from the abyss and grant your negative power to the one whose time has stopped, to this living dead. Reverse Force.” The tip of his staff glowed with a purple light, and an eerie shiver rushed through my wounds. The blood congestion in my right arm healed instantly, and my broken left arm snapped back into its former position. The bones inside me squirmed, returning to their rightful forms. My jaw was repaired, and my shattered teeth were intact once again. I had heard, in the past, that healing magic was a highly difficult type of magic. That you need enormous sums of money to completely heal even broken bones. I wasn’t sure if healing magic for the undead was just as difficult, but now I knew that the lord was a superb mage. Magic usage was supposedly extremely exhausting, but the lord wasn’t out of breath in the slightest. He definitely didn’t strike me as an ordinary person, something I’d already predicted from how he lived so deep in a forest like this one. After checking that my wounds had healed without issue, he told me with an unamused expression, “We’ll search for the next one. End, come with me.” By the time the day was over, I had been forced to fight a total of fifty-four terrifying magical beasts. After the battles, I hastily washed myself off with water before the lord brought me back to the basement room. It seemed that, in general, I would be left here. I guess I was sort of like a sword to a swordfighter. This wasn’t a bad thing. With the lord gone, in that quiet room in the basement, I had a sickening amount of time to think. I knew my own status fairly well by this point: My body moved. I didn’t feel any fatigue or pain. I could see in the dark. I was strong against the cold. This current body was superior in every way to my body when I was alive, but the one thing I’d have to be careful about was how I didn’t feel any pain, since I might not notice physical injuries. Furthermore, I’d learned that the lord was a formidable sorcerer and that he had several other powerful subordinates aside from me: the nightwolves and the walking human bones I saw on the way back here. Those must be skeletons—necromancers use them all the time in stories. I’d only caught a glimpse of those beings, but according to the stories I’d heard, necromancers commanded legions of undead. It was safe to assume he controlled other such creatures as well. And I’d have to take the man’s combat abilities into account, too. But the most important thing was the lord’s goal, and I didn’t know what that was. Why had he resurrected me, someone who was nothing more than a weak, sickly carcass? If he wanted a bodyguard, he would have had many other, better choices. And the thing that had me curious above all else was the disparity between the lord’s assumptions and my current situation. I waited awhile after the lord was gone, then began to move again. Without making a sound, I went to the door, then carefully gripped the knob. The door creaked, which surprised me, but the lord showed no signs of returning. I gently applied more pressure. The door, which at first wouldn’t budge even a hair, quietly and easily opened. My eyes widened as my right hand grabbed the doorframe. And then, slowly, I took a step outside the room. The sole of my foot touched the floor. …I knew it. I could get out. I was powerless when I’d been made to wait here the first time, but now I could escape. So what was the difference between then and now? This time, when the lord put me here, he hadn’t given me a command. He’d omitted the order not to leave the room that he’d doled out the first time. So right now, I wasn’t bound by any orders and could freely exit the room. It almost felt like my heart pounded, even though my pulse had stopped. This was the disparity I’d wondered about—the difference between the lord’s assumptions and my current situation. The lord had never assumed there was any chance of me running away. He couldn’t possibly have just forgotten to give the command. A sorcerer who controlled the dead wouldn’t be that careless. That first command had, in all likelihood, been an exception. It hadn’t been especially purposeful. He’d probably said those words without much of a reason. And why hadn’t he assumed I might run away? If I had a working heart, it probably would have been pounding away from nerves. I thanked my past self. I’d been fortunate. Incredibly lucky that, when I’d first awoken, I hadn’t said anything to the lord. Thinking back, whenever the lord had spoken, it had sounded like he was talking to himself. Even when he was giving me commands…it never felt like he was seeking my own desires. I pulled my foot back in, then gently shut the door and returned to where I’d been standing moments earlier. It’d be far too reckless to walk around the mansion just yet. I needed to at least learn what the lord’s daily routine looked like. If my guess was correct…the lord didn’t yet know that I was self-aware. It was still only an assumption on my part, but I doubted it was that far off the mark, considering how he had to confirm that language worked on me and that he’d never heard me say anything back to him. After all, if he found out I was self-aware, he was sure to give me a command that he’d meant to give from the start. I couldn’t let him catch on. I hung my hands at my sides, making myself still as a statue. I’d get myself out of this no matter what it took. If I decided to turn against the lord, the more cards I had in my hand, the better. And so began my new life. My role was an aide to Lord Horos. My main job was to protect him when he went outside—and to hunt. The lord made me hunt magical beasts, then created new undead from their remains. I got used to it. Battling had been awkward at first, but I became more efficient at defeating enemies the more I did it. I no longer had to resort to barbaric methods like biting. My body had no pain, no weariness, and to top it all off, the lord provided the perfect backup. Even an amateur wouldn’t have lost with the table set so nicely for them. And through those battles, I learned that the lord excelled in more than just commanding undead and performing healing magic—he also boasted impressive attack magic. When I would mess up and let a magical beast through, he would destroy it without a care. And without even leaving a trace, at that. Nor did he show any emotion when I made such mistakes. It was then that I realized once again how terrible magic could be. The lord didn’t even consider the magical beasts in this forest to be enemies. He was clearly stronger than me. When I thought about it logically, he never would have built a mansion in a forest full of monsters he couldn’t handle himself, but unconsciously, I’d gotten caught up thinking the elderly sorcerer was poor at combat. As things stood, however…it wouldn’t be possible to kill him by using magical beasts to my advantage. In fact, at the current stage, I didn’t know what would happen to me if I killed him. In fairy tales, the undead who lost their master didn’t disappear—they were cursed to wander the world for all eternity. But the truth was a mystery to me. After a week had passed, I’d become able to defeat nightwolves one-on-one mostly unscathed. I felt I’d gotten a lot better at using my billhook, too. The trick to landing a mortal wound was to utilize the full force of my body. Now that I knew I wouldn’t die very easily, I’d been slowly growing bolder with how I used my body. I could probably do a flip now. Though I wouldn’t, at least not without an order. As I stood before a nightwolf, its head split open and brains splattered across the ground, the lord, his expression puzzled, murmured, “Hmm… I was uneasy at first, but… It seems this corpse is doing quite well…” “……” I didn’t answer with words. But he was right—there was something out of place. My arm, which had swung the billhook with all my might, wasn’t engorged like when I’d fought the first time. Back then, I’d injured my arm in large part due to using so much force out of fear, uncertainty, and the power of the lord’s command. But even taking that into consideration… Was I supposed to be able to kill nightwolves unharmed after a week? My flesh was frail. I’d been bedridden for years before I’d died, and I thought my whole body had atrophied: my muscles, naturally, but also my bones, skin, organs—everything. No matter how good I’d gotten at wielding such incredible strength thanks to the lord’s power, a weak foundation should have meant I’d have limits. I highly doubted I had any hidden warrior talents. My current body was dead. And if I was dead, I wasn’t supposed to be able to grow physically. I was still an adolescent, but I never ate, so my atrophied muscles wouldn’t have gone back to normal by now. However… I had certainly gotten stronger. Not just experientially, but physically. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be capable of slaughtering magical beasts like a seasoned warrior in just a week. The lord watched me for a short time in silence, but then he muttered: “…Is he close to mutating into a ghoul? No, it’s early…too early. But that isn’t a bad thing…” A ghoul… I’d heard of them before. As far as I knew, they were undead who ate human corpses. But that was the extent of my knowledge. The lord’s mutterings were my only sources of information. Perhaps…it was time to act. Staring down at the lord’s wrinkled forehead, I hardened my resolve. It would be dangerous, but I doubted that patience was the answer here. In fact, if I really was close to this so-called mutation, I needed to know the details of it before it happened. I would explore the mansion. The lord was a sorcerer and a scientist. The room in which he resurrected me—his laboratory—contained several books in addition to those countless strange tools. It was far too dangerous to barge in there, but there had to be something else, somewhere else, that could explain my current situation. I’d grown used to counting. A clock would’ve been nice to have at times like these. But even without being aware of the precise hour and minute of the day, I already knew what Lord Horos’s daily routine looked like. Or rather, I knew when he came to this room. He always visited the morgue after night fell. To date, there had been no exceptions. If my counting was accurate, he came once a day, no matter what, after the sun went down, and took me into the nighttime forest for hunting. The amount of time we spent hunting varied, but we returned to the mansion before dawn broke, and he put me away in the morgue. At first, he’d escort me back here, but more recently, he’d simply order me to return—maybe he’d gotten tired of walking me all the way day in and day out. Aside from hunting time, he never visited. I knew little regarding the undead, but among the few nuggets of knowledge I had was the fact that they disliked sunlight. That was probably why the lord only took me hunting at night. I didn’t know what the lord did during the daytime. Still, although he was a superior sorcerer, he was also human. He wasn’t like me, who didn’t require sleep. In all likelihood, while I wasn’t in use, he was getting the sleep and food I didn’t need—and performing normal bodily functions. As far as I’d observed, there were only two living beings in this huge mansion, including him. I needed to be cautious around both, but the lord warranted special attention. If he found me, my plans would be ruined. But he wasn’t being cautious with me, which meant that if I moved carefully, I would definitely be able to slip past his watch. I left the morgue softly and cautiously so as not to make any sounds and looked up the staircase. Aside from certain rooms, the mansion had almost no lighting whatsoever. What few windows existed were all boarded up with wooden planks that blocked most light from entering, but that didn’t pose an issue for my vision. The mansion had a lot of blind corners, so as long as I proceeded with discretion, I wouldn’t have to worry about being found. That was what I told myself anyway, as I clenched my fists and focused my mind. It wasn’t until I became undead that I learned just how noisy living bodies were. The beating of a heart. The sound of breathing. It may have seemed odd, but my senses in this corpse body, which produced none of that, were far sharper than they had been in my lifetime. If I focused hard enough, I could probably even hear someone else’s breathing. Then, after taking a deep breath out of old habit and steeling my nerves, I took my first step toward true freedom. Carefully, I walked through the mansion veiled in darkness. I was looking for a study or a library—any place that would contain written documents regarding my current state. Fortunately, I could read. Reading had been my only pleasure after I’d been confined to a bed. The only language I could read was Latisian, the official language of my home country. But Latisian was used far and wide, and the lord spoke it, so I could get by on that one language alone without issue. In any event, I just wanted information. I didn’t care what it was. For starters, I decided to check places far from the laboratory-like room the lord was always occupying. Unlike where I’d lived before my death, this mansion lacked any sort of decor. There were no carpets, nor were there any flowers growing in pots. But that was enough to give the place a somehow inorganic feel. There was nothing to absorb sound, so I had to be careful with my footing. But that would hardly be a problem—because my feet weren’t the only things making noise. When I shut my eyes, I could hear the echoes of hard, rhythmic footsteps. Not just one set of footsteps, either. The mansion’s only residents were the lord and one servant, but that count didn’t include the nonliving. This building had endless security measures, among them corpse guards. This was Lord Horos’s castle, so to speak. A dark castle in which resided the king of the dead. The corpse guards had a measured quality to their footsteps, and they weren’t trying to hide the noise, either, so I could hear them clearly even at a distance. Their footsteps were coming from up ahead and behind. I couldn’t run away. I squatted at the edge of the hallway and waited patiently in hiding. I didn’t panic. I simply bided my time, prepared to bolt at any moment. As I’d predicted, walking bones appeared suddenly from the shadows, their coloring leaden in the darkness. The light armor they wore over only their vital areas and the swords they carried set them apart from normal human bones, as did the fact that they were moving despite having no minds or hearts. Their armor scraped against their bones, producing a soft clattering. There were two of them, walking down the hallway side by side as if to block it off. The sight of them walking, with no blood, or flesh, or hearts, was both cruelly unnatural and detestable. If I’d run into them while I was still alive, the shock might have stopped my heart. These were undead creatures the fairy tales called skeletons. But given their armaments—swords, shields, and armor—perhaps skeleton knights was a more accurate term. I’d been going hunting with the lord for a little over a week, and in that time, I’d met the skeleton knights several times. I’d been made to spar against them once, too. Contrary to their appearance, skeleton knights were nimble and possessed expert sword skills. I had the edge in strength and weight only; they weren’t the kind of opponents I could handle as I was now. Though I couldn’t feel pain, sustaining physical wounds still slowed me down. Each individual skeleton knight was different from the next, so I might have been able to manage against one, but against two at once, they’d cut me apart, and then it would be over. Even if, by some miracle, I defeated two of these skeleton knights, there was no guarantee that no other foes awaited me. It was nearly impossible to elude the skeleton knights who perpetually patrolled the hallways. Like me, they never got tired or slept. That made them perfect to protect an evil sorcerer’s mansion from outside enemies. But if my idea was correct, there was no need to worry. Either way, I had to figure this out eventually. The skeleton knights stopped, and their heads swiftly turned to look down at me. I made myself as small as possible and stopped moving. One second felt like ten—no, a hundred. The skeleton knights continued to stare at me with their vacant eye sockets but soon looked away as though they’d lost interest…and started walking again. Out of habit, I sighed in relief, then loosened up. I’d figured they wouldn’t attack me. That wasn’t to say the skeleton knights couldn’t see me, though. It was simpler than that—they were my undead comrades, and they had been ordered not to hurt me. The first skeleton knight I’d ever encountered had tried attacking me out of the blue before the lord commanded it not to. Ever since then, they’d been stubbornly obeying that command. I couldn’t tell whether the skeleton knights were intelligent like me, but from the way they acted, it didn’t seem like they had minds of their own. Considering one had assaulted me even though I was with the lord, they must have been essentially puppets, faithfully following everything their lord told them. One of the advantages I had in the lord’s mansion was—ironically enough—that I was an undead. Because of that, his underlings wouldn’t attack me. What I had to be careful of were those who definitely had intelligence: the lord himself and the one other living person here. Running into the former would spell my doom, but not the latter. If the lord found out that I was walking about on my own, he would realize he hadn’t given me enough orders. If that happened, he would doubtlessly either kill me or at the very least give me additional commands to prevent me from wandering around. That was the one thing I absolutely had to avoid. I’d cleared the first hurdle. Slowly, I stood up and checked once again to make sure I couldn’t sense the lord anywhere nearby. And then, I decided to place my hand on the nearest door. One by one, I carefully opened the doors, checking inside the rooms. Fortunately, the doors in this mansion were not generally locked. I knew that the lord locked his laboratory, at least, whenever we went out hunting, but he probably didn’t bother with any of the other ones. Come to think of it, he’d never locked the basement room’s door, either. Most likely because the lord considered himself the absolute ruler of this mansion. None here would disobey Horos Kamen. Whether living or dead, all those residing in the mansion were his underlings. Necromancers violated taboos and had many enemies, but these skeleton knights would handle any intruders. I didn’t know their exact number, but there must have been dozens of knights patrolling the mansion. Even having them patrol in teams of two seemed a bit excessive. I didn’t have any lock-picking skills. If I came across a locked door, I’d have to think of another way in. Most of the rooms showed little sign of recent use. They had furniture but no sense of life, and when I tried opening some drawers, I found them empty. They hadn’t been cleaned, either; running a finger along the edge lifted off a thin layer of dust. Apparently, that one servant of his wasn’t doing any housecleaning. That said, it was probably hard to maintain a mansion this big single-handedly. Maybe this servant only cleaned the rooms that got used. The undead didn’t use them. This was far too big a building for just two people to live in. Even a brief look from outside revealed that this mansion was considerably large. Suppressing my fretfulness at not finding anything, I continued my search. I’d already gotten pretty far away from the lord’s laboratory. …Assuming there was something like a library or a study, what was the likelihood of it being near the laboratory? The sudden idea made me stop. When I really thought about it, if I was in the lord’s position, I’d put the library near my room for convenience’s sake. But wandering near the laboratory ran the risk of getting caught. There was no bed in there. No matter how evil a sorcerer he was, he almost certainly wasn’t sleeping on the floor. He’d move to another room for that. I wondered if I should go back to the laboratory, but it would all be over the moment I coincidentally bumped into him. A single mistake would mean my death—or the loss of my freedom. I needed to save any risky activities as a last resort. Just then, I suddenly saw a faint light down the hallway. The pattering of footsteps echoed toward me. Only a few people in the lord’s residence used lights. It was Lou, the one other living being in this mansion. Lou was the lord’s servant girl—a slave. The magical collar around her neck was proof of her bondage. She took care of the lord’s needs and assisted with experiments. I always saw her being yelled at and beaten. There was no reason to panic. I quietly opened a door next to me, then hid inside the room.