Exemplary Necromancer (4)
Recalling the scene from just a moment ago, Alius clicked his tongue in disbelief.
'How on earth can they fight like that?'
It wasn't that they displayed superhuman skill. Their abilities were far from the transcendent power of an aura user who had awakened their fighting spirit, or a high-level mage.
'The strength of their swordsmanship and magic itself is clearly ordinary.'
What was extraordinary was simply their sheer experience.
They anticipated and dodged every attack, struck precisely at every visible weakness, and did all of this repeatedly without a single mistake—all while showing not an ounce of tension.
How much combat experience would one need to pull off something like that?
'And they're both still in their twenties. At best, they're my age. Where did they even gain that much experience?'
Even Alius, despite having more experience than most for his age, hadn't reached that level.
'Could they be hiding their true power?'
It didn't add up. Besides, why would anyone who wanted to hide their abilities openly display such practiced, flawless combat? Ridiculous.
There was only one conclusion.
They were still young, hadn't awakened their fighting spirit, and had relatively low magical reserves—but their talent was immense, and their combat instincts alone made feats like that possible!
'Wow… even I was considered a prodigy in the church…'
Alius had been modest outwardly, but he knew his own abilities. What came easily to him was nearly impossible for others.
Even so, these two possessed talent so remarkable that it could provoke jealousy.
'The Zestrad Baron family, was it?'
These were not people meant to languish in some rural domain.
In times of growing chaos, talented individuals were always in short supply.
'When I return to the church, I need to recognize them immediately.'
Lost in thought for a moment, Alius was then nudged back to reality.
"Excuse me, priest?"
Baros leaned on Cleo's prone form, urging him.
"So, what now? Kill him, or spare him?"
Alius shook himself awake.
'Now's not the time to be distracted.'
He stepped forward, pointing his staff at the fallen Cleo.
"I'll take care of this."
Light began to radiate from the tip of his staff. Cleo, pinned underfoot, struggled in terror.
"Ugh… ugh…"
Ignoring him, Alius pressed the radiance against Cleo.
"Kuh-aaah!"
Screams tore from Cleo as his veins turned a dark red. His skin split, and a black energy surged upward.
The black energy coalesced in midair, drawn into the vial Alius had prepared.
Moments later, all the power had vanished.
Baros and Karnak glanced at Cleo. By now, he was dead.
"Just as expected."
Alius, having poured holy light into the vial, spoke with certainty.
"This is the Darkness of the End."
Karnak smiled faintly.
'Ah, so that's how it's done. A valuable lesson.'
He had witnessed firsthand how a cleric could seal necromantic power. It was an important acquisition of knowledge.
Meanwhile, Baros looked worried.
[Is this really okay? Don't we need that too? Looks like we're just letting it be taken.]
[It's fine. Everything's prepared.]
[Prepared?]
At that moment, from a corner of the corridor, a dark tentacle shot out, aiming for Alius.
Fwoosh!
"Ah! There's still a trap…"
Alius spun in alarm, but his reaction was slightly slow.
The tentacle quickly wrapped around his neck.
"Guh! Ugh…"
Through his dimming vision, he saw Karnak rushing forward.
"Priest!"
Even as he neared unconsciousness, Alius felt relief.
The necromancer had already been dealt with, so they could handle this.
'Good thing I'm not alone…'
Once Alius fully fainted, the tentacle released him. Karnak's shocked expression shifted instantly to one of control.
"Done."
Baros looked incredulous.
"When did you even set this up?"
"Isn't setting up traps while doing other things the true job of a necromancer?"
"Even so… what if they got suspicious?"
Baros muttered to himself, scanning the surroundings.
"Well, I suppose there's little chance of that."
The Darkness of the End was sealed in the vial, but the remaining necromantic energy still swirled through the corridor. And setting traps everywhere was one of the necromancer's specialties.
"From his perspective, this just looks like the necromancer's trick…"
"There's an even bigger reason."
Karnak drew a small amount of chaos mana.
"Look—magic, see?"
"Magic? So what?"
"I'm a mage, remember? I work with mana."
Only then did Baros understand.
"Oh, that makes sense."
Fred, being less perceptive, had seen Karnak using necromancy and thought, 'He's just hiding his identity!'—but Alius was a high-ranking cleric.
While a necromancer could pretend to be a mage in front of ordinary people, that disguise wouldn't work in front of a cleric.
Moreover, mana, fighting spirit, divine power, and necromantic energy were mutually exclusive. That was common sense.
"And here's a man who just saw me use mana—why would he suspect anything? Technically it's chaos mana, but the difference is negligible."
Karnak pulled the black vial from the fallen Alius and smirked.
"Now we can investigate it and put it back—perfect crime."
Episode 26. 7. Exemplary Necromancer (Continued)
"Then… let's see."
Karnak focused his mind as he infused chaos mana into the darkness sealed within the vial.
Baros, watching, asked:
"Are you sure this scrap is yours, Master?"
"Yep."
"Lucky, huh? That the necromancer we found is exactly the one we were looking for."
"Not luck," Karnak shrugged.
"It's only natural."
In a past life, necromancers were extremely rare, appearing like beans scattered in a drought.
But now, because of the Darkness of the End, they were sprouting up everywhere like mushrooms after rain.
"Imagine a space with ten stones, and someone dumps ten thousand more stones in and mixes them all up. If you pick one at random, what are the odds it's one of the original ten?"
Almost all of the people now pretending to be necromancers were connected to the Darkness of the End.
"Even the original stones are gradually disappearing."
Karnak revealed a fact learned during his investigation: Cleo had pursued necromancy even before the calamity began.
Originally, he was a pure necromancer, but after killing another who possessed the Darkness of the End, he absorbed that power.
"Even an ordinary necromancer would naturally prioritize hunting the Darkness of the End in this situation. It's just too tempting a target."
Given that, it was questionable whether any necromancers unconnected to the Darkness of the End even remained.
After explaining, Karnak focused again. Impatiently, Baros asked once more:
"So… did you find anything?"
"Well, we at least know what this guy's been up to…"
According to the residual consciousness, Cleo had been serving as a member of a cult worshipping Tesranac after acquiring the Darkness of the End.
"Tesranac?"
Baros frowned. It was a name he'd never heard before.
"Yeah. Supposedly a god of death."
"Does that even make sense?"
There had once been a figure known as a death god.
Karnak himself.
Though clearly human—or at least formerly human—he had been given such a grandiose title.
According to the doctrine of the Seven Goddesses, death and darkness were not domains overseen by any goddess.
Darkness was simply the absence of the light goddess's blessing, and night was the fearful time when monsters and beasts roamed.
Thus, the sun goddess drove away darkness to turn night into day, and the goddess of the moon and stars guided humans with light even through the night.
Death, meanwhile, was an inevitable fate for ordinary humans.
Those who followed the Seven Goddesses would be gathered into their paradise after death, freed from suffering.
Those who died without divine blessing would have their souls cast into hell overrun by demons.
Death and darkness were not independent phenomena—they were merely the absence of life and light.
"But you're saying there's a separate god of death and darkness?"
"Apparently, the cultists believe that."
According to their doctrine, Tesranac was a god of death and rebirth who spread the Darkness of the End, purifying a corrupt and false world through death, and then ushering in a new paradise.
Baros snorted.
"So basically, this Tesranac is the one behind this calamity?"
"Seems that way."
Karnak sighed in disbelief.
"Really… they'll just attach anything to their story. Inventing a god that doesn't even exist…"
From his perspective, it was utterly absurd.
"But I can't really say it isn't true either, so I suppose we just go along with it?"
"Exactly."
Further investigation yielded little. The information remained fragmented, and it would take many more samples of the Darkness of the End to fully grasp the situation.
But Karnak was not disappointed—he had expected this.
"We've gotten plenty this time, so we should be satisfied."
Drawing chaos mana from the darkness in the vial, Karnak smiled broadly.
"Just as expected. With a cleric's help, it becomes incredibly easy."
"Easy… what?"
"Refining chaos mana."
Chaos mana was purified necromantic energy—essentially, sealed necromantic power.
In theory, using a cleric's divine power made refining chaos mana much simpler and more straightforward!
"But you'd need a way to test it."
Inviting a cleric and saying, "I'll use necromancy now; please purify it with your divine power," would yield perfect results.
This was the main reason Karnak had worked alongside Alius: to observe exactly how divine power purifies necromantic energy and learn how to apply that method to refine chaos mana.
Pulling all the chaos mana from the dark vial, Karnak's expression was one of satisfaction.
"Now I know exactly what to do."
He had filled gaps in his knowledge and more than doubled his magical reserves. He had gained a lot without much effort.
"With this, I could even pass as a 4th-circle mage."
Baros looked at the unconscious Alius and asked:
"So… we'll be bringing him along from now on?"
And knock him out every time like this?
That seemed a bit much.
Even a fool would start to suspect if this happened repeatedly.
"Of course we won't do it every time."
Karnak shook his head.
"Divine power isn't exclusive to clerics."
In the world, not only people but also objects can possess divine power.
Holy relics were just that.
"Holy relics may sound impressive, but in reality, they're surprisingly common."
Items sold by the church—holy water, talismans, protective charms—counted as holy relics. They were just so common that people didn't think of them as such.
"Then I'll gather all the holy relics I can and use them to refine mana. Things will be a lot easier from now on."
Having drained both information and magical energy, there was no further use for the vial of darkness.
Karnak returned the vial to Alius's arms.
Even if Alius checked it, he wouldn't notice anything unusual.
The negative energy and corruption remained intact, and the idea of extracting mana from necromantic energy was normally beyond imagination.
"To put it in perspective, it's like extracting nutrients from waste—hardly something anyone would think of, right?"
Baros wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"Isn't that analogy… way too gross?"
"Necromancy is just that dirty a technique. Especially in the eyes of clerics."
"So we're really that disgusting?"
"Do you think we've gone around earning all the world's hatred for no reason?"
Now, the only thing left was to wake up the unconscious Alius.
After a brief pause to compose himself, Karnak began shaking Alius urgently, acting full of concern and worry.
"Cleric! Are you all right, Cleric!"
"Ugh…."
With a faint groan, Alius slowly opened his eyes.
Relieved, Karnak let out a sigh.
"Thank goodness, you're safe."
Baros, observing the scene, couldn't help but feel a mix of frustration and admiration.
"Wow… he can act so convincingly without even wetting his lips?"
"Control your expression, Baros!"
"Ah, yes!"
With Cleo dead, the necromantic spell over Gelfa Village was broken.
The townspeople, freed from the illusion, realized the contradictions in their memories and were horrified.
"Oh my… why did we think that person looked young?"
"Why did we think he was handsome?"
"Even the church cleric was under a necromantic spell?"
Thankfully, Alius's quick follow-up actions calmed the fear.
First, he coordinated with the village church.
The church hadn't been idle—they had been suspicious of Cleo all along. So Father Grass secretly invited Alius to deal with Cleo.
This is how they presented the situation publicly.
Trust in the church was thus restored.
Additionally, the villagers had not suffered any real harm.
Cleo had definitely been preparing to capture village maidens as sacrifices. He even distributed money to curry favor in preparation for the ritual.
But he was caught by Alius right before performing the sacrifice.
From the perspective of Gelfa Village, he had just collected money and left with nothing—so to speak.
"Phew, that could have been a disaster."
"We'll need to be more careful from now on."
Though the atmosphere remained a bit tense, the village returned to relative stability.
After finishing the cleanup, Alius set out for Derat City with Karnak and Baros.
On the way, he asked them questions.
"Where did you two learn swordsmanship and magic?"
"You seemed very experienced in combat. Is the Zestrad barony particularly rough?"
"Have you ever fought a necromancer before?"
He clearly seemed very interested.
After all, their performance had been impressive.
Karnak replied casually, keeping the conversation smooth by mixing truth and lies.
"Fortunately, I had the chance to inherit the techniques of a former court mage. Sir Baros studied Delphiad swordsmanship."
"Our territory can be rough, so we encounter monsters often."
"Recently, a necromancer fled to our lands and we had to borrow the power of the Latiel Order to handle him."
Finally, they arrived at Derat City, and it was time to part ways.
"Are you two returning to your lands now?"
Karnak shook his head.
"No, we'll be staying in Derat City for a while."
"I see."
Alius gave a graceful bow and a long farewell.
"May Hatoba's blessing guide your journey."
Watching him disappear into the distance, Baros muttered casually.
"You think we'll see that cleric again? He seemed pretty interested in us."
"Making connections with the Seven Goddesses' church can't hurt. Things have changed anyway."
They'd still need to continue hunting the Darkness of the End. The more sources of information, the better.
Karnak turned back to focus.
"Now, let's get back to our work."
Baros followed enthusiastically.
"Yes! Let's finish checking out the remaining food spots!"
"Hey, remember our main purpose is searching for the Darkness of the End."
"So? Are you saying we shouldn't eat?"
"Of course we eat—it's food."