Chapter 15: Death Knight (1)
15
“Phew.”
It had been a week since Heinkel and Garrison had clashed.
The servants were still cleaning up the traces of the collision between Heinkel and Garrison.
‘If it hadn’t been Arin, I would’ve really died.’
A single clash, and then a standoff.
Seeing the damage that brief moment had inflicted on the mansion made the reality of it sink in anew.
‘I got through the immediate situation, and there were gains, but an even greater risk factor has appeared.’
Even as I walked into the room, my thoughts did not stop.
Among the Holy Order, there were only three proxies.
And among them, the judge who boasted the greatest strength through sheer martial power alone—Priest Garrison Bierkman.
Given that that insane priest bastard had set his sights on me, it was only natural that my head felt complicated.
“Welcome back.”
As I entered the room, Dunkel greeted me.
“Yeah. What about what I asked for?”
“The medical texts and anatomy theory books have arrived. The remaining items should arrive by tomorrow.”
“Good. Now it finally feels like I can really get started.”
Answering Dunkel, I sat down at the desk set up in the corner of the room.
My room, once filled with luxurious furniture and decorations, was now crammed with theories, formulas, and research notes I had recorded over the past week.
“Head Butler Burkman was really shocked!”
Arin spoke as she placed the newly arrived books on my desk.
“Shocked? About what?”
When I asked that, Arin—who had been picking up cookies beside me—spoke.
She’d already taken three.
No, was it four?
“He said it’s the first time he’s ever seen Young Master work this hard!”
“Hah, so that’s what he was going on about.”
I brought the black tea to my lips and reviewed the notes I had gathered yesterday.
‘Do I really look like I wouldn’t be excited? There’s so much new stuff.’
I acted as if it were nothing, but every time I saw the growing pile of new books, the corners of my mouth lifted despite myself.
‘Being able to obtain knowledge this comfortably—what an incredible luxury.’
To learn a single formula, I had become a servant of the Mage Tower and worked like a dog.
To obtain a single torn page of a grimoire, I had schemed in every way imaginable—and once, while stealing it, I even lost a finger.
Unless you were from a mage’s lineage or a noble house, knowledge and scholarship had been things you couldn’t even approach.
But unlike back then, now I could access knowledge in any field I wanted.
‘As expected, this hypothesis was wrong. The correlation between the mana circulation system and human blood vessels was already refuted….’
On top of that, the time that had passed since my death was two hundred years.
Facts newly discovered in the meantime, newly proposed hypotheses, new theories of mana circuits.
For the first time since reincarnating, a sense of exhilaration sent my mind spinning wildly.
“But still, why are you collecting so many anatomy books? And this one, too….”
Dunkel asked as he looked at the various books already stacked like a tower, and I replied while reviewing the formula written on white parchment.
“It’s a spirit-body construction formula.”
“Spirit-body… construction formula?”
As Dunkel echoed my words, a smile naturally spread across my lips while I stared at the formula.
“You remember the skeletons I summoned, right?”
“Yes.”
Seeing Dunkel nod, I released demonic energy and drew a summoning circle in one corner of the room.
“Young Master, you’re using necromancy here…?”
“I’m not. If you call souls for something like this, you get bad dreams.”
Saying that, I opened the desk drawer.
“If I sprinkle this in here….”
As I spoke, I opened the box I took out from the desk and poured its contents out.
Fwoosh…!
What I poured out was sand imbued with mana—mana dust.
The gray powder floated into the air and, moving according to my formula, formed a sand doll shaped like a skeleton.
“Wow!”
Fascinated by the skeleton-shaped sand, Arin stared at it with sparkling eyes.
“The necromancy I use works by forming a contract with a soul through demonic energy, then using the mana possessed by that soul to create a spirit body.”
Looking at the skeleton’s form, Dunkel nodded.
“But most souls can’t move a spirit body more complex than a skeleton. They might have mana, but they haven’t formed a self strong enough.”
It had strength greater than a corpse, being a mana construct, but its structure was as simple as a wooden puppet.
It could carry out attack and defense commands, but when it encountered mana users like knights or mages, it inevitably collapsed helplessly.
‘In the end, Dalton couldn’t stop them, so I had to deal with it.’
Thinking back to the battle in the forest, I dismissed the summoning circle.
“But what if it weren’t an ordinary soul?”
“Not… an ordinary soul?”
Hearing Dunkel’s question, my smile deepened.
“What if that soul belonged to a knight or a mage with powerful mana?”
As I said that, I used demonic energy to draw a new formula.
It was different from the skeleton summoning circle made up of two shapes and a single rune.
Lines that densely filled eight points, and twenty runes.
It wasn’t a summoning circle that created a mindless spirit body, but a contract circle that called forth a powerful soul.
Fssss—!
The mana dust scattered across the floor reacted to the circle and surged upward.
Not bones, but black smoke.
And sturdy armor and weapons enveloping that black smoke.
Seeing it, Dunkel’s eyes widened.
“This is…?”
“Well, it’s still under construction, so it needs some more fine-tuning.”
Mana circuits perfectly recreated so it could exert its power from when it was alive.
Mana pathways reinforced through demonic energy to ensure stable output.
On top of that, triple-reinforced armor unique to Akimond.
“For a test piece, this turned out pretty well, didn’t it?”
Looking at the result produced by the contract circle, I nodded in satisfaction.
Even if it was an improved version of a design from two hundred years ago, there weren’t many who could create such a precise spirit body.
“Now then, the question is where to get a knight’s soul….”
As I said that and my gaze turned toward a certain place, Dunkel’s voice—laced with a sigh—reached my ears.
“…Don’t even dream about doing something strange at the mausoleum.”
Ah, I’d been found out.
When my most anticipated candidate site was exposed, my shoulders shrank despite myself.
“No, I mean, if a cute grandson comes to visit for once…. Wouldn’t the ancestors forgive it?”
“Even if the ancestors forgave it, would His Grace the Duke forgive you?”
“Ugh.”
Invoking spirits at the ancestors’ graves.
The moment I imagined it, I was certain.
I would definitely be stuffed back into the church.
This time, probably for a generous fifty years.
“Saying ‘do as you see fit’ doesn’t mean ‘run wild however you want.’”
Saying that, after reinforcing the formula, I released the contract circle and copied it back onto parchment.
Srrrk!
In the meantime, the mana dust that had floated into the air slipped back into the box as if nothing had happened.
“Then I’ll have to look around areas where there’s been recent combat. For example….”
Just as I was about to sink into thought, pondering where to find a soul to contract with, hurried footsteps came from far away.
And shortly after.
“Y-Young Master Klein!”
A servant who usually followed Burkman flung the door open and called my name urgently.
“Wow, you just barge right in?”
“A-Ah, no, that! I’m sorry! It’s just…!”
“I’m joking, joking. What is it?”
Seeing the servant’s pale face, I decided it wasn’t the time for jokes and immediately asked him.
“A messenger from Duchess Hellian has arrived!”
“My aunt sent a messenger?”
I asked back lightly, but I couldn’t remain completely calm.
Hellian Leinrant.
Heinkel’s younger sister, who had married into the Duke of Polwyvern’s household—one of the Empire’s three great ducal houses, just like Leinrant.
And after the Duke of Polwyvern passed away, she seized full authority and now reigned as the foremost power among the collateral factions.
‘If a servant came looking for me, that means the biggest reason the messenger visited is me.’
Of course, the reason was obvious enough.
‘I shattered a count’s family and killed the Empire’s lackey. It’s only natural they’d feel uneasy.’
As I thought that, murmuring voices could be heard from one corner of the mansion.
‘Sounds like they’re clamoring for me to be handed over. Guess the shock was pretty big?’
It wasn’t Heinkel or Delain—targets they had been wary of—but me who did it, so it made sense.
It was like an ambusher jumping out from an entirely unexpected place.
“Let’s go.”
“Y-Young Master Klein?!”
Without needing to hear anything more from the servant, I immediately sprang up and stepped out of the room.
“Didn’t I say it? The message is meant not for His Grace the Duke, but for Young Master Klein….”
“Even so, trying to enter without going through the head of the family is excessive discourtesy.”
“Hah, this is really frustrating!”
As expected, the servants and knights led by Beckman were blocking the path to my room.
‘Normally, Heinkel would’ve handled this situation, but now it’s different.’
Thinking that, I stepped forward.
The duchess herself hadn’t come—only a messenger.
There wasn’t even a need for Heinkel to step in.
“That’s enough!”
When I shouted in a grave voice, the murmuring scene fell silent.
“H-Haha! Young Master Klein!”
But the messenger, recognizing me, immediately rushed over and spoke with a smile.
“This works out perfectly. Young Master! My name is Buken, here as a messenger!”
“And?”
I replied with a frown, but he continued speaking to me without wiping the smile from his face.
“Duchess Hellian said she has something urgent to convey. Here, this is the letter.”
As he said that, Buken handed me a parchment.
Fine parchment, gold-thread binding, and a seal bearing the crest of the Duke of Polwyvern’s house.
‘An invitation. She’s trying to recruit me.’
With the Duke of Polwyvern’s household backing her, Hellian had been recruiting members of the collateral families.
Those in the same position as me.
She supported those who had a claim to succession but were not of the main line, then used them to take control of their families and expand her power.
‘Considering the current situation, it’s a tempting offer.’
At the same time that thought crossed my mind, a deep sneer formed at the corner of my lips.
“Go on, please read it! Her Grace the Duchess holds Young Master in very high regard…!”
Looking at that smug face that didn’t even consider rejection, my sneer only deepened.
‘But you see.’
Before he could even finish speaking, I lifted my foot and thought,
‘Rather than cooperating with worms like you, it’d be better to just push through the North.’
And the very next moment.
I extended my leg and kicked the smiling man squarely in the chest.
Crack—!
With the sound of ribs breaking, Buken’s body was hurled backward.
“G-Guh…?”
Not even understanding what had happened to him, Buken’s body rolled across the floor.
“Y-Young Master Klein!”
“W-What are you doing right now…!”
The servants, more shocked by my actions than anything, asked again as they looked at me.
Buken seemed to feel the same way, his eyes wide as if this were impossible.
“After crawling into someone else’s home with muddy feet, how dare you raise your voice so arrogantly?”
At my low, cold voice, Buken flinched and his voice trembled.
“T-That is….”
“Did I tell you to answer just now?”
“Ugh…!”
At those words, Buken clamped his mouth shut, as if he’d been struck dumb.
Though it had declined, Leinrant was still one of the Empire’s three great ducal houses.
Realizing the situation belatedly, Buken’s legs began to tremble.
“I can’t exactly kill my aunt’s messenger, so I’ll let you off with an expulsion this time.”
I continued speaking while staring at him with cold eyes.
“Get lost! If you want to meet me, come back after relearning the proper etiquette for dealing with the master of the North!”
At my shout, the terrified Buken immediately turned tail and fled the mansion.
And the next day, instead of Buken, what arrived were knights from the Duke of Polwyvern’s household.
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