Chapter 16: Death Knight (2)
16
“I apologize for the discourtesy that occurred yesterday. Lord Klein.”
The knights of the Polwyvern family could only approach me after going through the family’s formal procedures and receiving Heinkel’s permission.
Though both were ducal houses, the power of Leinrant and Polwyvern was not even comparable.
Perhaps their pride had been scratched, because the expressions of the knights bowing their heads before me did not look comfortable.
“I read the invitation my aunt sent. When do we depart?”
When I ignored their appearance and spoke like that, one of the knights addressed me.
“We have already completed all preparations for travel. If you give the order, my lord, we can depart at any time.”
“Is that so?”
After hearing the knight’s words, I fell into thought for a moment.
Entering the enemy’s stronghold without any preparation was out of the question.
‘Just looking at those knights alone, if it weren’t for my aunt’s orders, they look ready to rush at me immediately.’
Seeing the murderous knights, a sigh escaped me on its own.
My swordsmanship had been reinforced to some extent, but my overall power was lacking.
If I arrived face-to-face with Hellian in this state without any countermeasures, my head would be gone in the blink of an eye.
‘But I can’t keep putting it off forever….’
Thinking that, I turned my head and looked toward one corner of the mansion’s backyard.
‘I was planning to try it while reading the situation, but this works out better.’
“Alright. Let’s depart in three days.”
When I said that after finishing my thoughts, the knights who had been watching one another stood up from their seats.
“Understood. We will relay that to the personnel on standby as well.”
“Good. Ah, and also.”
I called out to the knights who were about to head outside after finishing their words.
“Is there something else you wish to say?”
Toward the knight who asked in a stiff voice, I smiled faintly and said,
“Pass a message to Buken. Tell him to take good care of himself.”
When the very person who had broken Buken’s ribs said that, one of the knights’ eyebrows twitched.
“I will see you in three days.”
With those words as the last, the knights left the reception room, and after that, Dunkel approached me.
“According to the contents written in the invitation, I cannot accompany you. Will you be all right?”
“Not all right. I probably won’t come back alive.”
When I said that casually, Dunkel’s expression grew serious.
“Then why did you accept the invitation?”
“Because it was a matter worth as much as my life.”
Answering Dunkel’s question, I rose from my seat.
The maids tried to approach as if to accompany me, but I waved my hand and dismissed them.
“I can’t throw away a golden opportunity to approach the enemy’s heart just to preserve my own neck.”
“To approach the heart, my lord. Surely you don’t mean Duke Hellian…!”
I cut off Dunkel, who spoke in alarm.
Assassination.
It was easy to say, but considering what would happen afterward, it was something that could not, and should not, be done.
At least not now.
“Then why is it an opportunity for you to go there, young master?”
“I can obtain information.”
While appreciating the scenery visible through the corridor window, I continued speaking.
“What state Hellian is in right now, whether there are people who bear grudges against him, how the internal power structure of the collateral line is arranged.”
“So you’re saying you need to know the enemy in order to make a plan.”
“That’s right. And if things go well….”
As I said that, I trailed off for a moment, then continued.
“I could also use necromancy to cause confusion on their side.”
There was a reason why the continent’s countless armed groups tried not to make an enemy of a Necromancer.
A comrade who had fought alongside you until yesterday became an enemy.
Regardless of victory or defeat, that situation alone was enough to create trauma.
“It would be risky to do it to Hellian himself, but if I turn his aides or people around him into undead and have them attack….”
However, while I was speaking like that, Dunkel frowned and opened his mouth.
“Young master, that is….”
“Not something a knight should do?”
When I spoke his words before he could, Dunkel nodded heavily.
“If we strike the enemy in such a way, how would we be any different from them?”
“No different. We’d become just as bad. But.”
As I said that, I looked at his face and asked,
“Isn’t this situation the result of caring too much about appearances?”
At my scathing criticism of Leinrant, Dunkel was left speechless.
“‘It’s not honorable, it’s cowardly.’ While saying things like that and puffing out your chest, didn’t you get driven into this corner?”
“…….”
A territory violated by the collateral line.
A family falling into ruin.
As if recalling that, Dunkel wore a heavy expression, and I turned my back on him.
“Even so. Leinrant must not abandon that.”
Dunkel had been unable to respond to my words until then, but on that single point, he did not yield to me.
“Why?”
“If we lose honor and faith and live only for profit, then we lose our identity as knights.”
“Honor and faith.”
At Dunkel’s voice, filled with force, I asked again,
“After coming this far…. Is that really so important?”
It was not mockery or sarcasm, but pure curiosity.
As someone who had lived an entire lifetime as a Necromancer, I simply could not understand their way of thinking.
“It is important.”
Nodding at my question, Dunkel placed his fist over the left side of his chest.
“More than anything else in this world.”
“…….”
A faint smile and clear eyes.
In Dunkel’s eyes, which did not waver an inch even before my pessimism, I saw him in an instant.
A knight who, holding hope rather than despair or resignation, had thrust a sword into my heart.
‘Berkel, Leinrant….’
Looking at Dunkel, I smiled back at him.
Yes.
This was why I had started in the first place.
To see that foolish hero’s face.
To see with my own eyes the next generation of Berkel Leinrant that Berkel had sought to create.
“…Then that’s a relief.”
The embodiment of a Leinrant knight.
After confirming that, I spoke to Dunkel with a thoroughly refreshed heart.
“I’m not an honorable knight like you, but an evil Necromancer.”
“Mmnya…. Hihihi…!”
Late at night.
After confirming Arin sleeping in the next room, I quietly lifted myself from my seat.
Whoooo—!
The mansion’s backyard, where the dawn wind was whipping about.
The old stone structure standing there was my destination.
“As expected, it’s still here.”
The place I arrived at was the Leinrant family mausoleum.
Brushing my hand along the stone pillar erected at the entrance leading underground, I went straight down and pushed open the marble door.
Kuurrrr….
As the heavy stone door opened to both sides, blue stone coffins made of bluestone revealed themselves.
Kuuuu….
Six coffins lined up on either side.
This was the place where the successive dukes who had led Leinrant’s history lay sleeping.
“Most of the souls have already passed on. There isn’t even a trace left.”
I said that while examining the coffins one by one.
Seeing the clean state of the coffins, as if they had been maintained until recently, I released demonic energy from my heart.
“However…. There is still a soul that has lingering attachments.”
After saying that, I stopped at a single spot.
One coffin that was absorbing the demonic energy pouring from my heart.
“I can’t even guess what Heinkel would say if he knew.”
I had had some idea, but actually facing it before my eyes made my mind go blank.
“Still, I can’t turn back after coming this far. And….”
Looking at Rudel’s coffin reacting to the demonic energy, I frowned.
“The attachment is stronger than I thought. At this rate, this soul will become a wraith.”
A Necromancer was one who guided souls, leading them to where they were meant to go.
As a Necromancer, and as a member of this family, I could not allow the former duke to become a wraith.
Feeling Rudel’s soul bound to the grave and unable to depart, I used demonic energy to inscribe a contract sigil onto the coffin.
I proclaim to the unfortunate one bound by the karma of their lifetime.
Pachit!
As if black smoke had caught fire, the demonic energy enveloping the contract sigil glowed blue.
‘What the eyes of the soul see is essence, not form. Even if I state the name Klein, he’ll consider it false.’
The most important thing in conversation with a soul was truth.
Reaffirming that, I continued the incantation.
In the name of Akimond, the guide, I shall illuminate the path before you.
After confirming the contract sigil growing brighter and brighter, I continued by adding the Voice of the Dead.
If you wish to walk the path I have illuminated, accept the contract.
The moment the final incantation ended.
Phaaaat—!
The contract sigil that had emitted bright light vanished as if erased.
Inside the mausoleum, quiet as though nothing had happened.
Yet before long, an unfamiliar voice flowed into my mind.
-One cannot speak in an ancestor’s grave. Come outside, Necromancer.
A voice calling to me.
It was proof that the soul’s anchoring had succeeded.
Feeling a heavy fatigue, I stepped outside the mausoleum.
Amid a white reed field fluttering in the dawn wind.
A silhouette shrouded in shadows was looking at me.
“Rudel Leinrant.”
When I called his name, the black silhouette slowly approached me.
-At first, I wondered for what reason a cute grandson had become a Necromancer and come looking for this old man.
As he said that, Rudel’s spiritual body extended a hand toward me.
Chwarak—!
Black smoke gathered according to his will, taking the form of a long sword.
-But to think that Leinrant’s nemesis would take the body of Leinrant’s own bloodline.
‘He’s testing me.’
The fighting spirit emitted by a knight close to the pinnacle.
Yet I faced him without wavering and spoke.
“I conveyed the situation through the contract sigil. It shouldn’t be such a bad proposal.”
-It’s not bad. Rather, I thought it was commendable.
Though Rudel said that, the wariness toward me did not seem to have faded yet.
-However, as one who once bore the headship of Leinrant, I cannot easily trust the family’s nemesis.
The black smoke that had slowly approached me eventually raised the black sword in its grasp and aimed it at my neck.
“…….”
Death Knight.
One of the highest-grade undead, created by anchoring the soul of a powerful knight into a spiritual body.
However, to complete a contract with that soul, I had to carve my mark into the completed spiritual body.
There were two methods.
To subdue the soul with overwhelming demonic energy, or to gain the soul’s consent and cooperate.
“Then I’ll prove it.”
I drew the sword at my waist.
It was the iron sword I had brought with me on this trip.
-Prove it?
“Proof that there is no falsehood in my contract. And a promise that I will resolve your karma.”
As I said that, I placed my sword against Rudel’s neck, even as he aimed his blade at me.
……!
My sword, gleaming white in the moonlight, met Rudel’s black blade.
It was the exact same stance as the one he was using to aim at me.
“They say a knight’s trust comes from the sword. Am I wrong?”
As I said that, recalling something Heinkel had once said, Rudel’s spiritual body flickered.
Whoooo—!
Rudel stepped back several paces and adjusted his stance on the spot.
In response, I too lowered my posture, preparing to meet him.
And the next moment.
Kaang—!
I blocked Rudel’s sword as it came crashing down at me.
A speed impossible to perceive with the naked eye.
I hadn’t reacted to it—I had predicted it by watching his preparatory stance.
-No, you’re not wrong.
With the moon hanging beneath the sky as our illumination, the sword dance with the soul began.
To me, that sight looked as if he were dancing in joy.
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