Chapter 24: Fallen Leaves (3)
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“Remarkable information. Young Master Klein practicing necromancy….”
Within the deep darkness where not even a single ray of moonlight entered.
A shadow that had heightened its vision and been watching the fight in the clearing muttered so.
‘My original order was to kill Young Master Klein.’
The knight hiding his body within the shadows, Sanchez, thought so as he ground his teeth.
‘However, if I were to break through that….’
A knight was, by nature, a troop type specialized in one-on-one combat.
Unlike himself, the opponent was an army maintaining a formation.
‘If I try to break through that formation and kill Young Master Klein, there is a risk I might end up losing him instead.’
Sanchez’s expression grew even more troubled.
If that were to happen, Helian’s assassination attempt would be exposed because of him.
That his lord would be put in danger due to his own negligence—he did not wish to suffer such disgrace as a knight.
‘And, I have obtained information far more valuable than killing Young Master Klein.’
Young Master Klein, and the rumors entangled with his mother, Duchess Claire.
Recalling that ominous story, Sanchez nodded his head.
‘Young Master Klein had already been called Akimond’s reincarnation since childhood. If the fact that he learned necromancy were to become known….’
The Empire did not forbid necromancy, but Akimond’s infamy was deeply rooted in the minds of the continent’s people.
In such a situation, a young lord called Akimond’s reincarnation using necromancy?
What would happen next was obvious even without seeing it.
‘The prestige of the Leinrant main house would fall to the ground, and the Order would increase its pressure. In the worst case, they might even proclaim a holy war.’
If that happened, Klein’s life would no longer be the issue.
Rather, keeping him alive would only accelerate the collapse of Leinrant.
‘Then what I must do is not fight, but inform my lord of this matter.’
Having finished his thoughts, Sanchez nodded to himself and turned his back.
‘The original assassination plan has failed. But with this….’
For the first time, a change appeared on Sanchez’s face, which had always remained expressionless.
With this, Leinrant would wholly become his lord Helian’s.
If that were to happen, even he, who had been stripped of his title due to a mistake in his youth, would gain land and a title again….
“Hello?”
As he was thinking that, a voice was heard behind Sanchez.
“……!”
Hurriedly turning to face forward again, he saw that something was there.
A dark back alley where not a single ray of moonlight reached, and his own killing intent, dark enough to rival it.
As if all that ominous energy were nothing at all, it was an innocent voice.
Chwaang-!
An appearance so sudden it was as if it had sprung up from the ground.
He immediately drew his sword and pulled his mana up to its maximum.
A chilling shiver ran up his spine in an instant.
“Who are you! Where did you suddenly come from…!”
Something was strange.
An assassin? Or undead?
With countless assumptions filling his mind, Sanchez stared at the unknown being before him.
And in the next moment, he felt as though his thoughts had come to a halt.
“Hihi!”
In the middle of the dark back alley stood a young girl wearing a maid’s uniform.
“Y-you, are…?”
Glasses covering half her face, and brown hair braided on both sides.
As the unexpected intruder appeared before his eyes, Sanchez’s eyes widened.
The girl, smiling brightly as if she had come out for a stroll, was the maid Young Master Klein had brought with him.
It was Arin.
“Our young master is really amazing, right?”
The clear, cheerful laughter of the girl shook Sanchez’s ears.
‘I didn’t notice. Not even her presence! She got this close…!’
As he stared at the girl with trembling eyes, Arin tilted her head and took a step forward.
Within the pitch-black shadows, only her figure asserted itself with vivid clarity.
It was a bizarre sight, as if the shadows had forgotten their role.
“I’m glad I followed along. Thanks to that, I got to eat lo~ts of tasty things!”
“Ta-sty… things…?”
Sanchez, having taken a step back, looked at Arin’s face.
Around the mouth stretched in a broad smile was a red liquid smeared thickly.
Having traversed battlefields for a long time, he could be certain.
That was blood.
Human blood, no less.
“Hi~!”
At the same time Arin’s lively laughter rang out, something strange happened.
Guruk! Gururuk!
Grotesque sounds coming from the walls surrounding him.
They sounded like noises coming from the insides of a living creature.
The rumbling cry of hunger echoed from the walls enclosing him.
“Ghk?!”
Looking toward the wall from which the sound came, Sanchez immediately swallowed a scream.
There were mouths on the wall.
The deep darkness he had thought to be shadows.
In every space where he stood, dozens, hundreds, thousands of mouths were baring their teeth and laughing.
Some were human, some dogs, some birds of prey, some fish.
There were even mouths of something that made one doubt whether it even belonged to this world.
Gurururuk-!
Along with the spine-chilling rumble of hunger, the countless mouths surrounding him began to drool something.
A sticky, transparent liquid.
Recognizing it, Sanchez was seized by a boiling suicidal impulse and wanted to smash his head against the wall immediately.
Saliva.
The space he was standing in was staring at him and salivating.
“Keuh-?!”
Having grasped the situation, Sanchez immediately turned his back and bolted.
‘I have to run. Somehow, I have to get out of here…!’
The calm and composure he had maintained his entire life as a knight shattered in an instant.
A fear of unknown origin ruthlessly tightened around the knight’s mind.
An extreme terror that pierced deep into his soul.
The regret and remorse of having seen something he should never have seen had already devoured his entire consciousness.
“Uheok…! Heok…!”
He ran and ran and ran again.
Until all his stamina and mana were exhausted, he did nothing but kick off the ground beneath his feet and run like a madman.
It did not matter where he was passing through, nor where his destination was.
Just as long as I could escape that monster.
Just as long as I could escape that terror, even right now…!
“No~!”
Blackout.
And when he opened his eyes again, Sanchez’s body trembled with despair.
After running and running until both stamina and mana were completely drained.
He had not moved even a single step forward from where he had originally been standing.
“……!”
Only then did Sanchez realize it.
The darkness that had covered this alleyway was not a shadow cast by buildings.
The black something that had flowed out from beneath her skirt had already devoured without leaving a trace the entire space where he stood.
“You were told to chew properly and not leave anything behind!”
Arin said so, puffing out her cheeks as if sulking.
“Young… master?”
There was only one person her words could be referring to.
Turning his gaze, he looked toward the clearing where he had been just moments ago.
After taking care of the two Fallen Leaves he had already knocked unconscious, he was now looking at him.
Just like before, it was a chillingly bright smile.
“Klein…. Leinrant.”
The last remnants of his will to struggle snapped.
The fact that he was being watched.
Even all the plans he had devised after seeing him use necromancy.
It all meant that everything had been within the palm of his hand.
Clang-!
“Ha…. haha…!”
With a hollow laugh, he dropped the sword he had been holding to the ground.
Just a bastard born of a foreign tribe.
He had thought he was flaunting his authority with talent gained by sheer luck.
Drunk on his paltry talent, he believed he had touched something he should not have.
“It was the opposite.”
Who was it that had touched what should not be touched?
Who was it that had run rampant as if the world were his, with nothing more than meager power obtained by luck?
“All those great ambitions I’ve pursued for decades…. all of it was for nothing.”
An empty voice spilled out.
If he disappeared, it meant that Helian’s restraints would disappear as well.
If no one could control her, who was obsessed with the Empire’s weakness and power, then the outcome was obvious without seeing it.
“Are you ready?”
Arin’s gentle voice called out to him.
Ready.
At those words, his eyes were already empty.
“My lord, please….”
Sanchez spoke as he looked up at the sky in a daze.
As if to greet him, the black sky was also opening its mouth toward him.
“May you go without pain.”
An extreme terror so great that he could not even utter a plea to be spared.
Crunch-!
With that final sentence as his last words, the mouths filling the sky devoured his upper body.
“Young master!”
After handing the Fallen Leaves over to the knights, I headed into the alley to fetch Arin.
The alleyway where Sanchez had been standing just moments ago.
Unlike before, when it had been covered in shadows, each object had now regained its original color.
“I told you not to spill it while eating—come here, let me see your face!”
“Eee~.”
I grabbed Arin’s face and wiped away the blood thickly smeared around her mouth and on her hands with a handkerchief.
“Young master, but.”
“What?”
While wiping her face once more as she tried to dodge here and there, Arin spoke to me.
“You usually say I’m not allowed to eat, so why did you allow it this time?”
“…Ah, that?”
I nodded at Arin’s question and then opened my mouth.
“You’ve been holding back well all this time. Sometimes, days like this are allowed.”
When I said that, Arin beamed a broad smile at me.
“I’m really glad I followed you back then, young master! Hihihi!”
“…Is that so.”
I was responding to Arin’s laughter and patting her head when—
Of all the beings I’ve seen until now, none had such an alien aura.
Rudel, who was alternating his gaze between the smiling Arin and me, spoke as if he were fed up.
-Akimond, you…. just what in the world are you raising?
“What do you mean what, she’s just a kid.”
When I replied as if it were nothing, Rudel immediately retorted.
-Just a kid? Does a “just a kid” casually eat people? And even if it’s been altered, that power is…!
“Does it look like a power that formed naturally?”
When I cut him off mid-sentence, Rudel, who had fallen silent for a moment, stared at my face.
-…Was it created by the Order?
“I don’t know the details. Whether it was intended from the start, or whether they failed while trying to make something else.”
As I said that and stood up from my seat, Rudel’s emotions were conveyed to me.
-Disappointment, anger.
The strongest of them all was betrayal.
The Empire, the Holy Order. They prattle on about justice and mercy on the surface, yet they’ve gone this far.
“As if they were ever different.”
As I echoed Rudel’s lament, Laia’s knights, who had finished cleaning up the scene, were approaching me.
It doesn’t seem like they’ll give up like this. What are you planning to do?
Looking at the spot that had become spotless without a speck of dust, Rudel spoke.
“I’ll give them something to do. Something so big they won’t have the leisure to worry about someone like me.”
Answering his question like that, I pulled something out from inside my clothes.
A brass-colored mask engraved with the Empire’s seal.
It had belonged to Pale, the necromancer who had conducted human experimentation on the territory’s people in the mines.
“If her son is killed by the hands of the Empire, her former ally, how do you think Helian will react?”
Seeing me grin as I twirled the mask in one hand, Rudel spoke with a hollow tone.
-Seriously, looking at this, I can’t even tell who the villain is anymore.
“Of course.”
I shrugged as I replied to him.
“I’m not a knight like you. I’m an evil necromancer.”
As I said that and smiled, my face was that of a villain one might see in any ordinary tale.
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