Chapter 44: Ice Castle, My Longed-For Home (3)
44
“Failure?! Failure?! What do you mean by failure right now—!”
For a brief moment, my vision blurred hazily.
A scream close to a shriek that rang out in panic snapped my mind back into focus.
‘Good. I can see properly now.’
The automatically moving field of view and the tense atmosphere.
After confirming that the spell was functioning correctly, I immediately looked around.
“W-We’ve lost all contact with the detachment. Judging by the circumstances, all of them in the passage….”
“Then how the hell did they find that passage! That passage is—!”
“They were things Akimond-nim made personally.”
A stiff, hardened voice cut the man off mid-sentence.
“C-Cult Leader!”
The chaotic atmosphere froze in an instant.
‘Cult Leader…. Looks like that person is more or less the head of this Order.’
Though irritated by the Necromancer’s vision fixed on the floor, I rapidly grasped the situation.
“M-My apologies. I thought it was a perfect operation….”
“You shouldn’t use the word ‘perfect’ so carelessly, Jill.”
Jill.
As I rummaged through the Necromancer’s memories, I recalled that he was the very one who had planned this operation.
‘Right. This bastard was the one behind this ridiculous invasion….’
I was engraving his face into my mind and swallowing my anger when it happened.
“Ugh?! Khk…!”
A groan escaped from the man called Jill, and the bowed Necromancers began to stir uneasily.
‘What, did they kill him because the operation failed?’
As that thought crossed my mind, the Necromancer’s vision lifted upward, and I took in the sight of the Necromancer called Jill.
“I-I’m terribly sorry…! Please, give me another chance…!”
“A chance…. A chance, huh….”
The Cult Leader raised one hand and sank into thought.
Unlike his light expression, as if pondering a dinner menu, Jill—floating in the air—was gasping as though his breath might be cut off at any moment.
“Is this the first time Jill has failed a mission?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
The answer came almost simultaneously with the question asked in a flat tone.
A gaunt man standing in formation behind the Cult Leader.
‘Well, would you look at that?’
Seeing his gloomy face, my interest was piqued more by him than by the Cult Leader.
Unlike the other Necromancers, he possessed a certain degree of structured demonic energy.
Having fought Pale’s undead before, I could tell by instinct.
That man was an Imperial Necromancer.
‘Desertion? No, if that were the case, the knight order would have mobilized. Then that means….’
As I watched the scene, a single thought brushed through my mind.
All necromancy used by the Order and the Empire were forms derived from half-soul sorcery.
‘That means the Empire is influencing the Order’s necromancy in some way.’
It was one more headache added to my list, but my mood wasn’t bad.
The connection between the Order and the Empire.
The fact that the Empire was entangled with a murderous group like the Akimond Order would itself become ammunition to attack the Empire.
‘It’s a shame this is just a scene from memory, but it can’t be helped. Evidence can come later….’
Just as I was organizing my thoughts—
Thud!
The black energy binding the man called Jill was withdrawn, and his body rolled across the ground.
“Huk…! Khk! U-Uwegh?!”
Freed right before suffocating, Jill panted for breath before starting to retch.
“Hehehe, then I suppose we should watch at least once.”
The frightened Necromancers studied the Cult Leader’s complexion.
The relaxed, hearty laugh of an old man.
Yet the sinister energy contained within his eyes sent chills down their spines.
“Now that the operation has failed, there’s no reason to remain on this snowfield.”
At the Cult Leader’s single remark, the Necromancers waiting throughout the camp rose to their feet.
“We’ll return to Plysian for now. There, we’ll find corpses and bide our time for the future.”
“Understood.”
The Necromancers who received the order immediately began gathering their belongings and forming a column.
A bizarre procession where remaining undead mingled with black robes.
However, Jill sprawled on the ground and several other Necromancers merely watched the procession from afar, not joining them.
“Jill.”
“Y-Yes…!”
At the Cult Leader’s call, he sprang to his feet and answered.
“I’ll leave the remaining cleanup to you and your subordinates. Can you handle that?”
A voice as gentle as that of a kindly old man.
Yet Jill’s face as he listened was deathly pale.
“Of course. I’ll carry out your orders.”
“Hehe, thank you. I appreciate the hard work.”
After patting his shoulder, the Cult Leader finally joined the procession.
And just as his figure faded into the snowy landscape—
“Jill. If it’s come to this, then we…!”
A group of black-robed figures rushed toward Jill, who had barely managed to steady his breathing.
“That’s right. There’s no turning back anymore.”
With a hardened expression, Jill spoke while glaring in the direction where the Cult Leader had disappeared.
“With the Order’s largest-scale operation having failed, there’s no longer a place for our faction.”
“T-Then what about us…?”
“Sooner or later, we’ll be purged.”
At those words, the Necromancers—including the owner of my vision—ground their teeth.
“Damn it! I knew something was off when only they were included in the detachment…!”
“Playing power games in the middle of a holy war!”
“Enough!”
Jill barked sharply, drawing the attention of his enraged comrades.
He looked as though he was suppressing his anger, but even his clenched fist was trembling.
“We’re going to the sanctuary.”
“?!”
Sanctuary.
At that cringeworthy term referring to the Ice Castle, a bitter laugh almost escaped me.
“B-But that place is?!”
“Are you saying we should just sit still and die at their hands!”
“……!”
At Jill’s shout, the Necromancers found no words to answer and simply clenched their fists.
“From the start, even that Cult Leader’s power came from the sanctuary! If that’s the case, there’s no reason why we can’t obtain it as well!”
As his persuasion continued, several Necromancers, seemingly swayed, rose to their feet.
“Let’s go to the sanctuary and find Akimond-nim’s relic! If we return with that, we can rise again!”
A desperate struggle that was hard to tell whether it was resolve or madness.
At the same moment I heard that cry, my vision went dark.
The spell that read the memories of a subdued soul, the flashback carousel, had come to an end.
Pssss…!
The emaciated Necromancer’s body was discarded like a worn-out shoe onto the snow-covered Ice Plain.
“I thought you’d burn out quickly, but you held on longer than expected.”
Half-soul sorcery, the flashback carousel, which shaved away at the existence of the soul to peer into its memories.
As a result of replaying memories until the soul was completely consumed, the body that couldn’t endure it turned to ash and scattered.
Thud-!
I kicked the remains of his corpse, now reduced to ashes, and stood up.
‘According to this bastard’s memories, most of the Order has already left this place.’
And the number of those who headed for the Ice Plain like this one was around fifty.
Even so, by estimation, fewer than half would have reached the Ice Castle.
“Idiots.”
This place where I stood, the Ice Plain, was a demonic lair that caused all kinds of mental abnormalities—hallucinations, delusions, and the like—in intruders.
The biggest reason was the Ice Castle towering at the center of the Ice Plain.
The lingering residual thoughts of the northern people engraved there gnawed away at the intruders’ minds.
There were exceptions: those who possessed souls recognized as part of them.
The master of the Ice Castle, Akimond, who granted spirit bodies to all of them and gave them the power to sweep across the continent.
Or the knight who confronted their vengeful spirits head-on and conquered the Ice Castle.
Someone like Berkel Leinrant.
‘And even with that advantage, he still got his head cut off in my fortress. It’s ridiculous.’
With a bitter smile, I brushed away the recollection and focused on the situation at hand.
Judging by their capabilities, at best only about twenty would be able to resist the influence of the Ice Castle.
The remaining Necromancers would have gone mad, just like the one I met earlier.
“I’ve grasped how many enemies there are. All that’s left is their location.”
Muttering that, I looked at his corpse—or rather, the footprints connected to him.
Perhaps it hadn’t snowed for a while, as some of the footprints remained without being erased.
“This is more than enough.”
Not only had he provided information and his soul, he’d even revealed the enemy’s location.
He really was an exceedingly generous maggot.
Recalling the ashes I’d just kicked away, I activated a contract sigil.
Kiiiiii-!
A fluttering, translucent figure of a woman.
When I formed a hand sign toward the Banshee floating in the air, she nodded and flew off in a certain direction.
And shortly after—
Aaaaaah-!
The Banshee’s signal echoed from afar.
After walking for about an hour following it, I spotted a group of Necromancers in the distance.
Just as I’d thought, their number was around twenty.
The undead guarding them numbered only about a hundred as well, having dwindled considerably.
“It’s already been three days since Bishop Jill went in! Why is there no contact?!”
“Our comrades have gone mad, and even the food….”
“S-Shouldn’t we run away now, at least?!”
“Run away to where, exactly?!”
Unlike when they assaulted the wall, they looked utterly intimidated.
After confirming that figure, I immediately buried myself in the snow.
“Just as I thought, they couldn’t restore everything.”
What I paid attention to wasn’t their refugee-like appearance, but the undead.
The half-soul sorcery they used.
Undead created using corpses were easy to make and powerful.
All they had to do was breathe a soul into an existing corpse—there was no need to design an undead body like I did—and since they could be made quickly, the burden on the caster was lighter.
‘That’s why the Empire had no choice but to develop half-soul sorcery as well. They needed it for warfare.’
However, half-soul sorcery had drawbacks just as clear as its advantages.
Their greatest strength—and weakness—was the corpse.
A corpse that rotted in heat and froze in cold.
Crack!
The undead guarding them were already unable to endure the extreme cold, frozen, splitting, and shattering in places.
“They’re vastly inferior in numbers, but if it’s at night, it might be doable.”
The Necromancers would already be struggling just to resist the haunting echoing in their minds.
Having finished my thoughts, I concealed my body at once and burrowed deeper into the snow.
“Hey, it’s time to change shifts.”
“Ugh…. A-Already?”
At his comrade’s call, the Necromancer Dan forced his unresponsive body to rise.
“Damn it, my head….”
Akimond’s sanctuary, the Ice Castle.
Among them, this place was one of the five pillars that sustained the Ice Castle, the ‘Spear of Wailing.’
The awe he felt at its majestic appearance lasted only a moment.
What awaited them were the cries of lost souls, hallucinations, and auditory illusions.
And the betrayal of comrades who had gone mad because of it.
“Phew…!”
After putting the last remaining ration into his mouth, Dan looked at the undead guarding them.
“Fuck, it’s cracking again…!”
His masterpiece, which had endured even the brutal cold of the wall.
Yet the cold wave of this place, reached after crossing that snowfield, surpassed imagination.
“Yeah, this is the limit.”
Three days.
That was how long they had waited for Bishop Jill in this absurd cold.
The constant pressure and auditory hallucinations during that time had been more than enough to blow away his sanity.
“Everyone else is asleep, so while I have the chance…!”
Aside from the undead guarding them, there were no Necromancers awake.
It was the moment Dan seized the opportunity and summoned his undead to one spot.
Crunch-!
A black object that tore through a zombie’s body as it surged forward.
Feeling a searing sensation in his chest, Dan’s eyes widened as he lowered his gaze.
“W-What is this….”
A black rod piercing through his chest.
It was a quarrel fired from a crossbow.
“G-Guh…?!”
Dan’s body collapsed, his heart pierced through.
Watching from afar, Klein smacked his lips and opened his mouth.
“Somehow, this damn crossbow feels like it’s getting more closely tied to me the farther I go.”
0 Comments