novelraw Chapter 46
Chapter 46
Chapter 46
Anakonda, once half-ruined, was now only a crater.
“Haa...”
The Ghost King gasped for breath.
Everything below her waist was gone, as though she had been neatly sheared in half at the waist.
Only her torso remained, crawling across the ground.
A miserable end for a monarch, I thought—
“White Hair...”
She summoned a horse from beneath the earth.
The animal was shredded, held together only by crude armor.
It burst through the ground directly beneath her, scooped her onto its back, and bolted.
The instant I moved to chase, a hand clamped my ankle.
A torn vampire corpse had seized me.
So had the others—vampires, the luckless members of the Seventh Squad—
all risen by the Ghost King’s Order to block my path.
“White Hair...!”
Her voice echoed from the distance.
* * *
“She left us with a promise: ‘Next time I’ll kill you for certain.’”
“‘Next time,’ huh? Sounds like she wants another reunion.”
Captain Shimena sighed.
“She was silver-haired—long silver hair.”
“Silver hair?”
“Considering she revived Anakonda’s vampires, I may have been wrong from the start. The stolen orc and goblin corpses at the Training Center, the murder of the Chief Instructor—Madam Anne didn’t do any of it. It was her.”
It had taken this long to bring Shimena the truth.
Coming back had been the hard part.
Convincing someone of memories from a past life was never simple.
But one thing was clear:
we finally had the Ghost King in our sights.
“Then Madam Anne and Anakonda—”
“Were red herrings. We almost made a colossal mistake.”
“As I said before, judged only by results, we removed a future threat. Lucky, Mago.”
Plain luck.
Let them call it that; I don’t care.
My plan to dismantle the Demon King’s forces proceeds without a hitch.
“Raising the dead... I didn’t even know such a thing existed. No—it’s a magic that should never exist...”
Once the Ghost King’s identity surfaced, her spell could be explained as well.
“The longer the war drags on, the more corpses pile up—every race included. That woman, Silver Hair, will grow unimaginably stronger. She’ll keep growing, marching straight toward the goal she spoke of.”
Shimena paused, then spoke with iron resolve.
“Kill her, Mago.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Quick answer, no hesitation. If you hadn’t joined the army, you’d have become a serial killer...”
“That’s a bit harsh, Captain.”
“Anyway. Good. Now, let’s see that relic.”
She drew a cube from her pocket and studied it.
“It’s yours by right, but you still have to tell me how you’ll use it.”
“There’s no telling when it will hatch. If it does before the air raid, I’ll deploy it to stop the attack.”
“You think the beasts will fly at us again, just like last time.”
“The Imperial Army has no airborne forces; odds are they’ll repeat the same tactic.”
“Exactly my thinking. Should look easy, too... Hm. Let’s hope that cube spins up fast. Here, take this as well—lost count of how many times I’ve handed it out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I accepted the black uniform and saluted.
“Dismissed.”
Had I followed procedure, I’d be in Special Task Force 42nd Platoon—every 66th Class graduate from First Training Center was.
Instead, I’d drawn a solo mission: an ad-hoc assignment.
By the only metrics that matter—success or failure—the mission was a success.
Unit 43 was the last Special Task Force slot; the lower the number, the higher the authority.
The lower the number, the freer my hand to carry out the systematic elimination of officers—an agenda I’d planned ever since returning to the Shua estate.
The insignia sewn to breast and shoulder felt a richer reward than I’d expected.
* * *
Second Training Center’s 66th Class, assigned to Unit 43, rested after polishing their gear following the Madam Anne operation.
As one of them oiled a blade, another spoke.
“We aced our first mission—there’ll be a bonus, right?”
“Bonus? We just followed orders. Think they’ll really—”
“No way. Coming back alive isn’t just success, it’s a jackpot.”
“Maybe our unit number drops to the thirties?”
“Even that would be huge—43 to 39? For rookies, that’s almost too generous...”
“Huh? Why’d you stop mid-sentence?”
“Um, I... I...”
A fingertip pointed at White Hair.
It was aimed at Mago.
“That’s Top Ranker 1, right?”
“Yeah, Top Ranker 1. The one who led the Madam Anne takedown...”
“Going solo in Anakonda was pretty—huh?”
“You saw it too, didn’t you?”
“Y-yeah...”
“15th...?”
“Straight to 15th from the start... that’s insane...”
* * *
Louise spat the words out like she was pouring water.
“Language-based training failed, but... we did isolate one trait.”
She lifted her index finger and went on.
“It’s crow-like.”
“Crow?”
“Oh, ‘crow’ is the nickname for the Special Task Force. Sorry, I—”
“No, keep going.”
“It’s drawn to shiny things. Or rather, the moment it spots something glittery, it charges.”
“Flashy stuff?”
“Just shiny.”
“Flashy, shiny—same thing, no?”
“Not even close.”
Louise slipped into casual speech.
“Flashy is like... boom.”
She made a fist and hammered the air.
“A thunder-crack, Mago.”
She looked up at me.
Especially at the insignia on my uniform.
“15th.”
“Hm?”
“Jumping straight to 15th Platoon... that’s too fast. Doesn’t it feel heavy?”
“It’s exactly what I wanted. Swapping rank insignia at a ridiculous speed.”
“Then congrats. Good work, Mago. You went through it alone, yeah?”
“Sure did.”
“Disappears without a word, then walks back in as my superior... jerk.”
“You say that even knowing I outrank you?”
“Gonna make me drop and give you twenty?”
“As if.”
“Mago, who’s the 15th Platoon captain?”
“15th Platoon captain?”
“Yeah.”
“That’d be me.”
“...What?”
“For now. 15th was wiped out in the First Invasion, so it was vacant. I took it. Still just me, though.”
“Lucky...”
She gave a small laugh.
Next, I headed for the Technical Division.
Where Oscar was.
Gray Hair stood out at once.
Feeling my presence, he looked up.
“Ah, Mago. Rumor says you’ve been strutting your new rank around.”
“Don’t lie. I just changed uniforms.”
“Yeah, it’s a lie. You just look like you would.”
“How’s it going?”
“This?”
Oscar tapped the workbench.
A single musket lay on it.
“I’m just copying what the knights used, on Captain Shimena’s orders.”
“So the copying’s going okay?”
“Well enough... same routine every day—gets dull.”
“Dull means no one’s dying.”
“True, but the whole place smells of powder. One slip and boom—we’re all sky-high.”
“Hey, Oscar.”
“Yeah?”
“Mind if I fire that musket once?”
“We’ll do a demo shoot soon, plus training. Why? Planning something again...?”
“Nothing big. Oscar, if copying bores you, why not design one yourself?”
“Another musket?”
“No. Something better.”
“Better than a musket how, exactly?”
“Faster reload, longer range. Fewer parts, easier upkeep. And it should still fire in the rain.”
“You’re asking for the moon, Mago. That doesn’t exist.”
“Only because no one’s tried. Decide to build it and you will.”
“‘You will,’ she says. Throw military spirit at it all you like—it’s still impossible.”
“Look. Instead of shoving shot down the barrel one by one, imagine a cylinder—no, a magazine, a chamber—pre-packed with rounds. Reloading would fly, right?”
“Magazine? Chamber? What language is that?”
“Here, I’ll show you...”
I flipped over a sheet of paper on the table.
I began to sketch on the blank sheet.
“You preload the ammunition into the magazine. Each time you fire, the magazine rotates. That lets you keep shooting until it’s made a full turn.”
“Mago, you’re a really lousy artist...”
“Forget it, whatever...”
Explaining a revolver to him wasn’t easy.
A proper blueprint would have helped, but my hands couldn’t manage that.
Words alone got us nowhere.
I’d have to think of another way.
“Well... see you around.”
Oscar raised a weary hand.
Just then—
“Huh...?”
My eyes snapped into focus.
“Wait, something’s off. You killed the Vampire Lord, right?”
“Lord, not Captain.”
“Whatever! You killed him and got promoted—to Captain.”
“Yeah, so?”
“That was 15th Platoon... not 42nd. Even Captain Marcello’s first posting was 20th...!”
“You sure know a lot for someone who swore he’d never join Special Tasks. Oh, one more thing—Oscar, ever seen this?”
I rummaged inside my coat and pulled out a cube.
A soft blue glow pulsed from its faces.
“What is it?”
“A mage tool.”
“I’ve heard of those... why are you carrying it?”
Oscar’s eyes went wide.
“Looted it off the Vampire Lord.”
“You say ‘killed’ like it’s nothing.”
“It was the mission. If you haven’t seen one, forget it.”
I turned to leave.
“Why do you have it? Because I killed him and took it. That make it yours? Huh?”
I waved without looking back.
“So it really is yours...?”
* * *
“Yura, what happened to you...?”
The Demon King looked her up and down.
“You’ve shrunk... or am I imagining things?”
“I had to swap into something else—no choice.”
The Ghost King tapped her own hip with a fist.
“Swapped? Were you hurt?”
“Shut up...”
“Who was it?”
“An Imperial soldier. Weird—he didn’t flinch when I raised the corpse, and when it stood up he acted like it was normal...”
“He knew about you?”
“Maybe. He also knew I was from First Training Center, so word’s reached high command. Damn it, I should’ve made sure he was dead from the start...!”
“Plan’s gone sideways.”
“You complaining?”
“Forget it. You’ll handle it.”
“He had the same white hair as you.”
“White hair’s rare.”
“Any leads?”
“None. Zero. Could be a distant cousin, I suppose—doesn’t matter.”
“How ready are you?”
“For what?”
“The air raid...!”
“About sixty percent.”
“Good enough. Launch now.”
“Are you insane? The special armor isn’t finished.”
“More than half is done. Stop arguing and send them.”
“I said no.”
Ghost King Yura Veden stepped closer to the throne where the Demon King lounged sideways.
“Seems you forgot who broke your seal. When I say send them, you send.”