novelraw Chapter 66 : That Bastard Was Tough.
Chapter 66 : That Bastard Was Tough.
That Bastard Was Tough.
He really showed up at just the right time.
Muttering that, I checked on Barkal and Serena's condition.
In the time I hadn't seen them, they looked like they'd been chased by something. Even so, I couldn't feel more reassured by their arrival.
Wait a second.
Thinking about it, I realized why these two were here.
You guys...
Looks like you weren't even captured as hostages.
"Have you been looking for me all this time?"
When I asked, Barkal and Serena nodded.
So the whole 'taken as hostages' thing was a lie after all. Well, who could possibly capture monsters like them anyway?
Even as we talked, they were tossing undead aside like trash.
"Where would we go, leaving our brother behind!"
"That's right. Whether we live, we live together. If we die, we die together!"
We live together.
We die together.
Slightly chilling words.
"Do you know what you have to do?"
At my question, Barkal and Serena nodded.
Breaking the statue of the Goddess—we'd done that once before. So even with necromancers all over the place, the target was still the statue.
"It's the same Goddess statue as last time, right?"
Serena asked as she looked at Mortis's Goddess statue.
"Separate her head and body. Even a god dies if you do that."
Barkal's words were nonsensical. It made me laugh, but it was reassuring nonetheless.
"And for that, brother, only you can do it."
Perhaps he was talking about the miracle caused by the 'Blood-Colored Awl' before. Barkal looked at me with a serious gaze.
Traveling together, I've come to know their strengths and weaknesses.
Strength:
Sometimes we understand each other perfectly without a word.
Weakness:
Sometimes, even if we talk, we don't get through to each other.
"I'll open the path."
Barkal and Serena, saying so, looked a little tired. The barbarians and adventurers dealing with necromancers and undead were in the same boat.
By contrast, the undead felt no fatigue. The dead don't get tired.
"Don't worry. Opening, breaking, and smashing—I'm good at all of those!"
Yeah. I'd probably die before you two ever do.
"Then, I'll leave it to you."
Almost as if in response to our resolve, dullahan and undead began forming a wall in front of the Goddess statue.
Skeleton soldiers approached, their swords glinting, and zombies with the stench of rot lurched toward us in droves.
"The best ambush is the one you strike first!"
Before those undead could attack, Barkal started swinging his 'Erindal'.
At the same time, a crimson aura filled Barkal's body. He was definitely wrapping himself in Thrag's blessing.
Serena likewise wrapped herself in all sorts of holy magic and started pounding the undead.
The path was open.
In an instant, I closed in on the Goddess statue.
"I knew you'd make it here."
As I approached the statue, I heard a familiar voice. It was the Lich.
If you knew, you should've prepared a gift or something.
While I was disappointed inside at the Lich's greeting, suddenly, the area around me, the Lich, and Mortis's statue began to close in as bone-white skeletons rose up like a fortress, encircling us.
Saying I was disappointed and then immediately getting this kind of response...
"You can't escape with this. Hand over the right eye, willingly."
That's what I was going to say.
This will be my chance to sever our connection for good.
"So, talking is useless after all."
With a cold voice, the Lich lifted one arm. At the fingertip, shriveled and corpse-like, black energy began to gather.
He's going to use 'Death Bolt' again.
Crackle—!
With the sound of lightning, a black bolt shot toward me—a deathly magic that drains vitality.
"Lich, are you really going to attack your own mother's eye?!"
I pulled out the 'Right Eye' and held it in the path of the Death Bolt.
"Kuh, kuh!"
Predictably, the Lich hurriedly redirected the Death Bolt away from me.
While the Lich was suppressing his spell, I charged at him.
Before I smashed the statue, I felt I needed to deal with this guy first.
"Y-You... you bastard!"
The Lich, who had always pretended to be composed, now glared at me with icy rage. Strong hostility toward me burned in his eyes, anger smoldering like a volcano.
* [The effect of Curse of Boiling Blood has ended.]
The curse I'd placed in advance had finally worn off.
"Ugh, uaargh...!"
With a ghastly groan, the Lich staggered. While he was reeling from the aftereffects of the 'Curse of Boiling Blood', I stabbed him again with the 'Blood-Colored Awl'.
* [Using Hardened Blood.]
This time, I burst the blood contained in the 'Blood-Colored Awl', causing an explosion inside his body.
* [Using Summon Skeleton.]
Next, I used the erupting blood to summon a skeleton exoskeleton inside the Lich's body, pinning him in place.
"You... you..."
The Lich muttered in a furious voice. Anyone else would have died instantly from such wounds, but the Lich did not die.
"You don't even feel pain?"
"My mother's blessing protects my body—it's only natural!"
A blessing, huh.
Looking at his current state, being unable to die looks more like a curse.
"Why are you... Even though you're a necromancer like us, why?!"
Looks like the Lich realized I was a necromancer. In a way, it's only natural.
Since I could detect necromancy through 'Necromancy Tracking', it made sense the Lich could do the same.
He's far more experienced than I am in necromancy.
But who are you calling 'like us'? I've got every penalty piled on and worship a nutjob god like 'Thrag'.
Anyway.
"Mortis..."
After glancing at the ruined Lich, I muttered.
No matter how I looked, it didn't seem possible to kill him.
Even if I separated his head from his body, he'd probably survive. So, I decided to ask Mortis.
"I've done everything I can."
My promise with Mortis.
I recalled the vow to kill her own Apostle, the Lich, and spoke to the god.
Then, from the 'Right Eye' tucked into my coat, a red light began to seep out.
Likewise, the 'Left Eye' the Lich was holding shone, and as the two lights grew and resonated, they engulfed both me and the Lich.
* * *
When the red light embraced me, the world changed.
A foggy field. The mental world tied to Mortis.
But this didn't seem to be 'my' mental world. The grass under my feet was cold, and the encompassing fog seemed to blur my sense of time.
Through the mist, a boy younger than ten was crying.
His body was covered with wounds, and his neck and ankles were scarred as if branded by a hot iron.
The mark of a slave.
"Hic... huff, huff...!"
His cheeks were sunken, likely from long hunger. In the end, with no strength to move, the boy collapsed to his knees and fell.
His gaze was unfocused.
It was obvious his faint life wouldn't last much longer.
Then it happened.
A woman emerged from the mist.
It was Mortis.
Mortis reached out and stroked the boy's wounds. They began to heal, and his ragged breath gradually calmed.
"Child, you'll be okay now."
She stroked the boy's head as she spoke. The boy looked up and met Mortis' eyes.
Time sped rapidly after that.
The boy grew older.
He learned magic from Mortis.
The boy, once a slave, learned how to protect himself.
He learned of the world.
* 〈Thrag clicks his tongue.〉
The life of Mortis and her Apostle.
While witnessing it, I heard the sound of Thrag clicking his tongue.
Now I see why Thrag dislikes Mortis so much.
For a single human,
a god intervened far too much.
In the end, the boy who learned everything from the 'God of Death and Corpses' became Mortis's world itself.
Everything exists for her.
Anything that denies her is, as her epithet states, made into 'death and corpses' to be embraced.
It's truly the fanatic's way of thinking.
"You are the one who gave me another life and taught me how to live when I was dying."
The boy became a young man.
He became a missionary who spread the word of the 'God of Death and Corpses.'
He became a necromancer.
He became a Lich.
The Lich screamed at Mortis as if pouring out all his bitterness.
"Just as you gave me spring, I wanted to become at least your little petal."
His voice was cracked. So much loneliness and despair built up over the years poured out, so much that even his rage was palpable.
Mortis wept at that sight.
"Kira."
"My mother."
"It's my complacency that led us here."
"Mother?"
"I should've done this sooner."
In Mortis's hand, her words trailing off, were two jewels.
Right Eye of the Ascendant Maiden.
The other must be the left eye.
As Mortis gripped both jewels, a divine radiance spread from her body.
"Mother...?"
At the same time, the Lich's body began to slowly fall apart.
It wasn't being destroyed by any physical force. The necromantic energy that sustained him was steadily vanishing.
Mortis.
She was revoking all the authority she had granted the Lich.
"No, no, no! Why, mother?!"
Time, which had been frozen for him, began to flow again.
The necromancy that had shielded him from death would no longer protect the Lich.
"Three hundred years! For three hundred years I lived only for you!"
The Lich's body started breaking into pieces and scattering away.
"All that time! Even with no answer, I waited—how can you do this to me!"
His rage only grew fiercer.
"I lived solely for you! I spread every conceivable death to make this world your world!"
"That's not what I wanted, child."
Mortis denied his words.
"If that was so, you should've said something sooner—you should've let me die!"
The Lich's figure grew fainter and fainter.
"Then... then I wouldn't have hurt this much..."
His last words were not anger at Mortis, but sorrow.
With those words, his body scattered in the wind like ashes.
Mortis gazed at the empty space, weeping for a long time.
Even for a god, watching her first cultist and Apostle die must be incredibly hard.
It's a feeling someone like me could never understand.
She must be sad.
She must feel heartbroken.
It must be a pain like losing family.
"As promised, the Lich is dead."
But there's still something that must be said.
"I haven't forgotten your promise to teach me necromancer magic, Mortis."
Some say to draw a clear line between public and private affairs.
For me, this is both business and personal.
---