Chapter 2 - The Brand
Swaaah.
In the deep of the night, battered by a downpour, Clay wore a vacant expression.
"What... happened?"
He brought a hand to his neck. There should have been a wound from the rope, but no matter how much he felt, there was no trace.
The fact that his broken neck was completely fine was strange enough.
"Did I... really come back to life?"
He wondered if this was the afterlife, but after looking around, he was sure that wasn't the case.
This was the land of Iser.
'Haa.'
Realizing he was truly alive filled him with a feeling of dread rather than joy.
'I wonder if living is even the right thing for me.'
He had lived as a hero, but he was executed after having his reputation tarnished.
Being resurrected wouldn't erase that dishonor.
"Hmm."
He had no idea how he came back to life, and he couldn't just keep standing in the rain.
He got up and began walking on the wet ground.
His destination...
"Should I go there first?"
If there was one place he could go without worrying about other people, that was the only place he could think of.
Clay trudged along, moving his feet one by one.
***
"...Huh?"
The place where Clay was Buried.
Yelena, who had come out of the tavern after drinking and walked all the way to this spot, was standing there.
"What is... this?"
In the place where Clay should have been buried, there was a small pit.
The water that had pooled on the ground was being sucked into it, as if it had found a drain.
"Who...?"
She didn't have the confidence to look at his corpse.
It was also forbidden to handle the body of an executed criminal.
Nevertheless, tormented by her grief, she had decided to move his body somewhere else and came here.
"Who took it?"
But someone had already taken Clay's body.
The location where a criminal's body was buried was never revealed, so she had barely managed to dig up the information and find the burial spot.
"Who, on earth?"
She fell to the ground and started digging into the pit with her hands.
"Did the ground just collapse inside?"
With a face still flushed from drinking, she shoveled the dirt with a soulless expression.
Crash!
Startled by the sound of thunder that pricked her long ears, she covered her head and hunched over.
"It wasn't me..."
She muttered like a madwoman.
"I didn't do it. I swear. I had no choice. I didn't know it would turn out like this. Really, I swear."
After confirming that there was nothing inside, no matter how much she dug, she collapsed into the mud.
"Clay. I'm sorry, Clay. I'm so sorry. Please come back. Please, please come back."
Her wish simply dissolved into the rain.
***
"Fortunately, it's still here."
Near the wastelands, a former demon stronghold.
He had swept this place clean with his party in the past, so no demons remained.
The only building left in decent condition was half-destroyed.
Thump, thump.
Still, it was perfect for taking shelter from the rain.
While taking off his clothes to wring the water out, Clay noticed the sealing circles remaining on his body.
"These are still here, too."
He let out a sigh.
All his physical wounds had been healed, but the seals hadn't disappeared.
This way, he couldn't use his old power properly.
"I can feel... some magic."
He seemed to be able to use a certain amount of magic.
Clay conjured a small ember to make a bonfire.
He picked up a few branches, made a support, and hung his clothes on it.
Crackling.
The firewood he had gathered caught fire and quickly dried his clothes.
Clay closed his eyes for a moment.
Even though he must have slept a lot while he was dead, he still felt tired.
'Just a moment...'
Clay, who had closed his eyes, opened them when he heard people talking nearby.
"!"
Still groggy from sleep, Clay quickly extinguished the bonfire, grabbed his clothes, and hid behind a pillar.
It was then, as he put his clothes back on and surveyed his surroundings, that several people entered the space he was in.
"Damn it, why is it raining so hard?"
"I know, right? Of all days, it had to be on our outside patrol."
They were complaining.
They were none other than soldiers of Iser.
"Hey, can we even be in a place like this? It's off-limits."
"So what? The Demon King is already dead. The demons here have been gone for a long time."
"Huh?"
As they talked, one of them raised a question.
"Wait, looks like someone was in here?"
He had discovered the traces of the fire Clay had made.
"They even lit a fire."
"Really?"
"You don't think they're still here, do you?"
At those words, Clay held his breath nervously.
But fortunately, he was not in any danger.
"Probably just some vagrant who passed by."
"Even if they are, what are they going to do? We're the elite guards of Iser."
"That's true."
The soldiers laughed among themselves.
Clay sighed in relief, but then listened intently again.
"But about the Empress."
Talk of Tia flowed from them.
"I hear she's been sickly ever since the hero was executed."
"Sickly? Didn't she just show up at the banquet a while ago?"
"Didn't you hear? She almost fainted several times."
The soldiers said that Tia wasn't eating properly and was growing weaker day by day.
Hearing this, Clay let out a hollow laugh to himself.
'She's the one who passed the sentence.'
Tia and I were childhood friends.
We promised to trust each other no matter what.
Even if it was just a childhood promise, Clay believed in Tia.
If their positions were reversed, Clay would not have let her die.
He certainly wouldn't have been able to sit there and personally pass the sentence.
Clay clenched his fists tightly.
"Oh man, is it that late already?"
"Let's hurry up. If we're late again, they'll scold us."
"If we say it's because we were sheltering from the rain... never mind. They'll probably scold us even more."
After a while, the soldiers hurriedly prepared to leave and exited the building.
Clay came out from behind the pillar and let out a sigh.
'To be in a situation where I'm not welcome even after being resurrected. I really feel pathetic.'
After confirming the soldiers had moved away from the building, Clay took a few steps and then sank to the floor.
'I need to figure out how to get rid of these sealing circles on my body.'
Because they were a type of constraint on his body, the seals seemed to be making his fatigue even worse.
But there was no way he could get help from priests.
"Ah, maybe...!"
Clay discovered a brand mark inside the demon's temple.
Although it looked like a torture device, if he pressed it against a necessary part of his body, it would create a demon-style stigmata that could erase the magic circles blessed with the priests' divine power.
'Of course, what's here won't completely erase it.'
But it should be able to break some of the suppressive power.
Whoosh.
Clay lit a fire again and heated up the brand he had found in the temple.
"Phew."
He shuddered at the expected pain, but it was nothing compared to the fear he felt when he was dying.
Clay held the heated brand mark and pressed it against his skin.
"Ugh!"
Crash!
At the moment lightning flashed and lit up the darkness, the demon's stigmata, something a hero would never have, was clearly branded onto his body.
***
"It's here, Your Majesty."
A few days later.
Tia, having found out that Clay's body was missing, ordered the Royal Guard to investigate the situation.
And now, the Royal Guard had secured testimony from soldiers who had found traces of someone near where Clay had been buried.
"Is this the right place?"
After hearing the captain of the Royal Guard, Tia looked at the soldiers who had testified with cold, lifeless eyes.
The soldiers, cowering at the anger emanating from her thin lips, replied.
"Yes, yes, this is it!"
"There was definitely a fire lit here!"
Contrary to their words, there were no traces of a fire left in the demon's temple.
"Your Majesty."
The captain of the Royal Guard spoke to her.
"It's been wiped clean, but someone was definitely here."
"...The evidence?"
"We have secured a demon brand used to create an unholy stigmata."
The captain of the Royal Guard held out something he had received from the knight who had finished the search—it was clearly the brand used in the demon's temple.
"It seems to have been used recently."
At the captain's explanation, Tia tightly clenched her small fist.
"How far do you think they could have gotten?"
"They probably couldn't have gone far. With the rain and carrying a corpse, it would have been a very difficult journey."
"Is that so?"
Tia bit her lip and immediately commanded the captain of the Royal Guard.
"Find them."
"Should we kill them?"
"No. Find them and bring them back alive."
Because she needed to teach them what happens when they steal something that shouldn't be stolen.