King of the Dead (1)
"Meal delivery, Young Master Klein!"
Clank—!
The small hatch beneath the prison door opened, and food was shoved through it.
Cold wheat porridge and bread.
And a single mouthful of water.
I took them, buried my face into the plate, and devoured everything noisily.
"Hah, to think the great Young Master of Leinrant has fallen this low."
"At this point, he's no different from a dog."
What I demanded after waking up ten days later was food.
This pitiful meal was the special treatment they had prepared for me.
"Phew!"
After cleanly emptying out whatever the hell they had fed me, I looked toward the prison door.
The inquisitors stared at me with ridicule, mockery, and contempt in their eyes.
But instead, as if provoking them, I hurled the empty bowl at the prison door.
Clang—!
"Tastes like absolute shit. Next time, try making it better."
The bowl struck the iron door with a metallic crash, and the inquisitor watching twisted his face in anger.
"Looks like you still don't understand your situation."
Even after ending up like this, the bastard was still acting arrogant.
Furious, the inquisitor reached to open the prison door with a rough gesture.
"Hey! If you open the door without permission from above…!"
The other inquisitor who had come along to mock me said that, but the hot-headed one clearly had no intention of listening.
"He's already wearing restraints, isn't he? Nothing'll happen if I teach him his place."
'So easy. Fucking idiots.'
Just as that thought crossed my mind—
Clank—!
The prison door opened, and the inquisitor holding a baton approached me.
"I'll beat you into mush, Young Master Klein…!"
Right as those words left his mouth—
Slash—!
Raven's blade, already waiting behind him, completely severed his wrist.
"Uh… ah…?"
Unable to comprehend the sudden situation, the inquisitor let out a stunned groan.
"Y-Young Master Klein got free?! How…?!"
Just as the other inquisitor, who still retained his senses, shouted that—
Crunch!
The jaws of a beast emerging from the darkness tore into his throat.
"Ghk…!"
His eyes widened violently, though it was not from pain.
"W-What… is all this…?"
Walls, ceiling, floor.
He was shocked by the spells and contract inscriptions densely covering every inch of the prison.
— Contractor, Klein Leinrant, speaks to the dead dwelling here.
Ruuuuumble…!
The entire wall glowed blue, and the empty spaces within the spell formations rapidly filled with runes.
The symbolic phrases were the teeth of wild dogs, bloodstained spears, and poisoned arrows.
— I shall be your homeland, your prison, and your avenger.
A massive contract ritual painstakingly created over ten days.
Countless resentful spirits flocked toward the subjugation contract I had prepared for the future.
— Those who accept the contract, emerge and become my limbs.
Ooooooooooh—!
The souls that accepted the contract stretched out their hands.
From the ceiling, from the floor, from the walls, from the doors.
Countless black arms burst forth, reaching toward me.
As though trying to touch me even a little.
As though worshipping me.
— Become my fangs, my blades, my arrowheads, and destroy my enemies.
Blurred shadows intertwined and gathered together, forming shapes.
— Grrrrrr…
Some took the form of wolves baring their fangs.
— KRAAAAH—!
Others took the form of skeletons radiating blue flames from their eye sockets.
"Ah… aaaah…!"
The undead eyes filling the entire prison level where I was held.
At the sight, the inquisitor's body trembled uncontrollably.
"You even opened the door for me yourself. How am I supposed to thank you for that?"
Looking at him, I calmly smiled and spoke.
"Right now, you've practically handed this entire reformatory over to me."
"Director Ben Drake."
The central cavity located in the middle of the reformatory.
As soon as they confirmed Ben had arrived, men dressed in black robes approached him.
"The next shipment was scheduled for next week. What brings you here?"
Though they were partners working toward the same goal, Ben disliked them immensely.
Necromancers belonging to the Empire.
Introduced by Palliman, they were the ones who "processed" the prisoners brought into the reformatory and produced Holy Blood.
"There's been a problem with the production of Holy Blood."
"A problem? What, did the beasts down there start complaining about the menu?"
Ben mocked them sarcastically, but the necromancers' eyes turned cold.
They coexisted under orders from above, but they were still clergy and necromancers.
There was irreconcilable hostility between them.
"The Holy Blood… has stopped being produced."
"What do you mean it stopped?"
Ben asked back at the absurd statement, while the necromancers scratched their heads as though they couldn't understand it either.
"The spell formations and laboratory conditions are identical to before, yet at some point the test subjects stopped excreting Holy Blood."
"So?"
Ben, who had been listening, showed mild irritation.
"Experimentation and Holy Blood production are your responsibility, so why come making a fuss to us?"
"There hasn't been the slightest change in our experiments."
One man stepped forward without using polite speech.
A middle-aged man with long, wavy black hair.
Despite his gaunt body and red eyes, an overwhelming power emanated from him.
"If that's the case, then the cause of this change lies with your side."
At those words, Ben's bored expression stiffened.
"…Wait."
As though something suddenly clicked in his mind, Ben hurriedly asked:
"Since when did the Holy Blood stop being produced?"
"Ten days ago."
At that answer, Ben's clenched fist trembled violently.
The only new variable introduced into this place ten days ago.
"Klein…!"
He had let his guard down.
To think that bastard had been plotting something even while imprisoned in that state.
"You mean Young Master Klein is here?!"
The unexpected name caused even the necromancers to react with shock.
"The creator of the mimic-type undead that appeared during the Paul Wyvern civil war…!"
How astonished they had been when they first read the intelligence reports.
Necromancy headed in an entirely new direction—neither Imperial knowledge nor the dark arts of the Archimond cult.
Greed filled their eyes as they recalled it.
'And in the middle of this, all they care about is research. Fucking lunatics.'
Clearly displeased by their curiosity, Ben clicked his tongue.
"We're heading to the detention block! I'll leave him in a state where he can neither live nor die…!"
Just as the enraged Ben said that—
KWAAAAA-BOOOOM—!
A tremendous explosion shook the floor of the central cavity beneath their feet.
"What the hell was that?!"
Ben shouted toward the lower floors, and the voices of the inquisitors guarding the lower detention zone rang out.
"It's undead! Undead are pouring out from the entire detention block~!"
Bark! Bark!
Alongside the howls of beasts came the screams of inquisitors.
"What is this?! How is this happening?!"
"Where the hell did all these undead come from?!"
Undead in the shape of dogs—Grave Hounds.
The inquisitors lost all courage at the sight of countless canine fangs filling the prison corridors.
"Stop them! Don't let them reach the upper floors—!"
— GRAAAARGH—!
A Grave Hound tore into the neck of the inquisitor desperately shouting orders.
Masses of hatred stripped of even the slightest remnants of humanity.
Mad hounds created by exploiting that hatred.
"Still, even I didn't expect this many to gather."
Stepping outside the prison door, I looked around the prison level where I had been confined.
— KRAAAAAAH—!
— Kiiik! Kyaaaaah—!
Skeleton Hounds charged at full speed without formation or structure.
Every single one of them was the soul of someone who had died in this reformatory.
"Damn it, there's no end to them!"
"Hey! There are more behind us!"
"Shit! Get away! Stay the hell away from me!"
Crunch! Boom—!
War hammers and batons overflowing with holy power smashed apart the shadow-covered hounds.
The holy power used by the inquisitors was the natural enemy of undead.
If it had been the old me, escaping this floor alone would probably have been difficult.
'But these mutts… aren't the only things I created.'
An isolated space overflowing with resentful spirits.
The demonic energy of the meteorite ring that had become completely mine.
And the ten days of time granted to me with all of that at my disposal.
While those bastards were drunk on victory, I desperately built my army.
Meeting spirits, forming contracts, subjugating those who had become evil ghosts.
I made every soul slumbering within this reformatory into my servants.
"This is insane, there's no end to them?!"
"No matter how many we drive back, they keep coming! They're trying to bury us under sheer numbers…!"
Black shadows charging from everywhere their eyes could see.
The moment the inquisitors saw that, despair filled their faces.
Stab—!
"Ghuack?!"
Amidst the rabid hounds charging wildly, a sword shot forward.
— Kiiiii—!
Following behind the Skeleton Hounds came infantry armed with war shields and arming swords.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Skeletons clad in heavy armor marched in perfect unison, swinging their swords at the fallen inquisitors.
A wall of shields completely filled the narrow corridor where battle was taking place.
It was their role to finish off those already thrown into chaos by the invading hounds.
"This… all of this was created by a single person…?"
One of the inquisitors trembled as he spoke in horror.
This man was no ordinary necromancer.
He was not one of the Empire's dogs they had seen before.
A necromancer commanding a legion of this size alone.
There was only one figure in history capable of such a thing.
And that necromancer's name was…
"Archi… Archimon…!"
Slash—!
Good for him figuring out who I was, but he realized it far too late.
Swinging the worn sword brought by a Grave Hound, I severed his neck.
Thud—!
The inquisitor's body collapsed with its head rolling away.
But now, I had no intention of leaving this man's soul alone.
— I speak to this sinful soul. Kneel beneath my feet.
Rumble—!
One hundred and twenty inquisitors had already become corpses.
After suppressing their souls, I drew a contract inscription across the ground.
Tssssss—!
An unfair contract that forced all pain and sin upon the soul itself.
From this moment onward, these inquisitors would fight for me until the very last fragment of their souls was exhausted.
Just like the countless other resentful spirits gathered here.
— KWOOOOAR—!
Bodies woven from demonic energy and filled with mana received their souls.
Undead stripped of will, existing only to carry out the commands they were given.
The moment the inquisitors of the Order fell into becoming the vanguard of a necromancer.
"Path secured. Looks like the other floors are finished too."
After spreading out my soul map and grasping the troop deployment inside the reformatory, I muttered that quietly.
The inquisitors and Ben's presence gathering on the upper floors.
And even the demonic energy of the necromancers there.
"Now all that's left is to take the top floor and cut off communications."
A smile spread across my lips as I confirmed both the operation objective and the unexpected spoils.
"Well then, shall we go?"
Just as I started walking toward the passage leading upward—
— Kiiiii!
The one hundred and twenty skeletons lined up around me as guards suddenly changed their weapons into polearms.
"What? I never gave that order."
I looked at the soldiers protecting me with puzzled eyes.
Skeletons equipped with armor sturdier than the others.
Special units created by selecting spirits with especially powerful resentment and will, reinforcing both their bodies and their autonomy.
Rumble…!
The skeletons marched toward the direction I intended to go and lined themselves up in perfect order.
Clank—! Clank—!
Soon, they crossed their black polearms together, forming an archway through the corridor.
A passage made from intersecting spears.
A road prepared for the procession of a king.
"…Seriously, showing off in the weirdest ways."
The yearning within the souls directed toward me.
"..."
Feeling it, I chose not to stop them and instead walked down the path the dead had created for me.
Step. Step.
Wrapped in tattered rags torn in countless places, with a rusted sword hanging at my waist.
I looked like the corpse of an ancient king crawling out from his grave.
— Kiiii—!
— Grrrrr…
Toward me, the resentful spirits who had long since forgotten even how to speak bowed their heads.
Entrusting their hatred and resentment to me, they all paid homage at once.
"This brings back memories."
Yeah, it had been the same back then too.
The millions-strong army gathered beneath the Ice Fortress.
The army of the dead filling the entire horizon bowed their heads to me as I walked through their midst.
The enemy of the continent.
The worst necromancer.
The demon born from Heidelberg.
Historians had created countless titles while referring to Archimond, the greatest disaster in the continent's history.
But all of those were names created by later generations.
False titles made by my enemies out of fear.
The most fitting title for the necromancer Archimond.
I recalled the name shouted proudly by the resentful spirits gathered beneath his feet.
The true title of Archimond.
The King of the Dead.