Volume 4 Chapter 43-2 The Shadow of the Kingdom and the Hero’s Necromancy
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Right in front of Yomi.
Even if they weren’t close, was it okay to show her the ruthless execution of someone who was part of the same class?
”…H-help!”
The boy looks scared as we approach, trying to back away while maintaining his balance.
He stumbles backward.
”P-please forgive me! I’ll do anything!”
The boy pleads for his life, his hands on the ground, his voice trembling.
His voice shakes.
His eyes are wet.
At a glance, just a helpless kid.
”Neguro…”
Yomi murmurs.
Is that his last name?
”…Huh? Why’d you say my name…?”
The boy’s eyes go wide in surprise.
Yomi seems not to have realized.
That can’t be helped, I guess.
The Yomi now is a beautiful girl, having fully utilized the ‘Love Hotel’s functions.
She only knows the her before purification, so of course she wouldn’t notice.
”Could it be… Ms. Togaki? Really…?”
On the boy’s face, shock and confusion mix with a flicker of hope.
”Why did you do this? If you cause a stampede, a lot of people will die! It’s only natural that someone would come to stop you.”
”Why? They summoned us and tried to use us for their convenience without giving us a good reason! We were forced to fight without understanding anything!”
The boy grits his teeth, screaming, spitting out his words.
”They locked us up in a room like a prison, watched us all the time, and made us fight without any explanation! In the end, they even tried to kill me with some evil ability!”
He keeps shouting, pouring out all his pent-up frustration.
”They never treated me like a human from the start! A kingdom like that deserves to be destroyed!”
”So… you’re going to kill? The ones who die in the stampede are innocent!”
”Ugh… that’s…”
The boy stumbles over Yomi’s calm observation.
”I-I won’t! I promise! We were classmates, weren’t we? Please help me!”
The boy clings to his relationship with Yomi.
If… if he truly repents and gives up on the attack, I could let him go.
Luckily, we have Lifia, who can see through his lies.
The chances are slim, but if he’s sincere…
Yomi turns to Lifia.
Lifia meets my eyes… and just shakes her head, silent.
He’s lying.
…Yeah. Figures.
Stupid to even hope, huh.
But… maybe it wasn’t pointless. At least it convinced Yomi.
She’ll probably give up now.
”…Oh…”
Looks like Yomi gets it, too, just from Lifia’s reaction.
She gives up.
Head down, shoulders slumped.
I draw my gun.
Aim it right at him.
I don’t want her to see what comes next.
”Yomi. Go inside. Stay put.”
”…Okay.”
But the second I say that, Neguro suddenly screams.
”Hahaha!”
His laugh blurs the line between desperation and madness.
It scrapes at my spine.
Neguro’s eyes gleam.
Hungry.
Wild.
”Get up! Rise, my pawns! Throw away your lives──serve me!”
The bodies in black robes──ones we’d thought were dead──start twitching on the ground.
Bones grind and pop.
Slowly, jerkily, they rise.
Their faces are drained, pale as wax.
Dead eyes, no emotion.
Their eyes crack, dull and dry.
Filthy breaths hiss out through clenched teeth as they lurch toward us.
”No way──he’s using his friends’ corpses?!”
”Ahahaha! Friends? You think I saw them as friends? They were just tools! They’re Demon Race──who cares?! They’re all the same to me!”
Even more corpses stand up behind Neguro.
Three more.
Demon Race, blood seeping from holes in heads and chests, still stumbling forward, closing in on us.
”I want you all dead! All of you──die, and become mine!”
There he stands.
A hero fallen into necromancer madness.
”Damn it…”
I raise my gun.
Aim straight at the nearest one closing in.
Squeeze the trigger.
”Mooluumve, Air Lancer!”
Lifia fires off her own spell.
Bang──clean, dry snap.
The bullet buries itself in a corpse’s forehead.
Its skull caves in with a sick crunch.
A wind spell blasts clean through another corpse’s torso.
But it doesn’t go down.
Keeps staggering forward.
Reaching, clawing.
”Hah!”
Behind us──swords clash, ringing sharp and loud.
Kéa and a black-robed corpse are locked in a deadly struggle, blades grinding.
One corpse, headless, swings a knife around with wild abandon.
These corpses feel no fear.
Not even for their own bodies.
They throw themselves at us with reckless force
”Ahahaha! I’m gonna kill every last one of you and turn you into my puppets!”
Neguro throws both hands to the sky, screaming like he’s lost his damn mind.
The air goes thick.
Nasty. Magic so heavy it makes me want to puke oozes into every corner.
The corpse dragon shudders and starts to move.
Gross. Crap.
If the dragon joins in, we’re dead.
No way we make it out.
”I’ll kill you all…! The guys’ll be my soldiers, the girls──yeah, you heard me──I’ll use ’em all as my toys! Even you, Ms. Togaki. The elf, the lady knight──no exceptions! Everyone, everyone just DIE!”
Not a single shred of sanity left in him.
Hell, maybe he was always crazy from the start.
His laugh… there’s nothing but misery in it.
Completely broken.
I raise my gun.
It’s all or nothing now.
I gotta do it──fast.
My sights lock onto Neguro’s chest.
Right where his heart is.
I set my sights and put my finger on the trigger.
But faster than that…
”Altair…Ray”
Yomi’s voice echoed quietly.
A spurt of white light from her hand slips past me.
The dazzling flash of light traveled in a straight line, tearing through the darkness of the forest, piercing Neguro’s chest.
”Ahaha… what? Oh, why…”
Neguro’s smile twisted into a grimace as he slowly looked down at his chest.
There was only a charred hole where the beam had struck him.
He reached out, as if grasping for something just out of reach, clawing at empty air.
His trembling fingers found nothing but void.
Then, Neguro crumpled to the ground.
And he never moved again.
Moments later, a dull thud echoed as the dragon zombie behind him collapsed.
The other robed figures froze, their bodies slumping lifelessly to the ground.
They were just lumps of flesh now.
The miasma that had hung like fog began to dissipate, the air growing clear.
The forest slowly returned to its natural state.
Yomi watched him silently.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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