Volume 4 - CH 35

Act 4-35: Another Emergency After The Case Has Settled

Tamri, who fainted from a punch to the abdomen, fell on the stone floor.

Naturally, he who couldn’t resist ended up getting beaten black and blue. Deimos stopped when his opponent was on the verge of death. He was a man who deserved the worst death after committing the greatest taboo for Deimos and co., namely speaking ill of their Supreme Ruler. Deimos really wanted to kill Tamri, but stopped since the human was a precious sacrifice for their plan. That was the only reason for Tamri to still breathe.

「Are you an undead who was originally human and had mastered martial arts?」

Tokotsu asked an irrelevant question with a deep frown on his face.

『Wrong. Martial arts is something that I learnt after becoming immortal.』

By now, the time he spent inside the mysterious realm, in which time flows differently from the real world, to train his martial art had long since surpassed the time he spent delving into the mystery of magic as a human.

It was truly a hilarious story that made him chuckle. He who chose to become undead in pursuit of ultimate magic had practically been trained in martial arts by transcendences for a time that was much longer than the time he spent to study magic, an amount of time until he felt that his goal to pursue the ultimate magic was a trivial and hazy childhood dream. Not to mention that the magic he always pursued for his entire life was achieved so easily due to a miracle. The divine protection that he got from the great ones were the reason for that. In short, something that he regarded as the penultima, the final truth of magic turned out to be nothing more than small milestones for the transcendences.

「Bullshi*t! Magic aside, as if there’s an idiot in this world who chose to become undead just to learn martial arts!?」

『That very person is right here though.』

Well, I was half forced to experience those hellish experiences though. Everything seems to be trivial once someone tastes those hellish days. As if that wasn’t worse enough, the one who finished and allowed to go out after that training camp was the Wind Cat’s folks. As for Me, Titan, Lucas, Oboro and co., that training was nothing short of an appetizer.

「Hah! You liar. Becoming undead while maintaining human consciousness has always been a necromancer’s lifelong goal. It’s impossible unless they’re a necromancer. And I’ve never heard about that being achieved either.」

『But here I am.』

Sure enough, he was right about transforming into undead while keeping one soul has always been the focus of necromancer. But, I did that despite not being a necromancer. Or so I used to think. Only after knowing those transcendences did I realized that it was nothing more than short of a child play.

「Oh whatever, I’ll dig out the information from you later.」

Tokotsu spoke while licking his lip and then turned around toward the undead high ogre who stood silently behind him,

「Restrict this skeleton.」

And ordered.

Hearing Tokotsu’s order, the high ogre started moving while raising a bestial roar.

The ogre who spent his days quietly with his family till it got killed because a scoundrel took his daughter hostage, and then he turned him into an undead. The old me who lost my human heart might regard this as trivial matter.

But, for the current Deimos――

『How nauseating.』

Deimos desperately held back the extreme disgust that he felt in his heart. Deimos was fully aware that he had no right to condemn Tokotsu. But that doesn’t mean forgiving Tokotsu.

He felt that the guy before him was truly a selfish human beyond saving. For some reason, Deimos really wanted to be a little selfish with his judgement this time.

「Kukuku! High Ogres are strong you know! Let see how much your swordcraft can ma――」

Without waiting for Tokotsu to finish his remark, Deimos pointed his right palm toward the high ogre who was rushing slowly toward him and,

『Flame Parasol』

Black flame appeared above the head of the high ogre the moment He spun the words of power. The black flame then spread down till it formed a hemisphere that covered the high ogre’s entire body. The high ogre, whose body was burned down by the black flame crumbled on the spot.

The high ogre body was burned down by the black flame and yet,

『Thank you…』

The Ogre muttered these words of gratitude right before his body turned into ashes the next moment.

Don’t thank me for this! I can’t do anything to save you after all!

Deimos could only grit his teeth as he tasted the bad after taste boiling up from within.

Though Tokotsu didn’t even flinch when he saw the high ogre turned into ashes right before him, he suddenly shuddered, sweating like waterfall from all of his body,

「Y-YOU BASTARD, WHAT DID YOU DO JUST NOW!?」

And shouted at Deimos.

『Why should I answer your question?』

Hearing Deimos replying with dumbfounded voice,

「Then, I’m gonna beat you till you’re willing to!」

Tokotsu got annoyed then started chanting aria.

It was a chant in ancient language. Hearing the composition, Deimos barely managed to recollext that it was a necromancy. Reason being the grammar used by Tokotsu was a total mess.

It was a spell to mass produce mid-rank undead to take care of small fries. And this spell had a fatal weakness, namely its long aria. In the first place, this place was most suited to be used when the user was hiding. It had the worst compatibility with close combat opponents, with the user was being exposed.

『Cancel』

The current Deimos could disturb the magic as easily as blowing small flame from candle.

Tokotsu spell got interrupted midway.

「Eh?」

Seeing Tokotsu raise a dumbfounded voice upon witnessing such phenomenon,

『If you really had exceeded human standards, you should be able to cast this kind of low level magic without aria.』

He spoke while raising his right hand, conjuring several magic circles. Thereupon, ten armored skeletons rose up from the ground.

「I-Is this my, 『Summon Undead Knight』? No―― Different! This is a completely different magic! What king of magic is this!? Why I’ve never seen this magic before!」

『This is Summon Undead Knight.』

It was undoubtedly 『Summon Undead Knight』but, thanks to the divine protection granted to Deimos―― 『Perfection of Magic』, the effect of his magic got enhanced dozens of times. In fact, the strength of the skeleton summoned by Deimos could rival Over rank adventurer’s class, and all of them was equipped with armaments. So, each of them could easily kill the likes of Tokotsu.

「Impossible! This is impossible! I’ve never seen such magic before! Aren’t you a former swordsman?」

Tokotsu started to mumbling incomprehensible remarks as he retreated.

『When did I say that I’m a former swordsman? My name when I was still alive was Star Laneige. I’m a sorcerer.』

— The memories of my life when I was a human that I’ve been forgotten for a long time became vivid clear lately. According to Girimekhala-sama, this wasn’t the effect of his divine protection. None of his peers’ divine protection had this kind of effect too. Maybe, the reason why my memory got refreshed was directly connected to that Supreme Ruler.

(Such irony…)

Deimos recalled his passionate youth and come to a realization that he had long since lost sight of his true goal. It might be too late for him to correct his mistake. But, him who regained his passion decided to turn over a new leaf and atone for his past mistakes.

「Star… Laneige? DON’T MESS WITH ME! AIN’T THAT THE NAME OF ONE EYED SORCERER, THE GREATEST SORCERER OF THE PAST!」

『They did call me that.』

At this point, I realized that I got too cocky with the “Strongest” title. Honestly, I feel nothing but embarrassment recalling that embarrassing name.

「If that’s the case, I’ll save the questions for later and beat the crap of you!」

Tokotsu glared at Deimos, and looking outside of the building,

「Oi, Dragon Zombie! I’ll give you the life force of the knight sleeping over there! Beat those guys!」

And shouted an order. Yet, no one replied back to him. Countless presences outside of the building vanished before he realized it. Something that Deimos realized too.

Dragon Zombie―― Was the corpse of one of strongest race in this world that become undead. They possessed intelligence despite being an undead. It was the kind of opponent that could give Deimos a run for his money, in the past, that’s it. But, the current Deimos could make a dragon run away with its tail between its legs.

「What are you doing! Kill him quickly!」

And yet, the one who replied to Tokotsu’s impatience voice was――

「No one will come no matter how much you call them.」

A swordsman with long black hair entered the building, dragging something huge with his right hand.

「SKULL! THIS GUY IS DANGEROUS! WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO ESCAPE IF WE COOPE… rate…」

Tokotsu’s loud voice toned down at the end. That was only natural since the thing that got dragged in by the swordsman with long black hair was the head of a dragon that had its flesh melted in various parts.

「Good grief, to think that I’ll have such hard time due to their overwhelming number.」

The swordsman with long black hair tossed the melted head of the dragon as he muttered such complaints.

Tokotsu’s mouth was flapping non-stop as he saw the head of the dragon crashed down on the stone floor.

「Im… Possible.」

And barely managed to squeeze the word.

「Deimos, there’s a change in our plan due to your ad libs. We don’t have to move behind the scenes anymore. I guess your ad libs is also part of Our Supreme Ruler’s plan.」

『Right.』

That’s right. Maybe, this was a test from That Personage for me. A test to see whether we could move in accordance to his plans or not. I’m sure that we would lose trust of That Personage if I decided to let that youth die a while ago.

「Skull, what’s the meaning of this?」

Upon hearing Tokotsu’s bewildering question, Lucas turned around as he returned to his original appearance-a middle-aged man- with a wide grin on his face.

「You bastard…」

Maybe because he noticed that he just got duped by the duo, Tokotsu could only cursed with vexed look on his face.

「My name is Lucas. A faithful retainer of Our Great Personage. It’s pleasure to meet you.」

Lucas bowed lightly with theatrical gesture. In fact, human might be a wrong expression to call the curent Lucas.

「What’s happen to the other undead!?」

Seeing Tokotsu asked with impatient look on his face, causing local rain of saliva,

「Naturally, I killed them all. Well since they’re undead, the correct expression is returning them back to soil.」

Lucas replied without erasing the grin on his face.

「LIES!」

Tokotsu sprinted; Deimos ordered his summoned skeleton knights to guard Lyla and Somni before he went after Tokotsu.

「Fuhehehe, this must be… a dream.」

Tokotsu fell on his knees upon seeing mountain of corpses around the building, crying and laughing at the same time.

Deimos, who saw that knew that Tokotsu had lost his fighting spirit. Thus, he could entrust Lucas to finish the job while he delivered Lyla to Kai.

「DEIMOS!」

Lucas, who was still composed a while ago suddenly called out to Deimos with tense voice.

That moment, several red lights fast approaching him. Deimos invoked magic shield to protect himself. Lucas also shook his right hand as if swatting a fly.

And then, one of the red lights hit Tokotsu through his head, evaporating his head in an instant. The body that had lost its head fell to the ground like a potato sack.

The one who fired the red light was a grotesque being donned in black clothes and black hat covered their melting square shaped face, dancing with strange movements.