How a Reincarnated Warlock Lives – Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Night of the Corpses (3)

The First Night.

An ordinary night, no different from any other. Until then, Hakel thought the other man was just drunk.

“─!”

Seeing the man staggering and muttering incomprehensible sounds, anyone would have thought so. Hakel shook his head at the sight.

Isn’t that Todi from next door? Tsk tsk. He’s always wandering the streets instead of working.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

Hakel, about to say something to Todi, hesitated.

“Groooowl……”

A low groan escaped from Todi’s mouth. It sounded like the growl of a beast.

A chilling sound that made it impossible to even jokingly recall the words he often said in jest,”He turns into a beast when he drinks.”

“H-Hey, why are you─”

Hakel’s bewildered words were cut short.

Because Todi, who had been writhing and trembling, suddenly lunged at him. Towards his neck, the most vulnerable and exposed part of his body, unprotected by clothing.

Crack!

There was no time to scream. No, even if he wanted to scream, he couldn’t. His neck, bitten with a force that surpassed that of an ordinary human, could no longer function.

And just a few minutes later.

“Groooowl……”

In the dark street, there were now two beings staggering and searching for their next prey.

🔹🔹🔹

The Seventh Night after the first incident.

A week was more than enough time for the entire city, with its population of tens of thousands, to fall into chaos.

This was especially true because it was a peaceful metropolis that had developed with favorable geographical conditions, not a remote rural village or a place where battles with heretics were fought.

Ordinary soldiers, who didn’t have much combat experience, weren’t cold-hearted enough to drive a spear into the heads of their friends or family without hesitation. And this situation, which spread from the alleys and backstreets to the entire city, had gone beyond the level that the capital’s soldiers could handle alone.

The situation was the same elsewhere.

Not only in the capital, Luoisen, but also in Dobit, Fernti, and Kerot.

The phenomenon occurred simultaneously in major cities of the Ashitan Kingdom. As if someone had deliberately and artificially scattered the curse of the corpses.

There were countless casualties, but after an all-out war with all the kingdom’s forces and even the Royal Knights, the situation seemed to be gradually coming under control.

But on the Twentieth Night.

The corpses began to rise.

In addition to the madness that had initially thrown the city into chaos, spreading from living person to living person, the dead, whose lives had already been cut short, began to attack the living.

In the streets, in the fields, in the graves.

From corpses that had died a few hours ago to those buried in the ground years ago.

The attack of the corpses, which continued to move even after their heads were crushed, was enough to drive the kingdom’s soldiers to despair.

The sturdy walls built to keep out enemies attacking from outside were of little help in this fight. The enemy was already everywhere, both inside and outside the city.

As time passed, the number of the living dwindled, and the number of the dead continued to grow. And accordingly, the hope in the hearts of the soldiers turned to despair.

As the night of the corpses that had engulfed the Ashitan Kingdom grew deeper and deeper.

One day, a month and a half after the corpses rose, an Inquisitor visited the city.

🔹🔹🔹

“Thank you for coming. I would like to offer you something, but as you can see, the situation is like this.”

The one who greeted us with a bitter smile was the Prince of the Ashitan Kingdom, Capiel Ashitan.

“Don’t mention it. It is our duty.”

Hanek replied. Jerit and Daena seemed unfamiliar with this kind of situation, standing silently behind him.

I glanced around. The main castle, where we arrived under the guidance of the knight who closed the gate, could be described in one word.

‘A mess.’

It was a sight somewhat unbefitting of a place where a prince of a country and his Royal Knights resided.

Bloodstains and burnt furniture were everywhere. Scattered armor and weapons seemed to explain the current state of the Ashitan Kingdom, at least roughly.

“Tsk, only four. Where did all the money we’ve offered to the Church go?”

“……Even if it wasn’t the Griffin Knights, the elite of the Holy See, honestly, I expected at least some of the Divine Knights.”

“Stan, Mihal!”

Prince Capiel shouted at the knights who were muttering with displeasure as they looked at us.

Daena looked uncomfortable at the knight’s words, but Hanek didn’t seem to mind much. He probably wasn’t experiencing this for the first time.

I wasn’t particularly offended by his words either.

It didn’t matter much to me if they cursed the Church in the first place, and it was natural for them to become sharp after fighting a life-or-death battle for about a month.

Rather, it was more accurate to say that Prince Capiel, who still maintained a calm and polite attitude, was remarkable.

As if trying to correct the knight’s blunder, he sighed softly and said to us,

“Please don’t mind the knights’ words too much. Everyone is on edge due to the long battle. We are grateful that the Inquisitors dispatched from Hesterica and the brothers from the Holy See are already helping other cities outside with their remarkable power.”

When their superior, the Prince, spoke like this, the knights who had been muttering discontentedly bowed their heads to us.

“……We have lost many people, so our emotions got the better of us for a moment. We apologize.”

Hanek raised his hand as if to say it was alright. Then, an awkward silence followed for a while.

“Ahem.”

Jerit stepped forward slightly and opened his mouth as if trying to lighten the mood.

“Your Highness is truly pious. His Majesty the King must be very pleased.”

Prince Capiel, who had been staring blankly at Jerit, who had spoken to break the awkward silence, slowly said,

“My father passed away not long ago.”

“Ah.”

Jerit squeezed his eyes shut. The surrounding air became even more awkward than before.

“……Hmm.”

The Prince didn’t seem to mind much, knowing that Jerit’s words were without malice.

Rather, he looked at the flustered Jerit and spoke in a cheerful manner,

“I am probably the first in the history of the kingdom to have wielded a sword against my father, as well as the ancestors above him. Fortunately, it is not considered treason since they are already deceased.”

The Prince’s expression was shadowed as he forced a heavy joke.

I frowned as I listened to his words. Did the curse of the corpses reach even the tombs where the royal ancestors were enshrined?

“It seems like a very deliberate incident.”

Hanek nodded at my words. Unlike Jerit and Daena, who were still inexperienced, he seemed to immediately understand what I was trying to say.

“Indeed. There are not many who can spread a curse of this magnitude throughout the kingdom. In the eastern part of the continent……”

He swallowed his words and muttered, reaching for the hilt of his sword.

“Purifying the capital is the priority. Too many have already died.”

“I agree.”

Jerit and Daena nodded with grim expressions at Hanek’s words.

🔹🔹🔹

“Groooowl……”

Thud!

With a resounding sound, the corpse’s head cleanly flew into the air. I watched silently as the headless corpse collapsed to the ground.

A headless corpse can no longer make a sound. The corpse, which had stopped its unpleasant wailing, staggered and then stopped moving.

A clearly effective method compared to how the knights had been dealing with the dead so far.

Seeing this, one of the knights nodded with an impressed expression.

“Indeed……”

The Ashitan Kingdom, which had few incidents related to demon worshippers, was very vulnerable to this kind of attack. This was evident in the reaction of the knight next to me, who let out a faint exclamation of admiration.

In the case of ordinary iron weapons, attacking the head of a corpse was not a very effective countermeasure. They were not living humans in the first place, so they continued to move regardless of the destruction of their body parts.

However, the holy power, however weak, contained in the weapons, or the holy silver plating, was extremely effective against the corpses animated by evil spells.

Crack!

I saw Daena’s mace crushing a corpse.

Nearby, Prince Capiel and the kingdom’s knights and soldiers were slaughtering the corpses.

“Damn it, Stan! Block the back!”

“Die, die!”

“Uwaaaaah!”

As the sun set and darkness fell, the quiet city was filled with commotion and the stench of death.

Unable to go outside due to the tightly closed gates, the dead headed towards the royal palace, and countless corpses poured out from the alleys and buildings of the city, which were intertwined like a spiderweb.

The momentum of the knights, who were slaughtering the corpses that seemed to be driven solely by malice towards the living, was resolute, but the number of enemies was endless.

“Over there, block over there!”

Rumble!

I heard the sound of a barricade collapsing, unable to withstand the weight of hundreds, no, thousands of corpses pushing against it.

“To the palace, into the palace!”

Prince Capiel shouted urgently.

The corpses poured in through the suddenly collapsed barricade.

Groooowl!

With their mouths wide open, filled with blackened and decayed teeth, the corpses charged with a speed that was not inferior to that of a healthy adult male, their momentum ferocious.

I quickly calculated their distance.

Time was needed for the soldiers to safely retreat into the palace.

I raised my hand towards the hundreds of corpses that were pushing their way through the collapsed barricade made of various objects.

‘Sericria’s Spear.’

With the feeling of the holy power within me being drawn out, a spear of light began to form in the air. It was incomparably larger than the one I had created when I faced the witch before.

When dealing with a large number of enemies, one area-of-effect spell was more effective than multiple spells.

It was a simple transformation of a spell from my perspective, but not something anyone could imitate.

A spear of light illuminating the dark night sky.

“Oh my god!”

The faces of the soldiers were illuminated as they witnessed the spear of light, easily exceeding the size of a human, forming in the air.

“……Huh.”

Hanek, who had been lightly swinging a large greatsword with one hand, also stopped moving for a moment and watched.

“May you rest in peace.”

Kwaaaang!

At my gesture, the giant spear flew towards the horde of hundreds of corpses.

The physical destructive power was not negligible, but what was more effective was the holy power itself.

“……!”

With a loud explosion and a flash of light, the exposed corpses crumbled like rotten straw.

“Now! Inside!”

Prince Capiel, who had regained his composure, seized the opportunity and shouted loudly.

The night of the corpses. The bright light briefly illuminated the dark surroundings.

Luoisen, the capital of the small kingdom of Ashitan.

It was the first night since the Inquisitor arrived there.

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