Chapter 103: 058. Imperial Prince Saw Him -2 (Part One)
**
Inside the academy’s executive office.
I was still stewing in shock when I asked Ruppel the following question. “What are you even talking about?!”
He sunk into the couch and firmly massaged his temples. “Dead Necromancers were discovered dangling by their necks on the plaza. That was early this morning. According to what some eyewitnesses say, an ‘angel’ did it.”
Not just any Necromancers either – if they were from the Black Order, it’d be possible to come up with some excuses. However, the discovered Necromancers were wearing attires belonging to the envoy’s group from Aslan. To make matters worse, the victims apparently belonged to the kingdom’s aristocracy, too.
I asked again. “Who could have done that?”
“What are you saying? Didn’t you do it? Surely the Necromancer that serves you must’ve been responsible.”
“That’s definitely not true.”
You think I’m crazy enough to dangle around a bunch of Necromancer corpses in a public plaza? Especially when they were Aslan’s nobles and not some random Black Order punks?
“You dare and deny it now?! Do you have any idea how upset envoy Haima was?!”
After receiving the report, the envoy apparently went on a tirade against Ruppel.
– Are you trying to make a mockery of us?! H-how dare you hang the devout worshippers of the god of death by their necks! Do you wish to wage a real war against us?!
“Dammit! Why did something like that have to happen now? This wasn’t a part of the plan, so what’s going on here? Allen, this matter needs to be reported back to the imperial court. I fear that both you and I won’t be able to escape from the repercussions of this event.”
Ruppel looked really flustered and confused right now.
I agreed that this was seriously dangerous. One wrong move somewhere, and I might end up as an unwitting patsy.
Bloody hell, it’s not like I did something really outlandish, you know?!
All I did was simply raid a few Black Order hideouts for the sake of our subjects’ safety and uh, to acquire some new techniques for myself!
I spat out a groan and asked Ruppel. “Okay. Can you tell me where the dead Necromancers were found?”
**
Harman and I reached the plaza in question.
The surrounding avenues were in the middle of preparing for the upcoming festival, but everything had come to a halt due to the incident.
The citizens walking by were staring at the plaza, an expression of worry clearly visible on their faces.
‘Maybe the war is going to break out for real now?’
‘Didn’t Aslan’s envoy come to the city? And I heard that our Theocratic Empire declared war first. Could it be true…?’
‘What? It isn’t Aslan declaring war but us, the empire?’
The whisperings of the passersby entered my ears.
I raised my head and took a look at the top of a building near the centre of the plaza. Along with some bloodstains, severed ropes where the corpses were previously tied to could be seen up there.
Several Paladins standing in front of the building continued on with their investigation.
Meanwhile, a few Priests were busy scrubbing some of the blood away before shaking their heads. From the looks of things, they didn’t seem to have uncovered anything of note so far.
“…Did someone from the Imperial Family make a move?”
Harman returned to my side after chatting to the Paladins on scene.
He shook his head after hearing my question. “No, your highness. That shouldn’t be it. We aren’t even in a wartime situation right now, so they wouldn’t do anything as extreme as killing the nobles of another kingdom to use as a warning like this.”
“What about eyewitnesses?”
“That’s the strange thing, as there are none. The corpses simply appeared out of the blue, they say. But one thing’s for certain – we don’t know who the culprit is, but…” Harman glanced at the Priests scrubbing the blood away and lightly clicked his tongue. “…This is definitely an act of someone wishing to create friction between Aslan and the Theocratic Empire. It’s safe to assume that we’re dealing with a big fish capable of hunting down Aslan’s nobles.”
Just who could’ve done this, I wonder?
It wasn’t the Imperial Family, since if someone from the family made a move, then I would have received some kind of report.
In that case, maybe it was Aslan themselves?
Harman seemed to have thought the same thing as I did, judging from what he said in the next moment. “Could it be that Aslan’s own people did this?”
“For what purpose?”
Of course, I had already thought up of a few things in that regard. There was a pretty solid reason to go this far, wasn’t there?
Harman replied. “The pretext for war, your highness.”
If Aslan really wanted to invade the Theocratic Empire, then this incident would be as good as any justification you could think of.
I muttered out. “However, judging from the envoy’s reaction, that couldn’t be it either.”
It seemed that Aslan’s own envoy had no idea about this incident.
Besides, if the story of the kingdom harming its own high-ranking nobles for an underhanded scheme got out to the masses, then there was a pretty good chance that some kind of an internal conflict might flare up in Aslan.
When facing the prospect of war, you couldn’t afford to have a division in your camp, now could you?
It was neither the Imperial Family, nor Aslan’s people. In that case, it had to be the third party.
But who…
It was then, a thick stench of demonic energy wafted to my nose.
Almost at the same time as the heavy odour of death entered my senses, this powerful dread began suppressing my whole body.
A chill ran down my spine.
Someone or something was staring at me.
I turned my head towards the direction of the demonic energy’s stench.
There, right by an alleyway – a figure shrouded in a hooded robe was standing behind the corner.
-How surprising. You can actually sense me?
The figure wasn’t talking to me through its vocal cords. No, its voice was reverberating inside my head.
-I see. The one who turned Humite into this mess and abducted my underlings was you, wasn’t it? So, you…
The hooded figure slowly raised its head.
A bleached-white skull revealed itself, along with a pair of glowing eyes burning in crimson hues.
-…must be the ‘angel’.
“…!”
I held my breath.
The moment our gazes collided, the surrounding air seemed to tumble down and begin suppressing me. Since I could clearly see that thing’s face right now, I quickly activated [Mind’s Eye] to analyse its identity.
[Name: Nasus
Age: ???
Attributes: Destruction, ruination, hexing, black magic, Necromancy.
+ For the eternal glory of Aslan…]
I sucked in a cold breath.
I then immediately pulled out my musket and summoned all the Blue Santas currently scattered around Humite, too.
It must be him! That’s the culprit responsible for this incident!
On top of that, this creature was the most dangerous individual I’ve run across so far.
Vampires, lycanthropes, all of them would be rendered powerless in front of that damn thing!
This aura, this bone-chilling vibe…
Right now, I was getting a similar sort of vibe which I felt from the Progenitor Vampire capable of mobilising an army of twenty thousand undeads. That monster was either on par with that Vampire or maybe even exceeded it!
It couldn’t have been your run-of-the-mill skeleton mage. No, that thing shouldn’t even be compared to a mere skeleton at all.
It’s an undead Lich!
“Oh, Gaia!”
“Your highness?!”
Harman hadn’t realised anything yet. But that was unsurprising, seeing that the Lich deployed some kind of an obstruction magic. That spell was such a high tier that the Blue Santas’s cloaking magic simply paled in comparison.
I quickly gathered divinity. I needed to shatter that skull in one shot, otherwise we might have a huge trouble later down the line.
“Please grant your blessing to your faithful servant.”
Divinity quickly permeated into the musket. The citizens around us flinched in shock and began staring at me.
Harman hurriedly waved his arms around and the guards near our position began evacuating the citizens from the surroundings.
Meanwhile, I resorted to breathing divinity, offering a prayer, and even activating [Divine Aura] on top of them all.
“Grant me the spear of your grace to pierce down the vile spirit of evil!”
This rifle was a long distance sniper type, and I pushed its firepower all the way to the max.
The undead Lich seemed to be silently observing, with less than two hundred metres separating us. I aimed my weapon and squeezed the trigger.
A bullet of light exploded forth.
The air expanded as the projectile penetrated through the air.
The undead Lich suddenly held up a crude-looking wooden staff in the air. Through my [Mind’s Eye] I immediately deciphered what the staff was.
[Amon’s staff.
Ability: Depending on the user’s stats, demonic energy is amplified by a minimum of 50% to 200%. Increase of 10% added to the recovery rate. Additional 10% to effectiveness of all skills.]
What the hell?
Demonic energy quickly coalesced on the staff. A barrier suddenly materialised and collided noisily against the holy bullet.
The two opposing forces of demonic energy and divinity triggered a powerful storm of explosion.
The crowd screamed and hurriedly ran away from the area.
Cracks began appearing on the demonic energy barrier.
What? The holy bullet failed to penetrate through it?
The undead Lich also got to witness this scene and the crimson glow in its eye sockets widened in shock. It stumbled back immediately.
-I see now. This is the reason why you were called the ‘angel’, isn’t it?
Dammit, the shot was too weak. I gotta fire another round. I should be able to accurately break through and hit the target this time.
I took another aim with my musket.
-It’ll be too difficult to deal with you as I am right now. We shall see each other again in the future. And when that happens…
The undead Lich’s glowing eyes burned in a crimson hue.
-I shall definitely kill you!
The Lich turned around and began dashing down the alleyway.
