Chapter 154
Erich led his troops toward the place marked on the map.
Although it was a detour compared to simply climbing Haratakan directly, it would be worth the effort.
What Erich and his squad encountered there was the shape of a human writhing in the falling snow.
'... White glowing eyes.'
Of course, it was not a living person, but the dead.
At this moment, Erich confirmed that the dead were involved on Haratakan.
However, what made Erich doubt his eyes was not simply the presence of the dead, but the fact that they had 'detained' the shamans.
'What on earth are they doing this for?'
Thinking back, it wasn't entirely rare for the dead to capture people.
They always multiplied by turning corpses or humans into more dead. Living people seemed especially useful for them.
If one considered how stronger enemies appeared whenever they captured many living people, it made sense.
Frederick ground his teeth.
"... Hmph, what the hell are those rotten bastards trying to do?"
"Who knows? But I can at least tell they're up to something serious."
It wasn't just ordinary people but shamans that were being detained like that—surely, there was some clear purpose.
Erich quietly watched the scene of them reaching their hands through the bars while trapped. The dead ignored their cries without a hint of feeling.
Erich raised his hand. Barnes and Frederick nodded and spread out to each side.
Next, Erich stepped forward, revealing himself to the dead. The ones who had been motionless under the fallen snow all turned toward Erich at once.
― Grrrrrr.
With a bubbling, growling sound, their bodies began to move, dislodging the snow that had covered them.
Not only those standing there, but others who had been buried under the snow also revealed themselves.
Erich turned his gaze to one at the very back. That one was a typical necromancer clad in a tattered robe.
'Not very high-tier.'
He seemed unlike the self-directed necromancers Erich had encountered before.
However, that was not necessarily good news.
The existence of such a necromancer likely meant that there was someone in Haratakan capable of treating even such as him as a mere servant.
In any case, instead of addressing Erich, the necromancer exchanged glances with the other dead, with a sound like boiling anger.
And then—
― Grrrrrr!
The dead at the front lunged at Erich in an instant. However, Erich did not avoid their charge.
Instead, he simply strode forward toward them, unhurried.
― Kyaaaaaah!
In a flash, the bodies of the dead that had attacked and Erich crossed paths.
They had certainly swung claws and fangs at him, but none of their attacks reached Erich.
Erich continued onward, as if nothing happened.
Though nothing could be seen, the dead lunging for Erich dropped straight to the floor.
― Thud!
The fallen dead were not in one piece. Their necks had been sharply severed.
In an instant, Erich had decapitated all the attackers.
Pressing through the mob, Erich turned up the corner of his lip in a smile at the necromancer.
― Grrrrah!!!
The necromancer, as if irritated, sent even the nearby dead at Erich, while a crisp white light tinged his hands with cold energy.
Necromancer magic was certainly dangerous.
The frost he wielded was perilous enough, but spells shaped from that frost were even more so.
However, unless it was a high-ranking necromancer, Erich did not find them particularly threatening by his standards.
He knew, unexpectedly, that their true bodies were more frail than one would think.
Thus, instead of facing the necromancer head on..., Erich had already prepared another move.
― Thwack!
Suddenly, Barnes sprang from the side and drove his sword into the necromancer's shoulder.
Shock appeared in the white eyes of the necromancer who had not expected anyone to appear from that direction.
But that lasted only a moment; the necromancer unleashed a wave of cold to repel Barnes, who had charged him.
― Boom!
Barnes was knocked back, blocking with his sword.
But while the necromancer's gaze and spells were fixed on him, Frederick came up from behind, raising his sword.
― Crack!
In a flash, the necromancer's head hit the floor. Instantly, the dead who had been attacking Erich suddenly froze in place.
In that moment of confusion, as they lost the necromancer's control, Erich's sword moved swiftly to exploit the chaos.
― Slash!
The sound of air being ripped apart spread around Erich—a sonic boom from a sword swung at breakneck speed.
The dead, now motionless, lost their heads on the spot.
― Clack.
With the sound of metal, Erich sheathed his sword and walked toward the imprisoned shamans.
The shamans looked like they couldn't quite comprehend the situation. Erich addressed them in the Barbarians' tongue.
[We heard you needed help.]
[... An imperial who speaks our language? And our own people asked the Empire for help? Who was it?]
[It was one of your own. He said the shamans had been captured by the dead and asked for help.]
[Was it perhaps Aung-ga who requested this?]
[If it wasn't Aung-ga's request, would you have stayed locked up?]
[... No, of course not. Anyway, my thanks are late. Thank you.]
Erich gave a faint smile and snapped his fingers. Frederick and Barnes, standing to either side, freed the shamans from their cages.
The number of rescued shamans was in the dozens.
Compared to that, there were also dozens of dead who had imprisoned them.
Thinking about it, it was a curious exchange rate.
'Wouldn't the shamans have the upper hand if the numbers were equal?'
If there had been dozens of necromancers, maybe.
But it was hard to understand how all these shamans had been captured by an equal number of dead and a single necromancer.
[How did you end up getting captured in the first place?]
[... Well.]
The released shaman looked quite young, possibly only in his early- to mid-twenties at best.
He hesitated to answer Erich, then let out a sigh and spoke.
[At first, I thought it was just a simple weather anomaly. Haratakan's weather is capricious at the best of times.]
[But it wasn't, was it?]
[No. Suddenly, the sky turned red, and the dead began to pour out from nowhere.]
[And... are shamans weaker than I thought? Or would you really lose so easily in a direct confrontation?]
[If it had been just ordinary dead, we could have handled them ourselves. It isn't that hard for us to destroy them.]
The shaman glanced at a fallen, ordinary dead body. If, as Erich had thought, shamans were similar to wizards, a few of them could easily get rid of those.
The shaman continued.
[But something was odd. Suddenly, my power wouldn't flow right.]
[...? What do you mean?]
[Just as I said. The power I should possess suddenly became extremely weak. Not only me, but all the shamans here.]
[... Hoh.]
Erich slowly nodded. If the shamans had gotten weaker, it made sense that they were so easily overwhelmed by the dead.
After all, if you deprived them of their magical powers, what would be left, but barbarians who couldn't even throw a punch properly?
'They're not even warriors, after all.'
If they were barbarian warriors, they could have resisted barehanded, but these were shamans who wielded magic.
It would have been difficult to resist the dead in that situation.
Still, another question occurred to Erich.
The dead had drained the shamans' magic—just what kind of work did it take to steal magic from them?
Erich said,
[Any idea how it happened?]
[You mean our loss of power? I really have no idea.]
The shaman frowned in thought, but it seemed he, too, had no clue.
Erich had no answer for it either, so there was nothing to speculate on.
'Maybe Ceres will know.'
At that moment, Erich smiled bitterly.
'Aung-ga, was it? That crazy old man. He hid this?'
When Erich had first received the old shaman's request, he thought perhaps the shamans had simply been caught up in an accident, or maybe there was someone like Albrecht from the Watch involved.
But after coming here and hearing from a rescued shaman, he discovered the shamans had almost no power left.
Did that not mean, then, that rescuing them wouldn't add much to their strength anyway?
Yet, if he'd been told this in advance, there was no way Erich would have helped, so the old shaman Aung-ga must have schemed a little.
'Now, we'll just have to come up with another method.'
Then Erich spoke to the shaman.
[... For now, I'll send you back to Aung-ga.]
[There are many more shamans. Can you rescue them too?]
[Depends on the situation.]
[... The situation?]
The shaman blinked.
But Erich already had an idea.
If these people were useless because they'd lost their power, he only needed to make them useful again.
If he wanted to make the most of them, it was best to restore the shamans' power as well.
Only then would the rescue have been worth the effort.
***
Erich took those he had rescued and went to Aung-ga.
This time, Aung-ga, in contrast to his earlier high-handed attitude, bowed his head and spoke.
[Thank you. Let me apologize for my behavior earlier. However, if I hadn't acted that way....]
[I probably would've judged you to be useless. I understand that much.]
Erich gave a wry smile. He'd thought him just a stubborn old man, but there was clearly a snake in his belly.
Aung-ga nodded at Erich's words.
[You seem to have heard already, but most of us shamans, myself included, have lost nearly all our power. There was nothing else we could do.]
[... You have two options.]
[Which are?]
[Either let me beat you until I'm satisfied, or regain your power.]
Aung-ga's eyes narrowed. The wrinkles on his face grew deeper in shadow.
[If it were as easy as you say, we'd have already taken care of it. But we truly don't know why this happened.]
[So now we'll start investigating. Fortunately, we have an expert.]
[... An expert?]
Aung-ga's gaze followed the one Erich indicated.
There, with blue hair flowing in the wind, stood Ceres.
Upon hearing Erich's words, she wore a confident expression as if an idea had occurred to her.
Erich too curled one side of his mouth into a smile.
Now, they had a goal.
'Here, we'll restore the shamans' power, and crush the dead together.'
That was Erich's plan.