Chapter 7 : Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Usurping the Nest
The old man in the black-gray robe lay arched back over the long table, his frail waist looking as though it had snapped in two. Black blood kept welling out of his mouth, and the wound in his abdomen was still bleeding without stop.
Cyril gripped the broken sword and watched the old man’s twitching body gradually stiffen, but he showed no intention of relaxing his guard. He even drew the intact knight’s sword from his waist as well—
For a Rogue, Dual-Wield Mastery was a skill that had to be learned. Even without any actual skill bonuses at the moment, Cyril trusted that the instincts etched into his bones would still let him bring out enough power.
Cyril was certain that the strike which should have been fatal to any ordinary old man had failed to kill him. Part of that certainty came from his experiences in the game.
In the quest called 【Usurping the Nest】, players had to travel to a small town in the Northern Frontier that had been demolished until only a few ruined buildings remained, then investigate the possible presence of heretics. It was supposed to be a simple investigation quest, yet as it progressed, countless hidden dangers lurking within La Rochelle itself were exposed.
If Cyril had guessed correctly, then the town they were currently in—Talin Town—was the very place where that quest had once taken place. That was why it had felt faintly familiar to him, yet did not match the map. In the game, this had been a ruined town, with barely any of its walls left standing. And the pine forest Caroline had spoken of had, in the game, become a dead and cursed wood.
He remembered it clearly. At the time, players had only just shaken off the “Apprentice” prefix from their classes and were still flushed with excitement, ready to distinguish themselves as proper soldiers—only to be crushed by the despair of facing an Undead Lich in the quest whose health pool was absurdly thick.
Because Cyril himself had been one of the people beaten into a panicked retreat by that Undead Lich back then.
Setting aside what he knew from the game’s history, the way to confirm that the old man was not dead was simple. The moment he pulled out the sword, Cyril had opened his status panel, and the completely motionless experience bar proved that the old man had not died.
He ran through the details of that quest again in his mind. In the quest, what the players first found had been a shriveled corpse in black robes. Then, after triggering a cutscene, they were savagely chased down and beaten by a Lich that emerged from that black-robed corpse.
Now that he thought about it carefully, was that black-robed corpse the Lich had crawled out of actually this old man’s dead body?
The cold wind howled through the church. The window frame slammed hard against the sill with a loud bang, and at the very instant the sound rang out, the tightly wound Cyril could not help glancing up. But in the next moment, from the corner of his eye, he saw the old man’s corpse on the table twist in a grotesque motion.
He could not see the old man’s face. He had no idea whether that face, already smeared with black blood, was about to turn toward him with some horrifying grin. But he could clearly hear the constant clicking sounds rising from the old man’s throat.
Then, without warning, the waist that had seemed as if it might break at any second bent upward in a sharp, unnatural arch. A burst of crackling pops sounded from his bones, and then the old man’s body dropped back onto the long table once more.
The church fell silent.
The only sound in that silence was the sinister whistling of the cold wind.
Holding one long blade and one short blade, Cyril slowly, slowly began stepping backward, one step at a time.
“Mr. A—”
The girl at the doorway suddenly spoke.
The unexpected sound nearly made Cyril spin around and throw the short sword at once, but he barely managed to restrain himself. His voice sank low as he said, “Don’t speak. Slowly back out of the church. He’s in the awakening stage. Any sound at all could trigger his necromancy.”
From the moment a Lich began to awaken, it possessed an enormous reserve of mana. And in order to stabilize its mind, a newborn Lich would vent that immense and uncontrollable mana outward the moment it was born. Whether it released a low-tier spell or a high-tier one was entirely random.
Once, a major guild had obtained intelligence that a Necromancer was about to advance into a Lich, and they had organized a Lich-hunting operation.
But they arrived one step too late.
By the time they got there, the Lich had already begun its ascension.
The spell it rolled was...
Death Ripple.
It was not an especially high-tier spell, but against low-level living units it was a strategic spell with devastating lethality over a vast area. Its power depended entirely on the scale of mana behind it. And the quantity of mana present during a Lich’s ascension went without saying.
The entire raid party was wiped out on the spot.
That disaster had served as a warning to every player who later sought to march against a Lich.
From the moment Cyril guessed that this was the location of the 【Usurping the Nest】 quest, he had already been on guard against the unstable variable known as a Lich. He had killed no small number of Liches with his own hands and had ample experience in both hunting them and escaping from them.
And yet behind him, Caroline, usually so obedient, cried out instead.
“But Mr. Adrien, we can’t retreat!”
The girl’s voice was trembling with tears.
Cyril turned around. He had been ready to curse, but instead he saw Caroline shrinking against the doorway, allowing him to see clearly what lay outside—
One after another, gaunt bodies with their bones protruding through their flesh were packed together at the entrance to the courtyard. One of them had apparently fallen to the ground, causing those behind it to step on its body and then tumble over in turn, until the gateway to the courtyard had become a complete blockage.
The scene ought to have looked almost absurdly ridiculous, yet all Cyril felt was a chill crawling over his skin.
Only then did he realize what he had overlooked—
When that quest took place in the game, this place had already been a ruin.
But Talin Town still had living residents now.
Residents who had likely long since been regarded as nourishment by this Necromancer, steadily drained and exploited until they became thralls of undead mana.
In that instant, every plan Cyril had made became worthless.
Smoothly, he sheathed the longsword back at his waist, crossed the distance to Caroline in two quick strides, and before she could react, hoisted her straight over his shoulder. Then, swift and agile as a black panther racing through the night, he charged toward the low wall around the courtyard and vaulted over it in a single motion.
“Mr. Adrien!”
“Shut up.”
At a moment like this, Cyril had no patience whatsoever to spare for the girl’s feelings. But the instant the words left his mouth, a tremendous BOOM erupted from the church behind them.
Acting on instinct, he pulled Caroline in front of him and rolled away. Countless bits of debris blasted upward by the shockwave skimmed past his scalp, and somewhere amid it all he could vaguely hear the roar of a monster.
He darted into the narrow gap between the nearby houses, and the surroundings abruptly darkened. Hidden in that cramped space, Cyril first set Caroline back down, checked to make sure there were no abrasions on her face, and only then collapsed to the ground in a sitting position.
“Caroline, we have to think of a way to get out of this town. That pine forest you mentioned—is it safe? If it won’t turn into cursed ground, then we’ll leave through the pine forest...”
Cyril suddenly cut himself off.
The girl in front of him was staring fixedly at the space behind him—that is, toward the mouth of the alley.
At once, he realized something. Just as he was about to draw the broken sword, a strange young woman’s voice spoke from behind him:
“You have disturbed Sandru.”
Cyril twisted around and saw a woman wrapped from head to toe in a dark violet cloak, wearing a bizarre mask, slowly stepping into the narrow space.
“Sandru?”
Cyril froze. That name was not unfamiliar to him.
It belonged to the future chairman of the famed undead power known as the Half-Moon Council, a figure whose status was roughly equivalent to that of the archbishop of La Rochelle’s Primordial Church.
He was just about to question the woman when he realized that she was staring at him as well. That mask could not hide the vividness of the eyes beneath it. In the dim light, they appeared all the brighter.
“Who are you? You seem to know quite a lot.”
As she spoke, she licked the corner of her mouth and then reached out toward Cyril’s shoulder.
“I find you very interesting.”