Former General Is Undead Knight

Volume 1, Chapter 2: Undead Knight ②

Two men were walking in the darkness of the deep valley.

The first man wore a deep blue colored robe which covered his body save for eyes. Despite having a short stature, the crimson glint from his eyes didn’t denote him as a child at all. He was straddling a coffin that was almost as tall as him on his back.

The other one was a bald old man with a grim look on his face.

They were both members of『Devil’s Piper』, an organization that focused on researching the forbidden sorcery, something that was forbidden or restricted by the country.

The member of 『Devil’s Piper』 were composed of excellent sorcerers whose curiosity had led them to step on to the wrong path. They were famous for having no qualm over the method they used for experiments like using human as their lab rats, or even murder.

However, while they were regarded as an extremely dangerous existence, the country didn’t really know what to do about them. Their movements were too unpredictable, thus they were basically left alone to their own devices.

The name of the child wearing robe was Maniga. Despite him being born from a family who was famous for their white magic, a magic that specializes in curing people, he decided to go against the family teaching and entered the『Devil’s Piper』. In short, he chose to betray all that his family stood for. Currently, he was researching the arts of Necromancy, the magic that would control corpses.

The other one, the old man, was Bluig. He was also a member of『Devil’s Piper』. This time, he came down to the bottom of this valley acting as Maniga’s escort. In his youth, he was known as an excellent magician who wandered around subjugating the demon that was spanned from the well of mana

.

However, the current him was nothing more than a husk of his former self. When he grew old, he had succumbed to his desire to pursue the root of magic before his death, thus why he entered 『Devil’s Piper』.

「Yes, I can feel mana flowing in this place. No one would have any doubt even if someone was lost in this kind of place. We just need to kidnap the person who happened to pass by this place, and we will get all of the ingredients we needed. No one will suspect us.」

Hearing that, Bluig licked his lips with a smile as he looked at the tall cliff ahead, impatient. However, Maniga walked ahead, leaving Bluig behind, searching for something. Bluig noticing his action, chased after him in a hurry. After all he’s supposed to be escorting Maniga.

Soon, Maniga stopped in his tracks and then squatted in front of a skeleton. The skeleton was wrapped in full body armor, holding a sword in it’s hand. There was a helmet beside the skeleton.

「Why are you in such a hurry, Maniga?」

「This skeleton…… Still has mana flowing in it.」

「What did you say? 」

At once Bluig stood beside the skeleton and looked at it closely to examine it. And from what one could see with the naked eye, there was almost no dirt on the bones, and no sign of deterioration. Most likely, the powerful mana that resided inside those bones prevented it from happening.

Mana was something that resided in all living creation. Some even said that it was part of the soul.

And normally, when the living died, mana would leave their body and disperse into the atmosphere. However, when there was a strong attachment and lingering feelings, parts of their mana would head back to their deceased body and resided deep in their bones.

The only way to disperse those lingering mana was to hold a proper funeral. However, from the feel of the mana residing in this bones, it was obvious that it had been a long time ago since the person was dead. It seemed like no one ever properly gave the person a burial.

「But…I have never seen this armor before. On top of that, this type of armor is the type that was popular a long time ago, a full plate armor. Does this mean that the mana had been residing in this thing for hundreds of years? 」

「… That’s highly possible since this place has been turned into a well of mana which also help prevents the bones from further deterioration. Moreover, from the look of it, the skeleton’s lingering affection seems to be quite something else. It definitely will become nice material for undead.」

Maniga mused as he lowered the coffin on his back, and opened it to show that it was filled with various ingredients, grimoires, and medium for sorcery.

「Well, let’s try your necromancy here, Maniga.」

Bluig then placed down the lantern in his hand on the ground as he leaned on the nearby rock.

Watching as Maniga took out a dark red liquid and metal poles from his coffin, and used it to make a huge circle with the skeleton as the center. Next he took out a bottle before scattering its content, some sort of powder that was made of several broken demon’s remain, on the armored skeleton.

Finished with all the preparation, Maniga tried to move the armored skeleton to the central position of the circle, and grimaced upon feeling its weight.

「This armor……… Must be a mystic metal[Organ].」

Maniga wasn’t strong enough to move that heavy duty Organ.

「Making an armor with Organ? What kind of foolishness is this? As if anyone who wear that kind of armor can move properly. It might’ve been made by some idiotic upstart noble in the long past era.」

「But…… There’s a record that Regios kingdom used to use the full plate armor of Organ during the Eight Countries Unification War.」

「Maybe it is created to be a decoration ritual. As if someone who can wear that kind of armor exist. Those foolish historian sure can think of something that amusing sometimes huh.」

「… I see now, you might be right.」

Maniga then pointed his cane toward the armored skeleton. He was constructing magic formation in his head and then transcribed in the air by the power of mana.

Soon, the magic formation’s light was shining on top of the armored skeleton.

「O Dead Soul, Obey Mine Command! 」

A pair of crimson lights appeared in the eye sockets of the armored skeleton at the same time as Maniga’s voice resounded in the clearing. Then, its entire body trembled. A sign that it was awakening.

「Now, we got an obedient corpse of a knight」

「Huhm… As expected of the descendant of the prestigious white magic user family. For your skill to reach such terrifying degree at that age. 」

「Though I don’t like to be reminded of that house, I’m still honored to be praised by you, Bluig-sa-… Eh? 」

The armored skeleton rose up slowly.

Maniga was shocked in seeing that.

Since this undead was made using the mana that resided within the skeleton, its power was supposed to be only as powerful as the skeleton’s power when it was still alive. Maniga had never expected that the skeleton, that was only supposed to be as strong as when it was alive, was able to actually stand up while wearing that heavy Organ armor. After all, there was no human who was capable of moving while wearing Organ armor. At least, none that he knew of. That’s why he planned to strip that Organ armor off. However…it seemed like that plan was unnecessary.

「… Try to slash the air using that sword.」

Maniga ordered. The armored skeleton nodded before it swung its sword. And that giant sword tore the air in front of it with an incredible speed.

With just a simple swing from the armored skeleton was enough to create a surging gale. Maniga was shocked as he fell on his rear. The wind also caused his hood to fall, exposing a teary eyed baby face of Maniga, which was completely at odds with his crooked evil nature

「W-What a power. O-Oi, Maniga-dono, are you okay? 」

When Bluig called his name, Maniga snapped out of his dumbfounded state and soon his mouth curved up as he laughed delightfully.

「Nice… This is amazing! This undead isn’t your run-of-the-mill undead! There’s no need to fear Regios kingdom monitoring my activity as long as I have this undead! 」

Maniga was in a completely excited state as he roared loudly, creating a rain of saliva.

「Hohou, I’m looking forward to it. Maybe the mana vein of this land is the reason for the skeleton power.」

「Search around, there might be other corpses like this one! Oh, and Bluig-san…… Let’s call the other 『Devil’s Piper』 in the other area to gather our war potential! And erase the city of Rievel from the map! 」

「Sure thing……this sort of powerful undead will really make a difference… Let’s try to make a proposal to the upper echelon to push forward the research about necromancy.」

Bluig was grinning ear to ear as he looked at the armored skeleton.

「Of course! Let’s do that! And someday, we’re going to turn ALL OF THE CITIZEN of this damned kingdom into an undead! Let’s turn those stupid people of Regios kingdom who can’t understand the wonder of 『Devil’s Piper』 into our undead slave’s, FOREVER! 」

「Fufufufu, WONDERFUL!」

When those two were busying themselves while laughing and fantasizing, the body of the armored skeleton trembled.

「O-OoooOO… Regios… Kingdom? 」

Bluig stopped laughing as he looked at the armored skeleton.

「… Oi, could it be that this guy still has its ego? 」

「As if, it’s just mumbling whatever words it picked up. Or perhaps it had an extreme case of lingering attachment when it died, and had a reaction to the word. There were plenty of cases where undead still make a simple reaction to a word that triggered its memories. But that’s all. Besides, in this case, this skeleton seems to have died a very long time ago. Honestly, it’s already a miracle that it still have mana residue in it, so it should have already lost all of its ego…」

「ReGios KinGdOM… Will Stop the destruction of Regios kingdom. So Regios kingdom managed to unite the western continent huh…」

The armored skeleton swung its sword to the side.

「…… Eh? 」

Maniga let out a dumbfounded voice when he heard the skeleton speaking. He then went nearer to the armored skeleton as it looked at Bluig.

Meanwhile, the swing that the skeleton had made with his sword just now created a terrifying gale that enveloped the area, and despite being separated by quite a distance with it, Bluig still ended up being blown away by the gale and crashed on the cliff wall behind.

But, Bluig knew very well that the swing that had sent him flying just now was not a serious move, in short it was just a casual light swing, and not full powered one. Thus, as soon as he could, he immediately stood up as he cleared the dust cloud with his sleeves.

「N-No way… So it’s not an extremely old corpse! Furthermore, Its remaining will power is strong enough to go against its necromancer! Oi, Maniga-dono! Do something about this guy! 」

Unfortunately, at that moment, Maniga’s upper half body fell right beside Bluig who was still shouting.

「……… Eh? 」

No matter how one looked at it, it was obvious that he is dead.

「W-Why did I, AliVe…… Ah, AaaA, A……」

The armored skeleton then turned his attention to Bluig.

「E-Earth, Be a Swamp! 」

Bluig stroke the ground with his cane. As soon as the magic square appeared on the ground, the armored skeleton’s legs were sunk into muddy swamp.

「E…… Eh? 」

While it was baffled, its body kept sinking into the swamp.

「O Earth, Solidify! 」

Yet Bluig didn’t stop at that. He used one magic after another. So when half of the armored skeleton body had sunk into the swamp he made, Bluig immediately solidify it back to earth ground.

「O Earth, Become Stone! 」

Then, the earth that gathered and buried the half sunk armored skeleton was transformed into a lump of rock in a blink of an eye.

Heaving a relieved sigh, Bluig knees fell to the ground.

「Haa… Haa… It seems that it regained its ego and fell into a confused state. Good grief what a terrifying fella. Ceh… This is your fault, Maniga-dono…」

After that, Bluig cupping his hand against his mouth as nauseated feeling assaulted him.

「Uuh…… Maybe I overdid it…………」

The magic that was needed to change the form of materials was not little. And using it in succession within a short period of time was an extremely large burden even for a magus of Bluig’s caliber. Usually, there would need to be a stopgap to be able to use these level of magic in succession.

That’s why Bluig was suffering from the recoil of his decision.

Unfortunately for him, the next moment, while he was still feeling the recoil, the lump of rock was smashed apart from within. And one could see the armored skeleton’s figure doing it.It forced its way through the rock’s restraint and jumped up before it landed on the ground with a loud thud.

「…………… WHAT!　I-IMPOSSIBLE! 」

Bluig retreated as he shouted.

「O Flame, Burn Mine Enemy! 」

He pointed his cane toward the armored skeleton while his other hand pinned his temple.

The blazing flame that appeared on the tip of his cane changed its shape into a sphere before it was fired at the armored skeleton,

「UOOOOOOO! 」

The armored skeleton easily erased the flame with a swing of his sword.

Unable to withstand the gale formed by the swing of the armored skeleton’s sword, Bluig frantically braced his legs on the ground as he shut his eyes.

「Just, what kind…… Of Undead is this f^cking monster! 」

When he finally managed to open his eyes after the gale subsided, the armored skeleton was already standing in front of Bluig.

It stood there with its great sword raised high above.

「WAAAH! ? 」

The next moment, the giant sword descended, splitting Bluig’s body half.

And, each half of his body blown into opposite directions due to the sheer wind pressure which came from the sword’s swing.