Chapter 45: Arrival and Appearance

A large area of the city had burned and disappeared due to Lapis’ magic spell.

But apparently the effective range of the spell was longer than it was wide, and the damage reached close to the president’s mansion.

While Loren felt a cold shudder inside looking at the great deal of damage that was done, Lapis walking along the traces of her spell in a carefree manner, conjured a magic light on the tip of her finger and secured vision around them.

“Why now?”

“I’ve used a gigantic magic spell. They know our location, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Lapis said it like it was nothing.

Loren was confused at her words, and asked her the question that of course, had to be asked.

“Then why did you use such a spell?”

“…Hehe”

After a moment of hesitation, Lapis stuck her tongue out and gave Loren a deceiving smile.

“Don’t ‘Hehe’ me”

“No, but I needed to use a spell like that to defeat a bone dragon. I used it because I needed to.”

Lapis switched to a serious expression and started explaining, Loren continued to look at her with a skeptical gaze and pressed on.

“In reality?”

“I think a weaker spell like > would’ve been fine.”

Surprisingly, Lapis plainly admitted that she chose the wrong spell.

The current situation was because Lapis, who was holding back the whole time, let loose all her pent-up feelings in the form of one of her flashiest magic spells. But since she had admitted it so plainly, Loren thought that it was stupid to blame her any further and decided to change the subject.

“The spell you just used. It’s unrelated to the number of times you could use Divine Arts, right?”

“It’s not related at all. They’re completely different. I can still use Divine Arts three times.”

“Didn’t you say you could use it two times before?”

“I’ve grown a bit since then.”

Loren didn’t know what growth was for a priest, but if the number of times she could use Divine Arts increased, it was something to be happy about, and the progress itself wasn’t something to be worried about.

“Time to go, I guess…”

Lapis smiled as Loren decided to think of it as he could get injured an additional time now and suggested that they move ahead.

“That’s the most constructive action.”

Undead shouldn’t have emotions such as fear.

But maybe there was a chance that Lapis’ magic had struck fear among them.

That was how smoothly they reached the president’s mansion, without running into any undead.

Loren thought that a leader of a nation would be living in a castle of some sort, but the mansion that they reached had quite a fine structure but was far from being a castle.

It was surrounded by a moat, with a somewhat tall wall on the other side, and past it was the mansion, so to Loren it looked like a fortress.

On a normal day there would be soldiers stationed on the bridge to protect it, but currently there was no one to be seen.

Loren and Lapis crossed the empty bridge, went through the gates, and stopped in front of a space that seemed like a yard that led to the mansion.

“You’re quite reckless to have come all the way here.”

In the middle of the yard was a stand that looked like a stone altar.

On top of it was Shayna, who wasn’t moving at all, wearing a white dress that looked like the one she was wearing when Loren and Lapis first found her in the forest. In front of it was Shutel, who was now wearing a black robe.

Around it was bonfires, giving off enough light to see across the whole yard.

“You’ve got bad taste. What are you up to?”

A girl laid on top of an altar.

It looked like an evil ritual for worshiping some evil deity, and Loren raised his sword and glared at Shutel.

“This is all for accomplishing the work that my master has left.”

“Who the hell is that master you’re talking about? What are you trying to do to a young girl, you pervert?”

The corner of Shutel’s lips twitched. At the same time Lapis, who was watching the situation beside Loren, burst up in a small laugh.

Watching Lapis’ cover her mouth with her hand and trembling from trying to keep the laughter in, Loren continued to insult Shutel.

“I’m not interested in the words of a pervert. You’re so called master must be more perverted you are. Perverts like you should rot in hell, since you’re undead anyway.”

“W-what!? You uneducated savage!”

“I won’t completely deny uneducated and savage, but I know not to put my hands on a young girl like that. You can’t even do that, you pervert.”

“Age doesn’t matter! This girl had the aptitude!”

Blood did not flow in the veins of the undead.

That was why Shutel’s face stayed the same color, but her face twisted with anger, and glared at Loren with hatred.

As Loren looked back with a glare of his own, Lapis interrupted.

“Aptitude for what? I’m slightly interested. What is the treasure that was bestowed to her?”

“There’s no way people like you would understand.”

“I’m a priest of the knowledge God. If it is indeed something amazing, I would love to learn it.”

Lapis asked her as she put her hand on Loren’s chest, telling him to wait.

Shutel opened her mouth and looked like she was about to refuse, but Lapis interrupted her.

“You’re not going to say that you can’t, right? You’re trying to complete the work of your great master. If you can’t even explain it to others in a way they could understand, it would mean that you don’t understand it yourself, wouldn’t it?”

“What!?”

“You could at least explain it, regardless of whether or not we could understand what it is, right?”

Lapis asked in a challenging manner, but Shutel sneered at her.

“Trying to buy time, eh? Whatever. The preparations are complete, and you won’t be able to run anyway. If you wish to know, I will tell you. What the great work of my master is.”

Loren wanted to cut her down immediately, but the arm that Lapis had in front of his chest was holding him back with unexpected strength, despite how it looked.

Guessing that Lapis had something in mind, all he could do was listen to Shutel.

“The aptitude that this girl had. It was for the treasure my master possessed. An aptitude for the jewel of conquering death.”

Loren glanced at Lapis, but she just turned her gaze towards him and shook her head.

The jewel that Shutel spoke of was something that even Lapis, who seemed like she knew everything, hadn’t heard of.

“It is the product of my master’s research. It sucks people’s lives and bestows the power to overcome death.”

Loren was exasperated at Shutel, who started explaining everything, but it seemed to have piqued Lapis’ interest, as she started focusing on what Shutel was saying.

“My master gave me the power as well, but since I had no aptitude for it, I was only able to overcome death halfway.”

The tone of her voice got lower.

It seemed like she was disheartened that she wasn’t able to meet her master’s expectations, but although wights didn’t die easily they weren’t impossible to kill.

As Loren thought maybe the experiment was a failure, Shutel’s voice got louder and higher again.

“But my master’s research finally showed results in this land! When my master found this girl, he was certain that she had the aptitude and that she would bring complete results, and gave her the jewel!”

“So it looks like someone from somewhere who was researching immortality used a magic tool that he developed to create a culmination of his research, but none of his subjects had the aptitude so he continuously got incomplete results, but he found Shayna, who had the aptitude, so he did stuff.”

“I could understand that much even without you summarizing it.”

“I see…Umm Shutel, there’s one thing that doesn’t make sense yet, but it seems like the story ends when he found Shayna.”

Shutel’s face clouded at Lapis’ words.

“My master was mortal. There was one miscalculation.”

“Judging from the fact that there were incomplete works, I don’t think there was only one miscalculation.”

“Loren, be quiet…what was that miscalculation?”

Lapis asked after silencing Loren.

Lapis did so because if his words made Shutel mad and she stopped talking, it would be unbearable, but it seemed like his words didn’t reach her ears.

“It was that a child’s mind wasn’t able to keep its sanity against the power of death flowing into it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The jewel probably sucks the life of others and change them into undead…having something like that poured into her, do you think a child’s mind could bear all of it?”

Having something alien poured into your body.

On top of that, the feeling of that something changing yourself into something that isn’t living.

Even though he didn’t understand what it felt like, he concluded that it was extremely disgusting, and it wasn’t something that was bearable, even if you weren’t a child.

“She rejected it.”

“Correct. This girl, amid her pain, used the spell > and disappeared from this land.”

“Shayna used >? Ah…I see. So, she was halfway from becoming one.”

“Do you mind explaining, Lapis?”

“Shayna was about to become undead by the power of the jewel, but then showed signs of rejection and used the power of the undead she was about to become to cast a spell and fled from this place. She didn’t set coordinates of her destination, so it was a so-called >. I understand most of it now.”

“You said Shayna was human, right?”

Lapis did in fact, say that Shayna was human.

Lapis gave Loren an apologetic look.

“She almost became one, so she’s not one yet. So currently Shayna is still human. The adventurers inside the caravans getting ill and dying was due to the jewel that she was carrying.”

A jewel that sucked the life out of people.

Shayna was sucking the life out of the people around her unaware.

“By any chance…the power that was poured into Shayna…was the people of Hanza…How many lives did the jewel suck up?”

“For a great achievement, sacrificed must be made. The more the better.”

“This is the worst…”

Without thinking, Lapis covered her face with the palm of her hand.

Lapis started explaining it indifferently to Loren, who was looking back and forth between her and Shutel, confused.

“Most likely, the jewel has turned the people of Hanza, the whole city-state, into low rank undead. Shayna, who has been given the power, based on the amount and the spell she used during the rejection, she will turn into a high rank undead.”

“Any way to stop it?”

“At this point, none. Shutel said it earlier. The preparations are done.”

“Exactly. The preparations are done, and in this moment, my master’s work will be complete!”

As Shutel raised her arms high towards the sky, on the altar in front of her, a bright, white light erupted from Shayna’s chest.

Although it was light, there was no heat emitted from it, but instead it started emitting a chill so cold that even Loren started to shiver.

“Like, isn’t this really bad?”

“Yes, of course. Honestly speaking, this is very bad.”

There was a bitterness in Lapis’ voice.

She lowered the arm that was holding Loren back, closed her fist, and glared at Shutel, who was laughing loudly.

“You definitely won’t die a decent death, you know.”

“I won’t die. Not until I deliver this result to my master! You should celebrate as well. Then bow down before my master and offer him your lives!”

The light pouring out from Shayna became even brighter.

Amid the blinding light, Loren covered his eyes with his arm and Lapis, perhaps due to the fact that her eyes were prosthetics, continued glaring at Shutel, who was on the opposite side of Shayna and the light, without protecting them.

Shutel raised her voice to the two of them.

“This time for sure, spawn from the power of the jewel and the soul of the girl! The one who conquered death! >!”

In that moment, the presence that filled the space sent a nasty chill down Loren’s spine, one that felt like a nail made of ice being hammered into his heart.

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