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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: An Unwelcome Visit
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-Contractor. You are a natural-born warlock. Though you've grown rusty from neglecting your training, surely you've felt the magical energy flowing through your body since you were a child.
“Yes.”
-How that magical energy is wielded and manifested differs slightly from warlock to warlock. Some, like you, can awaken the dead, while others can delve into people's minds. There are even cases where they transform parts of their own bodies into those of monsters.
Lev narrowed his eyes. He scanned me up and down as if sizing me up.
-It would be best if you specialized in summoning demons, but for now, you’d be better off learning how to command a familiar.
“I want to make them sturdier than they are now. How do I do that?”
-There's a reason your siblings are little more than moving scarecrows. A dead body cannot repair itself, and you awakened them with your blood after they were already broken. Of course they're going to be fragile.
It was no more than oiling their stiff, rigor-mortis-ridden joints with my blood, Lev added.
“Isn’t there a more effective method than fixing Isaac’s wrist? That was just a temporary fix.”
-Using a large amount of blood, or extracting pure magical energy from your blood and using that, should do the trick.
“That… how do you extract just the magical energy from blood?”
-Weren’t you looking for a method you could use right away? Practicing how to extract pure magical energy is best started in childhood to become proficient.
With that, Lev licked his front paw. He looked just like a real cat.
“Then what about another way? Like a method to make them permanently stronger.”
-You seem to be looking for nothing but shortcuts.
He looked me up and down, then clicked his tongue with a deliberate ‘tsk’. I wasn’t sure if that was even possible with a cat’s mouth.
-A corpse will continue to decay, so it's only natural for it to weaken over time. There's only one way to prevent that.
“What… is it?”
I swallowed hard.
-Making a sacrifice.
“What?”
-Have them absorb other corpses, and the problem will be solved quickly. The best, of course, would be the fresh corpse of a human.
His tone was utterly nonchalant.
“…Just tell me more about extracting the magical energy.”
That seemed more feasible than finding an unidentified corpse in the middle of the capital.
***
Clatter.
The carriage jolted, waking me from a light sleep. Startled, I glanced around.
“We haven't arrived yet, so you can sleep a little longer.”
The man sitting across from me laughed heartily. His brown eyes curved into a gentle arc. Oh, dear. I quickly grasped the situation.
“My apologies. I didn’t sleep well last night….”
“Oh dear. You must have had some troubling dreams.”
“Yes.”
“After what you heard yesterday, it's understandable that you'd be unsettled.”
Werner patted my shoulder sympathetically. Beside him, Crown Prince Tristan glanced my way before turning his gaze to the window.
Of course, the reason I hadn’t slept well wasn’t because of the talk about a warlock possibly appearing, but because I’d been busy training in the dark arts.
‘That Lev… He consumes an absurd amount of magical energy.’
Last night, I had finally succeeded in extracting pure magical energy. To be precise, it was more like I kept trying until I succeeded.
After extracting it over twenty times, I didn’t even have the strength to lift a finger. And yet, Lev had urged me on, saying it still wasn’t enough.
“Like a demon…”
“Hah. They are warlocks, betrayers of humanity. I understand why you would shudder at the thought.”
Werner immediately agreed with me. Feeling a prick of guilt, I quickly nodded.
“We’ve arrived.”
The moment Tristan finished speaking, the carriage came to a halt.
“Shall we?”
Werner naturally escorted me. As I took his hand and stepped out of the carriage, a familiar scene greeted me.
The broken tree, the scattered fragments of the carriage. Even the ground, stained black where blood had soaked into it.
‘Did we really leave such a mess?’
I thought we’d cleaned up as much as we could, but this was the result. It couldn’t be helped; they were all zombies, so it was difficult for them to even move properly, let alone exert any real strength.
The most we could do was erase any trace of our family. We hid the crest and removed all the ornate decorations, making the carriage look more like something a wealthy merchant would use than one belonging to a noble family.
Beep, beep, beep!
Just then, a loud noise came from Werner. He pulled a detector from his pocket.
“See this? It's glowing red.”
“So it is.”
So that detector was real. I could be found out immediately if I used my powers carelessly.
“It looks like there was a carriage accident. Were there any reports filed with the local guard?”
“None at all.”
The reply came from Tristan.
“An accident this severe would have caused injuries, yet there are no records of any seriously wounded patients visiting nearby clinics.”
“That is strange.”
“The bloodstains prove that people were here. But with no injured and no bodies, and with traces of dark magic remaining…”
Tristan frowned slightly.
“I suspect an innocent citizen of the empire may have been taken to be used as a warlock's material.”
He was half right. They did become material for dark magic, after all.
“Assuming, of course, that dark magic was truly involved.”
Werner added curtly.
“Do you see anything?”
Tristan asked, leaning against a tree. He couldn’t have known, but it was the very tree that had pierced Yulia’s heart.
A protruding branch was stained black with what looked like dried blood.
“…I'm not sure.”
I struggled to maintain a nonchalant expression, trailing off vaguely.
I parted my dry lips.
If I said I saw something, I’d be proving that warlocks existed. If I said I didn’t, the Holy See would immediately accuse the Imperial Family of contempt.
‘What am I supposed to say?!’
I wanted to tear my hair out.
“The remnants of dark magic…”
As I drew out my words, both men fixed their gazes on me. I felt like I was about to be devoured by Tristan's intense stare.
“……”
They waited patiently while my mind raced.
“…Can I reveal it in sixty seconds?”
“It would be wise not to test my patience any further.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
I gave an awkward laugh. *Right. This is better,* I thought, and was about to open my mouth.
“Werner.”
“Yes.”
“You felt that, I assume.”
Tristan's gaze swept past my profile. He seemed to be looking at something behind me.
I blinked, wondering what he meant, when Werner strode forward with a look of understanding.
“It seems we have some unwelcome guests.”
Sensing the shift in atmosphere, I tried to discreetly back away, but Tristan grabbed my wrist.
“Stay close.”
“Huh? Ah, right.”
Tristan, too, drew the sword from his hip. I knew nothing about swordsmanship, but I had heard that the man before me was a skilled knight.
“I will handle this. Please get back in the carriage.”
“There are five of them. Can you handle them alone?”
Werner nodded firmly. At his response, Tristan slowly sheathed his sword and boarded the carriage.
I had no choice but to awkwardly follow him.
A dreadful silence fell once we were inside the carriage. Soon after, the loud clash of weapons rang out from outside.
Shing, clang! Boom…
While a chaotic battle raged outside, it was silent inside the carriage.
‘Fighting like that will ruin the scene. Then again, I suppose it doesn't matter since all they need to do is find the remnants of dark magic.’
In any case, with the scene being wrecked a second time, it would be harder to tell it was our carriage, which was a relief.
“There is no need to worry.”
I don't know what he saw in my expression, but Tristan spoke in a low voice, his gaze still fixed out the window.
“I'm not sure where the information was leaked. It's not uncommon to receive uninvited guests.”
“……”
“Sir Werner is an excellent knight. He won't lose to a mere five assassins.”
From the way he spoke, Tristan seemed to have experienced this countless times.
“…This must happen to you often.”
“They can't bear to see the son of a heretic become emperor, I suppose.”
He replied as if it were nothing, but the content of his words was anything but light.
Tristan Bellonde.
The sole heir to this vast empire that occupied a quarter of the continent, and the current emperor's only son.
With no other siblings, he ascended to the position of Crown Prince early on without any succession disputes, but life is never that simple.
“And to think, my mother converted long ago when she came here.”
The problem was that the Empress was from the Tahil Kingdom. The state religions of the Tahil Kingdom and the Empire were different.
Of course, it was merely an excuse to find fault. As he said, the Empress had converted to Heliosism upon coming to the Bellonde Empire and was said to have always been devout during her life.
“It seems things have been taken care of.”
Tristan rose from his seat.
He looked a little weary. It was one of the few glimpses of humanity the otherwise perfect man ever showed.
“Let's go.”
The moment I stepped out of the carriage, the thick scent of blood hit me. Just moments before, there had only been the smell of fresh grass.
As I was about to turn, a hand covered my eyes.
“This isn't a sight for you to see, my lady.”
It was Werner's voice, having approached me swiftly. I nodded silently, and after warning me not to turn around, he walked over to Tristan.
“Any prisoners?”
“They all took their own lives. It was impossible.”
“It likely wouldn't have made a difference even if you had. Never mind.”
While they conversed calmly, I just stared down at my feet.
Trickle.
A stream of blood flowing from behind me soaked the heel of my shoe. I quietly stepped aside, and as if it had been waiting, the blood flowed further forward.
It was a scene that hinted at the tragedy that had unfolded on this ground.
“What should we do with the bodies?”
“Just bury them somewhere. No need to make this a bigger issue.”
“All five of them?”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, none at all.”
Werner mentioned he had brought a shovel from the carriage and walked toward me. I was still standing vacantly in front of the carriage.
“If you're feeling unwell, you can wait inside.”
Werner said, wiping a splash of blood from his face. He seemed to think I was frozen stiff with shock.
He was right. I was shocked.
Shocked at myself for thinking, *What a terrible waste!*
