Atonement (4)
Daelum Jive was a necromancer.
He had no memory of his parents or where he was born. In fact, he had no recollection of his childhood at all.
The first place he opened his eyes was a remote cabin in the snowy mountains. A place where biting blizzards raged all day and wild animals prowled for easy prey.
It wasn’t all that unusual.
Every city was overflowing with orphans, and among them were children who sometimes had no memories of their early years.
Often, they were used as test subjects for dark magic or sorcery, their memories erased before being discarded.
Of course, it was hard to understand why anyone would bother to abandon a used-up test subject in such a remote mountain cabin.
But when had the world ever been rational? Even Daelum Jive, with his lost memories, knew the world was far from sensible.
“Looking back, it was strange. I had no memories, yet I hadn’t forgotten how to speak or fight.”
”…”
“But thanks to that, I survived. At the time, survival was all that mattered to me.”
The necromancer continued, his dirty beard twitching as he spoke.
Instinctively, Daelum descended from the mountains and began working as a mercenary.
He started as an unregistered mercenary, earned bronze and silver badges, and eventually got involved in drug trafficking because it was lucrative. Before he knew it, he had become a dark sorcerer.
His life flowed naturally, as if someone had planned it all.
Whether by chance or fate, the more he learned and practiced dark magic, the faster his talents grew.
It wasn’t just talent.
Artifacts and elixirs appeared before him regularly. Fortuitous encounters, almost like consumables, frequently aided his progress before vanishing like smoke.
Around that time, Daelum became convinced.
His life was orchestrated by a grand design.
And that design was none other than the dark god he served, Temomron, the father of all undead.
“Once I believed I was under divine protection, nothing could stop me. By then, I knew the end was near, and I saw no reason to hide my power.”
From then on, he shed his disguise as a silver-badged mercenary and began operating under the name Daelum Jive, the necromancer.
“I burned villages and cities… captured thousands, tens of thousands, and offered them as sacrifices.”
Temomron, his fervent deity and master, supported him wholeheartedly. And with each blessing he received, Daelum offered more sacrifices in return.
He felt no remorse.
He was born a forsaken child.
He had no memory of parents or family, and the people he encountered in the mercenary and drug trades were nothing but filthy.
The human society he knew was one where the powerful, those with status and authority, monopolized everything.
With power in his hands, what was there he couldn’t do?
If the dead were powerless, how could it be his fault for being powerful?
[Your way of thinking is truly that of a vile harbinger of hell.]
“Indeed, forgotten dragon. I was a being deserving of curses.”
[…Considering your current state, it feels almost alien. Surely, there was a significant turning point for you.]
“There was. Perhaps… it was near the end of the Blood Demon War.”
He toppled kingdoms beyond cities.
He joined the Blood Demon War, set the empire ablaze, and in the aftermath, reduced the headquarters of the Holy Knights to ruins.
‘Necromancer, the gods will punish you eternally…’
Perhaps it was around the time he heard the curse from a dying demon slayer in the fallen sanctuary of the war god.
Whether the curse worked or not, he began to feel strange.
“The joy of killing gradually faded. All that remained after the massacres was an ever-growing emptiness.”
He exhaled deeply, his breath visible in the cold air. The blizzard had calmed.
“Eventually, I realized the reason. It was the sense of loss from losing people like myself. I thought I had shed my humanity… but my soul remained human.”
But he couldn’t stop the wheels that had already begun to turn.
He was merely an agent of the apocalypse, not the true source of it, the dark god.
He tried to slow down, to give humanity time to prepare, but even that yielded little result.
“I thought delaying, even a little, might buy humanity some time. But my delay alone didn’t slow the apocalypse. Other measures were needed. Around that time, Lapilem, who had been in constant conflict with Temomron, crossed a line.”
“So you invaded Lapilem’s Illusion Palace and destroyed the dark god.”
“Yes. I hoped that with one dark god gone, humanity might have a sliver of hope. But… that wasn’t the case.”
Even after Lapilem’s destruction, its powers and the dozens of hells it controlled didn’t disappear.
Instead, Temomron absorbed its legacy, grew even stronger, and began to drive the remaining humans to extinction with renewed ferocity.
Regretting his actions too late, he sought the legendary artifact, the Stone of Wishes, said to be sealed at the bottom of the labyrinth.
But even as a demigod, he couldn’t descend beyond a certain depth in the labyrinth.
“When I returned from the fifth floor of the labyrinth… humanity had already perished.”
The continent had become a complete hell. It was at that point that Daelum, watching from beyond the monitor, turned off the game in despair.
A month later, when he turned the game back on, the necromancer had been betrayed by his master.
“Temomron disposed of the hunting dog that was no longer needed. As his servant, I couldn’t resist. I died, and the Well of Reversal took me from that timeline.”
He exhaled deeply once more. Daelum nodded.
It was the fourth time already.
Hearing the story from someone who lived through the events he had only seen on a monitor.
”…”
It was still a mystery.
Could such complex emotions, thoughts, and actions really be the result of simple clicks on a keyboard and mouse?
Could the simple goal of clearing a game from the comfort of his room have created such a tangled web of fate?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Faced with an unsolvable question, he had few choices.
To listen to the final words of the deceased and, if possible, carry on their will in this timeline.
He had inherited Daelber’s final strike to defeat the avatar of Suum.
He had promised to protect his loved ones, bearing Daeltarion’s regrets.
He had delivered the hammer to Reberon as Daelukahim wished and shared his gift with his companions.
He would do the same for the necromancer before him. Daelum listened quietly to the necromancer’s story.
“What can I possibly do? No matter how much a murderer repents, the dead don’t return. And my sin of desecrating the rest of the dead is even greater.”
The necromancer rubbed his face with a weary hand.
At some point, his body had begun to fade.
“A man approached me as I sat in despair. He told me to do what I could.”
A man, he said.
How many could approach a soul stored in the Well of Reversal from various timelines?
Perhaps it was the same man who had once led him to the Well of Reversal to meet Charina.
In any case, it wasn’t immediately important. Daelum shook his head to clear his thoughts.
Meanwhile, the necromancer’s gnarled and twisted hand began to gently caress the gravestone.
“So, one by one, I began erecting memorial stones with my own hands. Waiting for the one who would grant me peace at the end of this atonement, as the man had spoken of…”
He used no magic except for the gravestones.
He dug into the frozen ground with his bare hands, placed the gravestones forged with dark magic, and covered them with earth again with his bare hands.
The near-eternal funerals had worn even his godly body.
The dark magic he had gained by offering sacrifices to the dark god gradually faded as he created the gravestones.
All that remained for the harbinger of hell who had scorched the continent was a handful of magic and an aged body.
“Promise me one thing.”
As he slowly disintegrated into particles of light, the necromancer spoke.
“Speak.”
“Revenge is unnecessary. I don’t even deserve that. But please… don’t let my power cause innocent souls to suffer.”
From his ankles, knees, waist, and up to his shoulders.
As he slowly dissolved into particles of light, a faint anxiety lingered on the necromancer’s face.
Daelum scratched his chin and nodded.
“I won’t.”
“Thank you…”
The necromancer’s face relaxed into a peaceful expression. His head, the last part remaining, turned into particles of light and scattered.
Daelum could feel those particles becoming part of this world.
He had recovered another body and gathered the reflections of another soul.
The conversation with the necromancer had been brief, but it was a time that made him think more than any other transcendent.
But pondering this time could wait for another opportunity.
His companions awaited him in reality.
It was time to return.
A black feather sliced through the air.
Crack!
The skeletal knights, marching in perfect formation, suddenly collapsed in a heap. But it was only a momentary reprieve. An eerie energy swirled around the fallen bones, and they began to reassemble with alarming speed.
A guttural moan echoed as the bones snapped into place, each joint infused with the wails of tormented souls. In the blink of an eye, the pile of bones transformed into a monstrous skeletal totem, as tall as a five-story building, its many arms and legs flailing wildly as it charged forward.
Boom! Crash!
A barrage of explosives rained down, reducing the totem to rubble once more. Yet the sinister energy hovering in the air seized the opportunity, clinging to the shattered remains to rebuild.
“Damn these wretched souls,” Sienna muttered through gritted teeth, lifting her gaze.
Above, a massive, grayish-white sphere floated ominously in the sky. It was none other than the domain of the Vampire Count—a grotesque manifestation of his twisted psyche, honed over centuries under Temomron’s influence.
“Domain Full Release: Pandemonium of Wandering Souls.”
Despite its size, comparable to a city square, the sphere cast no shadow. Composed of countless souls, it ceaselessly howled, yearning for corporeal form.
If this sphere had loomed over an ordinary town or city, its inhabitants would have succumbed to possession within half a day. But those present were far from ordinary, their wills too strong to be overtaken by mere spirits. The real problem lay elsewhere.
“Keep firing, old man! We need to obliterate them completely!”
“We’re running low on explosives! At this rate…”
[――――!!]
The undead summoned by the Vampire Count were resurrecting endlessly, without the need for incantations or rituals. Freezing them with dragon’s breath, shattering them with explosives, burying them with earth magic, or tearing them apart with a witch’s power—all proved futile.
The moment the wandering souls from above latched onto the remains, the undead army reformed and charged anew.
“Tommy! How’s the Tower Master holding up?”
“Still hanging in there, but I don’t know for how long… Ugh!”
The only effective counter was Felber’s domain, capable of halting time itself. Yet the elderly mage was locked in a fierce one-on-one battle with the Vampire Count.
Rumble──!!
Beneath the floating mass of souls, a distinct golden sphere blazed. Inside, the mage and the Count were trapped together, pushing their spells and magical prowess to the limit in a relentless exchange.