Episode 72: Aftermath (2)
After acquiring Miya, the first thing Damian did was cover his tracks.
Using dark magic to subdue the necromancer had been effective, but it left too many traces. If the Order discovered them, it would undoubtedly lead to complications.
Damian began by gathering the flesh golems in one place.
Pierced by spears forged from dark magic, the golems were rotting away under the curse.
He incinerated the golems and then used dark magic to trigger explosions throughout the cave.
If the Order questioned the reduced number of golems, he planned to claim the necromancer had self-destructed.
Next, Damian scattered his aura in the form of spikes, drilling holes throughout the cave.
The bodies of the necromancer and the golems bore marks from the dark magic. This was a ploy to conceal those traces.
If the Order inquired about the wounds, he would attribute them to this technique.
After adding a few more touches, he stepped outside.
Inside the cave.
Agnes, having retreated to a safe spot, focused on healing Margata.
The wound in his abdomen was severe, and the strain of their escape had worsened it.
His skin and muscles were mangled, and his internal organs were destroyed.
Agnes poured a healing potion over Margata’s wounds and used her divine power to mend them.
Thanks to the stigmata, her divine power had increased significantly in both quantity and quality, allowing her to heal even Margata’s severe injuries.
“Thank you, Agnes,” Margata said, his face visibly more at ease. Agnes sighed in relief.
“Margata! Are you alright?” Gamal asked urgently. Margata chuckled.
“Gamal, your face looks ridiculous right now.”
“Here I am, worried sick… but if you’re joking, you must be okay.”
Gamal’s expression softened, reassured by Margata’s recovery.
“Sister, have some of this,” Dionysio offered Agnes water and food. She thanked him and began to eat, her gaze fixed on the direction of the necromancer’s lair.
“Sister, are you worried about the necromancer?” Dionysio asked. Agnes shook her head.
“Not the necromancer. I’m worried about Sir Damian.”
At the mention of Damian’s name, Dionysio’s expression darkened.
“Sister, don’t worry too much. Sir Damian will be fine. Even a necromancer would struggle against a mid-class knight,” Dionysio said confidently.
“Now that Margata is recovering, let’s go help Sir Damian!” Dionysio exclaimed, clenching his fist. But no one echoed his enthusiasm.
“Did I say something wrong?” Dionysio asked, puzzled. Gamal sighed deeply.
“Dionysio, Sir Damian… he might already be dead.”
“What? But…”
“We all know it, even if you don’t say it. Sir Damian is mid-class, maybe even on the verge of high-class,” Gamal said, recalling Damian’s prowess.
His skills were far beyond what one would expect from a typical mid-class knight.
“But the necromancer… the forces he prepared were beyond what Sir Damian could handle alone.”
Dionysio’s encounter with the necromancer had been brief, so he hadn’t grasped the full extent of the threat.
But Gamal, a second-class paladin, had realized it immediately—the necromancer and his golems wielded immense dark power.
“Even if we joined the fight, victory against the necromancer wasn’t guaranteed.”
“That can’t be… You’re both second-class paladins, and Sister Agnes has the stigmata…”
“We’re all severely injured, and our divine power is depleted. Margata is lucky to be alive.”
There were limits to what divine power could heal. Severe injuries couldn’t be fully mended, and any strenuous movement risked reopening wounds.
Both Margata and Gamal were in no condition to fight.
“Damian knew that. That’s why he stayed behind and sent us to safety,” Gamal said, clenching his fist in frustration.
“Damn it, to owe my life to Damian and be unable to do anything…”
Margata grasped Gamal’s hand, but his expression remained tense.
“I agree with Gamal. We need to leave the dungeon and report the necromancer to the Order. If we leave him unchecked, he’ll become a bigger threat later,” Margata said, looking around at the group.
“We can’t waste the time Damian bought us.”
A heavy silence fell over them.
Then, they sensed a presence in the darkness. They stood up, eyes fixed on the shadows.
Someone emerged, and Agnes gasped in shock.
“Sir Damian?”
The sight of the man they thought dead left Agnes and the others stunned.
“Oh, there you are. I’m glad you didn’t go far,” Damian said, approaching with a smile. The four of them stepped back.
“Is it really you, Sir Damian?”
Could the necromancer have killed Damian and was now toying with them using his corpse?
Instead of answering, Damian drew his holy sword. The divine power flowed into him.
No undead could absorb divine power and remain intact. It was proof that this was indeed Damian Haxen.
“Sir Damian…!” Agnes ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Damian looked at her in surprise, but Agnes held him tightly.
“How are you alive?”
“This can’t be! Did you escape from the necromancer?”
“Sir Damian! I knew you’d make it!”
The others rushed to him, their disbelief turning to relief.
Agnes finally released him and asked, “What happened to the necromancer?”
Damian gestured behind him. “See for yourself.”
The group arrived at the necromancer’s lair and fell silent.
The necromancer lay dead, his body riddled with holes.
“W-wow! The necromancer is dead! Sir Damian killed him!” Dionysio cheered, looking at Margata and Gamal.
“This can’t be…”
“Incredible…”
Margata and Gamal were visibly shaken.
They had felt nothing but despair against the necromancer, convinced they couldn’t win.
Yet here he was, a pitiful corpse on the ground.
“Damian, how did you kill the necromancer? Even the flesh golems were a challenge.”
“So I dealt with the golems just enough and went straight for the necromancer himself.”
Margata could only laugh in disbelief.
The weakness of a dark mage who controls the undead is the mage himself. Margata knew this well.
But knowing and executing are worlds apart.
The necromancer had been well-protected by his golems, making it nearly impossible to get close.
“Remarkable… truly remarkable…”
But they had to believe it. The evidence lay right before their eyes.
”…”
Agnes had been staring at the necromancer’s corpse since they entered.
His face was frozen in terror, as if he’d seen something horrific before dying.
Her hated enemy was dead. She felt relief, regret for not delivering the final blow herself, and a swirl of other emotions.
“How did the necromancer die?” she asked.
“He thrashed about, desperate to live, and then he stopped breathing. It was a pitiful death.”
“Even a madman like him feared death,” Agnes sighed deeply.
“Where are the flesh golems the necromancer controlled?”
Damian pointed to a spot where the remaining golems were gathered.
Agnes walked over, spotting her brother’s face among them.
She stood there, staring at the golem as if rooted to the spot.
“Agnes…” Margata watched her with concern.
“I’m fine,” Agnes said calmly.
“That’s not my brother. He died long ago. This is just an undead made from his body.”
Despite her words, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her brother’s face.
“Damian, what will you do with the flesh golems?” Margata asked, turning to him.
Damian had defeated the necromancer alone. He had the right to decide the fate of everything here.
“I plan to leave them to the Order.”
Damian found little to gain from the remaining flesh golems. They were more likely to become a burden, and since the matter involved the Order, it was better to hand them over.
He figured it was wiser to extract some gratitude from the Order instead.
“Agnes, the Order will dissect those flesh golems piece by piece. They’ll probably analyze every muscle.”
Necromancers with a knack for such morbid tasks were rare.
Studying these flesh golems would be invaluable for dealing with others in the future.
“After that, the flesh golems will likely be preserved within the Order forever.”
Agnes glanced at Margata, her eyes trembling slightly.
“But for now, it’s just us. No one will notice if one flesh golem goes missing, right? Isn’t that what everyone thinks?”
Margata looked around at the group. They all nodded in agreement.
“Agnes, do as you wish.”
At Margata’s words, Agnes slowly embraced the flesh golem with both hands.
A blue flame erupted from her body, beginning to consume the flesh golem.
Agnes held on until the golem was reduced to ashes.
Afterward, the group scoured the dungeon, gathering survivors.
More than half of the soldiers had perished, and even the renowned paladins had suffered heavy losses.
‘Still, it’s much better than in my past life.’
In his previous life, the entire expedition had been wiped out, while the necromancer had survived and risen to power.
But this time was different. More than half of the expedition survived, and the necromancer was dead.
‘The greatest achievement was saving Agnes.’
Agnes had received a divine mark.
A divine mark signified a person favored by the gods, and every paladin who received one reached the master class.
‘I gained quite a bit myself.’
He had acquired the flesh golem Mia and a magical artifact to store undead.
After regrouping the expedition, they sent a messenger to inform the Order of the situation.
The Order, eagerly awaiting the results, dispatched an investigation team shortly after.
“What on earth is this?”
“They dug a trap inside the mountain?”
The investigation team was shocked upon entering the dungeon.
Excavating the entire mountain interior to drop the expedition into a trap was beyond comprehension. Executing such a plan was even more daunting.
“Is this the flesh golem? It’s astonishingly intricate.”
“I knew the necromancer was a high-level dark mage, but… could a high-level dark mage create such a sophisticated flesh golem?”
The investigation team was astounded by the flesh golem.
“Are you Sir Damian?”
A middle-aged man in clerical robes turned to Damian.
“I am Borromeo, in charge of this investigation.”
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Damian Haxen.”
Damian shook Borromeo’s outstretched hand.
“I have a few questions. The report suggests there were more flesh golems than we found. It seems some are missing.”
“Some were destroyed when the necromancer self-destructed. Those craters over there are the remnants.”
Damian pointed to the deep craters, and the investigators marveled again.
“Incredible… the scale is immense.”
“To avoid such an explosion in the chaos of battle…”
Borromeo cleared his throat, and the investigators fell silent.
“The report indicates you concealed your true abilities… Why is that?”
“No grand reason. I just thought it would be bothersome if people knew I was middle-class.”
Damian shrugged.
Borromeo recalled what he knew about Damian Haxen.
He had reached the low class shortly after beginning his sword training, earning him the title of a prodigy.
If it were revealed that he was actually middle-class, the world would be in an uproar.
“One last question. The report states you killed the necromancer alone. How was that possible?”
“I dealt with the flesh golems and seized an opening to kill the necromancer himself.”
“You killed him?”
Damian drew his holy sword and swung it, scattering aura like a drill, piercing dozens of holes in the wall.
“Like this.”
Borromeo and the investigators were speechless, staring at the wall.
Though Damian wielded it effortlessly, the speed, range, and power of the technique were extraordinary.
“The wounds on the necromancer match. I see now.”
Borromeo took a deep breath and exhaled.
“Sir Damian, thank you for aiding the expedition and saving our valuable members. We are deeply grateful.”
Especially since Agnes, a third-class paladin who participated in the expedition, had received a divine mark.
A paladin with a divine mark invariably reached the master class, and the Order had nearly lost a potential master.
“The Order owes you an immeasurable debt. We promise to reward you accordingly.”
This was the moment Damian had been waiting for.
But Borromeo went beyond a mere promise of reward, offering even greater generosity.
“If you have any specific requests, please let us know. We will do our utmost to accommodate them.”
Damian pondered for a moment.
He had a reward in mind, but he wasn’t sure if the Order would grant it.
“Allow me access to the Order’s vault to choose an item myself.”
Borromeo’s eyes widened at Damian’s request.
The vault.
It was where treasures collected from across the continent since the Order’s founding were stored.
Due to its importance and symbolism, even first-class paladins couldn’t access it freely.
“The vault… that’s quite a difficult request.”
Borromeo closed his eyes, deep in thought.
“The Holy See entrusted me with all decisions regarding this matter. I can answer you here and now.”
Borromeo spoke with unwavering resolve.
“I will grant your request. Please visit the Order soon.”