NOVEL NEXT Chapter 62 - Just a tiny issue
We won! Thank the stars, we won! I cannot believe Larissa killed that monster, it was so terrifying! She immediately collapses, and one of my doppelgangers goes to tend to her.
My mimics arrive at the other scene of conflict a bit belated, hampered by their square exteriors rather… limiting options for movement. Juliette is tending to our collapsed knight, most of the combatants have sat down somewhere to rest and recuperate.
I can feel the notifications waiting for me at the edge of my awareness, but even amongst the jubilant mood, a tiny issue rears its head.
Really, it is a minor detail, almost inconsequential in the grand scheme of things…
It’s just that… those were six people and some monstrosities. There are like… 20 more camped outside. Oh, speaking of outside, the powerful old guy is moving.
Peeking through the mask, I can see that nexus of roiling miasma get up from some sort of foldable chair that was placed in the middle of the open space in front of my entrance.
“Really? You all died? I swear, I am surrounded by incompetents. Get me six bodies, stat!” he screams at no one in particular, it seems, but his order is swiftly obeyed nonetheless.
Shortly, 6 humanoid bodies lie before him, and the man begins chanting something, his eyes glowing sickly green as six spectral figures manifest in the air above the bodies, screaming in agony as they are slowly dragged into the cold and decaying flesh by spectral chains.
The bodies begin repairing themselves at the same time, their skin mending over any open wounds. It’s an agonizingly slow and disgusting process and takes forever. I taste bile and smell the acrid odor of these vile magics as they complete and a wave of energy washes over me. The motionless bodies as one spasm, and take a shuddering, heaving breath.
Now, I can’t say I know much about natural laws or whatnot, but I am sure that several have been violated by that display, as the first among them to rise, an older woman that looks mostly human, but with long, slightly fuzzy and vertical animal ears at the top of her head instead of human ones at the side.
She struggles to a seating position, and after attempting and failing to speak some time, she manages to meet the necromancer’s withering gaze and utter out some words in a hoarse voice.
“Th-Thank you, Master. I… I apologize for failing you. Even using the golem, it was not enough…”
“Enough with the empty apologies. I did not bring you back to hear your mewling. Verify that your system transferred successfully, without the pretenders wretched blessing you are of no more use to me than zombies. Less, even.”
Turning around to the other cultists, the old man points at some more cultists and grunts.
“While these six failures recover, you go in next. We will wear this dungeon down if we have to. The pile of bodies is big enough for that, but disappoint me, and I will add yours to it and stuff your soul in a femur. Now move already.”
That… uhhh… that does not bode well. If my hunch is right, the six that died in here are the six people in those bodies over there, slowly getting up and recovering. Which means that just killing them is not going to be enough to get out of this, I would have to kill the big guy somehow but… that is hopeless, I can tell. He is too powerful.
Is it my fate to be born into this world only to be shattered at the hand of a few crazy cultists? Merely because their power is too great?
This is not fair…
Is there nothing I can do? Nothing but roll over and accept my demise? I cannot accept that, but neither can I accept that my monsters have to suffer and struggle in futile defiance of fate. They deserve better than that.
There has to be something, anything…
My musings are interrupted by the sounds of a commotion outside my domain, as a cultist descends into the underground space through the small opening and rushes to the necromancer. He is accompanied by a faint rumbling. The stone around me quakes perilously, in a thudding rhythm, almost like…
Footsteps.