The Little Necromancer [LITRPG]

The shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, climbing higher than the lantern's weak glow could touch. Dust clung to every seam of the wood, thick enough to stir with each passing breath. Enya tilted her head back, eyes flicking from row to row.

"It has to be here somewhere," she said quietly.

Pell grunted from the opposite end of the study, tugging a cracked spine free. The book fell open in his hand, revealing blank, brittle pages. Flip after flip, all was blank. He shook it once, as though waiting for a secret pendant or mystical scroll to tumble out, but nothing came. He shut the pages with a sigh.

"Damn witches. From merchant to librarian, who would have thought…" he mumbled, tossing the book onto the ground behind him.

He shouted from where he was. "That painting—what was the line again? There has to be some better hint in it."

Enya, hearing Pell, summoned the Grim Pullet. The pages flipped to the exact one she had marked with her Bonecarver's quill. She read it aloud, walking back toward Pell. "Words cut deeper than any blade." She snapped it shut again, looking up at Pell, who was already reaching for another book. "It's probably a book with a hidden knife inside. So maybe any of the books that are heavier than the others?"

Pell flipped the pages of the new book.

Nothing. He tossed it behind him.

"That's too literal," Pell said, crossing his arms. His soul-flames gazed down along the shelves. There were still hundreds more to go through. "It's a riddle. Probably like a diary filled with revenge. Maybe a letter with a death threat inside. Maybe even a suicide note. Who knows. But it'll be something with teeth. No actual blade."

Elria drifted overhead. She couldn't pick anything up. She was an incorporeal ghost—nothing physical could make contact with her. But there was a way for her to help search. Although she couldn't pick up any books—she could phase through them. For the ones stacked too high, she simply drifted through the pages, her eyes slowly focuses to see if there was any actual content besides thin white pages. It was a much longer process than simply picking up and opening the books, but it was all she could do.

"For once, he's not wrong. It's a puzzle. Makes you think and whatever. It isn't going to be an actual knife inside a book. If anything, it might be the word knife inside of a book—if whoever designed this manor had a funny bone." She shrugged. "You're looking for something philosophical. Something that is represented by the riddle."

Pell gave her a sidelong look. "Don't be so smug about agreeing with what I said."

"Smug?" Elria flipped herself upside, doing paddlekicks with her legs, hair spilling low. "This is my pleasant voice. You'd know if I were being smug."

Enya sighed. "Let's keep searching then…"

The search began in earnest. One by one, they pulled volumes free, cracked them open, and found nothing. The first, the fifth, the fifteenth—every single one of them was the same: empty. The paper inside was pale and blank, as if no ink had ever touched it. Even the smell was wrong. They lacked the faintest odor of parchment and ink that books were supposed to carry; instead, each spine released only a breath of dust.

Fifteen minutes passed like that, with stacks of useless tomes growing at their feet. Carl stood guard, waiting silently by the room's entrance, watching.

Enya sighed again and again, looking at all the empty pages. That was until she reached on her tiptoes for a thicker volume. She tugged it free—but then immediately cried out and dropped it.

"Aah—!" She clutched her finger; the book clattered onto the carpet with a thud.

Pell ran over to her side in an instant, summoning the harvester blade. He drew back, soul-flames ignited. "What happened? Something here?"

Elria floated over much more slowly, completely unconcerned. "That was a good scream. Though seeing that you aren't dead… what'd you do? Stubbed your toe on something?"

Enya scowled, while Pell gave her an annoyed look.

Along Enya's index finger was a minor cut, with a bead of blood welling where the cover had touched. She stuck her finger in her mouth. "It bit me," she mumbled. "The book bit me."

Pell stared at her, his shoulders lowering. "What?"

Enya pulled her finger out and pointed down at the book. "I grabbed that book, and it attacked me."

Pell followed her finger to the book lying on the ground. He bent down and picked it up.

At first glance, it looked the same as the others—aged cover, weathered spine, brittle pages that sighed when he thumbed through them. Blank. Completely empty.

But then he noticed the edges.

They weren't just sharp. They were unnaturally sharp. The corners gleamed faintly in the lantern light, too fine, too precise, like they'd been honed on a whetstone instead of pressed in a binder's workshop. Pell dragged a bony fingertip along the side, testing. The paper's edge scraped, grating faintly against the surface of his bone.

"Damn. This thing is sharp as a butcher's knife," he muttered.

"See? I wasn't lying," Enya said.

Elria floated down, merging into Pell's body and looking at it through his eyes. "Ohhh. Clever. A book that cuts. Words sharper than blades. Get it? Not bad. Not bad at all."

"Not bad?" Pell repeated. "The kid's bleeding. Also—" he banged his fist against his skull, trying to shake Elria free, "—get the hell out of my body."

Elria popped out without much resistance. "Please. It's barely a scratch. If this place wanted to, it could've taken her hand off. Compared to what Moon's real prisons can do, this is practically just a step on a staircase designed too high, so that you stub your toe."

"That's oddly specific," Pell replied.

She shrugged. "Had a step like that in my house. Damn dwarf did it on purpose to spite me. I'll never forgive those bearded bastards."

"So, is this book what we need? Words sharper than a blade or something?" Enya asked.

Pell sighed. "Probably. If a book's going to be this unnecessarily sharp, it's probably the one. Let's go back up to the paintings and see if something happens."

They gathered again on the second floor, the Carrier's Light swinging faintly in Enya's grip. Dust drifted through the stale air as Pell leaned forward toward the first of the blank paintings. The bronze plate below it gleamed faintly, words etched deep into the metal.

Stolen story; please report.

Pell's voice was flat. "Words cut deeper than any blade."

He straightened, book in hand. The Carrier's light that Enya was holding illuminated the sharp, metallic edges, revealing a faint gleam. He held it out toward the painting.

Enya and Elria watched. Neither said a word.

Pell stood there for a moment, arm extended, waiting. It was a ridiculous pose—like he was feeding a horse. After a beat, he muttered, "This looks stupid."

Enya tilted her head. "Maybe… actually put it into the painting?"

Elria nodded immediately, pointing. "What the kid said."

Pell stared at both of them, then grunted. "Fine. But if the wall bites my hand off, you're both to blame."

He stepped forward and pressed the book against the blank canvas.

The instant the edges touched, the surface shuddered. A ripple spread outward from the point of contact, distorting the white into wrinkling waves. The book pulled forward on its own, a slow drag like a fish tugging a line. Pell let go, jerking his hands back.

The book sank halfway in, then fully, vanishing with a faint hiss.

The painting convulsed once more, and the canvas rippled violently—then stilled.

Color bled through the once-empty white. Shapes formed, shadows etching themselves into place. A portrait emerged: the very same book, but now its pages yawned open, and from them jutted serrated blades, steel-like and savage, jutting outward in impossible detail. They twisted, overlapping one another in a chaotic fan, like the open maw of a beast made entirely of knives.

The image froze, solidifying into oil paint.

Enya's eyes widened. "It worked."

Pell folded his arms, glaring at the finished canvas. "Worked, sure. Still doesn't make sense. Why in the world did those witches design such a stupid puzzle. Shouldn't this be a place of torment, not fun and adventures?"

Elria crossed her arms, hovering just above the floor. "Like I said—Moon's little helpers. They thought this stuff was clever. A door that won't open unless you play their little scavenger hunt. It's a prison designed to last for eternity. They might as well make it a fun game; a pleasant viewing, watching the ants play."

Enya frowned at the painted blades. The longer she stared, the less like art it looked. The edges were too reflective, bright and sharper than any ink she could imagine.

"So…" Pell gestured toward the other frames along the balcony, each still empty, each still waiting. "Six more of these?"

Elria floated higher, spinning slowly midair as if to inspect the rest. "That's the idea. One trinket for each riddle. Collect them all, unlock the big scary door."

Pell muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like ridiculous goose chase.

Enya tapped her quill against the spine of her book before tucking it away. "Still… at least we know how it works now."

Pell gave a low grunt. His soul-flames flickered like a weary sigh. "Yeah. Great. One down, six to go. This will probably take us days. I doubt any of the rest of them will be as easy as this one."

"Five to go," Enya corrected.

"What?"

She pointed to the large painting, opposite of the staircase. The portrait of the woman in white. "That one's already filled."

Pell looked over. "Ah. Yeah. I guess that's true. Still—finding five more of these things is still going to be annoying."

Enya opened her mouth to comment, but then froze.

It wasn't sound, not exactly. More like pressure; a weight that brushed against the edges of her senses. Her breath stopped as something stirred in her perception.

"…Wait," she whispered.

Both Pell and Elria turned.

Enya's eyes swept the balcony, the stairwell, the hallways below. At first there was only silence, the steady flicker of the Carrier's Light pushing the shadows back for her to see. Then, faintly, the ground gave a low tremor. Just enough to send a quiver through the empty frames. The bladed book-painting rattled against the wall, groaning on its hook. Dust sifted, falling from the ceiling.

Pell stepped closer to Enya. "What was that?"

She didn't answer. Her gaze locked onto the first-floor hall below, where the shadows shifted unnaturally. A heavy silhouette peeled away from the darkness, step by deliberate, methodical, step. Metal groaned below, dragging against itself.

From the shadowy gloom walked a knight.

Its armor was enormous, plated and scarred, each step sinking into the wooden floor with crushing weight. Its gauntlets hung loose at its sides, a black greatsword clutched slackly in one hand, its tip carving furrows into the wood as it dragged.

But where its head should have been—there was nothing. Only a hollow gorget wreathed in purple flame, fire licking upward like a beacon in the dark.

Pell's soul-flames flared in alarm as he spotted the intruder. "What the hell is that supposed to be? A knight? Where's its head?"

Enya's grip on the Carrier's Light tightened. The glow spilled downward, catching the purple flame in its edge. The knight walked into the light, slow and menacing.

Elria flew over and tilted her head, unimpressed. "Huh. So they're using that guy here. Haven't seen one in centuries."

Pell gave her a sharp look. "That guy? You're telling me you know what this is?"

"Of course." She crossed her arms. "That's a Dullahan. A reanimated suit of spiritual armor. One part armor, another part severed head. They're immortal knights bound by curses as old as your system. Pretty impressive that they captured one down here, honestly."

Enya swallowed hard. "Where's its head then?"

Elria shrugged. "Somewhere in the manor, probably. They can't separate from it for too long. Doesn't really matter. Head or no head, that thing doesn't stop. Doesn't die. You could chop it apart a hundred times, and it'll just put itself back together. All spirit, no soul. The perfect guard dog."

Below them, the Dullahan's greatsword scraped across the floor as it reached the base of the stairs. Slowly and inexorably, it began to climb.

Enya's pulse spiked. "Do… do we have to fight it?"

Elria laughed, floating higher into the air. "Beat it? Oh, sweet summer child. You don't beat a Dullahan. That's an immortal shell of steel with cursed fire where its heart should be. Besides—what do you lot base strength on? Your system uses… levels, right?"

"Right," Pell said cautiously.

"Well, if you were struggling or matching evenly with level twenty-five wraiths, then that knight down there…" She tapped her chin, thinking. "I'd put it at, oh, level seventy. Maybe eighty. Somewhere in that miserable range. Practically a wall of iron. You'd last all of a single second. And that's the time it'd take for your body to fall to the ground after being killed instantly."

Pell's flames flared in disbelief. "Seventy to eighty?!"

Elria smirked, enjoying his panic. "What, you thought this was a playground? This is a prison for the worst of the worst. Some of the souls sealed here can warp reality on a whim. Of course there are monsters in place to keep the lid of the pot on."

The Dullahan kept climbing. Its steps made the ground vibrate, dust raining down in streams from the second to first floor with each impact.

"Move," Pell said immediately. He didn't wait for agreement—he pulled Enya back from the balcony edge, scythe ready but shoulders tense with hesitation to actually use it. They drifted left, while Carl and Elria followed.

"Ring-around-the-rosie," Elria said with a sing-song lilt, floating backward without a care. "Only this time, the rhyme ends with your bones smashed into paste."

"Shut it," Pell snapped.

Still, the logic wasn't wrong. The thing was frustratingly slow. For every step it hauled upward, they managed five along the balcony. If they kept circling, they could stay ahead of it forever. Maybe.

"Okay," Enya whispered, eyes on the looming armor. "If we just keep moving, we can get back downstairs and check the other rooms. It can't catch us if we don't stop."

"That's the plan." Pell's flames dimmed as though to steel himself.

They edged toward the far side, cautious but steady, the knight

Enya's breath steadied as she thought. She glanced at Carl standing at her side, the butler-like skeleton waiting with its usual stillness. Slowly, she raised her hand. "Carl… go test it."

Pell's flames flared. "Kid—"

"It's the only way to know how strong it is," Enya said firmly.

Carl stepped forward without question, his bones clicking as he walked toward the knight. His role was specialist—support, and not combat. Soul-forged bones however, were still strong. With the battle against the wraiths, he could probably take at least a few hits.

The three of them waited on the opposite side as they watched Carl approach the dullahan. When he arrived, Carl raised a fist, winding back for a punch.

The Dullahan, however, was not amused. It moved with surprising speed, far faster than its previously slow steps suggested. Its blade lifted high, way above its missing head. And in an instant, it unleashed a brutal downward arc.

The floor cracked open like glass. The impact thundered through the balcony, rattling dust from the ceiling beams. Carl was obliterated before his strike even landed—bones shattered to splinters, scattering into the void of debris that fell onto the first floor below.

Enya gasped, stumbling back, one hand clutched to her chest. Her eyes widened in horror. "He… he died instantly."

"Shit," Pell grumbled. His scythe dipped to the floor, his soul-flames jittering. "That thing's too strong. You're telling me we've gotta find the rest of these clues while that walks around?"

The Dullahan moved its sword back to its side, the tip of its blade threading against the ground once more as it began to move.

Elria floated higher, as though to stay clear of the quake of each step. Her grin was sharp but not amused. "Immortal knight, remember? You're not meant to fight it. You're meant to run. And isn't that fun?"

"Fun?" Pell barked.

"Terrifying, then. Pick whatever word you want."