The Necromancer Who Was Despised

I was not in the mood to catch her, nor did I have any intention of doing so, so I let her escape.

Tilde did not run away.

No, perhaps she had given up.

However, I had not given up yet.

I still had some tricks up my sleeve.

‘I never thought I’d end up using it for a situation like this…’

The conditions were met.

I ordered the remaining three minotaurs to charge at the guardian.

The strengthened beam of light erased one of the minotaurs, and the two that managed to approach threw themselves at the guardian’s torso.

And at the same time, the last resort I had prepared was activated.

…[Corps Explosion]

In an instant, my magic was completely drained.

I quickly hid behind the wall, and then two skeletons came out and enveloped Tilde and me.

BOOM!

A series of deafening explosions ran out.

A powerful shockwave tore through the central hall.

After a moment, I raised my head and saw the guardian struggling to get up in front of me.

‘…It’s still alive?’

It was unbelievable.

However, its movements were not normal.

One of its arms had been blown off, and its legs had been blown off below the knees.

I could see that its success had dropped significantly.

I quickly ordered the Living Armor and Skeletons 1 and 2 to attack, and then said to Specter.

“Go after Aneris.”

You can kill her or capture her and drain her of all her energy.

Traitors cannot be forgiven.

It is now legal to deal with them.

“…Amazing. You went to such lengths…”

“I didn’t want to use it. If I did, the entire force would have died. I needed enough corpses.”

I used the two minotaurs I had thrown to restrict the guardian’s movement and then detonated all the minotaur corpses that were lying around the guardian.

With more than ten, no, nearly twenty minotaur corpses exploding, even a berserk guardian wouldn’t be able to come out unscathed.

This was a trick that should not have been used if Cereo’s party had not been annihilated.

It was literally a way to survive by sacrificing your comrades (or so it seemed).

It was no different from what Aneris had done by running away.

Of course, there was a way to use it, but Tilde did not dwell on it.

After giving Tildie a suitable response, I checked on Kyla.

She was practically done with her subjugation as well.

Fortunately, it seemed like she hadn’t been greatly affected by the explosion.

‘Corpse explosions only affect the immediate vicinity… So it’s only natural.’

In order to expand the range of the explosion, you either had to prepare in advance or you had to be of a high enough level.

However, this place was a space filled with divine power, and no matter how much of my aura of death I had, I was only at class 4, so there was a limit.

‘I need to quickly get to class 5 or something… .’

As I thought that and checked my body.

Magic poured rapidly into my body’s vessel, and then it naturally flowed upwards and began to form the fifth ring.

Finally.

‘In this situation?’

I couldn’t understand what had happened.

I didn’t have any kind of epiphany or anything like that… .

I began to concentrate to check the state of my body.

‘… ‘Can this really happen?’

The divine power in the central hall hadn’t only affected the zombies.

I had also been affected by it, and it seemed like I’d hastily absorbed some of the ambient divine power while I was recovering.

My body, which had a good affinity with magic to the point where I could receive the blessing of magic, had perceived the divine power as a threat and seemed to have reacted to repel it.

And then I’d recklessly used magic and controlled undead… .

‘That definitely wasn’t something I could do at the level of class 4.’

It seemed like my body had struggled to survive in the adverse conditions and had evolved to the next level.

I had been concentrating on the reactions of my body and hadn’t properly realized it.

‘I was pretty exhausted and it was hard work… .’

But I thought that was a natural reaction since I was doing something that wasn’t possible at the level of class 4.

Who would have known that it was evidence that I was progressing to the next stage?

‘Normally, I should have experienced an epiphany as I moved up to class 5, and my mind should have expanded… .’

My mind had already expanded as much as it could, so I hadn’t noticed.

My body just had to catch up.

In the midst of the fierce battle, I had already been displaying abilities that didn’t match my physical level. The situation had been so urgent that I hadn’t had time to pay attention to every little thing.

‘An unexpected harvest.’

Laughter escaped me.

Before long, the fifth circle was formed, and my body and mind began to stabilize.

I was still quite fatigued, but it wasn’t unbearable.

‘It’s funny.’

High risk, high return.

It was something I had tried to avoid if possible.

Since I was the type of person who chose a safe path over a high-risk one, even if it was slower.

Of course. When there was a guarantee of certain success, why would I take a big risk?

I had only ever taken risks that I could handle, and I was confident that that would be enough to get me to the top.

But funnily enough, I had experienced something unexpected in an unexpected place, and as a result I had been able to shorten my journey by almost a year.

‘I thought it would take about a year for Class 5.’

Who would have expected that this environment that clashes with me would turn out to be helpful to me?

When I got up, I could see that my undead were slowly but surely dealing with the berserk guardian.

I immediately raised my hand and said,

[Black Grip]

Immediately, hand-shaped figures sprang up from the guardian’s shadow and began to grab it.

Hand, waist, back.

Black shadows restrained him everywhere.

The divine aura blazing from his whole body burned the black grip, but it continued to interfere with the guardian’s movement, regardless.

Thanks to that, the skeletons and living armors were able to beat up the guardian without worry, and finally, his movements began to gradually slow down.

“Just now, that was… surely…”

Tildie looked at me with a shocked expression, as if she had just realized that the magic I had just used was Class 5 magic.

“Did you… overcome the wall?”

Tildie made a frustrated expression.

“…Come to think of it, Kereos had also overcome the wall.”

That’s right. However, he didn’t survive.

Tildie gave a small congratulatory remark, but it didn’t suit the current situation.

‘In her position, all of her colleagues are dead.’

Even if I were to catch the escaped Aneliris, he’s no longer a colleague.

The mercenary industry wasn’t such a lenient place that it would recognize as a colleague someone who ran away to save their own life at a critical moment.

No matter how much Tildie was a priest, it wouldn’t be easy for him to be forgiven.

Of course, Tildie’s forgiveness doesn’t mean much. I won’t forgive him.

After both guardians stopped working, Kyla, Artherina, and Baldur, who had weary faces, returned to me.

Kyla was the first to bow her head to me.

“…No, no. It’s my fault. I should have intervened more quickly…”

Baldur stood silently in place.

He had done everything he could. However, it seemed that his position was uncomfortable.

“No need to apologize. I didn’t know something like a rampage would happen.”

If anything, I should be the one apologizing. I was the leader of this team.

I should have investigated a little more.

Even if it took time, that would have been the right thing to do.

Honestly speaking, there wasn’t any damage in the end.

However, the process was so problematic that I couldn’t help but feel bitter.

“…No. I could have defeated them on my own…”

Unexpected situations can happen at any time.

That’s why you shouldn’t be swayed by such things, Kyla reproached herself.

“If I had been a little calmer…”

She said that if she had responded calmly, there would have been no danger at all, and she wouldn’t have needed Artherina’s help.

Listening to her self-reproach, my mouth watered.

‘It must be because of me.’

She must have realized that the guardian I was fighting could go berserk at any moment, just like the one she was facing.

That’s why she must have thought that, as I had judged, we should postpone dealing with Kereos and his group and take care of the guardian as quickly as possible.

That led to impatience, which resulted in many mistakes.

As a result, even after Athena intervened and Baldur joined us, we weren’t able to finish him off right away, and in the end, I had to deal with one guardian on my own.

Of course, even so, if I had to choose the person most at fault among the group, I would definitely choose myself.

I shook my head at Kaila, who was blaming herself.

“Think of it as experience. Thanks to that, I’ve grown too. More importantly, how’s your body?”

“…I saw that you’ve grown. You’re using magic that I’ve never seen before. You must have been in danger because of the wall…”

She didn’t answer my question about her body and started digging into the ground again.

“Master’s body is fine. I checked. His armor is all broken, though.”

“I can just buy a new one. I have plenty of money. You worked hard too, Athena.”

If I run out of money, I can just sell the jewels.

“No, no. I’m the one who should be sorry. …I should have intervened sooner…”

She whispered the last part quietly, looking at Tilde.

I tell Baldur that he worked hard too. He was the only one in our group who did more than his share.

“First, let’s see what they were trying to protect. …I have to keep my promise.”

At the word “promise,” Tilde rises.

If it’s an artifact or a relic, I’ll watch the corruption process, and if it’s nothing special, I’ll destroy it.

Of course, it didn’t seem like there would be nothing.

Just by the energy in the hall, there had to be at least one relic.

The first place we headed to was the center of the hall.

When I reached out to the cloth that I had seen from afar, I had to stop immediately.

‘Wow, this is great from the start.’

The cloth wasn’t just any cloth.

‘Is it a robe?’

Under the robe were bones that were supposedly once the owner of the robe.

‘…The bones aren’t ordinary either.’

It might have been an adult.

‘Then is it not a relic but a sacred relic?’

The difference between a relic and a sacred relic was simple.

A relic is something that a god has directly given or influenced, while a sacred relic refers to the remains or belongings of a human, specifically a saint or a holy person.

Of course, a relic that was used by a saint during their lifetime is not called a sacred relic. That’s just a relic.

‘It seems pretty special for a relic, though…’

Even now, it was subtly pushing me away.

Honestly, I didn’t really care whether it was a relic or a sacred relic. What mattered more was how helpful it would be to me when imbued with magic.

For now, I could say that it had potential.

‘Let’s take it all for now.’

I collected the robe and the bones of the presumed adult.

Since it’s been a long time since they died, there wouldn’t be any spirits, but if I had the time, I was confident that I could handle these bones well enough.

‘The bones of a saint…’

But that wasn’t the end.

“…A relic. I can feel the traces of a god. It must be an item of the Earthly Church.”

The small golden cup was a relic with such strong divine power that even Tildie could tell for sure.

“Earthly Church…”