Ice Castle, My Longed-For Home (3)
"Failure?! Failure?! What do you mean by that—?!"
My vision blurred hazily for a moment.
Then a scream bordering on despair rang out, snapping my mind back into focus.
'Good. I can see clearly now.'
The automatically moving viewpoint and the tense atmosphere.
After confirming the spell had worked properly, I immediately surveyed the surroundings.
"C-Contact with the detached unit has been completely lost. Judging from the circumstances, all of them in the passageway were—"
"So I'm asking how they discovered that passageway in the first place! That passageway was...!"
"One personally created by Lord Archimond."
A cold, rigid voice interrupted the man midway.
"C-Cult Leader!"
The chaotic atmosphere instantly froze solid.
'Cult Leader... so that guy must be the head of this cult or something.'
Though irritated by the necromancer's downward gaze, I quickly assessed the situation.
"M-My apologies. I believed it was a perfect operation..."
"You shouldn't use the word perfect so carelessly, Jill."
Jill.
As I sifted through the necromancer's memories, fragments surfaced revealing that he was the mastermind behind this operation.
'Right. So this bastard planned that ridiculous invasion...'
I engraved his face into my memory while suppressing my anger.
"Ghk?! Kghk...!"
A groan escaped the man called Jill, and the necromancers with their heads lowered began stirring uneasily.
'What, did they kill him for failing the operation?'
Just as that thought crossed my mind, the necromancer's vision lifted upward, revealing Jill himself.
"S-Spare me...! Please, just give me another chance...!"
"A chance... a chance, hm..."
The Cult Leader raised one hand thoughtfully.
Despite the relaxed expression on his face—as though pondering a dinner menu—Jill floated helplessly in the air, gasping as if his breath could stop at any moment.
"Is this the first time Jill has failed a mission?"
"Yes, it is."
The answer came almost simultaneously with the calm question.
A gaunt man standing behind the Cult Leader in formation.
'Well now...'
The moment I saw his gloomy face, he interested me more than the Cult Leader himself.
Unlike the other necromancers, his demonic energy possessed a certain structure and discipline.
Having fought Pale's undead before, I could instinctively tell.
That man was a necromancer of the Empire.
'A deserter? No. If that were the case, the knight order would've mobilized. Then...'
As I watched the scene unfold, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Both the cult's necromancy and the Empire's necromantic arts were evolved forms of Soul Reversal Arts.
'Which means the Empire is influencing the cult's necromancy in some way.'
It was another troublesome issue to worry about, but oddly enough, I didn't feel bad.
A link between the cult and the Empire.
The fact that the Empire was connected to a murderous organization like the Archimond Cult would itself become ammunition to attack the Empire later.
'It's a shame this is only a scene from memory, but it can't be helped. I'll gather evidence later...'
That was when it happened.
Thud!
The black force restraining Jill vanished, and his body crashed onto the ground.
"Haaagh...! Kghk! Ugh—?!"
Released just before suffocating to death, Jill breathed frantically before beginning to retch.
"Hoh ho ho, then perhaps he deserves to be spared once."
The terrified necromancer cautiously examined the Cult Leader's expression.
The leisurely laughter of an old man.
Yet the sinister aura hidden within his eyes made Jill's knees tremble.
"Now that the operation has failed, there's no reason to remain in these snowfields."
At the Cult Leader's single sentence, the necromancers waiting throughout the campsite rose to their feet.
"We return to Felician first. There, we'll gather corpses and prepare for the future."
"Understood."
Upon receiving the order, the necromancers immediately packed their belongings and formed a procession.
A grotesque parade of remaining undead and black-robed figures mixed together.
But Jill and several other necromancers remained kneeling on the ground, merely watching the procession from afar instead of joining it.
"Jill."
"Y-Yes...!"
At the Cult Leader's call, he immediately straightened his body and answered.
"I'll leave the remaining cleanup to you and your subordinates. Can you handle it?"
A voice as gentle as a kindly old man's.
Yet Jill's face listening to it was deathly pale.
"Of course. I shall carry out your orders."
"Hoh ho, thank you. I'll be counting on you."
The Cult Leader patted his shoulder before finally joining the procession.
And by the time his figure faded into the snowy landscape—
"Jill, if this happens, then we're...!"
A group of black-robed necromancers rushed toward Jill, who had only just steadied his breathing.
"Yes. We no longer have anywhere left to retreat."
Speaking with a hardened expression, Jill grimaced while staring in the direction the Cult Leader had disappeared.
"Now that the cult's largest-scale operation has failed, our faction no longer has a place within the organization."
"Th-Then what happens to us...?"
"Whether sooner or later, we'll eventually be purged."
At those words, the necromancers—including the owner of my current viewpoint—ground their teeth.
"Damn it! I knew something was off when every member assigned to the detached unit was from our side...!"
"To play political games during a sacred crusade!"
"Enough!"
Jill barked sharply, silencing his enraged companions.
Though he seemed to be suppressing his fury, even his clenched fist trembled violently.
"We go to the Sanctuary."
Sanctuary.
A ridiculous, self-important term for the Ice Castle.
The moment I heard it, a scoff escaped me.
"B-But that place is—?!"
"Then do you intend to quietly wait here and die by their hands?!"
"...!"
Unable to find a rebuttal to Jill's shout, the necromancers clenched their fists.
"To begin with, even that Cult Leader's power came from the Sanctuary! Then there's no reason we can't obtain it as well!"
As his persuasion continued, several necromancers seemed convinced and slowly rose to their feet.
"Let us go to the Sanctuary and recover Lord Archimond's holy relics! If we return with them, we can rise again!"
A desperate struggle that could have been either resolve or madness.
The moment I heard that cry, my vision went dark.
The spell that read the memories of a subdued soul, Afterimage of Life, had come to an end.
Paaasss...
The emaciated necromancer's body crumbled away like a discarded rag upon the snow-covered frozen plains.
"I thought he'd burn out quickly, but he lasted longer than expected."
Afterimage of Life.
A Soul Reversal Art that shaved away the soul's existence itself in order to glimpse its memories.
As the memories replayed until the soul was fully consumed, the body eventually failed to endure and scattered into ash.
Thud—!
I kicked aside the pile of ashes that had once been his corpse and rose to my feet.
'According to his memories, most of the cult has already left this place.'
And the number of those who had headed toward the frozen plains alongside him was roughly fifty.
But judging by the circumstances, less than half of them had likely reached the Ice Castle alive.
"Idiots."
The frozen plains where I now stood was a demonic land that inflicted all manner of mental abnormalities upon intruders—hallucinations, confusion, insanity.
The greatest reason for that was the Ice Castle towering at the center of the plains.
The lingering thoughts engraved there by the northern people slowly devoured the minds of trespassers.
The only exceptions were those acknowledged as members by the souls dwelling here.
Archimond—the master of the Ice Castle who granted spiritual bodies to them all and gave them the power to sweep across the continent.
Or a knight who directly endured the wrathful souls and conquered the Ice Castle head-on.
Someone like Berkel Leinrant.
'Even with such an advantage, he still got his head cut off in my fortress. Pretty funny, honestly.'
With a bitter smile, I cast aside the memory and focused on the situation before me.
Judging from their capabilities, at best only around twenty of them would be able to resist the Ice Castle's influence.
The remaining necromancers had probably gone mad just like the one I'd encountered earlier.
"So now I know how many enemies there are. What remains is locating them."
Muttering that, I looked down at his corpse—or more accurately, the footprints connected to him.
Apparently it hadn't snowed recently, because parts of the tracks still remained intact.
"This is more than enough."
Not only had he provided information and his soul, but he'd even revealed the enemy's location.
What a wonderfully generous little vermin.
Thinking of the ashes I had just kicked aside, I activated one of my contracts.
— Kiiiiiiiii—!
The translucent figure of a floating woman appeared in the air.
I formed a hand seal toward the Banshee hovering overhead.
Nodding once, she flew off in a certain direction.
Then, shortly afterward—
— AAAAAAH—!
The Banshee's signal echoed from afar.
Following it for roughly an hour, I eventually spotted a group of necromancers in the distance.
Just as expected, there were around twenty of them.
The undead escorting them numbered only about a hundred as well—far fewer than before.
"Bishop Jill's been gone for four days already! Why hasn't he contacted us yet?!"
"Our comrades are going insane, and we're running out of food...!"
"S-Shouldn't we run while we still can?!"
"And run where exactly?!"
Unlike when they had attacked the wall, they now looked utterly demoralized.
After confirming their condition, I immediately buried myself beneath the snow.
"As expected, they couldn't fully restore them."
What caught my attention wasn't the necromancers huddled together like refugees.
It was the undead.
The Soul Reversal Arts they used.
Undead created from corpses were easy to make and powerful.
Since all they had to do was pour a soul into an existing body, unlike me they didn't need to design an undead body from scratch.
That made them far quicker to create and placed far less burden on the caster.
'That's why the Empire had no choice but to develop Soul Reversal Arts too. They needed it for warfare.'
But for all its advantages, Soul Reversal Arts also possessed obvious weaknesses.
Their greatest strength—and greatest weakness—was the corpse itself.
Corpses rot in heat and freeze in cold.
Crack!
The undead guarding them were already failing to withstand the severe cold, their bodies freezing, splitting, and shattering in places.
"They outnumber me heavily, but once night falls... this should be manageable."
The necromancers were likely already exhausting themselves simply resisting the haunting voices echoing through their heads.
Once I finished my assessment, I immediately concealed myself and burrowed deeper into the snow.
"Hey, it's time for the shift change."
"Ugh... a-already?"
At his companion's call, the necromancer Dain forcibly dragged his unresponsive body upright.
"Damn it, my head..."
The Sanctuary of Archimond, the Ice Castle.
Among its structures, this place was one of the five pillars maintaining the Ice Castle itself: the Spear of Lamentation.
The awe inspired by its majestic appearance had only lasted briefly.
What awaited them instead were the cries of long-dead souls, hallucinations, auditory delusions, and the betrayal of comrades driven insane by them.
"Huu...!"
Shoving the last remaining ration into his mouth, Dain stared at the undead guarding them.
"Fuck, they're cracking again...!"
His masterpieces, which had endured even the brutal cold near the wall.
Yet the freezing winds beyond the snowy regions were beyond imagination.
"Yeah... this is impossible."
Crackle.
This absurd cold.
The endless time spent waiting for Bishop Jill.
The constant pressure and phantom voices during that time had been more than enough to destroy his sanity.
"Everyone else is asleep, so while I still can...!"
Other than the undead guarding them, no necromancers remained awake.
The moment Dain gathered all his undead together after spotting the opportunity—
Crunch—!
A black object burst through his body.
Feeling the burning sensation erupting from his chest, Dan's eyes widened as he looked downward.
"W-What... is this...?"
A black bolt piercing straight through his chest.
A quarrel fired from a crossbow.
"Kgh...?!"
Dain collapsed with his heart impaled.
Watching from the distance, Klein smacked his lips and muttered,
"Feels like me and these damned crossbows are getting more deeply connected every day."