Recalling the scene from just moments ago, Alius stuck out his tongue.
'How on earth can someone fight like that?'
It wasn't that they displayed superhuman skills. They were far from the transcendent force wielded by aura users who had awakened their energy or by high-level mages.
'The power of their swordsmanship and magic was clearly at an ordinary level.'
It was just that their experience surpassed imagination.
They read every attack in advance and evaded it, targeted every weakness as if they could see it plainly, and executed all of this without a single mistake, without any sign of tension.
How much combat experience would one need to pull off something like that?
'And they're both still in their twenties. At best, they're around my age. Where did they gain such experience?'
Alius had more experience than most for his age, but even he wasn't on that level.
'Could they be hiding their true abilities?'
But that didn't make sense.
Not only was there no reason for them to hide their skills, but it would also be ridiculous for someone hiding their abilities to display such seasoned combat techniques so openly.
That left only one conclusion.
They were still young and had not yet awakened their aura or accumulated much mana, but their talent was so extraordinary that their combat instincts alone allowed them to achieve this!
'Wow, even I was considered quite the prodigy within the Church...'
Although he showed humility in front of others, Alius was honestly aware of his own talent. It would be foolish not to, when he could easily learn things others struggled with.
Yet, even he felt envious of the sheer talent these two possessed.
'They said they were from the Jestarad Barony, right?'
These were not talents that should be buried in some rural fiefdom.
And in increasingly chaotic times, talent was always in short supply.
'I need to investigate them as soon as I return to the Church.'
As Alius momentarily drifted into these thoughts, a voice interrupted him.
"Excuse me, Priest?"
Boras, who had pinned Cleo down, urged him.
"What should I do now? Kill him or spare him?"
Alius snapped back to reality.
'This is no time to be daydreaming.'
He approached the fallen Cleo and pointed his staff at him.
"I'll handle this."
A light began to emanate from the tip of the staff. Cleo, pinned beneath Boras, struggled in fear.
"U-ugh..."
Ignoring him, Alius brought the holy light closer to Cleo.
"Aaaargh!"
A scream erupted as Cleo's veins darkened and bulged. His skin soon tore open, and a black energy surged forth.
The black energy gathered in the air, then was drawn into a vial Alius had taken out. Moments later, all the aura had vanished.
Baros and Karnak glanced at Cleo. He had already passed away.
"As expected,"
Alius said definitively after examining the light within the vial.
"It's the Darkness of Doom."
Karnak smiled faintly.
'Oh, so that's how they deal with it? I learned something useful.'
He had just witnessed firsthand how a priest sealed necromantic power. This was a significant discovery.
Meanwhile, Baros was worried.
[Is this okay? We need that too, you know. Are we just going to let them take it?]
[It's fine. I've already prepared for this.]
[Prepared?]
At that moment, a dark tendril suddenly shot out from a corner of the hallway, aiming at Alius.
Pa-a-aht!
"Oh no! There was still a trap left..."
Alius turned in alarm, but he was a moment too late.
In an instant, the tendril began to choke him.
"Ugh! Gah..."
Through his dimming vision, Alius saw Karnak rushing towards him in alarm.
"Priest!"
Even as he was losing consciousness, Alius felt a sense of relief.
Since the necromancer had already been dealt with, he trusted that these people would handle the rest.
'I'm glad I didn't come alone...'
As Alius fully lost consciousness, the tendril that had been strangling him also released its grip. Karnak, who had been feigning concern, immediately changed his expression.
"It's done."
Baros looked incredulous.
"When did you prepare something like this?"
"Isn't it a necromancer's job to pull tricks behind the scenes?"
"Even so, if they start getting suspicious..."
Baros trailed off as he looked around.
"Well, I guess that's unlikely?"
The Darkness of Doom was sealed in the vial, but the residual dark energy still filled the hallway. And setting traps everywhere was a specialty of necromancers.
"To Alius, it'll just seem like that guy was up to something..."
"There's actually a bigger reason than that,"
Karnak said as he subtly drew upon his chaotic magic.
"Look, see? Magic."
"It's magic, so what?"
"It means I'm a mage right now. Someone who uses mana."
Baros finally caught on.
"Oh, I get it."
Fred had been too ignorant to realize that Karnak, despite being a mage, was using necromancy, and had dismissed it as him hiding his true identity. But Alius was a high-ranking priest.
While a necromancer could disguise themselves as a mage in front of ordinary people, doing so in front of a priest was impossible.
And mana, aura, divine power, and necromantic power are fundamentally incompatible. That's common sense.
"For someone like him, who saw me using mana, would he even suspect me? Well, it's actually chaos magic, but the difference is almost negligible."
Karnak grinned as he pulled the black vial from Alius's unconscious body.
"I'll investigate this and return it later, making it a perfect crime."
***
"Well then, let's see..."
Karnak focused his mind as he infused chaos magic into the darkness contained within the vial. Baros, who was watching, asked, "Is this really the fragment we were looking for?"
"It is."
"Lucky us, then. The necromancer we found just happens to be exactly who we needed."
"It wasn't luck," Karnak shrugged.
"It was inevitable."
In his previous life, necromancers were as rare as a bean sprouting during a drought.
But now, due to the Darkness of Doom, they are popping up everywhere.
"Imagine someone threw ten thousand more stones into a space that originally had only ten. If you picked up a random stone, what are the chances it would be one of the original ones?"
Most of the necromancers currently active were connected to the Darkness of Doom.
"On top of that, the original stones are gradually disappearing."
During his investigations, Karnak had discovered something important.
Cleo had been pursuing necromancy even before the chaos began.
Originally a pure necromancer, Cleo had killed another who possessed the Darkness of Doom and absorbed their power.
"Even the original necromancers are prioritizing hunting the Darkness of Doom in these circumstances. It's too tempting a prey."
Karnak doubted if there were any necromancers left who were not connected to the Darkness of Doom.
After finishing his explanation, Karnak focused again. Baros, growing bored, hesitated before asking again.
"So, did you find anything useful?"
"Well, I've figured out what this guy was up to..."
According to the residual thoughts, Cleo had joined a cult worshiping a deity called Tesranak after obtaining the Darkness of Doom.
"Tesranak?"
Baros looked puzzled. It was a name he had never heard before.
"Yeah. Supposedly the God of Death."
"Does that even make sense?"
In the old days, there had been someone referred to as the God of Death.
That someone was Karnak himself.
Although Karnak was human—albeit not a completely ordinary one—he had earned that grand title for a reason.
According to the doctrine of the Churches of the Seven Goddesses, death and darkness were not domains governed by the goddesses.
Darkness was simply the concept that arose when the Goddess of Light's protection weakened, and night was the time when all sorts of monsters and evil beings roamed freely, instilling fear.
Thus, the Goddess of the Sun drove away darkness, turning night into day, while the Goddess of the Moon and Stars guided humans with their light even in the darkness of night.
Death was merely the unavoidable fate that unfortunate humans faced.
Those who follow and believe in the Seven Goddesses will be gathered into the goddesses' heaven after death, free from suffering.
If one meets death without the goddesses' protection, their soul will fall into a demon-infested hell where they will suffer.
Death and darkness are not separate phenomena; they are merely the absence of life and light.
"But is there really a god of death and darkness?"
"It seems that the cultists believe so."
According to their doctrine, Tesranak is a god of death and rebirth who spreads the Darkness of Doom, purifying the corrupt and deceitful world through death and then unveiling a new paradise.
Boras let out a dry laugh.
"So, this Tesranak is the one who caused this calamity, is that the story?"
"Apparently so."
Karnak sighed in disbelief.
"Good grief, they're attaching all sorts of things together. They've even gone and made up a nonexistent god..."
From his perspective, it was a truly absurd story.
"Well, we can't exactly say it's not true, so we might as well just go along with it, right?"
"Exactly."
He explored a bit more, but after that, there was no useful information.
The situation was too fragmented, and there was still too little information to grasp the overall situation. To learn more, they would need more of the Darkness of Doom.
Still, he wasn't particularly disappointed. He had expected it to turn out this way from the start.
"This time, we've gained quite a bit, so I should be satisfied with this."
As Karnak drew out the chaos power from the bottle containing the darkness, he smiled brightly.
"It's just as I expected. It becomes a lot easier with the help of a priest."
"What does?"
"Refining chaos energy."
Chaos energy is purified necromantic power. In other words, it's also sealed necromantic power.
Theoretically, by using a priest's holy power, one can refine chaos energy much more easily and simply!
"But I need a way to test this."
Inviting a priest over and saying, 'I'm about to use necromancy, could you purify it with your divine power?' would surely get a great reaction.
The main reason Karnak had decided to move with Alius was to gather information on how divine power purifies necromantic power and how to apply that method to refining chaos energy.
As he extracted all the chaos energy from the darkness in the bottle, Karnak smiled with satisfaction.
"Now I know what to do."
He had filled in the gaps in his knowledge, and his amount of mana had more than doubled. He had gained a lot without much trouble.
"With this, I could probably pass as a 4th-circle mage."
Boras glanced at the unconscious Alius and asked.
"Oh, so does that mean we have to keep bringing him along in the future?"
And knock him out every time, like now?
That didn't seem right.
Unless he was a fool, if the same situation kept repeating, he would definitely start to get suspicious.
"Of course not."
Karnak waved his hand dismissively.
"Priests are not the only ones who possess divine power."
There are things in this world, aside from people, that possess divine power.
Holy relics, for instance.
"They may sound grand, but in reality, holy relics are surprisingly common."
Things like holy water sold by the church, talismans for dispelling evil, and protective charms are all technically holy relics. They're so common that they don't even feel like holy relics.
"I've got plenty of money, so I should gather a bunch of those and use them to refine mana. Things will be easier from now on."
He had already extracted all the information and magic he needed, so there was no longer any use for this bottle of darkness.
Karnak placed the bottle back into Alius's possession.
Even if Alius checked the bottle, he wouldn't find anything strange.
The corruption and foul energy would still be present, and extracting mana from necromantic energy was something most wouldn't even imagine.
"It's like extracting nutrients from excrement—something you wouldn't normally think of."
Boras wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"That's a pretty filthy comparison, isn't it?"
"That's how dirty necromancy is. Especially to priests."
"Are we really that despicable?"
"Why do you think we've been living with the world's hatred?"
Now, all that was left was to wake up the unconscious Alius.
After composing his expression, Karnak began to urgently shake Alius.
He raised his voice, filling it with concern and worry.
"Priest! Are you alright, Priest?"
"Ugh..."
Alius let out a faint groan and slowly opened his eyes.
Karnak sighed in relief.
"Thank goodness. You're safe."
Watching the scene, Boras could only shake his head in disbelief.
[Wow, he's really good at faking it without even batting an eye.]
[Keep your expression in check, Boras!]
[Ah, yes, young master!]
***
When Cleo died, the necromancy cast over Gelpa Village was also broken.
The villagers, freed from their delusions, realized the inconsistencies in their memories and were horrified.
"My God, why did I think that person looked so young?"
"Why did we think he was handsome?"
"Even the priest from the church was under the spell?"
Fortunately, thanks to Alius's swift follow-up actions, the panic subsided. First, they coordinated with the village church.
The village church hadn't been idle. In fact, they had been suspicious of Cleo all along. This is why Priest Gras had secretly invited Alius to deal with Cleo.
This was how the announcement was made.
With this, trust in the church was restored.
Moreover, the fact that the villagers hadn't suffered any significant harm played a big role in this.
Cleo had indeed been preparing to use the village maidens as sacrifices. To set up for this, he had spread money around the village, trying to win everyone's favor.
But, right before he could carry out the sacrificial ritual, he was caught by Alius.
From Gelpa Village's perspective, it was like they had just pocketed the money and wiped their hands clean of the whole affair.
"Phew, that was a close call."
"We'll need to be more careful in the future."
Though the atmosphere in the village had become somewhat grim, they eventually regained stability.
After wrapping up the aftermath, Alius set out for Derat City with Karnak and his group.
Throughout the journey, he peppered them with questions.
"Where did you both learn your swordsmanship and magic?"
"You seem to have a lot of combat experience. Is the Jestarad Barony a particularly harsh place?"
"Have you ever fought a necromancer before?"
He seemed to have a great deal of interest in them.
Well, after seeing their performance, it was only natural.
Karnak responded with carefully chosen answers.
"I was fortunate enough to come across the legacy of an old court mage. Sir Boras has mastered the Delphiad Swordsmanship."
"Our territory is rather rough, so we often encounter monsters."
"Recently, a necromancer fled to our land, and we had to borrow the Latiel Church's power to deal with him."
By skillfully blending truth with lies, they managed to keep the conversation flowing smoothly. Finally, they arrived in Derat City, and it was time to part ways.
"Are you both returning to your territory now?"
At Alius's question, Karnak shook his head.
"No, we plan to stay in Derat City for a while."
"I see."
Alius gave a graceful bow and offered a formal farewell.
"May Hatoba's blessing accompany you on your journey."
As he watched Alius walk away, Boras muttered nonchalantly.
"Feels like we'll see that priest again, don't you think? He seemed pretty interested in us."
"There's no harm in building connections with the Churches of the Seven Goddesses. The situation has changed, after all."
[T/L: Please support me: https://ko-fi.com/revengerscans ]