Five grim-faced men were watching the scene before them with confusion.
"What is this?"
"Why are these guys dead here?"
They were also low-ranking members of the Lanfelt organization.
While searching the streets with their comrades, they discovered the bodies of those who had been searching another area.
"This doesn't look like it was an enemy attack…."
It appeared that they had killed each other.
Having lived in a city where mutual killings were common, they could tell at a glance.
But in this situation, there was no reason for them to kill each other.
"Could it be that a mage manipulated the scene?"
"If that's the case…."
"That means…."
"Does it mean there's someone out there targeting us right now?"
At that moment, as the members of the organization stared at the fog with their backs turned to the corpses, two blood-soaked bodies rose behind them.
"Uugh…"
Before the Lanfelt members could even turn around, the sword held by one of the corpses was thrust deep into one man's chest.
"G-gack!"
A life was snuffed out far too easily.
Seeing their fallen comrade bleeding, the organization members screamed in terror.
"Uaaaah!"
"The, the corpses are moving!"
"It's necromancy!"
The blood-soaked corpses swung their swords and attacked.
The men were horrified and fought back desperately.
"Damn it! A mage, huh?"
"Damn those higher-ups!"
"They should have warned us about something this important!"
The brawl continued with stabbing, slashing, and blood splattering.
A sword was embedded in the torso of a corpse.
"Uuugh…"
It was useless. The dead did not die again. They kept pushing forward, stabbing relentlessly.
A sword was thrust into one man's torso.
"Kugh!"
A scream erupted. The living lost their vitality and fell like puppets.
The battle between the lifeless corpses, who felt neither pain nor fear, and the living, who could die from just a few slashes, was profoundly unfair.
"Uaaaaah!"
"C-cut off the head!"
"It won't die even if we cut it!"
"Then cut off their heads and chop off their arms and legs too!"
The cost for the five men to neutralize just two moving corpses was high.
Two out of the five lost their lives, and the remaining three were severely wounded and could only gasp for breath.
"Gasp, gasp…."
"Still, we've done enough damage…"
"…They won't be getting up again."
They had smashed the zombies' heads and turned their limbs into minced flesh. Even if they somehow started moving again, they would have no means of attack, so this should be sufficient.
"Damn it, is it really that scary when a corpse moves?"
The man muttering this suddenly turned pale.
'Wait, corpses moving?'
There were two more corpses at the scene. They were Lanfelt's organization members who had just been killed by the zombies.
"Uugh…"
"Uugh…"
Even the dead comrades began to rise as zombies.
Screams of terror pierced through the night fog.
"Uaaaah!"
Strange events were happening continuously throughout the city.
Comrades killing each other, then rising as zombies to attack other comrades.
But Lanfelt's organization members were no pushovers.
In a street in central Trist City.
About ten organization members were hacking away at three zombies.
"Gasp, gasp…."
"Hmph! These zombies are nothing…"
"If we stay calm, they're nothing special!"
They were veterans used to blood and death, and they wouldn't easily be overwhelmed by mere zombies.
One of the members wiped the blood and spat.
"Hmph, necromancer. Did you think we'd be shaken up by this?"
Any anguish about killing dead comrades?
That didn't exist from the start.
They can kill a living comrade as much as they want if they don't like them, so what's the problem with hacking up already dead ones?
"Search the area! There must be a necromancer nearby who did this!"
Several subordinates scattered throughout the street.
Soon, a shout came from inside an alley.
"They're here!"
"Is it over there!"
As if waiting, the men fiercely rushed into the alley.
Just as they were about to peer into the depths of the alley.
"Hmm?"
"What's that?"
No one was inside. Not the necromancer, nor the subordinate who had made the shout.
"…Then who just made that sound?"
Everyone was bewildered.
At that moment, another subordinate called out to them from outside the alley.
"This way, boss!"
After the report, the subordinate quickly ran off and disappeared into the fog. Clicking their tongues, the others followed him.
"Did he run off that quickly?"
However, when they emerged back onto the main street, there was no sign of the others.
"Where did that guy go?"
As the men stood puzzled, one of them came running from the opposite side of the street.
"There's no one here, captain."
It was the same subordinate who had disappeared into the fog moments ago.
Seeing him, the captain asked,
"What? You? When did you go over there?"
"Huh?"
"You just ran over here!"
"Eh?"
As they were confused and unable to understand, footsteps were heard.
Tap, tap, tap, tap!
Then, from the fog, the same subordinate appeared for the third time.
"Captain, there's no one here… Huh! What's that!"
He was horrified to see another version of himself on the opposite side.
As everyone was thrown into chaos, the captain muttered,
"Come to think of it, we heard footsteps this time?"
The footsteps had not been heard earlier.
"It's a trick! This one is a fake!"
Despite the situation, this was someone who had experienced all sorts of hardships in Trist City. Would he fall for such a trick?
"You bastard!"
"Do you think you can fool us!"
Determined to show them a lesson, the men brandished their swords and charged in.
"Eh? Eh? What is this?"
They didn't care about the opponent's confusion.
In a life where a minor mistake could cost one's life, swift action was necessary for survival.
"Ugh, aaah!"
It was a matter of moments for one person to be hacked to pieces.
Yes, just one person.
It wasn't an illusion or a mirage, but a real person.
With blood dripping from their swords, the men looked at each other.
"Over there…"
"This feels…"
"It seems real…"
The captain snorted.
"Hmph! It can't be real!"
Because the real one was right behind him. He had definitely heard footsteps.
"Right? Prut…"
He called out the name and looked back at his subordinate. And then he flinched.
"Prut?"
He wasn't there.
The subordinate who had been standing there moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did he go?"
No, to be precise, he was there.
He was there, reduced to a corpse by the captain's own hands.
A shiver ran down his spine.
"So then…"
"…Is this the one we just killed?"
The corpse began to rise.
"Uugh…"
A comrade who had been unjustly killed…
"Uugh…"
Had now become another zombie, filled with resentment down to its bones, exuding evil energy and malevolence.
"Uaaaah!"
***
It was impossible to believe what they saw.
A comrade who had been right in front of them vanished, and a comrade who shouldn't be there was now before them.
"Damn it! What's going on?"
It was impossible to believe what they heard.
Hearing things that aren't there isn't the only kind of hallucination. Eliminating sounds that are there is also a form of hallucination.
"No, I definitely didn't hear anything…"
When they stabbed a comrade running silently with their sword, fresh blood gushed out.
When they sent a noisy comrade behind them, he disappeared before they knew it.
"Everyone, get a grip!"
"Don't scatter, stay together!"
So, could they trust the warmth coming from the comrades they had their backs against? This warmth, which was slowly turning into coldness?
Thud!
"Ugh!"
"H-how did it…"
The comrade who had just been one of them, now a bloodied corpse, was stabbing another comrade.
The dead had once again become moving corpses, groaning and walking the earth.
"Scatter!"
"There's a zombie among us!"
"No way! It looked fine just a moment ago…"
In horror and panic, they continued to hack at zombies. Suddenly, the eyes of a comrade they had been fighting with turned grotesquely.
"Hey, your eyes…"
The pointed-out comrade responded irritably.
"What about my eyes?"
A momentary sense of relief at such a human response was short-lived.
The eyes of the comrade popped out. Dangling from the reddish veins, the eyeballs swung back and forth.
"Uaaaah!"
They panicked and swung their swords in unison.
"Ugh! No, why suddenly…"
The one who was attacked suddenly died in anguish.
The survivors panted heavily and stared at the dead.
And they were horrified.
'What, what did I just see?'
'I'm sure the eyeball fell down…'
The corpse's eyes were perfectly intact.
The eyes, still intact but now unfocused, stared blankly as the corpse groaned and rose as a zombie.
"Uugh…"
Now, no one could be trusted.
Not even oneself.
In the midst of terror, confusion, and despair, all they could do was scream.
"Uaaaah!"
***
Karnak continued his work.
He roamed Trist City, searching for Lanfelt's subordinates.
Since these troublemakers made so much noise, finding them was easy.
When he found them, he would use the Curtain of Darkness to conceal himself. Then, he would cast Illusion Spell on Lanfelt's group and manipulate the situation.
He didn't have enough mana for large-scale illusions, but that wasn't a problem.
A brief illusion here and there didn't consume much mana.
"Did you fall for it?"
A single phrase was enough.
Just the fact that someone had uttered a suspicious remark was enough to cause chaos among them.
"Y-you!"
"Wait! Why are you suspecting me?"
Of course, the more rational ones tried to manage the situation.
"Everyone, get a grip!"
"Someone is deceiving us! Can't you see?"
At this point, Karnak would add a little more salt to the illusion. Illusionary salt, that is.
"Wait… your face…"
"My face, what about it?"
"Uaaah! Don't come near, you monster!"
"What nonsense are you spouting now?"
They killed each other, the corpses increased, and the increased corpses killed the living, leading to even more corpses.
Even the situations they hadn't anticipated happened.
How would the Lanfelt subordinates, caught in their own mess, appear to the ordinary citizens?
Oh, look at those Lanfelt guys getting what they deserve!
But wait, aren't they dressed in expensive armor and wielding high-quality swords?
It wasn't unusual for them to die unnoticed when scattered.
Karnak smiled contentedly.
"It's always the same when you get a bunch of bad guys together."
When bad people gather and do bad things, they only see bad realities.
The world seems filled with nothing but bad events, and even a slight worsening of the situation leads them to imagine the worst possible outcome.
Most of Trist City's citizens had always solved their problems with swords and violence.
"That's why people should live virtuously, you see?"
"Well, it's quite convincing coming from you, young master."
Baros scoffed.
"Maybe that's why we ended up like this, huh?"
"So, you're continuing your noble deeds like this, huh?"
Seeing Karnak's swagger, Serati shuddered.
'So this is what necromancy really is…'
He didn't create a massive darkness that engulfed the whole city, turning it into a hell as legendary necromancers might.
Instead, he just wandered the city, casting simple illusions over and over again.
Yet people kept dying…
'Was joining this guy's ranks really the right decision?'
Of course, she wasn't unfamiliar with killing.
As an adventurer, she had fought for her life numerous times and had ample experience punishing villains.
But no matter how evil the opponent, could people really die so easily?
Noticing Serati's gaze, Karnak looked back and awkwardly scratched his head.
"Well, I'm embarrassed to show you this side of me. I don't usually act like this."
'So you do have some semblance of conscience?'
From his expression, it really did seem like he was embarrassed. Serati felt a bit reassured.
'Still, even if he's a necromancer, he wouldn't be able to carry out such deeds without some discomfort…'
"Normally, I would lay a blanket of power of darkness over the entire city and raise an army of the dead all at once. My mana is insufficient now, so I have to do it this way. So there's no need to look so disappointed."
'…So that's what you're embarrassed about?'
Not noticing Serati's incredulity, Karnak sighed deeply.
"Ah, it's really hard living without strength."
Indeed, it was a tiring job. If it were the old him, he would never have bothered with such troublesome tasks.
But thanks to this, the number of those who die unjustly keeps increasing.
Unjust corpses walk the earth, and resentful spirits circle the sky.
"Is this enough to match the numbers?"
Karnak reached out his hand into the air.
"Rise, my army…"
His ominous voice spread across the city in the shadows.
"Become the army of death and march at my command!"
[T/L: Please support me: https://ko-fi.com/revengerscans ]