14. The Forgotten Hero

— Trudge. Trudge.

Yujin crossed the desolate Orc colony.
His steps halted before an old tree with only a few leaves left clinging to it.
The blue spirit-fire burning behind his eyes pinpointed the soul lodged in the tree with perfect accuracy.

Just as I remembered.

A pale, whitish mist.
Two black specks embedded within it stared back at him.

— You look at me as though you can actually see me.

“That’s because I really can see you.”

— What?!

Had it never once occurred to the thing that an answer might come back?
The ghost startled and hid behind the old tree.

Yujin scratched the back of his head.

“You’ll hurt my feelings, getting that spooked by a person.”

“Is there someone over there, Boss?”

At Kang Minho’s question, Yujin pointed at the tree with a careless flick of his hand.

“A ghost.”
“…Huh?”
“An earthbound spirit. And one carrying quite a grudge, at that.”

— Hmph. I’d thank you not to treat me like some petty wraith!

The ghost flared up in irritation, and the leaves on the old tree shook hard from side to side.

“Hiik!”

Kang Minho stumbled backward.

“You felt nothing at the sight of a walking corpse, and now you overreact to this?”
“That one’s right there in plain sight, and I can at least fight it. An earthbound spirit you can’t even see.”

In fact, ghost-type monsters were the natural predators of Martial-line Hunters.
Without channeling mana into your weapon you couldn’t land a proper blow, and they specialized in mental debuffs, so by all accounts they were no ordinary nuisance.

As for me…

Yujin, fully immune to mind-interference debuffs, was unbothered, but the moment [the Scraps] team heard the words “earthbound spirit,” they backed away from the old tree.

“Now it finally feels like the right mood for paying respects.”

— Paying respects?

“I wiped out the Orc colony so I could come see you.”

— What interest could anyone have in a common earthbound spirit chained to this land?

“Park Haneul. Martial-Mage.”

The two black specks embedded in the whitish mist went still.
Surprise.
And then, confusion.

— H-how do you know my name?

“I told you, didn’t I? I came to pay my respects.”

An earthbound spirit who couldn’t leave the borderlands.
Park Haneul, the Martial-Mage, looked Yujin over with a startled air.¹

— Well now. Hearing my name for the first time since I died — it’s a strange feeling.

“The Orcs would have no way of knowing your name.”

— True. I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I last held a conversation.

“About thirty-five years, I’d say?”

The ghost fell silent for a moment, then let out a long, low “Ahh.”

— So it’s been about that long since I died.

“It’s been roughly that long since the first monster wave hit the old North Korean territory.”

— Hold on. The first?!

“Ah. I suppose you wouldn’t know. Two more surges of about the same scale came down after that.”

— Insane. It’s the end of days. It’s a wonder the country didn’t fall.

Was this how it felt to spoil the ending of a movie or a drama?
Watching Park Haneul marvel over and over, Yujin found it secretly entertaining.

“It didn’t fall, thanks to people like you.”

— Heh heh heh. I know it’s flattery, but it feels good all the same.

“Those are no empty words.”

Yujin recited, word for word, what he’d learned from his social studies textbook.
The flood of monsters that had poured over from the old North Korean territory.
Had Hunters burning with a sense of duty, like Park Haneul, not stepped forward, even Seoul would have been laid to ruin.

“There’s a memorial stone, too. For everyone sacrificed in the first monster wave.”

— So my sacrifice wasn’t in vain after all.

There was relief in the ghost’s voice.
Had those words granted it some measure of salvation?
For an earthbound spirit that couldn’t pass on out of resentment, there was even a hint of grace about it.

Well.
A soul that pure, no wonder it had thrown away its very life trying to save people while it still lived.

“Not everyone’s name was recorded, though. Unlike yours.”

— …What do you mean by that?

“I’m the only one who remembers your name. Even if you searched this whole world over.”

The countless Hunters who had given their lives in the first monster wave.
Among them, the name Park Haneul remained nowhere on any list of the fallen.

The spirit flickering over the old tree churned violently.

— Explain exactly what you mean.

“There’s someone who deliberately erased your record.”

Yujin let the pause hang for a moment.
The whitish current churned hard, as if pressing him for an answer.

“The vice-president of the Arahan Guild. Baek Seonghyeon.”

— Whoooosh!

A gust swept through the colony where not a breath of wind had stirred.
Yujin’s hair whipped about, caught in the strong rush of air.
Even [the Scraps] team, keeping their distance far off, felt a chill.
It was no spectral pressure an ordinary vengeful soul could produce.

“He’s also the one you ought to take your revenge on.”

— I never gave any thought to revenge.

“An earthbound spirit doesn’t just happen. There’s a reason you had to remain on this land, isn’t there.”

That’s right.
Just like you, Park Haneul.

“They drove the Hunters into a death trap with false information, didn’t they.”

Park Haneul, who in the early days of the Great Cataclysm had won renown as one of its foremost talents.
Thanks to a unique ability called Martial-Mage, gifted in both the Martial and Magic lines, and an outstanding combat sense, his fame had run high among the first generation of the awakened.
A figure who, had he only lived, might well have made it into the Seven Star.

I heard it from the dead who perished in the first monster wave.

Behind the fact that someone so strong had died on a nameless stretch of the borderlands, without leaving so much as a common record, there lay a hidden story.

— You said all the records were erased. Then how is it you know?

“While I was searching for a soul strong in spirit-power, I happened to hear a rumor.”

It wasn’t a lie.
Half of it, anyway.

Before the regression.

While searching for a powerful soul to amplify his Necromancer abilities, he’d heard a rumor of an earthbound spirit dwelling near an Orc colony.
What he’d met there was the very soul now before his eyes.

I heard the rest of the story from this one directly, though.

The betrayal by the Arahan Guild.
They had driven Park Haneul into a death trap and held the monster wave from an advantageous position.

If.
Had Park Haneul withdrawn from that battlefield, Arahan too would have taken heavy losses.

Because he wasn’t the sort of man to do that.

Yujin, who in his past life had taken Park Haneul on as an underling, knew his character better than anyone — better even than Baek Seonghyeon, who had laid the trap.

“Take my hand. I’ll let you have your revenge.”

— You’re telling me to become undead?

“That’s right.”

— Heh. My body rotted away decades ago. It’s long since become fertilizer for this tree.

“I’ve prepared a body to house your soul, too. No need to worry.”

Yujin smiled softly.

“Will you make a contract with me and become undead?”

Park Haneul fell silent, seemingly lost in thought.
A moment later.

— If I make a contract with you, I’ll be able to take my revenge?

“Of course.”

— I have one condition. How you put me to use is your own affair, but…

“Revenge on Baek Seonghyeon won’t be the condition, surely.”

— I refuse to harm the innocent.

Yujin let out a small chuckle.
He’d laid down the same contract condition before the regression, too.
At the sight of Park Haneul, unchanged as ever, even Yujin’s stained heart brightened a little.

“That won’t happen.”

Naturally.
With so many wicked people to kill, where would I find the time to lay a hand on the innocent?

A bond joined through soul and spirit.
An invisible thread now linked Yujin and Park Haneul.

The contract was sealed.
But the real “work” started from here.

With a heavy thud, the Draconian corpse abruptly appeared before the old tree.

— What is this?

“Park Haneul’s new body.”

— I thought I’d be turned into something like a zombie.

“You’re a hero in name, so you ought to be treated like one. And that thing won’t last long.”

It was hidden behind the bone armor, so it couldn’t be seen, but the zombie’s body was rotting away in real time.
The decay was being slowed thanks to the spirit-power infused into it, but leave it a week or so and most of the flesh clinging to it would rot, and its combat power would plummet.

In my past life, I possessed it into the body of a Skeleton Knight.

The technique of possessing a soul into undead.
If the soul-synchronization went well, it could more than double an undead’s combat ability.
It was Yujin’s own original necromancy, just like the Armored Zombie.

Park Haneul had accumulated deeds as a Skeleton Knight and risen to Death Knight by his own power, and with Yujin’s remodeling and the support of items added on, had been promoted to Doom Knight.
In the end, attaining an ultimate enlightenment, he became a Hell Knight, a top-tier undead not even recorded in the Library of Knowledge.

What if I’d given Park Haneul a strong body to begin with?

A stray thought he’d often had in his past life.
Infusing Park Haneul’s soul into a Skeleton Knight at the start had been a grave mistake.
Once a dead body and a soul had finished synchronizing, prying them apart again was extraordinarily difficult.

A soul that had reached the ultimate height, housed in the flesh of a nameless Skeleton Knight.
Had it instead been possessed into the corpse of a powerful undead, how much stronger might it have grown?
He couldn’t even begin to guess.

That’s right.

From the moment he obtained the Draconian corpse, the body’s owner had already been decided.

A soul gifted in both combat and magic.
What better soul to serve as the axis of an Eldritch Dragon!

“Well then, shall we get started?”

— Sssssh!

The whitish energy coiled around his right hand.
It jabbed here and there across the Draconian corpse at a rapid pace.

The smelted mana-stone fluid began to react to Yujin’s power.
A strange emblem surfaced here and there across the scales.
The enhancement and curse formulae inscribed at Shin Junseok’s alchemy workshop had triggered.

Park Haneul watched from a little distance.

Yujin reached out and snatched a fistful of the mist-like spirit-body.

“This’ll sting a bit.”

— Owww!

What an exaggerated fuss.

He channeled a portion of the spirit-power drawn out of Park Haneul into the Draconian corpse.
The energy rose from the nostrils up into the head.
The dragon-race essence he’d fixed in place with the formulae reacted to Park Haneul’s spirit-power and began to writhe like a bear waking from hibernation.

— What is this. It feels strange.

“Don’t resist. Take in my power.”

And the instant Yujin tapped the Draconian corpse’s forehead.

The curse he’d inscribed earlier triggered, drawing on the mana smelted from the fluid as its base.
The targets of the curse were Park Haneul’s soul and the Draconian corpse.

Normally you’d have to use a necromancy spell, but that’s beyond my level.

The only necromancy spell to speak of was Raise Undead.
And the most Raise Undead could do was make a zombie out of the Draconian corpse.

It’s not as if it’s the power to turn gold into dung.

Drawing on his past-life experience, Yujin crafted the undead by an irregular method.

Park Haneul’s soul, sucked in through the nostrils.

— Ssshaaaa!

— Th… is… fee… l… i… ng…

Park Haneul’s thoughts came through, slowed beyond all measure.

And why would I do that?
That’s exactly the situation I set up for it.

The dragon-race corpse heaved without pause.
With Yujin’s paltry mana, there was nothing he could do to assist in the crafting process.
Nothing beyond hoping the mana-stone fluid he’d pickled into the corpse in advance would do its job.

Should I pray, maybe?

Would the useless Constellation please be quiet for a moment.

How much time had passed?
The violent trembling of the corpse subsided.

— Flash!

The shut retinas lifted, and the blue spirit-fire that settled into the pupils scattered an eerie light.

— What’s this. I have senses?

The Draconian corpse.
No.
A tone laced with surprise spilled now from the mouth of the corpse synchronized with Park Haneul.
To be precise, it was a dead one’s thought mimicking a living voice.

A great achievement?
In all my years, that’s the first time I’ve heard that.

The Library of Knowledge was an information network inheriting the knowledge of countless Necromancers.
It wasn’t as though it had an ego or anything, but it did have its own criteria of sorts for grading knowledge.
And yet here it was, calling the Eldritch Dragon Yujin had crafted “great.”
That meant not even the Necromancers who’d contributed to the Library of Knowledge had ever conceived of this concept.

The one thing that nagged at him was the “incomplete” part.

Well, no surprise there. I made it completely jury-rigged.

To properly craft an Eldritch Dragon required an astronomical sum of money.
Inscribing the process onto each and every scale.
Pouring in costly alchemical catalysts and materials to reinforce the corpse.
And the most crucial part of all, joining the dragon-race essence to the soul.

Yujin had applied the curse formula to barely mimic the mere concept of an Eldritch Dragon.

— Incomplete, you say.

“Don’t worry. All it needs is time.”

— Heh. I’m rather pleased that a task has been set before me as well.

“A task?”

— It means I won’t be complete until I learn to handle this body properly, doesn’t it.

A pointlessly positive way of thinking.
Yujin examined Park Haneul’s stats with a small chuckle.

The moment he saw the specs of Park Haneul, revived as an Eldritch Dragon.

“Insane.”

His mouth fell wide open, and an exclamation burst out.