Karnak, Monarch of Death

Karnak took Varos and Serati deep into a forest located in the northern part of the territory. Through the thick foliage, an abandoned building came into view. It looked like it had once been used as a barracks.

Serati and Varos were visibly confused.

"What is this place?"

"Did we have a place like this in our territory?"

Karnak answered offhandedly as if it was nothing. "It was originally built by the Devantor Barony two lords ago. I took it over and fixed it up after they abandoned it."

In other words, they were already deep inside Devantor territory. It was something that happened all the time, so neither of them paid much attention to it. They simply thought, "Ah, Karnak is up to his usual Karnak things again," and let it pass.

The interior of the building was unmistakably arranged like a mage's laboratory. In each of the four corners burned a brazier, while at the center stood a large stone altar. The cupboards were filled with colorful herbs, animal skulls, and various minerals. On a table on the other side lay kettles and glass bottles containing liquids of unknown nature.

Serati, eyes wide with curiosity, asked, "When did you prepare all of this?"

"Kept me busy, that's for sure."

The ones who had truly been busy were the devout followers of the Twilight Church, who had to deliver all the necessary items to this remote location.

As he approached the altar, Karnak pulled a wand from within his robes. "Alright, now let's resurrect Dreltein!"

***

If one wished to live like a human, they could not control death. Using a spell to place a soul into a death knight's body was, by definition, an act of controlling death.

Following that chain of thought, Karnak arrived at a conclusion. "If I can't use a dead body, then I just need to use a living one, don't I?"

But he did not act on it immediately. He knew well, from experience, just how far removed his idea of living like a human was from that of ordinary people. That was why, before heading to the forest laboratory, he first sought Serati's opinion. "What do you think?"

As expected, she nearly had a fit. "Have you lost your mind?! Are you planning to ruin the life of another innocent person again?!"

Karnak felt wronged. "Again? I don't think I've ruined the lives of any innocent people since I came back in time."

"What do you mean, none?!"

Serati rummaged through her memories, trying to find examples to prove him wrong. She was taken aback. "Wait, really? None?"

Karnak had certainly created many unjust victims in the past. But most of them had been enemies. Strangely enough, he had rarely, if ever, harmed truly innocent people.

"Even so, this isn't right! What about the person whose body you plan to use? What happens to them if you put another soul in there?!"

Karnak flicked his finger as if he had been expecting that reaction. "I'm not that stupid, you know."

Why did people place souls into death knights in the first place? It was because placing a soul into a living body would not allow it to last long. In other words, it was impossible to place Dreltein's soul into a living person's body.

"Your complete lack of awareness when it comes to ethics and morality is so... you, Lord Karnak." Realizing that Karnak was not planning to abduct someone and steal their body, Serati let out a sigh of relief and asked, "Then what exactly are you planning to do?"

"I'm going to create an entirely new living body using the method for making death knights. If I use Dreltein's remains as a catalyst, I don't think there will be any side effects."

Serati blinked. "Wait, so..."

She calmly confirmed, "Instead of creating an undead, you're saying you'll create a brand new life?"

"Exactly!"

"And you never considered that this might be several times more evil than making a death knight?"

"Why would it be?" Karnak asked. He apperaed genuinely confused. "I've never done this before, have I?"

No one would be harmed in the process. The soul of Dreltein would be given a new life, and there would be no innocent people or souls wronged in the process.

Karnak continued, "Besides, this doesn't even go against the doctrines of the church, does it?"

The Seven Goddesses' Church explicitly forbade the act of raising corpses, but nowhere did it say one could not create life.

Serati retorted, "That's because creating life is impossible. That's probably why they never bothered to write it down."

"If you think about it, it's not really impossible, you know. Half of humanity has been doing it since the beginning of time."

"Don't compare this to childbirth!"

"Why not?"

"Uh, well..." Serati blinked in confusion.

At first, she had thought Karnak was simply spouting nonsense again, but... Now that he's explained it, it actually makes sense.

Seeing the look on her face, Karnak grinned. "Alright, I've got Serati's approval, so let's get started for real!"

"I didn't approve it yet!"

"Is that a disapproval, then?"

"Well, it's not exactly a no, but..."

"Then that means you've approved it."

***

The laboratory inside the abandoned barracks was filled with all sorts of bizarre items. Karnak first headed toward a corner of the room. There stood a large object, nearly two meters tall, covered with a cloth.

A massive glass tank was revealed when he pulled the cloth away. The tank was filled with a mysterious liquid in which a human corpse floated aimlessly.

Varos let out a dry laugh. "Didn't you say you weren't going to use necromancy anymore, young master?"

Karnak protested. "I'm handling corpses, but that doesn't mean I'm using necromancy!"

"Wow, listen to him trying to convince himself..."

Ignoring his subordinate's words, Karnak adjusted his grip on his wand. He used magic to lift the corpse out of the glass tank. "Rise, move, and go to your destined place."

The corpse floated into the air and slowly settled onto the altar. It was the body of a rather large man, but it was obvious from the way it was crudely stitched together that it hadn't been made from the remains of a single person.

Karnak sprinkled white powder over the corpse. It was Dreltein's bone dust. The powder sparked faintly with a pale light as it made contact with there corpse.

Varos and Serati mumbled as they felt the energy radiating from the light.

"No matter how you look at it, this does look like necromancy..."

"But the energy the young master is using isn't necromantic. What is it?"

It was neither aura, mana, divine power, nor necromantic energy. It was a completely unfamiliar energy.

It was so unfamiliar, in fact, that even Karnak seemed oblivious to it. "I don't know either."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

Karnak answered, "It's energy I extracted from Flocke."

Serati's eyes widened in horror. "Wait! What did you just say?!"

Karnak quickly tried to calm her down. "Relax, Flocke is fine. I just extracted some energy, that's all."

"Oh, I thought..."

She had assumed, for a moment, that he had ground up a perfectly fine dragon for this experiment. Normally, she wouldn't jump to such extreme conclusions, but given who she was dealing with...

Varos nodded. "If I had to compare it to something, it's closest to draconic mana. Though, it's not exactly that either."

"But it is definitely related to life, attribute-wise."

This was why Karnak had considered creating a new life form. He had been handed an entirely new ingredient, something that had never existed before.

"I wasn't sure, so I did some research, and it seemed like it would work."

Serati found herself impressed once again. Was this really something that could be figured out with some research? That man really is a genius.

They said he had no talent as a mage, which was why he became a necromancer, but now it seemed possible that he might have simply taken the wrong first step in his youth. Meanwhile, sparks continued to crackle from the corpse.

The lightning gradually spread throughout the entire body, and the dead limbs began to tremble ever so slightly. Karnak laughed darkly. "Heh heh heh, it's working. It's working."

His hands moved in a dizzying dance. Complex magic circles formed repeatedly in the air, and multicolored flames danced around him. At last, the ritual seemed to reach its peak. Karnak brought his hands together. A surge of powerful chaos mana poured forth with words of power and crashed down upon the corpse.

"Arise, receive your new command, and let your life unfold upon this earth!"

The corpse opened its eyes and a scream, like the screech of metal scraping against metal, burst forth. A flash of lightning ripped across the night sky beyond the barracks' window, and the darkness of the laboratory flickered violently with light and shadow.

Serati flinched and rolled her eyes. "What the hell? Why is it suddenly thundering now?"

The man, no longer just a corpse, trembled violently as he raised himself. He clutched his head and let out groans.

Karnak placed his right hand on the man's head. "Can you hear my voice, Dreltein Thelix?"

"I-I can..."

"You have received new life through my power. But know that this alone will not complete the synchronization between your body and soul..."

His chilling voice seemed to squeeze the soul within the man, within the young Dreltein. "Become my vassal."

"What?"

"That is the only way for you to survive this rebirth. If you refuse, your soul will fail to settle into your body, and eventually, you will scatter and wander as a lost spirit."

Dreltein hesitated."Th-that is..."

Dreltein knew well what it meant to become the vassal of a necromancer. Even in such a desperate situation, it was not something he could agree to so easily.

But Karnak's temptation had not yet ended. "If you become my vassal, you will gain the chance for revenge!"

In that instant, sparks flared in Dreltein's eyes.

Revenge...!

Indeed. If it meant he could take revenge on that damned future Dreltein Thelix—the demon who had turned him into this—then borrowing the power of another demon would be a price worth paying.

With hatred burning within him, Dreltein staked his very soul. "I will become your vassal."

"Then open your mind and accept the contract."

A massive darkness surged around the altar. With the vassal contract complete, one soul was bound to another, entangled and wrapped in invisible chains. Moments later, the darkness receded, and Dreltein collapsed once more.

Karnak looked down at the unconscious man with a sly grin. "See? I told you, he's weak to temptation."

Serati, who had been watching, looked exasperated as she spoke. "Excuse me, didn't you say you weren't going to use necromancy anymore?"

A vassal's contract was necromancy no matter how one looked at it.

"I didn't use it when I created the new life, did I? I wasn't lying, see."

Serati let out a long sigh as she looked at him, bold and unbothered as ever. It left a strange feeling in her gut, but the truth was, the Dreltein of this era had indeed gained a new life, and no one had suffered in the process.

Is this a good thing... or a bad thing?

***

Karnak and his companions did not take the revived Dreltein directly back to the manor. It was for a simple reason. His body had been stitched together in patches, and he looked too grotesque to present to others. In fact, aside from the fact that his heart was beating and he was breathing, he looked no different from a ragged golem.

But there was one decisive difference between a ragged golem and the revived Dreltein. He was a living and breathing creature, and so the healing magic of a priest would work on him. For this reason, they took him first to the temple in the territory, where Milia was residing.

"O Latiel, heal this man's body."

All of the grotesque scars vanished through the divine spell, leaving Dreltein looking like a normal man in his early thirties with a rugged, masculine face. His appearance had somewhat mimicked the age of the soul, around his thirties when he had his body stolen by the future Dreltein.

Now whole, Dreltein looked at Karnak and cautiously asked, "I have to ask... who exactly are you?"

When he was in spirit form, he hadn't been in his right mind and hadn't felt the need. But now that he had a body and a sane mind, he found himself curious.

In response, Karnak turned his head, as if he had been expecting it. "Serati!"

"Ah, yes, yes." Having dealt with this more than once or twice, she began her explanation with practiced ease. "A long, long time ago, there was this terrible man called the Monarch of Death, Karnak. One day, this Monarch of Death suddenly decided he wanted to try some food..."

"Hey! You're not even pretending it's a slip of the tongue?!"