Without waiting for their reply, he set off walking toward the gate.
“Greater Magic Seal. Mass Hold Species.”
Without pausing on his way, he began to cast some spells.
After two or so, he waved his hand, and figures wavered into being.
There were ten of them.
Their presence was particular to undead and difficult for the living to abide. The transparent beings bore expressions of anguish.
They were wraiths. Neia had learned in her monster lectures that they appeared as the same race as the viewer. But the way three shadowy figures were mixed together in one was something she hadn’t heard of.
“High wraiths.”
The grotesque forms followed behind the King of Darkness. The grass withered beneath their feet. Since it was winter, it was already brown, but the blades rapidly shriveled as their moisture left them.
“Go and wait for my instructions.”
With motions that seemed unbound by gravity, the undead floated into the air in perfect formation. In just a few seconds, they faded into the blue of the sky, and even Neia with her keen eyes couldn’t pick them out.
She wondered if he didn’t need to explain to them what was going on but figured that if he could come up with such a perfect plan, he wouldn’t forget something like that.
“Wh-what are…?”
“High wraiths. Since they’re incorporeal, they can go through walls and whatnot… Not that they can pass through anything, but… I suppose that’s not what you’re asking, though. They’re one move toward taking the city. Now then, Miss Baraja, I’ll have you stay he—”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Hmm… Then wear this item around your neck.”
“Wh-what is it?”
The King of Darkness took a necklace featuring a large carnelian set in a pentagram.
“It’ll give you perfect resistance to fear. High wraiths scatter it everywhere they go… I’ll give you one warning, and that is not to go rushing into the confusion. Sometimes those ruled by fear become capable of terribly powerful attacks. I may not be able to protect you completely, but if you still—”
“I’m going with you.”
“R-right. O-okay, then. Got it.”
Neia put on the necklace.
“Still, though… They’re fighting a war. There’s no way to do battle without anyone dying.”
Neia winced at his joking tone.
Of course that wasn’t what Remedios meant. It couldn’t be that the King of Darkness didn’t understand her intention, so it must have just been his idea of a joke, but that said…
His sense of humor is a bit…
As she was thinking that perhaps it was his single weak point, they arrived at the gate.
“Fall back, paladins. I’m going to attack the city now. You can all head to the rear. Yes, that’s right. All the way back there.”
The King of Darkness instructed the knights farthest from the front line to move away and then strode toward the gate as if he were walking through an empty field.
“Hey, get back or this brat is—”
Eventually he was face-to-face with the bufolk holding the child hostage.
It was extremely difficult to read the expressions of subhumans, but he seemed surprised. The others nearby had the same look on their faces. Well, Neia would be just as surprised if the King of Darkness suddenly showed up.
“…A-an undead?”
The single voice triggered a wave of that word—undead—through the subhumans.
“That’s right. And you’re ‘the living’, I think? I seem to remember learning the word for that in another language a long time ago, but I’m not confident I can get the pronunciation right.”
“Wh-what? Why are you—? Seriously…wh… Wait, a human?” His eyes flicked to Neia. “You! Are you controlling this undead? You creeps!”
She thought of all sorts of things she could say, like, I’m not a necromancer, or Show the King of Darkness some respect, but she stayed silent.
“Sorry to interrupt while you’re confused, but—”
“Get back, undead! I’ll kill this brat!”
The bufolk clenched his hand around the boy’s neck.
The boy was alive, but there was no life in his face. The King of Darkness seemed to be reflecting in his leaden eyes, yet he didn’t react at all. But Neia still heard a little gasp when the bufolk squeezed his throat.
“Ha-ha-ha! You’d use a human as a hostage against me, an undead? That’s rich.”
The bufolk’s eyes widened. What a creepy expression. That Neia had the wherewithal to calmly observe must have been because she was standing behind the immensely powerful King of Darkness.
“Human! Make this undead leave!”
But I’m not controlling him…
“Hmm. Shall we begin, then?”
“Eh? Get back! Back, I say!”
Perhaps the bufolk sensed something? Still clutching the hostage, he retreated a step.
Neia could see other children who must have also been brought along as hostages. But the bufolk didn’t move to kill them as a warning. They must have begun to question whether live humans would work as hostages with an undead, an enemy of the living.
Neia sensed something like a dark wind blow by. That moment, the bufolk froze. Ever since the King of Darkness had appeared, their eyes had followed his every movement so as not to miss anything, but this was an extreme change. Their eyes and mouths gaped, their faces twisting. And it wasn’t only the bufolk. Even the children who seemed hardly conscious of being alive reacted dramatically.
Neia didn’t understand the subhuman expressions, but she did the human’s. The emotion the children exhibited was fear—an unimaginably overpowering fear.
“Hegh-heeaaaagh!” The bufolk let out strange cries.
“Hmph. Release Mass Hold Species.”
There was a magic circle, and a spell went flying from the King of Darkness. All at once, a large number of bufolk, plus the hostage children, all froze with their faces still twisted up, like horrifying statues. But they didn’t seem dead. She could hear faint—and rather labored—breathing noises.
From above—up on the wall—came a number of shrieks. And behind her, she heard the thuds of flesh being pounded.
“Okay, let’s go.”
She was distracted by the sounds for a moment, but when she looked ahead, there was the grate—
“Greater Break Item.”
—and a clamorous noise echoed. It was what used to be the grate, now scraps of
