Karnak, Monarch of Death

The next morning, Karnak lay sprawled on the sofa in his study, savoring thoughts of his breakfast.

”Ah, that was delicious.”

Fluffy omelets, fragrant white bread slathered with sweet jam, savory sausages, and perfectly roasted carrots—it was good to be wealthy. Who would have thought he’d be able to eat such fine food from morning?

”I thought I’d be stuck with shabby meals even after returning to the past.”

He lay rolling back and forth on the sofa, and there was a knock at the door.

”It’s Varos, young master.”

”Come in.”

A sturdy young man with blond hair entered the study. Karnak, still lying on the sofa, muttered, ”Are you sure it’s fine to keep calling me young master? I’m the lord now. Won’t people find it suspicious?”

”It should be fine. From what I hear, I was prone to making this mistake all the time.”

Apparently, the old butler had reprimanded Varos countless times for it, but he had never been able to shake the habit, so they had practically given up on correcting him.

”In fact, it might even seem more natural this way.”

”Fine, then. Have you eaten?” Karnak asked.

”I did. It’s surprisingly good.”

”They serve decent food to the servants, too?”

”Yes, it looks like we really are rich now.”

Varos looked over the stack of documents on the desk, then asked with a puzzled expression, ”But, young master, are you just going to sit there and do nothing? Now that you’re the lord, there’s supposed to be a lot of work for you, right?”

”Oh, that?” Karnak gave the estate reports a cursory glance and shrugged. ”I finished it ages ago.”

”Already?”

”You think something like that would cause me any trouble?”

It might have taken a young, inexperienced lord 20 years of age the entire morning to finish the reports. However, it wasn’t any trouble for the former Monarch of Death who had once conquered the world.

”I finished it while I was having my dessert.”

”What? Dessert! Lucky you! I didn’t get any of that!”

Karnak chuckled at his servant’s odd fixation on sweets.

”Is dessert really that important?”

”Of course it is! I gave up all that power and glory just for this!”

”Good point. I’ll sneak you some later. But right now, we’ve got a more pressing issue.”

”Oh, right.”

Varos sobered before taking a seat across from Karnak with a serious expression.

”So, what are you going to do? About the trial by combat?”

***

No sooner had Karnak formally assumed the title of lord than the Devantor Viscounty began to move once more. The Zestrad Barony was immediately on edge, sensing the trouble ahead.

The reality was that the barony didn’t stand a chance against Devantor. They were down to five knights from the original nine, with two of those still recovering from injuries. Their hundred or so soldiers weren’t in good shape either. If they wanted to survive, their only option was to relinquish the copper mine and pay a hefty war indemnity.

But doing that would strip them of the wealth they had only just begun to acquire and drive them into even worse poverty than before. The common people would starve, and the estate would fall into ruin.

In this desperate situation, it was the new lord, Karnak, who stepped up to save them. Before everyone, he boldly declared, ”In the name of Alium, Goddess of the Moon and Justice, I challenge the Devantor Viscounty to trial by combat!”

According to the teachings of the Moon Temple, a duel held in Alium’s name would see victory granted to the rightful party. Thus, the practice of trial by combat had become a respected tradition. A trial by combat would be held to settle the dispute fairly under the oversight of Alium’s clergy, or so the teaching said. At first glance, it appeared to be a fairly brute approach, letting the stronger side claim victory, but it was slightly more complex than that. For one, both parties had to agree to the duel, and if there was a glaring difference in power, penalties could be imposed. Each side could also appoint a champion to fight in their stead.

”Of course, that’s all just in theory. In practice, it’s usually just let the strongest win,” Varos muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. ”Was he insane? What on earth did he think he was doing, issuing a challenge like that?”

This was absolutely not something Karnak should have proposed. The disparity in strength was obvious, he had no suitable champion to put forward, and he, as the twenty-year-old Karnak, was no great warrior himself. He should have opposed any suggestion of a duel, much less initiated one.

”But to have dug his own grave like this...”

The ruling of a trial by combat was absolute, determined solely by one side’s death. Once agreed upon, there was no surrender, and backing out to accept defeat now would mean that the priests of Alium would execute Karnak for dishonoring the goddess. Karnak sighed, letting his shoulders slump.

”Well, at least now I understand why the butler and the people look at me with such reverence.”

In fact, this wasn’t the worst possible option for the barony as a whole. If they had continued the war, they would lose the copper mine and pay massive war reparations. As a result, the people would have starved. But with a trial by combat?

Of course, winning was unlikely, or rather, impossible. But if they lost, the family would only have to give up the mine, and the goddess’s judgment would end all claims for reparation—no need for massive payouts. At least the people wouldn’t starve.

”I’m surprised Viscount Devantor agreed to the duel,” Varos said. ”He could have just continued the war and wrung a huge sum out of us.”

”They probably care about their reputation. Pressuring weaker families doesn’t look good. Other nobles would gossip,” Karnak replied.

The Devantor family wasn’t exactly in financial trouble, after all.

”They’re willing to forgo reparations for a clean claim to the copper mine. It’s not a bad outcome for them, either.”

And so the duel was set between Devantor’s strongest knight, Sir Randolph, and the new Lord of Zestrad, Baron Karnak. It was no wonder the people looked at him with such admiration. Their young lord was practically giving up his life for them.

”Damn it. No wonder everyone’s been looking at me with those reverent gazes...” Karnak gritted his teeth.

Varos posed a question. ”So why didn’t you appoint a champion, anyway? Surely there was someone you could have chosen.”

”What? You think I agreed to this? It was the damn twenty-year-old me who did this!” Karnak retorted, but then took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. He lowered his voice and asked, almost hopefully, ”Anyway, Varos, couldn’t you act as my champion?”

Of course, Varos was no longer a death knight. He was just a regular human, in a body untrained and unfit for battle.

”But you could still take on a rural knight, right?” Karnak asked him.

”Oh, so that’s why you called me in,” Varos said, scratching his head and then shaking it. ”As things stand right now, I don’t think I could.”

”What? Why? You’ve got years of experience—why couldn’t you?”

They had fought side by side for nearly a century. Even in his human form, surely his combat expertise would give him an edge.

”You were second-in-command in Necropia, after all! You even took down three of the Four Great Martial Kings!”

”That was all thanks to the power you granted me, remember?” Varos replied, smiling wryly.

”But you’re the one who wielded that power!” Karnak argued.

”Look, that’s a common misconception people with no training have...” Varos chuckled bitterly. ”They think that even with an untrained body, with enough experience, they could best an average knight. Well, as I said, it’s a misconception.”

No matter how skilled you are, if you are missing an arm, you can’t wield a sword, and if you’re crippled, you can’t use advanced footwork. It was the same idea here. At the very least, he needed a body capable of executing such techniques—that was the minimum.

”Don’t you remember how I stopped you back in Darha village? I wasn’t exaggerating. If we’d gotten into a fight there, I wouldn’t have had a way to protect you.”

Varos explained that even a young, physically trained body would have been better than his current one, which was untrained and simply large.

”Sure, I could beat a child, but applying battle-hardened skills is another story entirely.”

Karnak frowned.

”Ugh, for someone with a century of combat experience, you’re awfully weak.

”I know my limits precisely because I’ve been fighting for over a century. Of course, if I start training again, I’ll progress quickly, without the trial and error.”

He paused to calculate, then said, ”If I trained seriously for about half a year, I’d probably be able to handle an average knight.”

For a former servant with no prior combat training to surpass a knight in mere six months? That sounded less like confidence and more like the delusion of a madman. As such, experience truly was an invaluable asset, but the problem was...

”The trial by combat is in a month. We’re short on time.”

”Well, then there’s nothing we can do about it,” Varos said with a sigh.

”Damn it...” Karnak muttered under his breath.

Curious, Varos asked, ”This doesn’t seem like you, my lord. At this point, I was still just a servant, so maybe it made sense then, but surely you could’ve appointed another knight to fight in your place? You weren’t exactly the kind to risk your own life back then, were you?”

There wasn’t a shred of reverence in Varos’s tone, but Karnak hardly cared. He’d heard that tone for over a century, after all.

Instead, he responded thoughtfully. ”I can picture how things turned out this way after hearing the whole story.”

In any case, there was no knight in the current Zestrad household strong enough to stand in for him.

”Apparently, our strongest knight was my brother, Paralt, but he’s dead, isn’t he?”

The remaining knights had almost no chance against Sir Randolph, who was the best fighter in Devantor.

”Sending an unfit champion would be pointless,” he said. Since the trial by combat was conducted in the name of the goddess, the loss of the champion signified the loss of the challenger. In other words, it would represent Karnak’s own defeat, and he would be forced to take his own life.

”So, it seems that the younger me decided he’d find his own way to win, one way or another.”

It seemed that about two months ago, Karnak had declared confidently to the household.

”I have an idea. Trust me and give me some time.”

Without explaining, he then set off on his journey, only returning the day before.

”Well, knowing me, it’s obvious what I was thinking, isn’t it?” Karnak smirked.

Varos couldn’t help but let out a chuckle, as it was indeed obvious. After all, his lord had pulled similar stunts before.

”Necromancy, of course.”

***

Indeed, what kind of resolve did this young Karnak have to pull off something so reckless? That wasn’t something he could glean by digging through the butler’s memories. This younger Karnak had kept necromancy completely secret. He shared nothing about it with anyone.

”Still, I can guess most of what happened,” he murmured.

Karnak’s discovery of the necromancy book was thanks to an old habit of his. Since childhood, he’d always run off to the family’s old storage whenever things got tough. Digging through dusty old storage in a dark, empty place always seemed to calm him.

”Thinking back, I was quite the gloomy kid, wasn’t I?” he mused.

”And then you became a gloomy adult. Let’s not pretend otherwise,” Varos replied.

”We-well, not that gloomy, though, was I?” Karnak protested weakly.

”Social butterflies don’t spend their days as skeletal sorcerers. They don’t kill others with a touch, now do they?” Varos said, grinning.

”Shut up...”

Likely, this Karnak followed a similar path as him. He would have felt pressured as his situation worsened, leading him to retreat to the storage for solace, only to find the necromancy book. Practicing necromancy near the estate would have gotten him discovered, so he must have journeyed to the distant village of Darha. It was clear why he had chosen such a place too. It was far enough from Zestrad, isolated, and had access to basic supplies.

”Same age, same personality... it makes sense he’d reach the same conclusion,” Karnak reasoned.

The only difference was that in his previous life, he had run away with only Varos to secretly study necromancy. Now, it seemed he had openly left the estate with his purpose shrouded.

”Well, it all makes sense now,” Varos nodded in agreement. ”I was wondering why you’d bother with necromancy when things are so comfortable for you now...”

Then, Varos asked suddenly, ”But is three months of necromancy enough to take down an experienced knight?”

After all, his opponent was Sir Randolph, the mightiest knight of the Devantor territory. He might fall short compared to the renowned knights of the kingdom’s central region, but he was still leagues beyond what an ordinary person could hope to match.

”As powerful and game-changing as necromancy might be, it feels like three months isn’t enough time to really make it work,” Varos remarked with doubt.

Karnak gave him a look of disbelief. ”You, of all people, are saying that?”

”What did I say?”

”You were with me through everything—don’t tell me you forgot how I used to be?”

”That was over a hundred years ago! I can hardly even remember when you still had flesh on your bones.”

”Fl-flesh?” Karnak’s face twisted. He felt offended, as if he were being compared to a dog’s chew toy. Yet, as wrong as it sounded, Varos wasn’t entirely off the mark.

”Honestly, it’s possible to win,” Karnak said, shifting the topic. ”Necromancy is banned for a reason, you know. Just a hint of it, and every religious order on the continent will hunt you down. So, if it comes with such heavy risks, why do necromancers keep appearing?”

Necromancy made it possible to gain strength with ridiculous ease. In a short time, without much effort, and with no special talent.

”Even if anyone else puts their mind to it, they can stand a chance.”

Varos tilted his head. ”So then, what’s the problem? You’re saying there’s a way to win, aren’t you?”

”There is. But...” Karnak let out a long sigh.

He was a necromancer, not a mage. Necromancy was all he knew.

”There’s no way I can do it without being found out.”