Karnak, Monarch of Death

Thanks to Karnak and his companions’ efforts, the giant of light had been vanquished. However, the damage it left behind was devastating. Large parts of the city were burned down, countless citizens lay dead or wounded, and even now, with the demon gone, many who had failed to flee in time were still trapped.

Until dawn, Karnak’s group tirelessly worked to save as many people as they could. To the eyes of the citizens, they were nothing short of heroes. They were saving the city, saving the people, and saving them. Those rescued wept as they expressed their gratitude.

”Thank you. Truly, thank you.”

”May Latiel’s blessing be upon you...”

Latiel’s blessing... which we were just fighting to the death against moments ago, Karnak thought with a wry smile.

But he kept his expression steady. Whatever the truth, it didn’t feel bad to see people looking at him like that.

They continued to pour their efforts into rescue operations, and the city guards finally arrived. They came with envoys from merchant guilds, the nobility, and the temple of the goddess. With more hands, relief work progressed more swiftly. They cleared debris, rescued the trapped, and gave their all to save the city.

Among them was Lapicel, who had safely awakened by morning. I... I was the only one who passed out...

From Lapicel’s perspective, her vision had flashed, her memory had gone dark, and when she finally opened her eyes, everything was already over.

To be honest, she felt deeply embarrassed. ”I’m sorry, sister. Next time, I’ll try harder to be of help!”

”Ah, y-yes, do that.” Serati couldn’t exactly tell the truth, so she just gave an awkward nod. She remembered everything from the night before, and it left her feeling strangely conflicted.

Is this really okay?

***

The streets at night were cloaked in deep darkness. Karnak gently lifted the unconscious Lapicel into his arms. She looked like nothing more than an ordinary sleeping child.

It was hard to believe she was the same person who had just guided Serati’s sword, a great hero of humanity, the Martial King of Cyphras.

”What will happen to Lapicel now?”

Faced with Serati’s question, Karnak replied, looking troubled. ”I’ve sealed her memories again for now, but...”

The torment within Lapicel’s memories was too deep, too heavy. If the Martial King of Cyphras awakened once more, he wasn’t sure he could manage the situation a second time.

”Is there no way to heal her mind completely?” Serati asked him.

”Not unless we erase her memories entirely,” came the response.

Her pain stemmed from her memories, and those memories were so brutal that they manifested as physical and spiritual suffering.

”If we could maintain the memory seal permanently, that would be one way...” Karnak suggested.

Even if it was like carrying a ticking time bomb, if the bomb never went off until the end, it would be as if it didn’t exist at all.

Varos tilted his head. ”Isn’t that basically the same as saying we don’t know when it’ll go off?”

”Exactly. That’s why it’s such an unreliable solution.” Karnak continued. ”There is a more certain method, though.”

”What is it?” Varos replied.

”To precisely carve out only the part of her memory that contains the pain,” answered Karnak.

He was referring to memories of being captured by Karnak, of her soul being shattered by the wrath of the Monarch of Death, of enduring decades of hellish torment, and of regaining her self only to be cast into this era...

If they could precisely remove just that portion, the pain wracking her soul would vanish as well, since the pain originated solely from those memories.

”But such delicate mental manipulation is far too difficult to pull off under normal circumstances. I’d need to have her soul entirely within my grasp.”

Serati and Leven both tilted their heads.

”Wait a minute...”

”That sounds like...”

It was a familiar story—especially to them.

”Yeah.” Karnak shrugged. ”I need to make Lapicel my vassal.”

”Again?” Serati scowled. ”Why is your solution always to turn people into vassals?”

”Well, I was the Monarch of Death.”

Fair enough, really. If Karnak had possessed the power of healing, he’d have been a monarch of healing, or a saint king, not a Monarch of Death. But even if he wanted to make her his vassal, there were still problems.

”First.” Karnak raised a finger. ”I’m not in a position to do it right now.”

A fair amount of time had passed since Leven had been made into a vassal. Karnak was working hard to reclaim Varos as his vassal as well, so he had gained some breathing room. At this point, he could probably handle adding an ordinary human or two as vassals.

”If it’s an ordinary human, that is.”

There was a substantial difference in the share each vassal took up between Varos, Serati, and Leven.

”Serati and Leven are still in their twenties, right?” Specifically, Serati was twenty-six, and Leven was twenty-one. ”But how old is Varos?”

Leven asked back, ”Wasn’t he twenty-three?”

He remembered hearing last year that Varos had been twenty-two.

”That’s his physical age,” Karnak reminded him.

Now, how old was Lord Varos, the Death Knight who had ruled the world for decades as Karnak’s right-hand man?

Serati clicked her tongue in realization. Right, these people were technically old men, weren’t they?

Even if you combined her and Leven’s ages, they still wouldn’t make up half of Varos’s age, at least in terms of their souls.

”Of course, it’s not like it’s a perfect calculation, but roughly speaking, think of it like this.”

A single Varos was the equivalent of three Seratis or two Levens as vassals.

Leven wondered. ”The longer you live, the bigger your soul becomes?”

”Not necessarily.”

What mattered was the intensity of one’s life experience. A lifeless old man who simply spun the wheel of life day after day would have a lighter soul than Serati, who had survived countless hardships and battles.

But someone like Varos, who had weathered countless experiences, carried an immense amount of information in his soul.

”Well, I’ve been working hard to expand my capacity too.” As he was now, Karnak could barely manage to take in one Varos as a vassal. ”But only if I let go of both Serati and Leven as vassals.”

And if that happened, both of them would be dead.

So, basically... Serati glanced at Leven and gave a dry smile. At least it wouldn’t be just me dying, huh?

Leven said with a frown. ”Why are you smiling at me like that?”

”It’s just... I’d rather not go alone, you know?” Serati answered him.

Leven was clearly confused. ”Go where, exactly?”

Either way, Varos wasn’t the main issue here.

”All right, let’s go over this again.” Karnak cast a glance at the sleeping Lapicel. ”So, how old do you think Lapicel is?”

She was younger than Varos, but not by much. The difference wasn’t even ten years. At the moment, it felt like a huge gap since one was an adult and the other a child, but that was only superficial.

”Either way, she’s well over a hundred years old.”

If Karnak wanted to keep Serati and Leven as vassals while also adding Lapicel, he still had a long way to go.

Leven asked again, ”Then what about something like the Mark of Contract, like you did with the archliches? Is that different from the vassal contract?”

After all, Karnak also had archliches like Demphis and Maloka under his command. But it wouldn’t be that easy. ”Completely different.”

If someone became a vassal, their master could care for both their body and soul in earnest. But the Mark of Contract simply forced the target into obedience. In other words, it was a one-sided coercion.

Whereas the vassal contract required strict conditions, a brand only needed you to defeat the target and carve into their soul. The latter was far easier and much less taxing for a necromancer. That was why, back in his Monarch of Death days, Karnak had only one true vassal: Varos. As for the rest, he hadn’t bothered to care what happened to them.

”Making someone your vassal is basically like bestowing a privilege, from a necromancer’s perspective.”

Serati and Leven both pulled sour faces.

”So... we’re being treated well, is that it?”

”Then why doesn’t it feel like it...?”

”Wow, listen to you two, after I restored your arms and saved you from having your bodies stolen?”

They fell silent. Thinking it over, it was true they owed him a lot. They did feel grateful. It was just that, given the way Karnak usually acted, those feelings tended to fade over time.

”In any case, because of all that, I can’t make Lapicel my vassal right now.” And even if he did manage to make her his vassal, there was still a second problem. ”How am I supposed to convince her to become my vassal in the first place?”

Karnak would call the young Lapicel before telling her, ”The truth is, I’m a necromancer. Now, offer me your soul!”

”Lies! There’s no way Lord Karnak is a necromancer!”

The young Lapicel would turn to the others in desperation. ”Right, Sister Serati?”

”Sorry. Actually, I’m a vassal of the necromancer.”

”Brother Leven?”

”I’m also a vassal of the necromancer.”

”Br-brother Varos?”

”In my past life, I was none other than Lord Varos, the Death Knight Lord who slaughtered tens of thousands.”

The girl’s cry of despair would echo to the heavens. ”Liiiiiies!”

”More or less, that’s how it’d go, don’t you think?” Karnak suggested.

Varos gave a bitter smile. ”The betrayal would hit her hard.”

Karnak nodded. ”Exactly.”

Besides, Lapicel’s situation was uniquely complicated.

”Normally, a vassal contract can only be formed when the person’s sense of self is fully intact, without any external interference.”

In other words, you couldn’t get someone drunk, drug them, or force them under mind control to make them accept the contract.

”But would you say Lapicel, as she is now, has a clear sense of self?”

Her memories were gone, and her soul and body were noticeably disconnected. While she wasn’t exactly mentally incapacitated, she wasn’t fully sound either. In short, to be certain, it wasn’t the young Lapicel who needed to form the contract, it had to be the Martial King of Cyphras.

”Which means I’d have to wake up the adult Lapicel and persuade her to become my vassal.”

But the moment the Martial King of Cyphras awakened, she would likely be driven mad by her pain. Meaning, she’d lose her sense of self and become incapable of forming the contract anyway.

”Even if, by some superhuman will, she overcame the pain and kept her sanity...”

Would that Lapicel agree to become Karnak’s vassal? Would she accept becoming a vassal of the Monarch of Death when she was the hero of humanity, and she harboured deep hatred and fury toward him?

Karnak wondered. ”Would she?”

Varos, Serati, and Leven answered in perfect unison.

”No.”

”Absolutely not.”

”Not a chance.”

No matter how they thought it over, there was no solution. How on earth were they supposed to convince Lapicel to become Karnak’s vassal?

”Got any better ideas? Because honestly, I’ve got nothing.”

Silence settled over them. It seemed they were all just as clueless.

”Well, either way, it’s something to worry about later. For the moment, we’ll just have to focus on keeping her memories sealed.”

For now, they couldn’t make her a vassal anyway. Since they already knew she was vulnerable to divine power, Karnak made sure to be especially cautious this time.

”At this level, her seal shouldn’t come undone so easily.”

***

A great calamity had struck Harthol City, and word of Karnak and his companions’ heroic deeds in overcoming it spread swiftly across the city. They had faced the crisis head-on with courage and devotion, saved the city, and rather than boast of their accomplishments, they humbly devoted themselves to helping the people.

How could the citizens not praise such heroes? Surely, it was the duty of those who loved Harthol City to express their gratitude, even if just a little!

”At least, that’s the mood, judging by the flood of invitations we’re getting.”

Serati handed Karnak a bundle of letters. Given that the city was tangled with so many merchant guilds and religious orders, it was no surprise the invitations were piling up. What was amusing, though, was that among them was one from the Tecas Merchant Guild.

”Mr. Banner Ralphstadder has invited us,” Serati said with a frown.

The others’ eyes widened.

”Huh?”