Deus Necros

Ludwig held the Soul Letting Lantern steady at chest level, letting the warded glass and metal settle in his grip the way a weapon settled in a hand. The shard of darkness inside it still looked like a wound that refused to close, a piece of night kept captive.

The compass beneath the lantern had been spinning like it enjoyed wasting his time, twitching between directions as if the city itself was trying to confuse it. This time, it slowed in a reluctant crawl, hesitated once, then locked into a single heading with an ugly certainty. Ludwig’s eyes followed the needle, then shifted up as the system decided to make its presence known again, right there in the palace gardens where even the air tried to pretend things were peaceful.

***

Quest Update

Daggers in Shadow

Sebas and Evan have been secured by one of your allies. However, the mastermind behind the ritual that was aiming to corrupt the Emperor to turn him into a mad king by the help of a demon has fled the capital of Lufondal.

You’re urged to find and destroy Teresia before she meets with the rest of the council of betrayers.

The Last known location. Letonia- Dukedom of house Drak.

***

“Cursed name,” Ludwig said as it brought some annoying memories.

The word Letonia did not just describe a place. It dragged a chain of associations behind it, and one of the links was Hoyo Drak.

Memories of the person who belonged to that house and made Ludwig the prime suspect of all the murders and disappearances back at the academy.

The accusations had been clean, believable, and well placed.

It had not mattered what Ludwig did or didn’t do. It had mattered who needed a scapegoat and how easily the story could be sold. Even now, with his innocence proven, the memory of being hunted like a criminal still clung to him like soot that refused to wash away.

Sure now that Ludwig’s innocence has been proven, no one could find where Hoyo Drak went for all these years.

Which was its own kind of answer. People like that didn’t simply vanish unless the vanishing served them.

Ludwig’s gaze drifted briefly over the palace hedges and fountains, the manicured order that felt increasingly like a mask.

The quest window had called this urgent, and for once, the system wasn’t being dramatic. Teresia moving toward the Council of Betrayers meant she had plans, resources, and coordination.

And if she were to meet with the Fanged Apostle… it’ll be a worse case scenario for Ludwig.

That one was far too difficult to hunt down or kill.

“But, what does it mean by allies secured Evan and Sebas? When did I ever become ’allies’ with the Imperial forces?” Ludwig looked back at the palace as if hoping the building could answer.

He stared at the towering stone and gold as if it might speak plainly for once. Allies. The word tasted wrong.

He hadn’t signed anything. He hadn’t sworn anything. He had been tolerated, tested, and used. Imperial forces did not become allies. Never did, never should nor would.

Ludwig’s grip tightened on the lantern handle, not out of anxiety, but out of irritation at the system’s phrasing.

It made his situation sound far more comfortable than it actually was.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ludwig thought as he headed outside the palace. No procession, no company, no following of nobles or merchants. A lone man who didn’t need a guard and was on a mission.

He started walking with purpose, leaving behind the garden’s false calm and returning to the palace pathways where guards stood like statues with breathing privileges.

No one announced his departure. No one offered him a retinue. It was better that way. Processions attracted attention.

Attention attracted people who asked for favors or tried to bind him with obligations. Ludwig didn’t need companions.

He needed distance, speed, and room to act without witnesses interpreting every move.

He had six months to prepare for the Tower of Trials, where Pride resides.

He soon walked past the gigantic statues that were holding the mountain of the carved imperial palace.

The statues loomed in his peripheral vision, carved figures bearing the weight of architecture like eternal servants.

At the exit, a carriage sat as if it had been waiting longer than it should have, its gold surface warded and polished, the kind of display that screamed imperial ownership. Ludwig didn’t slow, but he registered the message. Even when the Emperor let him leave, the Emperor still chose the method.

“Take me to the closest gate,” Ludwig said as he walked inside the warded golden carriage.

The interior smelled of treated leather and expensive oils, with faint metallic tang from the wards etched into its structure. Ludwig sat without settling into comfort.

Comfort was how men got careless.

The driver didn’t talk or ask a question, simply whipped his reins, and the horses moved forward.

The silence was professional. No curiosity, no small talk, no attempt at flattery.

Ludwig appreciated that more than he would ever admit out loud.

The carriage lurched into motion, wheels grinding over stone, then smoothing as they reached better roads. The palace sounds faded behind them, replaced by the steady rhythm of travel.

“What’s troubling you, Ludwig?” the Knight king asked

Gale’s voice arrived in Ludwig’s head with that familiar presence, old and sharp, the kind of calm that came from having survived too many lifetimes to be impressed by any single problem.

“Old ghosts, Gale,” Ludwig said. “Letonia.”

Saying the name made it feel heavier. Ludwig leaned his head back against the carriage wall, more for posture than rest.

“It is only fate to encounter those you’ve met before. Though I doubt that you hold much worry or care for them. Do you fear them?”

The question wasn’t teasing. It was precise, aimed at the part of Ludwig that still catalogued threats by instinct.

“We’re both Undead, fear is not a notion for us…”

Ludwig’s response came flat, but not dismissive.

Fear, in the sense the living understood it, didn’t grip him the same way.

His body didn’t betray him with shaking hands or a racing pulse. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be cautious. It meant caution was a choice, not a reflex.

“You resent them?”

“There is no need to resent what isn’t worth resenting…” Ludwig leaned back in his seat.

Resentment was a luxury emotion. It wasted time. Ludwig didn’t deny the bitterness; he just refused to let it steer him. He let his gaze drift to the carriage window, watching the city blur into streets and then into roads, the capital’s cleanliness thinning into the outskirts.

“You also saw familiar faces in the palace…” Gale continued, “But you did not look twice.”

“Yes. I did notice them,” Ludwig said.

He didn’t pretend he’d missed them.

“But you didn’t stop.”

Ludwig remembered seeing a face that he didn’t expect to see there after all, far deeper among the nobles.

A young woman who had fought and bled next to him. Alva Urbaf.

But she didn’t look too… ’Healthy’

The memory hit with an uncomfortable sharpness.

Alva had been forged in battle alongside him, not in salons and court halls. But dungeons and rituals, against Djinns and monsters. A sheltered woman was thought to be nothing more than a chess piece to use in marriage to reinforce her family’s position. But instead, she bled and fought for her right to be what she wishes to.

A respectable woman, a brave woman.

Seeing her there felt wrong already. Seeing her pale and drained made it worse. It wasn’t just illness. It was a kind of dullness, like something had been taken from her and she was still walking out of habit.

And the old man next to her had a scar on his face that wasn’t there the last time he saw him, and was missing an arm. Her own father.

Ludwig’s mind automatically sorted the details into implications. Scars could be ordinary. Missing arms were rarely permanent for wealthy nobles.

There were healers, restorations, and alchemical solutions. Even crude solutions existed if money was poured into them.

So the reason he’s missing an arm is one of two things: either they became broke, which is not possible, or they wouldn’t have been invited to the palace.

Or the most probable cause, there is a reason he couldn’t heal his arm.

A reason that didn’t fit cleanly into normal logic. Something that resisted repair, or something that made repair forbidden. Ludwig didn’t like either possibility, and he liked even less that the trail led to Letonia.

“Whatever is happening in Letonia. Its waves are spreading all the way here,” Ludwig said.