What Do You Mean There Are Other Transmigrators In My Harem Fantasy?

We returned to the palace once again, though this time we had an escort waiting for us in front of our inn to bring us there.

We were once again led to the same waiting room and the prince was already there waiting for us.

He immediately stood up as soon as he saw us, “Lady Aster! I must apologise for the inconvenience that befell you yesterday! If I had known that they would plan something like this, I would have assigned guards to you for all three days!”

I waved at him, “It’s fine. If you had, it would be difficult to lure them out, wouldn’t it?”

To his credit, he showed no reaction to my words and simply showed me a polite smile like he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“What do you mean, Lady Aster?”

I waved my hand at him, “It’s nothing, just talking to myself. So how’s the interrogation? Have you revived him yet?”

“No, we have preserved his corpse and we will resurrect him in your presence, Lady Aster. We thought that you might want to be there for that.”

“Oh? I thought you said that it was supposed to be a national secret on how you bring them back to life with your tributes?”

“Ah, we have already made the offering, Lady Aster. All that’s left is the resurrection itself.”

Huh… So you can give the offerings without needing to do the resurrection at the same time? Interesting.

I nodded at him, “I appreciate that. And what about your parents though? Are they fine with me being there?”

“They have said that it will be fine for you to be present throughout the whole thing, Lady Aster.”

Oh? That’s a surprise… I thought for sure that they would just end up telling me ’thanks for dealing with this but he knows some secrets and we don’t want to spill them so please get lost’ or something.

I’m not gonna complain that’s for sure, and I’m curious about their resurrection process as well so that’s a bonus.

I stood up with the girls but the prince quickly raised his hand, “I apologise, Lady Aster… But my parents specifically said that only you will be allowed to be present. Please understand.”

Tsk… Whatever, I kind of already expected something like that anyway.

The girls turned to me and I nodded at them, indicating that it was fine.

“Wait for me here then.”

“Shout if you need help, Boss,” Emilia added before I left with the prince.

If the prince understood that that was her way of showing that we didn’t trust them, he didn’t show it.

Either way, it didn’t matter as I followed him out of the room and he led me down to the lower floors of the castle.

I’m assuming he was leading us to their dungeons and sure enough, after another flight of stairs, we were on our way down below ground level.

Eventually, we reached a room with stone walls and a sturdy looking metal door which he pushed open, revealing an underground shrine of sorts that had a ritual platform and several robed figures surrounding it.

On top of the ritual platform was a corpse which I assume must be that minister we are intending to resurrect.

It honestly gave the vibes of an underground cult or something… But I did recognise the small statue at the end of the room to be Srii.

This must be a temple dedicated to Srii I suppose… Which made sense since they would need to pray to her to resurrect that guy so I guess they made a small temple for her here.

The hooded figures all turned to look in our direction as one, their faces hidden underneath their hoods.

“Your Highness. And I assume that is the Mercenary who you mentioned was also involved in this matter?” One of the hooded figures asked.

Oh, guess that’s my role I have to play in order to be here. I was a little concerned that he might have revealed my identity to these people and I might need to silence them afterwards. Guess he at least remembered that my identity was supposed to be secret.

The prince nodded, “That’s right. Is the ritual ready?”

“Of course, your Highness. We are ready to start on your command.”

He shut the door behind us, “Let’s begin.”

The hooded figures turned back to the ritual platform and started to chant.

Huh… Are they all casting the spell together? That’s… New?

At first, I tried to pay attention to the chant thinking that I might be able to learn the magic needed for resurrecting someone.

But…

“Oh exalted Goddess of Death. We beg of your divine grace to allow this soul to return to our world once more. We have given our offering and we pray for you to release the soul back to us. Praise to the exalted Goddess of Death, may your mercy be…

Yeah, I kind of tuned it out after I realised they were simply just praying to her and imploring for Srii to return this guy’s soul back after their ’hefty offering’.

Wait… Isn’t resurrection magic under Iatromancy? They do not look like they are trying to use Iatromancy magic…

So what is this supposed to be? Is it really just them praying to Srii to resurrect this guy?

I peeked at the prince but he didn’t look surprised by this so I assume that this was normal.

They continued to chant and the ritual circle started to glow and the body began floating upwards which meant whatever they were doing must be having some kind of effect at least.

This definitely doesn’t feel like a normal resurrection so whatever they were doing was outside of the norm.

The glow intensified and I could feel some kind of energy being gathered around the corpse, right before a familiar feeling of death started to fill up the room.

Everyone reacted to that feeling quite noticeably.

There were six hooded figures that were chanting and one of them sputtered and fell over onto the ground, clearly unconscious.

Three of them fell to their knees, barely even able to continue their prayers.

The last two managed to stay on their feet but were hunched over as though in pain while they desperately tried to continue their prayer.

Beside me, I could see the prince had also managed to stay on his feet and at first glance, he even looked unaffected.

But looking closer at him, I could see that his entire body seemed to be shaking and his hands were gripping his arms hard enough to draw blood.

Obviously I have no trouble with it since I’ve felt the full force of Srii’s Death domain before and this is just a small taste of it.

I’m guessing whatever these guys are doing, they opened some kind of path to her domain directly and some of that death feeling spilled here.

Seeing that they’re still continuing despite that, this must be something that they already expected to happen.

Out of the three that had fallen to their knees, two more were knocked out and only three of them remained to continue the chant.

Fortunately, the feeling of death never intensified so the last three managed to hold on to their consciousness until a deathly wail could be heard and a tear in space materialised above the corpse.

Something that looked like a white cloud sped out of the hole and flew into the body, disappearing inside of it and forcing it back down onto the ritual platform with a soft thump.

And just as suddenly as it appeared, the feeling of death vanished, allowing all of them to breathe again.

Another one of the robed figures fainted and the last two fell to their knees, clearly exhausted and also on the brink of fainting as well.

The prince also let out an audible sigh of relief before he turned to me, his eyebrow raising slightly when he saw me.

“Did you… Not feel that at all, Lady Aster?”

I pretended not to know what he was talking about and tilted my head at him quizzically, “What do you mean, your Highness? Feel what?”

He pointed at the ritual platform, “That. Did you not feel death breathing down your neck earlier?”

“Oh, that? Yeah, I felt it.”

“And you’re fine with it? You don’t look surprised at all. I would think that people would normally react quite a bit when they are faced with death…”

Oh? Is that why they allowed me to witness this? Because they wanted to see how I would react to Srii’s domain?

Sorry, but you guys are a little late to try that on me~

I shot him a smile, “Well… I suppose there’s something you should know about me.”

He blinked, “What is it? Lady Aster?”

“It’s that I like to court Death~”

Ok, even I have to admit that it’s a little corny but hey! I think after that hug with Srii, I can say this and mean it!

And besides… The look of disbelief on the prince’s face made the joke worth it!

Ahem… Anyway, shouldn’t we get to interrogating?