When Dasha opened his eyes, the world was darkness.
Not long after, he could recall his own name.
Dasha.
The proud Tenth Knight of the Round Table.
…… the loyal minstrel who served …….
He fought for …… and sang of ……'s great deeds. Ah, that was his calling. To fight and sing for …….
Upon regaining his senses, he tried to sing out of habit. But even when he opened his mouth, no song could be produced. No, from the very beginning…….
‘Ah.’
Where his trembling fingertips groped, there was no mouth to open.
No eyes to behold the shining world, no nose to smell the fresh scent of life, nothing at all.
He had no head.
Having no head, yet being able to see and feel the world posed no problem. That fact plunged him into even greater shock.
‘Ah…….’
He had awoken as a grotesque Dullahan.
‘This dreadful…….’
Lost in chaos, he rose to his feet. The place where he had opened his eyes was filled with the barren smell of death.
Surrounding him, withered beings devoid of any warmth staggered and wandered aimlessly.
Dasha realized they were Skeletons. Their gaunt bones looked fragile, as if they could be snapped with a little force, rather than threatening.
Some of them were even crawling on the ground, not fully intact.
Standing on the dead land, Dasha desperately groped through his memories.
Though large portions of his memory were lost, he remembered the important things.
The fact that ……'s final wish had failed.
‘So this is how the world has changed.’
The servants of the defeated goddess have become these dreadful forms, and the world has become one where only the puppets of the wicked god overflow with life.
Dasha wondered. Why had he opened his eyes? Instinctively, he realized he had to wait for someone, but he couldn't remember who that someone was at all.
Surely, he had praised someone.
But …… the place where …… should have been was cleanly hollowed out as if carved away with a knife.
The only thing certain was that they had been defeated. He had failed in something he had tried to accomplish with all his heart, and death had been stolen from him.
‘We failed.’
And the world had become the domain of Birth. Since it became the domain of Birth, he must have opened his eyes in such a dreadful form.
Dasha, who had been blankly staring up at the sky, took a step.
Not far away, the sound of a pulsating, abundant life force could be heard. What an ignorant and cruel peace this was!
There, the proxy of Birth was also present. The disgusting stench of fate's threads being spun grated on Dasha's nerves, which were keenly on edge.
Dasha had only one choice.
‘Revenge.’
To destroy all the world that Birth had built.
* * *
“If I were Lilia…….”
Staring blankly at the schedule Maxel had sent from Baron Ruejak, I parted my lips with indifference.
“I would have left this place long ago. Instead of chasing after him like this.”
Frankly, it’s convenient for me that he acts this way, but separately, I couldn’t help but sigh. Why is this kid so short-sighted?
I felt ashamed, even a bit absurd, remembering how I used to be jealous and angry at such a kid and ended up dying miserably.
Even if I was utterly blinded by Maxel back then, was I really that easily swayed by this kid’s tricks?
Frowning deeply as I looked down at the schedule, Xenon, who had been checking the contents over my shoulder, spoke in a nonchalant tone.
“They must be inseparable, it seems.”
The old me would have agreed with Xenon’s words. But now, my thoughts were a little different.
I folded the schedule and put it away, clicking my tongue briefly.
“It’s not that. It’s that she doesn’t trust him.”
Given the circumstances, it’s natural not to trust him, but even aside from the current situation, it seemed to me that Lilia’s distrust had been building for quite some time.
“Lilia doesn’t trust Maxel. That’s why she intervened in the succession struggle, I suppose.”
I shrugged and turned to look at Xenon.
“Right? Precognition is about the ‘future.’ Seeing what will happen in advance. But that kid saw the future and still worked to make that future happen.”
Either her precognition is incomplete, or she doesn’t trust him.
“And what Lilia needs now is Maxel’s victory. She’ll try to make that happen somehow this time too.”
The route on the schedule was longer than expected, but I had nine Dullahans. Dullahans who could also transform into animals.
Since this schedule allowed me to pinpoint areas where Dasha was highly likely to appear, it became even easier for the Dullahans to search the vicinity.
“Then sending assassins like this must also be because they don’t trust the precognition that they will win.”
Xenon muttered indifferently and slammed the assassin he had been restraining with magic onto the floor.
It sounded like something very dull and terrible… but I decided not to check.
Instead, I decided to praise Xenon.
“Good comprehension. Seeing you apply it right away.”
I had roughly anticipated a situation like this when we decided to openly reveal our movements.
Since Lilia tried to send assassins after me even when I was hiding, she probably couldn’t pass up this opportunity in her own mind.
It’s just a pity that she lacks, well, a broader perspective to look around.
I glanced at the pile of assassins I had conspicuously gathered, then looked back at those busily rushing over from afar.
The Captain of the guard and the temple knights, along with some soldiers, were returning with the witnesses they had gone to fetch.
“He is indeed a monster hunter! He’s the one who hunted monsters in our village before!”
The witness brought by the Captain nodded vigorously after confirming the dead assassin’s face.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes! His Highness the Crown Prince personally hired and sent him, they said……”
At the villager’s testimony, the Captain’s face stiffened subtly. The word ‘Crown Prince’ undoubtedly made him uncomfortable.
Even without this, having received a report last night that the Resurrected One was attacked, his military discipline must have been on high alert; seeing the situation was unusual, he would probably report directly to his superiors soon?
While the Captain hesitated to continue speaking, the temple knight dispatched for investigation, who was beside him, interjected with a grave expression.
“Whoever is behind this, if the Empire fails to properly protect the Resurrected One, the Temple will immediately form an extermination force to wipe out these heretics.”
“First, we need to investigate……”
“Look at these assassins!”
Faced with the indignant temple knight over the fact that the Resurrected One was exposed to danger, the Captain wore an awkward expression.
“Of course they look vicious, but we haven’t properly verified their testimonies either……”
“What testimonies would assassins give!”
“But one of them……”
The Captain pointed to one side, then hesitated.
Where he was looking, the assassin who had just been subdued by Xenon was slumped over.
“……Didn’t you say one was alive?”
Xenon, noticing the Captain’s gaze, slightly averted his eyes and spoke with an innocent air.
“It was self-defense.”
I offered an apologetic remark toward him, as if making a show of goodwill.
“I feared great harm might come, so I tried to subdue him forcefully, but he ended up dead. I should have kept one alive for interrogation. My apologies.”
“No, it’s quite alright!”
The Captain waved his hands dismissively, looking rather apologetic instead. Thus, he had to proceed with the investigation based on my testimony as the victim and the villager who recognized the assassin’s face.
Of course, it was no coincidence that a villager who knew this assassin’s face suddenly appeared.
I merely made use of the rumors circulating that monster hunters, touting the Crown Prince’s magnanimity, were going around exterminating monsters.
Xenon often showed exceptional skill in illusion magic among other magics.
‘I wonder when the news will reach Lilia.’
Lilia probably didn’t expect me to officially report these assassins to the guard. Traditionally, assassins are dealt with secretly.
But I’m not in a position where I need to hide and deal with assassins, so why would I?
‘I am merely a benevolent Resurrected One whose life was threatened, so it is only right that I receive official protection.’
I caught the assassins and, as soon as day broke the next day, reported them all to the nearby guard.
The fief’s residents, who were paying close attention to my every move, were naturally shocked and clamored for the guard to conduct a proper investigation. Not stopping there, someone even reported it to the Temple.
For me, it was less work. Thanks to that, even the temple knights are now in an uproar, vowing to find those who threatened me.
“I heard these monster hunters belong to a certain merchant group.”
“A merchant group? Do you happen to know which one?”
“I’m afraid not. I only overheard it by chance, as it’s been talked about among merchants recently.”
As Samuel feigned ignorance and passed on the information, the Captain and the temple knight busily gave orders to their respective subordinates.
Glancing at them, I muttered as if to myself.
“The atmosphere already seems uneasy due to the nearby dead land, and now they can’t even control people like this.”
“We will greatly strengthen the fief’s security. We apologize for causing you concern.”
Waving my hand dismissively at the guard member who kept bowing, I turned away indifferently.
Xenon loudly cursed the mastermind behind the assassins for all the fief’s residents to hear, and Samuel, without batting an eye, spouted words about a sinister aura pervading the entire Empire.
Clearly, this farce seemed to have started modestly in the imperial palace, but somehow it had grown to this scale.
‘More importantly, it’s about time for our movements to overlap.’
If Dasha is targeting Lilia, the place where he is most likely to appear is right around here.
Also, it’s not far from the last place the Dullahan was sighted.
「Checking the places that Dullahan attacked, it seems he was following the locations His Highness the Crown Prince traveled to regarding the extermination force issue.」
Baron Ruejak had said that. And the Dullahan’s temporary cessation of activity coincidentally occurred when the Crown Prince returned to the lord’s castle, far from the dead land.
That was precisely when I revealed myself, saying I had come to stop the Dullahan.
If that’s true, then the reason the Dullahan didn’t reappear in places it had once destroyed also becomes understandable.
‘If it wasn’t hiding to avoid me, but stopped its activity because Maxel and Lilia temporarily moved away from the dead land.’
Then the matter became simple.
All I had to do was lure Maxel and Lilia back near the dead land.