The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

He stood before us, drew in a deep breath, then raised both arms like an actor on a stage.

"A whole corpse is preferable, but a mangled one works just as well. Making something from something is fun, and creating something from nothing is just as fun."

The Lich muttered the words while pulling back part of his robe.

A few people swallowed hard at the sight of his skull — nothing but bone now, part of it shattered — and he let out a hollow, rattling laugh.

Each time he laughed, blue light rippled in the eye sockets where his pupils should have been.

"First, the corpse is washed clean. We wipe it down with chemicals along the way, and depending on its intended use, we decide whether to add embalming. Blood and brain matter are drained and stored separately. Same with the organs. The heart most of all — it has to be handled with the greatest care. The source of life, the beginning, the everything, the end."

He snapped his fingers, and countless undead began to stir, turning their heads toward us.

"Skeletons, ghouls, zombies, wights… but corpses with real value get their bodies reshaped and refined to match the lives they lived, their histories, their abilities. Because this too is art — the cycle of life and death, the order of nature."

As he spoke, his skeletal finger pointed at one of the walls.

And it wasn't a quantity I could brush off with a laugh.

Only after seeing that wall did I become certain — the ones who'd been digging into my background, and the backgrounds of those around me, weren't the Six Stars. It was Milited's children.

"All of you, let's take our time and think calmly together about what form would suit you best."

Then he turned and looked straight at me.

"My name is Gracius Milited. And you'd be that… Ji-hyeok, wouldn't you?"

I scoffed at his question and shot back.

"Since when did we get on a first-name basis, you piece of shit?"

"My, my. Just as I'd heard — arrogant, and rude on top of it."

Gracius shook his head from side to side.

"For that, I'll attach your head to a dog's body. I won't even touch your memories or your mind, so don't wor—"

The shadow of Henir surged up from beneath his feet, and he blocked it without much effort, bones rattling.

"How nostalgic — Henir's Shadow, wasn't it? Shadow Walker, was that the name… I wanted to get my hands on that one's corpse too, but I never managed it in the end."

"……"

Beside me, Jin Ye-seul's expression twisted, and she quietly began drawing shadows around her body.

He watched her, nodded, then gestured to the four-armed, ogre-like undead standing beside him.

"You're Jin Ye-seul, aren't you? The way this one got excited the moment it saw you — yes, you must be Jin Ye-seul."

"Don't say my name with that filthy mouth, you boiled-bone bastard."

"Now now. You shouldn't talk like that. Well — you can talk to me like that, but not to this one."

Gracius pulled away the cloth covering the face of the undead beside him.

And when she saw it, Jin Ye-seul's expression stiffened, just a little.

The undead had two faces.

A man's and a woman's.

Faces familiar not just to Jin Ye-seul and me, but to all of us.

"These are two of the Big Watch executives you killed. Emilia, definitely, and… who was the other one? Anyway, I built this one from those two. Lovers, weren't they? Anyway, they both died at your hands, side by side. So now it's worked itself up into quite a frenzy, eager to rip you limb from limb."

Gracius pointed at the undead beside him one by one as he spoke.

"Yu Ji-hyeok… yes, I've got some made from the corpses of Red Case's assassination team — the ones you killed. Feeling a little nostalgic? I deliberately kept the faces as close as possible to how they looked in life."

He was right.

The members of the assassination team I'd met at the guild invitation, the ones who'd come to seize the Aegis system and fought me….

Every one of them was glaring at me with the eyes of the dead.

"And Lee Ye-eun, ah yes! You're the head of the World Tree clan, aren't you? I've got some made from Thorn Cross Congregation followers caught and killed under your purge order… and from members of your own World Tree clan. The quality's a bit lower on these, unfortunately… so I just stamped them out by the mold. On average it took… 4.7? 4.8 people? Something like that per body… I mixed them all together evenly."

"……"

Lee Ye-eun muttered a curse under her breath at the cheerful way he spoke.

I could feel her emotions seething through her, so I gently took hold of her arm — a silent signal to keep it together.

Finally, he spread both arms and pointed at the three undead that had appeared first.

"These ones… well, if I had to say — they'd be connected to you, Han Su-yeong, Choi Hyun-woo. The two of you."

A chilling thought struck me the moment he said it.

But before I could do anything, the cruel words spilled from his mouth first.

"They were made from the corpses of your master Nam Hyun-hwa's comrades."

Han Su-yeong and Choi Hyun-woo went blank for a moment.

"…What?"

"Hm? What's this, you didn't even know they were dead? My, my, my mistake."

He muttered the words and gave a small shrug.

"But what does it matter? You're all dying here today anyway."

He snapped his fingers, and the undead began to move in earnest.

Unlike the skeletons and ghouls we'd faced earlier, these drew their weapons with practiced familiarity — as if their bodies remembered the lives they'd lived — and a few in our group grimaced at the sight.

"Corpses that die holding a grudge become more powerful undead. So how powerful do you think you'll be when—!?"

Gracius cut himself off and threw up a mana shield in a hurry.

Right behind it, the flames Han Su-yeong loosed swallowed every undead in their path and came roaring at him.

A long moment passed before Han Su-yeong turned her head — like she couldn't have cared less about the undead now reduced to nothing.

Her eyes were burning, cold with fury.

"…Say it again. What the hell did you just say?"

"This is just— ugh!?"

He'd been about to say something with mock surprise when a sword strike came for his neck, and he barely twisted away in time — by a hair.

"……!"

Choi Hyun-woo cut down the undead that lunged in to shield him in a single stroke, eyes wide, and raised his sword again.

"Die."

Gracius hurled himself sideways to dodge Choi Hyun-woo — and Jin Ye-seul was waiting right beside him.

Her fist landed, and his arm shattered to pieces and flew off.

"A body made with diamond mixed in, and you smashed it this easily!"

His exclamation came out almost admiring, and Jin Ye-seul clicked her tongue and turned her body without missing a beat.

She swung her leg as if to snap his neck — but suddenly something struck her, and she was sent flying.

"Ngh?!"

[KRAAAAAAA!!!]

What had blown her back was none other than the four-armed undead — the one made from the Big Watch executives.

It charged at Jin Ye-seul as if no one else existed, four arms stretching out to seize her throat and limbs.

[KRRAAAA!!]

But then a war hammer swung by Lee Yu-na caught it square, and the thing went sailing.

Lee Ye-eun loosed arrows in quick succession, a massive undead threw itself in to block them with its body, and from that moment the fight began in earnest.

"We who have drunk from your spring beseech you now in this place; lend your aid to this small act of pruning your branches and clearing your leaves, that those who block our path may glimpse your majesty…."

The instant her arrows were blocked, Lee Ye-eun started chanting where she stood, and in that window I hurled my last potion bottle to call up a golem.

Jin Ye-seul fell back to join us, and Han Su-yeong stood behind me, murmuring under her breath, her mana humming.

Last to fall in were Choi Hyun-woo and Lee Yu-na, who had pulled back briefly and now took up positions on either side of us. The Lich watched and slowly raised a finger.

"…Crush them."

The undead surged at us from every direction.

But I moved before they did.

A familiar pain bloomed where my heart was.

I felt the thorns pour out and seal every inch of my body without a gap.

Then came the violent rush of the fighting spirit I'd felt before, my heart lifting beyond anything I could rein in.

There was no need at all to waste time on these things — no need to dance to his tune.

[King of Thorns has been activated.]

[The thorns will soon become you.]

[The penalty for 'King of Thorns' remains. The power of 'King of Thorns' is reduced.]

It didn't matter if I couldn't draw on its full strength.

Even incomplete, this was an authority that let me fight Minerva head-on.

Even with only a fraction of its power, it was more than enough to deal with undead — puppets, every one of them.

"S-Stop him! Stop him!"

The undead poured in at his frantic shout.

And even in those brief seconds, I recognized most of them.

One man pulled down his mask and spat a hail of iron needles and bullets of wind from his mouth.

Not worth dodging. I ignored them and kept running, swung my arm, and the undead's body burst apart in an instant.

A woman holding a pipe exhaled smoke as if to bind me, and beside her a man's body turned to liquid and rushed at me.

I drew out the spear of thorns, swept it once to the side and swatted away the smoke and water in one motion, then drove the spear straight through the woman's gut, grabbed the man's head, and crushed it like bursting a fruit.

[Hm?]

A blow struck the side of my head, and when I turned, there stood a brown-skinned woman with her fists clenched.

Both her fists struck the air, and a heavy impact slammed into my body — but it wasn't enough to slow my steps.

I cut the wave-using undead clean in two, and Sbeungali muttered as if intrigued.

[—Undead that use the techniques of their living days, hide their aura, and move with a grudge to fuel them… that Milited had some interesting underlings.]

Well, ends today, doesn't it.

I left his idle muttering behind and sprinted in a straight line for the rattled Lich.

A four-armed undead came at me on the way, and undead carrying the faint trace of the World Tree's power blocked my path — but none of them bought him so much as a second.

That was when it happened.

[—You.]

Sbeungali clicked his beak.

[There's something underneath.]

I answered quietly.

[I know.]

The moment I answered, something massive shot up from the ground and seized my body whole.

I poured strength in to tear free of it — and felt a creeping, sickening energy spread through me, gnawing at every inch.

"Hu, huhahahaha!!! You took the bait, you fool!"

Along with the Lich's laughter, a clear chime rang in my ears.

[Warning!]

[The presence of a being with absolute superiority over you has been detected!]

[Surtr's flames hold absolute superiority over those who bear the power of the World Tree.]

[Exercise caution.]

[Warning!]

[Contact made with corrupted Surtr's flames!]

[Due to the power of a being with absolute superiority over you, all stats are temporarily reduced!]

― GRAAAAAAH!

The giant gripping me was only an upper body, burning continuously, its flesh slumping and melting in places where it couldn't endure the flames.

Surtr's flames.

Na Il-jun.

Don't tell me he got his hands on his corpse too.

"Only a few minutes at most — but a few minutes will be more than enough."

As if answering the Lich, the thing made a wet, gurgling sound and let out a burst of bubbles.

Then it dragged me down with it, hauling me into the underground space where it had been hiding.

As I dropped helplessly into the depths in its grip, Sbeungali muttered in a puzzled tone.

[Hold on — Surtr's flames don't actually work on me. Was it because I died with the power of the World Tree inside me…?]

I couldn't help the sigh that escaped me.

[Real proud of yourself, aren't you.]

[Want some help?]

[Don't need it.]

―Gurgle, ngh! Krrgh!

I cut him off and watched, expressionless, as the giant tried to swallow me whole on the way down.

[Minerva.]

I just quietly called her name.

And as if in answer, another chime rang in my ears.

[Activating authority: 'Dragon Blood.']

[Your heart begins to pump dragon's blood, and dragon's blood begins to flow through your veins.]

[You will soon become a dragon.]

A heartbeat later, a sound no human throat could make tore out of mine.

It was the roar of a dragon.

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