The misadventures of the necromancer

"What's going on here?" a voice demanded, snapping the crowd out of the sorrow surrounding Esther's story.

Unfortunately, Sena immediately recognized the deep, commanding voice. Which was only natural, considering she had just spent quite some time listening to the man ask essentially the same questions over and over.

Turning toward the speaker, she confirmed it was one of the city's officials. A large, middle-aged man dressed in pale yellow robes. He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the line of people emerging from the tunnels, as though making it perfectly clear that he was the one in charge.

His eyes first settled on Boris before quickly shifting to Adar, who stood closer to him. Still, Sena noticed the brief glance he cast toward Nero.

"Ah! Yes..." Adar began as he caught the look.

Only to be abruptly interrupted.

"And who exactly are you?" an irritated Nero asked as he began walking forward.

When Boris noticed him approaching, he stepped aside, giving Nero room to pass.

He was not the only one.

The entire line of bound men tried to get out of the necromancer's way. More than one nearly stumbled in their haste.

The official certainly noticed this, but showed little reaction. Instead, he asked,

"And who are you?"

A question Sena doubted he did not already know the answer to. By now, he had surely heard Nero's description more than enough times. Besides Sena and Saca, several others had seen the poorly dressed young man who had discovered this place and had entered the tunnels with Esther's cousin to rescue the kidnapped children.

Nero stopped walking and stared at the ground, slowly shaking his head.

"So... you really want to play games with me."

He raised his head and looked around at everyone present, everyone except the official.

"You know what... fine."

Only then did he meet the man's eyes.

"I'm the guy who just went in there..."

He jerked his head toward the tunnel entrance behind him.

"...to pull out the victims of a group of cultists who were trying to summon a demon using blood magic..."

Gasps and frightened murmurs rippled through the crowd.

Even Sena and Saca exchanged surprised, confused looks.

They had assumed, at worst, the kidnappers would turn out to be necromancers, just as the boys had suspected. Not demon-summoning cultists.

But, as expected, Nero was not finished.

"Well..."

He paused, as though carefully choosing his next words.

"They didn't try to summon one."

"They actually did it."

His casual tone was so matter-of-fact that Sena, and she suspected everyone else as well, initially failed to grasp what he had said.

How could the cultists possibly have succeeded in summoning a demon?

If that were true, the city should already have been suffering some terrible catastrophe.

Surely she had misheard.

"Fortunately, they were such idiots they couldn't even do that properly," he added with a shrug before continuing.

"But anyway, I just came out of there with the victims... and most of the cultists captured."

He finished by fixing the official with a hard stare and saying in a cold voice,

"So I don't know exactly what you're trying to do here..."

"...but you're going to end up very disappointed."

Silence settled over the gathering.

For a moment, Adar, who was still standing closest to the official, looked as though he wanted to say something.

But in the end, he too remained silent.

The official, meanwhile, looked around at the gathered crowd, who were listening intently and clearly wanted answers as well. He then glanced at his guards, who exchanged uncertain looks with one another, as if trying to decide what should happen next without much confidence or conviction.

"Yes, yes... I understand," the official began in a more conciliatory tone, earning a raised eyebrow from Nero.

"I was admittedly a bit abrupt. I am Embor Avantis, a councilor of the city of Pinetop," the man announced, gesturing broadly to the area around him.

"But we still need to know exactly what happened," he added, indicating a group of well-dressed individuals whom Sena recognized as the city's other officials, presumably other councilors.

"Didn't I just tell you?" the necromancer replied curtly, seemingly unwilling to give them the slightest opening.

Embor glanced at his companions before continuing.

"Yes... But we need a few more details."

Nero merely fixed the man with a heavy stare.

At last, Adar stepped forward.

"Yes, yes. Of course... I can start."

He began recounting how he and Saca had arrived at the orphanage only to find it under attack, and how, while trying to help defend whoever he could, he had been captured.

He then explained that when he regained consciousness, he found himself in a cavern with a magical circle drawn on the floor and a trio of people clearly intent on sacrificing the children to summon something.

Finally, everything had come to an end with Nero's arrival, prompting the cult's leader to kill her own companions in an attempt to complete the ritual.

It was a version of events that omitted many details, for reasons Sena could easily guess.

In the end, Nero freed them, they captured most of the surviving cultists, and returned here.

Nero contributed only one additional detail to the account, mentioning that three or four members of the cult had escaped while he had been occupied, but that he had not felt like wasting time chasing them.

"An explanation that leaves out quite a lot..." remarked one of the female officials.

"Yes. Such as how you knew about these tunnels beneath our city," another voice added.

Adar cast a quick glance at Nero before answering.

"Well... Nero has rather broad interests, so he tends to discover all sorts of things."

"That does not really answer the question," Embor said evenly, giving Nero a calculating look.

"Wrong. The real question is how the hell you didn't know," Nero cut in—not aggressively, but with calm certainty.

Murmurs spread through the crowd.

Nero ignored them and continued.

"Seriously. You're telling me you built a city where there were piles of stones scattered all over the place, and no one ever bothered moving those piles to discover an entire network of tunnels underneath?"

"Do you honestly expect anyone to believe that?"

Around Sena, several people seemed to agree that, put that way, it did sound rather suspicious.

But Nero was still not finished.

"For heaven's sake! The owners of this house knew."

As he spoke, he pointed toward the abandoned house behind which they stood.

"How did nobody else know?"

"Outrageous!" a woman's voice rang out.

A woman dressed much like Embor stepped forward.

"You dare slander such a distinguished family as the Grennsides!"

She jabbed a finger toward Nero.

"You're the one who clearly has something to hide."

Unfortunately, the first voice to rush to Nero's defense was not Adar's, or even Saca's or Sena's, but a loud,

"Hey!"

from a little orphan girl of about ten years old.

That in itself was more touching than worrying.

The unfortunate part was what came next. For in the innocent, pouting tone that only a child could manage, she declared,

"Stop picking on Mr. Not-a-Necromancer!"

Even the other children realized she had just said far too much, making one of the older girls immediately cover her mouth.

Sena looked over at Saca, who instinctively pulled Delmic closer against her chest before returning an anxious look.

This could end very badly.

The crowd quickly confirmed those fears as people began repeating,

"Not-a-necromancer?"

At first, the words were filled with confusion and uncertainty.

But inevitably, with each repetition, the "not" disappeared until all that remained was:

"Necromancer!"

And now it was spoken with growing unease.

Had the little girl simply called Nero a necromancer, it might have been easy enough to explain away as the frightened rambling of a child traumatized by everything she had just experienced.

But the "not" made it sound as though someone had specifically told her not to call him a necromancer.

That, in itself, raised uncomfortable questions.

Especially considering she had been trying to defend him.

The guards around them visibly tensed.

Hands settled on weapons, and one of them leveled his spear directly at Nero.

Several cast questioning glances toward Embor, clearly waiting for orders.

"Oh, oh. Easy, easy," a tense Adar exclaimed as he stepped forward, drawing everyone's attention.

Behind him, Nero had one hand covering his face, apparently in frustration after hearing the little girl.

"Don't do something you're all going to regret."

As he spoke, Adar kept glancing over his shoulder, trying to gauge Nero's reaction.

After taking a deep breath, he continued.

"This is all a misunderstanding..."

"That so-called High Priestess saw one of Nero's spells and assumed it was necromancy..."

"The idiot," Nero muttered, but allowed Adar to continue.

"Which led him to give her a bit of..."

Here Adar paused, visibly searching for the right word before settling on,

"...a lecture."

"He explained that the spell wasn't necromancy at all, but a summoning spell."

"Well, considering she'd just summoned a demon, even if it was through a ritual, that's a pretty ridiculous mistake, isn't it?" Nero complained from behind him, uncovering his face and looking around as though expecting people to agree.

"That's probably why the little girl called Nero a 'not-a-necromancer,'" Adar finished, ignoring Nero's interruption.

"You're seriously telling me," Embor asked expressionlessly, even gesturing toward Nero with his head,

"...that in a situation like that, he stopped to lecture someone?"

"Well... you have to understand that Nero can be a little..."

Adar hesitated.

Anyone watching his face could tell that, even without looking back, he was acutely aware of who was standing behind him as he chose his words with extreme care.

"...particular."

"He doesn't like it when people confuse spells."

"Nice save, Grumpy," Nero's cool voice observed.

Adar swallowed hard.

It was then that Sena overheard someone, who, judging by his clothes, appeared to be a baker, mutter,

"And I thought my boss was difficult."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!