She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“YOU SHOULD KNOW you brought this on yourself!”

“What did I do to deserve this?!”

As soon as she reached the ground level, Emella turned to attack Zephard with demonic ferocity. He’d spent most of the descent teasing her over what would make any rational person apprehensive, and she was finally on level ground. Now she would have her revenge.

“What a noisy lot.” Mira turned from the pair with a bemused look on her face and gazed back out over the giant white castle that sat in the center of the cavern.

If Soul Howl was anywhere in the dungeon, then he would have to be here.

“Let’s leave them here and head to the castle,” she told the others before stepping off across the bedrock at a brisk pace.

“We’re off to the castle!” Asval shouted at the swordswoman and the rogue, who were still tangling with each other by the shore. Based on their shouting, he wasn’t sure if they heard him or not.

The path to the castle gate was strewn with scorched rubble. Mira figured it was just remnants of some of Soul Howl’s experiments, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. She looked around, but aside from her party, no living soul could be found.

“The sight alone makes it worth coming down here,” Asval said from right behind her. He gawked up at the grandeur of the castle in between shepherding Tact across some of the more hazardous terrain.

“Indeed,” grunted Mira as she passed through the open front gate. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was located in the deepest depths of a dungeon, this castle would no doubt have been a famous tourist attraction. Or at least the perfect roost for bandits in some far-flung mountain range.

A large staircase sat in the center of the entrance hall, and more of the glowing crystals were embedded in the walls. But the walls and floor were bare and unadorned, just as she remembered.

“Now, then, I’ll have to insist you all to wait for me here. From this point forward, my business is my own.”

Her task to find the Nine Wise Men was a secret order of the king and on a definite need-to-know basis. None of them needed to know what a freak Soul Howl truly was.

Besides, there might have been golems stationed around the castle serving as guards. So long as the others remained in the entrance hall, they shouldn’t trigger any response from the security team. Perhaps a living-dead girl would wander through, but no golems.

This all assumed that Soul Howl was here in the first place.

“Hmm, something secret, eh?” Asval couldn’t help but be curious, but he found a wall to lean against and signaled that he respected her request.

Flicker was in the same boat, but her comment of “Mira’s so mysterious!” implied that her thoughts were trending down a slightly different path.

“Watch over Tact, will you?” Mira said, passing his hand off to Flicker in hopes that a task would keep her from getting carried away.

“You betcha!”

“Stay safe, Miss Mira!” called the boy as she ascended the steps.

“Sure, sure. I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she was out of sight, Asval picked a corridor and began to make his way deeper into the castle.

“Hey!” protested Flicker. “Mira said her business was a secret!”

“Yeah.” Asval paused for a moment. “But her secret is on the second floor. I’m going to stick to the first.”

***

As she ascended to the next floor, Mira began a frantic search for a particular room. Rushing down the corridors and poking her head into each open doorway, she finally found her destination behind a doorless entrance.

“Hrmm… This will have to do,” she grumbled.

A hole was positioned in the center of the room—a Japanese-style squat toilet. She lowered her underwear, hiked up her skirt, and squatted down. If she turned her head to the side and craned her neck, she could see all the way down the long hallway and would know instantly if anyone were coming.

Despite the possibly compromising situation, she still let out a sigh of relief.

A moment later, she pulled a square of tissue from her pouch and finished the job. She’d learned her lesson from the poison flower incident and now made it a point to keep some extra toilet paper on hand for emergencies.

With her mind and body restored to harmony, she pulled her underwear back up and activated an ability.

[Immortal Arts: Biometric Scan]

Looks like Emella and Zef have made it to the castle.

She could detect five pings coming from the floor below. But there was no sign of anything coming from above. That said, the sensitivity of the Biometric Scan varied depending on distance and intervening obstacles. The stone walls and sheer size of the castle meant that there was no guarantee she could detect anyone on the higher floors.

And so Mira made her way up to the top floor of the castle to begin her search. As a wizard, she knew that there was nothing a wizard loved more than having private chambers at the top of a tower.

On her way to the top, she considered calling out Soul Howl’s name but decided against it, in case she was overheard by the party below. The Nine Wise Men were famed heroes—and if people started asking questions, then the secret part of her secret mission wouldn’t be much of a secret anymore.

Instead, she thought about using the nicknames they used to throw about among friends, like Professor Living-Dead Girl, Pervert West: Reanimator, Death of Chivalry, and so on, but those were way too embarrassing to actually say aloud.

It seemed like the fastest way to find him was by searching.

As she arrived on the top floor, Mira immediately used her Biometric Scan to search the surroundings.

“Hrmm, what’s this?”

There was a ping right at the edge of her detection range, but it was so small, she could barely pick it up even when focusing directly on the point. She couldn’t imagine anyone else would be in a place like this except for the person she was looking for, but the heartbeat she detected was incredibly faint.

With a rising feeling of dread, Mira dropped the spell and moved in the direction of the contact. Her search led to a large hall on the front-facing side of the castle: the throne room.

Mira huddled against the wall outside and cautiously peeked around the corner to check the situation. “What the devil?”

The sight before her was beyond bizarre. With a rueful grin, she proceeded inside.

Countless chairs had been arranged to face the throne dais on the far side of the room, in the manner one might find in a concert hall. Approaching one of the chairs, Mira leaned over to take a closer look at its occupant.

“Suspended animation, eh?” she asked as she touched the cheek of the woman in a maid uniform. It was cold; no warmth of life was present at all. Closed eyes, clenched lips, expressionless—just sitting there.

“His proclivities seem to be advancing in the wrong direction, I’m afraid.”

Mira looked about in dismay. On each chair throughout the throne room sat the corpse of a woman dressed in what were unmistakably maid outfits that blended Japanese and Western styles. Each was perfectly embalmed in a manner that caused them to appear as if they were simply having a rest. While it was a bit more extreme than she remembered, she had a strong hunch that this was the work of Soul Howl.

But these bodies wouldn’t have caused a reaction on her Biometric Scan. As a sanity check, she refocused her attention.

The ping was coming from the direction of the dais—and upon closer inspection, one body clearly stood out from the rest. There were two thrones on the platform, and one was occupied by the only body in the room not dressed in a maid uniform.

Perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old, she was beautiful, with delicate eyes and a petite nose. Her indigo hair fell over her shoulder and flowed down below her waist. The color contrasted sharply with her flawless, pallid skin. With closed eyes, her face wore a joyless smile.

More importantly, and unlike the rest of the occupants of the room, she was the source of the meager heartbeat that Mira had discovered earlier. Approaching the throne, Mira reached out to touch the girl’s neck and check for any vital signs.

“She’s frozen…” Mira’s hand recoiled from her skin, which was as cold as ice. Mira needed answers. “Soul Howl! Are you here?!”

After waiting for ten, then twenty seconds, she received no response. It looked like she would have to find her own clues to solve this mystery.

Poking around the room, she found a door behind the dais leading to an antechamber. With papers and books scattered across the room, it seemed like a promising place to start. A desk was stacked with reference texts and ancient documents, countless scribbles in their margins.

Mira traced her fingers across the poor handwriting, trying to make sense of the penmanship.

“The Holy Grail of Heavenly Light…?” The phrase appeared over and over again, and she recognized the name of the item.

The Holy Grail of Heavenly Light was legendary in every sense. It was said to remove any condition, heal any wound, repel any monster, turn aside death, nullify penalties after losing a battle, and provide the absolute defense and offense against the archenemy of all mankind—demons.

But while other legendary items had been obtained by players over the years, no one had ever managed to secure the Holy Grail. Players didn’t know if it was a monster drop, something that could be crafted, or nestled in a dungeon somewhere. Most assumed that it had never been implemented in game and that it was just residual metadata.

But why was he doing all this research into it?

For the Nine Wise Men, few problems couldn’t be solved through the development of new techniques. The Grail was powerful, certainly, but nearly all of its properties could be replicated through other means. So then, why?

As she pondered, the image of the frozen lady from the throne room popped into her head.

Leaving the antechamber, Mira returned to inspect the woman on the throne. She felt a bit like a degenerate poking and prodding at the girl, but she consoled herself by affirming that this was a clinical examination and in the service of king and country—most certainly not some carnal pastime. She wasn’t some weirdo like Soul Howl.

“Hrmm, nothing…” Her impromptu exam at an end, Mira carefully smoothed out the dress to its original state and stepped away from the girl to allow herself a full-body view. Everything about the situation was so abnormal, it was hard to find any one thing that stood out.

But as she stared at the figure, Mira realized there was one place she hadn’t checked. Because of how the woman was seated, her back had remained concealed the entire time.

Slowly and carefully, Mira eased the woman forward so she could have a look. The back panel of the dress was cut open revealing flawless skin—which was oozing sickeningly dark blood and etched with a hexagram.

Mira had seen this before.

Symbols and shapes lined the perimeter of the hexagram, and the letters “XV” were engraved in the center. The strange markings were a seal called the Curse of the Underworld, or sometimes a Demon’s Blessing. The marking spelled certain doom for the bearer.

There had been an event called “Shadow of Black Wings,” and Mira remembered it well for its bitter ending. Players were tasked with saving a knight who had been branded with the seal, but despite their efforts, the knight perished.

That memory in turn led her to think of the Holy Grail of Heavenly Light. It was true that almost no technique was beyond the capability of a motivated Wise Man, but in this case, the Grail was warranted. Soul Howl must be a man on a mission.

She turned her attention back to the girl. She was ice-cold, but the fact that she caused a response to the Biometric Scan indicated that she was still alive.

Alive, yet frozen.

Mira didn’t remember a technique that could achieve such a result, but she recalled some of the documents she’d rifled through a moment earlier. Alongside information regarding the Grail, there were a great number of necromantic texts and grimoires. Soul Howl must have developed a technique to slow the progression of the curse. Only then had he left the castle in search of the Grail, she surmised.

“All for a living girl. Looks like his proclivities actually swung in the other direction after all.” With a wry smile, Mira bowed to the woman on the throne in a brief show of thanks before leaving the room.

Her mission wasn’t a failure, but it certainly wasn’t over. While the Ancient Temple was a bust, Mira had found traces of Soul Howl’s presence. That said, if he was out searching for as legendary an item such as the Holy Grail of Heavenly Light, her task just became a lot more complex.

Mira wandered around the castle, collecting anything that might give her a hint as to where he’d gone.

“Oho, now this is good.” While searching his rooms to collect documents containing records of experiments and thoughts on necromancy, she stumbled across his wardrobe.

They may have disagreed on their taste in women, but Danblf and Soul Howl had always shared a taste in fashion. The stone room had a full-length mirror along one wall and hanger racks lined with robes along the other. Mira’s eyes sparkled at the colors and fits, and she was sure she could find something that caught her fancy.

“I’m sure he won’t mind me borrowing one or two,” she muttered, making excuses to no one in particular as she began rummaging through the clothes.

She’d return them when she finally found the errant necromancer, but until then, he certainly wasn’t getting any use out of them. Besides, she didn’t particularly want to spend the rest of her life in outfits handpicked by the palace maids. The sooner she was back in clothes suited to her own tastes, the happier she would be.

Stripping off her gothic lolita ensemble, she began pulling stacks of robes from the rack to try on. Unfortunately, none of them fit, and her despair only grew with each attempt. Finally, she happened across a collection of short robes, cut in a way that they didn’t seem too unwieldy if she rolled the sleeves up a little.

“Hrmm… But this just emphasizes how adorable I am.”

She looked at herself in the mirror, fluttering a hem that made a joke of modesty as she admired her own physical charm.

Most robes occupied both the chest and legs slot in the equipment screen, but short robes were an item that required a matched top and bottom. On its own, it was practically just a miniskirt dress.

As she tried walking about, it revealed flashes of her underwear—a cheap thrill in an abandoned castle, but nothing she’d be seen walking down the streets of Karanak in. Mira reluctantly gave up on her attempt to raid Soul Howl’s wardrobe.

Dressed once more, she made her way back to the first floor of the castle, where the rest of the party was waiting. In the entrance hall, she found Emella and Flicker huddled together with ashen faces. Asval looked a bit pale as well, but Zef and Tact were playing a game of cards in the corner. The rogue waved as he noticed Mira coming down the stairs.

“What’s the matter with you lot?”

Emella and Flicker just stared at her blankly.

“Is everything all right?” She turned away from the pair’s nervous stares just in time to catch Tact as he jumped toward her.

“Welcome back, Miss Mira!” he exclaimed with a carefree smile.

“Were you well behaved for everyone?”

“Yeah!” Tact responded with an earnest nod. 

Mira patted him on the head, “That’s good to hear.”

“Mira…what is this place? I thought there wasn’t supposed to be anything here,” Emella said in a voice so soft that it was almost a whisper.

“What? Did something happen?”

“Dead maids. Dead maids everywhere…” Flicker mumbled.

Everything began to fall into place. Emella and the others must have found bodies like the ones that were in the throne room—a lot of them. To the casual observer, Soul Howl’s work probably seemed like that of a madman. Unless they knew the circumstances, it would have been a veritable horror show. 

“Don’t worry, it’s just a bit of necromancy.”

Emella tilted her head to the side. “Necromancy?”

“Are you saying there’s a necromancer in here?” Asval said, exhausted. He sat down with a heavy sigh and stared straight at Mira.

“There was a necromancer in here. But it looks like he’s gone somewhere else for the time being.”

“And from how you’re talking, I’m assuming you had some sort of business regarding that necromancer?”

“More or less. Nothing you need to worry about. He’s got strange hobbies…but he’s not a bad guy.”

The others looked skeptical.

Necromancy wasn’t really the art of manipulating corpses so much as it was the art of manipulating souls. Those souls were a form of pure positive energy that necromancers would place into bodies, be they dead or artificial.

It was also formally ranked as one of the nine major schools of magic. As such, it wasn’t seen as taboo, even if most people still regarded the practice as being a little creepy. Its adherents weren’t considered normal by any stretch of the imagination.

Emella, Flicker, and Asval weren’t happy about the situation, but they didn’t seem inclined to ask any more questions once necromancy entered the conversation. Zephard, on the other hand…

“Necromancy, huh? I wonder what you could do with that.” He was half-joking, his will shaken by the scores of beautiful maids.