Grandson of the Holy Emperor is a Necromancer

Chapter 42

“…Isn’t that obvious? Why do you ask something so apparent?”

Luan tilted his head. He couldn’t figure out the intent behind that question.

Harman continued on. “What if the Seventh Imperial Prince has been hiding his true self all along? What if he accepted the fate of being treated like trash for the sake of Lady Yulisia? So that he could… raise sufficient strength. He… acted like a mangnani, and… deliberately got himself banished…”

The first prince looked at Harman with a pair of pitying and sympathetic eyes. “It seems that dealing with that fool for too long has tainted even your mind, Harman.”

“…”

“The road must’ve been long and tiresome. You must be feeling fatigued from the recent events, as well. Not to mention, dealing with that fool would’ve been exhausting, too. You should take your well-deserved rest.”

It was exactly as Harman thought. No one believed him. Well, all the things the Seventh Imperial Prince had done were beyond acceptable, after all.

However, the Paladin didn’t give up.

The young Seventh Imperial Prince was still polishing the dagger of revenge even now. No matter how much strength you shored up, it would crumble down quite easily if no one provided a sturdy pillar of support.

A pillar, a necessary backer for the boy, simply had to be found somehow, somewhere.

Harman sighed under his breath.

He planned out a new itinerary and quickly headed back to the Land of the Dead Spirits.

**

Several weeks had gone by since the end of the ‘Tide of Death’, yet the Ronia fiefdom as a whole still hadn’t regained its normalcy.

Gril frowned deeply as he organised the corpses that had thawed out from the ice.

“Just for how long am I supposed to do this?”

He was a farmer, not some corpse caretaker or some such. However, he couldn’t voice his complaints too loudly, because…

“Fuu-wuu…”

The feudal lord of Ronia was personally overseeing the disposal of the undead corpses along with his knights, that’s why.

“How did a personage such as him get demoted to this place? How?”

Gril could only click his tongue in dismay. While he was doing that, his fellow villager, Hans the hunter, sneaked closer to him.

“Gril! Hurry, my man. Take this…!”

Hans pulled a piece of paper out from his inner pocket and forcibly shoved it inside Gril’s clothing.

“What’s this?”

“It’s something that came out of an undead. Hurry up before the guards say something!”

“What on earth…”

Hans seemed to have already lined his pockets well, since he was carefully putting away a bulging pouch within his clothes.

“I’m telling you, there’re plenty of valuable things to be found here!”

“…”

Gril sneaked a glance at the soldiers currently engaged in their duties before taking a closer look at the piece of paper Hans had given him. As he was never taught how to read, he had no idea what was written on this thing. But regardless, the paper itself seemed to be the luxurious sort that the nobles often used.

It seemed old with the way it was torn, and the ink blotted and smudged. That only made it look more valuable, though.

Gril carefully tucked this scrap of paper back in his inner pocket.

He still had no clue what this was, but he figured that it’d be a good idea to ask Charlotte to have the Imperial Prince take a look at it at a later date.

And it’d be really great if the item could fetch him some coin, too.

Gril smacked his lips in anticipation and returned to his job of disposing the corpses.

**

(Back to 1st person POV.)

“As I thought, it tastes really great!”

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the feast placed on top of the table right before my eyes.

The first thing I did was to use a spoon to take a sip of the soup, and slowly cut into the slab of steak with my amateurish knife skills. Then, I brought the chunk of meat into my mouth.

Aaah, I’m getting all choked up with emotions here. That’s how happy I felt right now.

This was the sense of satisfaction I was longing for!

This sense of happiness! It wasn’t something I could feel back when I worked as a gravekeeper in the monastery.

“…Not being able to move freely is still a bummer, though.”

I took a look at my own body. Currently, my arms, legs, whole torso, and even my head were all wrapped up in swathes of bandages.

It was like looking at a mummy, really.

According to the Priest in charge of taking care of me, I’d been in a coma for the past three weeks or so.