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Dozens of pursuers, holding torches, were scouring the mountain in all directions.

“Over here!”

“We found traces!”

“Don’t let him escape! Whoever captures that demon shall receive the blessing of Alium!”

On the opposite ridge, two young men were frantically running along the mountain path.

“Huff, huff huff!”

“Young Master! Run faster!”

At Varos’ urging, Karnak cursed.

“Damn it! If I knew it would come to this, I would’ve mastered the Death Steed Summoning first!”

Due to his usual neglect of physical exercise, even a short run through the mountains left him breathless.

If he had summoned and ridden a death steed, it would have been much easier, but postponing it, thinking it wasn’t immediately necessary, had backfired.

‘Who could have predicted that I’d end up running for my life like this?’

But if he sat down because he was tired, he would be heading straight for the stake, so he gritted his teeth and forced his heavy feet to move.

‘How on earth did they find out? I made sure to erase every trace, without a doubt!’

When he dealt with his father, stepmother, and two older brothers, everything had gone smoothly.

His necromancy had reached its peak, and as a result, no one suspected that the nightmare that befell the Zestrad family was Karnak’s doing.

‘I thought the only thing left was to take over the family and leisurely enjoy my life…’

But suddenly, priests of Alium appeared and identified him as a necromancer.

There wasn’t even a moment to claim it was a misunderstanding.

‘They were absolutely certain!’

Was it because Karnak’s pace was too slow?

A group of pursuers soon caught up and blocked the path of the two men.

They were all heavily armed, robust warriors—elite soldiers brought by the priests.

Drawing their swords, the soldiers shouted.

“You demon!”

“Do you think you can run any further?”

“Accept your punishment quietly!”

Varos, terrified, looked back at Karnak.

“Y-Young Master!”

“Hmph!”

Snorting, Karnak spread his arms to the sides. His wide sleeves began to flap violently.

“Do you think I’d be afraid of mere soldiers, let alone priests of Alium?”

A cold darkness spread from his entire body. A gloomy muttering flowed through the night’s darkness.

“Come forth, wandering spirits… Erase the fate of the living with the light of the abyss…”

The darkness soon took the form of a wavering evil spirit.

It was a wraith, a ghostly entity draped in a veil of darkness, snatching the lives of the living.

The soldiers’ faces turned pale.

“It’s necromancy!”

“He’s summoning evil spirits!”

“Everyone, use your talismans!”

In a panic, the soldiers hastily pulled something from their pockets.

It was a bronze artifact engraved with scales on hexagonal plates of varying lengths—a protective talisman of Alium, the Goddess of the Moon, believed to repel sinister energies.

As the soldiers hurriedly brandished their talismans, a chilling sound sliced through the air.

Sssseeeek!

With a terrifying noise, the wraith glided through the air.

Bang! Bang bang!

The moment the wraith’s aura touched them, all the talismans shattered into pieces and scattered.

“What, what is this?”

“Doesn’t the Goddess’ protection work?”

The evil spirit soon overwhelmed the soldiers.

They tried to block it with their shields and swung their swords, but it was futile. The wraith passed through the soldiers like an illusion, snatching away their lives.

“Aaagh!”

“Uwaaaah!”

In mere seconds, more than ten warriors collapsed, coughing up blood.

With the situation swiftly under control, Karnak smiled coldly.

“Good, this means I’ve gained some additional forces.”

He began to move his fingers in a grotesque manner.

“Rise, dead ones. Awaken and walk the earth once more.”

The freshly deceased soldiers rolled their eyes back as they each began to stand.

Blood poured from their eyes, noses, and mouths as they staggered, turning back to the path from which they had come.

“Grrr.”

“Grrrrr…”

As the zombie soldiers moved away, Varos asked, “Are we safe now, Young Master?”

Karnak shook his head.

“No, they were created too hastily, so they’re not at full strength.”

At their current level, these zombies were probably only one-tenth as strong as they had been in life.

They were nothing more than a temporary distraction, so they needed to escape the area quickly.

Karnak and Varos began running along the mountain path again.

As Karnak desperately moved his feet, he ground his teeth once more.

“I’ve barely exacted my revenge! I’ve only just seized the family!”

This was all the fault of the mysterious author who wrote that necromancy book.

“That damn con artist! What? ‘No one will notice’? The priests noticed everything!”

Even in the urgency of the moment, Varos interjected.

“He said ordinary people wouldn’t notice. But priests aren’t ordinary, are they?”

“That bastard wrote it in a way that was deliberately misleading!”

To be precise, it was written like this:

『With this method, ordinary people will never detect traces of necromancy. Even knights who’ve mastered aura or wizards who wield mana won’t be able to perceive it.』

“See? There’s no mention that priests wouldn’t notice.”

“Then he should have written a separate warning! It’s just common sense!”

“If he had common sense, he wouldn’t have studied necromancy in the first place, right?”

Even with their lives on the line, Varos just couldn’t help but make snide remarks—it seemed to be part of his very nature.

Karnak shouted irritably.

“Shut up and just keep running!”

Reflecting on their past “memories,” Karnak and Varos wore nostalgic expressions.

“We really struggled back then.”

“We thought it was all over, but then we got caught and ended up being chased day and night, didn’t we?”

“That was when the legend of Karnak the Necromancer King began.”

“Oh, come on, that’s not true. The legend started much later. Back then, you were just a vile, third-rate necromancer scurrying around like a cockroach, trying to cling to life…”

“Varos, you were running with me! Why are you talking like it was someone else’s problem?”

In any case, the Karnak of the past was overly confident in his necromancy.

He believed that if he moved stealthily, he could obtain whatever he wanted without anyone noticing.

It was hard to blame him for being so foolish. Given his level of knowledge at the time, that was the extent of his expectations.

Glancing at the mirror, Karnak spoke curtly.

“So, I can understand why that fool made such a mistake.”

Referring to his reflection as if it were another person, he shrugged his shoulders.

“He probably thought that if he used necromancy discreetly, he could take down someone like Randolph. And indeed, he had enough power to do that.”

The typical approach for most necromancers in open combat is to pretend to engage in a normal fight while secretly casting a curse to strike down their opponent.

This way, to the eyes of ordinary people, it just looks like an ordinary battle.

“But if I did that, I’d just be repeating the same mistakes from the past.”

You can deceive ordinary people, but you can’t fool the priests.

Clerics, who wield divine power, are particularly sensitive to traces of necromancy. No matter how secretly you use necromancy, they will inevitably track you down by following the remnants.

That was what happened to the Karnak of the past.

Suspicious of the curse on the Zestrad family, the priests of Alium eventually discovered his true identity, leading to a relentless pursuit that drove him to infamy until he finally abandoned his humanity.

“I went through the trouble of turning back time just to live like a proper person, so I can’t let that happen again.”

To use necromancy without revealing his identity, he would need to erase every trace with almost paranoid thoroughness.

Even the smallest slip would have the Church of the Seven Goddesses hunting him down like a bloodhound.

“So, in simple terms, you’re saying I should never use necromancy in front of priests?”

“That’s right.”

“But this is a Duel Trial, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Then the judges will be priests, won’t they?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what possessed you to agree to a Duel Trial, Young Master?”

“I didn’t know that at the time, okay?”

“Ugh…”

Varos groaned, lost in thought. Then suddenly, his eyes lit up.

“Can’t we postpone the duel for about half a year? I’ll get in shape by then and give it a shot.”

The reply came immediately.

“No, we can’t.”

The quickness of the answer suggested that Karnak had probably already considered trying to postpone it.

“What if something happened to the duelist? Like if you were injured, Young Master…”

With a sly look, Varos glanced at Karnak’s leg.

“If we break your leg, it would take at least half a year to heal. Or we could claim you’ve fallen ill and need time to recover.”

Karnak snorted.

“This is a duel overseen by priests. Do you think they’d just let that slide?”

The priests of the Church have the power of the goddess’s healing at their disposal.

“If you start whining about being sick, they’ll just use divine power to heal you on the spot.”

“Oh, right, they have healing magic, don’t they? I’ve been living as a Death Knight for so long, I forgot that living people can benefit from divine blessings.”

Of course, even the priests’ healing magic isn’t all-powerful.

The stronger a cleric’s healing spell, the more expensive it is. The cost is so high that even the wealthiest people can’t easily afford it, so most people still rely on conventional medicine.

“But who would believe that a wealthy family with a copper mine couldn’t pay up to delay a trial?”

Also, even with healing magic, they can’t regenerate lost body parts. If someone like Paralt has lost a limb, recovery is impossible.

“And it’s not like I can just chop off my entire leg to get a delay on the Duel Trial.”

Varos came up with another idea.

“What about cutting off Randolph’s leg before the duel?”

Cutting off Karnak’s leg would be a waste.

But as for Randolph’s leg, who cares if it’s cut off or not?

“All we need to do is prevent the Duel Trial from happening, right? This seems doable.”

Karnak looked at his servant with a pitying gaze.

“And who’s going to do that? Didn’t you say you’re not strong enough to handle him?”

“Huh? Well, you could just put a curse on him or something, right? Or just kill him outright. You’ve done it before with your parents and siblings, so why not…?”

“After that, we were hunted down mercilessly, weren’t we?”

“That’s right, we got caught anyway.”

It was a catch-22 situation.

At this point in time, Karnak might have eagerly run off to master necromancy, thinking it was a great idea, but looking back after returning, there was no bigger folly.

“Ugh, I should’ve just waged a territorial war. Then I could’ve secretly used necromancy to somehow… No, I’d still get caught later on.”

“What if we secretly coat the blade with poison?”

“The priests have antidote magic, Varos.”

“Oh, right, that wouldn’t work either. And if we got caught using poison, it would be an instant disqualification, wouldn’t it?”

No matter how he thought about it, there was only one option left.

“Do we have to run away after all?”

Since he had invoked the Duel Trial in the name of Alium, there was no backing out now. If he did, he would be executed for mocking the goddess.

So, before that happened, he could gather up his valuables and money and flee. Then, he could abandon his identity and live as a mere adventurer in hiding.

“That doesn’t sound too bad. Knowing the future events, I could probably live quite well. It would also give me time to rebuild my strength.”

“But the current situation is just too good to give up.”

The troublesome family members had already been dealt with, and he had become the head of a wealthy family. Unlike in his previous life, he was even loved by the vassals.

Everything he had wanted in the past was now within his grasp.

“I really don’t want to give this up…”

“Isn’t it better than dying? The only solution we had left was to pit me against him as your champion, but that’s off the table now.”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

As Karnak wallowed in regret, Varos shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll just do whatever you decide, Young Master.”

Getting up from his seat, Varos continued.

“I’ll be going now. The old butler gave me some tasks to do. Let me know when you’ve made a decision.”

Watching his servant leave the room, Karnak could only groan in frustration.

“Ugh, what should I do…”

* * *

Karnak called for Varos again the next morning.

“Why did you call for me again? I was in the middle of doing laundry.”

Varos asked bluntly as he hastily wiped his wet hands.

With bleary eyes, Karnak spoke.

“I’ve made a decision.”

“Oh! Should I start packing? I already know where the valuables and estate funds are stored.”

“…When did I say anything about running away?”

“There’s no other option, is there?”

“I’ve thought of a way.”

Karnak’s face lit up with a determined smile.

“It’s risky, but I’m willing to take the chance.”