Monarch of Death

Chapter 48 – 12. The End is An Open Door (4)

The lord’s office was on the second floor of Zestrad Mansion. Today, Karnak was engrossed in his work after taking care of his business instantly. It was to reprocess the darkness of the end stolen from Straf. He let out a sigh while manipulating the darkness in the subspace.

“Ah. This is annoying.”

Now he had three things to do. First, the darkness of the end stolen from Straf must be changed into chaos magic. This was something that had to be done over time.

No matter how much Karnak had the wisdom and knowledge of the Death King, it would take several months. To be precise, in the past, since he was the King of death, he could reduce what would have taken years to a few days.

But he also had to find out how Straf was able to fuse Divine Power with command power. Again, he couldn’t find an answer right away.

‘It’s changed a lot, but it doesn’t seem to have changed much from Astra Schnapp’s attributes.’

Of course, there might be parts that Karnak had yet to discover, so this also needed to be constantly checked over a long period.

‘Or was there something special about Straf?’

There was little chance of that. Before handing it over to Alius, he carefully examined the corpse but found no difference from the other priests.

Nevertheless, the possibility was ‘enemy’ rather than ‘no’ because the investigation time was short, so there may be parts that had yet to be discovered or missed. If Straf was not the problem, they had no choice but to consider the following possibility.

“From the beginning, my authority could fuse with other energy, but I didn’t know that?”

It wasn’t a story that made a lot of sense. The authority of Karnak, who became Astra Schnapp, was the ultimate power that transcended even the command power. It would be possible to deviate from the existing common sense of command power. But that, too, was inconsistent.

It had been 70 years since he became Astra Schnapp, and during that time, he used normal magic countless times and used it again, but didn’t he know that? If he was that stupid, he couldn’t even be called the King of Death in the first place.

‘Actually, it’s not like there’s no way to check this…’

The most convenient way was to cause that phenomenon one more time. The quickest way to observe the change was to select a suitable priest, forcibly inject the darkness of the end, and observe the change. He would have done that in the past.

‘But that shouldn’t be the case now, right?’

So, the solution had to be put on hold. Anyway, the most important thing was different.

‘I have to start from the end.’

They must prevent the scattered darkness of the end from encroaching on the world any longer.

‘Once you take care of this, you can take care of the rest slowly. At least the situation won’t get any worse.’

The amount of information was sufficient, thanks to the darkness extracted from Straf. They could get a rough sense of how the darkness of the end flew and how it passed through time and space.

So, Karnak was currently producing ‘Eyes of Darkness’ through subspace. Exploring space and time to read the flow of the commanding force. It was a kind of magical body that emitted energy. After diligently manipulating the darkness of the end, Karnak uttered another lament.

“Oh, that’s annoying.”

Reading the flow of the world by floating the eyes of darkness in time and space was similar to flying a kite to determine the wind direction. The kite material itself didn’t take much. The same went for the thread connecting the kite. Now Karnak’s command power was sufficient. But that didn’t mean the method itself was easy.

Didn’t a kite require a very high skill level to make it precise? It wasn’t even the sky. It was an empowered body that would fly to the other side of time and space. He didn’t need a lot of command power, but he did need it to be incredibly complex and sophisticated.

Of course, it wasn’t a level of difficulty that even Karnak, the King of Death, would struggle with, but it took a lot of work. As an analogy, would it be the act of setting up thousands of dominoes? Building dominoes could be done by anyone, but it took considerable skill, mental strength, and concentration to build thousands of them without failure. No matter how skillful he is, he couldn’t finish it in an instant, and it was tedious, repetitive work.

“Eh, if it was before, I wouldn’t have had to do this.”

If it was the King of Death, he would have simply used the power of infinity to destroy time and space and simply glanced over it.

“No, come to think of it, even if you have power, you can’t do that.”

That was tantamount to shouting, ‘Here the King of Death has descended!’ to the whole world.

“I can’t do that now.”

Abandoning his lingering attachments, Karnak returned to his work of manipulating darkness. Rather than being an evil necromancer who wielded the powers of death and darkness…….

‘……It feels like sewing on buttons, but this.’

Suddenly Karnak looked out the window. It was time for Barros and Serati to finish their sparring.

‘Did he gain something, that guy?’

Serati must have gained a lot. She was like an empty vessel, so she would have filled it with anything. Even though it was empty, that was Karnak’s standard.

The question was, did Barros get what he wanted from Serati? Barros was not hanging out with Serati, just out of pure goodwill. He was guiding her, watching her progress, and in the process, trying to catch a clue about his awakening of fighting spirit. However, there was still no news on how to awaken it.

‘I mean, does it make sense that the world’s strongest unmanned man still can’t even pass the basics like that?’

»»————-　★　————-««
At the same time, Serati also had the same question. In the morning, when they spar, Barros was the teacher, and Serati was the disciple. On the other hand, in the afternoon training time, the position was the opposite.

‘Does it make sense that he couldn’t even pass the basics even though he was the world’s strongest swordsman?’

“Whoa……”

Sitting upright under the shade of a tree, Barros caught his breath. While deeply meditating, slowly exhaled a long and thin breath.

“How is it? Do you feel anything?”

At Serati’s cautious question, Barros made an embarrassed expression.

“Nothing at all.”

“That’s strange…”

Looking at Serati, who couldn’t understand, Barros asked.

“What was Ms. Serati like when you first awakened the fighting spirit?”

Infamous Scans

Translator: Anom
Proofreader: Orange
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After thinking for a moment, Serati slowly opened her mouth.

“Contemplating myself, guided by the inner light, I stretch out my hand and become a single sword……”

“Not like the swordsmanship passages.”

It was Barros who had memorized all the first-class swordsmanship books on the continent.

“It’s not because you don’t know that, is it?”

Serati got annoyed.

“You say you don’t know Tascal swordsmanship?”

The Tascal School was prestigious and historical in the central part of the Yusteel Kingdom and was a swordsmanship school that was mainly spread among adventurers. It was also swordsmanship she had learned.

Barros scratched his head, “That’s why I’m memorizing all first-class swordsmanship books…”

“Ah, Tascal is a third-class swordsman. Is this it?”

“It’s not really like that, and isn’t it just a common swordsmanship?”

“That’s what it sounds like!”

Serati rolled her eyes. After laughing awkwardly, Barros spoke.

“I wish I could tell more about Serati’s intuitive feeling.”

“Oh, that’s……”

For a moment, she recalled the time when she awakened her fighting spirit. If she were to describe that moment honestly and plainly, without all the useless rhetoric?

“……It just seems to work.”

“I knew it.”

That is the same voice that all Aura users who have awakened to fighting spirit say. It worked because she did it, but it worked because she tried.

“Is it because my talent is a problem?”

Seeing him worried, Serati put on a puzzled expression.

“There’s no way that Sir Barros doesn’t have talent, right?”

What would he do if he made a fool of people all morning and now said he had no talent?

“The talent to deal with the fighting spirit and the talent to awaken a fighting spirit may be different things.”

Barros also had a cool understanding of himself. He had the talent for fighting, the talent for handling the sword, and the talent for using the body.

“But the talent for making a sword and the talent for handling a sword are two different things.”

Handling a sword was the domain of a swordsman, but making a sword was the domain of a blacksmith.

“Maybe speculation is similar.”

With a sigh, Barros sat up again and started meditation. It was also an attempt to feel the speculation. Of course, the result was still the same.

“Ah, it doesn’t work either.”

Serati, who was watching, tilted her head.

“But what good am I to Sir Barros?”

Once she asked, he answered, but she didn’t know what he could do for her. Whatever she knew, Barros knew anyway. That too, was at a higher level.

“Why do you need me?”

“In case you didn’t know.”

Barros also had his thoughts.

“There’s a story about frog tadpoles being unable to think.”

The water where Barros played was the stage for the frogs, the super king frogs. All of his swordsmanship theories belonged to those frogs.

“I wondered if there would be something different if I heard the story of the tadpoles…”

“……”

Serati thought for a moment, ‘Should I stay calm after hearing this? Wouldn’t it be better to hit this human’s skull even if he died or until he die?’

Of course, she was just thinking. She was too scared to put it into action.

“Ehh…”

Only a sigh came out.

‘Still, I think it’s the first time I’ve been treated so badly as an Aura user.’

Just in time, Barros sighed as well, “I tried so hard in my previous life, but in the end, I failed, and thinking about how I got Dark Fighting through the power of the young master, I wonder if my talents are truly infinite.”

Seeing him sullen, Serati suddenly came up with another idea.

‘Still, isn’t it too strange?’

He knew all of the first-class swordsmanship that existed in the world. As long as he got his hands on speculation, he could use that skillfully as if it were his own. His pure physical abilities were amazing, and his sense of battle was excellent. Excluding experience and all, Barros was a born warrior. There was no doubt about this.

However, only the talent of awakening his fighting spirit was missing, and it’s why he couldn’t use it.

‘Is it possible that the talent of awakening fighting spirit is completely separate from the talent of a martial artist?’

The talent of a blacksmith and the talent of a swordsman were of course different.

‘But isn’t it possible that a swordsman who was intensively trained in swordsmanship and after he started to learn blacksmithing skills?’

Fighting, on the other hand, could be mastered when a swordsman was intensively trained in swordsmanship. In that sense, it should be seen as an extension of a swordsman. No matter how much she thought about it, that blacksmith’s analogy seemed wrong.

‘Maybe there is some other reason?’

»»————-　★　————-««
It had been over a month since Karnak returned to the Zestrad estate. In the meantime, Serati had fully established herself as a knight of Zestrad. It was a time when Barros, as usual, was struggling to find a clue to his speculation. Then one day, Karnak called the two.

“It’s done.”

“Oh, finally?” Delighted, Barros asked.

“So, is it all over now?”

“If things go according to plan, then yes.”

Only Serati, who did not know the matter, was puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, there is such a thing.”

“I’ll explain later.”

Karnak, Barros, and Serati prepared to leave the mansion. Nominally, to raise the realm of magic one step higher, they intended to go into the forest near the manor and receive the spirit of nature. Of course, the real reason was different.

“Opening the eye of darkness in our territory, what if we get caught?”

This was absolute necromancy. If this was even smelled by the 7 Goddess Church, things would become a headache.

“So, commit it in the next town, the Deventer estate.”

“It’s a great ploy,” Barros nodded.

“Even if someone gets caught, I’ll be able to blame Deventer again!”

“Yes!”

Serati quietly raised her hand.

“Hey, didn’t you say you wouldn’t do bad things?”

“Hmm? Is this also evil?”

“..….I’m more curious why you think that’s not a bad thing.”

“No, I’m not saying you don’t know it’s a bad thing……”

Karnak wasn’t a moron, but he couldn’t distinguish between good and evil. What he could not distinguish was not the ‘existence’ of good and evil, but the ‘degree’.

“Isn’t this something everyone else does too, I mean.”

The goal was to live a normal life, doing moderately good and moderately bad things like ordinary people, no matter what kind of adult. It was not that he would live by doing only good and avoiding evil like the wise men. Serati hesitated.

If he was the Viscount of Deventor, he had seen blood several times as a long-standing enmity with Baron Zestrad. He had even killed the previous baron as well as Karnak’s brothers, and even Karnak himself was almost killed by them. Was it truly ‘unacceptable evil’ to blame such a person?

“It seems like everyone else is doing that too…….”

Karnak laughed softly.

“Then, let’s get going.”