Chapter 730
The next morning.
The rain had stopped, and the skies cleared up brightly. The Follentia family had begun relief efforts for the territory citizens who suffered damages from the heavy downpour.
“Over here! This way!”
“Put the pillar here!”
Flooded areas had to wait until the water dried out, but for families whose homes had completely collapsed, new houses were being built.
Tok-tok-tok!
The sound of hammering.
Swish-swish!
The sound of sawing wood echoed throughout.
Simon sat in the middle, eyes closed, concentrating on his thoughts. Skeletons busily moved about, unloading materials and stacking logs.
‘Ugh.’
Simon’s face was drenched in sweat.
It wasn’t easy. A skeleton hammering away smashed its own wrist. Another, carrying logs, had its shoulder dislocated and dropped them over a cliff. A Bone Armor, while moving tools, spilled them onto the heads of territory citizens.
Watching his father Richard, it looked easy. But actually deploying skeletons outside of battle was anything but.
‘…I guess it’s only natural.’
Simon’s skeletons were all monsters. They had no concept of architecture. Unlike battle, where he just had to order them to fight!, construction required Simon to specify every little task, one by one.
Tok-tok-tok!
Hearing the rhythmic hammering, Simon glanced to the side.
While he was floundering, the summoned creatures under Richard’s control moved with dazzling finesse. Skeletons leapt about like martial masters, transporting lumber, while Bone Armors flew smoothly through the air, delivering tools without fail.
Each movement was polished: measure with a ruler, lift and fix the wood, place the nail, hammer it in. Every process fit together like clockwork in a factory.
Kiieeeeng—!
Covered in rags, Richard’s magical undead—the Lich—cast black magic, raising completed rooftops into the air and placing them precisely onto houses. Every type of undead was used in exactly the right place.
‘I still have a long way to go.’
Attending Keyzen was no reason to get complacent. Simon rolled up his sleeves and tried to focus on controlling again.
[Kid! How dare you look at another Lich when you’ve got a magnificent one like me?]
Bored, Herseba, who had been doing somersaults in the air, interrupted. Simon opened the eye he had shut.
“Herseba, don’t fly around too much, it’s dangerous.”
She radiated the powerful Darkness of a Legion Commander. Though only Richard and Simon were necromancers in Leshill, meaning it wasn’t a huge problem, it was still better to be cautious in front of others.
[Building houses is my specialty! Remember when I made entire sparkling cities with the World of Sand?]
“…Fine. Just help out a little.”
[Got it!]
Herseba tapped the ground with the tip of her staff—her own head—‘kong!’ A small patch of ground turned into Golden Transmutation. From it, she pulled out a mummy, which whipped out bandages to wrap several logs.
It looked like she was trying to lift logs for the third floor pillars.
But—
Crash! Boom! Boom!
She rammed the pillars perfectly with the logs. The pillars tilted, and the half-built house came tumbling down.
The citizens tinkering with tools nearby looked aghast.
‘Herseba!!’
Simon’s face flushed red. Flustered, Herseba panicked, then quickly cast a spell on the ground.
[T-Ta-da!]
She used sand to create a three-story sand house… then darted off in a rush. Simon sighed deeply and stood up.
“This was my mistake. I’m truly sorry.”
“Hahaha! Not at all, Milord.”
“It happens.”
Meanwhile, Herseba’s sand house collapsed immediately. Not much dignity left for the son of the lord.
“Everyone! Meal time! Food!”
A lady in an apron shouted robustly. As if waiting for it, the citizens dropped their tools and hurried over.
Needing a shift in mood, Simon followed to eat as well.
‘Oh.’
He hadn’t expected much in these conditions, but it was like an outdoor restaurant. Chairs and tables were neatly set, and large cauldrons stood in front.
“Form a line over there!”
Among the people serving food, a familiar face appeared.
The girl with snow-white hair that stood out in the Dark Alliance, slightly hidden by the hood of her robe.
“Try Teacher Anna’s special lamb soup! Two loaves of bread per person!”
‘Lete.’
She ladled a generous scoop of soup into a villager’s bowl and smiled kindly, “Enjoy your meal!” The villager, dazed, nodded repeatedly and walked on.
Simon approached.
“You came to help?”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
Without looking back, she brushed her hair smugly.
“Nothing to do at home, so I thought I’d come volunteer. Since they feed and house me, I might as well earn my keep… Ah, welcome!”
She turned back to the citizens with a warm smile and resumed serving. Simon moved beside her to prepare jam for the bread.
“You should rest. You’ve worked already.”
“I only sat and controlled summons. I’m fine.”
The two worked in sync, serving without pause. The line of people stretched long.
“Hello, kids~ Enjoy your meal.”
Bending low to serve the small children, Lete waved. The little ones waved their stubby hands back before trotting away.
“Aren’t they adorable? Even tiny babies lining up to eat.”
“Yeah.”
As Simon scooped jam from the bottom of the jar, he added quietly,
“Thanks for being so kind to our citizens.”
“No reason to be unkind.”
Lete shrugged.
“Here or there, what fault do the common folk have, struggling to survive day by day? It’s you necromancers who are evil—blocking their eyes and ears so they don’t hear the words of the Great One.”
‘…Hah, still hates necromancers.’
Still, this was progress.
Lete’s parents had been killed by necromancers, and she had even witnessed them rise as undead, a deep trauma.
The fact that her thoughts were changing at all gave Simon relief.
Soon Anna joined the serving too, since the line was overwhelming. They split into two lines.
“Anna, you’ve worked hard. Take a break.”
Richard, rolling up his sleeves after finishing construction, came over. Anna smiled.
“Richard, you should rest more yourself.”
“My wife rests, I rest.”
As the two flirted while serving, Lete, watching from afar, pouted her lips in annoyance.
“Sigh.”
“What?”
“I’d be rude if I said it aloud.”
“No, it’s fine. Say it.”
At that, Lete fixed her eyes sharply.
“How did our Teacher Anna end up marrying such an evil necromancer?”
“Hm?”
“Such a devout, beautiful, great, kind, and good woman like Anna Teacher, how could he trick her… Ugh! He must have used some wicked scheme!”
Simon chuckled, pointing at Richard and Anna.
“You really think it was a wicked scheme?”
Richard pointed at soup splattered on his cheek. Anna shyly laughed and kissed him there. Then, without knowing who started it, the two dropped their ladles, leaned forehead to forehead, and embraced.
Cheerful whistles echoed everywhere. Adults grinned as they covered their children’s eyes.
Clearly, everyone was used to this.
“Ugh.”
Lete groaned and turned her head away. She still couldn’t accept it.
* * *
Later that evening, as the meal wound down, Lete suddenly asked:
“How did you two first meet?”
Richard and Anna, eating, froze at the same time.
‘…So sudden?’
Simon, who was about to clear the dishes, rolled his eyes.
‘Well, I was a little curious too.’
He had asked a few times when he was very young, but the answers had always been vague, so he didn’t really remember. After growing older, he’d been too embarrassed to ask.
Hearing Lete’s question, Richard and Anna looked at each other.
“It’s a bit complicated to explain. There were so many incidents at the time.”
Anna said.
“It was during the war.”
Richard took a sip of wine as he spoke.
Lete jumped up with an excited face.
“War romance?!”
“Keep your voice down, Lete.”
Anna glanced around shyly, as if embarrassed. Richard chuckled warmly with the flush of drink.
“Yes, the heyday of the Saint of Miracles and the 7th Legion’s Yona. It was far from the peaceful era we have now.”
He closed his eyes, reminiscing.
“A rain of ash fell from the skies, suffocating soot filled the air. Wherever you went, corpses lay piled like mountains, and the rivers ran red with blood. Thinking of the peace we have now, truly…”
They had asked for a romance story, but it had suddenly turned into a “back in my day” lecture about how the world was better now.
Lete, sulking, carried plates into the kitchen with Anna, leaving only Simon at the table to listen to his father’s drunken tales.
But—
‘Wait, this is actually interesting?’
Richard had never told Simon stories of the Legion Commanders before, so he was drawn in completely.
“Teacher Anna! Teacher Anna! Please continue the story from before!”
Meanwhile, in the bedroom, a similar thing was happening. In her pajamas, Lete lay on the bed beside Anna and kept pestering. Anna tucked back her hair in embarrassment.
“All right, calm down. Mmm. At first, he and I met as enemies. We were fighting, but didn’t know each other’s faces. I wore the Saint’s garb and covered my face with a veil, and he wore a skull helm. We led our armies and fought on the battlefield.”
“Then, in the village of Rohiver in the Neutral Zone, I met your mother. Well, I would stop by there sometimes because of business. It was away from the battlefield, so I let down my guard.”
“I too was weary from the long war and life as a Saint, so I secretly slipped out of camp and went to a village in the Neutral Zone.”
“That’s when your mother had been caught and was being swindled. I drove away the thugs and decided to escort her to her destination. That was the beginning.”
“Though his tone was curt and rough, after a few words, I felt he was a good person. And then…”
As the story went on, Simon and Lete became more and more absorbed.
“So, who confessed first?”
Both asked at the same time, and Richard replied,
“Of course I confessed first, but your mother sedu—”
“Richard!!”
Anna, in the bedroom, shot up with a flushed face. Richard flinched, pressing his back against the chair.
“If you’re going to spout nonsense, go to bed! I remember clearly what you said and did to me, so don’t you dare—!”
“O-okay.”
“All right, that’s enough for tonight! Time to sleep, everyone. It’s too late.”
Anna clapped her hands, embarrassed.
Simon and Lete looked devastated.
“H-how can you leave it on a cliffhanger like this and tell us to sleep?”
“Lete.”
“…Fine, I understand.”
Lete quickly pulled the blanket over her head. Anna said,
“Simon, you too, go up to your room.”
“Yes, mom.”
Swallowing his disappointment, Simon went upstairs to his room.
“Ugh.”
Changing into pajamas, he lay on his bed.
‘Wow, so sleepy.’
Exhausted from the day, he drifted into sleep almost instantly.
Not long after—
Click-clack, click-clack
The window rattled noisily, as if the wind outside was blowing hard.
‘Did I leave it open?’
Awakened from sleep, Simon rubbed his eyes and looked ahead.
Whoooosh—!
The window burst open, and moonlight poured in, blinding his vision.
“Ugh.”
Simon closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.
Silver hair, as if brushed with the moonlight itself, fluttered before him. A small girl descended to the front of his bed, raising her hand high.
“Hello, Simon!”
Recognizing the sight he had once seen before, Simon’s eyes widened.
“L-Lady Neftis?!”
Simon’s mind went blank.
Why was she here?
“It’s been a while, Simon! Surprised? Surprised?”
Spinning around in place, Neftis beamed. Simon felt cold sweat run down his spine.
‘This is bad.’
Lete was sleeping downstairs with Anna.
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