“Where did the head go, caw?”
“I don’t know either.”
“Are you saying someone secretly took it away, caw?”
“Seems possible. It vanished exactly a year ago.”
…What is this supposed to mean now?
This is none other than Death King’s laboratory.
Located beneath his castle.
A place with countless tools and magic orbs scattered everywhere to kill intruders!
Who in the world would dare come into a place like this, and on top of that, steal Andasar’s face?
“Doesn’t a Dullahan’s body instinctively look for its face, caw?”
“I tried, but it always went berserk.”
“If I can stabilize that body, caw?”
“Then I’ll gladly hand it over.”
Death King nodded.
Of course, he wasn’t going to just hand it over.
It was a question of whether I could stabilize a body he himself had failed to stabilize.
He seems to think of this like a duel between artists of corpses.
In those skull eyes of Death King, I can feel an odd sort of excitement.
“My art must be done alone, caw.”
“You’re the solitary type?”
“That’s right, caw.”
“What a pity. I wanted to watch.”
Death King said honestly.
But I couldn’t show him how I stabilized that body.
Rather, by not showing it, I could elevate my fake art into real art.
“How much time should I give you? By tomorrow’s announcement is obviously impossible, so maybe about a year…”
“Ten minutes, caw.”
At my instant reply, Death King froze.
“…Ten minutes? That’s too much of a joke.”
At first I thought he’d misheard.
He had spent a year trying to stabilize it and failed, yet this corpse crow was saying he’d solve it in just ten minutes.
Common sense said it was impossible.
“Ten minutes is enough, caw.”
“Hmph… I hope that confidence is justified.”
Arrogance had gone beyond the limit.
It would be entertaining to see the corpse crow’s face when he failed in ten minutes.
Death King shrugged and left the laboratory.
***
Exactly ten minutes later.
“…How on earth did you do it…?”
With an unbelieving gaze, Death King stared at Andasar’s stabilized body.
Even without eyes, I could feel how flustered he was.
It couldn’t be helped.
The body that had been raving madly was now utterly calm, as if nothing had happened.
Even after using the sealing orb, it stood there perfectly fine.
What he had failed at after a whole year, I did in only ten minutes.
Calling it ten minutes is generous, it didn’t even take that long.
“What spell did you use? Tell me.”
“Asking about an art technique is taboo among artists, caw.”
“I can’t believe it…!”
It was hard to accept, and hard to believe.
Like the corpse crow, Death King was also someone who practiced art with corpses.
But he was sure his skills were superior.
No matter how a Transcendent Species you were, he thought you couldn’t surpass him in the realm of art.
Because in this field, the best was none other than Death King himself.
And yet, what he couldn’t do, the corpse crow did right in front of him. In a mere ten minutes.
The year he had spent flashed through Death King’s mind like a panorama.
‘I was going to use it myself.’
While Death King was aghast, I felt a bit regretful inside.
There was only one reason Andasar’s body was unstable.
‘It was in the Kao state.’
The exact name was Chaotic.
Gamers enter the Kao state once they accumulate evil karma past a certain level.
It’s a state where you can’t use warp, you get chased by guards, NPCs loathe you and stop giving quests.
But aside from those external reactions, the Kao state also puts a debuff on the character itself.
‘When you fall into the Kao state, you get afflicted with Frenzy.’
Frenzy.
In short, you go mad.
In the game, it only slightly lowered certain stats, but this wasn’t a game. He was truly in Frenzy and rampaging.
There were only two ways to free Kao state.
Build fame through good deeds.
Or an indulgence.
The former takes time, the latter ends it in one shot.
The indulgence Priest Andrew gave me was something I planned to use, but plans can always change.
‘Anyway I have one more.’
There was still one indulgence from Priest Andrew left.
I could just keep that one.
Since I used one to save his daughter, if I ask for it he won’t be able to refuse.
‘Looks like monsters are ignorant of the Kao state, unlike humans.’
Well, it would be strange for monsters to enter the Kao state just by piling up evil karma.
Maybe if their fame went up, sure.
And Andasar was originally human, so her structure was bound to be different.
Still, the puzzling part was why she had fallen into the Kao state at all.
‘She’s already dead, so why did Kao trigger?’
Andasar had already died when she became an Eldritch Andasar, turning into undead.
Even if she was purified, she was still a corpse.
That undead could enter the Kao state by piling up evil karma was weird in every way.
This was something I’d need to investigate.
“As promised, I’ll be taking this artwork, caw.”
“…You really can’t tell me what you did?”
“I’ll think about it, caw.”
“…! I hope you’ll lean in a positive direction!”
Death King was dead serious about corpse arts.
Seems he thinks there’s still some rapport between us.
I don’t want to get close to this nasty hobby, but among the Four Great Masters, he’s the most amicable one, so there’s nothing I can do.
If he turns into an enemy, he’s the most exhausting type.
Even if only on the surface, I have to maintain friendly relations.
I spoke to Dullahan Andasar’s body.
“Head toward the place where your face is, caw.”
***
The Dullahan’s body kept moving toward the direction where its face was.
But in the end, it couldn’t find the face.
“That place is the hot spring where star guardians gather.”
A hot spring where star guardians gather.
The largest place located in the center of Kramdel.
The Dullahan kept moving toward that place.
“The star guardians are investigating the hot spring. It’s probably because of what happened a year ago, when Fairy Queen’s Tears started mixing in.”
A year ago.
The time when the winds of Kramdel’s full transformation began to blow.
That was when the hot spring became bustling and the monsters stabilized.
“O Fifth Great Master. The star guardians and we have a non-aggression relationship. You’d better not do anything unnecessary.”
“Why, caw?”
I don’t get why the Four Great Masters and the White King, monsters who have no reason to fear the heavens, would cower before the star guardian.
“Because if we get entangled, neither side will ever see a good outcome. That’s only natural.”
Looks like their relationship isn’t very good.
Between star guardians and Kramdel there’s an unspoken rule of non-aggression.
Well, I can understand it somewhat.
Star guardians ultimately have ties to humans, the owners of the stars.
Even if they don’t help humans, from the Four Great Masters’ perspective, star guardians might feel like traitors.
But there was still something I didn’t get.
“If it’s non-aggression, then is it fine for star guardians to come into Kramdel, caw?”
“Anything related to stars and the goddess is absolute to them. We also have no choice but to yield on those two things.”
Yielding.
Hearing Death King say that word doesn’t suit him at all.
But now it was clear.
“I’m not officially Fifth Great Masters yet, am I, caw.”
That this had nothing to do with me, someone who wasn’t a Fifth Great Master.
Until the official announcement, I wasn’t a Fifth Great Master, just a visitor stopping by Kramdel.
Death King looked troubled.
“Then it’s even more out of the question. If you get involved with the star guardian and trouble happens, if you’re merely a ‘visitor,’ we can’t help you.”
If I were a Fifth Great Master, he’d help, but since I wasn’t, he couldn’t.
But I hadn’t expected help in the first place.
“I don’t need help, caw.”
Just as I said, I truly didn’t need any help.
I had a trump card.
Leaving the still-bewildered Death King behind, I headed to Kramdel’s largest inn.
***
Star guardian.
Most of them are mythical species or Fantasy Species, yet they receive treatment beyond that.
Guardians who protect stars can be granted power and qualification beyond measure, so they’re in a completely different league from ordinary monsters.
But normally, they don’t leave their star-guarding domains.
For them to gather is something that might happen once every several thousand years, if at all.
And now, more than ten star guardians were soaking in Kramdel’s hot spring.
“It’s definitely the 33rd star.”
“It isn’t the body of the goddess ‘Rhea.’ Her body was scattered into 32 pieces. Then whose is it?”
“Pina…”
“That twin goddess?”
“The possibility is high.”
“To confirm it, we’d have to look beyond that ‘other side.’”
“It’s blocked by a unique-grade mystery. Whether someone deliberately sealed it off with such a great mystery, we still need to find out.”
“It’ll take time.”
While the star guardians were talking intensely,
Dramut quietly left the hot spring.
Though called the Ancient King, to the star guardians gathered here, even Dramut felt like they were an insurmountable ‘wall.’
Dramut was the weakest and youngest among them, so he couldn’t easily join the conversation.
Even if he wanted to, he’d need to know something, and he knew nothing.
Look.
Even when he disappeared, nobody noticed.
That was proof the star guardian had no interest in Dramut at all.
With a sigh, Dramut slowly returned to his room.
“…Who are you? A corpse crow?”
The moment he entered, Dramut couldn’t help being puzzled.
Some corpse crow was in his room.
Even though the star guardians’ rooms should be strictly separated.
Did it wander in by mistake?
“Long time no see, Dramut, caw.”
“If you don’t want to be eaten, get out right now. I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
Kyaaah!
He opened his mouth, mimicking a bite.
A corpse crow he’d never seen before.
There was no way he could be familiar with such a thing.
He was in a bad mood, but he didn’t want to cause an incident.
If he caused trouble in Kramdel, he’d just get scolded.
So run away.
If you run off pissing yourself, I’ll spare you.
Then Dramut suddenly frowned.
“But how do you know my name…?”
…Come to think of it, that’s strange.
How could a mere corpse crow know the name of a lofty star guardian like him?
That was when—
Jjeo-eok!
The corpse crow pulled out the core from its own chest, and its entire body began to bulge and collapse as it changed.
Mystery Destruction
Jjeo-eok!
The corpse crow pulled out the core from its own chest, and its entire body began to bulge and collapse as it changed.
“Melting down” would be a more accurate description.
‘Is it so scared that it’s taking its own life?’
Dramut watched the sequence of actions with an absurd look.
A monster pulling out its own core.
A monster without its core dies. It was an act of suicide from sheer terror.
Well, if it had been sane, it wouldn’t have stepped into a star guardian’s bedroom.
“Hmm?”
But his confusion didn’t end there.
As the wings fell away and the flesh and bones melted, a human shape appeared inside.
And that human had a face that felt incredibly familiar.
“Y-you…!”
“Just because my appearance changed a bit, you don’t recognize your master? And you dare call yourself my loyal servant?”
“H-how are you here…!”
Disbelief beyond shock.
But the human before him was undeniably real.
Dramut’s whole body shrank tight.
The holy land of the desert.
A mountain where a sleeping star lay in the deepest region there.
Guarding that mountain and star was Dramut’s role.
Originally the star’s owner had been Wilhelm, but Wilhelm died and the star fell back into the mountain.
After that, the human who suddenly appeared in his domain was Randolph.
A mysterious human who became the star’s owner despite being utterly unqualified!
“And that form just now was clearly… a corpse crow.”
It was definitely a corpse crow.
Its appearance, its stench, even its presence left no room for doubt.
A corpse crow turned into Randolph.
No, Randolph had been disguised as a corpse crow.
But he couldn’t understand it.
When it was a corpse crow, he hadn’t felt any trace of a star.
Yet once it became Randolph, he could feel the trace of the star he guarded.
It wasn’t just wearing a skin, it had become an entirely different being.
There was no other way to explain it.
Also, the melted feathers and flesh were sucked back into the extracted core.
‘As expected, when I return to normal, I can’t use the Corpse Crow King’s skills.’
I clicked my tongue inside.
I’d expected it, but just pulling out the core completed the “switch” perfectly.
When I’m the king of corpse crows, I can’t equip gear, but I can use related skills.
Conversely, when I return to Randolph, I can’t use corpse crow skills, but I can equip gear.
In game terms, it’s like transformation, avatar, or costume.
I’d already anticipated this, so it wasn’t a big disappointment.
More important right now was Dramut.
“Dramut. You’re here because of the 33rd star, right?”
“…Humans must not be here.”
“Did the form you saw a moment ago look human to you?”
Dramut closed his mouth.