Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 556

“They’re all empty.”

On the second floor of the Hall of Heroes, Olivia and I opened various sarcophagi and confirmed that the remains were missing.

There were too many sarcophagi to open them all, but we did not need to check them all to know that they were all empty.

Harriet and Connor Lint were dazed.

“This... it seems...”

Harriet’s eyes found mine. “Perhaps someone else also had the same idea?”

“Yeah...”

Bringing back past heroes as undead and using them to bolster their forces... Olivia’s idea had been peculiar and grotesque, but it was a human who had come up with that idea.

There was nothing to say that others couldn’t think the same thing.

Connor Lint was still in shock. “S-so, someone else came in here like us, reanimated the bodies and took them away...? Is that it? It’s strange that there hasn’t been an uproar over this. Honestly... if it weren’t for my ability, you guys wouldn’t have been able to get in here so easily...”

If the mausoleum had been broken into earlier, there would have been a big commotion. Connor Lint’s point that others would have left traces, even if we hadn’t, was valid.

“Why are you assuming that some other faction did this?” I said.

“Huh?”

‘You fool.’

“If this was the doing of the imperial family, then of course there wouldn’t be any uproar. Who would know?”

The imperial family bringing back the remains interred in the mausoleum as undead beings was a horrifying thought, but not impossible.

Only the imperial family could confirm that the remains in the mausoleum were missing. If it was the imperial family who had done it, no one else would know unless they broke into the mausoleum like we did.

“That’s... that’s impossible. The empire, doing something like that? Vertus?”

We were willing to do anything to survive the war, to win, and so we were ready to use every means available to us. Vertus could make such a decision as well.

“Nothing is certain. We haven’t confirmed that the Empire is using undead.”

The Empire might have other reasons for moving the remains, and they might not be related to raising them as undead at all. This was all just speculation, brought about by the missing remains.

“We need to examine the national cemetery,” Olivia said, looking grim.

It was impossible for us to know what had happened in the imperial mausoleum, but we had no more business there.

“This might not be the end of it,” Olivia said. She seemed to be imagining something ominous.

***

The sarcophagi in the Hall of Heroes were all empty. In a way, we had planned a major crime but had stumbled upon something bizarre—all the heroes’ remains had disappeared in a strange and eerie way.

We had no obligation to investigate this incident, but we had to understand what had happened. There was a possibility that someone else had taken away the heroes’ remains or was doing something with them, and the most likely suspect was the empire itself.

Moreover, Olivia did not believe this was the whole extent of it.

Connor Lint didn’t have to accompany us to the national cemetery. However, he followed us, seemingly determined to uncover the truth behind this strange affair. More accurately, he led the way, using teleportation.

We left the palace quickly and headed to the national cemetery with Connor Lint.

Since it was late at night, the cemetery was naturally dark, and there was no reason for any mourners to be there at this hour. Thus, the vast cemetery was empty, but the temple located on its grounds was still lit. Also, priests, ground staff, and guards would still be present.

We arrived at the outskirts of the cemetery where those who had achieved great feats but were not deemed significant enough to be entombed in the Hall of Heroes were buried, away from the lights of the temple and out of sight of anyone who might be in it.

“What else could possibly be happening...?” Connor Lint asked as he looked at Olivia. Her expression was cold and hard, with a hint of fear.

“I won’t know until I see it with my own eyes,” she replied.

In the darkness, Olivia began to inspect each tombstone as she passed them. These were the graves of fallen soldiers. Although she wouldn’t recognize any names, Olivia scrutinized each tombstone as she passed them.

“What are you looking for?” Harriet asked,

“The date,” Olivia answered plainly.

Olivia continued to observe the dates on the tombstones silently, then stopped in front of a particular grave. Was she trying to find the most recently buried grave?

“I’m going to start the ritual. Conceal us.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“It’s not a large-scale ritual. It’ll be difficult to notice if I just perform it on this one grave.”

This ritual was easier to conceal than the original plan of mass reanimation of the dead, but there was no harm in being cautious, even if no one was around.

Harriet cast concealment spells around us, and Olivia placed her hand on the tombstone, quietly pouring out the Divine Power of corruption.

Connor Lint caught my eye, his lips trembling and his face full of fear. “Do you think all the graves here might be... empty too...?”

If not only the sarcophagi in the heroes’ mausoleum but the graves of fallen soldiers in the national cemetery were all empty, what would that mean, and how were we to interpret it?

“We won’t know for sure until we check,” I said, and Connor Lint nodded wordlessly.

How much time had passed?

Crack!

The flat patch of green grass behind the tombstone began to stir. That was where the remains were buried. The movement meant something was trying to emerge from the ground. The reanimation was working.

Did that mean this place was untouched?

“Ugh, ugh...!” Connor Lint turned pale and began to tremble.

It was hard to say if it was fortunate or unfortunate. Either way, we were merely reanimating it to gather information.

Gurgle! Gurgle!

Swoosh!

Soon, the grass stirred, and a skeletal hand emerged from the earth.

The resurrection of the dead... More accurately, it was the reanimation of the dead in their present state.

Connor Lint averted his gaze, and I watched the arm reach out and crawl across the ground.

Groan...

A chilling cry rang out through the night air. We could clearly see what had crawled out from the ground. The corpse, which had been decaying underground, rose from the ground, wrapped in a shroud of dark corruption. Some flesh hadn’t completely rotted away, making it even more gruesome to look at.

Though accustomed to horrific sights, the undead were always difficult to behold, especially when they were in such an incomplete state.

Connor Lint couldn’t bear to look, and Harriet covered her mouth, feeling nauseous.

Olivia quietly observed the reanimated corpse.

“Well... At least the bodies here are still intact...” Harriet said.

“That’s true,” Olivia replied. That could mean anything.

Olivia silently stared at the skeleton, which gazed back at her with hollow eyes.

After a long moment, Olivia nodded briefly.

“I need to raise a few more.”

***

Instead of performing a large-scale ritual, Olivia revived the corpses one by one, like a thief stealing valuables in the dead of night.

In the end, she raised a total of five.

Considering the scale of the cemetery, it was a very small number.

“Say something. If you know something, say it. If you don’t, say you don’t...” Harriet murmured anxiously as she watched Olivia silently reanimate and scrutinize the corpses.

The reanimated corpses merely followed us blankly.

“Return,” Olivia commanded simply, ignoring Harriet.

Groan...

At her command, the reanimated dead began to burrow back into the ground from which they had emerged.

“Restore the graves to their original state. Make sure it doesn’t look like they were dug up,” Olivia said.

“Huh?”

“Just do it. I’ll explain in a bit.”

Having reanimated these corpses, Olivia subsequently sent them back to their graves.

Harriet looked on in puzzlement as the half-decayed remains that had crawled out of the ground burrow themselves back in.

Harriet used telekinesis to cover the disturbed soil and reattach the torn grass. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to disguise the fact that it had been dug up.

Only then did Olivia look at me.

“I performed the ritual on the graves of five warriors, but I couldn’t make a single Death Knight. Why do you think that is?” she asked.

Olivia had failed to create a Death Knight five times. These were supposedly the graves of those who had achieved great feats, the graves of warriors, not mages or other humans.

She should have been able to create at least one or two Death Knights, but she had failed with all of them.

“It seems all the bodies have been swapped,” she said.

Things were different from the imperial mausoleum. The bodies were all there, but they might not have been the original ones that were buried.

***

The undead that Olivia had painstakingly raised returned to their graves, reverting to lifeless corpses. Though she had revived them, she subsequently sent them back to rest.

“The ones I raised were all from graves dated after the Gate Incident and the deployment of the Allied Forces.”

Olivia had been looking at the dates, not the names, when reviving the corpses.

“These are relatively recent graves, and those in them died only recently. As Sarkegar said, the Allied Forces are cremating most of the bodies. For a body to be sent back and buried in the national cemetery after the deployment of the Allied Forces, it has to belong to a very important person. Someone important enough to be sent back to the capital for a funeral instead of being cremated. Do you understand what that means?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes, I understand.”

“And the fact that I couldn’t raise a single Death Knight from five of these warriors’ graves is absurd.”

These were the bodies of individuals who had achieved significant feats and were important enough to be sent back to the capital for burial. They would have possessed significant martial prowess in life.

Given that they were recently buried, they should have been in optimal condition to be raised as Death Knights, but Olivia found them to be subpar.

It was of course possible for such a thing to happen in one or two cases, but for it to happen five times in a row?

“The bodies were either swapped after burial, or they weren’t the original ones to begin with. In any case, the people buried in this cemetery aren’t the ones whose names are on the tombstones. The conclusion is simple. None of the bodies in this national cemetery are suitable to be raised as a Death Knight,” Olivia concluded coldly.

“Does that mean... the Empire is really making Death Knights? Is there someone in the Empire who can use the power of the Demon God like you?” Connor Lint asked.

Olivia shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be Death Knights specifically. But securing the bodies of those who were powerful in life suggests they’re doing something similar, or conducting some kind of experiment. And even without Kier’s power, it’s possible to create undead that possess powers comparable to Death Knights, right? That’s what dark magic is about, isn’t it?”

“Ah...”

The process might be different, but the results would be similar. It was possible to raise undead even without the power of the Demon Gods.

Dark magic shared similarities with Kier’s power.

If we could create Death Knights using the Divine Power of corruption, the Empire could create them with dark magic.

“As I said, they might not be raising Death Knights. They might be doing something else entirely. But the empire has to be involved in it. Both this place and the imperial mausoleum are under its control. Hoping that this is the work of a third party is, well, overly optimistic.”

I agreed with Olivia’s conclusion that the empire had to be involved.

The empire might be using the bodies of those who died for humanity to create undead, or something beyond that.

Put simply, the empire was doing what we had attempted, but they were ahead of us. Hence, to call their actions evil would be hypocritical. This news was merely shocking.

“That implies,” Olivia continued, “that the actions of repatriating bodies to the imperial capital is likely just a formality, and those bodies are diverted for some other purpose during transit.”

“That makes sense,” agreed Connor Lint.

The entire process of interring fallen warriors who had achieved significant deeds within the national cemetery was, from its very inception, a deception.

The bodies of other fallen soldiers were buried in these marked graves, while the true remains were taken elsewhere. This whole repatriation of fallen heroes was a front.

“But we’ve never actually seen the Empire operate an army of undead, have we?” asked Harriet.

“That’s right... We’ve never seen or even heard of such an army,” Connor Lint confirmed.

“They’re probably saving it, for later,” Olivia suggested. “To prepare for what’s to come.”

We had to keep our own involvement with the Allied Forces from being conspicuous.

In the same way, it would be too obvious if the Allied Forces began deploying large units of Death Knights. Such a move would undoubtedly cause widespread chaos. This undead army could only be deployed when truly cornered.

Olivia looked at me.

“Well, if they do deploy this army, there’ll be a plausible excuse,” Olivia remarked. “They could just attribute their appearance as being a move by the Demon King’s army, couldn’t they? From the Empire’s perspective, there are far too many things that can be brushed aside simply by heaping them on you.”

“That’s true,” I conceded.

If a situation ever arose where the Empire genuinely needed to deploy Death Knight units, they could simply claim that they were part of the Demon King’s army, completely unrelated to them.

The Allied Forces would descend into panic, but that would be preferable than admitting that they themselves were operating large units of Death Knights.

As Olivia pointed out, the current reality of the continent was that most people would readily believe it if anything evil that happened was thrown onto the Demon King’s shoulders.

The Empire was clearly stockpiling its power.

This power was being stockpiled by reanimating the bodies of fallen warriors, and they would eventually release this power, but only as a very last resort.

Vertus had chosen this path of creating undead warriors out of the bodies of dead heroes because he had the Demon King to use as a scapegoat. Of course, this didn’t happen in the original story. At that point in the story, there was no convenient excuse like me lying around. Even if there had been, it would not have persisted all the way to the end.

There was no reason or right to blame them. If Vertus hadn’t done it, we would have.

Even so, Connor Lint seemed unable to close his gaping mouth. He seemed shocked that the Empire was doing such things with their own hands.

What we were trying to do was seen as evil, and it was no less so when the empire was the one doing it.

“I can’t believe it...” Connor Lint muttered in disbelief.

If the Demon King, who was humanity’s archenemy, did such things, it would be somewhat understandable. In this case, though, it was betrayal.

While lauding those who died for humanity as heroes, the empire was secretly bringing them back as undead to have an army of the dead in reserve in case of emergencies.

In my case, it didn’t matter if word got out. I was the Demon King, and if word got out that the Demon King was creating an army of the dead, it would just be a bad guy doing bad things.

I had planned to do such things regardless of what Vertus might say.

When a bad guy does bad things, ironically, people tend to just accept it and move on. I was that kind of person, but the empire’s leadership was not that at all. If word got out that they were doing such things, the empire would be torn apart.

“Vertus seems to be taking an extremely dangerous gamble,” I declared.

A gamble that seemed impossibly dangerous, but a gamble that had to be taken nonetheless.

“Well, in any case, it looks like we can’t replenish our ranks of Death Knights now...” Harriet said with a sigh. She had a complicated expression on her face, as though unsure if it was a good or bad thing.

Reviving dead heroes to use as an army was hardly a righteous act. It was fortunate that we wouldn’t be doing it ourselves, but it was clear that others were doing such things, so it was both fortunate and unfortunate.

As Harriet said, we had failed to replenish our ranks of Death Knights, and ended up with a very uncomfortable suspicion.

Olivia shrugged. “That’s not quite true. There’s still one more place left.”

‘Huh? What’s she talking about?’

“What do you mean? What other place is left?”

“There was one more place I planned to go. We’re going there.”

Was there something else in our plan?

Olivia placed her hand on Connor Lint’s shoulder.

“Lint, can you help us just one more time?”

“Uh... Sorry?”

“You’ll help, right?”

“O-of course... of course!”

Unfortunately, our dear Lint couldn’t refuse such a request.

“But where are we going?” I asked, and Olivia winked in response.

“If this is the empire’s doing, then places outside the empire’s influence should still be intact, right?”

“Huh?”

“Oh... no way...”

I didn’t understand what she was saying, but Harriet seemed to have caught on.

“The Tomb of the Saints.”

The Tomb of the Saints... The graves of the saints was managed by the Order of the Holy Knights and the Church of the Five Great Gods, and so it was naturally beyond the empire’s influence.

Charlotte might have expected us to raid the Hall of Heroes, and even if Vertus was creating Death Knights, they wouldn’t have touched the royal remains.

But the Tomb of the Saints... It was obvious who was laid to rest there, even if none of us said it out loud.

“B-but, uh, is th-that... okay?”

Olivia’s foster father, the former leader of the Order of the Holy Knights, and the man who had died by my hand.

In my view, he died as a villain, but the official story was that he died honorably while fighting the Demon King.

Leverier Lanche’s grave would surely be there.

“I couldn’t do my filial duty while he was alive,” Olivia said, “so I should take this opportunity to do it.”

She smiled innocently, and we were left dazed by that smile.