Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 557

The Tomb of the Saints was located beneath the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights.

Like most of the Allied Forces, the Order and the Church of the Five Great Gods were fully committed to the war. As a result, there was only a skeleton staff manning the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights.

Naturally, the headquarters did not have barriers comparable to those at the imperial palace or the Temple, and since I wasn’t undead, I could enter the headquarters. Infiltrating the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights was relatively easier compared to the imperial palace or the Temple. Moreover, we were going to the Tomb of the Saints, which would naturally be devoid of people.

It was an easy place to infiltrate in the first place, but Connor Lint’s help made it absurdly easy.

“Damn, I really don’t know what’s right anymore,” Connor said.

He had probably felt conflicted when he agreed to help us with our wicked deeds, but now that he knew that the empire was already engaged in such acts, he had lost his sense of who was right and who was wrong.

The label of evil belongs to the side that does evil first. Thus, Connor Lint decided to help us attempt to raise Death Knights in the Tomb of the Saints. This would be our third attempt.

“It’s not as grand as the imperial mausoleum, but it’s still impressive.”

The Tomb of the Saints, which lay beneath the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights, wasn’t as massive as the imperial mausoleum, but it still had a solemn and dignified air to it, and the overall ambiance was different from what we had felt in the imperial mausoleum.

Holy symbols of the gods were engraved on the walls at regular intervals, behind which lay the sarcophagi of the deceased saints. Along with the symbols of the god which each saint worshipped were their names and a brief history of each of them.

It felt like a mortuary. The remains of the deceased saints would be inside those walls.

It was like a columbarium with coffins rather than urns.

The coffins within the walls were arranged vertically, over ten layers high. However, they were spaced out quite widely, so the coffins at the top were nearly seven meters above the ground.

“The Order of the Holy Knights has not been around for that long, so there aren’t that many saints entombed here.”

“There would be more tombs in the main temples of each of the five Orders, right?”

“That’s right. But all those temples have probably been destroyed except for the main temple of Alse, which is in the capital, so it doesn’t matter.”

The Great War had necessitated the creation of the Order of the Holy Knights, so the Order did not have a long history. Most of the fallen saints throughout history would have been entombed in their respective Orders’ temples.

“Still, because of the nature of the Order’s history, most of the saints in this mausoleum have been granted the honor because of their achievements in combat, rather than any theological accomplishments. Therefore, we might be able to secure more Death Knights here, and there would be no need to go to the main temple of Alse.”

Those who died in the Great War, and those who died due to the Gate Incident... Since achievements in battle were used as the measure of success, the saints of the Order of the Holy Knights would mostly be priests or holy knights.

Even if the absolute number of saints was small, the remains would be perfect for raising Death Knights.

“Make sure the door is secured. It’ll be troublesome if someone comes in and sees us.”

“Alright,” said Harriet, taking on the role of blocking the massive entrance to the underground tomb.

“Reinhart, can you check the coffins? It’ll be troublesome if there are no corpses here as well.”

“Of course.”

I approached the communal wall and placed my hand on the entrance of a sealed stone coffin embedded in the wall.

Once a coffin was placed in the wall, there was no reason to open it again, so it didn’t even have a handle.

If this corpse was missing too, things would get complicated.

Crack! Thud!

I smashed the side of the stone coffin with my bare hands and had a look inside.

“It’s here.”

“Good. So the Order of the Holy Knights hasn’t participated in this gambit of creating undead.”

It was somewhat surprising that no one, including Connor Lint, had been shocked that I had smashed the stone wall with my bare hands.

Anyway, it was now clear that the Empire was the cause of the disappearing corpses. If all the factions that made up the Allied Forces were involved, the Tomb of the Saints would have been empty too.

Whatever was happening was likely a unilateral action being taken by the forces of the empire only. The corpses in this mausoleum were still intact.

Thud!

Olivia stood in the center and drove the cursed sword Tiamata into the ground.

“Alright, let’s get started.”

Wooong!

The power of corruption began to seep out from the cursed sword.

There would be no failure this time.

***

Olivia had said from the beginning that this ritual would not take long. She had only spent all that time in the imperial mausoleum because she had not known that there were no corpses in there.

Even so, the ritual could not be rushed. About thirty minutes after Olivia began the ritual...

Thud... Thud...

A dull sound, as if something was being struck, reverberated from behind the wall.

“Ugh... Ugh...”

Connor Lint flinched and inched closer to me. His fear was completely natural.

It definitely felt like the start of something. The strange rumbling continued from the walls of the Tomb of the Saints.

It sounded as if something was being struck.

Rumble...

Gray dust mixed with stone powder came off the wall, and the vibrations even reached the ceiling of the chamber. The statues and symbols of the gods all shook.

Thud... Thud! Thud!

The rumbling from the wall began to intensify, and the intervals between vibrations gradually grew shorter.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Crack!

The stone coffin embedded in the wall, and the square gravestone that also served as a cover, began to crack.

Bang!

One of those stone covers exploded in a cloud of dust, and something crawled out from the wall.

It was the remains of a saint, the bones of a saint who had been sealed behind the wall in eternal rest.

Groan...

It had hollow eye sockets, and black darkness oozed out from its entire body. It crawled out of the narrow space in the wall and fell to the ground.

Thud!

The body, reduced to bones by the passage of time, slowly rose from the ground.

A fallen saint had been resurrected, and the skeletal figure stood there silently, exuding a dark aura.

Grrrr...

A strange growl emerged from the skull, and the skeleton that had been awoken from its slumber slowly walked towards Olivia.

The black aura emanating from its entire body soon became a cloak of darkness, enveloping the skeleton from head to toe.

A skeleton shrouded in darkness... The strongest form of undead...

The saint, resurrected as a Death Knight, knelt before Olivia.

“Good...”

Thud... Thud...

Thud!

The sound of awakened beings pounding on the stone coffins filled the chamber, like chicks trying to break out of stone shells.

***

The ritual took an hour and a half to complete.

A total of seventy-five Death Knights had been resurrected.

There were definitely corpses that were not brought back. However, we were still greeted by the sight of rank upon rank of Death Knights, the remains of fallen saints transformed through the power of corruption.

The underground chamber was filled with dust from the shattered stone coffins.

Thanks to Harriet’s noise-canceling spell, none of the priests had detected anything unusual and came running to investigate.

We had no intention of restoring anything to their original state. After all, we would be leaving this place, never to return.

There would surely be an uproar among the Order of the Holy Knights when they eventually discovered the Tomb of the Saints had been half-destroyed, but now that we had achieved our goal, it was no longer our concern.

These Death Knights were still not enough, but raising a sufficient number of Death Knights had been impossible from the start.

In this war, it was completely impossible to have a sufficient number of forces.

Death Knights generally took the form of skeletons. Any wounds they had suffered in life or any missing parts were reconstructed by the Divine Power of corruption.

Grrrr...

The Death Knights, which emitted only strange, low growls, had no consciousness or memories of their past lives. They were merely shells.

Olivia approached one of the many Death Knights, while we all watched in silence.

Among the seventy-five Death Knights, one of them stood out. Behind it was the tomb of Leverier Lanche.

Olivia placed her hand on the skeletal cheek of the Death Knight, which was exuding a dark aura.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Olivia said, her lips curling into a sinister smile.

We looked on in stunned silence.

The Death Knight was merely a shell and not actually Leverier Lanche. It had once been Leverier Lanche, but no longer.

The human who had been nearly immortal had met his end at the blade of the cursed sword Tiamata, wielded by me. And now, he had been brought back from death by the same sword, held by his daughter.

Olivia quietly observed the black, tear-like smoke emanating from the Death Knight’s hollow eye sockets with a twisted smile.

***

When Olivia had first mentioned the need to replenish Death Knights, she had to have immediately thought of resurrecting Leverier Lanche.

The awakened Death Knights turned into smoke and were absorbed into the cursed sword, and we left the Tomb of the Saints.

“Is this... the end...?”

Olivia shook her head. “We could check out the main temple of Alse, but I don’t think it’s necessary. There would only be old bones with no real value.”

There was no need to go through all that trouble just for a few extra Death Knights.

Our business in the capital was concluded.

“Then... Can I go now?”

“What should we do? Should we take you back to the Allied Forces’ camp?”

Connor Lint hesitated. “No, I can return on my own.”

He had been forced to help with something he’d never imagined he’d have to do in his life. Connor Lint had been affected by the grotesque process of raising Death Knights, but now, the whole incident had left him with an even bigger question.

The suspicion that the empire itself might be directly involved in such acts, or even worse, must have left him utterly confused.

“I’m telling you this just in case, but don’t try to find out what’s going on,” I said.

Connor Lint remained silent, Perhaps my words had hit the mark.

“No matter how well-suited your abilities are for infiltration, there’s no need to take unnecessary risks. And even if you find out what’s going on, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He hesitated. “That’s true.”

This was the kind of thing no one was supposed to know. If he tried to find out what was happening and got caught by the empire, even stranger things might happen.

“Anyway, you did well.”

Without Connor Lint, things would have been much more complicated, but they had gone smoothly and quickly. It was fortunate that we had managed to achieve everything without any unnecessary conflicts.

Connor Lint remained silent for a moment, then cautiously spoke, as if he had something he needed to say.

“Do you know about what’s happening with our class...?” 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“Roughly.”

Connor was silent after that.

I knew about the people who had died in the battle for Serandia, as well as Ludwig, who had been left disabled. Admitting I knew such news was essentially like informing him that we were spying on the Allied Forces, but there was no reason to pretend otherwise.

They would know we were gathering information on the Allied Forces anyway.

Having seen the sorrow, Connor Lint might have thought that borrowing this unholy power was necessary to prevent more deaths in this war. But whether it was right to take advantage of the deaths in the war in such a manner, and whether it was right for the empire to be directly involved in such acts, was difficult for him to process.

We were creating Death Knights to prevent others from dying, but creating a Death Knight required someone to die.

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Connor finally said.

Connor Lint didn’t elaborate on the sadness or regret.

We didn’t engage in further conversation. This topic only held sadness, horror, and cruelty.

It was time to return. However, instead of leaving, Connor’s face went pale, as if he had realized something.

“Hey,” he said, looking at me, “you... You seem like you’re going to call me whenever you need me like this... Is that just my imagination?”

“You know me well,” I replied.

“No! I’m not helping you anymore! Why would I? No way, you jerk! I’m with the Allied Forces!”

“Aren’t we already in the same boat?” I insisted.

‘You’re already an accomplice! There’s no escaping now!’

His face grew paler still. “Screw you! From now on, even if someone asks for help, I won’t even look at them, you moron! I won’t be fooled! I’ll never be fooled again!”

Pop!

Disgusted, Connor Lint teleported away and disappeared. With his abilities, he could quickly cover the distance to the Allied Forces’ camp, even though it was far away.

If Connor Lint ever lost his humanity, it would be entirely my fault.

Harriet tilted her head. “Will there be another time when we will need Lint?” she asked.

“Well, who knows? And even though he said what he said, he’ll definitely fall for the same trap. Absolutely.”

“No way. He’d suspect it’s Sarkegar, wouldn’t he?” Olivia said, tilting her head. She seemed to be doubting if Connor Lint could be that foolish.

“You think so...? I think he’d still follow, even if he knows it’s Sarkegar.”

“Oh.”

“Ah.”

Seeing Connor Lint so resigned, I had a strange conviction that he would still continue to follow a strange, beautiful girl later on.

‘He has been through so much. He might even be thinking that it doesn’t matter to him anymore. Sorry, Lint. I think I’ve broken you.’

“By the way, shouldn’t we keep tabs on what the Empire is doing?”

“Right. It might not be dangerous for us, but we should find out what they’re doing, whether they’re creating their own Death Knights or something else.”

Harriet and Olivia’s opinions were valid.

I had warned Connor Lint not to investigate recklessly, but we were in a slightly different situation.

There was no need to interfere with what the Empire was doing, nor did we intend to, but we had to at least know what they were up to.

“We’ll find out gradually.”

Between Sarkegar and me, we could gather information and find out what they were up to.

The headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights would be in chaos the next day, but it wasn’t our concern. Our business in the capital was finished.

“Come to think of it, I had a thought...” I mused.

When Olivia suggested securing Death Knights from the tomb beneath the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights, another potential location had floated into my mind.

“Wouldn’t there be a tomb or something similar in the Demon King’s Castle as well?”

Since the imperial palace had one, wouldn’t the Demon King’s Castle also have something like a tomb where past heroes or high-ranking demons were laid to rest?

“Why are you asking us...?” Harriet began, her expression puzzled, before she remembered that I had supposedly lost my memory. “Oh, right, you said you don’t remember anything.”

“It’s worth checking out.”

“But Reinhart,” Olivia chimed in, “you’re the one who said I was being weird when I thought of resurrecting my foster father. Now you’re thinking along the same lines as me.”

‘She’s right...’

Come to think of it, I had criticized Olivia for resurrecting her foster father as a Death Knight, but I was going to do the same thing now.

‘In this desperate situation, what if we resurrected ancient Demon Kings as undead?’ was my thought. I was truly a scoundrel above all other scoundrels.

***

We headed to the Demon King’s Castle in the Dark Land for the last time. However, there was no tomb of past Demon Kings in the Demon King’s Castle.

Whether it had been destroyed or had never existed, we couldn’t tell.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we did not manage to raise any Death Knights in the Demon King’s Castle.