My Harem of Dangerous and Crazy Women as a Reincarnated Necromancer-Chapter 69: An Inquisitor’s Remorse
Mark looked at Alice, who was still lying on the ground with her eyes open but visibly exhausted.
"Alice, I need you to stay lying down, please," Mark said as he extended his hand over the nun’s chest. "I’m going to start channeling more mana into you."
Alice looked at him for a second and then nodded slightly without resisting.
Mark placed his palm on Alice’s chest and began channeling mana into her body.
The flow was weak, much weaker than Mark would have liked, but it was everything he could manage with the reserves he had left.
A faint glow appeared between his fingers and the palm of his hand.
"Did the girls who were with me manage to escape too?" Alice asked, her voice weak but a little clearer than before.
"Yes," Mark replied without moving his hand. "They’re all here... In fact, they headed out a while ago with Yuki to scout the area."
Hearing that, Alice let out a small sigh and her furrowed brow seemed to relax slightly. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
"Looks like you care quite a bit about them," Mark said, noticing how clearly she relaxed at the news.
"I wouldn’t put it quite that way," Alice said in a low voice. "It’s more like... guilt."
"Guilt?" Mark repeated, raising an eyebrow.
Alice slowly opened her eyes and looked to one side, avoiding Mark’s gaze.
"They... weren’t supposed to be there."
’What?’
Mark said nothing and waited for Alice to continue.
"They weren’t part of my group," Alice said. "We ran into them on our way to the dungeon. They were on their way back to the clergy’s central headquarters."
Alice paused and her jaw tensed slightly before continuing.
"They were tired, but I... used my authority to force them to provide support because the mission wasn’t going to be easy."
The silence that followed those words was heavy.
Mark looked at Alice’s face, the nun kept her gaze fixed on a point beside her, not looking at him.
Her expression was hard to read, but there was something in the way she pressed her lips together that made clear the subject weighed on her.
And Mark could imagine why.
Alice had used her rank to force five women who had nothing to do with her mission to accompany her to the Demon Lord’s dungeon, and as a result, most of the group had been wiped out and those five were now his servants.
The fact that Mark had revived them didn’t change what had happened.
Alice had led them to their deaths, and she knew it.
Before Mark could say anything to try to ease the atmosphere, Rose spoke.
"Ha, the clergy and the inquisition are all the same," Rose said with a sigh. "A bunch of narrow-minded fanatics."
Mark was about to open his mouth to tell Rose to try not to be so blunt, but Alice responded before he could speak.
"You’re right," Alice said in a tired tone. "But unfortunately that’s the only way that exists to maintain order..."
Alice’s eyes, already half-closed, began to close slowly all the way.
"The only... way..."
And before she could finish the sentence, Alice passed out. Her body relaxed on the grass and her breathing became slow and deep.
Mark withdrew his hand from Alice’s chest and looked at her for a moment, then turned toward Rose.
Rose was standing with her arms crossed, watching Alice with an expression Mark couldn’t quite decipher.
She didn’t look annoyed, but she didn’t look satisfied with Alice’s answer either.
The exchange between Rose and Alice had been brief, but it had given Mark quite a lot to think about.
Rose clearly had a negative opinion of the clergy and the inquisition, which was apparently the organization Alice belonged to.
That wasn’t surprising given that she was a vampire and those organizations probably considered her an abomination to be eliminated.
’I hope the difference in thinking between these two doesn’t cause problems later...’ Mark thought heavily.
It was obvious that Rose and Alice saw the world in very different ways.
And while for now both were under his command and the situation forced them to cooperate, Mark sensed that sooner or later this would create more friction between them.
’When I have time I should ask more about the general state of the world,’ Mark thought. ’Up until now I’ve stayed pretty ignorant on those topics. I know the basics: that there are dungeons, guilds, a clergy and an inquisition, and that demons exist... But I know almost nothing about how the politics of this world work or the relationships between the different factions.’
Mark let out an internal sigh.
There were too many things he had to deal with now.
Suddenly Mark felt a chill run through his entire body from head to toe, making him shiver slightly, and in that moment he remembered a detail he had completely forgotten during the last few minutes.
He was still naked.
The night air was hitting his skin directly, and now that the adrenaline from watching Alice wake up had worn off, the cold was making itself known with full force.
Rose, who was a few steps away from him, noticed Mark start to shiver.
"Do you want me to bring you your clothes?" Rose asked, looking at him.
"I’d really appreciate it if you could," Mark replied without hesitation.
Rose nodded and turned around, walking toward where they had left their clothes earlier.
Mark, for his part, stayed kneeling beside Alice, waiting for Rose to come back with his clothes.
And as he waited, he noticed his head felt light.
It wasn’t a strong sensation, but it was there.
A mild dizziness that made everything around him shift slightly, as if the ground beneath his knees were swaying almost imperceptibly.
Mark blinked a couple of times trying to focus his eyes.
But the dizziness didn’t go away, in fact it got a little worse.
’Mana,’ Mark thought immediately.
He had been channeling mana into Alice since before his little relaxation session with Rose, and now he had just channeled mana into Alice again.
All of that on top of the fact that he had already arrived at the camp with his mana reserves nearly empty after reanimating Alice and the other five in the dungeon.
’Damn, I think I overdid it.’
