Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 173: A New Realization

Percival hadn’t really thought much about romance since regressing. To be fair, he hadn’t really thought about it in his old life either. However, there was one girl who things had almost worked out with.

Princess Corisande.

Cori. He remembered her diamond eyes, the way she had looked at him with genuine curiosity back in Hollowcreek, before the blood and the chase.

She had not been part of his Party, but he had met her in the former timeline many times. They used to talk on the highest level of her father’s castle, before he set out into Gate Worlds and finally, into Akuma Island.

A bitter pang of regret tightened his chest. She didn’t know who he was in this timeline; all their talks and laughs had never really happened.

Now, she must have thought of him as a savage who slaughtered his way through everything.

Percival didn’t think she was wrong ultimately. Perhaps things were never meant to be between them. Perhaps he would never even see her again.

"I guess you are special," Percival finally answered, his voice a little softer than before, dragging himself back to the present. Lyra beamed, her cheeks turning a deep shade of pink.

"You don’t understand what you’ve done for him," the mother said softly from the head of the table, her gaze resting lovingly on Dared, who was sitting on the floor, mesmerized by the glowing egg.

"With an A-Rank beast... Dared can apply to the top Academies. He’ll be scouted by a guild too. He won’t have to bleed in the mud for coppers. You’ve given my boy a future, and I don’t even know your name."

Percival gazed at the woman. He’d never really experienced the love of a mother. But if it was anything like this, then he agreed that he was missing out.

"I’m Percival," he said after a brief contemplation.

"Percival," the mother tested the name with a smile. She reached across the table and placed her warm, calloused hand over Percival’s armored gauntlet. "Thank you, Percival. May the light of Mothiree always guide your path."

Percival looked down at her hand. It was a simple, touchy beat, completely devoid of political maneuvering or deceit. It was just pure, unadulterated gratitude.

He looked around the small, fire-lit room. The mother’s tearful smile, Lyra’s playful gaze, the boy guarding the egg like it was his own sibling.

He knew now that he had blanketed the world of Evernia with his anger for the rulers. Evernia wasn’t just the Kings, the Dukes and the Awakeners who betrayed him.

It was Dared, Lyra, and their mother. It was people merely trying to get by, merely trying to survive. People who, if he did nothing, would perish under the wrath of Azrael and Asmodea.

For the first time since he had been pulled into this brutal reality, the crushing weight of his anger lifted just a fraction.

Perhaps there are things here actually worth fighting for.

Eventually, the fire burned low, and the hour grew late. Percival knew he had to keep moving. The longer he stayed in one place, the higher the chance Ithalan’s or Eutheo’s men would find him.

He stood up, adjusting his cloak. "Thank you for the meal. It was the best I’ve had in a long time."

"You’re always welcome here at home," Lyra said, stepping close to hand him his cowl, her eyes holding his for a long moment. "Don’t be a stranger, mysterious traveler."

Percival offered her a faint, genuine smile. "Stay safe, Lyra."

He walked to the door, pulling it open to the cool night air of Southmarch. Dared scrambled up from the floor, abandoning the egg for a moment to run to the doorway.

The boy looked up at him, his face serious, completely stripped of his earlier childish bravado.

"I promise, sir," Dared said, his voice steady. "I won’t let you down. I’ll keep it in the hearth fire. I’ll make sure it hatches strong. I’ll take care of him, and he’ll be my best friend. Nobody will ever cage him."

Percival reached out and ruffled the boy’s messy hair.

"I know you will, Dared. Raise a king, kid."

With that, Percival stepped out into the muddy street, letting the shadows of the market swallow him whole.

He felt anew. A weight had lifted off his chest that he hadn’t realized he’d been carried. He had needed that more than he would ever know.

—---—

Moments later, Percival climbed on his Skeleton Steed and rode from capital Crimson City into the villages.

He arrived at Deathlehem by the night’s hour.

The village was cold, isolating, and entirely uneventful, though that was a welcome reprieve from the chaotic sensory overload back in the Beast Market.

As Percival crested the final jagged ridge just after midnight, the village of Deathlehem sprawled out below him, bathed in the pale, ethereal light of the moon.

It was far more sophisticated to be an ordinary village. In fact, with the architecture, it had the makings of a city, or at the very least, a town.

Deathlehem was surrounded with black basalt walls veined with rust-red iron deposits, their surfaces scarred by centuries of wind-whipped sand and pockmarked with ironwood beams.

Houses had narrow slit windows and wooden doors, a squat watchtower at the far end crowned by iron spikes was visible from the gate.

Battlements along the ramparts displayed rusted racks of spears and coiled chains, and at the base, practical drainage ditches spilled murky water from overflowing vats.

They were more advanced than the casual village.

Yet, despite that, what struck Percival the most was the absolute, suffocating silence.

This place was as silent as a graveyard. A bloody ghost town. Almost no noise was audible. Two men sat by a house, chatting with each other, and when Percival rode by, they watched him like hawks.

Percival pulled his cowl tight against the biting wind and dismounted Argus. He returned the Skeleton Beast to his Summon Space, to the surprise of the two men, then aligned his steps down the main thoroughfare.

His boots clicked softly against the meticulously laid cobblestones. At the heart of the city’s central plaza, he paused.

Standing tall in the moonlight was a monument that perfectly encapsulated the grim spirit of the city.

It was a massive statue, cast in rough, blackened iron. The statue depicted a towering, nightmarish Demonspawn with two horns, six limbs, and a maw wide enough to swallow a horse.

Who the hell makes a statue of a Demonspawn?