Former General Is Undead Knight

Volume 3, Chapter 50: The Last of Tetomburgh①

Lambert picked up his greatsword and returned it to its sheath.

He used his undead ability to sense mana to make sure that none of Charlobe’s mana remained and that the man was truly dead this time.

The most troublesome thing about sorcerers was the fact that some of them were hard to kill.

「…It seems he’s dead for good this time.」

「Where is… this? Where are Elise-chan… and the the kingdom soldiers?」

While Lambert was scanning his surroundings, Alante had woken up.

「Did you know that your body had been hijacked by 『Spinner of the Truth』? He’s a rare sorcerer who managed to fool me, but… You should’ve felt that something was amiss.」

「…N-no way!」

Alante’s mouth opened wide in shock.

But Alante himself had been considered one of such possibilities.

First, why was he, a mere amateur sorcerer with nothing to speak of, summoned to Tetomburg? And why did he receive such special treatment from Tony Lair when he had no achievements whatsoever?

Second, upon arriving in the city, he often lost consciousness, and sometimes he even lost a whole day’s worth of memories.

Although he dismissed those questions again and again, they always came back to haunt him.

「U-uh, ugh…」

Alante vomited.

No one could easily accept the fact that someone else was living as a parasite in their body all along.

「But I’ve already taken care of that problem. Can you move on your own?」

Alante nodded lightly.

「We should regroup with Kreuz and the others. I will protect you until then, but… Honestly the one who possessed your body was truly a troublesome fella. I don’t want anyone else to know the results of his research. I’ll make rounds to destroy all things related to the research in this facility to prevent it from being misused by others later.」

「What about Elise-chan and the others? Are they still with Kreuz-san?」

「Yeah.」

「…If that’s the case, I won’t go. Now I’ve started to remember all kinds of cruel things I did to her…」

Now that he was aware that his body had been hijacked by Charlobe, he could remember pieces of his memories.

He could vaguely remember what Charlobe said using his mouth at that time.

「That b*stard said a lot of things. But… Elise trusted you till the end. So rest assured, she knows it wasn’t you who spoke back then.」

Alante was looking at Lambert with a dumbfounded look for a while after hearing that, and then bowed to the latter.

「…Thank you very much.」

Lambert looked at Alante’s back, but then, he turned around before Alante’s figure vanished from view.

In Lambert’s opinion, Alante himself was a really talented sorcerer.

His priority was to make sure that none of Charlobe’s research results remained rather than sending Alante back to a safe place.

Yes, he couldn’t let any future generation learn 『Ectoplasm』.

「The problem is that I have no idea what remains and where it would be…」

He had to consider the worst possibility.

Not just the underground research facility, he had to scour the abandoned buildings above and search for tunnels.

Charlobe’s legacy mustn’t be passed on to the future generation.

The first thing he did was go down to the underground research facility, running around while destroying the water tank containing chimeras or homunculi.

As a non-sorcerer, the only option for Lambert was to destroy everything, leaving nothing behind.

The materials and books were gathered and burned later.

「…」

Lambert picked up the presence of a few people.

Since the underground research facility was pretty much deserted when he arrived, he confirmed that the sorcerers in this place had abandoned it and might return later after the turmoil subsided.

Although he couldn’t dismiss the possibility of a hidden room, there was a high chance that the newcomers arrived from the front entrance.

「Who’s there…?」

As if responding to Lambert’s voice, a strange-looking swordsman appeared from the door.

They only had their upper half, floating in the air without anything below their torso.

They had porcelain-white skin as if made from inorganic material, wings growing from their back, and the part where their face should be was scooped out.

Those were the features of spirits from the realm of light.

Their long and eerie hands were holding a longsword over two heins (meters).

The grotesque-looking swordsman closed in at once and swung their sword, while Lambert was readying himself.

In less than a moment, Lambert had already unsheathed his sword and bisected the grotesque swordsman in half.

The right and left sides of the inhabitant of the realm of light fell to the ground, dissolved into particles of light, and vanished like smoke.

「Suddenly using a spirit… Must be a really skilled user.」

No one replied to Lambert’s remark.

Instead, a loud and eerie scream came from the entrance of the room.

It seemed the ceiling was torn down, turning into a pile of rubble.

Seeing that their spirit had failed to eliminate the target, the other party didn’t hesitate to destroy the facility, but they clearly went overboard.

If the other party wasn’t Lambert, they would surely be buried alive beneath the rubbles.

Lambert ran toward the entrance immediately, jumping, rolling, kicking, punching, parrying the debris, and finally emerging into the corridor.

Three people had already been waiting for him there.

They were covered in black uniforms with the same headgear and armguards. Their appearance made them look like dolls instead of living people.

Thus, it was also impossible to distinguish them by gender.

But there was a crest on the robe that covered the area around their eyes.

It was the crest of the Heins faith, the national religion of the Regios kingdom ever since Lambert was alive.

「People from the church, huh. Rest assured, this is not my facility.」

Lambert dropped his sword, showing that he wasn’t hostile.

But the sorcerers from the church raised their canes.

「O FLAME, BURN!」

Lambert slipped in between the gap of the flames and knocked down two people with his hand chop.

He struck the last one who tried to fire their spell toward Lambert’s back with his backhand.

Their cane was smashed to pieces, falling to the ground.

He didn’t kill them. He only made them faint since there really was no other way to confirm his hostility.

‘They don’t seem very vigilant. Are they just imposters?’

Lambert tore off the headgear of one of the sorcerers to confirm the other party’s face.

The Heins faith’s crest was tattooed on their forehead, their eyes were closed shut, and their eyelids were sewed together with thread.

This kind of ritual to prevent one from opening their eyes was something done even when Lambert was still alive.

Since they lived a life in which they had to rely on their sorcery to sense their surroundings instead of their senses, it was only natural for them to become extremely talented sorcerers. At the same time, that also distanced them from greed.

‘It’s way… too intricate… for a mere imposter.’

Even Lambert himself knew that their appearance was a bit too conspicuous.

Nevertheless, they never lent ears to Lambert’s words at all.

Lambert felt something was off about the way they moved.