NOVEL WEB Chapter 12: It's Not a Fireball
===A Certain Undead With Communication Disorder===
「Haa… They were vigilant till the end, huh….」
My mind reeled as I pondered what happened after I left the city.
I should have sealed my leaking miasma, and yet… They were still frightened for no reason, even going as far as to attack me. It was a farfetch from the place for a proper conversation.
I even approached them with my best smile, and yet…
Was it the fault of this tattered clothing of mine?
「But then, since I saw those four adventurers I met first in the crowd… I guess they already reported me as a dangerous undead.」
That might have been the reason they attacked me.
Although I didn't know the reason, I somehow regained my ego while being an undead.
But still―No, it wasn't "but." It was simply 「I want to die quickly」.
There were countless people who endlessly pursued immortality.
But for me who gained that by accident, it was nothing more than pain in the a*s.
I wanted to enter eternal rest as soon as possible.
And yet, I still had no idea how to accomplish that.
On top of being extremely tough, it seemed this body of mine was also equipped with high self-restoration power, which increased the difficulty of killing me.
Honestly, I was already on the verge of giving up.
That was why I needed someone's cooperation. And for that, I had to improve my communication skills to prevent another misunderstanding.
「But still, there really is no city or village around this area, huh…」
Before I realized it, I had arrived at the edge of wastelands, entering the seemingly never-ending steppe.
I couldn't sense any other humans, no matter how long I wandered this place.
Before I knew it, it was dusk, and day changed to night soon after.
There was not a single star in the sky.
「And yet… I can still see clearly.」
This area was supposed to be surrounded by total darkness, but mostly likely due to my status as an undead, I could see my surroundings clearly.
Naturally, I didn't feel hungry or sleepy at all.
Thus, it was possible for me to continue my journey, even at night.
Even so, I decided to take a rest.
My mind couldn't calm down if I continued to traverse this seemingly never-ending scenery.
「Let's make a bonfire.」
I, who suddenly recalled the memories of venturing out into the wilderness when I was still alive, started to gather dried leaves and branches to make a bonfire.
Come to think of it, in those days, I also burned a type of grass that had a foul-smelling odor hated by monsters.
But the current me had nothing like that. I mean, it wasn't like those monsters would come anyway.
Thus, I readied myself to ignite the fire with magic.
I was a swordsman when I was alive, but I learned basic fire magic, which was fundamental for camping out in the wilderness.
「Fire」
It was the most basic type of fire magic, a spell to create a small spark―Or rather… It was supposed to be…
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
A raging pillar of fire appeared, instantly burning the dried leaves and branches to ash.
「… Eh?」
I ended up standing still, a dumbfounded look on my face for a while after that surreal scene.
「Eh? W-Wait a minute… What in the world is happening here? Isn't this supposed to be a fireball spell?」
The fire magic I could use was up to fireball, a beginner-level spell.
But even if, for example, I mistakenly used a different spell just now, the power wasn't supposed to be this strong, and yet…
「Could it be that my amount of mana has shot through the roof? So huge that one percent of my current mana is actually thousands of times my former mana?」
I readily accepted that fact.
It seemed I put quite a lot of mana into the spell, despite only doing it so lightly.
「But still, I wonder what will happen if I use a real fireball spell with my maximum power?」
… Let's find it out.
Fortunately, this was an abandoned area.
「Fireball」
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON?!
「??!!」
The next moment, I almost thought that I saw a miniature sun appear out of thin air.
The bright red, giant, blazing ball in front of me shot forward at a terrifying speed, burning everything in its path and leaving a trail of cinder in its wake.
Its size was a hundred times—no—more than hundreds of times that of a normal fireball.
In addition, it was supposed to die out after traveling a hundred meters at most, but I could still see it blazing as bright as before, even as it passed over the horizon.
The ground and stones in its wakes had turned into liquid.
「… There's no city in that direction, right?」
I prayed to myself with a cramped smile on my face.
Then, I suddenly realized something.
「Could it be that I can actually burn myself to death with this firepower?」
I tried out my idea without a second thought.
I pointed my palm toward me, and unlike before, I imagined my magic burning in a single location—right at the center of my body.
「Fireball!」
The next moment, my vision was dyed in a blazing red color.
I then muttered.
「… This fire is useless fire, huh.」
A little bit of my skin got scorched by that blazing fire, but that was all it could do. The scorched wound healed as soon as it appeared.
By the time the blazing fire had settled down, I stood there unscathed.
◇ ◇ ◇
===A Certain Female Holy Knight===
「What did you say? A mysterious undead appeared in Coastal?」
I unintentionally stooped forward when I received the report.
「Yes, no doubt about it, Captain Emile. This report come directly from our branch in Coastal.」
My capable subordinate, the vice captain of my squad Porm, nodded to answer my question.
When I heard more about that undead, I knew that it was truly an unknown undead.
「Is he a new family member… of that guy? If it's true, this matter will affect our plan.」
The guy I was referring to was Jean Diego, the most wicked necromancer and our current target.
The crimes of this man, who had become the world's most-wanted fugitive, were numerous and far too heinous to describe, so much so that no one would even mention them.
Many nations and organizations were trying to capture him. Alas, all of those attempts ended in failure.
One of those organizations was Saint Melt, a religion that spread far and wide in the western countries.
We, the special squad which was composed of Holy Knights who belonged to our religion, were the prided Salvation Army. Albert's Order of Holy Knights had been dispatched in the last few months to track Jean Diego down and detain him right away.
And finally, all evidence led us to come to this country, Romana kingdom. It had been a few days since we arrived in this kingdom.
I moved my line of sight to THAT, an item that hadn't left my side ever since we undertook this mission.
It was a special Holy Spear given to me by the upper echelon of our organization to accomplish our duty.
In addition, I wasn't the only one bestowed with this weapon; all members of our team were equipped with the same weapon.
「No undead can't be purified by the power of this Holy Spear.」
The most frightening fact about Jean was that he was always surrounded by powerful undeads acting as bodyguards.
We couldn't be careless in this mission since all of his undead were people who used to be heros.
But we had nothing to fear, as long as we had this Holy Spear, which had been painstakingly developed by our organization to raise its destructive power against the undead.
We would definitely subjugate that b*stard for sure this time, for the sake of erasing our stigma.
… Jean was a former priest of our Saint Melt Religion.
He was a heretic who secretly captured the believers of our faith to use as his necromancy guinea pigs.
Thus, our religion felt the responsibility to capture him.
That was why we gathered the most elite of the elites amongst the Holy Knights to form a subjugation squad to hunt down that guy.
「But there was something a bit off about him.」
「Something a bit off?」
「When the undead arrived right before Coastal city, a battle unfolded between him and the adventurers of Coastal city. But here's the strangest thing: he never actually fought back…」
「Speaking of Coastal city, it should be the home base of many adventurers of gold rank and above who want to challenge the Demon's Den, right?」
That already showed how much power that undead possessed..
But, the thing I was most worried about was the fact that the undead didn't even try to hide as he approached the city.
Jean was an extremely cautious person.
Even his undead subordinates rarely appeared before others.
「Are there some sort of special circumstances? Or else… He changed his modus operandi?」
But still, both didn't feel right with Jean's personality.
「Moreover, that undead just left without harming anyone in the city.」
「W… What did you say?」
Yes, that action was what confused me the most.
It was not like he was running away from the adventurers.
It was still hard to say whether this undead was related to Jean or not at this point.
But still,
「Anyways, let's go to Coastal.」
My pride as a Holy Knight wouldn't allow me to let such a dangerous undead roam free.
Moreover, there was no way that Jean would leave such an undead to do as he pleased.
Thus, we headed to Coastal to confirm the news about the undead.