The Youngest Prince Copies Skills with Skeleton Soldiers

Chapter 04 - Strengthening of Forces

Saving the Youngest Son.

The final wish of all the veteran players in this game.

But in ‘The Five Families,’ an open-world hardcore RPG, no one had ever managed to keep the Youngest Son alive until the end of the story.

The Youngest Son’s best was always just before Act 2, when the war with the other great families began.

The methods of his murder were varied.

Strangulation by the Executioner Knight I had seen before was a given.

Assassination or poisoning by other sons and daughters also happened frequently.

They would hire someone to do the dirty work, make him fall ill, or use curses.

As a player, if I gave power to the Youngest Son, the other sons and daughters became even more wary of it.

With the bloodline of a great family, one that symbolized black magic, determined to kill him.

Blocking all those threats was no easy task.

And even if I blocked all of them.

‘This damn Youngest Son commits suicide.’

It was next to impossible to provide mental care for the Youngest Son amidst the intrigues in both the shadows and the light.

‘But now that I am the Youngest Son, at least I don’t have to worry about dying by suicide.’

…Should I call this fortunate?

Thinking positively, it meant I had reduced one of the many death variables.

Let's say it's something to be quite happy about.

Even if it wasn't, I could erase those variables in chunks here in Dusk Citadel.

‘Seven of them right off the bat. That’s just what I remember, so there could be more inside.’

They were the criminal organizations that the other members of the bloodline had hired to kill the Youngest Son.

The occupations of these organizations were diverse.

There were assassins, curse-casters, and of course, poison masters could not be left out.

Most of the reasons for his early deaths were in there.

‘Once word of what happened at the test gets out, the bloodline will start to move. I have to cut off their hands and feet first.’

That was one of the reasons I came to the Citadel.

And I remembered the hands and feet of the bloodline all too well.

To be precise, they were the ones that were ‘my’ hands and feet in the game.

‘No matter how much of an outcast he is, the number of people with the scale and guts to touch a Millesdusk blood member is small.’

And the scoundrels who would accept a request to target a Millesdusk blood member were also few.

They were truly people with nothing to lose.

They were people who had a reason to rapidly expand their influence, either because they were heavily in debt or their lives were being threatened.

‘Those guys will crumble if you just hit them once when they’re off guard.’

Facing a large number head-on is difficult, but it's a different story with a surprise attack.

Imagine an ogre suddenly leaping into your peaceful home one day.

It would be a bolt from the blue.

I fiddled with the ring-shaped spatial artifact on my finger.

I recalled the lairs and locations of the guys with whom I had a one-sided bad connection.

‘For one blood member to kill another before adulthood can only be seen as petty.’

So you try to outsource, but what can I do?

‘I’m going to destroy them all today.’

***

Dusk Citadel.

The walls, built with black money and blood money, were incredibly high.

Even though it must have taken a lot of manpower (slaves) and a lot of capital, there was not a single person guarding the walls.

If you want to enter, you enter. If you want to leave, you leave.

The procession of carriages and the rough-looking people came and went without anyone's control.

Not a single guard could be found, and the walls were wide open.

‘It’s a level of security possible only because they don’t worry about being conquered from the outside.’

The ones who controlled the Citadel were the ‘Confederation of Malice.’

The four criminal organizations that first created the Citadel passed down their businesses in a family-like concept.

The Confederation, connected by the thick and thin line of blood ties, was the idol and goal of the criminals here.

Because in this ominous land of opportunity, if you were lucky, you could secure a solid position.

‘So instead of worrying about enemies attacking from the outside, they have to cut off the rats climbing up from the inside. Today, I’ll be unintentionally helping with that.’

It didn’t matter.

These rats would soon become my rats and gnaw away at this place.

Swoosh─

I pulled up the hood built into my clothes.

Over there in the Empire, a hood was the symbol of a criminal.

Therefore, here it was everyday wear.

‘Now I can finally breathe a little.’

With the hood as a cover, I could shield myself from the sun, at least a little.

But my field of vision narrowed as a result, so I adjusted my hood and looked around the entrance of the Citadel.

As a fortified residential and industrial complex, various smells wafted in.

‘The smell of unwashed people. The smell of iron. The smell of livestock. The smell of blood. The smell of shit. What a variety.’

The smells, strewn about like clothes at a market, tormented the nose of a vampire half-blood.

Lamenting that I couldn't cover my nose with my hood, I quickened my pace.

‘In order of proximity to the entrance, it’s this way.’

I turned into an alley.

In the Citadel, where narrow paths spread like roots from a single main street.

Thump─

It was easy to bump shoulders.

“Sorry.”

I apologized reflexively.

“This fucking bastard. Are you walking without your damn eyes open? You want me to rip you apart?”

A friendly Dusk Citadel-style reply came back.

Then a hand shot out, grabbed my shoulder, and turned me around.

In the sunlight filtering into the alley, the jawline revealed by the hood was illuminated.

It was too pale to be human skin.

“What the. Are you already dead? Looks like you picked up some weird drug somewhere. Tsk tsk. To eat something you found on the ground here, no matter how hungry you are.”

Was he trying to lecture someone a head shorter than him?

The man tapped my shoulder with his thick hand.

The eyes under the hood scanned from the hand to the body connected to it.

The bone structure and the size of these muscles.

The answer was obvious.

“You should stop going to just any beast sorcerer in this Citadel.”

“…Wh-what?”

To the guy who looked like he’d been hit squarely in a vital spot, I offered some sincere advice.

“The beast sorcerers might make your body bigger and your strength greater for now.”

That was temporary.

Even more so considering the level of the quacks in this Dusk Citadel.

“Stop it. You might be satisfied with beating up some thugs now, but once you cross a certain threshold….”

I made the shape of a mushroom cloud with my hands.

Here, too, it had the same meaning, the same significance.

“Boom.”

“……”

“You’ll explode like a gassy whale.”

“…This son of a bitch, in front of who!”

Whooosh─

A rock-like fist flew at me.

I could see the fist bones, made bigger and harder by beast sorcery.

But if I got hit by something like this.

‘The Queen’s blood flowing in my body would cry.’

I moved my body out of the way as if taking a light stroll.

And I looked at what I had pinpointed earlier.

I had given him advice that would extend his lifespan by at least half, so it felt a bit wrong to let him go without any payment.

“I won’t take your money. But I covet your sunglasses.”

“Crazy bastard, you got lucky and dodged once─”

CRACK!

A fist jabbed into his abdomen like a rapier thrust.

It contained the pure physical strength I was born with as a vampire half-blood and the martial arts of a Northern Sword Family.

“I haven't only played as the Millesdusk Family Head in this game. The things I've experienced... no, the things I've seen and heard are quite numerous.”

Things like family secret arts. Or unique magic. Things like that.

Words that the fallen man wouldn't understand floated in the air.

“And this.”

I picked up the intended object from the face with its tongue lolling out.

“I’ll be taking this.”

I even put on the round sunglasses under my hood.

Now the sunlight was completely blocked.

My eyes could also open more comfortably.

My vision was blurry before, so there would be no more bumping into shoulders.

“It was just ahead.”

I channeled mana into the ring, putting my hand into the spatial artifact.

I chanted the bone sorcery spell with my mouth and created a skeleton soldier.

It was still an empty shell, but it was a precious home for the hearts that would soon lose their owners.

***

Lubosch the coachman.

An intelligence agent sent by his superior, Mirea Rara, to monitor the Youngest Son who went to Dusk Citadel.

His identity was exposed as soon as he departed, but he was still an agent, and his work had to be secretive.

But the target of his surveillance was anything but secretive.

CRACK!

The first was when he sent a large man with sunglasses flying.

At that time, I was slightly surprised and then impressed.

‘I see why a 1st-class agent like Miss Mirea attached a separate surveillance detail.’

I heard he suddenly showed great results in the test of achievement.

‘Indeed. Had he been hiding something until now? Not a single one of his attacks was ordinary.’

My job here was to record that extraordinary change up close and report it.

So I took out my record sheet and moved my hand.

Without rest for the next several hours, during which only destruction followed.

.

.

.

“Pant…. Pant….”

I moved my hand, panting heavily.

On my fingertips and the tip of my pen, everything that had happened so far was written down in detail.

About an hour after the Youngest Son arrived at Dusk Citadel.

He suddenly stopped in front of a business building and raised his hand.

And he said.

“Come out.”

The ring glowed, and the space gaped open.

Swoooosh─

It was an exit for the giant inside to emerge.

But for the heinous criminals inside the building, it was an entrance to hell.

There was no law in Dusk Citadel, and if there was, it was a bad law.

Destroying someone else's building in broad daylight was also legal… well, not legal, but not illegal either.

Because there was no law here in the first place.

The master of the red undead ogre thoroughly showed why the law was a shield for the weak.

“Does he hold some kind of grudge against these people….”

It was at the entrance of Dusk Citadel, but it was a place you had to twist and turn to get to.

The Youngest Son came here intentionally and massacred them for a purpose.

If there was one thing in common.

“They are rookie groups that have recently started to make a name for themselves. I thought it was to recruit them as a force, but that seems to be absolutely not the case.”

The exact reason was impossible to grasp.

However, since I was not the one to judge, I just recorded it.

“The Youngest Son also destroyed several other criminal organizations and took their hearts.”

“I don’t know why it was these groups, but it seems one of the reasons for the attack was to acquire materials needed for sorcery.”

“The undead ogre, a high-level combination of bone sorcery and beast sorcery…. The Youngest Son, with this as his vanguard, did not stop himself either.”

A black magician, that is, a sorcerer, usually puts a summoned creature in front and prepares curses from behind.

Even within the family, there were many sorcerers who fought in such a manner.

But the Youngest Son was different.

“I don’t know where he learned it, but he uses martial arts similar to the northern swordsmen.”

As a sorcerer, taking away the good points of others was a very welcome thing.

It was a point to be admired, not criticized.

“He continues to move while relentlessly controlling the undead ogre. It’s not an easy task at such a young age.”

…It wasn’t the end.

New corpses walked out of the spatial artifact.

The corpses, with their red glow, moved with a fiery power despite their pale skin.

Their faces were familiar.

“…Th-they’re all the very same people whose hearts the Young Master just extracted.”

My hand felt like it was about to fall off, but I gritted my teeth and moved the pen.

“In beast sorcery, it is common for a corpse used as a medium to exhibit its habits from when it was alive even when it becomes undead.”

However, the problem was not with the habits.

It was somewhere deeper than habits.

“Has there ever been a case where they reproduced their own skills…?”

The undead soldiers held the same weapons they had used in life.

From firearms to cold weapons and artifacts.

They wielded them without distinction, displaying their skills to the fullest.

The skills that were used to try and kill the Youngest Son were now turned against his enemies.

“I have never in my life seen a corpse revived by beast sorcery handle dual pistols and blow the heads off two people.”

Those who survived in this hotbed of crime were people who could protect their own lives no matter where you put them.

Their skills did not diminish upon becoming undead; rather, they were displayed as they were, or even more so.

The army of the dead, which had turned three blocks into ruins in an instant.

Only then did the army stop, and only then did its master survey the undead.

“This should be enough. I’ve gathered all the ones I need.”

However, today’s actions, which looked like collecting, were terrorism and indiscriminate slaughter in the eyes of others.

Such a solo run should be stopped.

The guards of this place appeared one after another.

A peculiar sight, wearing gas masks and carrying oak barrels on their backs.

They even wore something like a uniform as they closed in on the surrounding area.

Living as parasites on another family's land, they still put on a show.

Those gas-masked guards held sprayers connected to the oak barrels in their hands.

“Hands up and kneel before the Supervising Soldiers of Dusk Citadel. Otherwise, you will taste a poison gas that will melt your entire body.”

There was no answer.

Pfft.

Only a low sneer flowed from under the hood.