Holy Emperor's Grandson Is A Necromancer

Even though this was in the middle of the day, greyish, chilly fog was blanketing everything eyes could see.

I gripped the shovel real tight and slammed it hard against the ground.

Sweat trickled down as I breathed heavily. My whole body felt as heavy as a soaked sponge.

I glanced to my side at the wagon full of corpses. I was currently burying them underground. Someone unfamiliar with this sight might think he or she ran into a horrifying scene of ma.s.s murder, but regrettably, that wasn"t the case.

"Yup, being a gravekeeper is no picnic."

Indeed, my job was a gravekeeper.

Chilly atmosphere enveloped over the entire graveyard.

I s.h.i.+fted my gaze towards a derelict monastery on the verge of collapsing.

In this northern region covered by snow 365 days a year, the Land of the Dead Spirits - in this land where corpses and zombies rampaged about, I was spending my days as the exiled Imperial Prince.

If you asked who possessed the absolute authority in this Continent, then people would most likely point at just one man.

The king of humanity. An existence that even the lofty emperors had to be respectful/mindful of.

That, in a nutsh.e.l.l, was the Holy Emperor, referred to as G.o.d"s emissary.

Anyone inheriting such a Holy Emperor"s bloodline would be treated as person blessed with a n.o.ble lineage. Too bad, my situation was somewhat different from that.

"Banishment, is it."

I clicked my tongue and stared at the side of the graveyard.

The weather might have been chilly, but flies still buzzed around the corpses atop the wagon, with maggots crawling all over them as their companions.

I hoisted the shovel on my shoulder, a bitter grin etched on my lips.

"Why did it have to be this particular body, though?"

I wasn"t sure whether this was a reincarnation or a possession, but what mattered here was the fact that the owner of this body had been banished to this Land of the Dead Spirits.

He was then given the job of a gravekeeper.

The reason was pretty simple - he was a complete trash, a maggot no one wanted to a.s.sociate with.

Honestly speaking, this body"s original memories didn"t exist anymore. But, I did hear some stories.

Like, while walking around the imperial palace, he"d get bored so he summoned a servant only to kick and slap the living h.e.l.l out of the poor person.

He might see a servant girl walking around and s.e.xually a.s.sault her, or he"d mercilessly beat up a tutor coming to teach him just because he got bored.

Sure, a portion of n.o.bles would also do something like that, so such simple reasons couldn"t have been enough to get an Imperial Prince banished here and become a gravekeeper instead.

No, the actual reason why he got banished to not just a regular frontier region but a very dangerous one at that, and had to become a gravekeeper was…..

….[Blasphemy], that"s what.

The libido of the Holy Emperor"s grandson had awakened and he tried to rape a certain esteemed daughter of a n.o.ble who came to the Theocratic Empire to train to become a lady-in-waiting.

During the deed itself, he was discovered by an Archbishop who came to pay his respects to the Holy Emperor. Now normally….

– Tsk, tsk. That mangnani is causing another incident.

….That"s where it should"ve ended, with him stopping the youth.

The problem, though, was that the girl in training happened to be the granddaughter of the same Archbishop.

The granddaughter he sent to the Imperial Palace to learn refinement and etiquette was about to be raped, and he got to witness that sorry sight.

Of course the Archbishop flipped his lid.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the incident of the Archbishop beating the living daylights out of the Imperial Grandson with the crosier he was carrying around really broke out.

Right away, both of them were summoned before the Holy Emperor.

One could say that the next-most powerful person beside the Cardinal was the Archbishop, but such a thing wouldn"t matter after beating up the Holy Emperor"s grandson. But, as the grandson was also guilty in this case, both were punished with two months of house arrest.

Things seemed to have calmed down with that, but then….

– He dared to hit me?

The immature boy of 15 years old sneaked into the Archbishop"s quarters and proceeded to burn the holy scriptures. He broke the cross and then painted the wall with large letters that read - "A lowly b*stard who sleeps with G.o.ddess Gaia!"

This was a theocracy, and on top of that, he was the Holy Emperor"s grandson, yet he dared to blaspheme. What a crazy reckless fool he was.

Thanks to that, the Holy Emperor"s pant-up rage exploded, and he promptly banished his grandson to the Land of the Dead Spirits up north.

The Imperial Grandson"s authority and status were stripped away from him, and he was even ordered to perform services to the village there.

– Mourn for the dead and improve yourself that way.

That was probably what the Holy Emperor was thinking of.

Post-banishment, the influence the boy possessed as the potential successor of the Holy Emperor vanished, too. He didn"t even have escorts.

It was easy to guess the Emperor"s intentions here. He was not going to give a d*mn even if the boy got kidnapped by another country, or his life was endangered by something else in this Land of the Dead Spirits.

Literally, the boy was abandoned by the Holy Emperor.

"Even then, suicide is just not on, dude."

The grandson, full of dissatisfaction, went down to a nearby village and went on a rampage. He acted like an a**e, and not even a day later, Paladins came to visit him.

The Imperial Grandson got subdued in an instant, and he was imprisoned inside the monastery with nothing but prayers and water as his nourishment. After that day, the boy became truly enraged.

– This is unfair. Too unfair. How dare those lowly things….!

Perhaps as a lofty Imperial Grandson, this whole thing must"ve been completely unacceptable.

But then again, he got banished to some backwoods to lug around corpses and shovel the ground, so he probably couldn"t see the way forward anymore.

Was that the reason?

By the time ‘I" gained consciousness, I was flailing about on a noose around my neck after he hanged himself.

Indeed, the Holy Emperor"s dumb grandson complained about his sad fate and tried to kill himself.

"Well, it doesn"t matter now, does it?"

That was all in the past now. Not something I should particularly worry about, anyway. This body had become mine, and my second life had begun.

It"d been nice to live a life of a gold spoon in the Imperial Palace, but well, staying as a gravekeeper wasn"t so bad, either. No, this suited my personality better.

Maybe because of the Profession ‘Necromancer" I chose in the game I was playing as my part-time work in the previous life, I didn"t feel any repulsion when handling all these corpses.

h.e.l.l, all these dreary, gloomy fog and the still silence, as well as the lingering stench came across as rather okay to me, instead.

"I sincerely pray that I"m not some loon who loves dead bodies…."

I muttered to myself and glanced at the corpses.

There was something really odd about me, though. For sure, a Necromancer was a sorcerer-related profession that used demonic energy to rule over death. But now, it felt as if the characteristics of that particular profession had been altered somewhat.

I glanced around the vicinity. After confirming that no one was around, I cautiously touched one of the corpses.

Suddenly, the body ready to be buried emitted white light, and sure enough, it began standing back up on its feet while creaking like a wooden doll.

– Oh, ooooh….

Rotting flesh, empty eye sockets, even the unmistakable stagger. This was, without a doubt, a dang zombie. I frowned deeply while looking at such a creature.

"….Why do you possess divinity, though??"

Forget about the aura of death, this zombie was overflowing with the aura of life, instead.

It was a zombie filled with ‘divinity".

The grim reaper-like Necromancy skills I possessed were [Resurrection of the Dead], [Dead Spirit Soldier], [Plague of Debilitation], [Swamp of Death], and [Horrifying Curse]. As for sundry pa.s.sive skills, I also boasted the [Mind"s Eye] and [Translation], etc.

I possessed a couple other skills, but it seemed that I couldn"t use them yet. I wasn"t able to recall them at all.

However, they sometimes flitted in and out of my mind, so I thought that it depended on my proficiency with the skills in order to activate them.

"In the case of my Necromancy skills, they display effects closely related to all things life-related."

For instance, if I summoned zombies or skeletons, they appeared full of divinity, not demonic energy. The ‘Plague" and the ‘Curse" actually granted blessings, all the while ‘Swamp of Death" actually summoned a pit filled with holy water.

All the skills that foretold one"s death had now been altered to the ones that bestowed life, instead. The reason for that must be…

"Probably the fault of this body."

I took a closer look at my current body. Rather than demonic energy, it was br.i.m.m.i.n.g full with divinity.

Even though he was a complete as*hole and possessed not a shred of faith in his bones, he was still blessed with a sizeable amount of divinity because he was the grandson of the Holy Emperor.

I wasn"t sure what the levels of other Priests were like around these parts, but this was probably about average in his age group.

"Imperial Prince-nim…. Your highness….!"

A voice called out to me from beyond the foggy footpath. I looked back to discover two men who seemed to be farmers ungainly making their way out of the forest"s narrow path.

They were wearing masks, and with some difficulty, lugged around a corpse. I was so preoccupied that I failed to notice them approaching me.

"Go inside."

The divinity zombie wiggled about and showed some reaction.

It willingly entered the pit on the ground and comfortably laid down. As an added bonus, it began dragging in the surrounding earth to bury itself. I took care of the remainder.

I grunted heavily while closing up the earth and carefully hardened the ground.

"Nice."

While feeling satisfied, I sneaked a glance at the farmers approaching me.

"Huh? Weren"t you with someone just now, sir?"

"No ways."

I shook my head to deny it.

It"d be better for the villagers stay oblivious about the undead.

Could you even imagine what kind of reactions there would be if the Holy Emperor"s grandson was hanging around zombies?

– The Holy Emperor"s seventh grandson has grown disheartened by his fate and signed a contract with the devil!

I managed to ‘miraculously" survive the suicide attempt, but now I was controlling zombies? A heresy inquisitor might get dispatched here immediately.

It"d be rather difficult convincing the Priests of the Holy Emperor"s kingdom who only believed what they wanted to believe in the first place.

"So, uh, Imperial Prince-nim. Uhm…."

As for me, I was referred to either the Imperial Prince or the Seventh Prince. Now originally, I should"ve been referred to as the ‘Imperial Grandson(皇孫)". The thing was, the Holy Emperor"s son, ‘my" father who was the first in the line, had already ascended to the throne - and promptly went missing afterwards.

So, my current ‘t.i.tle" was the Imperial Prince.

"W-we greet Your Highness the Imperial Prince-nim."

There was no way that a couple of villagers from the sticks would know anything about decorum or etiquette. The two farmers belatedly bowed their heads a little as their greeting.

For some reason, they seemed to be minding my mood, too.

The original owner of this body must"ve thrown an almighty tantrum after such greetings were offered in his way. Probably.

I actually preferred these simpler greetings, though. Besides that, I also had no clue on the established decorum or etiquette myself, so I was in no position to demand that from these two, anyway.

I pointed at the corpse with my chin and spoke to the farmers. "And what is that now?"

Feeling a bit fatigued, I stabbed the shovel on the ground and leaned against it.

The farmers quickly explained the story behind the dead body.

"You see, sir, my neighbour Beron died from the plague."

"Euh-euhk, so scary. I"m worried about us getting infected by the plague ourselves and die later."

"You didn"t cremate the body?" said I in pure dissatisfaction, causing the farmers to look at each other.

Then, they replied with awkward expressions.

"Well, that…. You know, it"s a bit…. We weren"t that close, but we still said good mornings everyday, so we figured that he should be buried like a person at least, you see. We heard that a simple purification ceremony is enough to let us bury him as a regular corpse."

"W-we got tasked with this job recently, so we don"t know much about the finer details on what we should do, sir. How should we even cremate….."

I glared at them with eyes filled with dissatisfaction and raised myself up.

It"d be fine to cremate the body and bring only the ashes, but these villagers seemed to be rather disinclined to harm the corpses, perhaps due to the affection they felt towards one another or something.

Obviously, the number of things I had to do would increase because of that, but oh well.

I raised my shovel up high.

The farmers were startled greatly and they backtracked in a hurry.

"I-Imperial Prince-nim?!"

One farmer was panicking, while….

"I told you, his old habit is still there! He didn"t change after his suic….!!"

….The other farmer was shouting loudly, his complexion ashen.

They probably thought that my shovel was aimed at them.

It was then.

– Ku-ohhhh!!

The corpse wrapped tightly in fabric suddenly writhed and began moving. It extended its hand out and grabbed one of the farmers.

Its cheeks tore open; its mouth split open wide as if its jaw wanted to fall off.

Just before the d*mn thing could take a bite out of the farmer"s neck, though, my shovel sliced down. The edges of the farming tool slammed into the animated corpse"s head.

"Hiieeek?!"

The farmers got the shock of their lives and ended up falling on their as*es.

I lightly dusted my hand and spoke. "I keep saying this to you people."

I then raised the shovel and performed the kill confirm shot. A rather bone-chilling noise issued out.

"If you don"t cremate, it"ll turn into a zombie in three, four days."

This world was rather unique in that way.

I wasn"t sure about a bustling city, but the thing was, when a person died near shady spots such as somewhere out in the remote rural areas, some gloomy forest or, even in the middle of a battlefield, one out of ten he or she would be revived as a zombie.

It was like the rule of this world or some such.

And the ones tasked with dealing with such zombies among the villagers were ‘hunters", the ‘gravekeeper", or the Priests.

The strength of the surrounding vicinity of the ‘Land of the Dead Spirits" was especially strong, however. Because, this was the final resting ground of the Necromancer King who dyed the continent into the ocean of death in the past.

Thanks to that, someone dying in this place had 50% chance of turning into an undead. The villagers knew this, yet their dumb whims meant they were reluctant to cremate the dead with their own hands.

Their reasoning was simple - a superst.i.tion about getting cursed themselves.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead. I drank some water out of the leather waterskin attached to my hips. "Whatever. You worked hard. You can go now."

I waved my hands dismissively.

The two farmers swallowed nervously and stood back up. They then studied each other"s moods before quietly opening their mouths. "Excuse me…. Imperial Prince-nim?"

"What now?"

I stared at them as I drank some more water.

"I-Imperial Prince-nim, you… You"re a Priest in a way, yes?"

"Don"t know c**p about being a Priest or not, but I"m the grandson of the Holy Emperor, sure. The grandson of a man who enjoys the authority of an emperor and a pope at the same time."

Well, that"s what I was on the outside…. Ah, I forgot about the divinity inside me.

"I-in that case, is it possible for you to bless us so that we won"t get infected by the plague?"

I looked at them with a less-than-impressed glare.

What the h.e.l.l were they on about? There"s no way you wouldn"t get infected by the plague with something like that. You think that"s some sort of vaccination?

Besides, I didn"t even possess such skills, either. I wasn"t even a Priest, but a d*mn Necromancer, so why the h.e.l.l….

I shook my head, but the farmers didn"t give up so easily.

"E-even if it"s just a simple baptism…."

They held hands and begged, their expressions seriously earnest.

The plague doing the rounds recently must"ve been pretty serious. But then again, corpses were frequently brought into the graveyard, so there was that.

At this rate, it wouldn"t be strange to see a whole village disappear.

"What do you mean, a baptism? I"ve never done anything like that before."

"P-please, don"t be like that."

These farmers seemed to be under the mistaken a.s.sumption that I wasn"t helping them out because I couldn"t be bothered about their fate. They rummaged through their pockets and fished out a handful of coins before presenting me with those.

"This isn"t much, but please…."

Indeed, it was literally a pocket change that a little kid might carry around. I alternated my gaze between the two farmers, and they looked back at me with pleading faces.

I spat out a lengthy groan. "….If that can put your minds at ease."

Even though I said that, I didn"t know how to perform a baptism or whatever. I mean, when did I ever do something like that before?

I tried to recall what I saw in pa.s.sing from the TV awhile ago.

I lightly sprayed water from the waterskin at the two farmers. After drawing a sloppy cross in the air, I mumbled out. "Uh, so. Uhm, amen?"

Even if it was just for a show, I thought it"d be discourteous not to do it.

Now originally, one would have to spray around holy water and recite the holy scripture, but as I didn"t know how to do that, I decided to just gloss over the finer details.

Farmers saw how sloppy I was and sighed under their breaths. Still, they gathered their hands and offered their prayers.

"We pray that Gaia"s blessing be with us."

It was exactly then.

[You have blessed your target.]

….But, how??

< 002.="" imperial="" prince="" is="" a="" gravekeeper="" -1=""> Fin.

(TL: "-Nim" suffix is a Korean honorific t.i.tle that usually is attached to one"s profession, i.e. teacher-nim. But, it can also be used as a show of respect as well.)

(TL: Fun fact – Korean word for Necromancy/Necromancer can also be translated as "dead spirits technique/dead spirits wielder". Which is pretty spot-on, I"d say.)

that means they know that he killed himself??!