Holy Emperor's Grandson Is A Necromancer

Complexions of the villagers paled instantly.

They were stunned silly after witnessing the Holy Emperor"s foolish grandson grandly blaspheme their G.o.ddess. If a high-ranking church official was nearby, then they"d collapse from pure, unbridled shock. I"d have nothing to defend myself with when they try to arrest me for blasphemy.

I thought I could hear someone whisper, "Could it that the Imperial Prince brought this plague upon us?"

It wouldn"t be surprising to see the villagers thinking that a calamity befell them as a punishment for the Holy Emperor"s grandson committing blasphemy.

I dry coughed and looked towards the front. The zombie horde was coming.

[Name: Zombie

Age: ???

Speciality: Biting, clawing.

+ Currently in ‘instinctively ravenous" state]

My Mind"s Eye returned that truly sloppy information window.

But, that was enough; as implied, these creatures were slaves to their primal instincts, capable of only biting and clawing with their hands. The menfolk from the village should be more than enough to deal with that lot.

"Heeeiiik!!"

The only problem right now was that they were in a petrified state. They began stepping back while voicing their dissatisfaction to me.

"Your highness, this is impossible! How do you expect us to fight them? We"re not a Priest like you!"

I kinda understood their position. If not for being a Necromancer, I"d be sh*tting my pants by now, too. For the time being, I ignored them and silently glared at the zombies. One of the scared villagers shouted out.

"I, I can"t do this! We might survive if we run away now! M-my daughter, she"s inside the monastery, so if I take her and run, we….?!"

The man stopped yapping suddenly, his eyes growing larger. He noticed a female zombie staggering in the middle of the horde, that was why.

"M-my, wife….?!"

The man formed a despairing expression. Tears flooded down his cheeks as he began wailing.

I observed the woman in the midst of the zombies. Half of her face had been ripped off. She looked pretty gruesome, what with various parts of her body riddled with bite wounds.

Although unfortunate, that woman was no longer his wife. No, she was just another walking dead.

I ignored the sobbing man and placed the shovel on my shoulder. While doing my best to look unperturbed, I raised my voice. "Wow, that"s a lot of zombies, alright. Leaving them alone like this will cause a serious issue later. Killing them quickly and ending this calamity right now is probably for the best."

I forced the corners of my lips to arc up, but boy, acting wasn"t easy at all. Even I was feeling a bit tense right now. We weren"t talking about one or two zombies here, but several hundreds.

Getting bitten wouldn"t simply end with a bit of pain, either. You"d really die if a whole bunch of them start biting you.

I began taking in deep breaths in order to settle my nerves. But then…

"I can"t do this!! I can"t!!" The sobbing man loudly shouted at me. "You, you, I know you all can"t do it, either!!" He then yelled at the rest of the villagers as if to lodge a protest. Pointing at the zombie horde emerging from the forest, he continued on. "They were our family members! They were our friends and our neighbours! But are you telling me to kill them??"

I scanned the villagers. Unrest was rising up among them. This was problematic. Not only were they falling into a bout of pure fear, they were even losing the courage to wield their weapons right now.

I quickly opened my mouth. "They are already dead. Nothing will change by ignoring reality."

The man was startled by that, and he began glaring at me. His tearful eyes were now filled with murderous hate.

"What a headache this is," said I, before walking up to the man. I lightly patted him on the shoulder and did my best to sound as gentle as I could be. "Fine, you can"t fight so you want to run, instead? Do what you want. I won"t stop you."

The man heard my permission, s.h.i.+fted her gaze back to his zombified wife, and then started backpedalling once more.

"However, you better stay sharp so that your zombie wife doesn"t hurt your little girl."

That stopped the man dead in his tracks.

I glanced at him and continued on. "I"ll say this again. That thing is no longer alive."

I pointed at the zombified woman. He turned around to look at his former wife once more.

"She looks pretty gruesome on the outside, right? Too bad, she looks even worse inside. What do you think has happened to her, really?"

You see, the [Mind"s Eye] didn"t only tell me the target"s ‘speciality".

"Her corpse is rotting away, while her soul has become a wandering spectre, howling out from all that suffering right now."

Maybe it was due to the effects of the Necromancer profession, the skill allowed me to see the soul of the departed, as well. Distorted souls overlapping with hundreds of zombies were screaming out in pain.

This was one of the reasons why I made graves and performed purification ceremony. Without the ceremony, these souls would never be saved and continue to scream for eternity.

"She, she"s suffering?"

The man"s eyes were trembling.

I nodded my head. "Of course. She"s become an undead that harms other people, so who in their right mind would be happy about that?"

"……"

"If you let her be like this, she"ll never be saved, destined to roam the world as a spectre forever. Her corpse will rot and only the skeletons will remain. She"d remain as the undead for a very long time, with no one to save her." I picked up the discarded farming tool and pushed it back at him. "If that"s the case, how about you lessening her suffering? Your wife probably wants to close her eyes in her husband"s presence. Don"t you think so?"

The man was no longer looking at me. He silently stared at his zombified wife, his hands gripping the farming tool tighter and tighter.

Tears fell, his expression crumpling even further.

That was a face of a man in agony. However, his eyes stopped wavering now, his gaze towards his dead wife transforming into a glare.

He must"ve made his decision, then.

I patted him on the back. "The dead should remain as dead, while living should go on and live." I then scanned the rest of the villagers. "I don"t care if you decide to run away. However, there won"t be any guarantees of you surviving by doing that. These aren"t your run of the mill zombies. They are smart enough to cut off all the exits, even. You think you"ll be able to evade such zombies? Nope, it"s utterly impossible."

Most of those who escaped to elsewhere other than the monastery had turned into zombies. So, trying to escape from here now wouldn"t get you very far.

"In that case, there"s only one way out of this." I raised my shovel and pointed at the zombies. I glared at them and spoke up. "We round them up and smack them dead one more time. And that is the only way to protect your family, your friends, and your loved ones - and to save the wandering souls."

I ended my speech with a bit of a smirk. The men began gritting their teeth. They were trembling in fear, but no one was backing away now. This was a satisfactory result, alright.

"I guess you all came to a decision, then." I stabbed the shovel on the ground and grasped its handle with both hands, and while shrugging my shoulders, I addressed the villagers. "Let"s end this as quickly as possible. Our job is simple. Kill the zombies and give them a proper burial. Don"t you worry about getting bitten, though. I"ll bleed in my heart for you. And as an added service, I"ll provide you with holy water, too."

Was it because I sounded sarcastic? The villagers began cussing me out.

"He"s not even a human! How can he act this way??"

"Oh, I"m sorry. What can I do, when this is the real me? However, just who am I? Aren"t I the Imperial Family"s mangnani!!"

"Just because it"s not your family…."

"Ahaha, Still, you should be grateful that I"m willing to step up for you. If it was someone else, he"d not only have run away by now, he"d also have chased you all out from the monastery, too!"

I loosened my muscles. Getting a move on while their minds were made up was the smartest thing to do. Who knew when their fighting spirit would start wilting due to the already-present sense of agitation?

"Let"s end this quickly." I grasped the shovel with both of my hands. "The dead probably wishes to rest quietly, too."

So…

"Don"t get killed, though. You"ll only increase my workload."

Charlotte grew up in a happy family.

She was renowned for her honest and hard-working ways in this small village located far north in the Land of the Dead Spirits.

In the mornings, she helped her mother by preparing breakfast and drawing water from the river. In the afternoons, she"d help her father by entering the forest to cut some firewood.

That fateful day began the same as every other day.

She finished helping her mother prepare breakfast and went to the river outside the village to get some water. While struggling with her load a bit, she returned to her house.

It was then, a rather familiar noise entered her ear.

– Blergh…. Uwahk…. Blergh…..

Charlotte was startled by that and quickly s.h.i.+fted her gaze to the side.

The next door uncle was toppled over while vomiting everything inside his tummy. His wife was beside the man, gently patting his back with a concerned expression on her face.

A sour, stinging stench strong enough to make Charlotte instinctively block her nose wafted about. The girl formed a worried expression of her own.

‘Tom ahjussi is also sick."

Autumn and winter seasons were the time of plagues. Even Charlotte"s father was struck down by the illness himself and was suffering in pain right now.

– Don"t worry, my girl. An illness like this, I"ll be fine after a week or so.

Charlotte trusted her father"s words. In all honesty, she too had contracted a plague last year and had to go through a tough time, hadn"t she? However, look at her right now, wasn"t she alive and kicking?

This was nothing more than a trial for one to overcome so that they could enjoy another year in health. That was it.

Feeling worried, Charlotte tried to talk to her neighbours.

– h.e.l.lo.

The neighbour ahjumma flinched at Charlotte"s greeting and formed a scowl. Without saying a word, she shot back a wary glare and went back inside the house along with her husband.

Charlotte felt just a little bit lonesome, then.

She"d smile and share greetings with her neighbours, but during the plague seasons, everyone would become as unfriendly as one could get. But then again, they were probably worried about the plague infecting someone else. Even if they were the ones already suffering from it.

Charlotte tried to return home in a hurry.

Squeak, squeak-!

She lowered her head and found a rodent busy biting at her leather shoe. She frowned a little and kicked the vermin away.

The creature was flung away towards a storehouse nearby. And that"s when she discovered dozens of glowing eyes in the gap of the storehouse"s open doorway.

‘Uh?"

Just as Charlotte formed a stunned expression, the kicked rodent screeched out loudly.

– Kiiiiieeeehk!!

The howl was so monstrous that such a little body couldn"t have possibly produced it.

She was frightened by the screech so loud that it rang around in her eardrums. She even dropped the metal bucket she was carrying. Reflexively, she turned around and ran.

Dozens of rodents chased after her.

She hurriedly dashed inside her home and shut the door behind her, locking it firmly in the process.

Slam! Boom! Bang!

The rodents slammed their bodies against the door.

– Mom! Dad!

Charlotte"s face paled from fright and she backed away from the door. Even then, she called out to her parents in a frightened voice.

Unfortunately, they didn"t reply to her call.

What did return, though, was a horrifying scream.

Charlotte was shocked by that and hurriedly ran into the kitchen. Almost immediately, her whole figure froze up.

Her mom, holding a kitchen knife and preparing the family"s breakfast, she…. Her neck was being ripped apart by her father"s teeth.

‘But, why….?"

Mom was muttering to Charlotte as tears fell from her eyes.

– R… run… away….

The girl stood there, her entire figure trembling non-stop, yet she resolutely shook her head.

– Run… away!

– I, I"ll ask someone for help!

Charlotte looked behind at the door. Rodents were still pounding away on it. Meaning, she couldn"t go out that way. She quickly approached the nearest window. Even though it was closed, she shouted out as loudly as she could at the neighbouring houses.

– Help us! Mom, she…. My dad….!

She saw people"s faces peeking out from each house. But that was only for a short while. They closed their curtains and ignored her.

– Wuu…. Ohhh… Uh?

It was then when she heard a bizarre grunt coming from behind her. Flinching ever so slightly, Charlotte slowly turned around to look.

Her dad was standing there unsteadily.

His mouth, ripping into her mom"s throat only a second ago, dripped with blood. His now-dead eyes were staring straight at Charlotte.

– Ah….

Her zombified father pounced on her.

She couldn"t remember anything properly after that.

The faint, fragmented bits of memories that flitted in and out of her brain consisted of her running into the kitchen to pick up the knife, then confronting her now zombified mother.

Charlotte wielded the knife. When she came to, both her father and mother lay dead, full of stab wounds.

She stood there, dazedly staring at the two still corpses.

– S-save me…!

– Bleeergh… I, I need medicine….

– What, what"s this?! So many rats…?!

The screams of the villagers reverberated outside the window.

Charlotte turned her head towards the front door. The vermin had gnawed through the material to create a hole. The door broke, and the pack of vermin with their crimson teeth pounced on her.

……..

"Heot!"

Charlotte opened her eyes and shot up from the bedding. Cold sweat drops rolled down her face as she quickly scanned her surroundings. Her hands reflexively flailed about in the empty air.

Somewhat embarra.s.singly, no rodents were pouncing on her.

Charlotte breathed heavily, her complexion remaining pale.

Where was this?

Her s.h.i.+fting gaze took in the sights of the monastery"s interior.

"What happened?"

….And then, also the aunties and old ladies coming in closer, taken slightly aback to discover that she had regained her consciousness.

< 006.="" imperial="" prince="" is="" cracking="" heads="" -2=""> Fin.

(TL: "Ahjussi" and "ahjumma" is Korean words for "uncle" and "auntie", not blood-related.)