The journey from Alaman to Fresnel was a long one. Fresnel was a garrison town, most of the town consisted of barracks. More than ten thousand troops belonging to the Frontier Army was stationed here. The entire army of Olvin Empire had three big divisions : the Frontier Army, the Ceremonial Army and the Royal Guard.
The Frontier Army was responsible for defending the border. The Ceremonial Army was responsible for guarding the offices and residences of imperial officials, governors and ministers as well as foreign embassies. They also protect the imperial capital, Raskalon.
The Royal Guard meanwhile was in charge of providing protection to the members of the royal family.
The horse carts came to stop at the town square. There seemed to be a lot of horse carts from other neighboring nations as well. Soldiers were also frequently patrolling the square. South of the the Olvin Empire was the Gentiano Empire. These two empires combined consisted of one tenth of the Pangea continent.
" Since the roads around Fresnel occasionally had military outposts most traders pass through these roads in order to avoid bandits. " said Eric Flavel " Alright, we will stop here for two days since I will be meeting with other merchants from the south. Enjoy the stay while you can. "
After a while, Gojo and Grisella walked into the adventurers guild. There were many quests at the guild but their nature was different. Most of them were for capturing wanted criminals from pick pockets to drug dealers and poachers.
" Well, are all the quests like this in the guild. " asked Gojo to the receptionist.
" Yes, you see there are a lot of criminals that commit crimes in various parts of the Empire often flee to border regions to cross the border. Not only that a lot of smuggling also takes place in these regions. That's why these quests are given out here, so that adventurers can help find these criminals. Since most of the border towns don't have the resources to reward these adventurers well, that's why we keep such quests with proper rewards. " explained the receptionist.
" I see then, can you give us, some recommendations. Since, we don't really take on these kinds of quests. By the way we are D rank adventurers. " asked Gojo.
" There is one, however it seems a bit dangerous. A few adventurers have gone missing while carrying on the quest. " warned the receptionist.
" Sure, I am, I mean we are strong. " said Gojo.
" Alright then listen, there was a village in the southwest from Fresnel. Two years ago the entire population vanished suddenly. At first we went there to investigate but couldn't find anything there. Just five months ago a family moved into the village. But they vanished after a week. Just a a month ago a group of two adventurers accepted the quest but they also vanished without leaving a trace. " said the receptionist " I didn't wish to scare you so are you taking the quest. "
" Yes, we can do it. " said Gojo and then left the adventurers guild with Grisella.
It was a journey of two hours on horse cart from the town. As soon as they arrived they were greeted with a scene of a dilapidated village. Half of the roofs had completely collapsed. There were walls that were falling off as well as a dried up well.
Gojo and Grisella sat under a tree at the center of the village and kept watch. Nothing happened in the morning and the afternoon. Soon the dusk rolled by. As night approached, they lit a bonfire.
" It seems like whatever happens here, it happens at night. We need stay up this night. " said Gojo. They ate dinner and waited. As midnight came still there was no sign of the enemy. Grisella had fallen asleep by now. However Gojo stayed vigilant. As soon as the clouds covered the moon. He detected one person standing some five hundred away from them. Soon, he detected multiple enemies surrounding them.
As he kept watch he heard multiple footsteps approach. Gojo quickly shook Grisella awake and alerted her of their situation. As the footsteps approached they saw multiple skeletons with green light shining through their eyes making way to them.
Gojo used reverse red to destroy a lot of skeletons. He destroyed dozens of them. After destroying a hundred skeletons, they stopped coming. He then turned towards Grisella who had climbed up the tree.
" Well, sorry I cannot fight against reanimated skeletons since physical attacks don't won't work against them. By the way there seems to be a necromancer targetingus. " said Grisella after getting down from the tree. That's when they heard rough footsteps approaching them.
As they looked up they saw a figure cloaked in black standing a little far away from them. The figure moved his hands and gestured towards them. From behind the figure four figures emerged. As the four figures closed in on them, in the moonlight they saw it was four undead armed with daggers and scythes rushing towards them.
Since the undead only died from decapitation, Gojo ran forward and landed a hard punch on the face of one the undead and separated it's head from it's body which collapsed on the ground. He then used reverse red to behead the other undead. Grisella had a little hard time dealing with the undead but she managed to behead one of them as Gojo took out another undead.
" Ha ha ! " laughed the cloaked figure " You two are the toughest adventurers sent to this village till date. However, I have prepared for this kind of situation. Looks like I may acquire more sacrifices for the Corpse Monarch. " Saying this he pointed towards their direction.
They heard someone running towards them from their behind. Turning around they saw an undead running towards them at high speed. It reached them very quickly but Gojo delivered a quick punch to it's head decapitating it. However the next moment instead of collapsing it ran back a little distance. Then it regenerated it's head.
" See, what I told you about. It is a specially crafted undead, so it's tough. Now, die quickly the both of you. " They heard the necromancer say.
Gojo took a good look at the undead. All it's body parts were similar to the ones he had just destroyed earlier. Except, there was a small crystal embedded between the thorax there was a small gem which looked like a magical stone like those that he saw in equipment shops of adventurers while staying in Geradin. Since the stone was dark grey coloured it wasn't spotted earlier.
So, the next moment when the undead tried to launch another attack Gojo waited and when it's body was close enough sent a punch right at the position of the magical stone. Amongst the black flashes, he felt the stone crumbling. Then the undead disintegrated into a pile of dust.
" Anything else, that you prepared for us ? " Gojo asked turning towards the necromancer.
" Damn it, I guess I need retreat. " said the cloaked man as he hurled a small orb at them. However Gojo rushed and grabbed orb. He then kicked the necromancer to the ground.
" You aren't going anywhere soon, answer some questions first. " said Gojo.
" Well, then I guess it ends for me like this. " said the necromancer as he raised his right hand. On his right hand in the index finger there was a ring with a sharp pointed head. He stabbed his neck with the sharp head of the ring.
" Hey what are you doing ?" asked Gojo.
" Now, I may die however, the mighty Corpse Monarch will definitely get you. " said the necromancer with a wide smile before vomiting a black liquid and then falling silent.
" Looks like he poisoned himself, not that we can get any new information out of him. " said Grisella. They picked up a locket that the necromancer was wearing to back up their report to the guild.
The next day after Gojo and Grisella returned to Fresnel, they first reported everything to the receptionist, then they went to sleep. At early afternoon, they both went back to the guild to get the rewards. The reward was one large silver coin and four small silver coins.
" Well, some of our soldiers went to the village and extracted the body of the necromancer. Thanks to the both of you we will be able to investigate the matter now. " said the receptionist.
She continued " You see, among the people who can use magic very few actually become necromancer since people don't like to mingle with them. You heard the name Corpse Monarch right ? That is the name given to a necromancer named Dorgon, who lived a hundred years ago in Gentiano Empire. He was an absolute genius when it came to necromancy. However he had a flaw, he wanted to research on methods that were banned throughout the magical society.
There are certain types of necromancy that require the sacrifices of living humans. Once, he was caught in such a situation where he tried to sacrifice a drunk man. This caused a major uproar throughout the Empire and Dorgon was sentenced to death. However, before his execution, he fled to a village and massacred it's entire population. When, mages and sorcerers attacked him he fought back fiercely and won after slaughtering hundreds of them in battle.
Soon he started to move towards the border between Gentiano Empire and Olvin Empire. On his way he had gathered an army of skeletons, undead and wraiths. Thus, our Empire sent a group of mages to fight alongside the Gentiano mages in order to stop the Corpse Monarch. After a fierce battle he was defeated and killed. However later when the mages went to retrieve his body, they couldn't find it.
Till now there's always speculation that the Corpse Monarch wasn't dead. However, there was no major trouble like the one he caused. A few necromancers who admired him formed an organization in order to resurrect him. However it got banned and many of it's members were imprisoned. By the way, the battle against the Corpse Monarch was one of the first magical battles that two of the great witches Felin and Yonvell fought in.
I guess this necromancer also belongs to some organization that is aiming to the Corpse Monarch. We will be able definitely investigate this thanks to both of you. "
Gojo was growing quite impatient since the story was long. He and Grisella collected the rewards from the receptionist and went back. They were to depart the next day.