Chapter 17: 012. Imperial Prince is Toiling Away -1 (Part One)

[An undead will evolve as time elapses.]

I flipped the page of the book I was reading.

[When a zombie fully decomposes, it will become a skeleton. However, if it manages to preserve its body somehow, it will become an even more powerful creature, a ‘ghoul’.]

I continued reading the paragraphs below.

[If their bodies are exposed to the Negative Field, the existing demonic energy lingering in the location will greatly accelerate the evolution. Their skin will become tougher and their bones stronger.]

M-mm...

[A skeleton will reach a certain level of intelligence and start wielding a weapon. Meaning, it will evolve to either a Warrior or an Archer. If they do not reach the afterlife as soon as possible, then they will continue to grow even stronger over a lengthy period of time.]

I flipped to the next page.

[They instinctively crave for stronger demonic energy. They also wish for a stronger body. And that is why they all head towards the ‘Land of the Dead Spirits’.]

The warmer seasons of Spring and Summer served to weaken the bodies of the undead. The demonic energy would dissipate when subjected to warm sunlight, and not to forget, the Negative Fields would be exposed under the bright light too.

That’s why the undead would travel to the Land of the Dead Spirits as it was a basically a huge Negative Field filled with demonic energy.

And also...

[Once Autumn ends and Winter arrives, the undead will finally awaken their instincts, the ones they had been suppressing all this time.]

The instincts of the undead.

The avaricious desire to devour the living and the drive to propagate their numbers by turning others into fellow undeads.

[This is the ‘Tide of Death’. Once every year during the coldest spell in Winter, the undead that have been roaming the Continent will be drawn to the Land of the Dead Spirits, their instincts soon to be unshackled. It is the season where their bodies won’t rot and remain as they are. They would scatter around the rest of the Continent to devour the living. And the time for that will be...]

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“Around one month left until D-Day, huh.”

I closed the book while muttering this.

I got up from my seat to return the book to its original place somewhere within the monastery’s small library.

“Let me take care of that, please.”

However, a silver-haired girl stopped me from doing that.

The girl kitted out in a neat nun’s habit picked up the book while carrying her trademark expressionless face.

Her name was Charlotte, and for some reason, she began visiting the monastery quite often after the end of the zombie wave incident.

I heard that the farmer Gril accepted her as his adopted daughter or something. That guy initially detested the very idea, but now, he must’ve decided to take responsibility and look after her.

“Okay, sure thing.”

The girl nodded her head and placed the book back on the shelf.

I couldn’t tell whether she was suffering from the shock of losing her parents or something, but for some reason, she decided to enter the monastery and requested to work as a nun here.

Never mind my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she even took on the menial tasks of cleaning the monastery as well as maintenance of the graves too.

It was convenient for me, sure, but every once in a while, I’d recall the sight of the bloodied kitchen knife she wielded back then and chills would travel down my spine as a result.

Weeeell, her unpaid voluntary service shouldn’t last for that long. She’d probably leave on her own volition once she gets sick and tired of playing my maidservant. Maybe.

Not everyone could become a nun after all.

This world believed in several different religions.

As long as it didn’t harm anyone, an order would easily be acknowledged as a religion. On the other hand, if it actually did harm other people, then it’d be quickly labelled as a heretical cult.

Also, another thing to take note was that you could get married even if you were a nun. So this silver-haired girl before my eyes would leave the monastery after falling in love with a boy or something.

My expression remained as a sullen pout as I looked at her, before I walked straight past her. I opened the door to the library to go outside, only to find some people blocking my path.

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“What now?” I asked.

They were knights kitted out in pure-white armour from the top of their heads all the way down to their feet. These were the Paladins of the Theocratic Empire’s Imperial Court. Also the monitors of the Holy Emperor’s seventh grandson/Imperial Prince as well. Which was me, obviously.

A week had already passed by since the zombie wave incident.

I was so preoccupied with searching for every zombie wandering around in addition to performing all the funerals that I ended up gradually forgetting about the passage of time.

It was only yesterday that we finally finished settling everything. After our relative safety was assured once more, the village chief sent the word out to the nearest fiefdom. It usually took over a full day’s journey to travel back and forth, and yet, in just less than half a day later, these Paladins had already shown up.

They perused me top to bottom before shifting their gazes to Charlotte over at a distance.

“A nun?”

This monastery was empty before I showed up.

They were puzzled by the appearance of a nun ostensibly studying their religion.

I deliberately spoke in a sarcastic tone of voice. “Yeah, she’s sent by the local village. She’s also studying the faith quite diligently too. Ah, she’s volunteering her services for my sake. And she doesn’t seem to care whether it’s day or night either.” Not to forget, she even made sure to take care of my meals during breakfast, lunch, and supper, too. “Well, what can I do? She’s not a servant, but a nun. How can I reject a fellow believer in the Goddess, right?”

I continued to speak in a slimy tone of voice.

The head Paladin looked away from Charlotte and stared at me. “We were informed that you captured the witch Morgana.”

Huh! Would you look at this guy? Not even a simple greeting, but straight to the topic, eh?

Are you taking me lightly just because I lost my status as the Holy Emperor’s successor? Ah?

“That’s right. The villagers caught that damn woman.”

“Yes, we heard,” he spoke without a hint of emotion like a cyborg while nodding his head. “We heard that along with the villagers, you fought tooth and nail for their survival.”

I fought tooth and nail along with the villagers?

Well, if you’re talking about the battle against zombies near the monastery, then... action

“We also heard that they surrounded the King of Gluttony and fought it off with their farming tools.”

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“Eh?”

“Despite having hundreds of zombies surrounding them, the villagers still managed to defeat the undead in the end, and eventually located the Necromancer.”

“...”

“Especially so for that man named Gril. He said he defeated over 30 zombies and even cast holy water on Witch Morgana, thereby driving her to a corner...”

Gril, oh dear Gril, since when did you become such a peerless, fearless farmer capable of spewing bullsh*t to that degree? I guess the sight I witnessed of you sobbing and wailing like a little baby, unable to even properly take down a single zombie, was all a lie? I had no idea that you had tendencies like those munchkin MCs that hide their powers for one stupid reason or the other!

“I know it’s all an exaggeration, but...” The head Paladin continued on while his gaze shifted over to the monastery’s window. He could see the newly-erected graves that went up over the past seven days containing several hundreds of the dead. “...But, it seems to be true.”

“That’s just pure exaggeration. You’re supposed to be a Paladin, right? You shouldn’t just haphazardly believe every story a stranger tells you.”

Of course, this guy wouldn’t even dream of a possibility that I killed all those zombies by myself, which includes the King of Gluttony too. It might have been heavily exaggerated, but the tale wasn’t a lie since the villagers really did help me during the struggle.

“Anyways, you probably didn’t come here to confirm that. Am I wrong?” I said with a little scowl.

“Were you aware that Morgana was affiliated with the Black Order?”

“Yeah, she told me after I interrogated her.”

What the hell? I could’ve learned that from these guys instead? That Morian woman, she was talking like it was the greatest secret in the world or something.

“She was a truly malicious, vicious villain, suspected of decimating five other villages in the past.”

Wowsers, she’s actually a genocidal witch!

Oiiii, what the heck? I was fighting against such a crazy b*tch?

“What happened to the witch, your highness?”

“Didn’t you hear it from the villagers? She was beaten up half to death and got hung in the forest.”

“Did you do that, your highness?”

“Nope.”

I immediately denied it.

Are you mad?! How could I, a young boy with a frail heart, do something so cruel and savage? My heart is as pure as a maiden’s!

Naturally, I didn’t say what was really in my head.

This guy would definitely start retching if I did just that. Which was why I went with a different routine instead.