TRPM 371

The necromancer’s necromancy was directed not at Oracle but at Oracle’s doppelgänger when he performed the fourth necromantic ritual.

(They said the success rate was 20%… so succeeding on the fourth try — should I call that lucky?)

Oracle was thinking that when—

“(Heh… the necromancy’s smoother than at first.)”
“(Yes. I think I could raise the success rate to about 40% now.)”

The arch-sorcerer and the necromancer were having that conversation.

(…So he really did treat me like a training prop earlier…?)

It seemed the necromancer had improved while performing this ritual. Oracle opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She didn’t like being treated like a demonstration object, but the necromancer’s improvement would ultimately benefit her, since he was part of the organization.

What mattered was—

“(So… my doppelgänger is dead, then?)”

That would mean the danger was gone.

“No.”
“Huh?”

But the necromancer contradicted Oracle.

“(Unless the doppelgänger is in the same country as us, it’s across the sea, isn’t it? So it will take some time for an attack from necromancy to arrive.)”
“(…How long?)”

The necromancer estimated the distance between their location and the Seoul Awakener Association in Korea, then said:

“(Three days. After that, the doppelgänger will die.)”
“(Three days…)”

Hearing that, Oracle looked at the arch-sorcerer. When the arch-sorcerer had earlier summoned the spirit of the Korean artist Han Geon-woo into a photograph, the ritual had happened instantly.

“(That’s simply because my skill is lacking.)”
“(…Did I say something?)”
“No. But I can guess why you looked at the master.”

The necromancer clearly had talent, but not the level of the arch-sorcerer—he hadn’t surmounted that barrier.

“(So my necromancy won’t take effect as quickly as the master’s sorcery.)”
“I see.”

Oracle accepted that. She had seen plenty of the arch-sorcerer’s sorcery, but that didn’t mean she knew much about ritual magic herself. If the necromancer said it would take that long, she had to accept it.

“(Then that means the necromancy is finished.)”

Cheonma, who had been sitting nearby watching the situation, stood up and said that.

“Yes, that’s right.”
“It wasn’t as fun as I thought. Maybe my standards are too high after seeing that arch-sorcerer’s sorcery all this time?”
“Heh…”

Oracle secretly agreed. The arch-sorcerer’s spells were always showy; the necromancer’s ritual had none of that. The objects used in the necromancy simply tried to move on their own, and Oracle’s hair burned a bit—that was about it.

“(…That’s also down to my skill. It’s hard for me to perform large-scale sorcery like the master.)”
“It wasn’t entertaining, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong.”

Cheonma waved his hand as if bored.

“(By the way… where is the doppelgänger with the Artist’s DNA inserted?)”

Oracle saw the corner of Cheonma’s mouth lift slightly as he said that.

(…Here we go again.)

Cheonma wanted to fight an upgraded combat doppelgänger. He didn’t like having new doppelgängers destroyed every time they were made, but the reason he had joined Oracle in the first place was to fight doppelgängers stronger than himself. To do that, the doppelgänger would need to extract as much of Cheonma’s combat data as possible, so Oracle didn’t stop him.

“If it’s the doppelgänger made this time, the White Lotus believers are helping replicate it in the underground cultivation chamber. Shall I fetch one?”
“Of course.”

“(Haha! It copies that too?! Then how about this!)”

Cheonma said that and swung his fist.

Cheonma Divine Art (天魔神功) — Fist Technique: Reverse-Heaven Fist (逆天拳).

Aura spread from Cheonma as he struck the doppelgänger hard. But the doppelgänger didn’t mimic Cheonma’s Reverse-Heaven Fist. It copied other techniques, but not that inefficient move.

“(Oh? It even has the intelligence not to copy inefficient techniques?)”

Cheonma looked at the doppelgänger with approving eyes and demonstrated another technique.

(…They’re really a hard group to understand.)

Watching Cheonma and the doppelgänger fight, the necromancer thought to himself. Cheonma wanted to fight someone stronger than himself. Oracle claimed she wanted to save humanity somehow. The arch-sorcerer, obsessed with sorcery, was on Oracle’s side now.

(For personalities and ideologies so different to form an alliance…)

Of course the necromancer himself was included among them; he had a completely different personality and set of beliefs from the other three. In particular, his goal wasn’t to learn necromancy from the arch-sorcerer. Necromancy was merely a means to an end.

His ultimate objective was—

(To eradicate crime from this world.)

To prove the existence of an afterlife. If people knew that those who committed evil in life would be punished severely after death, then, even if crime didn’t disappear entirely, most would at least think twice before committing one.

(…Honestly, the chances are slim.)

He’d heard that when Han Geon-woo resurrected Woo Ji-min in Korea, Woo Ji-min seemed to have no memories of when she had died. So the likelihood that there’s no afterlife was high. But if Woo Ji-min’s case was special—her soul left traces in a book—then there might be some hope after all.

Anyway.

“(Hmm…)”

The necromancer watched the doppelgänger learning the efficient parts of Cheonma’s movements and thought: if that doppelgänger became strong enough to surpass Cheonma, then he could reach a conclusion about whether an afterlife existed. And if it turned out there wasn’t one… he’d decide what to do then.

(No, don’t worry about it for now.)

For now, he would train under the assumption that the afterlife exists.

“(Hahahaha!)”

As he thought that, Cheonma gathered an enormous amount of aura in his leg.

Cheonma Divine Art (天魔神功) — Leg Technique: Thunderbolt Kick (霹靂腿).

Then Cheonma’s leg came down at high speed and crashed into the doppelgänger’s shoulder.

KWA-KWANG…!

The impact between Cheonma’s leg and the doppelgänger’s shoulder made a thunder-like sound. The necromancer felt it instinctively.

(Ah, it broke.)

Cheonma had pushed the move harder to see how far the doppelgänger could follow him, and the doppelgänger broke.

“(…Damn.)”

Cheonma, surprised the doppelgänger would break so suddenly, twisted his face. He had had high expectations for this new doppelgänger. If he’d fought in earnest from the start, the doppelgänger would have stood no chance.

“(Its ability to mimic others’ movements is several levels better than before, but as for physical ability, there’s not much difference from previous doppelgängers, so this result makes sense.)”
“Tch… Any way to raise physical ability?”
“(For now, there’s no method besides taking sturdy monster body parts and implanting them. Even that will take time because it’s hard to find a strong monster carcass right now.)”

The necromancer said that. Then the White Lotus sect leader turned to him.

“(I’ll tell the Ming Sect, the Sun-Moon Sect, the Cheonma Blood Sect, and other heretical sects to bring as many monster carcasses as possible.)”

He meant to send sect followers to nearby dungeons to gather monster corpses.

“(…That’s probably the best for now.)”

They could buy corpses elsewhere, but that would cost too much. Using fanatics—the so-called sect followers—was nearly free. Many believers would likely die or be injured in dungeons during that process, but the necromancer didn’t care about that. Awakened people dying or getting hurt in dungeons was nothing new.

“(Handle those messy details yourselves. I’m going back to my room.)”

Cheonma left the White Lotus leader and the necromancer discussing monster carcass procurement and headed to his room. Three days passed after that.

“Haa…”

The first message Oracle received as soon as they returned from England was news of the death of Oracle’s voodoo doll—her doppelgänger.

“I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine. Where is that doppelgänger?”

I changed the taxi destination mid-ride and went straight to the Seoul Awakeners Association headquarters. I asked to see the doppelgänger’s corpse.

“This way, please.”

An association employee, who seemed to already have been informed, led me to where the dead doppelgänger lay. It was in the association’s underground detention facility.

(They just confirmed it was dead and didn’t move the body.)

I’d thought the research department would have taken it away for dissection, but I was wrong. Maybe they were too scared to move it; a few months ago, a doppelgänger that was presumed dead had attacked research facilities around the world. That might be why they didn’t move the corpse.

“There’s another reason—we found strong traces of sorcery in the doppelgänger’s corpse. So we’ve sealed access until a professional sorcerer can handle it.”
“Good. If a civilian had touched that, it could have been disastrous—unless it was an Awakener.”

Through my samadhi, I could see it: a vicious curse that likely killed the doppelgänger.

“…It doesn’t look like the arch-sorcerer’s doing…”
“Pardon?”
“No. Never mind.”

It was too crude to be the arch-sorcerer’s work—the arch-sorcerer’s rituals were inherently refined.

(The ritual seems to be by a sorcerer with outstanding talent, though not a very high level.)

That much would be enough to kill a doppelgänger that had been in the association’s subterranean area, which was filled with walls treated with protective measures against spells. Once I thought that far, I could guess who had performed the ritual: the necromancer who had followed the arch-sorcerer from Korea into China.

(Then this curse is also of the necromancy variety.)

Like the necromancy the arch-sorcerer had used at Gyeongbokgung Palace earlier—using evil spirits for a curse.

“Tch…”

When I’d first seen him, the necromancer had looked like an ordinary policeman who only knew the basics of necromancy. I hadn’t expected him to have grown enough in so short a time to be able to succeed at such a ritual.