Under the clear sky, I stood at the edge of a sheer cliff.
If I lowered my gaze just a little, the miasma-choked mist blanketed the view below.
Though the bottom was unseen, I knew the drop was immense.
This place was called the Valley of the Dead.
And I was made to stand upon its rim.
Right beside me stood someone precious to me.
A comrade with whom I had survived brutal missions, and my one and only idol.
The woman who stood at my side had once been the Hero.
She once wore a smile as warm as the sun, but now it was tinged with shadows and resignation.
That fact pierced my heart, but there was nothing I could do.
I was only reminded, again and again, of my own powerlessness.
"You evil monsters! How dare you betray us!"
"It's unbelievable you came back! You scum!"
"You're a disgrace to the nation! Just die already!"
Assaulted by self-loathing, a barrage of insults rained down upon me.
I turned my gaze behind me.
There stood a crowd of people.
Roughly counted, they numbered no less than a hundred.
They hurled filthy words at us while mercilessly throwing stones.
The stones struck my back and head, bringing dull, throbbing pain.
“...nn.”
I gritted my teeth and endured.
Because she standing beside me was enduring too.
I struggled to suppress the surging emotions.
Amidst the hail of stones, I remained conscious of the shackles on my limbs.
These restraints contained the power to seal magic.
Because of this device, I could not use sorcery.
My past glory and achievements as a Sage were utterly irrelevant—I was now simply a powerless man.
The reality of that fact filled me with self-loathing.
“—Silence!”
As I chewed on this brutal truth, a sharp voice cut through the air.
As if on cue, the crowd’s abuse and the barrage of stones ceased.
I let out a small breath.
A short distance from the crowd stood a middle-aged man clad in fine robes.
He was the Prime Minister of this country.
Standing proudly, he began to read from the parchment he held aloft.
“Hero Clea Baton. Sage Dwight Harvelt. These are the names of those who, it is said, vanquished the Demon Lord seeking to plunge the world into darkness. These two individuals were once rare heroes, the embodiment of human wisdom—”
The Prime Minister paused there.
In the next instant, his eyes widened and he shouted.
“However! The souls of those former heroes have rotted completely! The two of them plotted to become the next Demon Lord, casting the world into a vortex of chaos! Therefore, we must exile these two to the Valley of the Dead!”
"You're wrong!"
I blurt out my objection involuntarily.
The force of my anger makes me raise my voice on reflex.
The crowd's gaze fixes upon me.
I sense considerable hatred within it.
Annoyed by my bound limbs, I twist my body to face the crowd.
"We the next demon king? That's impossible. This is someone's plot. We only defeated the demon king. We just wanted to save the world—"
"Liar! You're demons!"
"I believed in you! Why did you betray us?"
"Just die already! We'll shit on your corpses!"
Another storm of abuse descends.
My desperate plea is instantly swept away.
Whatever I say is meaningless.
This scene is more than enough to realize that.
As I sink into deep despair, a silence descends upon the place once more.
People's eyes turn toward the prime minister.
Standing there is a man wearing a red mantle and a crown.
The imperious yet dignified aura is unforgettable.
With gray hair and a magnificent beard, he is this nation's king.
He was the very instigator who commanded us to slay the demon king.
"You merciless henchmen of the Demon King. I was wrong to call you heroes."
The king glances at us, spitting out the words.
With that as the starting signal, the crowd's jeering and stone-throwing resume.
Neither the king nor the chancellor moves to stop it.
We had no choice but to endure it all.
Realizing our pleas would never reach them, I turn my back to the mob.
Persuasion or appeals to truth were utterly useless.
Everyone had condemned us as villains, without a shred of doubt.
Keeping my gaze fixed on the ground, I whisper to her beside me.
"...Hero, let us flee. You and I might be able to make it."
"No. I wish for the world's peace. If my sacrifice can achieve that, I shall accept it willingly."
The words that came back were not what I wanted to hear.
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
A single streak of blood ran down her face.
It was from a stone that had struck her head.
I stared at her, numb.
"Hero..."
"If you value your life, you should have fled alone. They fear the hero who slew the Demon King. Even if you disappeared, they wouldn't have mobilized to search for you."
She spoke in a cutting tone.
I caught a glimpse of profound sorrow in her profile.
You look like you're in so much pain.
(No. I wanted to live alongside you...)
The words that surged to my throat, I swallow them down.
It's too late now to declare anything.
I have no right to say anything.
Everything is beyond saving.
It was a hopeless situation.
"Dwight"
"...What is it?"
"I'm sorry for dragging you into this. And thank you for standing by my side."
"No, it is I who should be grateful..."
I feel my eyes burning as I barely manage to reply.
My voice keeps shaking no matter what.
My vision blurs, and I nearly collapse on the spot.
I stop myself with the power of will alone.
I chew on her words, accepting them firmly in my heart.
"Execute the sentence!"
The Prime Minister's merciless voice echoed through the air.
The sound of something cutting through the wind was heard.
Without pause, a sharp pain ran through my back.
Simultaneously, the arrowhead burst forth from my chest.
My blood had soaked through everything, staining it deep red.
Given my position, I must have been pierced through the heart.
Looking beside me, she was equally shot through.
The hero who had slain the Demon King staggered from a single arrow.
Slowly, she toppled beyond the cliff's edge.
"——"
I coughed up blood, somehow managing to move my neck.
The commoners were jeering.
The prime minister who had ordered his soldiers to fire wore an expression of cruel delight.
The king's face was twisted into a dark, satisfied smile.
In that instant, I felt as though I had touched the true nature of the world.
A murky impulse churned deep within my chest.
If I weren't restrained, I would have unleashed my magic without hesitation.
Then, pitilessly, a second arrow flew toward me.
Searing agony erupted across my face.
Half my vision went black.
In the half that remained, I saw the fletching of the arrow standing starkly from my cheek.
"...Ah."
I went rigid.
Pulled by gravity, I fell backward.
Resistance was futile.
There was no strength left to fight back.
As the cheers of the crowd rang in my ears, I fell into the depths of the valley.
◆
At the bottom of the Valley of the Dead.
Surrounded by the creeping mist, I held her body in my arms.
"Ah, why did this happen to you..."
I let out a lament I’d lost count of.
The voice was terribly hoarse.
I couldn’t even remember what it used to sound like.
The woman I held did not move.
The moment we fell into this valley, she had already died.
Her corpse had long since decayed, stripped of flesh and blood, reduced to bone alone.
If I applied pressure, it felt fragile enough to crumble.
My own body, likewise, was nothing but bones.
A wretched sight, clad only in crude cloth.
The eye pierced through, the heart struck through—both had rotted away long ago.
There was no pain.
Only hollow emotions rose and faded.
Perhaps the fact that I could still feel emotion in this state was one of the few discoveries left.
My sense of time had also been lost.
How many months or years had passed since I fell to the bottom of this valley?
I had no means to verify it.
Countless skeletons lay scattered around me.
This was the final state of those who had been cast down into the valley.
All were equally dead.
In this place, only I had been transformed into an aberrant undead.
I vaguely knew the reason.
It was because an extraordinary obsession resided within me.
There also remained the inner conflict of whether it was acceptable to simply become a silent corpse.
These attachments were what rejected a quiet vanishing.
While at the valley's bottom, I engaged in constant self-interrogation.
What had gone wrong?
Why was I here?
Why was my most beloved left exposed as a mere corpse?
As an undead, I required neither sleep nor rest.
Without ever losing consciousness for a moment, I simply continued to think, ceaselessly.
Tormented by violent hatred, self-loathing, and deep regret, yet thinking on I did.
As I repeated this endlessly, I had a sudden epiphany.
"—It was not she who erred. Was it not the world itself that had gone mad?"
After prolonged contemplation, I arrived at an understanding.
What had caused it all.
What I ought to do.
The scene from moments before my fall into this land unfolds in my mind.
Once the dam broke, everything flowed swiftly.
My hazy consciousness clarified.
A definite vitality stirred within this withered undead body.
To organize my thoughts, I addressed her corpse.
"Hero... your ideals were correct. But your method was flawed."
A heart that desires peace cannot be wrong.
Yet, she was rejected by the people.
She accepted that as her role too, and chose to sacrifice herself for the world.
Then I shall inherit her will.
It is my duty as her vassal.
I will bring peace to this world.
However, I will employ a method different from hers.
"Yes, you were both right and wrong. Your mistake was entrusting yourself to the flow of others."
I will realize peace through a more certain method.
This maddened world must be corrected.
It cannot continue as it is.
The accumulated doubts have faded away.
I have even conceived a way to bring about world peace.
However, before that, there is something I must do.
Revenge against those who drove her to death.
I had turned a blind eye, but I realize now that I harbored hatred for the people of this kingdom.
I cannot forgive their betrayal of her, who had defeated the Demon King and saved humanity.
I set aside her remains and rise to my feet.
I stagger forward, but manage not to fall.
Even with a body of mere bones, I seem capable of movement.
Truthfully, I would seek retribution against the kingdom immediately.
But in my current state, I am utterly powerless.
I am nothing but a lingering ghost left behind in the Valley of the Dead.
Even if I reached the surface, I could accomplish no purpose.
I need power.
Enough power to make the world my enemy.
If the era rejects us, then I shall deny this present age with all my might.
I will repaint it into a better world.
Using her failures as nourishment, I will build the true peace she desired.
I survey my surroundings.
The source of power—the mist of miasma drifts without end.
It was harmful to living creatures, but pleasant to the undead.
In truth, higher undead contained vast amounts of miasma within them.
(Perhaps I should try it once.)
I extended my consciousness and began to draw the mist-like miasma into my body.
The sensation was akin to a deep breath.
I felt my body undergoing a rapid transformation.
Then, the lingering thoughts of the people dissolved within the miasma also flowed in.
Fragments of those who had perished here.
Amidst a torrent of various emotions, countless memories and experiences of countless individuals became intertwined.
It was far beyond what any single mind could contain.
Overwhelmed by a pain as if my soul were being torn apart, I writhed on the ground.
I couldn't even move a finger properly, nor cry out, left only to suffer.
In a living body, my brain would have been scorched away.
The sensation was that extreme.
I endured with desperate will.
All of this was for revenge and for peace.
I could not be swept away and annihilated here.
Scraping at the ground, I clung to the fraying shape of my consciousness.
And so I writhed in agony for a time.
When the pain finally subsided, I was startled by the landscape around me.
The thick fog that had enshrouded the area dissipated, revealing crystal-clear air.
Sunlight pierced the depths of the valley, and the blue sky overhead was clearly visible.
I had devoured all the miasma of the Valley of the Dead.
I had also absorbed the immense amount of magic power that had settled in this land.
From within my body, I perceived an irreparable stagnation.
It was likely the power of Chaos.
My body of crumbling bones had been stained black, as if charred.
Miasma was leaking from my body like flame.
It seemed I had touched the forbidden.
I instinctively understood what kind of being I had transformed into.
This power surpassed even the Demon Lords we had vanquished.
At the very least, I had certainly abandoned my humanity.
"...Well, fine," I murmured, my voice like the rumbling of the earth.
I had obtained more power than I ever desired.
There was nothing to complain about.
I lightly swung one arm.
Adding a fraction of my power to it, the bones around me began to stir.
The bones formed the shape of a man and stood up.
Skeletons.
The same phenomenon continued far down to the valley floor.
This was a new power.
It was authority gained by discarding humanity.
What was possible with it became clear through intuition.
I looked down at my feet.
While other bones had become skeletons, her corpse remained motionless.
I had not intentionally distinguished her.
"...Why?" I asked.
No answer came.
Her corpse simply existed there.
I picked up a scrap of cloth and wrapped her remains in it.
The decayed corpse had lost its shape, making it easy to contain.
While I worked, the horde of skeletons continued to gather.
They piled diagonally along the cliff face, forming a stairway of bone.
Soon they would reach the surface.
There were more than enough skeletons in total.
With the cloth bundle in one hand, I set off.
I began to climb the stairway.
My destination was, of course, the surface.
"..."
As I advance in silence, rain begins to fall sporadically.
The rain gradually gains strength.
The world doesn't seem to welcome my advance.
It was clear skies when I was executed, after all.
While drenched in the rain, I tread upon the bone staircase.
I occasionally nearly slip, but never fall.
Slowly, the cliff's edge comes into view.
Suppressing the urge to rush, I climb at a steady pace.
Before long, I arrive on the surface.
Immediately nearby is a fortress built of stone walls.
A facility for managing the Valley of the Dead.
If my memory serves, it should have been undergoing renovations, but I see no trace of that.
The years spent at the valley floor may have been longer than I thought.
Still, it's nostalgic.
Here, I was executed amidst the condemnation of the people.
Everything has changed.
I become aware of the weight of the cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand.
"What, an undead?"
A voice came from the side.
Looking over, armored soldiers were glaring at me.
Probably a sentry from the fort.
He approached with a spear and lunged out with a sudden thrust.
I tracked the trajectory of the spearhead, tilted my head, and dodged.
Simultaneously, I stepped in, seized the soldier’s neck, and lifted him off his feet.
Perhaps due to the transformation, I could predict his movements with uncanny clarity.
"Hey! Let him go!"
Other soldiers rushed over, raising their crossbows.
I held the captured soldier up as a shield.
The soldiers gritted their teeth and halted their attack.
"He—he has intelligence…!?"
"His color is wrong, too! He’s not just a skeleton! Be careful!"
As they spoke, I crushed the soldier’s neck in my grip.
I swung the corpse by its legs and hurled it at them with force.
"What the hell!?"
"Damn it, shoot! Kill him quickly!"
Though their formation was scattered, they immediately fired a volley of crossbow bolts.
The bolts shattered my bony body, and I staggered.
But that was all.
I plucked the arrow embedded in my ribcage and tossed it aside.
Far from a fatal wound.
"Screams rang out!"
"How—how can the corpses be moving?!"
"They weren't using necromancy!"
A section of the soldiers began to panic.
The corpse that had been thrown moments ago was now biting into the neck of another soldier.
It seemed the influence of my miasma had turned it into a lesser undead—a ghoul.
Those bitten died and became new ghouls, lunging at their former comrades.
As the battlefield descended into chaos, skeletons began crawling out of the Valley of the Dead one after another.
A turbid stream of white bones surged forward, attacking the soldiers with reckless abandon.
"Whoa—"
"This is bad! Pull the line back! If this keeps up—"
"Get a holy magic user! Now!"
Facing the overwhelming number of skeletons, the soldiers were struggling.
While individually stronger in combat, the sheer quantity of skeletons was crushing.
Within view alone, many were being torn apart, unable to cope with the onslaught.
"Uoooooh!"
With a battle cry, a soldier wielding a club charged forward.
He leaped over a skeleton, aiming for a powerful overhead strike.
He must have judged that taking down the caster was the key.
I dodged the swift blow and knocked him down in return.
The club's trajectory was completely readable.
However, it wasn't based on my own experience.
In life, I was ill-suited to close combat.
Perhaps it was thanks to the human memories and experiences mixed into the miasma.
I had acquired that knowledge in the form of skill.
An unexpected byproduct.
I snatched the club away and looked down at the fallen soldier.
He glared back up, his face bruised blue.
"Drop dead, you scum of the unliving!"
"..."
In lieu of an answer, I struck the soldier's head.
Smashing those eyes clouded with hatred, I brought the club down again and again.
Even after his skull had split open and lost all shape, I persisted.
Watching the convulsing corpse, I finally stopped.
Discarding the club stained with blood and brain matter, I lifted my head.
Only then did I notice the fortress was being thoroughly overrun by skeletons.
The dead soldiers were also rising and moving as ghouls.
At this rate, the fortress would fall even if left alone.
I gazed intently at the cityscape visible in the distance.
That was the Royal Capital.
It may look distant, but in truth it is quite close.
Close enough to reach on foot.
I must deliver retribution.
The battle at this fortress was, one might say, a prologue.
Like preparation for overcoming a fated grudge.
"---I am the origin of destruction."
I depart the fortress, now devoid of the living.
Skeletal and ghoul minions follow in my wake without being summoned.
They seem to grasp my intentions with perfect clarity.
Reliable companions, in their own way.
Thus, leading my legion of undead, I set out toward the Royal Capital.