Chapter 2: 2

Even though this was during the middle of the day, greyish, chilly fog was blanketing everything the eyes could see .

I gripped the shovel real tight and slammed it hard against the ground .

14

Sweat trickled down as I panted heavily . My whole body felt heavy like a soaked sponge .

3

I glanced at my side towards the wagon filled with corpses . I was currently burying them underground . Anyone unfamiliar with this sight might think that they ran into a horrifying scene of mass murder . Regrettably, though, that wasn’t the case .

10

“Yup, being a gravekeeper is no picnic at all . ”

3

Indeed, I was working as a Gravekeeper .

2

Chilly atmosphere enveloped the entire graveyard .

I shifted my gaze towards a derelict monastery on the verge of collapsing .

In this northern region covered by snow 365 days a year, the Land of the Dead Spirits where rotting corpses and various undeads rampaged about, I was spending my days as the exiled Imperial Prince .

5

**

1

If you asked who possessed the absolute authority in this Continent, then people would most likely point at just one man .

He was the king of humanity . An existence that even the lofty emperors had to be respectful and mindful of .

He, in a nutshell, was the Holy Emperor, also referred to as God’s emissary .

6

Anyone who inherited the Holy Emperor’s bloodline would be treated as a person blessed with a noble lineage . Too bad my situation was somewhat different from that .

“Banishment is it?”

I clicked my tongue as I stared at the side of the graveyard .

The weather might have been chilly, but flies still buzzed around the corpses atop the wagon, with maggots crawling all over said corpses as their companions .

2

I hoisted the shovel on my shoulder, a bitter grin etched on my lips .

“Why did it have to be this particular body, though?”

3

I wasn’t sure whether this was a reincarnation or a possession, but what mattered here was the fact that the owner of this body had been banished to this place, the Land of the Dead Spirits .

1

He was then given the job of a gravekeeper here .

The reason was pretty simple–he was a complete trash, a maggot no one wanted to be associated with .

Honestly speaking, this body’s original memories didn’t exist anymore . However, I would still hear some stories about this body’s past on occasion .

For example, while walking around the imperial palace, he felt quite bored, and so, he summoned a servant only to kick and slap the living hell out of the poor person .

Another one includes him spotting a servant girl walking around and sexually assaulting her, or he’d mercilessly beat up a tutor coming to teach him just because he got bored again .

1

Sure, a portion of aristocrats would also do something like this, it also means that such a simple reason couldn’t have warranted a banishment for the Imperial Prince and become a gravekeeper here .

The actual reason why he got banished to not just a regular frontier region, but to a very dangerous one at that, even becoming a gravekeeper was…

…[Blasphemy], that’s what .

The libido of the Holy Emperor’s grandson had awakened and he tried to rape a certain esteemed daughter of a noble, one who came to the Theocratic Empire to train to become a lady-in-waiting .

4

During the deed itself, he was discovered by an archbishop who came to pay his respects to the Holy Emperor . Now normally…

– Tsk, tsk . That mangnani is causing yet another incident .

…That’s where the matter should’ve ended along with the Archbishop stopping the youth .

However, the problem was that the lady-in-training happened to be the granddaughter of the same archbishop who discovered the deed midway .

7

The granddaughter he sent to the Imperial Palace to learn refinement and etiquette was about to be raped, and he got to personally witness that sorry sight .

Of course, the archbishop flipped his lid .

Unsurprisingly, the incident of the archbishop using his crosier to beat the living daylights out of the Imperial Grandson at the time occurred .

Both of them were summoned before the Holy Emperor right away .

One could say that the next-most powerful person besides the cardinal was the archbishop, but such a thing wouldn’t matter after beating up the Holy Emperor’s grandson . However, as the grandson was also guilty in this case, both were punished with two months of house arrest .

Things seemed to have calmed down with the case now closed, but then…

– He dared to hit me?

The immature boy of 15 years old sneaked into the archbishop’s quarters and proceeded to burn his holy scriptures . He broke the cross and then painted the wall with large letters that read – “A lowly bastard who sleeps with Goddess Gaia!”

9

Despite him living in a theocratic system, and on top of that, he was even the Holy Emperor’s grandson, and yet he dared to blaspheme! What a crazy and reckless fool he was .

Thanks to that, the Holy Emperor’s pent-up rage exploded and he promptly banished his grandson to the Land of the Dead Spirits up north .

The Imperial Grandson’s authority and status were stripped away from him, and he was even ordered to perform services to the village there .

5

– Mourn for the dead and improve yourself that way .

This was probably what the Holy Emperor was thinking at the time .

While in post-banishment, the influence the boy possessed as the potential successor of the Holy Emperor vanished too . He didn’t even have any escorts anymore .

It was easy to guess what the Emperor’s intentions were . He wouldn’t give a damn even if the boy got kidnapped by another country, or his life was endangered by something else in this dangerous land .

Basically, the Holy Emperor had abandoned the boy .

“Even then, suicide is just not on, dude . ”

5

The grandson, while full of dissatisfaction, headed to a nearby village and went on a rampage . He acted like an arse and not even a day later, Paladins came to visit him .

The Imperial Grandson got subdued in an instant . He was then imprisoned inside the monastery with nothing but prayers and water as his nourishment . After that day, the boy became truly enraged .

– This is unfair . Too unfair . How dare those lowly things…!

13

This whole thing must’ve been completely unacceptable when viewed from the perspective of an once-lofty Imperial Grandson .

Then again, he got banished to some backwoods to lug around corpses and shovel the ground . He probably couldn’t see a better future anymore .

Was that the reason why he did it?

By the time ‘I’ gained consciousness, I was already flailing about in a noose around my neck after he hanged himself .

Indeed, the Holy Emperor’s dumb grandson complained about his sad fate and tried to kill himself .

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

That was all in the past now . It wasn’t something I should particularly worry about anyway . This body had now become mine and my second life had begun .

11

However, it would have been nice to live the life of a gold spoon in the Imperial Palace… but well, living as a gravekeeper wasn’t so bad either . Actually, this suited my personality better .

2

Maybe because of the profession ‘Necromancer’ that I chose in the game I was playing for my part-time work in the previous life, I didn’t really feel any repulsion when handling all these corpses .

3

Hell, I was even okay with all the dreary, gloomy fog and the still silence, as well as the lingering stench wafting around here .

1

“I sincerely pray that I’m not some loon who loves to spend time with dead bodies…”

6

I muttered to myself as I glanced at the corpses .

There was something really odd about me, though . For sure, a Necromancer was a magician-type profession that used demonic energy to rule over death . But now, it felt like the characteristics of this particular profession had been altered somewhat .

I glanced around the vicinity . After confirming that no one was around, I cautiously touched one of the corpses .

4

Suddenly, the body that was ready-to-be-buried emitted white light, and sure enough, it began standing back up on its feet while creaking like a wooden doll .

2

-Oh, ooooh…

Rotting flesh, empty eye sockets, and even the unmistakable stagger . This was, without a doubt, a zombie . Yes, it was definitely a zombie, but…

I frowned deeply while looking at such a creature .

“…Why do you possess divinity though?”

Forget about the aura of death, this zombie was overflowing with the aura of life instead .

2

It was a zombie overflowing with ‘divinity’ .

33

**

The Necromancy skills I possessed were [Resurrection of the Dead], [Dead Spirit Soldier], [Plague of Debilitation], [Swamp of Death], and [Horrifying Curse] . As for my sundry passive skills, I also boasted the [Mind’s Eye] and [Translation], etc .

14

I possessed a couple of other skills, but it seemed that I couldn’t use them yet . I wasn’t able to remember them at all .

However, they sometimes flitted in and out of my mind, so I merely thought that it depended on my proficiency with my current skills in order to activate them .

“In the case of my Necromancy skills, they display effects closely related to all things life-related . ”

For instance, if I summoned zombies or skeletons, the ones appearing would be filled with divinity and not the normal demonic energy . The ‘Plague’ and the ‘Curse’ skills actually granted blessings, all the while the ‘Swamp of Death’ actually summoned a pit filled with holy water .

16

All these skills that foretold one’s death had now been altered to ones that bestowed life . The reason for that must be…

“It’s probably this body’s fault . ”

I took a closer look at my current body . Rather than demonic energy, it was brimming with divinity instead .

Even though he was a complete asshole and possessed not a shred of faith in his bones, he was still blessed with a sizable amount of divinity because he was the grandson of the Holy Emperor .

I wasn’t sure what the levels of other Priests were like around these parts, but this body’s divinity was probably about average in his age group .

4

“Sir Imperial Prince-nim… Your highness…!”

8

A voice called out to me from beyond the foggy footpath . I looked back to discover two men, both seemingly farmers, fumbling about while making their way out of the forest’s narrow path .