“Ha ha, Boss! Another win for me! Cough up your chips!” Gardener laughed as he showed his hand of cards. I became baffled as I thought I had the winning moves, but it turned out that I was the first one knocked out of the round!

“Impossible! I am an Archlich! How could this be?!” I cried as I slammed the ‘table’ we were playing on. My shouting was followed by sounds of groan. I had thought that my table had regained its will until I realized that it was just Inez waking up.

After the exorcism, Inez had fainted from…exhaustion…or so I hoped. I laid her to bed and decided to do some experiments on the freshly made mindless order knight. His eyes were blank and drool was falling off his mouth so I assumed he was braindead. Now assuming that braindead means fully dead as well, I could ‘resurrect’ the order knight. Unfortunately, nothing came up. As I thought, a physically dead person is required for necromancy.

I wonder if vitamancers, or lifemancers, required living people. Do they make minions out of living people? Aren’t those just employers?

“W-where am I?” Inez muttered as she held her head. Satel passed a cup of water to the priestess while my companions and I packed our things up. I was losing a lot anyway, so I didn’t feel like continuing the game.

“Alright, little girl. You’ve done your job, so go away. I’ve already waited for too long just to tell you not to tell anyone about this exorcism.” I shooed off Inez who was still feeling slightly dizzy and drowsy.

I opened the door to shove Inez out when someone else blocked my way. It was Spymaster Beor holding a restrained person. The unconscious person was a woman who was blindfolded, gagged, and bound.

“Why do you guys like taking kidnapped people to my room?” I complained.

“Eh? Why is this person-…” Before Inez could even finish her sentence, I threw her out of my room and pulled Beor in. Locking the door, Beor placed his kidnap victim down.

“I think I found the suspicious person you wanted me to look for. It seemed that whatever you were doing caused her to go crazy before finally fainting,” Beor explained.

“What? My exorcism made her crazy? Where did you find her?” I asked.

“I found her loitering near the tavern and observed her because she isn’t a muscleman. When you started exorcising, she started to emit some death essence before screaming and flailing her arms around. I simply waited and watched in amusement until I remembered that I had to capture her alive.”

“Is she an undead?”

“Are you blind? She doesn’t look dead to me.” Beor shrugged.

Well, if she wasn’t an undead, that means she was none other than a…

I scratched my mask’s cheek then crouched to get a closer look at her. Her dark hair covered her glasses and dull gray robes hid her well-endowed body. I hummed as I examined at the assets that was just right before my eyes.

I realized that I haven’t seen a real woman in a while now. Lately, I’ve been surrounded by cutting boards like Maven-…

I felt a chill for a moment there. Ahem.

Lately, I’ve been surrounded by cutting boards like Inez. To be fair, the heroes’ party was just filled with kids and Satel’s body wasn’t even real. If only the heroes’ party was filled with hot babes, then maybe I wouldn’t mind being a teacher.

The woman’s head twitched before slowly waking up. After she realized that she was blindfolded, she started to panic and struggle against her bindings. Her large tracks of lands started to shake which was bad for my focus. I took off her blindfolds slowly, causing her to pull her head back.

“Well, now. No need to panic now, necromancer,” I greeted her. I tried my best to keep a casual and friendly tone, so why was she panicking more?

I took off her gag and the first thing that came out of her mouth was a barrage of garbled excuses and pleas.

“Please d-don’t k-kill me! I’m not a necromancer, I s-swear! P-praise be the Goddess of Light, aha ha ha! Please don’t kill me…”

“Silence.” I raised my hand with a firm tone. I had to make it clear to her that I wasn’t a religious nutjob. I said to her, “Your praises to the Goddess seem fake therefore…”

“PLEASE! I SWEAR! I LOVE THE PATH! I’M NOT STUDYING THE DARK ARTS! UWAAAAAA!”

Annoyed, I shoved the gag back into her mouth and massaged my temples. Did Beor bring her here just to annoy me?

“Look, let’s start from the beginning. I don’t care if you’re a necromancer. I don’t follow the Path of Light so I don’t care about necromancy. In fact, I see necromancy as part of medical science!” I proclaimed. Seeing that she calmed down a bit, I took off her gag and waited for her response.

“Really? You’re not a priest? Are you a necromancer, too?” The woman asked.

“No, I’m not a necromancer, but I’m not a priest either,” I replied. There was no way I was going to up and tell a stranger that I was a necromancer.

“Is that so…It seems that I judged you wrongly…uwaaa…I’m such a horrible person…” The woman became depressed and started sniffling.

What’s with this emotional hazard?

“No need to cry, fair lady. I am used to being mistaken as one. Anyway, where are you from? I can see that you are not a sorcerer,” I asked.

“Eh? I don’t look like one? I thought it was obvious that I was one…”

Gasp.

Don’t tell me…

This is one of those sorcerers from that place…Caramellot, was it?

“I’m actually a sorcerer from Cahalot,” The woman said.

Yes, this is it! She could be ticket to that place!

“Cahalot? I’m actually looking forward to visit that place! Men, untie her! She is our honored guest for now,” I ordered.

My companions went about with cutting her bindings and she gripped one of her wrists, massaging it. “Ah…honored guest? If anything, I feel like a rude intruder right now…Is-Isn’t that a dead body?!” She jumped as she pointed at the braindead order knight drooling on the floor.

“You’re mistaken. He’s still alive. In fact, he’s a drunkard that intruded upon my room! Men, toss this man out of the room!” I commanded.

“As you wish, Boss.” Gardener took the order knight’s head while one of the death knights took the legs. They moved to the side of the room and tossed the order knight out of the window.

“That’s…?!” The woman muttered.

“Come, drink tea with me,” I offered as I sat in front of an actual table. My men poured two cups of tea as the sorcerer took her seat across mine.

“Introductions first. Let’s hear your name,” I said.

“Ah! How rude of me! I’m intruding yet I don’t have the decency to introduce myself! I’m sorry!” She bowed while sitting, causing her to smash her face onto the table.

“To be fair, we did kidnap you. So, what’s your name and why are you in Rallas? I heard that sorcerers from Cahalot aren’t welcome in other places.”

The woman answered while rubbing her head, “Um…In Cahalot, I-I’m called Master Yomi. I’m currently visiting for the evaluation tests.”

“Yomi? What kind of name is that?”

“Ah, I get that often. My parents and many sorcerers love the Ancient Common scripts. The ancient language used to have single words that would mean a lot of things, sometimes even phrases. According to them, Yomilegs in Ancient Common means ‘Enduring’. So they shortened it to Yomi.”

But it means ‘Yo, my legs had gone numb from shitting for so long’…I better not tell her that.

Wait, more importantly, didn’t she said something about the evaluation tests? Didn’t my apprentice, Kendra, said something about her old teacher going to the evaluation tests?

“MASTER YOMI!” Kendra shouted as she slammed through my door.

Seriously, what’s with people and my door?! What did my door do to you all?!

“Kendra?!” Yomi stood up in surprise as the former student and teacher looked at each other. Her mouth was wide open, unable to muster the right words to say.

Kendra was the first one to speak, “I just heard from Inez that Master caught a sorcerer from Cahalot. I was sure it was you so I came…”

“Y-you came for me?” Yomi’s eye started to get wet as her former apprentice turned her head in embarrassment.

“O-of course not. I just had to confirm that it was you. As my former teacher, I still have to pay respects, that’s all!” Kendra stammered.

“Uwaaa…Kendra!” Yomi rushed Kendra and tackled-hug her. The sorcerer’s cheeks were flooded with tears while Kendra was trying to push her away.

“While it’s nice and all to have a reunion, can you please not do it in my room?” I grumbled.

“Ah, sorry! It’s just that…Kendra was my first ever student and I took care of her ever since she was a small child so…”

Kendra shouted, “Ah! Stop, stop! I know every time you talk about me, you would go on about the embarrassing things I did when I was a kid!”

Well, you are still a kid so…

I took a sip from my tea and urged, “Go on, Master Yomi. I’m all ears.”

“No!” Kendra begged.

“When she was six, she once thought that she could make mud pie out of mud and…”

“AAAAH!” Kendra cringed on the floor while covering her ears. She started cursing, “Why did I come here?!”

“Alright, I’ve heard enough,” I interrupted Yomi as I placed my tea cup down. I held my head down as I, too, used to eat mud when I was a young boy. “Besides, that’s my student now. I’d rather have her not hold a grudge against me.”

“Eh?!” Yomi froze with a pale face before recovering. “Ah, you mean as a student in the heroes’ party, right?”

“No, she’s my apprentice-in-magic.”

“Eeeeh?! How could this be?”

Kendra interjected, “Wait, Master Yomi. Master has actually helped me understand magic in ways that no other mages could have! His magic could actually help us beat muscle magic!”

“Seriously?!” Yomi looked at me with doubts. “No way, the sorcerers of Cahalot have tried everything. The best shot we got with beating the sorcerers of the other states is with the help of necro-…”

Yomi cut herself off by covering her mouth. “I mean with the help of…of….new crop growing magic.”

“Crop growing magic?” Kendra scratched her head.

“Is that magic really the only way to beat the musclemen?” I asked as I leaned back against my chair.

“Yes! I mean…not crop growing magic. It’s…you know what I am! Muscle magic will eventually fall against the magic that I use!” Yomi defended. She probably meant necromancy.

“Then, Kendra, show her a simple fireball spell.” I snapped my finger and Kendra understood my intentions.

“A fireball spell? What is the point of showing me such a basic spell-…”

Yomi stared at the fireball that Kendra had made without saying anything. The little girl simply held her hands out and a ball of flame formed in the air. Yomi held her hands close to the fireball to check its purity and realized that it was a fireball of the highest caliber.

“Im…possible….”