Walking the streets outside the citadel, which were as cramped and crooked as any other, Kano spotted five ghouls in a narrow alley at the same time they saw her. Normally she would have heard them long before she got close, but they were standing completely still. Four were armed, arrayed in protective circle around the fifth. He was sitting on an old box, staring back at Kano with a quizzical expression on his face. “What’re you doing here?”

From the way he said it, it sounded like he knew Kano, but there was nothing familiar about him. Not that she was likely to remember such a meeting—he looked utterly unremarkable. Everything about him seemed to be that of an ordinary ghoul, from his dull, lifeless eyes to his thin, shoddily made body.

“Looking for someone controlling some slime. Pretty ridiculous, really, now that I think about it. But anyway, are you the one responsible for that?”

“Oh. And here I was thinking that you’d just stumbled upon me by accident. How did you figure I was behind it so quickly?”

“I didn’t. It was Werisah.”

“Werisah? You’re working with him now?”

Kano shrugged. “For now. It’s kind of complicated. Who are you, anyway? You seem to know me.”

Standing up, he said, “Don’t you recognize me?” He looked down at himself. “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t recognize my new body. It’s me, Eomonsa!”

He sounded awfully upbeat for some reason. It was mildly infuriating. “I thought you were dead.”

“As did I at the time. And I very nearly was, but owing to my preparations, and perhaps a bit of luck, I managed to get through it alive. Not many people manage that, you know, coming back alive from death. Almost none, in fact.”

“You’re inside a ghoul’s body now? How is that possible?” Even if he somehow had a way to transfer his soul to it, as far as Kano was aware, a ghoul shouldn’t even be capable of housing it.

“It’s a little bit complicated, so bear with me. My soul isn’t technically inside the ghoul at all. But rather the slime that’s controlling the ghoul.”

That made even less sense. If a ghoul wasn’t a suitable vessel for his soul, then how could slime possibly be? “You’re saying your soul is in the slime now? That’s ridiculous.”

“I can see why it might be hard to believe, but I assure you that’s the reality of it. Through slow, painstaking manipulation of the slime, I was able to coax it to replicate my brain. Then it was just a matter of shoving my soul in there, and hey, I’m back. The slime really is amazing. Way better than whatever Werisah was working on. I don’t know why he was so quick to dismiss it.”

Kano thought of all the consternation it had been causing the necromancer in the citadel. “I think he’s developed a new appreciation for its capabilities, though I don’t think his opinion of you has improved any.”

Though he shook his head, Eomonsa didn’t look the slightest bit bothered about it. “Oh well. Isn’t that always the way? The true value of new technology is very rarely appreciated until it’s properly matured and been shown to produce results. Which I’m currently in the process of demonstrating, as you’re likely aware.” He let out a bark of hysterical laughter that set Kano on edge. “Or if not, you soon will be.”

Had he always been this crazy? Kano hadn’t spent much time with him before, but she hadn’t gotten the impression that he was any different from the other necromancers. Though from what Werisah had said about him, it was unsurprising that he was even crazier than his peers.

“Whatever you’re doing, it stops now.”

“Stop? No, no. There can be no stopping. I’m so close to showing the world what my slime can do. Maybe. Either way, I won’t stop.”

Kano narrowed her eyes. Was he serious? Why did he have to make things so difficult? “Look, if you’re not going to stop, then you’re going to die again. Maybe for real this time.”

Smiling, Eomonsa stood up. “You don’t scare me. Not anymore. I have transcended beyond your comprehension.”

Yeah, he was definitely crazy. He may have managed to save himself once, but all he’d done was put himself inside a ghoul. “Then you don’t care if I destroy your body?”

“Err.” He paused, losing some of his pompousness. “That would be a bit inconvenient. Why must you get in my way? What have I ever done to you?”

Kano could probably come up with a sizeable list at this point, but none of that really mattered. “It’s not about you, it’s about what you’re doing in the citadel. Whatever you’re doing with this slime is disrupting Werisah’s work. And he’s pretty pissed off about it.”

“Yeah, so?” He didn’t sound the slightest bit concerned or sympathetic. “He’s probably just jealous that my research is progressing faster without him.”

“Whatever his reasons, he wants me to stop you, and I can’t really refuse.” Were it not for the necromancers, Kano wouldn’t care about the slime’s invasion of the citadel, but she no longer had the luxury of ignoring it. She wouldn’t have bothered discussing any of this with Eomonsa if she was confident destroying his body would stop what he was doing.

She wasn’t even sure she’d get that far. The ghouls protecting him didn’t look like much, but those brown-armored guys might appear at any time. “Can’t you just take your experiment somewhere else? Or at least wait until later, when they’re not so busy? I’m sure they’d be much more able to appreciate what you’re doing if they weren’t so distracted by their own work.”

“No, they’ll never appreciate it. Not unless I force it upon them.”

Absurd as what he was saying sounded, Kano wasn’t sure she disagreed. The necromancers probably wouldn’t pay him much attention unless they had no choice. It wasn’t like they cared about him whatsoever beyond his impact on their own work.

“What are you even trying to do? Fill the place with slime? I don’t see how that’s going to prove much, and I really doubt it’ll do much to impress them.”

Eomonsa waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s far more to what I’m trying to do than that. Do you understand nothing? The incursion is merely one phase of my plan.”

“Okay, sure. And what’s the phase after this, then?”

He blinked. “How am I supposed to know that? I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

Kano groaned. He really was an idiot. How had anyone ever trusted him with any sort of technology or training? Whoever was responsible for him becoming a necromancer must be even crazier than he was. “How can you not know?” she demanded. “Did you lose the ability to think after you died the first time?”

“No, my death hasn’t affected my mental faculties.” He looked away and scratched his head. “On the contrary, I’m thinking more clearly than ever. But getting back to your first question, it’s quite simple—I don’t really know what the slime will do or how it works, so I can’t know what I want to do with until I find out more.”

“You don’t even know how it works? Why didn’t you wait until you’d actually studied it before you unleashed it?”

“Why bother? This way is much faster. Less boring too. Do you have any idea what it’s like sitting in a lab all day? It’s awful.”

After being stuck in a lab for a while, unable to move, Kano could certainly appreciate how boring it could be. But she still didn’t have any sympathy for Eomonsa. It was hard to even think of him as a necromancer at this point. His reckless incompetence was on a whole other level.

“Did you ever actually get trained? Like by another necromancer?”

Surely he had to have been. Kano doubted he’d gotten this far on his own. But she also had to question how he could act like this if he had been trained. Wouldn’t they have made at least some effort to curb his more destructive behaviors?

“Of course I did,” he said, sounding defensive. “I mean, sure, I did get kicked out before I was done, but that was more her fault than mine. I’m confident that my latest invention will win her over and show how wrong she was to discard me.”

“How can you be confident about that? You don’t even know what your creation does.”

“I know enough to realize how incredible it is, which is very. It’s way better than anything she ever made. The same goes for Werisah. Would you believe he wasn’t even ready to field test his super-transformation thingy?”

“Are you talking about the thing that made those brown-armored guys?”

“Yeah, that one. Isn’t that stupid? Somehow he managed to make something that’s close to perfect, and he’s too scared to even realize its potential.”

“You realize you’re talking about the same guys who killed you earlier, right? Which I’m guessing was an accident, so they don’t exactly seem ready to me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Granted, there is a bit of a learning curve with using them correctly, but that doesn’t mean the technology isn’t ready.”

“A bit of a learning curve?” Did he even understand what he was saying? Or could he no longer understand what she was saying? “They killed you by accident! How much more can you fail at controlling something?”

It wasn’t like he’d destroyed the whole town or anything, but there’d only been one of the transformed creatures there. It would have been difficult for him to have failed more than he had.

“I admit it didn’t go too well, but you can’t get hung up on failures like that. What’s important is all that I learned from what happened. It was really more of a success than a failure if we’re talking about the actual end result. Not only did I learn more about how Werisah’s virus works, I even pulled off a perfect demonstration of my soul-transfer technology.”

As he spoke, he grew more and more spirited until he was practically raving, spittle flying from his mouth. “And you have the gall to call it a failure? I cannot fathom how one can even exist with such a tiny mind. It’s a wonder you’re not paralyzed by incomprehension every time something the slightest bit surprising happens. Have you no concept of setbacks? Of justifiable losses for the greater good? I had thought you possessed the most basic of principles, but it appears I have been gravely misinformed.”

He put his hand to his chest, so filled with outrage that he seemed fit to burst. “And despite all that, despite your exceptional ignorance, you presume to lecture me? To command me to halt my work? How dare you!” Pausing to regain a portion of his composure, when he spoke again, he tilted his head back haughtily, and his words lost some of their passion. “To be frank, were I of a ruder character, I would bid you good day.”

That was the last straw. Kano couldn’t contain herself any longer. She laughed. Long and heartily. His arrogant demeanor and horribly flawed arguments had been pissing her off, but now she realized she never should have taken him seriously in the first place. He wasn’t just crazy; he may as well be living in a different world.

Despite his madness, Kano felt a slight fondness for him. His lack of calculation or understanding made his transgressions far more forgivable. It was clear he didn’t know any better, not like the necromancers. She still had to sort this situation out somehow, but at least now she knew that trying to reason with Eomonsa was pointless.