Eventually, the adjusted telling of the Necromancer’s journey so far reached its conclusion. Emil told of how he had encountered the aftermath of the ambushed guards earlier that day, and sought to have their deaths avenged. And when that was complete, he unexpectedly encountered the captured nobleman.

With his story now finished, Faustus’s expression returned to noble as he was then silent for a few moments. Emil might have minded returned silence before, but by now his prior annoyance with Faustus had dissipated. But this time thankfully, it actually only lasted for those few seconds.

“Sir Emil, I must admit that was quite the captivating tale. The power to bring life back to the dead is not one I would have ever imagined could exist. In fact, if one such example was not sitting in front of me at this moment, I still would not have believed it possible. Even in the stories of the most renowned figures across legend and history, I do not believe such a feat has ever been matched before.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s as impressive as actually bringing someone back to life. Making an undead is a lot closer to just controlling a puppet, or even creating a golem actually. If I could fully restore a dead person in both body and soul, then it’d be worth that level of praise. Oh, and just Emil’s fine by the way. It’s only fair, if I don’t need to be formal by referring to you with sir,” the Necromancer insisted with a hand wave.

It was then that something pricked in the back of his mind. His gaze shifted toward the direction of the tent’s entrance. From the other side of it, he could feel the presence of a human spirit’s energy. It made sense with the amount of time that had already passed. It would seem that the souls of the dead bandits had now begun to leave their former bodies behind. Emil stood up, before he glanced back at the nobleman.

“Sorry, but there’s something I need to take a look at outside. It probably shouldn’t take me too long though, so I’ll be right back,” Emil said. As he then began to make his way toward the entrance, he heard the bed shift as the noble stood up.

“That is quite alright, I would be more than willing to join you,” Faustus remarked as he paced over to be right behind him. “After all, they always say that nothing pairs well with a good meal than stretching one’s legs afterward.” Since the other man was pretty intent on coming with him, Emil decided to at least give him a fair warning.

“Well, suit yourself then. But just so you know, we’re going to walk by one of the dead bandits on our way out. It wouldn’t really have been visible from where we just were, so I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet. And then there’ll be even more outside, for both the bandits and the undead I came here with. So if you’re not really comfortable with that…” he trailed off.

“I had not, but it will be quite alright. Though they have always been long-dead, I am actually fairly familiar with being around corpses. We have a private crypt at our estate that houses the bodies of generations of the Ubel family line,” Faustus began as they passed by the mentioned corpse at the front of the tent. The nobleman only spared it a momentary glance as he continued.

“You see my good Emil, there is an old tradition in my family. It goes that once every decade from when they were each stored in the crypt, the bodies would be exhumed and doused with various oils and perfumes. It is not a very well-liked duty, you would understand. However, it is one that has always been carried out by the current generation of Ubels for our ancestors. But I swear, the stench does remain just as awful in each one no matter how much perfume was applied the previous decade.”

The two of them then walked out of the tent and stepped outside. After having spent some time in space warmed by a lit fire, the chill air of the winter night only felt even colder in comparison. The Undead Human still didn’t mind it either way, of course. But Faustus immediately shivered from the freezing temperature. He quickly threw the hood of his coat over his head and tightened it to better cover his face.

With the noble still a few paces behind him, Emil made his way over to the central firepit. They walked by the four undead guards, who still remained as idle as before. But as he moved past them without a second thought, Faustus stopped in his tracks. Emil glanced back at him for a second, before he then returned his focus back to his current purpose. He continued his approach and walked up to the corpses around the fire.

As Emil had correctly sensed, the souls of the bandits had begun their departure from their physical bodies. When he was just a few feet away, he decided to remain at that spot and intently watch them. This was still one aspect of death Emil wanted to learn more about, and now he had his opportunity to glean further insight into it. Since until now, his own death and that of Mayor Duran had been his only direct encounters with this stage of what came right after a human’s demise.

It was hard to say for certain how long this had taken. But if he estimated that roughly 30 to 45 minutes had passed between their deaths and now. Which was a figure that approximately felt about right for the mayor’s soul as well.

So with the more than twelve hours it had taken for Emil to awaken as a ghost post-mortem, he felt that it could be fairly assumed that his personal experience was an outlier. But he would still need to see how much longer it took for the corpses scattered across the tents to be sure. Since they would assumingly also start to appear in just a couple minutes from then. With that now mentally noted, he moved on to their appearances next.

The manifestation of each one was in line with what he had previously observed. The souls exited their respective bodies head first and rose up in a standing position. Their spiritual form resembled that of how they looked when alive, down to the clothes they had been wearing upon their death.

The first and last time Emil had experienced this part with the recently deceased was with Mayor Duran. This was also the stage where the Necromancer had stepped in to bind that man’s soul to his will and forcefully kept it bound as a ghost. But now, he wanted to find out what would happen next.

Interestingly, each of their eyes remained closed as they continued to float upward. The expressions of the spirits were peaceful, as though they enjoying pleasant dreams. Their arms rested leisurely against their sides, and their legs were pressed together. Even despite how they had died, the souls of these bandits seemed fully tranquil and at ease.

Emil rubbed his chin as he keenly perceived how the positioning of both their faces and bodies perfectly mirrored each other. For everything below the neck, perhaps it would have been easier to ignore. Yet their facial features weren’t simply just the same in how they could be identified, but more than that.

The head of each soul was tilted back by an identical amount. It was also that way for how their lips were pressed and cheeks pulled for their light smile. Even how tightly their eyes were closed was equally parallel between them. It was likely because they had that normally improbable, flawless degree of sameness that it stood out so much to him. If their faces were fully separated from the rest of their form, Emil doubted that he’d have been able to individually tell them apart.

Finally, the Necromancer once again could easily compare it to what he had previously experienced. He already determined that this shared expression also exactly matched his memory of how the murdered children had looked before they disappeared. It had been harder to notice with how worn down some of their souls had become with time. But there was no mistaking the mutual likeness these spirits shared with the children who had remained whole, like Alice.

The souls of the bandits only rose even higher up into the air. Like it had also been in the graveyard with the children, the space around these souls became filled with mist. As the haze grew denser and partially obscured the spirits, a soft light glowed from them. Their luminescent bodies steadily shined brighter, until they collectively began to disappear from feet-first. At the same time, Emil suddenly began to start silently counting to himself.

This wasn’t an action he had actually put any conscious thought into. But at that instant, he felt compelled to find out exactly how long it would take them to fade away. It was like something deep inside him had adjudicated that this particular detail was especially important to know. One second passed, then three seconds, and so on. By the point the final bits of their heads were gone, his count had reached 14 seconds in total. Now that their passing on to the afterlife was done, he was left with a fair bit to think about.

So about half an hour from death to actually appear, and then 14 seconds exactly to move on, huh? 14 though… that’s a rather specific number. Not sure what exactly it’s supposed to mean, but I’ll try to learn more when I can. Now I still don’t know why I felt that urge to find that number, just out of nowhere. Yet at the same time, it still feels like something in my gut is saying that it was the right call to make. Hmm.

He placed his right hand against the top of his chest. Right below its fingertips was where the core of his own soul rested. But even without that physical movement, he was always aware of its presence in the back of his mind. Like the ambient sounds of animals and insects in the forest, the power that flowed from it throughout his body was something he constantly sensed. But like background noise, it was easy to tune out when not directly focused on.

The Undead Human wondered if perhaps it was the real origin of the gut feeling in question. With his own soul fully manifested as its own object, it made a kind of sense. Even in life while it was still firmly attached to his body, he had been able to easily perceive spirits.

So presently, it could be reasoned that his soul would only be more sensitive to others while their presence was close by. And if so, might allow him to subconsciously realize when something related to souls was a matter of significance. Yet as those thoughts crossed his mind, one part of them did cause him to crack a slight smile.

Man, I just realized how it sounds when it’s worded as ‘back when I was still alive’. Pretty sure I even used that exact phrase at some point during my conversation with Faustus. He probably thinks of me as someone who’s been undead for years or even decades. Especially since I don’t think I gave him any exact timeframes to work with otherwise. Yet here I am, acting like it’s been forever when it hasn’t been a whole week yet since I turned fully undead. Can’t help but imagine what kind of face he would make if I told him the truth.

It was then that Emil once again experienced the prickling sensation of souls diverging from their bodies. When his gaze looked over in the direction of its source, he confirmed that it indeed came from the initial pair of tents that had been attacked. So if his prior assumption remained true, then the same would soon start to continuously recur for the corpses in each pair of tents. In which case, he should begin to repeatedly feel it after every minute or two.

The Necromancer continued to rigidly stand in place as he waited for a bit over a minute. Then just as predicted, the mental tingle came from the second pair of tents. So with five pairs left, he now believed that it would take another five to ten minutes until it happened for the last ones. There was a question he needed to ask himself, however. One that needed an answer before all those souls were gone.

If he assumed that none of them stayed behind as ghosts on their own, would the Necromancer let them all move on? After all, he had kept Mayor Duran’s spirit bound and trapped as an undead. Had Flumdea’s fatal intervention never occurred, Duran would have still remained in his servitude. It just so happened that she did intervene, and consequently destroyed half of his soul on the spot. And with the other half deemed necessary for Emil’s resurrection, the mayor was given what could only be called an absolute, truly final death.

Emil had intended for undeath to be a punishment, penance for his role in covering up and aiding the sacrificial murders of children. He did still believe it was the just action to take for one who assisted but technically hadn’t committed murder themself. So in his own mind, he could self-rationalize the destruction of Duran’s soul as really a result of what Flumdea did, not him. For Hadwin, however, that was a different story entirely.

For the ‘Silver One’, he made no attempt to explain away the result by pinning blame on Flumdea. Intervention from her or not, the end of that murder would have remained the same. With Unholy Fire Magic as his tool, Emil would have killed anyway in both body and soul. The decision of giving Hadwin that end of true finality was a choice he would have made every time. If the complete death and destruction of a soul was a crime, then it was one he would honestly admit he committed.

But past all of that, there was still the matter of the bandits. In the spectrum of his morality for what he considered justice, where did they fall? Would he prevent them from leaving and trap their souls, permanently destroy them, or something else? With his current Mana Level and his access to death energy, those were resources currently not limited enough to restrict his decision. As he considered it, Emil glanced over to the four undead guards.

The hooded nobleman was standing in front of them, merely an arm’s length away from the nearest one. With no input from the Necromancer that commanded them, none of the undead reacted in response. Their empty gazes instead just continued to look forward, staring ahead at nothing. Faustus pressed his gloved hands and began to rub them back and forth against each other.

As he stared at the undead, Emil came to a decision. It wasn’t just his thoughts that should be considered, but also those of the bandits’ victims. The murdered children had directly entrusted him to make whatever choice he felt was right at the time. But for these guards, all they had wanted was the opportunity to strike back with their own hands.

Now that they had given back in equal measure what was dealt to them, that wish was achieved. Anything beyond that wouldn’t be for their sake, but purely just to satisfy his own desires. So as he continued to sense more souls appear, his only action would be the choice of inaction.

With that now decided, he figured it was probably time to move on to something else. He looked up at the gaseous shroud that hung overhead. In the time that had passed from when they died, the miasma from before had time to fully develop. Now it was fully formed into an almost singular, dark cloud. Almost, in that one part of it remained distinctly separate from the rest.

The Necromancer’s head tilted to the side as he stared at the distinction. It hovered over the body of the dead spellcaster, and refused to mix with the larger mass. As Emil looked at it more closely, he noticed that it was actually different from what he’d encountered before. Rather than being purely black, he saw small masses of dark purple mixed in.

Okay, now that’s a new one, Emil thought to himself. But more than just being new, it was something that instantly fanned the fire of curiosity inside him. Compared to each prior cloud of death he had experienced so far, this was the first one that was unique in its appearance.