Chapter 185: The Battle to Reclaim Zestrad (1)

Maloka sat alone in the darkness of the Zestrad mansion’s second floor. He hadn’t even bothered to light a lamp. Calmly, he regulated his mana and necromantic energy, recalling the black-haired young man he had seen earlier that day.

That bastard must be the one Sir Leven mentioned.

Thanks to the future Leven, who had possessed Emil's body, Maloka had learned the name Karnak. The problem was that all he knew about his opponent amounted to little more than a name and a vague description.

In truth, the future Leven hadn't been able to stay in the present Leven's body for long. He had been interrupted and expelled almost immediately. The time he had actually spent face-to-face with Karnak had barely lasted a minute.

The only things he had confirmed were that Karnak had demonstrated an intricate level of necromancy, something only a Tesranach could likely achieve, yet his actual necromantic energy wasn't particularly strong. If only Demphis had been safe, Maloka might have been able to receive a full report on the situation. But, of all times, he had gone missing after that day.

There were too few clues. The continent was far too vast to track someone down with just a name and a rough description. Fortunately, the future Leven had strained to recall the moment and remembered the conversation the young man had with the present Leven.

—I’m part of the King's Order too! Do you think I'm doing this because I want to?

Thanks to this, Elezar had managed to pull the name Karnak from the depths of his memory.

—Come to think of it, there was a mage by that name in the Eustil Kingdom’s King's Order.

The existence of a necromancer of that caliber was unheard of, but the name itself had appeared in Hudel's reports. With a solid lead, it wasn’t difficult to confirm his identity.

His full name was Karnak Zestrad, the current head of the Zestrad Barony and Vice Commander of the Eustil Kingdom’s King's Order. He was a high-ranking mage, and known for his hatred toward necromancers.

Further investigation revealed that he was, in fact, the true source of the so-called Anti-Necromancer Magic that the Azure Silver Tower had been spreading. To Elezar, it was an utterly ridiculous revelation.

—Deltros is truly shameless, isn't he? He went on and on as if he invented it himself.

What was even more absurd was that Karnak hadn't even developed it himself. It was supposedly an arcane technique left behind by Dallas, a former royal mage of Eustil Kingdom. But that made no sense at all.

Dallas was none other than Demphis, before he became an archlich. Demphis was one of the four great governors of Necropia. Yet never once had there been any mention of him creating such magic. Of course, with Demphis missing, there was no way to verify the truth.

Regardless, all signs pointed to Karnak being the necromancer Leven had spoken of. Through intelligence from the Eustil King's Order, they had confirmed that Karnak and his group had entered the Maleficus Dungeon. Furthermore, from that day onward, the present Leven had been seen moving alongside them.

Thus, Maloka had launched an attack on the Zestrad territory with absolute certainty.

Now that the bastard has shown himself, all that's left is to capture him and offer him up.

Maloka’s jawbones clacked as he devised his next course of action. It was a long-standing habit whenever he was deep in thought.

Click. Click. Click. Click...

***

"Maloka is bound to respond like this." Karnak addressed the group gathered in the inn room. "He'll fortify the Zestrad mansion as his stronghold, set up various defensive wards, and position an undead army to guard the perimeter. He'll wait for us there and prepare for a defensive battle."

He predicted that Maloka would use the ensuing chaos to target him specifically. Serati and Leven nodded in agreement.

"A textbook siege strategy."

"It’s surprisingly orthodox. That's unexpected."

It was a rather conventional and solid approach. Somehow, it didn't quite fit the image of an archlich. Then again, being undead didn't mean one had to employ bizarre tactics.

Securing control of the battlefield was an advantage for both the living and the dead. But Karnak’s side wasn't here for a simple battle. They were here to reclaim the territory. The name of their force was, after all, the Zestrad Reclamation Army. One way or another, they had to advance toward the mansion. Maloka could achieve his goal simply by waiting for them.

"That's exactly what Maloka thinks. And we can use that to our advantage." Karnak grinned slyly.

Serati gave him a skeptical look. "Are you sure he'll act as expected? This is just your assumption, after all."

Varos shook his head. "He will."

His voice carried a rare confidence. He had good reason to believe so. "Maloka is painfully predictable. That's why he kept getting outmaneuvered by Lapicel."

"Oh my, by Lapicel?"

Serati let out a small laugh and glanced out the second-floor window. Down below, in the inn's backyard, a silver-haired girl was training alone with her sword. She was determined to improve her skills, which was why she continued her relentless training. She knew battle was fast approaching.

Karnak clicked his tongue. "

Phew

, thanks to that, I had quite the ordeal reviving Maloka."

Leven, still unconvinced, asked, "But if he got caught once, wouldn't he learn from it and not fall for it again?"

"Exactly! That's what I'm saying!" Karnak suddenly flared up with a scowl. "If you fall for something once, you shouldn't fall for it again, right? But I had to revive Maloka three times. Three times!"

Serati wore an incredulous expression. "He died three times at Lapicel's hands alone?"

"Yeah."

"Does he not learn from his mistakes?"

Varos let out a deep sigh, as if recalling past events. "That's not entirely it. It's just that he has almost no capacity for adaptation."

Maloka had certainly studied various tactics and strategies, even reading a considerable number of military texts. He had plenty of knowledge stored in his head.

"And yet, in the end, he could only act exactly as the books dictated. It's a common issue when you put a scholar in a commander's position," explained Varos.

Maloka had always been a governor, not a general. In other words, he was not a war strategist. Expecting expertise from someone who wasn't a specialist was an unfair demand.

"Still, as a governor, there was no one as competent as Maloka. That's why I kept reviving him and making use of him."

And once again, Maloka would likely move exactly as the strategy books instructed, just as he always had.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"So, should we just do what Lapicel did back then?" Serati asked.

Karnak smirked. "Nah, even Maloka would catch on to that."

He was rigid in his thinking, but he wasn't an idiot. The same trick wouldn't work over and over.

"What I mean is, we just have to do something Lapicel would do," said Karnak.

And in this case, there was an additional advantage. This expedition wasn't just about reclaiming the land or eliminating Maloka and his undead army. There were also the people imprisoned within the territory, people who needed rescuing. Karnak would need to rescue them if he truly wanted to live as a human. This, however, was a completely uncharted territory for Karnak.

"Serati, you said it yourself, right? If you're not sure what to do, just follow a good person's example." As he glanced out the window, the former Monarch of Death grinned from ear to ear. "If I'm following humanity's hero, there should be no problem, right?"

Lapicel's fierce battle cries echoed high into the sky. "

Hup! Hah! Haah!

"

***

After the first battle, the Zestrad Reclamation Army steadily advanced to the outskirts of the territory, just as Maloka had expected. But their next course of action deviated from his predictions. Instead of continuing their march, they set up camp at the outskirts and refused to move any further.

"What's going on?"

Two possibilities came to mind. The first was that they had halted their advance temporarily while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. The second was that they were turning their encampment into a defensive line, waiting for him to make the first move.

Maloka scoffed. Both possibilities hinged on the same fundamental assumption. They intended to stall for time and drag the battle into a long-term war.

"Do they really think they can afford to waste time?"

If their sole objective was to eliminate him and his undead army, then such a strategy wasn't necessarily a bad choice. But were they really fighting just for victory?

"Seems they've forgotten that we have hostages."

At present, countless people from Zestrad were being held captive. They were alive, for now.

Maloka summoned two of his necromancers and issued an order. "Choose a village. Slaughter everyone and raise them as undead. Then send them to the enemy camp."

A sinister glow flickered in the empty sockets of the archlich's skull.

"When they see the very people they swore to save turned into corpses attacking them... they'll start to panic."

***

Following Maloka's command, a farming village was chosen as the sacrificial site. Two necromancers set off to turn its inhabitants into the undead.

The undead forces occupying Zestrad's territory were positioned according to a structured arrangement. Maloka and his necromancers stationed themselves in the Zestrad mansion and the central town beneath it, while undead troops—pre-programmed with specific orders—were deployed to various farmsteads and the copper mines.

The standing orders were simple: Block any residents from leaving the territory, and kill any outsiders who try to enter.

By setting these automatic commands in place, the undead could fight on their own even if the necromancers were absent. The two necromancers were surprised when they arrived at the village.

"

Huh

?"

"What’s going on?"

They scanned their surroundings in confusion. The zombie and skeleton soldiers they had stationed were completely destroyed. And that wasn't all.

The villagers had vanished without a trace.

"Did those country bumpkins escape?"

"How? Don't tell me they were the ones who took down our soldiers?"

The possibility was almost nonexistent. Anything that could be used as a weapon had been confiscated long ago. Even if the villagers had somehow fought back using farming tools, and by sheer luck managed to defeat the undead soldiers, there should still have been some corpses left behind.

This was just a remote village in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't as if the place was secretly filled with trained knights. The idea that not a single casualty had been left behind was absurd. It wasn't until they examined the scene more closely that they grasped the full picture.

"Damn it..."

The attack on the undead soldiers had been carried out by a special unit from the reclamation army.

"So this is how they're going to play it?"

***

Dozens of farmers huddled inside a large tent of the reclamation army’s camp. They were repeatedly expressing their gratitude.

"Thank you... truly, thank you..."

"Thank you so much..."

They were the people the special unit had rescued from the village.

"I'm just glad we were able to get them out safely," Leven said, watching them with a satisfied smile. Then, his expression darkened with worry. "But... will things continue to go this smoothly?"

Following Karnak's strategy, the reclamation army had formed an elite rescue squad of about twenty knights and soldiers. Their mission was to infiltrate different villages throughout the territory and free the captured residents.

Undead soldiers that weren't directly controlled by necromancers were slow and predictable. As long as they weren't overwhelmingly outnumbered, the rescue teams could handle them.

"But surely they won't just sit back and let this happen, right?"

The reclamation army wasn't the only side that could deploy special units. Maloka commanded an undead force numbering in the thousands. If he redirected even a fraction of them to the villages, their teams could be wiped out before they even had a chance to rescue anyone.

Karnak chuckled in response, clearly entertained by the thought. "It won't be as easy as you think."

He was absolutely certain that Maloka wouldn't be able to respond effectively. Why? Because this was the exact same tactic he had once fallen for at Lapicel's hands.

"The army of the dead has some serious weaknesses."