Free Web NovelChapter 344: The End of the Beginning (5)
Ding!
I stood there, stunned.
I failed.
The bribes hadn’t worked. My attempt to erase the soldier’s existence by stealing his sword had failed as well. The soldier remained, and so did the sword.
Did the world fill in the gap itself? Did causality restore what I took? Or maybe...
A sharp thought flashed through my mind. If items from my Inventory carried over into each new beginning, then maybe, every time the world restarted, I could reclaim the same treasures again and again.
Nevertheless, comparing Ashton’s sacred tomes to a mass-produced iron sword was absurd. It was foolish to think stealing a weapon could make a human vanish entirely. The realization stung. It hit me how much I’d relied on Isaac and the others. Shame, gratitude, regret, all tangled together inside me.
Even from the start, I’d made a grave miscalculation by assuming these soldiers were ordinary guards. They didn’t flinch at the sight of an undead. They didn’t crack even when offered gold. They didn’t utter a word about their mission. Even after I memorized every movement and attacked at point-blank range, they stayed composed until the very end.
They were far too disciplined and skilled to be mere city guards. They were elite imperial troops, and their constant talk of loyalty to the emperor made it almost certain.
I should have realized much sooner.
The emperor... Why would the emperor’s soldiers be here? I forced my mind back to the date, January 20th. To the changed weather. To the missing people. To the word emperor. Then it struck me.
Scouting the south.
If these soldiers were part of the escort for the emperor’s procession, then their behavior made perfect sense. Even gold appearing from thin air wouldn’t sway them. To them, I was simply a threat to be purged.
But the date is completely wrong...
That event wasn’t supposed to happen for months. Yet if this world line had twisted, if the flow of events had shifted just like my regression, then perhaps the emperor’s southern procession had been moved forward.
If Gith-Za-Rai’s assassination attempt was linked to that procession, then her plan had probably been set in motion. If the imperial guard was patrolling even this far out, then this wasn’t months after I’d risen from the grave, it was only days before. Maybe even tomorrow.
A cold tension spread through my whole being.
Whoooosh...
The wind swept through the graveyard. The soldiers didn’t approach, perhaps because I hadn’t made a sound. Good. That gave me time to think. I organized the possibilities.
Three scenarios.
First: the world had completely changed. An entirely new history, nothing like what I knew. That would be troublesome.
Second: a slight distortion of the timeline. Just as the weather had shifted, the emperor’s tour had been moved earlier. The guards had expanded their patrols even to this remote Erast graveyard. In that case, Gith-Za-Rai could have missed her timing. The assassination would fail, and the emperor would pass safely. She’d survive, too.
Third: everything was as in the second case, but this time, Gith-Za-Rai was still lying in wait. It was unlikely that such a grand procession would go unnoticed by Ember or the Confederation. If she had received the same contract again, she would already be preparing to strike.
The last scenario made the most sense, offering me a path forward.
I’ll bet on that one.
If I was wrong, I’d deal with it the next time I revived.
Clatter.
Resolute, I rose from the coffin. I grasped the jagged edges of the nearby boulder and pulled myself upward. Moonlight revealed my pale form in all its fullness.
Fwoosh!
The soldiers noticed instantly. They rushed forward, forming a circle around the rock. Shapiro stepped ahead, drawing a weighted dart from his belt and snapping it back. The steel glinted coldly as he took aim at my skull.
I stared straight at him and shouted, "You there, are you loyal servants of His Majesty the Emperor?"
"What...?"
The man’s arm faltered. The dart wavered midair.
I pressed on quickly. "You look like it. I can trust you, then. His Majesty... His Majesty is in grave danger!"
"What are you talking about!?"
The soldier beside him started to respond, but Shapiro raised a hand to silence him. "Quiet."
He was cautious and sharp. To him, I was an unidentified undead emerging from a grave. Suspicious, at best. Enemy, at worst. I could read it in his eyes: he wouldn’t risk sharing any unnecessary information.
"This is urgent!" I cried, my voice echoing with desperate conviction. "Someone must warn His Majesty of the danger!"
If even this failed, then my chances were truly finished. My bones rattled with tension, but it made the plea sound all the more convincing.
"A necromancer named Gith-Za-Rai is lying in wait on the emperor’s southern route! She has allied with the Embermere and the Confederation! A vast army of the dead lies in ambush underground, waiting to strike His Majesty’s procession!"
It was true. At least, it had been in the world I knew. I felt a twinge of guilt, selling her out like this. She died in every cycle, anyway. The assassination was doomed to fail.
"What... what did you just say?"
"Who are you? How do you know such things?"
Their eyes sharpened—focused, serious. It was more intense than when they’d seen gold. There was no point hesitating now.
"My name is Tropin Isaac," I said. "I once served Count Colton Ray, the former Lord of Erast, and before that, I was a loyal servant of His Majesty himself."
Colton Ray was Rubia’s grandfather. Claiming to have served her father would have been too recent, so I went back one generation instead. Of course, Tropin Isaac was a name I made up on the spot.
I doubted an imperial guard would know the name of some provincial lord’s retainer from decades ago. But the moment I spoke it, Shapiro’s face twisted in an instant. The same confusion flashed across the other two soldiers’ eyes. Their sharp focus from moments ago gave way to disbelief.
"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"
Did I use the wrong name?
However, they hadn’t reacted at all to Isaac. There was no reason the soldiers of this era would suddenly know obscure history, nor could the name Isaac have become some forbidden relic of legend overnight.
I had to press forward. Feigning composure, I shot back, "What’s so strange about that?"
Shapiro hesitated briefly, then raised his weighted flail again and stepped closer. He glanced at his comrades before speaking. "This undead’s raving in its sleep. You two, ever heard of a Count Colton Ray?"
The soldiers both shook their heads.
"No. Never heard of him."
"Erast has been under the Chandler family since four generations ago."
Chandler...? Erast?
The words didn’t make sense. I stammered. My mind went blank. The looks they gave me were cold and wary, and in that instant, I realized I’d lost the fragile thread of control I’d gained.
"Wait! What do you mean by that!? Doesn’t Chandler rule Grassmere? Has the world changed while I was dead!?"
Shapiro leveled his blade at me. "Of course it’s Chandler territory. No question about it. No... this feels wrong. We shouldn’t be talking to a thing like this. It could be a trap. Kill it."
"Agreed. Orders say to eliminate anything suspicious."
"Wait, just listen to me!"
They didn’t. Perhaps to avoid being swayed again, their movements were faster than ever.
Fwoosh!
***
Ding!
Damn bastards...
The curse escaped by reflex. Still, I felt a grim satisfaction.
It worked.
Bringing up the emperor’s assassination got them talking. The southern procession had been moved forward, and the soldiers who’d killed me were indeed the emperor’s personal guards. That much was certain.
But...
Something had gone wildly off course.
Is Erast Chandler’s land?
I couldn’t make sense of it. House Chandler had always been oppressed by the sorcerer Isaac, their lords stripped of ambition, cursed to see themselves as powerless slaves in their dreams. Because of that curse, they were humble, modest rulers, devoting themselves to good governance rather than conquest.
Besides, they received divine visions of the Demon King’s descent directly through Isaac himself. They’d never waste effort on meaningless expansion.
I don’t understand...
A heavy unease settled in. After piecing everything together, I arrived at one possible, sensible conclusion—one that I didn’t want to admit aloud. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
He’s... gone?
If Isaac no longer existed in history, if his very name had been erased from the world, then everything that had happened made perfect sense. Of course, I couldn’t confirm that yet.
These soldiers weren’t the type I could question freely, and even if they said Isaac didn’t exist, I’d still have to go to Grassmere’s underground myself to see the truth.
Clatter.
I pushed the thought aside and climbed out of the coffin once more. "I was a retainer of House Chandler!"
"So?"
Their reaction was entirely different this time. No suspicion at all. I kept my tone steady and pressed on. frёewebηovel.cѳm
"But before serving Chandler, I was also a faithful servant of His Majesty the Emperor."
"Mhm."
The two soldiers nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"Though... the Chandlers are a rather ambitious family," Shapiro muttered.
I quickly steered the topic away. "Even if I’ve been raised from the grave as a skeleton, my memories remain, memories of my life as a subject of the Empire!"
I poured all my focus into the performance. Even to my own ears, it sounded convincing.
"I escaped the legion and wandered, desperate to deliver this warning. That’s how I found you."
"Hm..."
They exchanged uneasy glances. I was sure of it now. They really were soldiers deployed for the emperor’s southern inspection. Even if they didn’t believe me fully, it was too serious to dismiss outright.
Shapiro said again, "Fine. Then tell us, where exactly is this ambush you’re talking about?"
Just as I’d expected. I clenched my fists. This was the moment of truth. The assassination was real. I knew exactly where Gith-Za-Rai’s ambush would be, but if I told them outright, they’d kill me or tie me up and leave me here. I had to keep leverage.
Standing atop the boulder, I said in a low, grim tone, "Fragments... the memories of the dead are faint. A wide plain... the ground sinks deep beneath it... There’s a low forest... and a hill overlooking it all..."
I let the words trail off.
"What the hell does that even mean!?" one soldier shouted.
"There are dozens of places like that!"
"We don’t even know this area well enough to guess!"
"You must follow the fragments that come to me," I said quietly. "I can guide you."
Gulp.
The sound of swallowing reached my ears. Not just from one of them, but from all three. They exchanged glances, whispering urgently to one another. It was exactly as I’d hoped.
I stayed silent and waited. Their discussion didn’t take long.
