Former General Is Undead Knight

Volume 2, Chapter 32: Earl Mansion’s Raid⑦

Manzi felt some sort of indescribable feeling in Lambert.

As someone who prided himself as the best necromancer of this era, Manzi could get a glimpse of the presence of the human called Lambert.

And he could see a dense amount of miasma coiling around Lambert who readied his greatsword.

And that was enough for Manzi, whose vigilance was lowered since he always committed one-sided slaughter until now, to become alert.

‘This intimidating air, is it miasma? Does that mean… he’s an undead? But to be able to maintain his ego for so long, he might be a lich. My 『Chimera’s Tail』 should’ve already informed me of such an existence. However, there’s no report about someone like him. It’s unthinkable that they would miss someone as eerie as him. Does that mean he isn’t a member of an adventurer guild?’

Liches were the kinds of curses that necromancers used on themselves to gain perennial youth and eternal life.

However, doing so caused irreversible failure to the user’s mana, mind, and bodily functions since that curse marked them as failures of living beings. Even so, due to this, maintaining their ego was far easier than a normal undead.

Domiliune, who survived for two hundred years, gained a slime body, binding her mana into her own skull. She was also some type of lich.

But since there wasn’t a single existence that could maintain their complete ego with mana and sheer willpower alone before, there wasn’t a verb suitable for defining an existence like Lambert.

Manzi raised his hand, glaring at Lambert.

「Let’s just crush unnecessary factors. Good thing I have a lot of tricks left up my sleeve.」

The undead who stood at Manzi’s sides readied their swords and rushed at Lambert.

‘The reason I brought them to this place instead of entrusting them to my subordinates was that their bodies have been reinforced with magic formulae with the help of the best sorcery tool, my Guiref’s book… Someone like Robin Hood might be able to do something while fighting against one undead, but how about two at the same time?!’

Their brains acted as stopgaps to protect their bodies, but Manzi overloaded them with mana, disregarding that safety limit. He forced the two undead to move faster than what their bodies were capable of.

In addition, the toughness of the two undead far surpassed when they’re still alive.

They suddenly moved to the sides as soon as they’re about to enter Lambert’s greatsword’s range, attacking him simultaneously from left and right.

Even if Lambert could take care of one of the undead, the other would surely deal a killing blow on him.

It was a perfect killing formation… in theory.

Manzi’s lips loosened as if admiring the perfection of his own creation.

Even for Manzi who had a long history of creating undead, this was the first time he saw his undead move so fast.

Those undead were created by using the corpses of high-ranking adventurers from the capital of adventurers Barreira City. Their bodies were forged from daily training and missions.

「HYOHOHOHOHOHO! WONDERFUL! I’m deeply moved. Thank you, adventurers. Thank you very much for desperately training your body for the sake of becoming corpse doll materials for me. Thank you so much…! There are so many corpses of wonderfully trained bodies littering this place!」

Overcome with emotion, Manzi spread his arms, showing a trance-like look on his ugly face.

Though Robin Hood had already restrained Eunos, and he could only see a bit of what happened in front of him since his line of sight was covered by Lambert and Eunos, he was really surprised upon seeing the last two undead made their move.

‘Here I thought that undead Eunos was strong, but it was a miscalculation on my part! That ugly ba*stard can actually make such high-level undead with his minimally trained body! It’s a simple but effective plan to deal fatal wound with a two-pronged attack, but with that kind of speed and endurance, they’ve already stepped beyond the limit of humans…!’

The undead couldn’t be stopped with just one or two flesh wounds.

One needed to destroy the joints in their bodies to stop their movements, burn them with magic, crush their heads, or snap their spines.

Seeing that fleshy sword wound couldn’t stop them, their attacks became the sure-kill sword skills that completely disregarded defense or evasion.

And those top-tier sword skills came simultaneously from two different directions.

Both undead were aiming for Lambert’s neck.

「WONDERFUL! HYOHOHOHOHO!」

Fresh blood danced in the air along with that laugh, and those two undead were blown away from where they came from.

The two undead lost the upper halves of their bodies, each buried in the wall.

As for their lower bodies, it was only natural for them to stop moving.

「…Eh? Eh?」

Even swordsmen couldn’t see Lambert’s slash with god-like speed. For someone like Manzi, he didn’t even have any idea what had happened a moment ago.

In his eyes, it looked like that the upper bodies of the two approaching undead just vanished in midair.

Rather than swordcraft, it would be easier to say that Lambert simply used sorcery just now.

「Did you just praise my swordcraft? What a nonsensical fella.」

「I-I-IMPOSSIBLE… Y-YOU’RE NOT A HUMAN… M-MY ENHANCED UNDEAD…!」

「That leather cover… made from human skin, huh? To think that I ended up stumbling upon the grimoire made by that bastard Guiref in this kind of place.」

Lambert swung his blood-stained greatsword to get rid of the blood on his sword’s blade as he directed his question at Manzi.

「You… know this is Guiref’s Book with just a glance? As I thought, you’re a lich, huh!」

「Me, a lich?」

「Are you not? Someone who has never delved into necromancy would not recognize this book in a single glance!」

「I recognized it because I saw it before. By the way, I never expected that my lifelong regret would be cleared in such an unexpected way. To think that accursed book survived for more than two hundred years.」

「W-What kind of nonsense are you mumbling about…?」

「The one who killed Guiref was me. My biggest regret was the fact that I didn’t destroy his grimoire.」

「H-HAAH!」

Due to the machinations of an alchemist, Algrous Kingdom turned barbarous and tyrannical, repeatedly sending their troops to wage an unjust and reckless war against the other countries.

And the one who put an end to that alchemist’s madness was one of Regios Kingdom’s Four Demon Generals of that time, Lambert.

It happened two hundred years ago on the top floor of the Algrous Kingdom’s royal palace.

Lambert had chased down Guiref until he was cornered. Guiref controlled frenzied spirits and numerous undead created from enemies and allied forces with his large-scale necromancy, but he was finally slain by Lambert.

However, the horror of Guiref, the one hailed as humanity’s worst alchemist, didn’t end with his death.

The moment Guiref was about to be killed by Lambert, he transferred his grimoire—the proof of his life and his legacy—to his disciple who was hiding in another place.

Thus, his atrocities, the contracted spirit of the spirit world, and his sorcery still remained in this world.

As a result, the old alchemist—the worst alchemist in history, the war criminal who massacred more than ten million people—was killed by Lambert.

But due to his legacy, Guiref’s malice changed ownership and kept creating mountains of corpses.

「I see, I guess I indirectly caused this incident due to my small mistake at that time.」

Lambert’s miasma overflowed beyond his control, filling the entire office due to his rage.

「IMPOSSIBLE! ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY THAT YOU’RE LAMBERT THE TRAITOR HIMSELF?! YOU THINK I’M GONNA BELIEVE THAT CR*AP!」

「Indeed. I’m the worst of the Four Demon Generals, known as the worst traitor in Regios Kingdom’s history. I am Lambert De La Croix. And this traitor is the one who is going to put an end to you and that accursed book.」

Lambert declared this with a calm voice as he readied his greatsword.

For the first time, Manzi’s eyes opened wide, glaring at Lambert.