**Chapter One: The Living Dead**
“End, follow me.”
Lord issued a brief command as he stepped out of what resembled a laboratory. I silently trailed behind him.
My body moved. My hands and feet obeyed my thoughts. How many years had it been since I could walk properly?
The absence of pain in my body felt strangely surreal. There was a disconcerting sense of unreality, as if I were dreaming.
As we exited the room, Lord suddenly halted and turned to face me. His golden eyes seemed to pierce through me, as if he could see everything.
“Hm… It seems you can understand my words. If commands given in language don’t reach you, then there’s no point.”
“…”
Commands given in language… don’t reach me?
I couldn’t comprehend what he meant. Yet, I recalled that immediately after regaining consciousness, my body had moved in accordance with Lord’s words rather than my own thoughts.
That was… troubling. There had been no room to resist. Even without fully grasping the situation, I understood that feeling all too well—it was fatal. I had heard that necromancers could manipulate the living dead at will. To Lord, I was no more than a puppet.
Satisfied with my silence, Lord nodded and resumed walking. I followed him once more.
The corridor outside resembled the mansion where I had lived in my former life. There were no lights, and an odd sense of oppression lingered in the air.
Honestly, I had no idea what was happening. Why had I been resurrected? Where was this place? What was I being forced to do? I had no answers, no understanding of the circumstances, nor any insight into the future. Surely, he hadn’t resurrected me to save me from pain.
However, there was one thing I did understand. What I needed to do now was neither to question Lord nor to flee. I had to grasp the situation.
Fortunately, I had always been good at thinking. During my former life, as I lay in bed, groaning in agony, the only thing I was permitted was to think. My current situation wasn’t much different, but compared to those days, the absence of pain made it feel somewhat better.
After a few minutes of following Lord, we descended a stone staircase and arrived at a basement. He opened a large metal door and stepped inside.
It was a surprisingly spacious room for a basement.
I nearly gasped but managed to swallow the sound just in time. What lay before me was—countless corpses. They were laid out on stone slabs, spaced evenly apart. Unlike me, they showed no signs of movement.
It was my first time seeing corpses. I should have felt fear, but for some reason, I felt astonished yet not afraid.
“Wait here until I give you orders,” Lord commanded, exhaling a white breath as he cast a cold glance at me.
—
Lord’s footsteps faded away. After a moment of silence, I began to move.
First, I checked my body’s movements. I stretched my arms wide and wiggled my legs.
The agony that had tormented me for years was completely absent. Swinging my arms, moving my head, straightening my back, even bouncing lightly felt incredibly comfortable. It was like a dream.
I wanted to laugh, but I restrained myself, merely grinning. This was a basement. Even if I made some noise, I doubted Lord would return, but given the uncertainty of the situation, I wanted to be cautious.
The room Lord had left me in resembled a morgue. No, rather than a morgue, it was more like a materials storage for a necromancer.
On the slabs were five genuine human corpses. They ranged in age from their mid-teens to their thirties, mostly male. They were dressed properly, showing no visible signs of damage, yet their faces lacked any vitality.
Initially, I was shocked upon entering the room, but as time passed, it became nothing remarkable. In my former life, I had been half a corpse myself, and I had actually (probably) died once.
Perhaps some of these corpses might become my colleagues. Such trivial thoughts crossed my mind.
The morgue had a simple structure. There was one door, and aside from the slabs, the only furniture was a large shelf against the wall. The surrounding walls were stone, and when I lightly tapped them, they returned a hard sensation.
It seemed my living quarters were more comfortable than this place, I mused as I began to inspect the shelf.
I craved information, even a little.
I cautiously opened a drawer. It was unlocked.
It seemed that the necromancer, Lord Holos, hadn’t anticipated that the dead in this room could move freely.
“…”
The first drawer I eagerly opened was empty. The second and third were also empty. The fourth contained several strange fangs, but they were of no use in explaining the current situation. The fifth was empty, and in the sixth, I found a dozen bottles filled with liquid. The seventh was empty as well, and feeling disappointed, I opened the last drawer, only to be taken aback by what I found inside.
“Well, well, what do we have here…”
I couldn’t help but exclaim. My hoarse voice echoed in the quiet room of the dead.
Come to think of it, it had been a while since I had spoken. And even now, it didn’t hurt.
The absence of pain was wonderful. I felt like singing a little tune as I pulled out what was inside.
It was a square mirror. I wiped the foggy surface with my clothing and peered inside.
Reflected back at me was the visage I remembered. A slender face, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and only my hair had been tidied up from the disheveled state I remembered.
They had likely groomed me for appearance’s sake after I died—how thoughtful.
I gazed into the mirror for a while, lost in thought, before carefully placing it back in the drawer.
I understood that I was still myself. It was unfortunate that I hadn’t found anything else of value, but for now, that was enough.
I turned around to survey the morgue once more and headed toward the only door in the room.
As I left, I noted that Lord hadn’t locked it. I had been listening carefully, so I was sure of it.
I approached the door quietly, careful not to make a sound.
I didn’t understand the layout of the mansion. I was still in the dark about the situation. But there was simply too little information in this room.
I knew nothing. I wanted to know about this mansion, about necromancy, and what I had become. Unlike before, I now had a body that could move freely.
Necromancers are wicked beings. There was no way I could trust them. Therefore, I had to do what I could.
Gripping the brass doorknob, I turned it slowly, careful not to make a sound.
To my surprise, the knob turned easily. It seemed it wasn’t locked after all.
I pressed my ear against the door and slowly opened it. There was no sound. Not even the sound of my heartbeat or the flow of blood—only complete silence.
Relieved, I gently pushed the door to check the outside.
“…?”
The door was already ajar. Just a few millimeters, but there was a gap. Yet, no matter how much I pushed, it wouldn’t open any further.
Was it stuck? Locked? No, that wasn’t it. I examined it, but there was no sign of a lock, nor did it seem to be secured by anything.
I pressed with my palm. I pushed with my whole body. I tried to force it open.
And then—I realized.
A shock coursed through me as if lightning had struck my brain. My legs gave way, and I sank to the floor.
The door was made of metal. It must have had some weight. But it wasn’t a matter of weight.
I placed my hand gently on the door, which already had a gap of a few millimeters. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and pushed with all my might.
I pushed—at least, I thought I did.
My hand didn’t budge an inch. No matter how much strength I exerted, it wouldn’t move any further.
Lord’s parting words echoed in my mind.
“Wait here until I give you orders.”
That’s right. It wasn’t that it was “stuck.” I simply wasn’t “pushing.”
My body prioritized Lord’s command over my own will. Just like when I had knelt in obedience right after awakening.
A cold sensation ran down my spine. My thoughts became muddled. Desperately, I pushed against the door with trembling hands, but despite my emotions, my body refused to move.
I thought I understood. But perhaps it had only been an illusion.
My eyes widened, and my shoulders trembled. The emotion that surged from within wasn’t fear or shock.
It was anger. It had been a long time since I felt such a strong emotion. At that moment, I learned for the first time that a person’s expression hardens when they feel anger.
I didn’t scream or lose myself. I merely kept it bottled inside.
I thought I had become free. I had a body that felt no pain, a body that could leap and bound, and I had been elated. I believed that with this functioning body, I could do anything.
But that wasn’t the case. I hadn’t changed at all. Better than before? Not at all.
In my previous life, I was plagued by an unending pain that coursed through my entire body. My hands and feet lacked strength, and I could do nothing but immerse myself in thought, as if to distract myself from the agony. No, I couldn’t even concentrate well on that.
However, at the very least—my body was not under someone else’s control.
It was acceptable to heed instructions. Lord was, in a sense, my savior. Even if my counterpart was an evil sorcerer, I had no qualms about cooperating.
But this—I could not forgive.
I did not understand Lord Holos’s intentions in resurrecting me, but I could not allow him to hold the power of life and death over me.
That was an unexpectedly intense emotion. Despite having prepared myself for death, it seemed I did not want to die after all. Now, I found myself unwilling to relinquish this ‘second life’ I had miraculously obtained.
Indeed. By any means necessary.
I attempted to take a deep breath, only to realize that I was not breathing at all. I placed a hand on my chest, but I felt no heartbeat. How foolish of me. It was then that I finally grasped the reality of my existence as an unpardonable being.
My body moved. There was no pain. Yet, I was not alive. I was merely in motion.
Now that I thought about it, when I arrived here, Lord’s breath had been visible in the cold air. The corpses lined up around me showed no signs of decay. Yes, this place was undoubtedly—cold. Yet, I felt no chill. A part of my senses had vanished.
This room had no windows and no light, yet I could see the surroundings clearly.
I had—changed. Perhaps it was this very change that made me feel no fear in the presence of the corpses.
For a moment, I entertained that thought, but quickly shook my head. No. I was conscious. I could think. I was—here. I could experience the continuation of the life I had longed for so desperately.
I had been a sickly person, unable to rise from my bed for years, enduring an unknown pain that tormented my entire being—essentially a ‘living dead.’ Now, I had merely become a ‘dead living.’
Then—perhaps I should accept this. Even if I had become a being of darkness, it was nothing compared to ending my life without finding any meaning in it.
I stood up and glared at the slightly ajar door, quietly closing it. The door, which had remained so still, returned effortlessly to its original position. There was no surprise. After all, it was Lord’s command. A forceful order that surpassed my own will was likely a privilege of the one who had resurrected the dead.
But there had to be a loophole. There had to be.
Lord had said at the outset, “If commands through language don’t work, then we have a problem.” This meant that there was a possibility that the resurrected dead, like me, might not respond to commands given through language.
I would do whatever it took—to survive. To gather information. Somehow, to escape Lord’s control.
I was woefully ignorant. About necromancy, about this mansion, and even about the changed self I had become.
Now was the time to gather information. To endure patiently and sharpen my fangs. Waiting was something I excelled at, second only to thinking. Considering that this skill would prove useful from now on, perhaps my previous life of mere endurance had not been in vain.
With renewed determination, I stood in the place where Lord had released me, staring straight ahead. I halted my body and began counting in my mind.
I felt neither drowsiness, fatigue, nor hunger. My eyelids did not dry out even without closing my eyes. I simply stared ahead, emotionless, counting steadily, pretending to be just another corpse lined up like those around me.
§
The next time Lord entered the room was around the time I had counted just over twenty thousand.
Clad in a long, pitch-black robe, Lord confirmed my unchanged state since he had left and presented something to me.
“Take it.”
What he offered was a large machete, about a meter long. The dull, broad blade was smeared with blood, yet it strangely glimmered in an odd way. I accepted it as instructed. The weight was so heavy that it felt as if it could drag my entire body down, causing me to stumble slightly.
Seeing me struggle to grip the machete with both hands, Lord snorted and said, “We’ll do a test run. Follow me.”