This is a short story by the same author as Home of the Zerg that I decided to do for my birthday. So I hope you enjoy this birthday release from me.
-Addis
Chapter 12: Unnecessary Sense of Morality
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: KarateChopMonkey
“What?! You don’t even know how to perform the cloning spell!?” The minstrel exclaimed in disappointment, sinking back heavily into the sofa, “I thought my carefree adventurer’s life was about to begin…”
Being questioned about his magical abilities was a shame for Alphard. But the fact was just that. He had been studying necromancy since he was ten, for over twenty years now, but he was still far from mastering eighth-circle magic.
“I’m really sorry,” Alphard said, crossing his arms and speaking coldly. He had planned to deceive the minstrel into performing the resurrection ritual for him first, and then postpone the cloning spell as payment. If he still hadn’t learned the cloning spell in a few years, then… he would postpone it a few more years.
Anyway, he would learn it sooner or later. Alphard thought to himself. Being with Brand for so long, he had inexplicably developed an unnecessary sense of morality…
“But exchanging seventh-circle for eighth-circle magic is already a win for me. You seem to have a lot of potential, and you don’t seem like the type to run away. So, let me perform the ritual for you first, and we’ll put the payment for the cloning spell on hold. I’ll come back to collect it in a few years.” The minstrel shrugged.
“Ah… really?” Alphard raised an eyebrow.
Brand, behind him, opened his mouth in astonishment and cheered, “The minstrel is really a good person!”
“What are your intentions? What kind of contract do you want to sign? If I never learn the cloning spell, what compensation do you want instead?” Alphard threw out a series of ungrateful, calm questions, watching the minstrel warily.
The minstrel didn’t seem bothered by this. Instead, he smiled happily, “Compensation… well, let’s just leave it at that! Please tell me the story of your encounter with this demon gentleman as inspiration and material for my poetry. And who is the person you want to resurrect? I’m very interested in the story behind it.”
“…”
Alphard’s eyelid twitched fiercely.
Brand’s eyes widened in delight. “Is that all? That’s so simple! Come on, Alphard, tell this gentleman our story…! Or I can tell him! If he wants to hear it, I can even tell him stories from my time in the bear village.”
Alphard shot him a glare, and Brand immediately hunched his shoulders and pursed his lips.
The minstrel smiled, clearly in no hurry. With snow falling outside, he was happy to have a free place to rest. And the scene of a weak necromancer and a half-blood demon living together was something rarely seen.
Interesting stories were sometimes more valuable than gold. At least for a minstrel, they were.
“The story between me and this idiot is really as simple as it gets. This fool of a demon suddenly barged into my territory and damaged some of my important possessions. He worked for nearly a year to pay it off. That’s all.” Alphard summarized tersely, arms crossed and clearly annoyed.
The minstrel, obviously unsatisfied, hoped for more details. “Necromancer, this isn’t enough to satisfy the curiosity of a traveling poet! Especially since I can clearly sense the scent of affection between you two—ahaha, forgive my rudeness, but I always thought necromancers were a bunch of sexless living dead. So this is really quite intriguing…”
The scent of affection…
Alphard’s pupils dilated slightly. He had indeed been intimate with Brand in the basement earlier. He couldn’t smell anything himself anymore. Was it really that obvious to an outsider?
Seeing Alphard’s expression visibly stiffen, Brand hurriedly waved his arms in front of him. “Whoa, whoa… minstrel, please don’t say it so loudly! Alphard gets embarrassed easily, and saying things like that will make me go hungry for a long time!”
“Ah, my apologies.” The minstrel covered his mouth lightly, not sounding very sorry at all.
“Enough…” Alphard’s voice was hoarse as he spoke.
Brand felt Alphard was on the verge of anger, nervously lowering his head to look at Alphard sitting on the sofa. He waited anxiously for the anticipated outburst, but it didn’t come.
Alphard merely sighed heavily, remaining silent for a few seconds before looking up at the minstrel. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the room where we’ll perform the resurrection ritual. The necessary ‘bodies,’ materials, and gold are all prepared. You can check what’s still missing. Let’s talk as we walk.”
The air around Alphard seemed to suddenly grow heavy, as if that particular space had lost its color and turned gray. Brand hesitated, blinking at Alphard, silently asking if he could come along and listen.
Alphard glanced at him but neither spoke nor stopped him, then stood up.
…
Twenty-seven years ago.
“Alphard, your family always has food, that’s great.”
“I know, because Auntie Tini can use that magic, ‘Ray of Sickness’… That green light can kill any beast it hits! She’s better than any of the men in the village.”
“Are all mages that powerful?”
The village children were all thin and small, and eight-year-old Alphard was no exception. However, he was always more neatly dressed than the others, thanks to his mother, Tini Hydera. Although their family was poor, she always kept their house and her child clean and tidy.
Tini Hydera’s relatives and friends had never learned magic. It was a word too far removed from their lives. But Tini had once found a worn-out second-hand magic book while picking fruits in the hills, miraculously learning one of its spells. This one spell significantly improved the village’s difficult hunting trips for large beasts.
It was a simple first-level spell. But to the villagers, Tini became mysterious. Some speculated that her ancestors were mages, while others said she would soon abandon her honest husband and child to go to a big town. Tini always laughed and said, “How could that be?” and continued with her farm work.
Alphard inherited his mother’s flaxen hair and also secretly inherited her second-hand magic book. Unfortunately, most of the words in the book were beyond his comprehension. He could only fantasize about becoming a “real” mage, even greater than his mother…
When Alphard was eight, a plague broke out in the southern region where the village was located.
Alphard, who was still very unfamiliar with words like “death” and “disease,” looked bewilderedly at the villagers, each of them dressed in pure black, adults collapsing one after another, and several of the children who used to come play were no longer around.
At the same time, a rumor started spreading in the village.
It was said that Tini’s use of evil magic caused all this. The magic book she obtained wasn’t a “good magic book” but one left by an evil necromancer, making her a witch who spread disease and plague. The villagers ate the animals she hunted, which caused them to fall ill.
At first, these rumors were only discussed behind closed doors. But as the plague spread more widely, these rumors grew more intense. Tini herself, equally ignorant of magic theory, began to feel fear, believing she had harmed the villagers. She took the magic book back from Alphard’s room and fearfully locked it in a cabinet.
She no longer dared to go outside, and in the eyes of the villagers, she had become a moving disease spreader.
Alphard fearfully clung to her clothes, watching the villagers who once admired his mother’s magical abilities now keep their distance, some even casting hateful glances. Even the father, who should have been the most supportive and understanding, changed. The once quiet and honest man threw tantrums at home, blaming his wife for picking up things outside and causing a stir that the whole village knew about, now making their family unable to hold their heads high.
He couldn’t understand why everyone changed so quickly.
The number of people in the village dwindled, with the elderly, young adults, and children dying rapidly. The fields fell into neglect due to the lack of labor. Ordered to stay at home, Tini quickly developed mental problems from the undeserved blame and pressure, crying daily and truly believing she was the cause of the plague.
Alphard, however, didn’t think so. Before the “bad magic book” was taken, he had read a lot of it and even secretly learned two minor spells from it. If those things were evil, how could he still be fine?
As the plague spread, the villagers’ fear and despair finally reached a peak.
Alphard would always remember that night.
He curled up in his cold bed, hearing distant noises and the sound of intense flames burning outside the house. The villagers were noisily shouting. Long ago, on nights of harvest, the villagers would gather in the same way, lighting fires to cook food…
—
After the plague swept through the southern regions, the villagers hadn’t held a proper celebration for a long time. Alphard rubbed his eyes as he got up and jumped out of bed to look for his parents and grandfather; he wanted to join the rare feast too.
But the house was empty. Not only was it empty, it was also in disarray, with many footprints and marks of heavy objects being dragged on the floor. Eight-year-old Alphard was terrified. Panicking, he grabbed his clothes and rushed out the door, hoping to find help from the adults in the village.
Following the lights and noise, Alphard ran frantically to the village entrance, where an orange-yellow fire was burning. There, he smelled a very familiar scent.
After the plague began, every household with a corpse would burn it, and as the flesh gradually burned and turned to ash, it would emit this smell.
The noisy village entrance was crowded with villagers whose minds were clouded by anger and fear. No one noticed Alphard’s arrival, not even his father and grandfather. Slowing his steps, Alphard stared blankly at the tall wooden structure where a female corpse was burning intensely. It took him a long time to recognize, from the fragments of clothing falling to the ground, that it was his mother: Tini Hydera.
But his mother wasn’t sick…
The villagers prayed and wept around the blazing fire, hoping that the plague would cease with the death of the evil witch they believed to be the source of the disaster. Alphard’s father and grandfather were among them, their expressions of prayer exceptionally devout.
…
After that night, no one ever saw Alphard again.
He vanished from the village without a trace.
Ugh. Too bad this story -sans real magic- happened in RL a lot for centuries.
It was not a good time to be a little different.