" oh Liverra that law god ,that bastard"
The biting night breeze swept through the cobblestone streets, carrying with it the damp chill of late autumn. Leornars and Stacian trudged along the quiet paths of the border town until the creaking wooden sign of an old, ivy-draped inn finally emerged from the fog.
Inside, the lobby was faintly lit by the flickering amber glow of a half-spent magic lantern. Behind the front desk sat a middle-aged woman with sharp, knowing eyes. She gave them a polite, practiced bow.
"Welcome, travelers. Seeking refuge from the cold, are we?"
"Rooms," Leornars said flatly, his eyes automatically sweeping the corners of the room to mark the exits and blind spots.
Sensing his usual paranoia, Stacian stepped up beside him, smoothing down her travel-stained cloak. "We'll need lodging for the night. Warm meals and fresh water, if you have them."
"Of course, dear." The innkeeper's lips curled into a warm, almost predatory smile. "Shall that be two separate rooms, or just the one?"
Leornars turned to look at Stacian, expecting her to handle the logistics as usual. When their eyes met, she didn't hesitate—she gave a firm, definitive nod.
"...Huh?" Leornars blinked, his train of thought completely derailed.
"We'll take a single room," Stacian declared calmly, pulling out a pouch of copper coins.
Leornars instinctively took a full step backward, raising an eyebrow. "Wha—?"
"My, my," the innkeeper hummed, her eyes sparkling with undeniable mischief. "And would you young lovers prefer a single king bed... or two separate ones?"
"Two beds! Definitely two beds!" Leornars quickly blurted out before Stacian could even answer.
The brass key turned with a heavy *click*, and they were shown into a room on the top floor. It was surprisingly spacious—polished hardwood floors, thick velvet curtains to keep out the draft, and two tidy twin beds set against opposite walls.
*...Why do I get the distinct feeling that old hag gave us this specific room for some twisted, entertainment-at-our-expense reason?* Leornars mused, frowning at the door as it closed.
Without a word of warning, Stacian face-planted straight onto her bed, sending her pillow flying over the headboard. Leornars sighed, walked over to pick up the stray pillow, and set it neatly back in place. Crossing the room, he sat down on the edge of his own mattress, folding his arms over his chest.
"Alright. Time to take care of something important."
With a sharp snap of his fingers, black mist coalesced in the center of the room. Out stepped Bellian, his loyal undead knight, clad in his newly evolved dark steel armor. Leornars narrowed his eyes, analyzing every detail of his status window.
*His stats have surged. A solid evolution. That explains why my [Necromancy] skill jumped to Level 5 out of nowhere. Still... he's far too weak. A mid-ranked silver-tier adventurer could probably tear him to scrap if they caught him off guard. I'll need to grind every single one of my skills to the cap if I'm actually going to obliterate the Kingdom of Durmount.*
Leornars extended his right hand into the open air, channeling his mana to trigger the secondary resurrection spell. He focused on the image of the demonic wolf they had slaughtered back in the woods.
Nothing happened.
He funneled more mana into the circuit. Again—absolute silence.
"...That's weird."
> **[System Notice]**
> *Target 'Inferno Beast' failed to satisfy the conditions for [Undeadification]. No soul response detected.*
> *Unique condition met: Class [Beast Tamer] has been unlocked!*
> *You may now freely summon: Inferno Beast.*
>
A clear, melodious, almost overly cheerful feminine voice echoed directly inside his skull.
Leornars squeezed the bridge of his nose, letting out a heavy groan. "You really couldn't have just led with that, huh?"
Standing up, he extended his palm toward the center of the room once more.
"Come forth—**Ascian**."
His mana flared violently—a dense, wild pressure of deep crimson light that flooded the room, making the wooden floorboards creak under the weight. His eyes burned like dying embers in the dark.
From the crimson magic circle, a massive, fiery-furred wolf materialized, lowering its head in absolute submission.
"Ascian... 'The Bound One.' Fits you well enough," Leornars muttered, opening its fresh stat panel.
He spent the next half-hour quietly testing the new sub-skills that had spilled over into his repertoire: [Decay], [Erosion], and the surprisingly terrifying [Bubble]—a pressurized sphere of concentrated acid that dissolved a sample stone he kept in his pouch into bubbling liquid in under a second.
*Excellent for both crowd control and silent assassinations. Highly efficient in close-quarters skirmishes,* Leornars thought, a sinister smile creeping onto his face. *Those Durmount royal guards gave me far more than just fresh corpses. Their martial techniques converted nicely into passive skills.*
Stacian, who had been watching him experiment with a deadpan expression from her bed, finally rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
"Tomorrow morning... we should visit the local church."
"The church?" Leornars raised an eyebrow, pausing his magic manipulation.
"For blessings," she explained matter-of-factly, resting her hands over her stomach. "Certain rare skills, class advancements, and divine contracts require explicit approval from a higher power."
"You actually worship one of those sky-freaks?"
"I do. Goddess Minum, the deity of fertility and life."
Leornars shuddered visibly. "...I pray to whatever force exists that I don't get lumped with her."
After grabbing a quick, lukewarm meal in the tavern below, they returned to their room to turn in. While Stacian drifted off almost instantly, Leornars closed his eyes to begin his usual two-hour trance—the bare minimum required to reset his mental fatigue.
*Tick. Tack.*
Precisely two hours later, his eyes snapped open.
The room was pitch black. The lantern had burned out, and even the moonlight filtering through the curtains seemed... swallowed.
In the far corner of the room, crouching atop a wooden chair like a grotesque gargoyle, was a shadow.
It was a humanoid silhouette made of pure, writhing darkness, its presence so unnatural it felt like a stain on reality itself. The moment Leornars looked at it, a wave of suffocating pressure slammed into his chest.
*I... I can't move.*
His vocal cords were frozen. His muscles refused to respond. Even his mana channels felt entirely iced over.
The figure shifted. Without making a single sound, it glided across the floor, hovering over Stacian's sleeping form for a terrifying second before turning its featureless face back toward Leornars.
An auditory hallucination echoed in his ears—a sound that shouldn't exist in this universe. It wasn't words. It wasn't thoughts. It was the pure, unadulterated vibration of sheer madness.
It raised a single, elongated finger and tapped him lightly on the forehead.
*BZZZZZT—!*
Then, instantly, it vanished.
"Gah—! *Haah... haah...*"
The pressure snapped. Air rushed back into his lungs, and Leornars sat bolted upright, drenched from head to toe in cold sweat. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped beast.
Beside him, Stacian was sitting up, her face utterly devoid of color, trembling violently as she clutched her sheets.
"What... *what was that?*" her voice cracked, barely audible.
"I... have no idea," Leornars forced out through gritted teeth, staring at his trembling hands.
Stacian swallowed hard, her eyes wide with uncharacteristic terror. "Whatever that thing was... if it wanted us dead, we wouldn't have lasted a millisecond. Our chances of winning were... what, negative ten billion percent?"
Leornars pulled himself out of bed and walked over to the window, resting his forehead against the cool glass. His hands were still shaking, but beneath the cold sweat and the fading terror, a strange, dark thrill was blooming in his chest.
"...That power," he whispered, a slow, crazed smirk forming on his face. "It was terrifying... yet absolutely beautiful."
By midday, the terror of the night had been buried under the mundane reality of the morning sun. They stood before the massive, weathered oak doors of the town's central church.
Etched directly above the stone archway was a faded, eight-pointed star emblem—worn down by time, yet radiating an undeniable, faint holy aura.
"This world really is bizarre," Leornars muttered, eyeing the holy symbols with open disgust.
"I'll wait out here," Stacian said, taking a step back into the courtyard. "Tradition dictates that only the 'Unblessed' seeking their first mandate may enter the Sanctum alone."
"Fine by me."
Leornars pushed the heavy doors open and stepped inside. The air was thick with the scent of burning frankincense. In the center of the grand chapel stood seven colossal stone statues arranged in a precise circle, representing the primary deities of the realm.
*Boring. Unbelievably boring,* Leornars thought, rolling his eyes as he walked down the aisle.
"W-Welcome, traveler..."
A young priestess emerged from the shadows of the altar. The moment her eyes fell upon him—taking in his messy silver-white hair and dark crimson eyes—she visibly flinched. She quickly clamped her hands together, masking her shock behind a shaky, strained smile.
"Are you here to receive the divine mandate?"
"Just get on with it," Leornars replied coldly.
Nervously, she led him into a secluded inner chamber where seven crystal orbs hovered atop stone pedestals, each glowing with a distinct color corresponding to a deity.
"Please place your hand upon each crystal, one by one," she instructed softly.
Leornars walked down the line, carelessly slapping his palm onto the first orb. Nothing. The second. Nothing. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth—complete silence.
Finally, he touched the seventh crystal.
*FWHOOSH!*
The orb flared with a brilliant, blinding deep crimson light, sending a shockwave of magic through the room that made the priestess gasp.
"...M-Merciful heavens," she stammered, checking the ancient parchment in her hands. "The God of Law and Justice... he has chosen you as his champion!"
Leornars stared at the glowing red ball, his face instantly deadpanning.
"Just great," he grumbled, slapping his forehead. "My patron god is a glorified lawyer. Why am I not surprised?"
Disgusted with the result, he turned on his heel and began walking toward the exit.
"E-Excuse me! Wait!" the priestess called out, her voice trembling with a mixture of awe and sheer dread.
Leornars paused, looking over his shoulder. "What?"
"Are you... by any chance... the one spoken of in the ancient texts?" She swallowed hard, her knuckles white as she clutched her holy symbol. "The White-Haired Plague? The Prophecy King of Destruction?"
Leornars stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged indifferently.
"...I've been called a lot of things by dying men. So, sure. Probably."
*Thump.*
The priestess dropped directly to her knees, slamming her hands onto the stone floor as she began chanting frantic, tearful prayers for salvation.
Ignoring her nonsense, Leornars pushed open the front doors and stepped back out into the blinding afternoon sun—only to freeze in his tracks.
The courtyard was completely empty.
Stacian was gone.
His eyes narrowed as he scanned the cobblestone plaza. Just at the far corner of the street, an unmarked, black wooden carriage was making a sharp, suspicious turn.
His expression darkened. Leornars covered the distance in a blur of motion, appearing instantly beside the moving carriage. He grabbed the door handle and ripped it clean off its hinges.
Inside, Stacian was bound in heavy iron chains, an anti-magic gag stuffed into her mouth.
The driver pulled the reins in panic, turning to look at him. "W-What the—"
Before he could finish his sentence, Leornars reached up, clamped his hand around the man's throat, and hoisted him off his seat with one arm.
"And tell me..." Leornars whispered, his crimson eyes burning with absolute, lethal coldness as he hoisted him higher into the air, "...who gave a piece of trash like you the authority to take what belongs to me?"
Without waiting for an answer, he snapped the man's shoulder and hurled him headfirst into the stone alleyway like a bag of garbage.
With a lazy gesture of his hand, Bellian materialized from the shadows, drew his blade, and sliced through Stacian's iron bindings in a single, fluid strike.
" End that garbage of a living vermin" Leornars said coldly as bellian raised his blade beheading the man.
"Pfah!" Stacian spat out the gag, rubbing her chafed wrists as she stepped out of the wrecked carriage, brushing the dust off her skirt. She looked at him, completely unbothered by the violence. "So? What god did you end up with?"
"...A lawyer," Leornars deadpanned, staring blankly at the sky.
Stacian blinked. "A... lawyer?"
" That bastard Liverra of all monkeys in heaven " Leornars said in contempt
Leornars tapped his chin, a dark, scheming grin slowly spreading across his face as he considered the legal loopholes and divine mandates he could manipulate.
"Hmmm... I wonder if I can use his divine authority to legally foreclose and destroy this entire nation?"
Without waiting for her reply, he turned toward the center of town.
"Come on. Next stop—the Adventurers' Guild."