I lay at the bottom of the Valley of the Dead.
Fog spread around me, I hugged her body.
"Ahh, why did this happen…"
I had lost count of the number of times I had cried out like this.
My voice was awfully hoarse.
I have forgotten what my voice sounded like in the past.
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She, whom I held in my arms, did not move.
When we fell into the valley, she had died.
Her remains had already rotted away, all that remained were bones.If I used a little strength, even that would crumble.
On the other hand, I was all bones too.
Dressed in tatters, my appearance was shabby.
My stabbed eye and heart had rotted away long ago.
I don't feel pain.
Only a feeling of emptiness surfaced and then disappeared.
Finding out that I could have emotions in this form was one of my few discoveries.
I had lost my sense of time.
I wonder how much time has passed since I fell to the bottom of this valley?
I had no way of knowing it for sure.
Countless skeletons lay fallen around me.
They must be the remains of those who were pushed into the valley in the past.
Each one was just as dead as the other.
In this land, I was the only one who survived as an odd undead.
I had some idea why this happened.
It was because I possessed extraordinary tenacity.
I had regrets about becoming a corpse like this, without no meaning.
That attachment slowly prevented my eventual demise.
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At the bottom of the valley, I asked myself.
Where did I go wrong?
Why was I here?
Why did the one I love, rot away into a corpse?
The undead I needed no rest or relaxation.
No losing my consciousness for a moment, I dwelled on my question day and night.
I continued to think, despite my fierce hatred, self-loathing, and deep regret.
Repeating it endlessly, a revelation flashed in my mind.
"…She wasn't the wrong one. Wasn't it the world that had gone crazy? "
After thinking for a long time, I realised.
What was its cause?
What should I do?
The scene before I fell here unfolded in my mind.
Once I opened the floodgates, everything was swift.
My hazy consciousness became clear.
A definite vitality arose from my withered undead body.
Having sorted my thoughts, I spoke to the corpse of the hero.
"Hero…Your beliefs were right. But your methods were wrong."
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Her heart, that wished for peace, had no faults.
But, she was rejected by everyone.
Yet she accepted her duty and chose to become a sacrifice for the sake of a better world.
If so, I will follow her will.
It was my obligation as her follower.
Let me bring about world peace.
However, I shall adopt a different method.
"That's right, you were right, yet mistaken. Your mistake was you let yourself go with the flow of the people."
I shall achieve peace with an even more reliable method.
I shall set the chaotic world back on course.
I cannot let this continue.
All the hesitation that weighed me down disappeared.
I had an idea to bring about world peace.
But, before that, I had to do something.
I had to take revenge on the ones that led her to death.
I had turned a blind eye all this time, but I still held a grudge against the people of the country.
Betraying the woman who defeated the Demon Lord and saved the human race, was unforgivable.
Putting down her corpse, I stood up.
I staggered forward, somehow managing not to fall.
Although I was nothing but bones, it seemed like I could move.
If possible, I wanted to take retribution on the kingdom right away.
However, I was extremely powerless at present.
I was but a ghost left behind at the Valley of the Dead.
Once I reach the land above, I would not be able to achieve any of my aims.
I need strength.
That too, strength to make an enemy of the world.
If the era rejects us, I will repudiate the current era with all my strength.
Let me transform this world into a better one.
Learning from her mistakes, I shall create the true peace she hoped for.
I looked around me.
A source of power― a mist of miasma drifted all about.
It was harmful to living things but was something pleasant for an undead like me.
In fact, all higher undead carried a large amount of miasma within.
Maybe I should try it once?
I extended my consciousness and began absorbing the mist of miasma.
It felt similar to taking in a deep breath.
I felt my body rapidly changing.
In addition, the thoughts of the people who had become one with the mist flowed to me.
They were fragments of those who had died here.
Amidst a myriad of emotions, memories and experiences of countless people came together.
No human could possibly handle information this large.
Pain assaulted me as if it were ripping my soul to shreds. I rolled onto the ground.
I couldn't move a finger as I continued to silently suffer.
If I had a body of flesh and blood, perhaps this would be the moment my brain got fried.
That was what it felt like.
I desperately endured.
Everything was for the sake of revenge and peace.
I could not get swept away and disappear here.
Scratching at the ground, I held together my will that seemed like it would break.
I anguished for a short while.
Once my pain had lessened, I was surprised by the scene around me.
That thick mist had disappeared, leaving behind perfectly clear air.
Sunlight now reached the bottom of the valley, and I could now see the blue skies above me.
I had consumed all the miasma in the Valley of the Dead.
I had absorbed all of the outrageous amounts of magic that had gathered here.
Inside my body, I felt a hopeless stagnation.
Perhaps it was the power of the chaos.
My decaying bones were dyed black as if they had been scorched.
The miasma leapt out of my body like a flame.
Seemed like I had done something taboo.
I intuitively understood what kind of existence I had become.
It far surpassed the Demon Lord we had subjugated.
At the very least, I was no longer human.
"…Well, it doesn't matter."
I mutter with a voice that sounded like rumbling earth.
I had received more power than I had ever hoped for.
I had no complaints.
I lightly swung one arm.
As I added in a part of my powers to it, the bones around me began to wriggle.
The bones took on a vaguely human form as they stood up.
They were skeletons.
The phenomenon repeated far along the valley floor.
This was a new power.
One that I had received by abandoning my humanity.
I had a feeling that was possibly the case.
I looked down near my feet.
Although the others had become skeletons, her corpse did not move an inch.
It wasn't as if I had intentionally made a distinction.
"…Then, why?"
I received no reply.
Her corpse simply remained there.
I picked up a piece of cloth and wrapped her body in it.
Her rotting corpse had lost its form. It easily fit inside.
As I was working on it, a swarm of skeletons rapidly gathered.
Leaning against the cliff, they stood one on top of another, forming a staircase of bones.
They would soon reach the surface.
The skeletons were more than enough in number.
Taking the bundle of cloth in one hand, I started walking.
I began to climb up the stairs.
My aim: The surface.
"……"
As I continued climbing silently, it started to rain.
The rain gradually gained momentum.
The world didn't seem to welcome my foray.
Yet, it was a clear sky the day I was executed.
Drenched in the rain, I continued to tread on the stairs.
I slipped occasionally but never fell.
I could see the top of the cliff steadily approach.
Enduring the feeling of impatience, I climbed at a constant pace.
At long last, I reached the surface.
Right next to me was a fortress of stone.
It was an establishment to manage the Valley of the Dead.
If I remembered correctly, it was in the midst of a renovation. But I couldn't find any traces of it.
The time I spent at the valley floor might have been longer than I expected.
But still, it felt nostalgic.
I was executed here, denounced by the public.
Everything had changed.
I was conscious of the weight of the bundle of cloth I held in one hand.
"What, an undead?"
I heard a voice from the side.
Looking at it, I saw a soldier in armour staring at me.
He must be a guard at the fort.
Approaching me with a spear, he suddenly thrust it at me.
Seeing through the trajectory of the spearhead, I turned my head to evade it.
Dealing with that at the same time, I grabbed the neck of the shocked soldier and raised him up in the air.
Perhaps it was because of my transformation. I could now perfectly predict my opponent's movements.
"Hey! Let go of him! "
The other soldiers rushed all at once and set up their crossbows.
I used the soldier I had grabbed as a shield.
The soldiers gnashed their teeth and stopped their offence.
"T-This one has intelligence…!? "
"His colour is unusual too. He's not an ordinary skeleton! Be careful! "
While they talked, I crushed the soldier's neck.
Swinging around the now-dead man, I threw him vigorously at the soldiers.
"What!? "
"Fuck, attack! Quick, kill him! "
Although the soldiers had their formation broken, they immediately began their volley of counterattacks.
The arrows from the crossbows crushed my bone, and I stumbled forward.
But that was all.
I removed the arrow caught in my rib and flung it away.
It was far from a fatal wound.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! "
"W-Why is the corpse moving!? "
"I didn't use any necromancy! "
A portion of the soldiers clamoured.
The corpse I threw before bit into the neck a soldier.
He seemed to have become a low-rank undead, a Ghoul, under the influence of my miasma.
The bitten person dies and becomes a new ghoul, grabbing his former colleagues.
On one hand, the place was plunged into chaos. On the other, skeletons crawled up from the valley of the Dead one after another.
The stream of white bones swept down on the soldiers at full speed.
"U…Wawa!"
"This is bad! Pull back the front! If this continues―"
"Call the Holy Mages! It's extremely urgent! "
The soldiers faced an uphill battle against a large number of skeletons.
Although the soldiers had higher combat strength on a one-on-one basis, the number of skeletons was overwhelmingly large.
Even within the visible range, many people were ripped apart, unable to deal with the enemy.
"Uoooooooooooo! "
A soldier holding a club approached with a shout.
Leaping over the skeletons, he aimed to swing it down above my head.
He must have decided that it was a good idea to bring down the one casting the magic.
I dodged the rapid blow, and my opponent was the one knocked down.
I could thoroughly see through the club's trajectory.
But this was not due to my own experiences in the past.
Close combat was my weak point when alive.
This was most probably thanks to the memories and experiences of those who had become one with the mist.
I had learnt it as a skill.
It was an unexpected by-product.
Snatching away the club I gazed at the fallen soldier.
He glared at me with a bruised face.
"Fuck you, undead scum!" "
"……"
Instead of a reply, I hit the soldier in the head.
As if to smash his look dyed in hatred, I bludgeoned him multiple times.
Even after his skull cracked and lost its original shape, I persistently repeated my actions.
Seeing his convulsing corpse, I stopped my hand at last.
Tossing away the club stained with blood and brains, I raised my head.
Next thing I knew, the fort was being full-on trampled by skeletons.
The dead soldiers too moved about as ghouls.
At this rate, the fort would fall even if I left it alone.
I watched the cityscape in the distance.
That was the capital.
It seemed far away, but it was actually close.
I could easily walk up to it.
I had to get revenge.
The battle at this fort was the prologue, to say.
It was something of a warm-up to overturn fate.
"I am the origin of destruction."
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I left the fort where no living remained.
That alone made the skeletons and the ghouls follow me.
They seemed to understand my intentions.
They seem quite reliable.
With that, I began leading my undead army. Our aim was the capital.
Hasr: Now that my finals are over, I should have some time to sit and TL these long-ass chapters.
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