Guest Lounge, Lord's Castle.
Bultom Dungeon City
Cheverton Duchy
April 27th
Year 1052
[I see, so you succeeded in taking out the majority of the undead in the west, huh?]
Duke Charles nodded in response to the words of the blonde-haired man whose image was currently projected by the magic projector in front of him.
In the room with him, were Ralphie, Luke, and the Count of Bultom, all of who were seated on the sofas surrounding the magic projector in a semi-circle.
The projector was projecting the images of three different people; Emperor Rudeus, Prime Minister Roger and Crown Prince Richard.
They were listening to the report on the happenings so far, from Operation 'Synchro' to the situation with Count Falos and Zacular the night before.
[But to think the Demon himself appeared, and with the intention to scout our forces, as well as assassinate your Brigade Captain.]
"An A rank adventurer and one of the Church of Artemisia's paladins were also on their assassination list, and we have been able to confirm with the Guild Masters that an A ranker and a few other B rankers have mysteriously gone missing over the past week."
[They got taken out by the undead, huh?]
Roger spoke about the unfortunate fates of these adventurers, sighing in exasperation as he thought about all the implications of this.
[They were able to execute these assassinations without us discovering anything wrong; this means that this group is more capable than we assumed.]
[The real issue here is that all this is the work of just one division, and there are presumably nine other divisions.]
Richard spoke up right after Duke Roger did, flipping through the folder in his hands that detailed the information on the Undead Crisis, along with what concerned him the most, Myra's relative's treason.
"The last attack that was launched, if it wasn't for mine and Sir Harris's quick reaction, we would have lost the thousands of soldiers, adventurers and Holy Knights, who were there."
"I'd say that's an understatement, the explosion was very visible from our vantage point despite the fact that we were over a thousand kilometres away."
Luke spoke up in response to Ralphie's words before sipping his tea, while the latter only nodded and continued speaking.
"According to the young Duke, the person responsible for that last attack was the 'Dullahan King Vazgan'.
He also stated that multiple Dullahans that were present there were not the Eighth Finger's servants, but the Dullahan King's."
[Wait up, this Dullahan King isn't an undead under the Lead Necromancer?]
"It is not.
The Dullahans are a separate undead force, temporarily working together with the Demonic Hand to achieve their goals."
Richard silently stared at Ralphie with a gaping mouth upon hearing the man's response to his words, but just when he recovered and was about to speak, our resident young hero barged into the room.
"Yo! Duke Charles, I just got some-? Hmm?
Oh, It's Laurene's Dad. Greetings."
Emperor Rudeus' brow twitched multiple times while Duke Roger only facepalmed in silence upon hearing Evan's words, with the Emperor along with everyone else turning their gazes to the 'thing' in the boy's hands.
[Why is it that whenever I see you, you're always holding a bloody corpse in your hand?]
Hearing the man's words, Evan looked at the body of one of the Demonic Hand members that Kayla and Kuro captured the night before, before raising it up and saying.
"He isn't a corpse though?"
The boy's blessing of destruction was currently active, and the red aura of destruction surrounded the palm that was holding the poor man's neck, meaning he was constantly receiving soul damage, albeit minute.
His expression of pure fear as he gazed at Evan showed that he had suffered more than just soul damage at the hands of the boy, and he was about to suffer more than just that.
Evan's grip on his neck tightened and the man choked a bit, before a loud cracking sound rang out across the room.
"Now, He's a corpse."
He then dropped the corpse into his inventory and called out a name, with the ambient mana concentration in the room instantly increasing as the physical body of a spirit manifested on Evan's shoulder.
However, it wasn't the black-haired lightning spirit that they were used to, or the cat-shaped shadow spirit, but another blue-haired humanoid spirit who used water magic to clean off the blood on Evan's body.
"Thanks, Milena."
The high-rank water spirit nodded with a smile on her face before un-manifesting her physical body, with Evan walking towards an empty sofa and taking a seat.
"Another spirit?"
"Pretty much, we're not contracted though. She's just hanging around because sh-"
Evan's words were cut short as the boy titled his head to dodge a spark of lightning that passed where his head was, before sighing and speaking.
"Kayla, if you want to play around with Milena, please take it outside."
[Okay!]
[H-huh? Lady Kayla?! W-wait…!]
The boy just chuckled as he saw Kayla happily drag the water spirit out of the room, before turning back to the projections in front of him and speaking.
"Hello, 'Father'.
Good to see you're in good health.
Thank you for the support you sent. It made things a lot easier, especially during last night's incident."
Evan spoke to the Duke while casually ignoring Richard's existence like he wasn't even there, much to the Crown Prince's displeasure.
"Anyway, what I initially came to inform you about is that after my 'talk' with the now deceased Demonic Hand Senior Member, I have discovered that we have very much succeeded in messing up the Eighth Finger's plans a lot.
With Methik's corpse puppet dead at my hands, the Duke would not get stuck in a labyrinth like he was supposed to and our other actions have also pushed him to cancel other things he had planned."
"Wait up...what's this about me getting stuck in a labyrinth?"
"Huh? I thought I told you about this before. That's the reason why they went through the stress of replacing that military officer they killed with Methik's corpse puppet.
To get close to you and lure you into a trap, one you would not have been able to escape until Vazgan has finished turning the Bultom County into a pile of ashes and the Eighth Finger has had his fun with the rest of the duchy."
[Hold up Kid. There are so many things lost in transmission here.]
Emperor Rudeus spoke up after Evan's reply to Duke Cheverton's words, with the young hero sighing before explaining how the 'Labyrinth of Death' trap was supposed to work
"Didn't I say this before?"
"You most definitely did not!"
For the first time, Duke Charles actually found himself losing his composure, taking a deep breath to calm himself before asking the next most important thing.
"Why are you so sure that Vazgan is coming for Bultom in particular? I've noticed you say this a lot, as if the Dullahan has no other target besides Bultom."
"It's not that he doesn't, it's just that Bultom has to be his first target, or he would suffer repercussions.
He has a geass imposed on himself after all."
Evan replied before turning to the Count of Bultom who was trying to make his presence least felt in the midst of all the highest-ranking nobles and royalty around him.
"Can I have access to your county's criminal records? Specifically, about everyone who was executed in the year 1043?"
While the Count excused himself to get the records, Evan and the others in the room continued their discussion, with Evan enlightening them on the rest of his findings from the other captive Senior Demonic Hand members.
"Basically, no operations are to be carried out until Vazgan attacks. So as to let the men rest."
The Count returned with the records just after Evan spoke, with the boy collecting the large hardcover book and scanning through it and nodding to himself before speaking.
"August, Year 1043.
A Knight Family and these other knights were executed for a crime that they did not commit.
Although it was later discovered that they were framed, the deed had already been done and all those knights had been killed."
The Count's expression changed to one of shock when he heard the second part of Evan's words, as that wasn't something that the boy was supposed to know at all.
When the gazes of the Emperor and Luke turned towards him, the man instantly cowered and confirmed what Evan had said.
Meanwhile, Evan took a pen and marked over multiple names in the execution register, before passing it to Duke Charles and saying.
"These are the names to the executed knights, look familiar?"
"The Theoregrim Knight Family…"
"Check out the name of the family head at the time."
"Vazgan Theoregrim."
"Lastly, take a guess at how they were executed."
"…beheading?"
"Bingo."
Evan dropped the pen back onto the table as he spoke, leaning back into the sofa before continuing.
"Now then, Vazgan Theoregrim was a knight who was publicly executed wrongfully, with even the people of Bultom he had sworn to protect not believing in his and his family's innocence…"
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