Chapter III.XXXV (3.35) - Reunited

  Kizu and his companions tumbled out of the other side of the gate in a heap on the mossy stone floor of an ancient building. Along with someone else clinging to Kizu's leg. A necromancer. Kizu recognized him as the portal’s guard. The one who’d thought Anata a ghost.

  But Kizu barely considered the teenage necromancer as he pivoted and slammed his hand back onto the stone archway, swiftly deactivating the gate spell. He didn’t want witches or zombies to follow after them.

  “Th-thank you,” the necromancer said. He looked pale, contrasting even further with his scarlet acne.

  Kizu eyed him carefully as they all got back to their feet. The necromancer gave him a shaky smile. Then he doubled over and started puking.

  Mitsuko leaped back to avoid the bile, but instead of puke, the necromancer spewed out a stream of geckos onto the floor. They scattered, darting off into the ruins.

  After a minute, the necromancer collapsed onto the stone floor and dry-heaved. Kizu watched a baby gecko climb out of his ear, but otherwise the hex seemed to be spent.

  Not a particularly life threatening hex. The witches must have still wanted him and his companions alive. Still, they’d taken their time waiting to interrogate him. He didn’t understand why Necro had waited so long to approach him.

  The ruins were a bit different from the usual ones that marked entrances into the World Dungeon. This one had sharper angles and was completely overrun by vegetation.

  Mitsuko stood off to the side, wringing her hands and looking around the place warily, as if worried it might collapse at any moment. Meanwhile, Shika had captured a handful of the puked geckos and was trying to coax them into a tear in her arm for safekeeping.

  “We need to get moving,” Kizu said. “The zombies bought us some time, but the gate could be reactivated at any moment. We don’t know how accomplished Chiame is at spatial magic. But if she can jump, she can probably get that gate working again.”

  He picked up the necromancer and threw him over his shoulder. The boy protested and squirmed, but he was gaunt and exhausted from his puking session so Kizu held him in place without too much of an issue.

  “Gross. You’re taking him?” Shika asked.

  “He has information,” Kizu said simply.

  “No, I don’t,” the necromancer squeaked. “I’m not important. You should leave me here.”

  Kizu ignored him and they set off.

  As they exited the ruins, Mitsuko lingered, staring wide eyed up at the ancient stone building buried in lush flora. She took in a deep breath and muttered something, but Kizu couldn’t make it out. Then she followed after them.

  This region of the jungle was unfamiliar to Kizu, but he still knew the Hon Basin’s common threats well enough to steer them away from a pack of goroles. The pit traps were obvious if you knew what to look for. Small patches without vegetation that lumped up a bit. Kizu used to capture the mole creatures for the crone.

  “I’m hungry,” the necromancer complained. He’d puked a few more geckos out down Kizu’s back collar while being carried away from the ruins, but hadn’t done anything too egregious yet.

  “We have three flasks of cold soup. You can have some after we get where we’re going.”

  “Where is that? We’ve been walking for over an hour now.”

  Kizu didn’t answer him. He was meeting with Mort. His familiar was close now. Thankfully, he was guiding the others to Kizu and also helping that group avoid dangers.

  It still took another half an hour before Kizu finally reached his friends.

  Anata burst through the bushes and hugged him tight around his waist.

  “You see,” Ione said. “I knew following the monkey was a good call.”

  Basil grumbled and flicked a twig out of his hair.

  “Basil. You seriously abandoned me back there?” Kizu accused the shapeshifter. “I trusted you with Taroe’s enchanted signal.”

  “Woah, woah. What’s with this immediate hostility? Can I at least get a ‘hello’ first?”

  “He has a point,” Ione said.

  “I thought he knew the girl.” His eyes flickered over to where Mitsuko stood. “I mean, he’d commented on her the previous day telling me to stay away. It was only logical for him to go upstairs with her. I mean, even the server commented on his relationship with her. No way I was going to stand between him and love. Especially after what happened with Emilia.”

  “I made it very clear I was not interested in her.”

  “Actually, you made it clear I should not be interested in her.”

  “Who?” Mitsuko asked.

  “Ah,” Kizu fumbled for a second. “The witch who captured me. She used a love potion on me and my companion left me to die.”

  Basil gave him a sly smile and raise of the eyebrows at his display. “Now that’s a tad dramatic. You’re alive, aren’t you? Plus, Necro intended for me to activate the emergency signal. He wanted to lure Taroe away. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t believed in love.”

  Kizu rolled his eyes but Basil had a point. His blunder let Ione, Mort, and Anata escape unharmed.

  “Where is Taroe? And how did you rendezvous with everyone?”

  “Mort fetched me. After I realized my overly-optimistic view of your lovelife, I investigated and found both you and Necro missing. I blended in with the villagers for a few hours until I spotted your monkey on a rooftop scouting out the area.”

  “We don’t know what happened to Taroe,” Ione said. She started to fill in Kizu about the attack. He knew most of the details from watching through Mort, but hearing it from Ione’s perspective was valuable.

  “Wait,” Kizu cut in. “The hydra was conjured?”

  “Yes. And on the upper limits of the best living summoners I know of.”

  “So Necro is a powerful summoner as well as a necromancer?”

  “I doubt it. I think it came from someone else. It didn’t obey his commands and kept blundering in front of his attacks. It even squashed one of his zombies after I sent Anata away.”

  Kizu dumped his prisoner into the mud at their feet.

  “Talk,” he demanded.

  “I told you before! I don’t know anything!” He shielded his face with his arms as if scared Kizu might strike him.

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  Kizu scanned their surroundings until he found one of the small clearings with a mound of dirt. He dragged his prisoner over and tossed him at it.

  The necromancer screamed as the ground collapsed and he fell into a pit trap, but Kizu’s monster leg shot out and gripped him by a shoulder before he fell too deep. The claws on the foot dug into the necromancer's shoulder, just deep enough to pierce through his robe and draw blood.

  “Down below are flesh eating moles.” Kizu said, trying to keep his voice cold and even. “They’re the size of pug and they like to burrow into their prey’s bodies. They like the warmth of their victims' insides and are said to keep them alive for hours before they finally allow them to bleed out. Then they tear them apart from the inside. It’s not uncommon for a victim’s internals to be found scattered across over a kilometer of tunnels. Would you like to meet one?”

  “No! Please no!” The necromancer wept and scrambled to find a handhold on the crumbly dirt.

  Kizu saw movement in the darkness below. The goroles wanted their prey. They were confused about why nothing had fallen in despite their pit trap triggering.

  He hauled the necromancer back up and tossed him back into the mud.

  “Sick,” Shika said, grinning down at the necromancer. “You’re so much cooler now, Kizu. I remember when you peed yourself after that Awakened eagle visited.”

  Kizu closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He bit back a defense about him being seven years old at the time.

  “You know,” Basil said. “Not to interrupt your moment, but you still haven’t explained why you’re with the beautiful young woman and a bratty zombie.”

  Shika glared at him and Mitsuko tried to smile, but her eyes were fixed on the pit trap a stone’s throw away. Ione leaned over the edge, jotting down notes in a small book as she watched the creatures below.

  “Not the time,” Kizu said. “Necromancer. What’s your name?”

  “So-Sotoba,” he stuttered, looking up at Kizu fearfully.

  “Okay, Sotoba. Let’s start by telling me who everyone is and what they can do. Who are your most powerful members?”

  Sotoba looked to the others as if expecting one of them to bail him out.

  “Necro is the most powerful. Well, other than…you?”

  “Me?”

  “You’re, um, Kaga Kizu, right?”

  “I am.”

  “But…you’re acting differently.”

  “This other version of me, he’s a member of your Death Party?”

  “Not really. You, I mean he, is a friend of Necro is all. They met after Necro killed the Emperor. He’s not an official member. Just stops in to chat and give Necro advice.”

  “What can he do?”

  “I-I don’t know. But Necro made it clear he’s powerful and that we’ll die if we get in his way.”

  “Okay. And Necro?”

  “He uses zombies. But he always makes them really unhinged and scary. You saw them. They can’t be controlled. He purposefully designs them that way.”

  “But he’s still trying to control them,” Shika interjected. “That’s why he wanted me and Pa.”

  Sotoba shrugged. “He asked us all to create zombies for him. He took control of mine in under a couple seconds. I think it was the same for pretty much everyone else too.”

  “Which one of you summoned the hydra? It wasn’t Necro, who was it and how capable are they?”

  “I…I really don’t know. I don’t think it was any of us necromancers. We mostly just control minor undead creatures. One of us has a myling companion and another commands a paper lantern chochin obake, but those are the two most powerful undead outside of Necro’s zombies. Well…and the warlord ghoul.”

  “What about the witches?”

  “They…don’t really mingle with us.”

  Kizu expected that. “What have you seen? Rumors? Glimpses? What are their names?”

  “Ah…well. Fuku is the white haired witch. She’s, um, very scary. She likes to mess with people’s heads. People say she melted the brain of the witch training her. She convinced one of the necromancers that he was a silkworm for over a week after he made an unfriendly comment about her familiar. It’s an owl named Rou.”

  Kizu nodded. He knew most of that information already, but it was good to finally get a name. It was familiar. The crone had definitely commented on her in the past. Likely a friend’s apprentice.

  He waited for Sobota to continue. The necromancer bit his lip and averted his eyes.

  Before Kizu pressed further, Ione managed to catch one of the goroles. While he had been talking, she’d stuck a small, meaty-looking summon on the end of a long stick and flicked the monster out once it bit down. It crashed into a tree before falling on its back with its legs flailing about. It squealed in indignation as Ione threw herself on its belly, holding it down and not letting it burrow its way free.

  The monster opened its mouth to scream at Ione. It had four different rows of teeth, the front one the sharpest and most deadly, while the back ones were designed to mash and consume dirt.

  Ione stuffed a burlap sack into its mouth, causing the thing to gag and choke.

  The summoner muttered to herself as she began prodding at the skin of the creature.

  “Is she mad?” Sobota asked quietly.

  “The same as the rest of us,” Kizu said darkly. “I don’t think you fully understand who you’re speaking to. I was raised by the most feared witch in modern history. I’ve fought Blood Lords and killed dire bears. My niece murdered one of the Warlords of Hon. Shika is the result of the most powerful necromancer in the Hon Basin greatest efforts. And my friend over there committed mass genocide on a continental scale. We’re not people you want to be on the bad side of. No matter what those witches can do to you, we can do worse.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mitsuko’s eyes widen and take a step back. He’d need to clarify a few things later. Thankfully, Basil was over next to Ione looking at the gorole and hadn’t heard him mention genocide, in hindsight, he shouldn’t spread that around. But it had the desired effect as the necromancer began spilling out words as quickly as possible.

  “Chiame. She’s bad. The worst of all the witches. She specializes in hexes and potions like the others, but she’s a prodigy. She’s especially good at body manipulation spells and explosive and gaseous brews.”

  Kizu nodded slowly. That made sense. Hexes usually affected the physical body of an opponent, the opposite of necromancy which controlled the soul. Witches loved hexes, tearing into people’s health and destroying their bodies. While someone like the crone wouldn’t have any problem putting Chiame down, Kizu’s only protection against her was his antimagic barriers. If she caught him off guard, he’d be completely exposed. And his most offensive abilities, spatial spells, wouldn’t likely be as effective against her since she also knew how to jump. Like most spatial mages, she’d have built up an innate resistance to outside spatial interference on her person unless she specifically allowed it.

  “Okay.” Kizu nodded slowly. “Next question. What exactly was in that pot the witches all huddled around.”

  “Oh, um. You know about that?” He fidgeted on the ground. “I’m not sure exactly what it is. But something important. I was told not to worry about it. Necro assigned me to watch the portal. That’s really all I do.”

  “You really know how to pick them,” Basil said, approaching them again. “This guy just answers everything with vague generalizations.”

  The gorole was subdued by Ione now. She scratched at its teeth with a twig while it lay on the ground, unconscious. Shika and Anata were off to the side. The zombie girl was tiny, only reaching Anata’s shoulder, but she still spoke with more than enough words for both of them as she yapped about decomposition and showed Anata one of the geckos she’d successfully smuggled into her elbow. Mort noticed the small reptile and made it his life’s mission to steal it from Shika.

  “We need to decide where to go next,” Kizu said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Ione glanced at him and Mitsuko offered a nervous smile.

  “Back to the hut?” Basil suggested.

  “You could…stay at my place,” Mitsuko offered.

  Kizu shook his head. Both were too visible. They needed to lay low.

  “We just go to Pa, obviously,” Shika said. “He’ll know more than that worthless necromancer lackey. Pa knows everything.”

  “I’m not worthless,” Sobota muttered. “I’m pretty good with bone manipulation. Just not zombies or monstrosities or anything.”

  “Hone isn’t a terrible idea,” Kizu said. “If we can get in without anyone noticing. But they’ll likely be watching the area so it’s risky.

  “What other options do we have?” Ione asked. “Return to the capital?”

  But that wasn’t really an option either. To get there, they’d need to climb out of the Hon Basin and then travel through the mountains for at least a week.

  “We’ll meet with Hone, drop off Shika, and see what he has to say about the Death Party now that their hostage is out of reach.” Kizu thought this a decent plan. At least something to go off of. If he could find a way to contact Taroe, that would be even better. “Does anyone know how to get back to the village?”

  His friends all shook their heads. All save for Mort, who gave him a cheeky smile.

  Ten Blood Curse Academia chapters (5 weeks) ahead of Royal Road on Patreon.