The Death Mage Who Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time

this movement were sensed, Schneider would meet relentless resistance.
The settlements of Vida’s races that he had secretly protected would be attacked to send him warnings, and it was certain that they would at least prevent him from moving about.

“If things were going to turn out this way, we should have crushed the Fifteen Evil-breaking Swords properly,” said Dalton.

“No, they are very tenacious.
Even if we were to try to crush them, we would never have caught them,” said Zod.

“They are a secret force, after all.
They’re always scattered about, and even with our best efforts, we might be able to corner and defeat just one of them.
If we want to defeat them, don’t we have no choice but to kill them when they come attacking us?” said Merdin.

“Anyway, I’m grateful that you’ll accept my request… also, I want to ask you to deliver one more message,” said Farmaun.

“What, that it’s alright for him to hit you a hundred times?” Lissana asked.

Farmaun shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but I want him to leave hitting me a hundred times for later… since he can ‘break’ souls and familiar spirits.”

Including what the Adventurers’ Guild had done, Farmaun was aware that Vandalieu didn’t have a good impression of him, and it seemed that even he did not have the bravery to expose his body to a hundred soul-breaking attacks.

“… Umm, do I have to follow you as well?” asked Luvesfol.

Wouldn’t it be better for me to stay sealed here? he thought, having experienced such a soul-breaking attack himself.

“Yeah, it’s a pain to seal you away, so come with us,” said Schneider.

“I’m finished…” Luvesfol sighed, but there was a god who picked him up.

“No, he has not been remonstrated enough, so will you not leave him here? I shall watch over him properly,” said Tiamat, parent of the Drakonids.

She was a powerful figure among Luvesfol’s own race that he had betrayed, and like Zod and Lissana, she was someone that Luvesfol didn’t want to talk to much, but he felt grateful to her now.

“Really? Well, if we leave him with you, it’ll be fine even if he somehow manages to regain his original powers,” said Schneider.

“Yes, and if this Vandalieu comes here, we shall hand him back over,” said Tiamat.

“… I’m finished after all,” said Luvesfol.

 

 

 

The situation was developing rapidly, but at first, things had been going well for Miles.

It all began with the desertion of Baron Cuoco Ragdew, an important informant for the resistance organization that he had been sent to support, the Sauron Liberation Front.

For the Sauron Liberation Front, whose communication with the Orbaume Kingdom was delicate and unstable, the nobleman Cuoco and his vassals’ desertion was not something easy to take responsibility for, even though there were only a few of them in number.

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However, the last time he had communicated with Vandalieu and Chezare using the death-attribute-magic-operated communication devices that used the spirits and shrunken heads of monsters such as Goblins, it had been decided to have him come to Talosheim, though only if he wanted to.

Cuoco himself hadn’t confirmed it yet, but with his personality, he would want to migrate to Talosheim where the producer of syrup was, even if he did so alone.
And Iris and her companions would feel more at ease that way than sending him to the Orbaume Kingdom, where his desertion might not even be accepted.

But a miscalculation had occurred; the Mana put into the communication devices had reached its limits.
Only Legion and Vandalieu, the creator of the devices himself, could provide them with Mana, so they were now nothing more than shrunken heads.

Thinking back on it, perhaps this had been an error.

Next, the resistance had taken in Cuoco’s family who had escaped in secret, then later regrouped with Cuoco, who had sneaked away with a very small number of his vassals.
At this time, Cuoco had notified them that the Fifteen Evil-breaking Swords were on the move.

Cuoco had wanted to let them know earlier, but the lower organization, the Hilt, had already entered the Sauron region, so he had been unable to make any hasty moves.

Fortunately, there was still time, the resistance leader Iris Bearheart gathered the organization’s members even deeper inside their base in the former Scylla territory.

The abilities of Iris herself had improved several stages above what it had been before, and the resistance also had an elite force of Armor Tamers who wore Living Armors, led by Haj, as well as the Ghouls of the Sauron region who had begun to work together with them.
And since Miles was here as well, the Sauron Liberation Front’s fighting strength was very much complete.

But this was not enough to make them feel secure against the Fifteen Evil-breaking Swords, a collection of warriors who were all as powerful as A-class adventurers.

That was why they had decided to hole themselves up in the former Scylla Territory which, with Vandalieu’s monoliths and stone circles, was now a labyrinth that was difficult to trespass into without a member of the Sauron Liberation Front to guide the way.

Iris and her companions, who had already been guided to the Demon Path, didn’t now what kinds of effects the monoliths and stone circles had.
But since enemies that looked at them went mad one after another, and because the installations themselves were actually Golems, they acknowledged that they were very effective as traps for intruders.

Incidentally, it would have been troublesome for Cuoco and his family to go insane somehow while they were being protected, so they had blindfolded them.

Fortunately, they knew that Vandalieu would come soon.
So, holding out until then wasn’t difficult.

And then they were supposed to explain the situation to Vandalieu once he arrived, asking him on whether they would withdraw the organization until the danger had passed or fight against the Fifteen Evil-breaking Swords.

“… Honestly, we were looking at things too naïvely,” Miles said, his lips stained crimson with his own blood and twisted in a self-deprecating laugh as he glared at the three assailants who had charged in after destroying the monoliths and stone circles.

“Hey, hey, don’t go taking the words out of our mouths, Vampire,” said a tall Elf man with slanted eyes – the ‘Five-headed Snake’ Ervine, the Fifth Sword – as he twisted the whip that had gouged out chunks of Miles’s steel-like body, as if making a display of it.
“Leaving aside whether it’s the effect of a Unique Skill or Magic Item, I didn’t think that there would be a freak like a Vampire that can move about during the day… Could this be the Dhampir’s father?”

“I informed you about this, didn’t I? Bububuh… Do you not trust my insects?” said the ‘Insect Swarm’ Bebeckett, the Fifteenth Sword, sounding dissatisfied.
“And he doesn’t seem to be his father.
He calls him ‘Boss,’ after all,”

Bebeckett was a suspicious figure wearing a hooded robe that covered the whole body from head to toe; it was impossible to tell Bebeckett’s gender or age.

“Of course I don’t trust them,” Ervine said with a sneer.
“How can I trust insects that only you can control? In fact, when I heard your report, I thought that maybe your brain had finally been eaten by your insects.”

“Bubuh…!”

As the atmosphere between the two grew more dangerous, the third member, a man, the only one of the three to actually appear to be a knight, stepped between them.
He was the ‘Light-speed Sword’ Duke Rickert Amid, the Third Sword, and he had an Orichalcum Artifact hanging from his waist.

“Ervine-dono, Bebeckett-dono, how about we get to the matter at hand?” he said, pointing towards those around Miles with his gaze.
“If we take too long, unlike that Vampire, the others will become unable to talk.”

Miles’s surroundings formed a tragic scene.

Haj and some others were just barely managing to stand, using their weapons to support their body weight, and there was no small number of people lying on the ground, not moving.
Among them was Debis, the former mercenary who had been in a debt of gratitude to Iris’s father, George Bearheart.

And behind Rickert and his two companions were a large number of resistance members and Ghouls, lying face-down.
Perhaps the three Swords had held back; many of their victims were still breathing, but there were also some who couldn’t be said to be alive or dead with a single glance.

“Even if they don’t want to talk, I don’t think it’s a problem, however,” said Rickert, looking towards Cuoco and the ‘Liberating Princess Knight’ Iris, who was bleeding profusely and unable to stand up.

“If that ‘matter at hand’ you speak of is to spare everyone else in exchange for me, then…” Iris coughed.

“Iris-dono, you are wasting your strength.
It seems that they are determined to return with our heads,” said Cuoco.

I’ll have to give up on that syrup, he thought as he raised his sword with one hand, using the other to apply the Blood Potion that Iris had handed him during the battle onto her.

But Iris’s wounds showed almost no signs of healing.

“It’s useless; my holy sword Nemesis Bell does not allow any evil.
It is an Artifact that obstructs light and life-attribute healing magic, possesses anti-Demon-King-fragment properties and anti-Vampire properties… it has the effect of nullifying the immortality of Vampires.
Wounds inflicted by this holy sword cannot be healed by that Potion that is very clearly dangerous,” said Rickert.

But looking at it another way, other than these properties, it was a holy sword with nothing special other than being extremely hard and sharp.
It had been bestowed upon Rickert by Marshukzarl as a symbol of authority, as legend said that it had originated from Bellwood.
However, it had performed far beyond expectations during this mission.

Even now, the Blood Potion created from the Demon King’s fragments and the blood of Vandalieu, a half-Vampire, was showing almost no effects on the wounds inflicted upon Iris by Nemesis Bell.

“This is… Perhaps I should have brought some military-issue Potions when I left the occupying army,” Cuoco muttered.

“You can’t do anything about it now, Cuoco-chan.
More importantly, what is this ‘matter at hand?’” Miles asked Ervine, who seemed to be the leader of the three, as he checked how loud the alarm sounds were from his Unique Skill, Warning, which alerted him of any danger.

“Ah, it’s simple,” Ervine said.
“The one pulling your strings… He’s called Vandalieu, right? I’ve come to tell him to stop the games and join the empire.”

“… What did you say?” Miles looked at Ervine suspiciously.
He put a hand to his ear, thinking that he had misheard.

“Did you not hear me? As that traitor over there has probably already said, we’re members of the Fifteen Evil-breaking Swords.
We’ve come to tell the Dhampir Vandalieu of an offer directly from the emperor, that we’ll spare his life if he becomes a subordinate to the empire.
So, where is Vandalieu? Or has he not arrived yet?”

Through Bebeckett’s insect that had infested Iris, Ervine and his companions had even known that Vandalieu was planning to come today.
However, they hadn’t known what time he would be coming other than “before meal time.”

That was why they had made the first move, attacking a little early to ensure that talks would proceed with them having the advantage… to ensure that everyone could definitely be disposed of if negotiations broke down.
They had been careful to check whether the Dhampir was among them, and the ‘King Slayer’ Sleygar, the Eleventh Sword, was standing by with members of the Hilt.

But there had been no signs of him appearing, nor any signs that he had escaped, so Ervine had asked this question thinking that Vandalieu had not arrived yet.
But Miles, everyone else who was still conscious except for Cuoco and even Iris opened their eyes wide.

These guys were planning to negotiate like this?!

They had carried out a violent attack and asked no questions, leaving a trail of many seriously wounded people.
It was possible that some had even died.
And they had already declared that they would at least kill Iris and Cuoco.

It was impossible to comprehend trying to discuss things after that.

No, it’s not really that strange, is it? Miles thought.
He quickly realized what Ervine and his companions, and what Emperor Marshukzarl of the Amid Empire who had sent them, were thinking, and recovered from his surprise.

“I see… you want to take the dangerous ‘brat’ playing king, brandishing his power with Ghouls and Undead, and make good use of him yourself,” Miles said.

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It was nothing more than Marshukzarl and his subordinates misunderstanding Vandalieu.
His personality in particular.

It was partially because they hadn’t been able to investigate Vandalieu because he had mostly been active on the other side of the Boundary Mountain Range, but from analyzing the incidents and damage that he had caused, they had decided that he was just a child wielding a special power.

That was why they were thinking of making him yield by threatening him under the pretense of negotiating.

Miles had been working in the underworld on the Orbaume Kingdom’s side of the continent, so he wasn’t particularly knowledgeable, but Marshukzarl, the current emperor of the Amid Empire, was probably one of the wisest of the rulers that had appeared in the empire’s history.

But his mindset was still prejudiced.
For him, who had lived through the complicated world of royals and nobles to reach the throne, it was impossible to see things from the point of Vandalieu, who had been born a Dhampir, and truly understand him.

Even I looked down on humans until just a short while ago, and no matter how smart someone is, they’d never know or believe that Boss was reincarnated here from another world with his memories intact unless they met him directly, so I can’t really laugh about it, Miles thought.

“That is right.
Why a Vampire would refer to a Dhampir as ‘Boss’ is incomprehensible, but… so, when is he coming? If he is not coming, I will have you tell me how he is coming and going across the Boundary Mountain Range,” said Ervine.

It seemed that Marshukzarl, as well as Ervine and his companions, had completely misread Vandalieu’s personality.

“Let’s see, could we have you wait a little longer?” Miles said, trying to buy time, thinking it would be best to not have more casualties.

And, unexpectedly, Ervine appeared to prepare himself to wait.
“I see, then we’ll wait a little,” he said.
“Oi, Ricky-boy.
While we wait, go and take the heads of the traitor and the Princess Knight.
It would be problematic if they were to escape in the confusion or used a Magic Item that kills them and destroys their corpses.
Once you’re done with that, go back without us.”

It seemed that they had no intentions of waiting quietly.

“Alright,” Rickert said despite looking fed up with being called ‘boy,’ pointing his holy sword towards Iris and Cuoco.

The extermination of the Liberating Princess Knight, which on the surface was nothing more than his mission, and the disposal of a traitor which was nothing more than a side-task.
But if they could not produce visible results, the world watching them would take this as a failure.

Thus, they had already decided that Rickert, the Fifteen Evil-breaking Swords’ advertising billboard, would return with Iris and Cuoco’s heads.

“Cuoco-dono, I’ll buy us some time.
So –” Iris began, trying to protect the still-healthy Cuoco while heavily wounded herself,

“Buying time is my job,” said Miles, standing in front of Rickert to stop him from going any further.

“… What is the meaning of this? Get out of the way.
Your immortality is meaningless before my holy sword,” said Rickert.

“That’s right, Miles-dono.
Vandalieu-dono entrusted you to me; there is no need for you to protect me!” Iris cried.

“Why are you agreeing with him?”

Being told to get out of the way by Rickert in front of him and Iris behind him, Miles grimaced at the sound of his Warning Skill growing louder and louder, and then exposed his fangs like a carnivorous beast as he laughed.
“I came here because Boss told me to become your strength, you know? The thought of trying to tell Boss that I survived by abandoning you is scarier than dying!”

And even if he were to die, things wouldn’t end there.
As long as he was the subordinate of that superior, he would have to worry about what happened after death up until the moment he died.

“That’s true…”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t be angry, but…”

“… After dying, we’d be worked so hard that hell would look like heaven.”

“Only after death?”

The half-alive, half-dead Haj and his companions mustered their strength and got to their feet.
The cracked Living Armors they were wearing let out fierce groans as well.

Seeing this, Rickert felt an unpleasant premonition.
“That woman will be dead in less than half an hour.
Do you still wish to protect her?” he asked.

He pointed out the reality of the situation, but Miles and the others didn’t waver, glaring back at him as if to say, “so what?”

“It can’t be helped,” Iris murmured.
“Cuoco-dono, please get away.
I’ll… ask to be turned into a Living Armor.
A sword father and armor daughter will go well together.”

Seeing the smile on Iris’s white, bloodless face, Rickert’s premonition became a certain belief.
“Ervine, the negotiations with the Dhampir will definitely fail.
I could bet my life on it.”

“Then we’ll simply dispose of him when they do.
If you won’t do it, I will.
I won’t harm her above the neck, so just cut it off,” Ervine told Rickert, and then he turned towards Miles and the others.
“And you lot, if you think that I’ll sit here with this sweet face forever and not kill you, then –”

“Ah, it’s over,” said Miles, his blank voice cutting across Ervine’s irritated words.

“Bubuh, what? Have you given up?” asked the bewildered Bebeckett, who had intended to leave the negotiations to Ervine.

“No,” said Miles, looking refreshed now that the harsh alarm sound had stopped.
“I meant that it’s over for you guys.
Isn’t it, Boss?”

Before Bebeckett and the other two could understand what his words meant, an enormous shadow appeared over their heads without warning.

Bebeckett and Ervine saw Vandalieu, who had Teleported with Legion from Talosheim, looking at them.

And then black Mana poured out of his body with explosive force, engulfing Iris and the others.

 

 

 

Title explanation:

【Champion】

A Title that can be obtained by someone who has come from another world (whether summoned, transferred by chance or reincarnated) once they are acknowledged by the gods and a large number of people (at least ten thousand).

This Title was gained by Zakkart and Bellwood who had been summoned by the gods from the foreign world of Earth, but they acquired this Title immediately as they were people summoned by the gods to begin with and praised by the people as “champions summoned by the gods” from the moment they came into the world.

This Title has effects such as improving the effects of any equipped Artifacts and possessed Unique Skills, lowering the difficulty of awakening superior Skills – effects that are meaningless unless one is a being fit to be called a champion.

Incidentally, those who were born and raised in this world such as the ‘Thunderclap’ Schneider and the ‘Blue-flamed Sword’ Heinz cannot acquire this Title no matter how much they are acknowledged by the gods and people.

In the case of Vandalieu, who was reincarnated in this world with the memories of his previous lives intact, Fidirg and Merrebeveil alone were not enough to fulfill the conditions of acquiring this Title, but he acquired it after the gods and people within the Boundary Mountain range acknowledged him.