Volume 4, Fourth Tactic of Slaying a Dragon: “Recruit Powerful Assistants”

Volume 4, Chapter Fourth Tactic of Slaying a Dragon: “Recruit Powerful Assistants”

Translator: ErodingPersona

Earlier, when the unicorn and Ice Knight had both simultaneously used their magic, I had had a faint feeling… that I would be able to perform those magic spells too. Regardless of whether it was Ice Wall or Lightning, I felt I could cast all of them as well. If so, of course I should take the opportunity, while Ice Knight was still walking in slow motion, to quickly and stealthily gather the elements and blast him so that he would be unable to react!

I burst through the small door and yelled to the three people in front of me, “Don’t use that road, and don’t follow me!”

Hearing this, the three of them stopped dead in their tracks and swiveled their heads around to look at me.

I didn’t let the unicorn stop, only roaring again while passing by them, “Hurry up and run!”

“You didn’t even stop!” Sybil grumbled loudly, “To think that I had actually felt momentarily touched when I heard that you wanted to go off alone!”

I turned my head and bellowed, “If I stopped, I might as well run straight into prison! Also, if all of you don’t start running, you guys might as well just walk straight into prison with your own feet!”

After I finished speaking, the three of them immediately separated and ran off in different directions.

The minute the three of them separated, Ice Knight appeared behind me. There was not a single scratch on him, and not even a speck of dust could be seen. However, this wasn’t particularly strange, as I had not aimed for him from the start; rather, I aimed at the holy knights who had formed a protective barrier like a metal wall behind him… As they stood there without moving, they became as easy of targets as what walls would be.

Ice Knight barely stopped for a moment, and then he ignored the three others and started chasing me.

Seeing this, I belted out, “Unicorn, run! Run as fast as you can!”

The unicorn neighed aloud, sounding very excited. It ran faster and faster, so fast that I could barely open my eyes. Still, that didn’t matter — I could just close my eyes. After all, I still hadn’t figured out any differences between keeping my eyes opened or closed.

I felt relieved instead of bothered by the unicorn’s high speed because a person definitely couldn’t outrun such a fast horse… Unless a lot of icicles kept appearing before the horse.

An icicle had suddenly burst out from the ground. However, the unicorn’s reflexes were nothing to scoff at. It made a sudden, forced turn about two meters away from the icicle and evaded it. Yet, barely a few strides after that, another icicle appeared before us again. The unicorn still refused to stop, and dodged once more around the icicle.

It seemed as if the unicorn was prepared to go against Ice Knight. The unicorn’s evasive skills were indeed very good. We might have even managed to successfully escape… If I hadn’t fallen off of the unicorn.

“Stupid horse!” I roared while using a holy spell on my poor backside, which had almost been split in half. “Did you think that I was glued to your back?”

The unicorn stopped dead in its tracks. It turned and watched me with a timid look on its face, but it wasn’t willing to walk over. It actually stared at me for a bit, and then turned to stare at Ice Knight, as though it was very troubled and wanted to swap the person riding it… You stupid horse!

I had just finished healing my backside and was about to stand and beat the horse when a shadow fell upon me. I tilted my head up and saw Ice Knight’s face with its dead facial muscles directly above me. He ripped the mask from my face.

This is the end!

I blanched, but I discovered that Ice Knight’s expression had also changed… Oh? So his facial muscles aren’t dead?

This was the first time an expression had actually crossed Ice Knight’s face. He stared at me with a very surprised expression… An opportunity!

Attack! Regardless of what attack I’m capable of using, I must hurry up and perform it!

“How can you be here, S…” Ice Knight seemed to hesitate while saying this, but halfway through with his words, he suddenly stopped and stared wide-eyed at me.

With sudden inspiration, I held both of my hands out toward him and roared, “Chains of Darkness, seal my enemy!”

A large amount of the dark element pulsed out of my hands and scores of black chains suddenly writhed upon the ground. Those chains were compressed with layers upon layers of vast amounts of dark element.

Looking at the chains, I wondered whether Ice Knight had ever seen these before, for there was a mystified expression on his face.

It doesn’t matter, his reflexes can only be described as slow, so now is exactly the best time to overpower him!

A countless number of chains wrapped around Ice Knight from head to toe, tightening securely around his whole body and even his mouth. I had no wish of him yelling to attract the attention of the other knights chasing after us.

After that, he finally reacted. With his Divine Stick, he started breaking the Chains of Darkness.

Do you really think it’ll be that easy? I gave a cold laugh and called, “Unicorn, now… If you dare to disobey me and not attack him, I’ll tie you up as well!”

The unicorn immediately rushed forward, the single horn on its head shining with a far more concentrated amount of holy element than ever before, and crashed into Ice Knight. However, this attack only stopped Ice Knight from breaking apart the chains. He didn’t even look as though he had been hurt much at all.

“Stupid horse!” I roared, “Don’t you see that his whole body is full of ‘light?’ Yet you want to use the holy element to attack him — are you helping him scratch an itch? Use other elements to attack him!”

The unicorn neighed to the heavens and the sky was suddenly filled with a lot of clouds that crackled with thunder. As the lightning bolts started to strike in succession, Ice Knight didn’t have any more time to break the chains. He hurriedly gathered the ice element again and again to form an ice wall above his head to block the numerous lightning strikes aimed at him.

I dispersed the ice wall he formed, and as he was unable to react instantly, he got hit by one of the lightning bolts.

One strike, two strikes… Ice Knight didn’t fall or faint. He only faced me, seemingly staring at me, yet still not giving up on solidifying the ice element.

However, his ability to gather could not even compare to my speed at dispersing the ice element. Unable to form an ice wall, he finally could only rely on the thing surrounding his body… That thing called… “Battle aura!” I finally remembered the name.

The unicorn continued to strike with lightning bolts until it finally stopped and stared at me.

“You can’t do it anymore?” I rolled my eyes at it and grumpily said, “You really are useless. Are you really a horse worth 5000 gold ducats?”

After saying this, I turned my head around and faced Ice Knight. The sky was already filled with even more of the lightning element that was even stronger than before. However, the lightning element had not been gathered by the unicorn. It had been gathered by me.

There’s no time left. The holy knights at the back will catch up anytime now. I have to use my quickest speed to strike him down!

The lightning crashed down.

Ice Knight raised his head upwards and stared at the sky, and then for some reason, dispersed the battle aura surrounding him… The lightning bolt struck him squarely. He stood for only a second before simply falling to the side.

I jumped back in shock. Luckily, his heart was still beating. He must have simply fainted when he was hit by the lightning bolt.

I walked over, first picking up the popsicle, then kicking its owner lightly. Seeing that he did not react to the kick, I wiped the cold sweat off my face.

I had thought that even if I joined forces with the unicorn, I still might have been unable to defeat this guy. Fortunately, we managed to beat him.

Still, I couldn’t let my guard down. I wrapped him up using numerous Chains of Darkness. Only when he looked like a ginormous black cocoon did I stop, satisfied with my handiwork.

Once I stopped, I heard heavy footsteps. I hurriedly looked for my mask and put it back on. At this time, the knights thundering toward us were only a mere hundred meters away from me.

I sneered, slowly placing the popsicle against its owner’s neck, although at first I couldn’t find where his neck was… I had really wrapped too many chains around him.

I yelled out to the holy knights, “If you don’t value his life, then go ahead and rush forward!”

Seeing this, all the holy knights stopped dead in their tracks. Their eyes widened until they were as big as a horse’s eyes.

The most important fact though, was that not a single one of them dared to move, just like I had expected.

“If you dare to chase after us, I won’t guarantee Ice Knight’s life!”

After laying down these threats, I dragged the giant cocoon onto the horse, and under the gaze of the audience, I calmly led the cocoon and the unicorn away from the area.

When I brought the cocoon and the unicorn to the appointed gathering spot, everyone’s jaws dropped straight to their chests.

“You, you really know how to use magic?” Iacchi was the first to gulp and ask me with some fright.

Yuna followed with a shriek, “How is that possible! How can a cleric of the God of Light know how to use magic that requires dark element?”

How should I know? Even if you ask me, I can’t give you an answer! All that matters is that I do know how to use it.

“Grisia! What did you do?” Woodrow really was the leader of the group. He was the first person to get to the main issue at hand.

“What are you yelling so loudly for?” The situation had truly gone a bit off course, so I could not afford to lose my cool. I assumed a calm manner and said, “Didn’t I just lead the unicorn out of the city so that we could sell it later and split the money?”

“Then what is that?” Woodrow gestured toward the cocoon on the ground and yelled, “Sneaking out the unicorn and selling it is one thing, but kidnapping the Ice Knight is another matter altogether!”

“My god! We are making an enemy out of the entire Church of the God of Light…” Yuna mumbled off to the side.

“Let him go immediately!” Woodrow roared.

“Let him go?” I sneered, “If we let him go now, what will we do if he brings back the others to pursue us? As long as he is in our hands, the holy knights, hot on our heels, won’t rush up and slice us into pieces!”

Hearing this, Woodrow flinched. His mouth opened, as though he still wanted to argue, but in the end, he closed it and didn’t say anything else.

Seeing this, I comforted them by saying, “Don’t panic, as long as we get to a distance where the holy knights will be unable to follow us, we can immediately release him and bring the unicorn to wherever we want. Nothing will happen to any of us.”

At this, everyone’s expressions lightened up. However, Woodrow seemed to be struggling with himself for a while before mumbling, “I’m very sorry. After we split the money, we may have to go our separate ways.”

My heart jumped. I looked at the rest of them. Even though they all wore uneasy expressions on their faces, none of them spoke up… I dropped my smile and said indifferently, “That’s alright. As long as I get my share of the money, I’m fine with it.”

“Of course,” Woodrow nodded his head as a gesture of confirmation.

I nodded my head as well and told everyone, “Why don’t we take a break? We can continue the discussion about where we should go tomorrow morning.”

“Okay.” Woodrow nodded and then said, “Now let’s arrange the guards for tonight.”

“There’s no need for that, let me act as the guard for the whole night!” I smiled and said, “After all, as you all know, I have already slept for ten days! If you want me to sleep now, it might even be harder than kidnapping the Ice Knight!”

Everyone laughed. Woodrow politely replied, “We’ll have to trouble you with this then.”

I nodded.

“So I have been abandoned…” I used a rock as my pillow and looked up toward the sky. The unicorn was sleeping on my left, while the gigantic cocoon was sound asleep at my right. Everyone else was also sleeping close by. Their breaths were slow and even, as if they were all sleeping very soundly.

Although they have already planned to abandon me, they have yet to raise their guard against me.

I slowly stood up and walked toward where everyone else was sleeping. These people are really na?ve! If I can force Ice Knight into submission, can’t I just beat them into submission as well?

First of all, a single person escaping always attracts less attention than a group. Second, this way the amount I would obtain would not be 1,000 gold ducats, but rather 25,000 gold ducats!

I walked over to Sybil, slowly leaned down and…lightly tucked her in with the cloak that she was using as a blanket.

Really! At this age and she’s still kicking aside her blanket!

I shook my head in frustration and decided to walk back to my place and continue lying down. However, when I turned around, I was shocked to see a person standing not far off from where we were.

That’s…

“Scarlet?” I gasped in surprise.

But the unicorn is still asleep in its original spot! Yet Scarlet appeared too. Wasn’t she fabricated by the unicorn? Or does Scarlet only appear when the unicorn is asleep? Or maybe there is actually no connection at all between Scarlet and the unicorn…

While I was still thinking, Scarlet had already skipped to my side, and then, holding something with both of her hands as if she were giving me a priceless treasure, she said, “Big brother dropped this.”

It was a book.

“I dropped this?” I flipped open the book and reflexively lowered my head to use my eyes to face it… This was yet another action that I could not understand. Eyes couldn’t help me “see” anything on the book.

I could sense the elements; the book had the wood element, and on top of the wood element, there was a very thin layer of the stone element. The stone element drew out “words,” but such little stone element caused me to have a hard time differentiating it. Still, I managed to figure out the words in the end.

“A Complete Guide to Necromancy Spells” was written on the book’s cover.

“There’s still something else!” Scarlet let out a tinkling, silver-belled laugh, and innocently said, “However, it’s not here. Head northeast, and you will find it there.”

“What is it?”

Scarlet tilted her head to the side and said, “Try touching your chest.”

Hearing this, I patted my chest. Instantly, an uneasy feeling enveloped me… Was it originally empty here?

With a heart full of doubt, I lifted my head up and asked, “Scarlet, you have my book, and you also know where my belongings are. Does that mean you know who I am… Scarlet?”

I stopped in surprise — I couldn’t feel Scarlet anymore. Has she disappeared again? What in the world is going on?

I abruptly opened my mouth and asked, “You’re awake?”

This had nothing to do with Scarlet. Rather, Ice Knight, who was lying close by, had opened his eyes and was staring straight at me.

I believed that if his mouth hadn’t been gagged by the Chains of Darkness, he would certainly have already started yelling at me in rage, wouldn’t he? I didn’t need my memories to know this; there weren’t many people in this world who would like to be bound up like a cocoon.

I walked back to my original place and sat down. Mischievously, I patted his head and said, “Don’t panic, when we reach somewhere far enough that your holy knights can no longer catch up with us, we’ll let you go, so don’t bother struggling so hard.”

After a pause, I changed my tone and coldly said, “This way, I won’t need to waste any energy to beat you up.”

Ice Knight only blinked his eyes in reply. After that, he really didn’t move a muscle and merely continued staring at me.

I flipped through “A Complete Guide to Necromancy Spells” the entire night. Then, I conveniently used the readily available guinea pig next to me, Ice Knight, to experiment spells on.

“…”

The ice element surrounding Ice Knight had always tended to gather around him. Luckily, the rate of gathering still wasn’t as quick as my ability to disperse it.

Later on, we started on our journey to escape the pursuers. The first major problem we encountered was: how were we supposed to transport a cocoon that was as big as a human?

Sybil was the first to come up with a suggestion. “Let Yuna cast a strength enhancing spell on me. I’ll carry him on my back!”

I supposed Ice Knight’s appearance must be pretty good. Even Sybil was drooling over him.

“How long do you plan to carry him on your back?” I grumpily asked, “A day, three days, or five days? Or do you plan on using ‘weeks’ to measure the amount of time?”

“This…” Sybil doubtfully replied, “Three… No! Five days!”

Hm! It seems that Ice Knight’s good looks are at the level of “people are willing to carry him for five days straight.”

I suddenly felt very curious and asked, “Sybil, if you were to carry me, how many days would you be willing to carry me?”

Sybil looked at my face solemnly and said, “Based on just appearance, I would be willing to carry you for a week, but after getting acquainted with your personality…”

“Don’t tell me it has dropped down to a day?” I asked a little uneasily.

“No.” Sybil shrugged and said, “I only want to get as far away from you as possible.”

“…”

At least my appearance is good enough that “people are willing to carry me for seven days straight.” After comforting myself, I looked at the unicorn and then looked at Ice Knight before I asked the latter, “Hey! Are you a virgin?”

Everyone’s jaws dropped to their chests again.

Ice Knight simply glared at me, not even deigning to give a single word of reply. How dare he look upon me with so much disdain… Ah! His mouth is still being covered by the Chains of Darkness!

I quickly undid the chains and asked again, “You can talk now. So, hurry up and answer me, are you a virgin?”

He continued glaring at me without saying a single word.

“Even if he was, he would never admit to that, would he? Something so embarrassing… Er! Grisia, I’m not saying that your being a virgin is very embarrassing!” Igor hurriedly explained.

I glared at Igor before pulling out the popsicle that hung at my waist. Holding it against Ice Knight’s neck, I roared, “Are you a virgin or not? Answer me!”

Even when he was facing imminent death, Ice Knight still maintained his icy silence. This is bad. It’s not like I can actually kill him, can I?

Maybe I should torture him and force the answer out of him? I wondered for a moment, a little distressed. After a while, I started to smile instead.

I placed the popsicle back at my waist, hauled up Ice Knight and threw him toward the unicorn… The unicorn had no intention of even evading the ginormous cocoon.

“…Damn!”

Everyone sucked in a deep breath. Iacchi even spat out an expletive. Finally Igor mumbled, “Since when did this world have so many old virgins past the age of twenty?”

“I’m not a virgin!” I vigorously denied right away.

Iacchi shrugged his shoulders, and Igor smiled pacifyingly while saying, “Yes, yes! If you say you aren’t then you aren’t.”

After resolving the transport problem, we didn’t have any more time to waste. We immediately started on our journey of escaping. To me, it would also be known as a boring riding journey.

As I had to match everyone’s speed of walking, the unicorn had to trot along very slowly. I felt immensely bored and started a one-sided conversation with the cocoon. “Is your real name really Ice?”

Ice Knight shook his head.

At this, my curiosity spiked and I asked, “It’s not? Then what’s your name?”

He stared at me for quite some time before replying slowly, “Ecilan Ice.”

“That’s so hard to pronounce.” I frowned. Ecilan? What sort of person would give someone a name like that?

“I’ve never hoped that you would pronounce my name correctly,” he blandly said.

I was surprised, “What did you say?”

He was silent for a while, and if I didn’t mistake it, he seemed to have peeked at the others out of the corner of his eyes before turning his attention back on me and shaking his head, “Nothing.”

“Alright then, Ecilan, are there any other members of the Twelve Holy Knights close by?”

Although I asked him this, I didn’t really expect that he would tell me the truth. However, even if he lied to me, it would be fine as well. Of course I would be able to determine if he was lying to me or not, and from there I could get the answer I wanted!

“Yes, there is. Knight-Captain Blaze is close by.” He nodded his head.

I was stunned for a moment. Ecilan’s heartbeat didn’t speed up at all…He didn’t lie! He actually told me that a member of the Twelve Holy Knights was close by, and he even told me who it was!

“Will he chase after us?” I asked a little nervously.

Ecilan nodded his head and answered without the slightest hesitation, “He will.”

This is bad. I frowned, “What if I used your life to threaten him?”

Ecilan knitted his eyebrows together. He looked as though he was thinking this through. After a while, he explained in detail, “He will back down, but he won’t give up. He will never give up.”

Hearing this, I said with a smile, “How na?ve, do you really believe that your comrades will never abandon you?”

Ecilan nodded his head and said, “The Twelve Holy Knights will never abandon the Twelve Holy Knights.”

“Is that so?” My tone turned low and I coldly said, “If there’s a chance, let’s try it out. When he’s on the brink of death, we’ll see whether or not he’ll abandon you.”

“He won’t.” Ecilan looked at me and repeated in an extremely firm tone, “The Twelve Holy Knights will never abandon the Twelve Holy Knights.”

I gave a cold snort. To think that a guy with such a cold and expressionless face could be such a na?ve idiot!

After that, we reached a fork in the road. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and turned to look at Woodrow.

Woodrow read the signboard and said, “If we follow the path on the right we will be heading northeast toward the Kingdom of Moon Orchid. If we head left we will be entering the border of the Kingdom of Forgotten Sound. Although there are two roads, I don’t think we have a choice.”

He flicked his eyes toward Ecilan, sighed, and said, “Kidnapping the Ice Knight and stepping into the Kingdom of Forgotten Sound with him? I’m afraid that the minute we step into a city will be the time we’ll know what that city’s prisons look like.”

“That’s a given!” Yuna glared at me and coldly said, “The Kingdom of Forgotten Sound is the base of the Church of the God of Light. Everyone there knows the Twelve Holy Knights…”

“Especially the leader of the Twelve Holy Knights, the Sun Knight!”

Sybil interrupted suddenly. When she finished speaking, she revealed a face full of adoration, and in a dreamy tone she said, “The rumors say that the Sun Knight has bright, golden hair, sky blue eyes and skin as white and smooth as milk…”

After saying this, Sybil suddenly stopped to stare at me. She couldn’t have used me as her “base model” to dream up her Sun Knight, could she?

I couldn’t help but say in a sour voice, “Is the Sun Knight a girl? Your entire description seems to be describing a gorgeous beauty!”

“He’s handsome!” Sybil immediately snapped back to her senses and forcefully countered, “What’s more, he’s a truly elegant and handsome guy, unlike you! Even though you have the same golden hair, blue eyes and pale skin, you have absolutely no class!”

“An elegant, handsome guy?”

I patted Ecilan’s head and intentionally messed up his hair before saying with satisfaction, “Isn’t this guy one of the elegant members of the Twelve Holy Knights as well? Look at him now — how in the world does he look elegant when he is wrapped up like a cocoon? Your Sun Knight is probably exactly like him!”

“Stop bullying him!” Sybil shrieked and rushed forward to tidy up Ecilan’s hair, and at the same time sneakily touch his face a few times before she was willing to raise her head up and answer me, “Not to mention, Ice Knight doesn’t need to be elegant. He is the cold and handsome type! In addition, Blaze Knight, who was mentioned yesterday, is the wild spitfire type!”

“What, does the Church of the God of Light choose its knights based on looks?” I rolled my eyes, unhappily retorting, “Why are they all handsome guys?”

“It’s not like that.” Yuna shook her head, face tinged with slight helplessness, “All of that is what girls imagine them to be like. It’s possible that not everyone in the Twelve Holy Knights is good-looking.”

“But Ice Knight is really handsome! The rumors aren’t necessarily wrong!” The moment Sybil finished yelling, she hurriedly lowered her head down and asked Ecilan, “Right, right? At least the Sun Knight should be a super handsome guy right?”

Ecilan indifferently said, “I do not know what your standard is.”

Sybil swiftly asked, “He should at least be more handsome than Grisia, right?”

He was silent for quite some time. Under Sybil’s relentless barrage of questions, he finally replied, “Should be around the same.”

This made Sybil frown, and I gloated, “See! Why yearn for the Sun Knight? Just looking at me is enough.”

“He definitely has a lot more class than you!” Sybil said indignantly.

At this moment, Woodrow walked past Sybil and me, who were still arguing heatedly, and approached Ecilan, asking with deadly seriousness, “Why have the Twelve Holy Knights come to such a remote area? This place is already part of the Shadow God’s territory.”

Ecilan gave a simple reply, “To look for someone.”

“Who are you looking for?” Woodrow asked in surprise.

He looked indifferently at Woodrow but didn’t dignify his question with a reply.

However, Woodrow didn’t dare press him any further. When he saw that Ecilan wasn’t going to answer, Woodrow walked away of his own accord.

From then on, we naturally continued on our journey. The only difference was that we no longer maintained our silence along the way. Not only did I argue with Sybil throughout the journey, Iacchi would also slink up and touch… Of course he wasn’t touching me! He would touch the popsicle hanging by the side of my waist.

As for Igor, he kept on yelling for me to remember whether or not I knew any other interesting spells.

I thought for a while before getting off the unicorn and squatting down. I touched the earth’s surface and searched beneath its crust.

Hm! It doesn’t seem like there are any human skeletons… Ah! Found something!

Once I moved my hand away from the earth, a bunch of ashen things surfaced on top of the dirt.

“Bones?” Sybil looked at the pile of things in confusion.

I carefully manipulated them, injecting the dark element into the bones and then approximately piecing them together one-by-one, hoping I wasn’t getting it wrong… It was a pity that there were no human skeletons beneath the earth, for there were a lot of living people’s skeletal frameworks present here that I could use as reference to piece together a dead person’s bones.

After I finished piecing everything together, I mended the joints between the bones with a thick layer of dark element, using it to replace the rotted joints. To increase its cuteness I used the dark element to replace its flesh and long ears… Finally, a black rabbit started to jump around on the ground.

“Ne…Necromancer!”

Yuna weakly said, “I really have no idea why, but I can’t even summon up the energy to shriek now. Grisia, you are really more and more unlikely to be a cleric from the Church of the God of Light.”

While the three men were still staring wide-eyed with fear at the rabbit, Sybil was the one who was the least afraid of it. She actually ran over and picked up the skeletal rabbit, beaming as she said, “It’s so cute! Grisia, don’t let it disappear!”

I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Okay.”

After seeing Sybil’s actions, everyone looked at the rabbit. Igor was so excited that he even came up with a suggestion. “Grisia, since you can make a rabbit, it must means that you can also make a horse, right? If we have horses, then we can travel faster.”

“I can, as long as there are horse skeletons around.”

“Where am I supposed to get a horse’s skeleton for you…” Igor replied, crestfallen.

I shrugged my shoulders. If there weren’t any bones, then I couldn’t do anything either. Eight to nine out of ten necromancy spells required bones.

“Then why don’t you make a bone dagger for me to play with?” Igor excitedly said, “In all those old legends, the warriors who successfully slay a dragon always use one of the dragon’s bones to make a blade.”

“If you draw me a design, then I’ll make it for you.”

Iacchi butted in with an insult, “This uncouth fellow? The fact that he knows how to write is already a miracle in itself! As if he’d be able to draw a design…”

“Stop fooling around! We should continue on our journey,” Woodrow suddenly shouted, his tone of voice grim. Everyone immediately remembered that we were supposed to be escaping. We squelched our fooling around and hastened on with our journey. Naturally, I once again rode the unicorn, and we continued on our silent trek on both foot and horse.

“You shouldn’t have used necromancy before them.”

“What?” I lowered my head downwards and stared at Ecilan, who was lying horizontally before me. He was the one who had spoken just now, even though his voice had been barely above a whisper.

“What did you say?”

However, Ecilan just stared at me and maintained his silence.

Seeing this, I pretended that I had not heard him at all. I fished out the book on necromancy spells from my possessions and continued to study other spells. I also conveniently experimented on the guy closest to me. Of course, that guy was Ecilan, who was separated from me only by the Chains of Darkness.

“…”

You really can’t blame me for liking to use him as a guinea pig. It’s not my fault that he’s so suitable to be one.

No matter how much I experimented on him, he always maintained his usual frostiness, not letting out a sound and not even having a change in facial expression. Besides that cold look in his eyes, he never made a single move in protest. He really was the model guinea pig of guinea pigs for experiments!

I happily continued with my experiments until Sybil noticed it. She was so angry, as if her husband had just been toyed with, and together with an equally furious Yuna, the two of them yanked each side of my face and gave me a serious warning to stop bullying the Ice Knight. Having had my facial skin almost torn off, I could only give up on experimenting on my perfect guinea pig. Instead, I practiced some necromancy spells that did not require a guinea pig.

Spell of Bone-Searching: Can be used to search for bones beneath the earth’s surface.

Bone Prison: A defensive spell that grants the ability to use bones to create a wall.

Bone Piercer: From beneath the ground, a thorn created from bones will rush up and pierce the enemy.

No matter how many I read, they’re all about using the dark element to manipulate bones!

I simply flipped to the last few pages of the book to see if there were any different spells. As I expected, some interesting spells started showing up, like Encroaching Death. It was a large-scale offensive spell. Its advantages were that it was hard to defend against and escape from because the affected area was very large. However, its shortcoming was that the opponent’s speed of dying was very slow, so there was even the chance of the spell caster being unable to sustain the spell long enough for the enemy to die.

However, it could at least make the opposition lose their offensive power. Hence, when facing a large group of enemies, it is a very useful spell. At least, that was what the book said.

Ooohhh! I should hurry up and learn this spell. After all, I did kidnap the Ice Knight, and it’s possible that an entire swarm of holy knights might be pursuing me.

“Stop reading that. You shouldn’t learn any of that,” Ecilan suddenly opened his mouth and said.

“Oh?” I asked him while reading, “Then what is it that I should learn?”

Ecilan, however, went back to being silent again. He really is a strange guy!

Since he “had no other comments,” I continued flipping through the book.

Summoning a death knight…