Chương 128: The King Apparently Misplaced His Corpse

Sieghart woke with one hand clenched around the blanket and his teeth aching from how hard he had been grinding them during sleep. For one confused breath, he did not remember why his entire body felt tense enough to begin another fight before he even opened his eyes. Then the previous night returned all at once: the mist-covered camp, the frozen forest, the rotating Mana Swords, the falling King, and the corrupted core dissolving beneath his hand.

More importantly, Sieghart remembered the rage that followed, spreading through every memory until grief, irritation, humiliation, and hatred had all demanded exactly the same violent answer. He sat upright too quickly. Pain immediately pulled across his ribs and back, forcing him to remain still while First Aid reacted almost automatically. The spell began repairing several lingering injuries, but Sieghart barely noticed. His attention remained fixed upon the anger still echoing faintly inside his thoughts.

It was no longer overwhelming. The emotion felt distant and exhausted now, like heat trapped beneath ash rather than an inferno consuming everything nearby. Even so, it took Sieghart several minutes to calm his breathing and convince himself that every unpleasant memory did not require immediate destruction.

"Sin Magic..." The words sounded unpleasant even when spoken quietly inside an empty room. Necromancy had been disturbing enough, but apparently the System recognized supernatural sins as an entire discipline. That was considerably creepier than discovering another elemental branch. Fire, water, and wind represented natural forces, while Wrath represented something already capable of twisting his judgment.

Fury also granted two permanent Strength for every spell level, making the technique annoyingly valuable despite the emotional contamination accompanying its acquisition. Sieghart welcomed the parameter gain. His physical growth remained far behind his Magic, and additional Strength could eventually prevent another opponent from treating him like a thrown object. Actually leveling Fury would probably become a nightmare.

The spell applied Rage, and practicing it safely would require discovering how to strengthen the effect without surrendering control. The primary Sin Magic path would likely possess an even more troublesome progression condition. Sieghart could already imagine the System demanding meaningful acts inspired by wrath.

"No…" That was a problem for much later, preferably after he understood how to contain the emotional knowledge without spending another night wanting to burn an army. His body remained sore despite everything he had done during the return flight. First Aid had worked continuously while Wind Magic carried him back toward town. Sieghart remembered only fragments of that journey. He had flown through darkness while Wrath urged him to turn around, hunt the retreating orcs, and collect every corrupted core.

He had resisted by remembering what the Orc King became. Accepting power was one thing; allowing borrowed rage to decide his actions would make the victory meaningless. Eventually, he had reached the workshop window, dismissed most of Phantom Image, and collapsed onto the bed before exhaustion finally overwhelmed the remaining anger. Sieghart slowly stretched both arms. His shoulders protested, his spine felt bruised, and several muscles around his stomach remained tender beneath the repaired skin.

Still, nothing appeared permanently damaged. Considering the Orc King had kicked him hard enough to crack a tree, soreness felt like an extremely favorable result. Sieghart listened for the usual sounds below. No hammer struck metal, no engraver hummed, and nobody argued about whether an explosion counted as small. The silence was strange. Vessa and Orin normally began working before Sieghart woke, especially while military demand kept consuming everything they completed.

However, sounds from the surrounding town had returned almost completely to normal. Carts rolled across stone streets, shutters opened, and merchants called toward passing customers. There were no warning horns, distant explosions, or groups running toward the northern wall. Whatever happened after Sieghart left the camp had apparently ended the immediate siege.

He dressed, restored his ordinary dark-haired disguise, and headed downstairs while continuing to search for any sign that the rage had followed him from sleep. The workshop was empty. Several unfinished weapons remained across the tables, but the engravers had been cleaned, covered, and left exactly where Vessa and Orin stored them. A plate of bread, eggs, dried meat, and sliced fruit waited near Sieghart's usual seat, accompanied by a cup of tea that remained slightly warm.

"They left breakfast." That meant the two craftsmen had awakened before him, noticed he was still sleeping, and departed somewhere without deciding that a ten-year-old needed immediate supervision. Sieghart sat and began eating while examining the unusually peaceful street through the front window. People looked tired, but their movements lacked yesterday's urgency.

The most obvious explanation was that the orcs had retreated after discovering their King dead inside the ruined camp, before anyone inside town understood what happened. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Without the ruler whose strength kept the tribes obedient, remaining near the town might have invited challenges, internal fighting, or complete collapse of their command structure.

Sieghart had fought far beyond the walls, then followed the Orc King through trees and damaged portions of the camp before killing him inside an isolated clearing. Their violent chase had carried both of them far from the largest fires, leaving only scattered warriors close enough to witness portions of the final battle. The distance and darkness should have prevented every human defender from witnessing anything. Even the Giant Fireballs had remained absent during most of the final battle.

Some orcs had almost certainly seen enough. Several warriors approached after the King fell, and others might have watched portions of the chase from outside Sieghart's awareness. If they survived, the reputation of the mysterious flying mage was probably growing throughout the retreating army at that very moment. Sieghart took another bite of bread and decided he did not care. The orcs knew only an illusion, an altered age, and an unfamiliar combat style.

Identifying him outside another battlefield would remain difficult, particularly when nobody knew the disguised mage was actually a ten-year-old living beneath Lunar Arc. More importantly, the town was safe for now. That meant Sieghart could return to Lunar Arc, study Fury, and decide how much of the mission Mira actually needed to hear. The workshop door opened while he finished the eggs. Vessa entered first, carrying two heavy coin bags, while Orin followed with three smaller pouches hanging from one hand.

Both looked exhausted, but their expressions were considerably better than yesterday. Vessa even smiled before noticing that Sieghart had already consumed most of the food.

"You're awake."

"So it seems." Orin placed the coin bags onto the counter, producing several satisfying metallic impacts before dropping into the nearest chair with a relieved groan.

"The orcs left during the night." Sieghart raised his eyebrows with what he considered appropriate surprise, then set his tea down carefully before looking toward both craftsmen.

"All of them?"

"As far as the scouts can tell." Vessa loosened one bag and began separating coins into several piles, occasionally checking figures written across a folded sheet beside her. Sieghart finished chewing before asking the question carefully. Appearing completely uninterested would be stranger after spending several days trapped inside a threatened town.

"Do they know why?" Vessa shook her head while continuing to count, though the brief pause between coins suggested she had already heard several unofficial explanations.

"Not officially." Orin leaned across the counter and lowered his voice, despite the workshop currently containing nobody except the three of them.

"There's a rumor the Orc King died somehow." Sieghart kept his expression neutral and reached for his tea, using the movement to conceal the brief satisfaction produced by hearing confirmation.

"Somehow?"

"That's the rumor." Vessa counted another row of coins before adding that nobody had found the King's corpse, his weapon, or anything else proving he had actually fallen. Sieghart paused with the cup near his mouth. The corpse had remained inside the clearing when he left, surrounded by broken ice, blood, and several shattered Mana Swords.

"No corpse?"

"Nothing." Orin shrugged with the tired indifference of someone who had already heard too many contradictory stories since leaving the workshop that morning.

"Maybe he was wounded and they pulled back."

"Or maybe someone killed him and the orcs carried the body away." Vessa sounded skeptical, but Sieghart considered the second possibility considerably more likely after seeing how carefully the army used tactics and maintained discipline. The orcs were intelligent enough to understand what their King's death meant. Leaving his enormous corpse behind would provide humans with proof, trophies, and a devastating weapon against enemy morale. Removing the body allowed their officers to delay the truth.

Tribes farther away could be told the King was wounded, missing, meditating, or pursuing another objective. The missing core would raise questions only among whoever examined the corpse closely. Perhaps the surviving leaders already understood that his corruption had been removed. Sieghart wondered whether they would interpret that absence as theft, consumption, purification, or something even stranger than the truth he currently concealed.

Vessa pushed one completed pile toward Sieghart, then tapped the folded account sheet as though daring him to question the total.

"This is yours." Sieghart looked at the coins and immediately recognized that the pile contained considerably more than the amount originally promised for one week.

"That's more than we agreed."

"Overtime." Orin raised one finger while leaning back in his chair, clearly determined to contribute something important without standing again himself.

"Siege conditions." Vessa added another smaller stack beside the first, apparently deciding their explanation remained incomplete until every unusual circumstance received payment.

"And the workshop didn't collapse while we were asleep."

"You were both asleep during the attacks." Neither answered immediately. Orin suddenly found the ceiling fascinating, while Vessa returned to counting coins with far more concentration than the task required. Sieghart accepted the payment. They had taught him far more than the original assignment promised, and arguing against additional money would accomplish nothing useful.

He looked toward the quiet street again while the two craftsmen discussed which orders still needed completion before ordinary business could resume. The town believed the enemy had retreated mysteriously. The defenders possessed rumors about a dead King, but nobody had recovered enough evidence to confirm them. For now, that uncertainty benefited Sieghart. It kept humans from searching for the killer while preventing the orcs from admitting how their ruler had died. The army had not merely retreated quickly.

It had moved the corpse, concealed the loss, and disappeared before daylight allowed scouts to understand what happened. They were smart enough to hide their King's death, at least temporarily, which meant the war had become quieter without necessarily becoming finished.