Under a clear, vast sky, I stood atop a sheer precipice.
Lowering my gaze, I saw a carpet of drifting miasma stretching out as far as the eye could see. I could not see the bottom, but I knew the height was immense. This place was known as the Valley of the Dead.
I was being forced to stand at its very edge.
Right beside me was the person most precious to me—a comrade who had survived every trial of our cruel mission by my side, and my one and only object of admiration. The woman standing next to me was the Hero. Once, she had worn a smile as warm as the sun, but now her expression was clouded with shadows and resignation.
My heart ached at the sight, but there was nothing I could do. I was forced, yet again, to recognize my own pathetic powerlessness.
"You vile monster! How dare you betray us!"
"To think you’d actually show your faces back here! You absolute bastards!"
"You’re a disgrace to this kingdom! Just hurry up and die!"
As I wallowed in self-loathing, a barrage of insults rained down upon us. I shifted my gaze behind me. A crowd of commoners stood there, at least a hundred strong. While hurling foul epithets, they pelted us with stones without mercy. The rocks struck my back and head, each one a dull thud of agony.
"…Ngh."
I clenched my teeth and endured it. I had to, for the woman beside me was enduring it as well. I fought to suppress the emotions swelling within my chest.
Amidst the stoning, I felt the weight of the shackles on my hands and feet. These restraints were imbued with the power to seal magic. Because of them, I was unable to cast a single spell. Regardless of my past glory as a man hailed as a Sage, I was now nothing more than a helpless victim. The realization made me feel wretched.
"—Silence!"
As I chewed on the bitter reality of our situation, a sharp voice cut through the air. The commoners’ jeers and stone-throwing ceased instantly. I let out a shallow breath.
Standing a short distance away from the crowd was an elderly man clad in exquisite robes. He was the Chancellor of this kingdom. Standing tall, the Chancellor unrolled a sheet of parchment and began to read.
"The Hero, Claire Baton. The Sage, Dwight Harvelt. These are the names of those who supposedly struck down the Demon King who sought to plunge our world into darkness. These two were hailed as the greatest heroes of our age, symbols of human wisdom—or so they were."
The Chancellor paused, his eyes narrowing. Then, he suddenly threw his arms wide and screamed.
"However! The souls of these former heroes have rotted to the core! These two plotted to become the next Demon Kings, conspiring to plunge the world back into a vortex of chaos! Therefore, by the law of the land, we shall exile them to the Valley of the Dead!"
"That’s a lie!"
The words burst from me before I could stop them. Driven by pure rage, I shouted reflexively. The crowd’s gaze locked onto me, and I felt a heavy, suffocating wave of hatred.
Ignoring the bite of my restraints, I twisted my body to face the people.
"There is no way we are the next Demon Kings! This is a conspiracy! We only did what was asked of us—we defeated the Demon King! We only wanted to save the world—"
"Liar! You’re demons in human skin!"
"We trusted you! Why did you betray us!?"
"Just die already! I’ll make sure to shit on your corpses!"
Another storm of insults erupted. My desperate plea was instantly swallowed by the noise. It didn’t matter what I said. This sight alone was more than enough to make me realize the futility of it all.
As I sank into the depths of despair, silence returned once more. The people’s attention shifted to the man standing beside the Chancellor. He wore a red cloak and a crown, radiating an aura of arrogance and high-born dignity that I would never forget. With his grey hair and magnificent beard, he was the King of this nation—the very man who had commanded us to slay the Demon King.
"You brutal, treacherous pawns of darkness. I was a fool to ever praise you as heroes."
The King glanced at us with utter disdain, spitting the words out. With that as a signal, the commoners resumed their verbal abuse and stoning. Neither the King nor the Chancellor made any move to stop them. We were left with no choice but to stand there and take it.
Realizing that no amount of pleading would reach them, I turned my back to the crowd. Persuasion and the truth were worthless here. Everyone had already branded us as evil, and not a single soul doubted that verdict.
With my eyes fixed on the dirt, I whispered to the woman beside me.
"…Hero, let’s run. If it’s you and me, we can make it."
"I cannot. I desire peace for this world. If my sacrifice is the price for that peace, I will pay it gladly."
Her answer was not what I had hoped for. She closed her eyes and shook her head, a single streak of blood trickling down her cheek from a wound on her forehead. I stared at her, stunned.
"Hero…"
"If you valued your life, Dwight, you should have fled on your own. They fear the Hero who killed the Demon King, but they would not have hunted a Sage so desperately if you had simply vanished."
She spoke with a harsh, biting tone, but I caught a glimpse of the profound sorrow on her face. She looked like she was in agony.
(You’re wrong. I just wanted to live by your side…)
I swallowed the words before they could leave my throat. It was too late for confessions. We were beyond help.
"Dwight."
"…Yes?"
"I’m sorry for dragging you into this. And… thank you for staying with someone like me until the end."
"No… I’m the one who should be thanking you…"
I managed to choke out the words, my eyes burning. My voice trembled uncontrollably. My vision blurred, and I felt my knees beginning to buckle, but I forced myself to stay upright through sheer force of will. I held her words close, etching them into my soul.
"Execute the sentence!"
The Chancellor’s merciless command echoed across the cliff. I heard the whistle of something cutting through the air. A split second later, a sharp, white-hot pain tore through my back. An arrowhead burst through my chest, instantly drenched in my own blood. Based on the position, it had pierced my heart.
I looked to my side. She had been shot as well. The Hero who had slain the Demon King staggered from the impact of a single arrow, her body tilting toward the edge of the abyss.
"—Guh."
Coughing up blood, I forced my neck to move. The commoners were laughing. The Chancellor, who had signaled the archers, wore a look of pure ecstasy. The King, too, was wearing a dark, satisfied smirk.
In that final instant, I felt as if I had glimpsed the true essence of the world. A dark, oily impulse surged within me. If not for these shackles, I would have slaughtered them all with magic without a second thought.
Then, a second arrow arrived. It struck me directly in the face. Half of my vision went black, replaced by the sight of fletching protruding from my own eye socket.
"……Ah."
My body locked up. Gravity took hold, and I began to fall backward. I could no longer fight it. I no longer had the strength to resist. Accompanied by the cheers of the people, I plummeted toward the bottom of the valley.
The floor of the Valley of the Dead.
Surrounded by a thick, suffocating mist, I sat cradling her body.
"Ah… why did this have to happen to you…?"
I let out a lament, though I had lost count of how many times I had repeated it. My voice was a dry, raspy wheeze; I had long since forgotten what I used to sound like.
The woman in my arms did not move. She had died the moment we hit the ground. Her remains had long since rotted away, her flesh and blood gone, leaving nothing but a skeleton. If I gripped her too hard, it felt as if she would crumble into dust.
I, too, had become nothing but bone. I was a wretched sight, draped in tattered rags. My pierced eye and my heart had rotted away ages ago. There was no pain anymore—only a hollow sense of loss that surfaced and vanished in cycles. The fact that I still possessed emotions in this form was one of my few discoveries.
I had lost all sense of time. I had no way of knowing how many months or years had passed since our fall.
All around us lay countless skeletons—the remains of all those who had been cast into this pit before us. Everyone here was equally dead. In this desolate land, I alone existed as a twisted, undead thing.
I understood why, instinctively. It was because of my unyielding tenacity. A part of me still screamed that I could not simply end as a silent corpse. That lingering attachment refused to let me fade into nothingness.
During my time at the bottom of the abyss, I questioned myself endlessly. What had gone wrong? Why was I here? Why was the person I loved most reduced to a pile of bones?
As an undead, I needed neither sleep nor rest. Without losing consciousness for a single second, I simply thought. I pondered through waves of intense hatred, self-loathing, and crushing regret.
After repeating this cycle for an eternity, a flash of revelation finally struck me.
"—She wasn't the one who was wrong. It’s the world itself that has gone mad."
Through those long years of contemplation, I finally realized the truth. I knew what the cause was. I knew what I had to do. The memories of the moments before our fall played out vividly in my mind. Once the dam broke, the rest followed quickly. My hazy consciousness became razor-sharp. A strange, cold vitality surged through my withered, skeletal frame.
To solidify my resolve, I spoke to her remains.
"Hero… your ideals were noble. But your methods were flawed."
There was no error in her desire for peace. However, she had allowed herself to be rejected by the very people she saved. She had accepted her role as a sacrifice for the sake of the world.
Therefore, I would inherit her will. That was my final duty as her servant. I would bring peace to this world—but I would do it differently.
"Yes… you were both right and wrong. Entrusting yourself to the whims of the people was your only failure."
I would realize peace through a far more absolute method. I had to fix this broken world. I could not let things remain as they were.
The hesitation that had piled up within me vanished. I had devised a way to create world peace. But before that, there was a task that demanded my attention.
Revenge against those who had driven her to her death.
I had been averting my eyes from it, but I loathed the people of this kingdom. I could not forgive them for betraying the woman who had saved humanity.
I set her remains down and stood up. I staggered, but I managed to keep my balance. Even as a skeleton, I could move. If I could, I would have marched on the kingdom this very moment. But in my current state, I was still powerless—nothing more than a ghost trapped in a pit. Reaching the surface would achieve nothing without strength.
I needed power—power enough to turn the entire world into my enemy.
If this era rejected us, then I would deny this era with everything I had. I would repaint the world. Using her failure as my foundation, I would build the true peace she had dreamed of.
I looked around at the source of power—the endless, drifting mist of miasma. It was toxic to the living, but to the undead, it was nourishing. High-ranking undead were known to be saturated with it.
(Let’s see what happens.)
I extended my consciousness and began to draw the misty miasma into my body. It felt like taking a deep breath. I felt my very essence beginning to transmute.
Furthermore, the lingering thoughts of the dead dissolved within the miasma began to flow into me. They were fragments of those who had died here. Among the chaotic emotions were the memories and experiences of countless individuals. It was a staggering volume of information, far more than any one person should be able to hold.
I was seized by a pain so intense it felt as if my soul were being shredded. I collapsed and rolled across the ground. Unable to move or even scream, I endured the agony. Had I been a living human, my brain would have been scorched to cinders.
But I refused to break. This was for the sake of revenge and peace. I could not allow myself to be washed away and erased. Clawing at the earth, I held onto the fragments of my ego as they threatened to shatter.
After what felt like an eternity of torment, the pain finally subsided. I looked around, stunned by the change. The thick, oppressive mist had vanished, replaced by clear, still air. Sunlight reached the valley floor, revealing the blue sky far above.
I had devoured every scrap of miasma in the Valley of the Dead. I had absorbed the unfathomable amount of magical energy that had pooled here over centuries. Deep within myself, I could feel a profound, dark stagnation. It was the power of chaos.
My decaying bones had turned pitch-black, looking as though they had been scorched in a forge. Miasma leaked from my frame like dark flames. It seemed I had touched a forbidden power. I understood instinctively what I had become. I had surpassed even the Demon King we had once defeated. At the very least, I had undeniably discarded my humanity.
"…No matter."
My voice was like a low rumble in the earth. I had obtained more power than I could have hoped for. I had no complaints.
I gave my arm a light swing. As I channeled a fragment of my power into the movement, the bones surrounding me began to twitch and rattle. They knit themselves together into human shapes and stood up.
Skeletons.
The phenomenon spread, rippling out across the valley floor. This was my new authority—a power gained by throwing away my life. I knew exactly how to use it.
I looked down at my feet. Though every other bone in the vicinity had risen as a skeleton, her remains did not move. It wasn't because I had excluded her.
"…Why?"
There was no answer. Her remains simply lay there, silent and still. I picked up a tattered cloth and wrapped her bones within it. They were so fragile and light that it was easy to gather them.
While I worked, the host of skeletons continued to gather. They began to pile themselves against the cliffside in a diagonal slope, forming a massive staircase of bone. It would reach the surface soon enough. There were more than enough skeletons to complete the task.
With the cloth bundle in one hand, I began my ascent. I stepped onto the stairs of bone, my eyes fixed on the world above.
"........"
As I climbed in silence, a light rain began to fall. The drizzle quickly turned into a downpour. It seemed the world was not ready to welcome my return. On the day I was executed, the sky had been perfectly clear.
I tread firmly upon the bone stairs, ignoring the rain. I slipped once or twice, but I never fell. Gradually, the edge of the cliff drew closer. Suppressing my mounting anticipation, I maintained a steady pace until, finally, I stepped back onto the surface.
Nearby stood a stone fortress—a facility built to monitor the Valley of the Dead. If my memory was correct, it had been under renovation when I died, but no trace of that work remained. My time in the abyss had been longer than I realized.
Even so, the sight was nostalgic. This was where I had been executed while the people cheered. Everything had changed since then. I felt the weight of the bundle in my hand.
"What? An undead?"
A voice barked from the side. An armored soldier was glaring at me—likely a guard from the fortress. He approached with his spear leveled and suddenly lunged.
I saw the trajectory of the spearhead clearly and dodged with a simple tilt of my head. In the same motion, I stepped inside his reach, seized the startled soldier by the throat, and hoisted him into the air. Perhaps it was a byproduct of my transformation, but I could read his every movement before he made it.
"Hey! Let him go!"
Other soldiers rushed over, leveling their crossbows. I used the man in my grip as a shield. The soldiers snarled, hesitant to fire.
"It… it has intelligence!?"
"Look at the color! That’s no ordinary skeleton! Watch yourselves!"
While they shouted, I crushed the soldier’s throat. I swung his limp corpse and hurled it into the middle of the squad.
"What!?"
"Dammit, fire! Kill it now!"
Though their formation was broken, they managed a ragged volley. Crossbow bolts shattered sections of my skeletal frame, making me stumble, but that was all. I reached into my ribs, plucked out a bolt, and tossed it aside. It was far from a fatal blow.
"Gyaaah!"
"W-why are the bodies moving!?"
"He didn't even use Necromancy!"
The soldiers began to scream. The corpse I had thrown was already up, sinking its teeth into another soldier’s neck. Saturated by my miasma, it had risen as a lower-tier undead—a Ghoul. Those bitten died and rose as ghouls themselves, turning on their former comrades.
While chaos gripped the yard, more skeletons began to pour over the cliff’s edge from the Valley of the Dead. A white tide of bone surged forward, swamping the soldiers.
"U-waaagh!"
"Fall back! If we stay here—"
"Get a Holy Mage! Right now!"
Faced with the sheer number of skeletons, the soldiers were overwhelmed. While a trained soldier was a better fighter than a single skeleton, the sheer volume of my horde was undeniable. Everywhere I looked, men were being dragged down and torn apart.
"Uoooooh!"
With a roar, a soldier brandishing a heavy mace charged me. He leaped over the front line of skeletons, aiming a crushing blow at my head. He had clearly realized that he only needed to kill the master.
I sidestepped the heavy strike and countered with a punch that sent him reeling. I had read the swing perfectly. It wasn't from my own experience—in life, I had been a mediocre melee fighter at best. It was the memories and battle experiences absorbed from the miasma. I had claimed them as my own skills. It was an unexpected, yet welcome, gift.
I snatched the mace from the fallen soldier and looked down at him. He glared up at me, his face bruised and bleeding.
"Go to hell, you undead piece of shit!"
"........"
I responded by caving his skull in. I struck him again and again, long after the light had left his eyes, crushing the gaze that held so much hatred. Only when his head was unrecognizable did I stop.
I tossed the blood-slicked mace aside. The fortress was being systematically purged by the skeletons. The fallen soldiers were already rising as ghouls. The fortress would fall even without my direct intervention.
I looked toward the horizon, where a distant cityscape was visible. The Royal Capital. It looked far away, but it was well within walking distance.
They had to pay. This fortress was merely the prologue—a necessary step to settle the score.
"—I am the origin of ruin."
I turned and walked away from the fortress of the dead. Without a word, the skeletons and ghouls fell into step behind me, perfectly attuned to my will. With a legion of the damned at my back, I began my march toward the capital.