The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 5 Read online

  “No need to apologize, we beat them already. Well, Lorraine did, not so much me,” I said.

  “I don’t mind either,” Lorraine added. “They weren’t a big deal.”

  They probably would have been a bigger deal to everyone sleeping in the carriage. However, even if Lorraine and I hadn’t been there, the coachman could have dealt with them well enough. Maybe he would have been injured, and he couldn’t have purified the corpses, but those were the risks you had to take while on the road.

  “But were there monsters aside from these ordinary zombies? You said something about a boss,” Lorraine asked.

  “Oh, there was,” Hilde answered. “A zombie soldier, but merely a single one. ’Twas a hunter from the village, methinks. The undead retain the abilities they had in life, you see. ’Twas good with a bow, but no serious threat. That is all I have to share. What about you?”

  “We’re not on a job or anything,” I said. “Just on the way to my hometown.”

  “I see, so that carriage is headed to some village. Seeing as you’re a man and a woman, are you married? Courting?” Hilde asked intently.

  “No,” I promptly stated. “It’s complicated.”

  “I told you I’m a scholar, right?” Lorraine continued. “His village sounds interesting, so I thought I’d come along.” She spoke the truth but subtly dodged the question.

  Hilde, however, seemed to be understanding. “Forsooth, these untouched lands have ancient ruins and folktales that could prove interesting. Hm, now I know your objectives. Onto my main question, then.”

  Lorraine and I had hoped we could deceive her in the end, but from the sound of it, we had failed.

  “How did you purify these ashes? And what are these plants? Tell me, if you would be so kind.”

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  All I could think about was how much I didn’t want to tell her. The more secret weapons I had in store, the easier life would be down the line. But it wasn’t as though I ever did much to hide my divinity. I didn’t think it was anything special back in the day. But now I could do much more, and nobody knew it aside from those I told about my circumstances. I thought about what to do until Hilde said something that put an end to that.

  “Howbeit, I already know the answer. Rentt, you’re a divinity user, aren’t you?”

  This surprised me a little. Only a little, because Hilde said she was a master of the divine arts. She probably had techniques I didn’t know myself.

  Hilde elaborated. “Normally I wouldn’t know, but for some time after one uses divinity, one can see some residue left in their body. It requires a close look, so apologies for invading your privacy.”

  We didn’t know if that was true or not. I’d borrowed one of Laura’s books on divine arts but hadn’t read enough to learn anything. Maybe it would have helped if I had read more. However, it was surprisingly difficult to grasp. I could imagine what magic was supposed to look like well enough to learn spells from books, but written descriptions of divine arts were often hard to grasp. At least I could get a feel for some aspects of divinity already. The biggest problem was how much of it seemed to be theoretical. Someone would have to teach me the basics before I could handle divine arts, and that sounded like it would take a long time. Without that knowledge, I had no way to tell whether Hilde was lying. Lorraine couldn’t use divinity at all, so she would have no way of seeing it. That meant we had to guess if Hilde spoke the truth from her tone and attitude.

  That turned out to be impossible. Lorraine and I looked at each other then gave up. Nothing in Hilde’s expression gave us a hint. Maybe this was typical of elves who lived for so long, or maybe this was a skill particular to Hilde. Either way, we were at a disadvantage. Even if Hilde were bluffing, I knew she was almost certain she was right. Holy water couldn’t purify as thoroughly as divinity. I didn’t realize until I became keenly able to sense it, but the stronger your divinity became, the more sensitive you were to evil energy and miasma. When you looked at it through that lens, holy water’s purification powers were inferior to divinity, or at least different in nature. Holy water was more suited to precision, and more was required to cover a wider area. Maybe you could just put it in a spray bottle, but that would probably be blasphemous. Would holy water spray bottles sell? Not right away, I’m sure, but they would certainly be useful. First, they would need to be advertised.

  Anyway, now I had to consider what to do about Hilde. After she deduced as much as she did, it was likely best to tell the truth. Her suspicious staring had gotten painful, and unlike my being a vampire, this wasn’t the kind of information that would get me killed. She might try to make me join some religion, which would be annoying, but it couldn’t be anything worse than that.

  “Yes, you’re right, I purified the ashes. I can use just a tiny bit of divinity, but I don’t know how to use divine arts or any other proper techniques with it. I don’t really believe in any gods either, so I can’t just go join any religion,” I admitted. If I could use those techniques, maybe I could have hid my divinity, frustratingly enough.

  “I knew it,” Hilde said. “Your lack of faith may be a problem.” She furrowed her brow.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “As I said, your divinity is something any reasonably talented user can see. Divinity users are rare, as you no doubt know. Every religion would like more. Nobody proselytizes better than saints, so religions have fought over divinity users since time immemorial.”

  Despite that, I had yet to be scouted by any religion. Not when I met Nive and Myullias, nor when I met Lillian. Maybe they were being considerate. Lillian could simply not have known I had divinity. As for Nive and Myullias, Nive might have been too zealous to say anything about it. If she had tried to make me join her religion after all that happened, I would have said no anyway.

  “Can’t I just tell them I’m not interested?”

  “Yea. Howbeit, to do that every single time would get tiresome. There are also some who use rough methods. You had best learn to hide your divinity,” she said.

  Good advice, but I didn’t know where I would start. I read a book on divine arts and still barely understood it. The language was too unique for me to pick up anything without a lot of work.

  Hilde seemed to notice my hesitation. “I can teach you, if you wish. I belong to no religious organization,” she offered.

  That sounded true enough. Elves had their own faith, and few believed in religions started by humans. For elves, their faith was also more a part of their life. The Holy Tree was the subject of their worship. Well, not all of them, and they didn’t deny the existence of gods. It was complicated.

  At any rate, Hilde’s offer sounded good to me, but I had other business to attend to. Besides, would she teach me for free? Probably not, and I was afraid to know what she’d demand.

  “You want something in exchange, right?” I asked honestly.

  “Nay, I can’t make you do anything,” Hilde said with a smile. “May I have that grass over there, though?”

  I didn’t expect that. She referred to the grass in the ashes. There were many little sprouts. I was going to leave them and continue my journey, so it was no skin off my back.

  “Why?” I asked, still curious about her reasons. The grass gave off some mild divinity, but I didn’t see much use for it.

  “I don’t know how much to tell you, Rentt, but I presume you were blessed by a plant spirit. Therefore, plants grow from that which you purify. There were once many like you, but no longer. The number of plants that produce divinity has drastically decreased. These are rare, so I want them. Well?”

  That left me with a lot to think about. If this was all she wanted, I had little reason to refuse. Hilde might tell more people I was a divinity user, but it was too late to prevent that. She didn’t need the proof, though. Certain people would just know.

  “All right, take it. In return, teach me all about divinity.”

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  Still
, we had plans. There was no time to learn right away, and Hilde couldn’t have had time to teach when she was in the middle of a job.

  “I’ll teach you in full soon enough, but I can drill the basics of hiding divinity into you for now. Don’t worry, ’twill not take long. You’re on night watch duty? I can teach you before you’re done,” Hilde said.

  She sounded like a swindler I saw in town who peddled a method of losing ten kilograms in a single week. I could imagine the title of her book, Divinity For Dummies: Learning the Basics in a Single Night, Hilde-Style. It sounded sketchy to me.

  Hilde noticed me narrow my eyes. “I happen to be adept with the divine arts. I won’t show you the depths of divinity, but the surface can be scratched in but a night. Magic is similar, I believe,” Hilde argued and turned to Lorraine.

  Lorraine seemed to know what she meant. “Well, you could learn to control mana and use life magic in that time,” Lorraine said based on her experience with Alize. Certainly there were some people who could pick that up in one night. Some couldn’t, but it was a matter of talent.

  “In any case, try it. ’Twill only take till dawn. A hasty lesson to be sure, but once you get a feel for it, you can improve on your own,” Hilde said in a way I could understand.

  The divine arts were nothing like magic, so I didn’t know how it should feel to use it. Maybe I couldn’t learn in a night, but Hilde would be in the capital. Even in the worst-case scenario, I could go visit her to finish the lesson, so I decided to take her offer.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “’Tis done. Your divinity is hidden well enough I don’t notice it. The average divinity user won’t stand a chance of finding out,” Hilde said, her back to the orange sky.

  I spent the night learning the basics of the divine arts and putting them into practice until I mastered something that at least seemed right. I could control and hide my divinity, but I wondered if these were actually the fundamentals because it wasn’t easy. I needed this to avoid problems down the line, though, so I couldn’t complain.

  “I have to keep this up all the time?” I muttered.

  “’Tis easy once you get used to it. Think of it as nonstop training till then. ’Twill feel as natural as breathing in a week at the earliest. Look,” Hilde said and unleashed her divinity.

  She’d been hiding her divinity the whole time, so I didn’t know exactly how much she had until then. Now that I saw her release it, it was dozens of times greater than mine, if not hundreds. Maybe even more than that. Nive was similar, but this destroyed any confidence I had grown since then. If she could hide all this divinity, then her claims of being a powerful divinity user were true. I had only just started to dabble in the divine arts, though, so it was hard to say for sure.

  “You have so much more than I do that I don’t know if I can follow your example.” I gave my honest impressions.

  Hilde shook her head. “If I lost out to a young buck who didn’t know the first thing about the divine arts, what good would I be? Now, this will do for the basics. Henceforth, read that book you showed me and keep up your studies. The book’s lessons are accurate, and you should have a feel for the divine arts now.”

  I didn’t know if the contents of Laura’s book were correct or worth following, so I’d asked Hilde about it. She gave it her seal of approval and said it was fine.

  “All right, but what if there’s something else I don’t understand?”

  “Then ask me. I work from the capital, so come visit if you have questions. Here is my contact information and my registration number with the guild,” Hilde said and handed me a piece of scratch paper. “Now, ’tis time I take my leave. The other passengers of your carriage may be startled if they see me. Tell Lorraine I said goodbye. I’d like to discuss academics with her sometime. Farewell.” She grabbed up the grass in the ashes and hurried away. Her gait was firm and confident.

  I almost wanted to call out to her to come back. We only just met, but she was oddly affable.

  “Is she gone?” Lorraine asked, noticing me and rubbing her eyes. She had been asleep.

  I didn’t need to sleep at all to stay healthy, but Lorraine was only human. She could likely have gotten through night watch duty and just been somewhat sleepy, but the road ahead was going to get even rockier, so she wouldn’t be able to sleep in the carriage. Monsters were most likely to appear from here on as well. If she fought while tired, then she might hit me on accident, and that wasn’t preferable. Lorraine recognized as much, so while she did want to talk to Hilde, she made sleep her priority.

  Lorraine and Hilde had a surprising amount to discuss. Hilde had lived for so long that her knowledge and experience were even of value to Lorraine. Reading books was fun, but there was plenty they couldn’t teach you. Lorraine was an avid reader, and even she was keenly aware of that. It made sense she would want to hear what Hilde had to say.

  “Yeah, she told me to tell you she says goodbye. Also, she says to come to the capital if you need to know something about divine arts.”

  “The capital? I don’t go there much.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  In my case, I simply wouldn’t get much adventurer work in the capital, but Lorraine avoided the place because she found it bothersome. When she wanted something that was only available in the big city, she sent a letter to an acquaintance in the Lelmudan Empire. Even the biggest cities in a small country like Yaaran were like Maalt to Lorraine. But while she didn’t go frequently, she had been a few times, unlike a full-fledged country boy like myself.

  “Well, there’s no time at the moment, but I’ll think about it. Much as I’d rather not go to the capital, it’s not impossible I’ll be convinced.”

  “All right. Should we wake everyone up now? It’s time for us to depart,” I suggested.

  We went around waking up the passengers and the coachman. We had to leave as soon as the sun began to rise if we wanted to get anywhere. Ideally, we wouldn’t have to camp two nights in a row.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  None of the other passengers seemed to know what happened. Both the zombies and our (well, really just Lorraine’s) removal of them and Hilde’s visit to our camp all night were entirely unknown to them. The zombies were already dead, so there were no signs of life from them, and Hilde was an experienced enough adventurer she knew how to conceal her presence from the average citizen. From the perspective of the passengers, we had a peaceful night of camping. Well, the coachman did seem to notice something, but anyone who would drive a carriage through these unpaved roads had to be strong in their own right. If he noticed, then that would stand to reason.

  The carriage raced under the morning sun and reached a town just before sunset. Nothing happened this time, much to my and Lorraine’s relief. I wasn’t here as a bodyguard, so I preferred to avoid the anxiety of that line of work as much as possible. Not that the thieves who appeared on these country roads would be much trouble to take down. The monsters who showed up on the road weren’t a huge threat either, but it was more work than I wanted to attend to.

  “Nice, looks like I’ll get to sleep in a bed tonight,” Lorraine said as she exited the carriage.

  We sat for so long our bodies were stiff. We stretched as we walked, producing popping sounds.

  The path here was severely bumpy. The road to the west was well-maintained and free of rocks that would impede a carriage, so it was a smoother ride. I wished they would take care of this road too, but considering the time and money it would take, I didn’t expect that to ever happen. I’d fund it myself if I had the money, but I didn’t. I just had to give up on it.

  “I’m looking forward to the food more,” I said. The cuisine in most towns was normal, but this village had the delicacies I previously mentioned. I couldn’t wait to see how Lorraine reacted to that, but then she said something unexpected.

  “Oh right, this village is famous for its solest and gettamba. I can’t wait to try them either.”

  I thought these
mystery words sounded like the names of magic spells.

  Lorraine furrowed her brow. “What? You’ve stopped in this town a few times before, right? The winter frog egg dish is called solest, and the fried baby curtis mants are called gettamba.”

  Now that she mentioned it, I had heard those names before. The names weren’t as impactful as the dishes themselves, so they didn’t stick in my mind. You could see the tadpoles in the winter frog eggs, and the fried curtis mants were still identifiable as mantises after being cooked, with five or six of them brought out on a plate. Any woman who would eat them had to either be from this town or have a lot of guts. Most would be too taken aback to even put them in their mouths. But Lorraine was different, it seemed.

  “You’re interested in trying those? That’s, well, I don’t know what to say,” I said, at a loss for words.

  Lorraine guessed what I was getting at. “Do you think that’s bizarre? Well, you’re not wrong, but they were listed in a book I bought from a street vendor the other day. When I saw they were available nearby, I wanted to give them a try,” she said, reminding me that she bought a book about cooking monsters.

  I thought Lorraine bought every book regardless of genre to sate her thirst for knowledge, but I didn’t expect her to be sincerely interested in the subject matter. Maybe that desire for knowledge made her open to just about everything, though, knowing how Lorraine was. She seldom let biases get in the way of anything, for better or worse. That’s why she still accepted me when I became undead. She really didn’t have to show the same generosity to food, though. I didn’t even know if I would be all right with them, it had been so long since I ate those dishes. At least the flavor was fine. Well, it would have to wait until dinner.

  With that, we headed to the inn. The coachman had made arrangements for us to stay there in advance, so our late arrival wasn’t a problem. Any time we arrived would have been fine though, knowing how far from civilization this town was.