Miss Necromancer discovered something…very helpful to her.
That was: ghost catching…er, or rather, capturing souls is actually more efficient in the daytime than at night!
【Aooo—!!】
Pulling a weak soul from the shadows in the corner and forcibly stuffing it into parchment, Ireya thought so.
At night, these things run all over the place and their power grows, but right now they almost had no resistance.
Though doing this indeed lacked a bit of the “necromancer’s soul” style…
Fortunately, she was probably the only necromancer in this world.
“Um…miss, are you really here to pay your respects?”
At that moment, behind Ireya, an old man with a troubled look carefully asked.
That’s right…this wasn’t the mass grave she’d been to before, but the “Resting Grounds” within the city—a properly planned cemetery for the upper classes.
Buried here were the middle class of the era, knights, merchants, and other wealthy people.
Ireya had come here on a whim, just to check it out.
Unexpectedly, she made a surprising discovery.
Compared to the wandering spirits in the mass grave, the souls drifting here were actually much more solid and powerful.
Perhaps it was because so many knights were buried here?
After all, though the profession of knight wasn’t supernatural in itself, it still developed the limits of human potential.
When low-level supernaturals met high-level knights, they could only be instantly defeated.
T
heir minds and souls were stronger than ordinary people’s—this was understandable.
“Shoo shoo! Go watch your gate properly! Don’t get in the way here!”
Yumina stopped the old man who wanted to come closer, and stuffed a shiny gold coin into his hand.
“Yes ma’am! Call me if you need anything! I’ll be right over there sitting down!”
Seeing the money, the old man turned and left very nimbly.
The speed of that face change…even Yumina was slightly stunned.
Tsk.
Your grandpa is still your grandpa after all.
Sniff sniff…
“Hmm?”
Just then, while everyone was busy with their own things, Veil’s nose twitched a few more times.
Her black eyes looked somewhat blankly around at the tombstones and then…locked onto a spot.
“Miss…over there…there’s someone who smells…very strange.”
Veil pointed toward the northwest corner of the cemetery, then thought a bit and said: “Kind of like…rotten mud?”
“Smells strange?”
Ireya raised an eyebrow slightly…
Veil’s nose was far more reliable than her own, that was a well-known fact.
Since Veil said it smelled strange, then this person…or something on this person, definitely wasn’t ordinary.
Thinking of this, Ireya made a hand gesture to the two maids behind her, and the three of them slowly walked toward the northwest corner of the cemetery.
They walked a few hundred meters when Ireya finally saw, from afar…a black figure.
That figure wore a large black hat with a veil and a matching long dress, standing in front of a gravestone.
She looked…like a lady from some noble family.
“That’s her!”
The moment she saw the figure’s back, Veil immediately spoke up.
“Let’s go take a look.”
No unnecessary words— the three headed in the direction of this lady.
But…
When they were only halfway there, this “Black Lady” suddenly turned and left the gravestone, moving almost parallel to the three of them.
“Huh?”
Had she noticed them?
Ireya felt a bit puzzled, but it didn’t stop her from quickening her pace!
Tap tap tap…
Still, they were a step too late.
That Black Lady turned a corner at a building on the side of the Resting Grounds…and disappeared from view.
When the three of them reached the spot…she was already nowhere to be seen.
“Uh…Miss, did we just run into a ghost?”
Yumina said uncertainly.
Ghost?
Like those I just caught?
Ireya touched her chin, then suddenly realized something.
“Come on…let’s go back and look at where that woman was standing.”
The three of them returned to the place where the Black Lady had stood and looked at the gravestone she had been facing.
The epitaph on it read:【Alec Seyreton, an excellent swordsman, an outstanding companion】
Hmm?
This person named Alec originally had three lines on his epitaph, but one had been scratched out.
Also…
Seyreton?
Wasn’t that her mother’s family name?
Could it be, this person was also one of her cousins?
“Interesting.”
Ireya’s eyebrow lifted slightly as she silently noted down that name, and…her interest in that Black Lady grew even stronger.
But these matters would have to wait.
Her current goal was still to complete the crafting of the “necromantic servant,” and prepare for tomorrow’s operation at Mining District Thirteen.
“Let’s go. We’ll head back for now.”
As for this order from the young mistress, Yumina of course was only too glad to obey.
Although she had experienced many strange and bizarre things with the young mistress over the past few days, she still wasn’t quite used to this sort of creepy pace.
Before the three of them left the Resting Grounds, they asked the old gravekeeper a question.
He said he hadn’t seen a woman wearing a veil and dressed all in black come in at all.
So…had that woman also snuck in?
Or was she…a supernatural being too?
As they were walking back, Ireya pondered this, when her eyes suddenly caught sight of something near “Red Copper Street.”
There was a procession holding flags, with cages of various sizes along the way, seemingly… on a parade?
“What’s that? A circus?”
Ireya curiously looked out toward it.
“That looks like…a slave trader’s caravan.”
Yumina, holding the reins, looked at the flag ahead fluttering in the wind—it bore the symbol of shackles.
“These people usually come once every six months, staying for a little over a month each time…”
Slaves Ireya had never paid attention to this before.
But right now…it also wasn’t the time to care about these slave traders.
Whoosh—!
In a cold underground room…
Several ghostly blue shadows shrieked sharply in Ireya’s hands.
The young mistress seemed to be deliberately torturing these mindless souls, merging them at a very slow pace…until they formed a mass of burning…ghostly blue soul flame.
Then, she pulled out a “blood core” from her pocket and, without hesitation, threw it into the soul flame before her.
Whoosh—!!
It seemed something strange was happening between the blood core and the soul flame.
At first, they resisted each other, but gradually…the blood core began to spin inside the flame.
They seemed to be mutually absorbing, or rather…complementing each other!
“Perfect condition…the supernatural power in the blood core compensates for the weakness of the soul flame, while the awareness inherent in the soul flame is trying to control the power within the blood core.”
Ireya muttered to herself.
Meanwhile, the nail of her left index finger slowly turned black and grew longer.
Next…she reached out her hand and plunged that black nail into the soul flame, carving her own mark onto the blood core!
【Aooo Aooo Aooo—!!】
The soul-flame core formed from fused souls let out a silent shriek, as if trying to scare Ireya away.
Unfortunately for it, that had absolutely no effect.
Crack crack crack…
As the mark was completed, the shrieking from the soul-flame core ceased.
The blood core, once dark red, had now turned a deep blue.
From time to time…it even seemed that pained, struggling human faces would surface upon it.
It had transformed from a blood core into a “soul core,” crafted by Ireya the necromancer.
Next…came the final step.
Ireya held the soul core in her hand, walked to the edge of the stone bed, and reached out to press the freshly crafted soul core…into the chest of a shriveled merman corpse.