/
The smell of burning flesh wafted through the village. But the strange thing was that the corpses rushed into unripe flesh and ate it, but did not rush into burnt corpses that clearly smelled of meat.
The thing didn’t die for more than ten minutes after the burning. Even though its neck was broken, it moved as if it was normal. That meant that autopsies and other physical shocks were not strange. The sound of something being torn apart and eaten while making a chewing sound was heard. The corpse’s eyes seemed to glow red.
At the same time, they turned their heads toward Reinhardt.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Quaaaaaah!”
The corpses rushed to Reinhardt in groups. He narrowed his forehead and lightly kicked the ground. The corpses stretched out their arms as they looked up at Reinhardt, who was floating in the air.
“Ahhhhh!”
One of them began to jump. It stepped on another living corpse and jumped, then it piled up and started jumping, reaching towards Reinhardt.
Reinhardt’s eyes widened.
‘I can’t deal with this for long.’
Having come to that conclusion, Reinhardt lightly flicked his fingers. Numerous ice spears were created in the air. The ice, which looked like light, covered the entire sky of the village.
Reinhardt’s eyes narrowed. He waved his hand lightly, and in a flash, they poured down like rain.
Crash.
Spears made of ice pierced the corpses without mercy. All of the strange looking things fell on the floor. Despite this situation, no one was coming.
‘Is it because it’s a rural village?’
No matter how rural it was, they couldn’t just leave a corpse like that… .. Narrowing his eyes, Reinhardt stepped onto the ground again. Spears made of ice sunk into the corpses like a hedgehog.
“Arhhhhh……!”
Some of them stopped moving as if they were completely dead, while others were still alive and well, waving their hands around. In addition, some of the bodies in the back did not come back to life at all.
Reinhardt moved his fingers to separate the bodies who had stopped moving and who had not to left and right. Then he moved the corpses that hadn’t been revived from the beginning in front of him.
Between the three separate piles of bodies, Reinhardt moved his eyes and slowly ran through the three groups. The non-living corpses all looked as if they had been ripped off by animals. The ones that came back to life were the ones without body parts or very neatly mutilated. They look like people who have been hit by “Lost”.
“…… Hmm, I see.”
A smile crept across Reinhardt’s lips as he murmured lowly. Indeed, this was a rather interesting result. It seemed that the average person could handle this method to some extent.
“How is this even possible?”
Even with the information he had, there was no magic of any kind that could bring back the dead. Until the ancient magic circle that suddenly activated under the Duke of Delphine’s residence and the amazing scenery of the dead coming back to life.
“It’s going to be fun for a while.”
However, he needed to return to the magic tower. He needed a book from the library there. There wasn’t as much information stored in his head as he thought there would be. And most of it was insular information, not his own memories, so it would take quite a while to retrieve.
“This is the first village.”
So there was a probability that something similar had happened in other towns as well.
He quickly took out the map from his pocket and looked at it. Reinhardt, who had confirmed the location, killed all the wriggling ones. The corpses that hadn’t been killed by the dozens of ice spears completely stopped moving and collapsed with one attack from Reinhardt.
A magic circle was drawn underneath Reinhardt’s feet as he looked over the corpses that were flopping down like crumbling blocks.
“I’ll have to check the rest, too.”
Leaving the corpses behind, Reinhardt disappeared. The village, where the dead had been alive and moving, seemed to have quieted down again.
“Ahhhh…….”
Shortly after Reinhardt disappeared, a corpse raised itself again among the buried bodies.
The body, which shook intermittently with its arms drooping forward, blinked. It was not long before it had ice spears on its stomach and  shoulders.
With a beehive hand, veins popping, the corpse pulled the spears out of its body. Then it hung its arms down again, grasping the pulled-out spears in each hand.
Clank. Clank.
Every time it moved, the ice spears in its hands were dragged on the floor. The corpse turned its eyes over, which looked like the eyes of a dead fish, revealed the whites, and then hung its body forward. It remained in that position for a while, but then it began to straighten its body and walk out of the village. It looked as if it was sick or alone, but from a distance, it was definitely a person.
* * *
[“Barrio Baloxis, what you did was really interesting. Thanks to you, I, too, am indebted to you.”
When Terrion entered the imperial castle with the rebels to defeat the emperor, Reinhardt was also standing in front of the one who had sealed him for the last ten years to end the long-running game.
“I have given the Master many opportunities. It is you who have failed me.”
“A magic tower without a good Master was a symbol of uselessness, so I think it’s better to be ruined.”
“I wanted to destroy my beloved magical tower rather than see it crumble.”
“It was indeed just before the sky island fell. Although my dog was guarding it well.”
“That guard dog!”
Barrio Baloxis bared his teeth and growled. The only thing that got in the way of his plans was the guard dog. No one would have imagined that a neglected and ignored guard dog could hide so much power.
“Even though I tried to persuade him, he refused to listen to me and inevitably hid himself and protected the ugly looking sky island.”
Barrio snorted. The wizard who had been so wise had rotted and sores of his own to the extent that he had set the Magic Tower on the path of decay.
Reinhardt listened to the story, still expressionless and absent-minded.
“It was a grand gesture, but then the wizard he had begun to admire would have preferred to be destroyed.”
The twelve wizards who founded the Sky Island and the Wizard’s Tower. They, too, would prefer to see the ugly island disappear rather than be maintained.
“But it’s done. Before this old man’s life is over, the Sky Island will be driven into the ground. And it will be over. All because you are not a righteous Master, but a tyrant!”
Reinhardt silently shifted his gaze as he listened to the words coming from the senile voice with his white hair.
“That’s too bad.”
“What? It’s already too late…..”
A magic circle began to unfold beneath Reinhardt’s feet. Standing in the middle of the magic circle that was spreading more and more across the sky island he was stepping into, Reinhardt looked at Barrio with a cold stare.
“The first thing about your complacency is that you have no understanding of the will of the twelve wizards who built this island and tower……”
Reinhardt’s red eyes slowly began to turn silver, like the color of his hair. Barrio stepped back at the sight of the silver dye gradually spreading as if someone had unraveled it over his red eyes.
“The second is that I had too much blind faith in your abilities…….”
Reinhardt’s lips slowly drew line. The magic circle that covered the Sky Island was slowly taking on a glow. The remnants of broken homes and leaning towers slowly began to soar into the sky and return to their original locations. It was as if time had passed and was returning to its original place.
“Third, holding hands with Sokor, you dared to seal me up and give me time to cool down.”
“Hey, that’s outrageous…….”
Barrio’s mouth gaped open. What was happening in front of his eyes was unbelievable. It wasn’t simply a matter of fixing things and putting broken things back together. Time had been turned back. Reinhardt was invoking a realm that humans could never reach, without a magic wand, just by flicking his fingers.
A smile spread across Reinhardt’s lips. It was a deceptively beautiful smile.
“The last thing is that you’ve ignored my ability too much.”
At the same time, the light of the magic circle covered the Sky Island. The altitude of the Sky Island, which was shining dazzlingly like the sun floating in the night sky, gradually increased and the light eventually disappeared.
Reinhardt’s eyes had turned completely silver and were shining like they didn’t belong to a human.
Barrio sat on the floor and looked up at him with an open-mouthed, stunned expression.
“Transcendence ……really…?”
As if hearing Barrio’s rambling murmur, Reinhardt relaxedly glanced over the Island where life returned.
“I’ve gained enlightenment since you took the lead in sealing me away with the wizard who became the imperial dog. Transcendents are subject to restrictions.”
“I can’t believe you’re a transcendent…..”
“Killing a bunch of people with my own hands became too much trouble. So I raised an interesting person among humans. The emperor of Sokor will die, killed by the toy I raised.”
In a voice as crisp as singing, Reinhardt quietly explained.
Seeing his expression, Barrio shook his head. The master of a noble magic tower can’t be a man crazy with blood and madness like that.
“Why, like you.… An unqualified human being…….”
“Barrio, most of the things in the world are unfair. And it’s inevitable.”
Reinhardt, who had moved a little closer to him, squatted down and met Barrio’s eye level.
“Ignorance is a sin, and arrogance and pride are directly linked to death.”
Reinhardt slowly swept Barrio’s wrinkled old skin with his hand. Reinhardt chuckled lazily.
“Do you know it, Barrio Baloxis?”
“What……?”
“The twelve wizards loved the Sky Island even more than you do. They even let it replace and sustain life without giving up, even if it had crashed like you said.”
Barrio’s mouth dropped open.
“No way….”
Rainhardt’s fingertip lightly swept Barrio’s face and tapped him on the shoulder. The moment his touch fell off and he took a step back…….
Flickering. He lit up.
“No…!”
“Isn’t it the policy to incinerate garbage, this Sky Island?”
“Kuaaaaah!”
The fire that started from Barrio’s face spread to his body in an instant. Barrio hurriedly took out his magic wand and moved his magic power to pour water on his body.
Crackle. Crackle. The fire that contained the water grew even larger. It was as if I was drinking oil instead of water.
A horrible scream filled the Sky Island, but Reinhardt sat in front of it and watched it slowly, holding his chin. Barrio Baloxis’ body, which was struggling even at the moment of his burning death, slowly fell forward. Seeing the corpse burnt pitch black without any recognizable shape, Reinhardt mindlessly threw it out of the Sky Island.
“The game is over.”
It was more boring than he thought it would be. Emperor Sokor’s wish to put all kinds of malicious rumors against him was so empty and vain. It was pathetic.
Reinhardt, who was scanning the Sky Island which had returned to its original form, soon disappeared.]