CH 575

I had anticipated that I would be able to engage in a conversation with Bertus, and I was aware that he would most likely have to comply with my requests, given the situation.

I had chosen the option to take a risk and meet Bertus directly.

The danger wasn't that something would happen to me or Bertus when we met, but rather that someone might eventually learn of our meeting, through whatever means.

Knowing this, it wasn't difficult to get to the heart of the matter once I had met Bertus and spoken with him directly. However, I hadn't expected him to show me exactly what they were working on.

Bertus issued an order to Saviolin Turner.

He commanded her to evacuate everyone from the Magic University Research Building for three hours.

Of course, I would change my appearance, but it wouldn't be good for anyone to see the emperor entering the laboratory with an unidentified person.

After Saviolin Turner left to deliver the order, Bertus and I sat in an empty dining hall and talked until all the preparations were complete.

"How is Charlotte... getting along?"

Bertus' expression was complex as he asked the question.

There was a time when they had hated each other so much that they had tried to kill each other, but at some point, Bertus began to pity Charlotte.

Bertus had decided to execute Charlotte, but in reality, he had called for me.

And I had left with Charlotte.

Bertus had wanted to save Charlotte.

"She's doing her part. She's probably better off than when she was in the imperial palace."

"Is that so..."

Bertus spoke with a sad expression.

"Thank you, Reinhardt."

Perhaps he was thanking me for appearing to save Charlotte.

That meaning might be there, and there might be other meanings as well.

My relationship with Bertus was quite different from the past.

Now, Bertus was technically my subordinate.

He might not be aware of how much power I held compared to him.

Guilt.

He felt tremendous guilt toward me, and he couldn't help but feel that way since he was still using me.

Upon hearing about Charlotte's whereabouts, Bertus seemed somewhat relieved.

There wasn't much more conversation between us.

Three years might seem like a long time, but in some ways, it wasn't that long.

However, during those three years, the survivors had experienced too many events.

Our official conversation was over, and there were too many obstacles to share personal conversations.

We couldn't know what would happen in the future.

"Is there anything else I should know about the Gate incident?"

There wasn't much I could say in response to Bertus' question.

"Just keep doing what you're doing now."

The last Gate.

That was not Bertus' responsibility, so that was all I could say.

------

When Saviolin Turner returned, the emperor's orders had been fully executed.

Everyone had left the laboratory without leaving a single trace, and the guards had vacated their positions as well.

With my face changed using Sarkegaar's ring and wearing a reversed robe, I headed to the magic university research building with Bertus.

"It seems like it would have been impossible to sneak in here."

Passing through several layers of security gates just to enter the underground research lab, it was uncertain whether even Sarkegaar could have bypassed this system.

"Dreadfiend might have found a way. While coming to me directly might have been a convenient choice for you, it wouldn't have been the only one."

For nearly two years, Bertus had held onto Sarkegaar.

Naturally, he knew all about the Dreadfiend clan.

"Anna and Christina suggested it first."

"What?"

Although I didn't fully understand the meaning of his words, I couldn't help but ask.

By suggesting, he obviously meant the very matter I was going to witness with my own eyes.

"Even if it's a terrible method, if it helps end the Gate crisis, should we do it?"

"Anna and... Christina suggested it first?"

"Yes. Louis joined later."

It wasn't Bertus, but Anna and Christina who had made the suggestion first.

No one was left unchanged by the war, and comparing the current events to the original work seemed almost laughable.

Whether it was due to the terrible things that happened, or something else entirely.

Had Anna and Christina really come up with the idea of reanimating the fallen as undead and rejoining the battle, and proposed it to the Emperor?

Just like Adelia had created the Titan.

No, perhaps not.

Seeing Adelia's involvement in the Titan project, Anna and Christina might have also thought that they had to do something.

The Titan didn't exist in the original work.

That Titan must have inspired Anna and Christina, and so they came up with their own way to contribute to the war.

"I struggled with the decision. For a long time."

Bertus spoke as we descended into the underground laboratory.

"Very... very long."

It was a disgrace to the corpses of the fallen, to those whose deaths seemed too premature.

I could feel how much anguish Bertus went through before accepting and deciding to go through with it.

In the end, Bertus must have given his permission.

And he must have decided to even use the tombs of the heroes in the royal mausoleum.

So, I saw it.

What Bertus had been creating next after the Titan.

"This is..."

A massive culture fluid vat.

"Is this... an undead?"

"Yes."

Inside, there was a perfectly clean human body without a single wound.

To the naked eye, it was certainly not the corpse of someone who had died from external injuries.

The other vats were no different.

It wasn't hard to find out why the corpses of those who had no choice but to die from external injuries were so clean and intact.

"Did you... regenerate them?"

"Yes, we are regenerating the missing or decayed flesh and muscles."

It meant that they weren't merely preserving the corpses, but almost restoring them to their original state.

Such vats were placed throughout the underground laboratory.

"Homunculus is alchemy that creates life."

"Yes, that's right."

"That's why Homunculus is known as magic that creates something from nothing. That's why the failure rate is high. You can't create life easily."

Bertus gazed at the body of an unknown individual, their eyes closed and still.

"Homunculus is magic that seeks the truth of life. But we don't need to explore the ultimate truth of Homunculus. We need a Homunculus that can be weaponized. So, there's no need to create something from nothing."

"Did you create something from something?"

"Yes."

To be precise, it was a matter of breathing life back into what was once alive.

"Making something that no longer functions as life functional again. They say it's easier than creating a real Homunculus."

Homunculus originally involved creating life forms that did not previously exist, but in this case, it was about reconstructing a known life form.

If one understood the structure of humans well, they could create humans, and the raw material had already been human.

With the Homunculus technique, they would restore the vanished, broken, or rotten flesh, muscles, and organs.

This was different from the undead.

The undead were dead things that moved.

But this was about granting something life-like to a dead body.

"It sounds like you're saying... you can resurrect the dead."

"No, that's not it. I have no intention of researching that far, and it's probably impossible. Just because we restore their appearance from when they were alive, doesn't mean they're truly brought back."

Bertus, Turner, and I walked through the underground laboratory.

Unrecognizable corpses were being restored. They could be the fallen soldiers of the Allied forces, people who had died since the Gate Incident, or long-dead heroes of the past.

"In the end, this is what it is. We revive the dead's flesh with the Homunculus technique, attach the false flesh that shouldn't be compatible with real flesh using Chimera technology, animate them with dark magic, and create something almost similar to their former selves, or even more powerful... I suppose we can't call them undead."

Bertus looked at me.

"We're making golems. That's what we're doing."

Technically, living golems.

Although many forbidden techniques from numerous fields of magic were involved, in the end, their function was that of a living golem.

Using the remains of those who were once alive, they create golems to be reintroduced into the war.

These golems are more potent than they were when they were alive.

"Can you also revive magicians?"

"That's still in the testing phase, but it's been proven possible."

A concern of Edina's people, and it is also certain.

"What about priests?"

"...What?"

"Clergymen can be revived as well. In a state where they can use divine power. I don't know why they can, though."

At that point, I had nothing more to say about the injustice of this world.

"Yeah... I knew the Five Great Gods were not normal."

Chimera, Homunculus, and dark magic.

In the end, through the harmony of alchemy and dark magic, the empire managed to resurrect the corpses of heroes with their former abilities nearly intact and manipulate them as they pleased.

"Do they have a sense of self?"

"No, they don't. It would be troublesome if they did. It's a relief that they don't."

They were merely dolls, bearing a striking resemblance to the humans they once were.

Strictly speaking, it was unclear whether they should be called undead, but ultimately, they were like both the undead and golems.

"Not everyone can be revived this way. If the damage is too severe, the regeneration process may not progress, or they may not respond to control even after regeneration."

Bertus added that the success rate was roughly 70%.

To me, that seemed like an incredibly high percentage.

"If control fails... it seems like something terrible could happen. Am I being overly worried?"

While Death Knights are strong, they do not restore their abilities from when they were alive. However, in this case, they do restore their previous abilities.

Reviving a Swordmaster would give you a Swordmaster, and reviving an Archmage would give you an Archmage.

The mere thought of what might happen if they lost control of them was enough to make my head explode.

In response to my question, Bertus sneered.

"Reinhardt, it's a war where the fate of all existence hangs in the balance."

"…"

"We can't avoid taking such risks, can we?"

It's a situation where we would even need to borrow a cat's paw.

If we need to borrow a cat's paw, is there any reason not to borrow the hand of a demon?

As long as that demon's hand saves me from danger first, what happens next is of little importance.

I understood Bertus's words.

Will these things save us?

Or will they plunge us into another abyss?

"But… it seems that they are not yet ready for actual deployment. I only see those that are still being cultivated."

I wasn't sure what to call these things, but since I couldn't see any finished products, it seemed they were not yet ready for actual deployment. Would the battlefield change the moment these things came out of the fort?

"No."

But to my question, Bertus shook his head.

"They have already entered the trial phase."

"…What?"

"You've seen it too, haven't you?"

Bertus pointed upward with his finger.

Above ground.

"Didn't you think there were too many guards at the temple?"

"…Huh?"

"Weren't there an unusually large number of guards around here?"

Come to think of it, the security near the Magic University was very strict.

An immense number of guards patrolled the area near the Magic University.

"If there were so many extra guards, they would have been sent to places like refugee camps. Do you think they deployed so many to guard the Magic University considering the number of people at the temple?"

It turned out that most of the guards near the Magic University were Homunculus Undead.

No one would notice, but all the guards wore helmets.

That's why there was no occasion to see their faces.

No one is curious about what face is under the helmet in the first place.

"They're testing whether they can properly understand commands. They are exterminating monsters on the outskirts of the Imperial Capital."

Only then did I understand why Ellen and Heinrich couldn't find any monsters near the Imperial Capital.

The extermination squad that cleared monsters on the outskirts of the Imperial Capital.

They were revived corpses that had nothing to do with the guards in the first place.

The area around the Imperial Capital had already become an experimental ground for checking whether the revived corpses could be properly used.

No one could join the extermination mission for entirely different reasons.

"Once winter passes, they will all be deployed to the field."

The actual deployment was already underway.

There's no need to see how much power they can exert or how helpful they can be – it's obvious.

"If we can end the Gate Incident with just these… It might sound ridiculous, but we might not need the Alliance forces anymore."

If war could have been waged with just the army of the revived, and their individual abilities were even greater than before, there might have been no need for large-scale troops.

The Gate Incident could have ended sooner, and there might have been no further great sacrifices.

By doing what should not have been done, we could have prevented further sacrifices.

It had been an all-too-sweet temptation.

I had been swayed by merely creating a Death Knight, but Bertus had faced a greater temptation.

It had been an unavoidable choice, and the thought that it was necessary didn't go away.