CH 601

Five tombs that had been subjected to grave-robbing attempts.

After excavating not just one tomb, but all five, everyone was able to learn the same fact.

All of the buried coffins had been shattered.

It was speculated that this happened because the undead had come back to life within the ground, breaking their coffins as they crawled back into the world.

But the corpses inside remained undisturbed.

There were corpses with varying degrees of decomposition and dates of death.

Naturally, with countless buried individuals, it was impossible to recognize the faces of the corpses, which have decayed beyond recognition.

"…These aren't the corpses of the fallen."

At Ellen's words, after examining all the unearthed corpses, Louise nodded in agreement.

All of the corpses had preserved their appearance to some extent, regardless of their level of decomposition.

Their very forms indicated that their nutritional states had not been good during their lifetime.

This area had expanded following the Gate Incident, and most of those buried here were soldiers who fell after the incident. So, the majority were military personnel.

It was unlikely that the corpses of soldiers would be so emaciated.

"No injuries either."

"…Yes."

Moreover, most of the corpses here were those who had fallen in battle.

Naturally, they were the ones who had died fighting monsters. Their corpses should have had some body parts missing, or even their skulls gone, with traces of fatal injuries.

But the corpses appeared malnourished, with all their limbs intact.

"These are definitely the corpses of refugees."

Hence, these were the bodies of people who had died from disease or starvation.

"Then... after resurrecting the corpses, someone replaced them in these tombs with other bodies... Why would they do that?"

Heinrich raised this question, but the other three could not provide an answer.

Resurrecting corpses as undead was a crazy act.

But resurrecting the undead, taking them away, and placing other corpses in the tombs was not just crazy but also bizarre.

Their intentions were unfathomable.

Ellen carefully dusted off her hands as she crawled out of the pit.

"What's certain is that someone tampered with these tombs. Though we don't know why the bodies were swapped."

There were two groups suspected of being involved: grave robbers or those related to the undead.

But even if the grave robbers were responsible, or the people they were currently chasing, swapping the corpses was exceedingly strange.

It served no purpose.

Usually, extreme acts like exhuming tombs to check the contents wouldn't happen.

It was understandable to smooth over the disturbed earth to erase the traces of the tombs being dug up, but why go as far as to disguise the corpses?

"But… shouldn't we quickly rebury these somehow?"

Heinrich grew increasingly anxious, knowing that if someone were to see this scene, chaos would surely ensue—even if this place was hidden from view.

Of course, even if they were to rebury the tombs, the fact that they had been excavated would be evident.

"Wait, just a moment."

But whether Heinrich was anxious or not, Louise was carefully examining each tomb with a significant expression.

They had unearthed a total of five tombs.

Five tombs that had been targeted by grave robbers.

All the coffins used for burial were broken, and the bodies inside were not the original occupants.

"If the grave robbers had forcibly broken the coffins and replaced the bodies, we wouldn't know why they did such a thing. If the perpetrators of the incident we're pursuing were involved, it would make sense that they raised the original owners of the graves as undead and took them away, but there's no reason to put other bodies in their place..."

The body-swapping.

That part just didn’t make sense and didn’t fit.

"Ellen."

"Yes."

Louise looks at Ellen with a stern expression.

"Can we dig up another grave?"

"..."

"A grave that hasn't been tampered with."

"Alright."

Ellen nodded.

—---

The graves that had been tampered with were close to each other.

This time, Ellen began to dig up a grave that was further away.

Hoping that this would not be an act of desecration, Ellen, as well as Louise, dug up the graves.

Soon, they had uncovered a sixth grave.

"This time..."

"It's intact."

Unlike the other five graves.

This time, the coffin was covered in dirt but maintained a decent appearance.

It wasn't broken like the other coffins that had been tampered with.

"Nothing happened here, right?"

"Probably..."

Heinrich and Ludwig sighed with relief from above the pit.

Ellen looked at Louise with a stern expression, as if asking whether to proceed with the next step.

"Let's open it."

"Okay."

Ellen grabbed the lid of the coffin and exerted force.

-Thud!

With a fairly loud noise, the lid opened, and Louise and Ellen could see inside.

The face of the corpse was still unrecognizable.

"It's another different body here..."

However, the withered, twisted appearance of the corpse and the intact limbs.

The appearance of the corpse, which could hardly be seen as a casualty, made it clear that it was completely unrelated to the name written on the tombstone.

Ellen, Louise, Ludwig, and Heinrich were all dumbfounded as they stared at the corpse.

"What on earth..."

Ellen muttered.

"Where did it all go wrong...?"

Now.

Truly now.

What was the problem, and where did it start?

They couldn't even guess.

------

The sixth grave was different from the others.

This time, the coffin was intact, but the body inside had been replaced.

This led to a horrifying speculation.

After confirming this, Louise and Ellen climbed out of the pit.

"How did you know?"

Louise's suspicion that the bodies had been swapped in a completely different grave apart from the five graves that had been tampered with.

Because of that, they imagined that this case might not be the work of grave robbers or the forces they were pursuing but rather a more fundamental problem.

"If this scene is the work of those we're pursuing, there were things they should have taken and things they wouldn't have taken."

"They should have taken the undead."

"And the things they wouldn't take. To be precise, the things they wouldn't be interested in."

"Funeral items."

Items buried with the body.

"The bodies were swapped, but there were no funeral items in any of the graves."

The people who caused the incident in the underground cemetery of the Holy Knights Order were not concerned with a mere penny.

They were confident enough to bring the corpses back to life as undead and take them away, but they certainly weren't the type to care about treasures buried with the bodies.

There was one more common point in all the tombs they had excavated so far.

None of the tombs had burial items.

"Most of the time, at least the weapons and armor are buried as burial items, if not the warrior's personal belongings. Especially in the case of fallen warriors. But there were no burial items in any of the tombs, and all the corpses... although they were dressed in shrouds, there were no items buried with them, and all their clothes were the same. And even though the corpses were switched, there were no burial items left in the tombs, meaning it wasn't the work of grave robbers or those we're chasing."

"..."

"It must have been like that from the time they were buried."

The switched corpses were not the work of the ones they were pursuing or the grave robbers.

From the beginning, the corpses had been switched when they were buried.

"The cemetery manager wouldn't have the influence to make such a thing possible."

Everyone began to fearfully imagine the possibilities.

Louise quietly looked at Ellen.

"Ellen."

"Yes."

"It seems there are too many things entwined here."

The incident that began with the death of the Archbishop was spreading without limit.

The Archbishop had been a heretic inquisitor.

The Holy Knights had an unknown internal problem.

The murdered heretic inquisitor had been chasing the remains of the undead saints.

Even in the national cemetery that seemed to be related to the culprits, the buried corpses had been switched.

Everything they had discovered so far did not lead to a single conclusion.

Each clue revealed entirely different issues.

There were too many problems in the world, and all of these problems inevitably showed the tip of another insurmountable issue.

The switched corpses in the Royal National Cemetery.

The scale of this case was too large to be seen as mere misbehavior by the cemetery manager. He couldn't have done such a thing.

So, the switching of the corpses in the national cemetery must have involved a larger force. The permission or command of a greater power, or at least their tacit approval.

Without that, such an attempt could not be made.

Although they would have to check other tombs one by one to confirm their suspicions and turn them into decisive truths.

Ellen muttered blankly.

"Is it... right to assume that the Empire is involved in this...?"

"Probably."

Louise could only nod with a grim expression.

What had they done by switching the corpses?

What were they trying to do?

"Wait a minute... if all the other places have different corpses buried as well..."

Ludwig's eyes widened with a lost expression.

"Asher's tomb too...?"

At those words, Heinrich and Ellen clenched their teeth.

Find Asher.

He said that they would know everything once they found him.

The ones buried in the tomb were not the tomb's owners but completely unrelated people.

That meant they still hadn't found Asher.

It wasn't enough to open all the other tombs and confirm that all the corpses had been switched.

Asher's tomb.

If they could just verify that one more tomb, their suspicions would turn into certainty.

"Over there! What are you doing?!"

In the end, no matter how inconspicuous the location, someone eventually discovered them digging up the tombs after quite some time.

------

Where did the problem begin?

What should be addressed first?

The death of the heretic inquisitor.

The remains of the saints turned undead.

The switched corpses in the national cemetery.

No one could be sure anymore that all the clues were pointing in the same direction.

Everything could be a problem.

If everything in the world was a problem, how should this matter be resolved?

Ellen started digging in the snow melted by Heinrich, plunging her shovel into the grave.

The cemetery manager and the soldiers watched, their faces pale.

The cemetery soldiers, who had suddenly seen the hero digging up the tomb, couldn't help but be alarmed, and Ellen didn't offer any explanation or apology to them.

She brought the cemetery manager and told him to fetch a shovel as well. Ellen found Asher's tomb again.

The hero dug up her friend's grave.

In front of Ellen's determined expression, the cemetery manager couldn't bring himself to stop her, only shuffling his feet nervously.

She had once dug up the grave with her bare hands. It was easier and faster with a tool.

With every thrust of the covered-in-blue-aura shovel, the earth revealed its insides fiercely.

In no time, Ellen had dug down to the depth where Asher's coffin was. She wedged the shovel blade under the coffin lid and twisted it, breaking it open.

Crackle!

"..."

This time, it should be a corpse they could recognize.

As all four of them had anticipated.

There was a decaying, unfamiliar face inside.

"Hero... Why are you doing this...?"

Without saying a word, Ellen crawled out of the pit and handed the shovel to the cemetery manager.

"Fill the grave and act as if you haven't seen or heard anything about this."

Looking at the others frozen in place, not just the cemetery manager.

"Keep this in mind, everyone. If you don't want to die prematurely."

After digging up a total of seven graves.

Ellen was now certain that all the corpses in the national cemetery had been switched.

Ellen said so, then gestured to her companions.

"Let's go."

There was nothing left for them to do at the national cemetery.