Chapter 434: Epilogue (3)

Many people passed through streets of the castle village of Zestrad, lined with flowers, as they headed toward the beautifully adorned temple cemetery. They laid various offerings before the statue of the Goddess of Twilight, Serakal, setting out foods the deceased had enjoyed in life, as well as lighting candles and incense.

Then the dead rose to the surface. The living and the dead reunited, sharing stories and emotions long held. Among them were Karnak and Serati, both with deep hoods pulled low over their faces.

If word spread that the king and queen of the afterlife had descended here, chaos would erupt. Thus, they had deliberately concealed their identities.

Varos ran over, delighted. "Young master!"

Even now that Karnak had become the God of Death and the King of the afterlife, to Varos he was still simply the young master.

He had been the young master even when he was the Emperor of the Necropia in their previous life. Most likely, even after death, even upon meeting again in the afterlife, he would always remain the young master.

Karnak, too, was pleased to see his longtime vassal. "Been well, Varos?"

As the wielder of the Grace of Dawn, Serati could move between the living world and the afterlife at will. However, Karnak's very existence sustained the afterlife, which meant he was mostly bound.

Thus, they could only meet during this time, when the boundary between the two worlds naturally blurred. Of course, even if they could meet anytime, that didn't make reunions any less welcome.

"Serati!"

"Have you been well, Lapicel?"

A small white dragon fluttered over and threw itself into Serati's arms, acting cute without restraint. It was Floke, the Divine Beast of Twilight. After Grateria had reclaimed her body, it had returned to its original form.

In truth, it was also one of Serati's vassals, so if she wished, she could have taken Floke to the afterlife. But it didn't feel right to take a young dragon with so much life ahead of it into the land of the dead. That was the sort of thing only evil spirits would do.

So they had left it in the living world and raised it within the Twilight Order. It seemed to follow Lapicel almost as well as it did Serati now, so it wasn't particularly difficult to care for.

"Come to think of it..." Watching Floke, Milia let out a wry smile. "Back then, we thought we'd have to go to the afterlife with you too."

It was said that Karnak's vassals would share the same fate as him if he died.

"Hey, that's not how it works," said Karnak.

More precisely, a vassal's soul was connected to its master's soul. If the master's soul were to disperse, the familiar's soul would disperse as well, that result being death.

This was a different situation. Even though Karnak had crossed into the afterlife, his soul remained perfectly intact. Naturally, the souls of his connected vassals remained intact as well. Moreover, having gained divinity, he could still exert influence over his vassals in the living world even from the afterlife.

"If becoming undead meant my vassals had to die too, they would've all dropped dead the moment I turned into a skeleton giant."

"Anyway, let's go." Leven gestured toward the grand temple beyond the cemetery, urging Karnak forward. "Everyone's gathered."

***

Karnak's group passed through the ornate cemetery and made their way toward the temple. As Varos and Lapicel walked by, the believers bowed their heads repeatedly, their faces filled with emotion.

Karnak remarked, "Looks like you're both doing pretty well as pope and saint."

Varos let out a small chuckle. "Turns out, you get the hang of it if you keep at it."

In truth, he had originally intended to follow Karnak into the afterlife.

—I should be the one attending to you, young master. Who else would?

But Karnak had refused.

—Varos, you live.

—Why?

—Stay alive and deliver food from the living world to the afterlife.

When it came down to it, Varos could serve Karnak far better while alive than by dying and following him into the afterlife. So after taking on the role of pope of the Twilight Order, he diligently offered tributes. Lapicel, too, had initially refused.

—The Saint of Twilight? That's way too much pressure.

But Serati persuaded her. What, exactly, defined the Saint of Twilight? It was essentially a woman who believed in the Goddess of Twilight and wielded the Grace of Twilight.

—Lapicel, you believe in me, right?

—Well, yes, I do.

—And you can use the Grace of Twilight?

—I can see light flickering at my fingertips. I'm not sure if that counts as using it, though.

—Good. Then you are the next saint, Lapicel!

And just like that, it had been decided.

—You're already called the Martial King of Zestrad. What's there to feel pressured about being the Saint of Twilight?

—W-Well, that's true, but...

And so Lapicel had been forced to accept the position.

—Serati, the way you talk is starting to sound like Lord Karnak.

The group continued forward through the crowd. Leven spoke up. "How are my father and brother doing?"

"I'm not sure doing well is the right phrase when they're already dead, but they're doing fine."

Gellard and Emil had both had their souls seized by Tesranach. They had only regained their senses after the afterlife was created. Emil, in particular, had been struck by sheer misfortune. One day, his body had been stolen, and when he finally regained consciousness, he found himself already in the afterlife.

Naturally, he had been furious at first. But Gellard calmed down after hearing that Leven had become the new martial king. Knowing the honor of the Strauss family would continue brought him relief.

"They say time heals all wounds. Emil's calmed down a lot too." Both of them were now guarding the afterlife while preparing for their next lives. "After all, that's what the afterlife was made for."

***

When they entered the temple, a group was waiting for Karnak and Serati.

"Welcome, Lord Karnak."

"It has been a while, Sir Serati."

Serati's expression brightened. They were familiar faces. "Have you all been well?"

Drel had returned to being Dreltein Thelix, the Martial King of Kretas. He had regained both his honor and his status.

It had become widely known that the one who had thrown the world into chaos was a fake created by the Black God, and that the real Dreltein had fought under the Goddess of Twilight to save the world. Well, it wasn't entirely a lie.

Diogres Kolon had also returned as the Master of the Tower of Dawn. The reason he was able to return was the same as Dreltein's. The only difference was that, having regained his original body, he was now an old man nearing sixty.

"Do you not miss your younger body?"

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But isn't it only right to follow the natural order? A man should age when it's time to age and depart when it's time to depart."

At that, the man who had nearly destroyed the world because he didn't want to age or die quietly turned his head away. "Uh... sorry."

They also heard news of Elezar and Giyen Ren in the present world. After becoming the king of the afterlife, Karnak restored Elezar and Giyen Ren as well. Just as he had separated Drel from Dreltein, he split their souls into present and future once more.

While their future selves diligently guarded the afterlife, their present selves returned to the living world, resuming their roles as archmages and working tirelessly to clean up the aftermath.

"They're a bit resentful about being held responsible for things they don't even remember, though," said Diogres.

It was an understandably unfair situation from their perspective. They had simply closed their eyes and opened them again to find that years had passed, only to be pushed by those around them to clean up disasters they themselves had allegedly caused?

Giyen Ren had only lost a few months, but Elezar had lost nearly ten years.

"She's probably the biggest victim of all," continued Diogres.

At the word victim, Karnak subtly turned is gaze toward Lapicel. In truth, he had also tried to separate her into her younger and older selves, but she had refused.

"Are you really sure about this?"

"Yes. It's what we wanted."

The adult Lapicel had chosen a second life within the child. There was nothing more Karnak could do.

"Oh, and the dragon emperor has gone back into his slumber." Varos spoke as if delivering a report. "The world's more or less stabilized, so he said he'd rest for a while."

"For a while?"

"Yes. For a while."

Of course, for the dragon emperor, a while meant several hundred years by human standards.

"Guess we won't be seeing him again in our lifetimes."

"You're already dead, what do you mean in your lifetime, young master?"

There was also another piece of major news. "Alius has ended up becoming the Pope of Hatoba."

Not only the Order of Hatoba, but most of the seven goddesses orders had lost their popes and leadership. In such a situation, Alius, already a highly renowned priest, had been the natural choice.

"Thanks to that, he's become a high-ranking figure who can't just move around freely anymore," said Varos.

"Can't move around freely?" Serati looked incredulous as she glanced at Varos, who was grinning. "He's right there, you know?"

Indeed, Alius, the Pope of Hatoba, was present.

Serati asked, "Are you even allowed to be here?"

"I never was one for following the church's orders anyway." Clicking his tongue as he looked at Karnak, Alius continued, "It's good to see you after so long. Though I must say, once I learned the full story, I was utterly dumbfounded."

Hearing the truth about Karnak had genuinely shocked him, enough to shake his belief that once you trusted someone, you should trust them to the end. Even so, what was remarkable about Alius was that it had only shaken him, not broken him.

Alius said, "Well, all's well that ends well, isn't it?"

"You're still a good man," responded Karnak.

For the record, Desteran was not present. One might wonder why the fanatic who practically convulsed at the sight of Serati wasn't here, but there was a simple explanation.

"We didn't tell him."

"It's exhausting enough dealing with him as is."

"And he gets even more exhausting when he sees Serati."

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Karnak and Serati both nodded.

"Well done."

"He's a good man, but... a bit overwhelming, right?"

Currently, Desteran was serving as a Paladin of Twilight in the empire's new capital, Vespa Krahan.

Karnak asked in disbelief, "A paladin? Since when did the Twilight Order have paladins?"

Varos snorted. "When did it ever have a saint before Serati was called one?"

"Even so, how can you call them paladins without divine spells?"

"Uh..." Milia quietly raised her hand. "They use divine spells now."

It was thanks to Milia. She was no longer a priest of Latiel. To be honest, it had always been more unnatural that she insisted she was one.

Yet she could still use divine power because, unconsciously, she had been drawing power not from Latiel but from a new source, Serakal. It was similar to the fairy race's faith in Ta'al.

Once she found out, Milia spread this method throughout the Twilight Order, and many priests of Twilight eagerly embraced this new power. After all, necromancy was no longer a useful ability.

In an age where digging up corpses and casting spells all day could barely produce a flicker of ghostly flame, the former dominance of necromancy had faded. Black magic had taken its place instead.

Karnak's final technique, Executor of Necromancy, was an unprecedented method of performing necromancy through mana alone. It was clearly weaker than traditional necromancy, but now that malice and death energy had vanished, it had become overwhelmingly superior. As a result, the term black magic had replaced necromancy.

"Wait, if necromancy's weakened, doesn't that mean the Twilight Order's influence has dropped a lot too?" Serati asked.

Leven shook his head. "Not really."

The Twilight Order still wielded overwhelming influence. Simply put, it held too many powerful figures. The Twilight Pope, Varos, was a warrior on the level of a martial king, and the Saint of Twilight, Lapicel, was the rightful Martial King of Zestrad.

Leven Strauss, the Martial King of Delphiad, and Dreltein Thelix, the Martial King of Kretas, were both elders of the Twilight Order. On top of that, Diogres Kolon, the Master of the Tower of Dawn, also belonged to the order.

Most of the continent's strongest individuals were gathered under the Twilight Order. And even Malican Thun, a prospective martial king, had his allegiance there.

"Malican still hasn't become a martial king?"

"He's struggling right at the threshold."

"Damn, maybe I should've helped him cheat a little."

Aside from Varos, Lapicel, and Malican Thun, all of them were bound as Karnak's vassals, meaning betrayal wasn't even an option. The Twilight Order's future was, for all intents and purposes, guaranteed.

Leven said, "Still, you should start lifting these vassal contracts soon. My family line needs to continue, you know?"

It had been helpful for him to become a martial king, but at this rate, the Strauss family line was at risk of ending. It was a serious concern for Leven.

"Hang in there a bit longer. I'm almost done with the research," responded Karnak.

"You're a god now and you still can't figure that out?"

"I built the afterlife precisely so I wouldn't become a god who can do everything." He neither could nor wanted to become omnipotent. "That's why I can say things like this."

Looking around at everyone, Karnak muttered, "Let's eat."

***

They ate and drank before a spread of delicacies. It was a good gathering, enjoyed in the company of good people. One dish in particular caught Karnak's attention. "Oh, now that's a nostalgic one."

The others looked puzzled. It was nothing more than ordinary ale, common barley bread, and a simple braised chicken dish. Something like that was nostalgic?

Only Varos puffed up with pride. "I figured you'd like it, young master, so I went out of my way to get it."

"I knew I picked a good right-hand man." He bit into the barley bread, then took a hearty gulp of ale. A blissful expression spread across his face. "Ah, this is good. Back then, eating this made me feel like I could die without regrets..."

"You actually did die, didn't you, young master?"

"I'm trying to reminisce here. Do you have to ruin it?"

"You're not even human anymore. Aren't you a god?"

"Shut it..."

Varos was still Varos, just as Karnak was still Karnak. To be honest, it was hard to tell. Had he really changed? Was he truly living like a human now? At the very least, he wasn't living like he used to. In his own way, he had tried to clean up the mess he'd made. Still, it didn't quite feel like repentance or redemption.

Am I really doing this right? He pondered it for a moment, then quickly shook the thought away. "Who cares?"

Dead or alive, human or god... "As long as the food tastes good, that's all that matters!"

With a wide grin, the God of Death took a big bite out of a juicy chicken leg.

<<Karnak, Monarch of Death>> The End