The Necromancer Commands Slaves, Not Undeads

6 – This World Was Never Kind

Dorothy returned with all the items he requested.

“Thank you.”

“Hmm.”

As Dorothy stared at his wound, he saw a troubled look on her face. He explained to Dorothy,

“First… the impaled knife needs to be removed.”

With the knife lying on the desk, he cut off the blood-soaked trouser covering the thigh. A punctured wound is long and narrow, and doesn’t bleed as much as sliced wounds.

The throwing knife used by the man was small compared to other knives. Looking at the wound, it didn’t seem to have penetrated too deeply.

He clenched a towel between his teeth and took a deep breath. He had to be careful to avoid damaging blood vessels or causing further bleeding while pulling it out. His hands trembling, he grabbed the knife handle.

“Master….”

He bit down on the towel, carefully pulling out the knife. Each movement of the slowly sliding knife brought an excruciating pain, but he bore with it.

At last, the knife buried in his thigh was completely pulled out. Blood spurted from the wound. He laid the knife on the bed.

“Dorothy, give me the alcohol.”

“Hmm.”

Sweat was pouring out of his face due to the pain and tension. Dorothy wiped his face with a towel.

The reason piercing wounds are dangerous is because of bacterial infection, not bleeding and shock. He cleaned the injured area with a strong alcohol as the old woman had taught him.

Weak alcohol had no sterilizing effect. If the alcohol content was negligible, osmotic pressure would not occur. He knew this knowledge.

While there were no medical-grade alcohol, it could be somewhat substituted. The blood and dust were washed away by alcohol.

“If only we had an Elixir…”

In this world, there existed a potion that could regenerate wounds immediately. However, only magicians who study the related field could make it.

Magicians were extremely rare creatures. Even those magicians could not mass-produce potions. The old woman could only make about one a year.

Drinking the coagulant dissolved in water, he heaved a sigh of relief. He pressed the sterilized towel over the wound, and fortunately, the bleeding stopped after a while.

He connected the sterilized needle and thread.

“Master…?”

“It’s to stitch up the wound so it doesn’t open and sticks together. I’ve done stitches many times as an assistant magician, but never thought I’d be doing it to myself….”

Answering Dorothy’s question, he commenced sewing the wound. His leg was trembling, but he didn’t have analgesics or anesthetics.

He took another deep breath. Stitching up one’s own wound was a terrifying and scary task he never had attempted before, but he had no other choice.

As an apprentice to the old woman, he had several experiences of sewing up patients’ wounds; he just needed to do the same here. He kept convincing himself of this.

He carried out the procedure, bearing the pain and fear…and fortunately managed to successfully sew up his wound. Dorothy then applied an ointment to the stitched area and tightly bandaged the wound.

“Phew… good.”

He flopped exhaustedly onto the bed, being careful not to shock his wound. Meanwhile, Dorothy wiped his face with a towel.

“Dorothy, from now on, we ought to…””We must leave this place. Dorothy, I know we both have many questions, but we do not have the luxury of time to dwell on them here.”

“Uh huh…”

“There is a backpack packed with gold coins. We also need to bring food and camping tools… We should distance ourselves from the Elia region as much as possible.”

“Master…”

Dorothy clearly had more to say, but the urgency of the situation was evident. I reached out and lightly gripped her hand.

“Let’s first leave this place, then we can talk. Please pack your things in the backpack. I am going to start packing mine, too.”

Dorothy nodded and I cautiously stood up.

“Just a moment, Master…”

After asking me to wait, Dorothy brought out a walking stick from the room of the elderly man whose care she had been in.

“Thank you, Dorothy.”

I relied on this cane to walk while trying not to use my injured leg as much as possible, all the while packing my belongings. Things like food and gold coins would be taken care of by Dorothy. It was up to me to gather the important items in this hut.

From noble mtl dot com

I stared at a box on the table. It was filled with the old man’s items that I had sorted for disposal. Among them, I picked out the ones which might help us in our journey.

If I’d known we’d be in this situation, I would have postponed the disposal. All the valuable items have already been sold to a general merchant. But still, plenty of useful items remained.

While rummaging through the box, I took a flint which can easily start a fire. Besides the flint, there were quite a few other useful items left.

I additionally packed ‘Truth’s Candle’, a ‘Thousand-Mile View Glass’, and the ‘Night Visitor’s Key’.

‘Truth’s Candle’ was an ivory-colored candle with streaks of brown that emits a light to prevent anyone within its reach from telling lies.

The ‘Thousand-Mile View Glass’ was a pair of glasses with rugged lenses fitted into a wooden frame. When worn, one’s sight extends to almost a kilometre.

The ‘Night Visitor’s Key’ was a magical key that could open any door.

Finally, I took the Necronomicon and the translated version and packed them along with the other contents in my bag.

“Master, the food, sleeping bag, money, tools, ready.”

Dorothy approached me with her fully-packed backpack. It was large, about half her size. My backpack, in comparison, was just like a school bag.

“Can you carry it?”

“Uh huh.”

I took the map from the attic of the old man at last, then spoke to Dorothy.

“We may have to trek a long distance since things are uncertain, and since we both may fall prey to Morus. We need to escape far from the Elia region to a safe city in the far-off empire.”

“Uh huh.”

Dorothy nodded determinedly, thankfully neither of us were alone on this journey.

Leaning on my cane I stepped out of the hut, Dorothy walked beside me. And we started to walk in the opposite direction from where we had encountered our chasers.

I turned back to look at the hut that held four years of memories since the day I was picked up from the slum. The faded wooden hut, located under a sky densely packed with stars, held many memories.

The transformation from being a slum-dwelling beggar to becoming a magician’s assistant was all thanks to the old man.

I knew that after his death, I would someday leave this place, but I wanted to remember it.

I pulled out my smartphone from my pocket and recorded its appearance for the last time.

Click!

Dorothy jumped from the sound of the camera shutter.

“What’s that?”

“Just taking a photo.”

I showed the picture of the hut to Dorothy. She looked at it with a sense of curiosity. I put the phone back into my pocket and started moving again.

“I guess we won’t be able to listen to music for a while. We need to hurry away.”

“Understood.”

Dorothy nodded. And so, we began our aimless journey.

**

Morus of the Excitium clan neither fatigue nor die…He was panting heavily toward the enemy. No matter how furiously he stabbed or struck the resurrected skeleton, it didn’t seem to take any damage.

Morse’s movements were getting slower, and the skeleton’s speed seemed to be increasing. Weary, he caught his breath, maintaining his distance from the skeleton.

He was an assassin, employed for the task of murder. In this field, it would not be an exaggeration to call him an expert. But he had never killed a creature, immune to poison and swords, before.

“What a peculiar situation. To control an undying, unfatiguing servant. This wasn’t in the information…”

He discarded his blunted dagger onto the ground, muttering to himself.

“For this pile of bones, a mace would do better than a dagger.”

The skeleton glared at Morse with ghostly, blue eyes. Morse slowly retreated. He was fleeing from the skeleton.

As he fled, he looked toward the direction where the magician’s assistant had disappeared.

“I’ll kill you next time.”

He was fully prepared to kill the assistant, and his servant.

**

With the help of my staff, I moved forward. Dorothy walked beside me. If we reached the city soon, he wouldn’t be able to track us easily.

“Dorothy.”

“Hmm?”

“I have a question.”

“Hmm?”

While we were walking briskly under the night sky, I asked Dorothy about a sudden thought that came to me.

“Why didn’t you run away, Dorothy?”

Despite facing the terrors of death, Dorothy neither trembled in fear nor tried to escape. She only stood in front of me, striving to protect me. I wondered why.

But I heard no response, as she asked a question in return.

“Why did you, master?”

“Me?”

“Master, why were you kind to me?”

It was her blue eyes that were now staring at me. And she continued.

“Master, you’re different from others. You saved me. Why?”

I let out a bitter laugh and answered.

“As I told you the first time, the sole reason I was kind was to effectively control you, that’s all, Dorothy.”

Dorothy shook her head.

“I’m not necessary to master. Still, you saved me. Master has given me a great favor.”

She spoke bluntly, in broken Empire language, and her steps gradually slowed until she came to a stop.

“I’m curious. Please tell me.”

And Dorothy’s blue eyes stared at me.