Chapter 84:
Chapter 84:
84. Side Diary
「There you are, Master.」
『Have you finished reading it over?』
「I have. It would be best for you to give it a read as well.」
『Hmmm… alright, but it seems pretty long.』
The diary’s almost completely filled. It looks like there’s a couple year’s worth of entries in there.
◇◆◇
My body’s been like this for almost three years.
Today, I decided that I would write a diary. I don’t really know why I decided to, I just kinda felt like it. I don’t think I’ll be able to write an entry every single day, so I’ll try for once a week.
It’s possible that someone might end up seeing this diary some time in the future. So, person, whoever you are, I’ll write you a little bit of a self-introduction so you know more about me.
I guess the first thing I should write about is my current location. To be honest, at first I didn’t really know exactly where I was, but I did know the kind of place I was in.
I was on a giant floating rock, one of the Reidos Kingdom’s secret experiments. As for me? I was just one of their lab rats.
I didn’t really know exactly what kind of experiment they were running here, but it looked to me like it was something to do with the military.
They used me as a part of a necromancy experiment. Again, I didn’t really know many details or anything like that. All I knew was that I wanted to die. And I wasn’t saying this like it was some sort of passing thought. It’s something I was brooding over for a long time. I wanted to die.
You could easily tell that the researchers didn’t really see us as fellow human beings. To them, we were guinea pigs, nothing less, nothing more. It’s as if they didn’t understand the meaning of the words “humane treatment.”
But yeah, one day a lot of bad things happened, or should I say good things? I’m not really sure which it is. Either way, a lot of things happened, and I was deprived of everything that made me human.
I can still recall what happened that day in vivid detail. That day, they killed me. After cutting off both my legs and and my right arm in a series of experiments, they decided to dispose of me by using me in one last, large-scale experiment.
They used me, a live necromancer, in an experiment. Well, actually, I say that, but I was a pretty weak necromancer. You could barely call me one. The only spells I could use were the Lv 1 spells I picked up in my time here in this facility. Either way they were going to do it. They were going to inject me with curses, grudges, and malice in order to try and turn me into an undead while I was still alive. Messed up, right?
But whatever. Nothing mattered anymore. I was going to die.
They chained me up and placed me in a hallway with a giant magic circle drawn inside of it. Countless curses were poured inside of my body. They used a barrier alongside a sort of special technique to make it so I couldn’t reject the curses as they came to me, and so, having found a body to possess all room’s malice rushed towards me and filled me in an instant.
And that was when it happened.
I couldn’t tell what Goddess was trying to do that day. Was she trying to show me mercy? Or was she just playing a prank on me? I couldn’t tell.
A dungeon core suddenly appeared in the room I was in.
There was a bunch of writing on it, but I couldn’t tell what any of it meant back then.
What I did know was that the core could’ve appeared anywhere else. But it appeared here, right in front of me.
I still don’t know why it appeared then and there. Was it just a coincidence? Was the Goddess of Chaos just messing with me? Or was she pitying me?
I didn’t know, and I still don’t to this day.
All I knew was that the dungeon core acknowledged me as its master. It powered up my body and allowed me to absorb every single last bit of malice that came at me. And so, the ritual transformed me from a living, breathing human being to nothing more than an undead creature.
I was supposed to be turned into a Zombie Mage, a lower class undead. But even then, it was much more powerful than I’d ever been in life.
But the fact that I became a dungeon master and the fact that I absorbed every single last grudge and curse made me transform into something else altogether.
I somehow ended up becoming a Lich. At first, I’d just thought I became a Skeleton, but I soon realized that I’d become a Lich. My transformation granted me more than twenty different skills and spells.
There was actually a span of three days between the dungeon core appearing and me waking up. I don’t actually know what happened during those three days, but what I did know was that all of the humans on the island had somehow been overwhelmed by the undead and exterminated. Learning that fact made me freeze in shock for a few moments.
Some would go as far as calling the transformation I underwent an evolution, one of necromancy’s ultimate goals.
But I think that’s pretty much as far from the truth as it gets.
My sense of morality seemed to have left with my humanity. My heart felt like it’d been wrung dry, and so, I tried to quench its thirst. I went around the island and destroyed any of the researchers that’d turned into undead.
But it wasn’t enough.
Hatred continued to vent from every last fibre of my being.
It hurt. I couldn’t help but hate humans so much that it hurt. I felt the urge to completely ruin their lives, to destroy everything and anything they’ve ever loved. I want to kill every last one, to wipe their very species off the face of the Earth.
Revenge.
I wanted revenge.
Vengence was the only reason for which I now existed.
I wanted revenge.
But I didn’t.
Becoming a Lich was something along the lines of a miracle. I’d finally been released from my life as a lab rat. I wanted to spend the rest of my days in peace, to quietly live on and enjoy my second chance at life.
I didn’t want to kill.
The malice within me, however, did. It refused my pleas and told me to do but a single thing.
To kill.
To seek vengeance.
It forced me to action. I couldn’t stop myself.
Hey, you, the person reading this diary. I don’t know who you are or what kind of person you are. I don’t know if you’re an enemy or an ally, a good or bad person. But regardless, I hope that you will tell the world about what happened here. Please, inform the world of the Reidos Kingdom’s sins and liberate our souls from the fetters of misery.
April 7th, 3619
Today’s the day I start my diary. Nothing notable happened, besides me deciding to write this, of course. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I mean, this is a whim and all that.
So uh… yeah, I guess I’ll just quickly gloss over what I did today.
To start, I did the usual thing and enlarged the dungeon a bit. Then, I made a few undead. I still haven’t touched the bodies of the researchers, nor the bodies of my fellow lab rats. I think I’ll focus on making subordinates and accruing GP for the time being.
Oh, yeah, by the way, GP stands for Goddess Points. I didn’t know either until recently. I guess they’re called that because you offer them up to the Goddess of Chaos or something like that.
September 29th, 3619
I’ve finally managed to get over 10k GP! I should be able to get the dungeon to mass produce undead now.
I also tried to write down some stuff about the dungeon itself, but it doesn’t seem like I’m able to. I can try all I want, but my hands will refuse to move whenever I try writing about the dungeon’s core.
It seems like there’s some sort of mysterious power that’s preventing me from doing so. It’s strong enough to stop a Lich, so I guess it’s probably the Goddess or something.
November 4th, 3619
I used a bunch of GP to make a strong subordinate. The facilities left behind by the researchers seemed to have a bunch of stuff used in the summoning of undead, so I procured it all for myself. One of the items therein was called the “Hero’s Bone.” I don’t really know if it actually belonged to some hero or not, but whatever.
What mattered was that it was actually just as powerful a material as its name signified. Using it allowed me to summon a Fighter class Legendary Skeleton. It even had an extra skill by the name of “Latent Potential Release.”
I tried pitting myself against it in a mock battle, and it did pretty well. I’m glad, I’ve managed to get myself a strong companion.
December 31st, 3619
The year has come to an end. This is the fourth New Years I’ve experienced as a lich. I tried making some special New Year’s bread and soup. I can’t actually eat it, but making let me enjoy the festive mood.
Hmm… I wonder what kind of holidays undead are supposed to celebrate anyway…?
It won’t be long until I get enough GP for my next goal. I can almost taste the Undead Creation Studio I’m about to get my hands on. I’m really looking forward to it, I’ll be able to make even more undead now.
Feburary 27th, 3620
I finally managed to get my Undead Creation Studio. Dungeons sure are strange. The studio just magically appeared where I wanted it to without so much as a delay.
The studio was really nice, and a significant powerup as well. The dungeon is now capable of creating many different kinds of undead that it wasn’t capable of creating before. I’m getting better at necromancy too, so I’ve gotten a grasp on how to summon a bunch of different kinds of undead as well.
The only issue is that I’m not really sure what kind of undead I should be making.
The undead the dungeon makes have magic stones inside of them, and most of the mana will ultimately end up going back to the dungeon, but they’re kind of weak.
The undead that I make, my kin, don’t have magic stones. They have fake souls inside of them instead. They end up being much stronger, but, they don’t really help the dungeon’s mana situation much at all. Furthermore, their cores are pretty much made up by grudges, so they’re all kind of aggressive.
I could always just buff up all the undead that the dungeon churns out if I used Spirit Control, but doing that for a few hundred of them is honestly too much of a pain for me to bother with it.
Alrighty, I guess I’ll do a fifty-fifty split then.
September 18th, 3620
It seems that the floating island’s path started to stabilize, it’s route has gotten fairly regular. I can try to point it in a direction too, but that takes a lot of mana…
I’m kind of stuck in the middle of a bunch of different countries, but whatever, that’s fine. I’m not all that far away from the Reidos Kingdom, so it should be pretty easy for me to get revenge on them. That is why I exist, after all.
April 14th, 3621
The dungeon’s gotten a lot bigger, so my options seemed to have expanded as well. All I can say is that all the dungeon’s more advanced facilities look awesome.
Two of them in particular have really caught my attention. The first was a huge barrier that covered the entire dungeon. The second was something that converted malice into magical energy. Both cost 300k GP, so I won’t be able to get them for a while.
September 11th, 3621
I’ve finally finished expanding the dungeon. It now spans a total of ten floors, and it can influence the whole island plus another fifty meters or so.
I don’t think anyone’ll be able to land on the island with ease so long as I beef up the air units a bit.
I think I’ll focus on creating more undead and adding traps for now then, I guess.
May 20th, 3622
Today marks the first time I’ve made a unique undead in a long time. I used 10k GP to make myself a Soul Eater.
Apparently it gets stronger by eating the undead despite the fact that it itself is also a member of the undead. It looks like another run of the mill zombie for the time being, but I’m kinda curious as to how it’ll end up turning out.
I decided to let it roam around in the labyrinth as it pleased for the time being.
October 10th, 3622
Today, I’m going to be writing quite a bit for the first time in a while.
Someone’s finally come to the dungeon! My first invader! At first, I thought he came on the Reidos Kingdom’s orders, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
I mean, there was only a single person after all, so I guess it’d have to be an adventurer of sorts. That said, he was quite formidable despite only being a lone necromancer. He was riding a Griffon Skeleton — something that even I was struggling to summon!
The undead birds and bats I summoned tried their best to keep him out, but the Griffon proved too strong and managed to break through them.
The forest pretty much did exactly what I’d planned though. It had an illusion spell on it, so it confused the adventurer and made him get lost.
There were undead at every single turn, so he started to get exhausted.
He tried to retreat, so I had a few of my more powerful undead go after him. The Soul Eater had gotten pretty strong too, so I sent him as well. My undead beat out the necromancer’s, but he still managed to escape.
Too bad. I wanted to capture and talk to him. If he was the likeable kind, I might’ve even made him into one of my subordinates.
Oh well, whatever. Either way, he managed to get me to smile for the first time in what felt like years. In fact, I think the smile I had on my face today was the biggest I’ve ever had in my life.
I still remember what he said, “Fuhahaha! What a formidable dungeon! Never have I considered that I, Jean Dovy, would have to escape from a haunt!”
He wasn’t making fun of me, right? I think it might’ve even been the opposite, in fact. He was paying homage to my dungeon as his tattered robe and skull-like accessories fluttered in the wind. I see. I get it now. That’s what it means to be a true necromancer.
What about me then? I mean, I’m a lich and all, but aren’t I kind of lame? I should be more like him.
Alright, it’s time for a change in attitude. I’ll try to be a bit more conscious of how I speak.
“Behold, for I am a Lich, Ruler of the Undead! Kukakakakaka!” Hmm… that sounded pretty good didn’t it? Er, I mean. That sounded quite magnificent, did it not?
Splendid. I feel naught but marvelous. Kukakakaka!
This is going to take some getting used to.
October 28th, 3623
I finally managed to save up 300k GP, so I immediately set up the Furnace of Malice. Actively hunting the magic beasts that ended up coming near the floating island was well worth it.
I was thinking of saving the magic stones I got so I could make magic tools with them later, but I ended up prioritizing GP, so I let the dungeon absorb them.
Even something as weak as a Lesser Wyvern nets me around 20 GP. It was well worth having the dungeon absorb my entire stock.
The furnace would absorb any malice in its surroundings and convert it all into magical energy. Linking it up with me effectively produced an infinite loop alongside an inexhaustible supply of magical energy.
April 12th, 3624
My power increases every single day as a result of the furnace of Malice. I may soon have enough power to enact my revenge upon the Kingdom of Reidos.
However, I encountered what would label a minor incident whose cause not even I could identify. The curses within this body of mine have begun to grow more powerful. It poses no problem, as I possess the ability to convert malice into power, but…
I can feel my hatred grow, day by day. I can feel resentment piling up within me and reaching heights unknown.
November 3rd, 3624
I have began experiencing moments of which I have no memory. Could this perhaps be caused by all the malice that dwells within me?
August 7th, 3625
I’ve noticed something strange today. The corpse eater has taken on a child’s as a result of a peculiar reason of which I bear no comprehension.
I recall that it had been a ten meter tall giant just a few days prior…
It appears to have shaved off any excess body parts. Though it stands a much shorter height, its magical abilities have more than doubled in recompense.
It has taken on a form identical to that my own prior to my transformation. I cannot decipher if this has occurred because it was produced from my magic, or if it is simply a result of it being my effective offspring. How interesting.
February 24th, 3626
As I have no memory of two of the past seven days, I decided to investigate by inspecting the dungeon’s video records. I cannot imagine the demon beyond the screen as myself.
What was reflected within the dungeon’s records was none other than a true Lich, a being that could only be described by the words violent, cruel and brutal.
I feel that I will soon be swallowed by what I see before me.
That, however, may be perfectly acceptable by its own right.
If I am to tread upon the path of vengeance, then sympathy will be but an obstacle. My other self will surely be able to fulfill my thirst for revenge in an ever so cruel and gruesome manner .
October 6th, 3626
My memory loss continues to worsen. I can now only recall every other day.
My plan, however, is progressing as smoothly as could be. I have risen in level whilst strengthening my subordinates. I’ve finally amassed enough power to topple the Kingdom of Reidos.
I lack the prowess to best the Kingdom in an all out war. However, the floating island will allow my troops to catch the Kingdom by surprise. I shall invade the capital and assassinate its royal family before razing the city and turning it into a sea of undead soldiers.
Soon.
Soon, my plan will come to fruition. I need but half a year.
The world shall learn the depths of my malice.
March 19th, 3627
Today, I regained my consciousness for the first time in half a year. I’ve long handed off the seat of this body’s primary host to another.
But I do not mind. The dungeon has progressed as per my wishes.
There is, however, an item that bothers me. Is the path I tread truly one laid out before me by the Goddess?
It just so happens that the first day I’ve awoken is coincidentally a day in which the dungeon was subject to invasion. The necromancer has returned, and with him came a companion.
The necromancer’s companion was an adorable girl. Her age was likely similar to that of mine immediately prior to my transformation. She possesses great might for her age; her mastery of the sword is none other than outstanding.
My eyes fail me; they are unable to keep up her motions.
It must be nice… to have companions, friends… I myself have never known the experience, for I was both born into slavery and denied the opportunity. And it is likely for that reason that she almost appeared to shimmer.
I wish for her not to perish… but I doubt my desire to be plausible.
The party cleared through the dungeon at an incredible pace. Will it perhaps fall to them?
Considering the possibility puts me in an indescribable mood. The joyful prospect of my soul attaining freedom contrasts the irritation that arises from the potential destruction of my plans.
Do I wish to be vanquished? Or do I wish to live on?
I cannot grasp the answer.
I feel as if my encounter with the necromancer and the girl must be none other than the call of fate itself…
I regret that I will be unable to witness the outcome of our encounter. And so, I wonder…
What scene will I awaken to next? No, will I even continue to awaken?
My dear reader, could you perhaps be him? Jean Dovy? Or maybe the beastgirl that traveled by his side?
If so, then I have but a single thing to say.
I’m glad that you were the ones that survived our encounter.