"Then where is Scott?"
"Was Scott with him?"
"Yes. I asked Scott to escort the doctor home."
"What if Scott also became one of the necromancer's undead?" Valorant looked at Gustav.
"If that's true… and he wasn't here when we were fighting Fermak…" Gustav started thinking.
Valorant and Gustav both turned and looked back toward the house.
"I forgot to check the house!" they both said and ran toward it.
Fermak really had absorbed the black magic from Alaris while examining him.
The black magic hadn't affected Alaris yet, since he hadn't turned into an undead.
While riding in the carriage, Fermak suddenly felt a sharp pain in his body.
Clutching his chest, he screamed in agony.
At the front of the carriage, Scott—who was driving—heard Fermak's voice and stopped the carriage.
Concerned, he opened the carriage door to see what was wrong.
But at that moment, Fermak lost control of himself and attacked Scott, killing him on the spot.
It was there that Fermak fully transformed into a necromancer.
Once the black magic had completely taken over his body, he summoned his grimoire.
Since he was near an old battlefield where many had died years ago, he used the grimoire to raise the dead from that area and started moving toward the duke's mansion.
He also took Scott's corpse with him as a second body—just in case his own was damaged, and he needed another one.
Valorant and Gustav ran with all their strength.
"Which room might they have gone to?"
"This way," Gustav said, leading Valorant.
They arrived in the room Attu and the girls had entered.
The door was broken. Bones were scattered across the floor.
Valorant entered first and was shocked by what he saw.
Attu had pinned Scott against the wall, driving his sword deep into his heart.
Holding the sword with both hands, Attu was breathing heavily.
He let go of the sword, slowly turned his head, then collapsed to his knees, where he stood.
It had started just a bit earlier.
I had destroyed almost all the skeletons trying to enter the room—even the ones attempting to climb through the windows.
I had managed to slow their approach for a while.
Seeing that no more skeletons were around, I sat down to rest for a moment, moving away from the window.
That's when I heard someone approaching from the direction of the door.
Hearing the footsteps grow closer, I prepared to fight.
I thought it was just another skeleton about to come through the door.
[Come on, just try it!]
But what I saw frozen me in place.
It wasn't a skeleton standing at the door—it was Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott looked different.
His eyes were completely black, and bloodstains were smeared all over his clothes.
I ignored the blood on his clothes and lowered my sword.
"Hello, Mr. Scott."
But he didn't answer.
That was because he had already turned into an undead.
Scott lunged at me.
Panicking, I grabbed the blunt side of my sword to stop him, trying to speak to him, hoping he'd snap out of it.
"Mr. Scott, please come to your senses. It's me—Attu," I kept repeating.
But Scott pushed me hard and pinned me against the wall.
I didn't know what to do.
Then, he started punching me in the face.
The first punch hit the left side of my forehead.
The second hit my nose directly, and I started bleeding.
When the third punch came, I dodged my head to the side.
His fist struck the wall instead.
But this third punch was even stronger than the ones before.
Scott readied another blow.
Seeing this, I couldn't just stand there anymore.
I shoved him back with my sword to create a little distance between us.
He was too close—defending myself was impossible that way.
Once I had some space, I gathered all the mana in my body, then kicked him hard.
The blow was powerful enough to send him flying into the wall on the other side of the room.
I even heard the sound of bones breaking from the impact.
Right after that, I collapsed to the floor myself, not realizing how drained I was.
It was like all my strength had suddenly vanished.
[Damn… I didn't think his fists would be that hard!]
Then I noticed something dripping from my nose and touched it with my hand.
"Blood? Makes sense."
I wiped the blood off with my hand.
Meanwhile, Mr. Scott was standing up again.
He got up as if nothing had happened.
[What the hell is wrong with him?! I just heard his bones crack—how is he getting up like it's nothing?!]
Then he came at me again.
As he charged, I dodged under his arm, making him slam face-first into the wall.
He turned back toward me again.
I didn't even understand what I was doing.
Did I act out of fear?
Or was it pure instinct for self-defense?
I don't know.
When he turned toward me, I instinctively drove my sword into his heart.
Because I had mana flowing through my body—and through my sword as well—it pierced his heart easily.
He died right there.
Holding the sword with both hands, I stared at Mr. Scott's face.
There were no signs of life in it.
At that moment, a cold sensation spread through my body.
It wasn't the cold air from the broken window.
It was the cold that comes from fear.
[I killed someone... I killed someone...]
I was overwhelmed with fear because it was the first time I had killed someone.
Even though I held the sword with both hands, I could still feel how badly my hands were trembling.
Suddenly, it felt like the air I was breathing was thinning.
As if I wouldn't be able to breathe again.
I tried to take deep, gasping breaths with my mouth wide open, but my body refused to inhale.
It felt like punishment for what I had done.
As I looked down at the floor, struggling to breathe, something dark left the body in front of me.
But I didn't pay attention to it—I couldn't even keep myself together.
Suddenly, Master and Gustav entered the room.
Seeing them arrive, I slowly turned my head toward them.
[Master, help me!]
In my mind, I was begging for help over and over, because I believed they could save me.
I took my hands off the sword and tried to turn and walk toward Master.
But the weakness in my body wouldn't let me move, and I collapsed.
Master saw me falling and rushed over, grabbing me by the shoulder.