Previously: After finishing his work at the Royal Clinic, Zenos received a letter from Becker, which detailed information about his master.
The orphanage in the slums is known for its terrible conditions.
Children there are treated as a labor force, as slaves.
There are no adults to take care of them, and they are given only one meal a day, which is like leftover scraps.
Each child is assigned a job.
The better jobs are things like meal duty or repairing the orphanage. The rest are things far removed from the healthy development of a child, such as begging, physical labor as migrant workers, and even involvement in crime. Some children were sold off somewhere without anyone knowing where they went or what they were doing now.
Amidst all this, the role assigned to Zenos was stealing from corpses.
The slums are full of people who collapse and die in the streets.
Zenos’s job was to find these people as quickly as possible and take anything that could be sold for money.
However, he didn’t have the stomach for it, so he always ended up secretly burying the bodies he found and getting beaten upon his return. The collapsed figures seemed like a vision of his own future.
So, perhaps at first, it was something like pity.
People collapse and die, so they get robbed. So, what if he could bring them back to life…?
He observed countless collapsed people, even rotting corpses, and learned the structure of the bodies of various races. He imagined their functions. He pored over a tattered magic book that someone in the orphanage had picked up on the street, even though he couldn’t read the letters.
And so, he attempted resuscitation.
Every day, he would cast magic on the collapsed people, wishing for them to come back to life.
Gradually, a faint white light began to envelop the corpses.
And then, there was a day when he felt like it would finally work.
The light burst and throbbed, and he felt like the corpse’s fingers were about to move. At that moment, he was struck hard on the head from behind.
The light dissipated and vanished.
When he turned around, a dirty, unshaven man with a terrifying expression was glaring at him.
The man said:
“Never use that power on the dead. You should use it on the living.”
That was his encounter with his master.
—…
“Zenos?”
Called by Lily, Zenos raised his head.
“What’s wrong? You’re spacing out.”
“Was I spacing out?”
“Yes, you were. Are you looking at Becker’s letter again?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
In the clinic in the ruined city.
Zenos was sitting on the examination desk, looking at the letter he had received from Becker when he left the Royal Clinic.
It was a letter about his master.
However, even Becker, who was supposed to be close to him, can no longer remember his master’s face or name.
Becker says it’s probably due to a curse.
The price his master paid for dabbling in the forbidden art of resurrection magic…
“…”
Zenos recalled the monstrous look on his master’s face when he struck him for trying to cast resurrection magic on a collapsed person.
Zenos still remembers his master.
Perhaps it’s because he hadn’t met his master yet when the curse was activated.
Becker’s letter says that if he wants to know more, he should look for his master’s notes.
“Notes, huh…”
As Zenos muttered, Lily peered at the letter.
“Hmm, so you and Becker are friends.”
“Eh, is that so?”
“Look, it’s written here.”
At the end of Becker’s letter, it says:
“I wish Zenos, the healer, all the best in his future endeavors. As a friend—”
“It does say that. So, we’re friends, huh… I see…”
“I see…? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I haven’t really had many friends, so I don’t know.”
Aston and the others were party members, but not friends. He gets along with Zofia and the other beastkin, but they are also his patients. His master was his master, and his relationship with Umin and Cresson is different from that of friends.
“Oh, so Zenos doesn’t have any friends.”
“Is that a look of pity…?! No, it’s not like I had no friends…”
He remembered huddling together in the dim orphanage, stomachs empty. But, anymore—
Then, Lily looked intently at Zenos’s face and said.
“Hey, what am I to Zenos?”
“Hmm? Let’s see… Lily is… like family, I guess.”
“Eh!!”
“Well, I’ve never had a family, so I don’t really know.”
As Zenos folded his arms, Lily approached him, her face red.
“F-Family, that means like a wife, right?!”
“Eh, is that so?”
“Yes, that’s right, Zenos. Lily is Zenos’s wife!”
“Kukuku… As over-the-top as ever, Lily.”
Camilla appeared from the second floor and admonished Lily, who was pressing the matter with a straight face. Lily grumbled, then suddenly spoke.
“By the way, what about you, Camilla?”
“Um… A guardian spirit?”
“Y-You fool! To call this Necro Lord a guardian spirit, what insolence!”
“I’m joking. Camilla is like family too.”
“Wh-What… Guh…”
Camilla stammered in confusion, then floated back up to the second floor.
“…What was that all about?”
“She’s probably just embarrassed, Camilla.”
“What, what? Is it something interesting?”
“Include Ringa, too.”
“Do not forget about me.”
“Wait, why are you all coming together?”
The female beastkin leaders enter the clinic as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
After the temporary closure due to his work at the Royal Clinic, everyday life was gradually returning to Zenos’s clinic.
A/N: Arc 3 will be starting soon. (I plan to update regularly as much as possible, but due to various circumstances, it may sometimes be irregular.)