“It might not be a very pleasant topic for you… but you know about the Undead, right?”

“…Yeah. It’s when magic essence accumulates in corpses, right? I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard about it from the Adventurer’s Guild and such.”

The sudden mention of the word “Undead” caught me a bit off guard, but I do have some knowledge about them.

Supposedly, if magic essence gathers in a corpse before the magical energy fully dissipates, it becomes a zombie and starts moving again. Or sometimes, the fading magical energy mixes with magic essence and creates a wraith… something like that.

And the larger the creature was in life, the stronger the Undead becomes.

But… why are we talking about Undead?

I’m not fond of gore or anything, but it doesn’t particularly make me feel sick.

“Good. The church had been storing multiple Undead. I don’t know if they had underground facilities or if they just buried them directly in the ground…”

“……Huh!?”

I couldn’t help but raise my voice.

But can you blame me?

Why on earth would there be Undead in the middle of the city?

And in a church of all places!

“You said something odd before about how the bodies were buried, didn’t you? Something about how the church here buried them without cutting off their limbs…?”

“Huh? …Yeah. I mean, we did at least cleanse the bodies, but… yeah, that’s right.”

We were the ones responsible for dealing with the bodies—kids who died at the orphanage, or people receiving treatment at the church who didn’t make it.

I’d been doing it since I was old enough to understand the world, so I’d long since lost any aversion to corpses.

Thanks to that, I can work as an adventurer now… but it’s not exactly something I look back on fondly.

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“Normally, you’re supposed to cut off the limbs of a corpse.”

“…Huh?”

Cut off the limbs…?

“Otherwise, they’ll start moving as Undead, won’t they?”

“……!?”

She’s right!

If a corpse or a spirit accumulates magic essence, it becomes an Undead.

Spirits are one thing, but you definitely don’t want corpses being able to move…

I hadn’t questioned it before because it didn’t feel off to me, probably because of how I remembered things from my previous life. But now that she says it—of course!

“That said…”

Ignoring my stunned reaction, Seriana continued speaking.

“In a city where magic tools are used in daily life, magic essence circulates and rarely stagnates. So the emergence of Undead within the city is extremely rare.”

“…So basically, the ones in the city were artificially created?”

Come to think of it, I remember flying over the city with her at one point, and she stared intently at the church area.

I don’t know what things look like through Seriana’s divine protection, but I imagine it must be different from viewing it from the ground.

She must have noticed something back then.

When I asked her about it, Seriana nodded slightly.

“I knew something was in the city, but not what it was… I figured it out because it didn’t appear in the 【Fairy’s Eye】, but I never imagined they were keeping Undead. And children, no less… though I suppose that’s because they’re easier to manage.”

“Children… oh, the orphanage.”

Back in those days, even adventurers would die relatively often in this city, but those deaths were usually from battles with monsters.

The corpses were usually in rough shape.

But the orphanage kids would die of illness or malnutrition—not from anything that would result in lost limbs.

So the presence of intact child corpses wasn’t suspicious, and since we handled them ourselves, no one would question it.

If the orphanage is next to the church, it all becomes possible.

I see… now I really do feel sick.

“…Aren’t Undead hard to deal with? Are we going to be okay?”

Either way, we have to deal with the immediate situation.

I’ve heard Undead are more troublesome than regular monsters.

The First Unit will probably be the ones to handle it, but will they be okay?

“They’re highly capable. It won’t be a problem. We’ve already made preparations… isn’t that right, Fiora?”

Seriana turned the question to Fiora, cutting off my concern.

Fiora then started explaining what measures had been taken.

“That’s right. Sera, remember how the city has waterways running within the walls? They weren’t maintained before, so whenever it rained, the city would easily flood. And where would that water flow? To the church area.”

“Yeah…”

When Liesel was appointed as steward of the city, one of the first things she did was maintain those waterways.

Thanks to that, we don’t have floods anymore—but back then, every time it rained, the water would flow to the church area… specifically the part with the orphanage.

“By pouring a chemical that accelerates magic essence absorption into the fast-flowing waterways during the rainy season, they planned to gather the city’s magic essence in one spot. And at the same time, increase the Undead’s activity and strengthen them. If it’s the compound I’m thinking of, it’s a powder that’s easy to store. They probably kept it on hand until today. But your husband fixed the waterways, didn’t he? That completely ruined their plan.”

“Then… there’s no danger?”

So they planned to leave them in a weakened state and boost them when they wanted to act?

Using the word ‘weakened’ might be odd for Undead, but from what I’m hearing, they’re still in a debilitated state.

If that’s true… maybe we’re okay?

“Yes. Of course, if untrained civilians were attacked in the middle of the night, it would be dangerous… but with this rain, no one’s out. And the soldiers are trained. Even if the Undead weren’t weakened, they wouldn’t lose—not when they know what they’re dealing with.”

Fiora seemed very confident—perhaps she had experience fighting Undead.

And it sounds like the soldiers on watch are already in the loop.

Seriana continued.

“Well, trying to force a broken plan to work was never going to go well.”

“That makes sense…”

The original plan had been to weaken or even prevent the establishment of Riana, but that failed. There’s no point in clinging to a failed strategy.

That’s why the western powers gave up interfering with us, I’ve heard.

But the people who started this war tried to use that failed strategy…

Even though city infrastructure has changed and measures have been taken—they thought it would still work?

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Sera ・Divine Protection・【Hideout】+1 【Prayer】【Blessing of Mira】【Wind’s Garment】 Blessed Item ・【Floating Orb】+1 【Shadow Sword】+1 【Scarlet Bee Needle】【Fairy’s Eye】【Dragon’s Lung】【Amber Sword】【Danrem’s Thread】【Serpent’s Tail】【Ankle Bracelet】【Amber Shield】【Purple Wings】【Red Sword】【Monkey’s Arm】・8 cards

Seriana・【Area Recognition】・【】・0 cards

Elena・【】・【Green Fang】【Amber Sword】・4 cards

Alec・【Strong Strike】・【Red Shield】【Fierce Horned Trumpet】・10 cards