Holy Emperor's Grandson Is A Necromancer Chapter 3

I studied the distancing backs of the two farmers. The [Mind's Eye] skill showed me their current conditions.

——-

[Name: Gril.

Age: 35.

Speciality: Farming. Physical labour.

+ Currently in the blessed state.

——-

There it was, the status info so short that someone who couldn't be bothered must've written it. However, I shouldn't be worrying about that right now.

Blessed? I only drew a cross with my fingers and said ‘amen', though?

My actions could be construed as sacrilegious. Even then, the divinity inside my body leaked out and the skill was activated on its own. More importantly, though, I didn't possess any skill called ‘Blessing'.

I sank into a deep contemplation, before remembering a certain skill.

"The [Horrifying Curse]. Damage a target for a prolonged time by inflicting pain."

It seemed that its attribute had been flipped on its head.

….Well, it shouldn't pose a problem later, right?

Eiii, what could possibly happen, anyway? I mean, it wasn't a curse but a blessing, so it should be fine.

Even a rotting food would serve as medicine if you didn't get sick after eating it, and if you didn't die after getting hit by magic, well, that would be another form of blessing in itself, no?

If something did go wrong, surely they would seek me out right away. So, I decided not to worry about it anymore.

I was a gravekeeper. I was supposed to be a ‘Priest' that maintained the monastery, buried the dead, and performed the purification ceremony.

Indeed, there was no need for me to sweat over the ongoings of the outside world.

Right, no need to mind the outside world.

My job was to start shovelling from morning, and dump the maggot-infested corpses inside the burial pits; also, perform the purification ceremony so no one would turn into zombies. That's it. I felt no dissatisfaction towards what I had to do.

I didn't feel any repulsion towards dead bodies, probably due to the effects of my ‘Profession' of Necromancer. It was rewarding in its own way, and could be fun at times, too.

However….. This ain't it!!

"Imperial Prince-nim!! Imperial Prince-nim!"

The farmers from before had shown up again, while pulling a wagon with great difficulty this time. The wagon was carrying 4 or 5 corpses. It was basically a mound of buzzing flies and wriggling maggots.

I fell into despair after seeing that wagon.

"G.o.dd*mmit, there's more??"

Each of the bodies weighted at least somewhere between 50 to 60 kilos, maybe more.

Digging the burial pits and moving the corpses were easy, since I could turn them into zombies and make them do all the hard work. Afterwards, all I had to do was to close the graves and perform the perfunctory purification ceremony. That's it.

It was possible to take care of everything so painlessly, but I couldn't utilise my skills all thanks to the dang farmers that kept visiting me over and over again.

In the end, I had to shovel, shovel, and then shovel some more, and on top of that, I now had to lug around the bodies and perform the burial properly…..

This had to be the zenith of all hard labours in this world, period.

G.o.d d*mn it, to think that the Holy Emperor's grandson, supposedly beloved by the G.o.ds, had to perform such stupidly hardcore labour.

This didn't make one iota of sense.

Ahh, the highest esteemed G.o.ddess of love and mercy, Gaia! Have we become sworn enemies now??

I inwardly threw curses and insults in the direction of the G.o.ddess that the Theocratic Empire wors.h.i.+pped. While doing that, I flinched greatly as I stared at the corpses.

"How many days since they died?!"

"Pardon? Oh, uh, maybe 3, 4 days….?"

"….What about cremation?"

"As you can see, we didn't do it."

The wagon suddenly began bucking wildly. And then, three zombies promptly stood up.

– Ku-ohhhh!!

While spitting out phlegm-filled roars, zombies tumbled down from the cart.

"Uwaaaahk?!"

The farmers cried out in pure panic.

I simply became utterly speechless by that. h.e.l.l, I was even tempted to pretend that I noticed nothing and ignore them for now.

Why was I given the job of a gravekeeper? Being thrown into the army would've been more preferable than this.

I groaned under my breath and wielded the shovel still in my grasp. And began smacking the heads of the zombies.

The first blow, the second, and then, the third.

Zombies collapsed as their heads exploded. Blood splattered on my face. I scowled deeply.

After wiping the blood away with the back of my hand, I lifted up the unmoving bodies.

D*mn, what a pain.

If only my Profession was a Warrior or a Barbarian. My current ‘job' was that of a Necromancer. A Profession at the height of sneaky cheapness that simply threw a bunch of zombies and skeletons out there and watch them fight for you.

Such was the characteristic of this Dark Sorcerer profession, so there's no way that my strength stat would be any good. It was a weak-a*s Priest's physique, alright. Right now, muscles and a bit of stamina built up by all those shovelling barely managed to prop me up.

"Even if we're dealing with zombies, I'll feel a bit uncomfortable if they are damaged like this, you know."

I tossed the corpse with the busted head down the burial pit. The farmers helped me too, sweat trickling down their faces.

Soon, most of the work was complete.

Feeling tired, I sat down on a tombstone that hadn't been set in place yet. While pretending to pull something out from a leather bag, I accessed the item storage.

I pulled out a boiled potato and took a bite out of it, bloodied hands and all. Couldn't be helped, though; trying to wash myself before eating every time would be a waste of time.

And also, this body must've been st.u.r.dier than I thought as I hadn't become ill once after occupying this body. Maybe I should thank the divinity inside me.

"E-excuse me…."

It was then, the farmer duo finis.h.i.+ng up their quest to help me with my work suddenly addressed me. They exchanged glances with each other as if they were scared of the sudden change in my mood, and cautiously opened their mouths.

"I-it's like the village has been cursed by an evil spirit. Without that explanation, how can a plague like this one be….."

An evil spirit?

That wasn't even funny, dude. Looks like these gullible fools got suckered into believing yet another baseless superst.i.tion here.

"W-well, Imperial Prince-nim. You are a Priest, aren't you? How about exorcising evil spirits from the village….?"

Son of a gun. They were now asking me to become an exorcist, too?

I frowned heavily towards the farmers and spoke. "I'm telling you this right now, I'm just a Priest in name only. Yet, you want someone like that to exorcise evil spirits? Say something that makes sense, will ya?"

Unfortunately, my job description meant that I couldn't refuse them.

As long as I possessed the divinity, I was able to defeat all undead in this place, after all. However, this was a cruel thing to ask from a boy only 15 years old.

So, requesting the Paladins that showed up like clockwork every month was the smarter thing to do here.

"Besides, I'm only 15 years old. You really want to entrust zombie hunting to a 15 year-old kid?"

The two farmers shrunk back since they also knew this point oh-so-well.

"O-of course, but, but…."

"….The lord Paladins that visited the village the last time told us to leave everything to you, Imperial Prince-nim, unless it's a truly dangerous matter."

"…….."

Those stinking Paladin as*holes.

Just as I began hurling all sorts of curses at them…

"also, you've bestowed us with blessings, haven't you?"

"You're an amazing Priest capable of that, so we were hoping that you'd purify the village…."

"What?"

What were they on about now? I stared at the two farmers with a puzzled look on my face. They noticed my expression and spoke up again.

"After you baptised us, we weren't struck down by the plague."

I tilted my head this way and that after hearing them.

Well, you two just got lucky, that's all.

"We've been asked to this job, carting people's bodies after they died from the plague. But then, rather than falling ill, we…."

The farmers began patting their torsos as if it was the oddest thing ever.

"We've been filled with lots of energy for the past few days."

My tilting head leaned even further to the side.

But, that's because of the stamina you built up by farming, surely?

"Injuries we suffered healed really quickly, too."

But, that's because folks of this world were especially st.u.r.dy, so….

"And us two are the only survivors from our village."

I stared at the two farmers with a dazed expression.

It had been a week since I used the skill [Horrifying Curse/Blessing] on these two. Between then and now, about 20 corpses were brought here. Those must've been their fellow villagers, then.

The two farmers who brought in all those plague-ridden corpses were still perfectly fine. Right now, they weren't wearing those c.u.mbersome masks, too.

"The effects of a simple crossing the air with my hand and saying amen was that strong??"

"….It is."

The farmers nodded their heads in certainty.

Holy cow, dear G.o.ddess Gaia!! Were you also feeling lazy like me so you just haphazardly slapped them with a sizeable blessing or something?

I knew it. I was wondering why so much divinity leaked out of me back then. It seemed that the blessing itself had been pretty generous, to say the least.

I crossed my arms and groaned loudly. "A skill got activated all on its own, huh. Annnd, would you look how super awe~~some its effect is….?"

"Pardon?"

"….Never mind."

I guess it'd be better to raise the proficiency of the skills so that I could use them at will later. Yup, that'd be the smart thing to do, rather than not even knowing that I used my skills somehow.

I s.h.i.+fted my gaze back to the farmer duo. "You say you two are the only survivors? Then, where do you stay?"

"We're currently residing in the neighbouring village."

I ma.s.saged my forehead.

This was a job I had to do anyway, so I figured it'd be better to do it as soon as possible. As an added bonus…

"You two, help me out, too."

….Doing it while I had two additional helping hands would be smarter, right?

The farmers became somewhat confused after hearing me and nodded their heads.

"What a b.l.o.o.d.y spectacular sight this is."

We arrived at the farmer's old village.

30 or so wooden huts greeted us; a portion of them had already collapsed. Shattered windows and broken doors; various filth and corpses littering their vicinities.

A village that would've had a starring role in a horror movie was waiting for us.

I observed the conditions of the corpses lying around the village. I turned one of them over, ran my hands over the damaged parts, and tilted my head.

"….Looks like it's been bitten by something."

Did an animal take a bite out of this corpse? No, hang on. The bite mark was too small to say that an animal did this.

I raised my head and scanned the village. "There are no zombies around, huh. That's a relief."

Corpses found around the village were quietly staying dead, or were far too damaged to become undead.

All those puke stains and filth scattered everywhere made me scowl real deeply.

Since there were so many dead bodies around, I naturally spotted lots of rats gnawing on them, too. The rodent closest to me stopped biting into a corpse and raised its head to meet my stare.

The disgusting stench, and the red eyes filled with murderous intent. As well as the faint trace of ‘demonic energy' coming from it.

"….A zombie?"

It then bared its crooked fangs and dashed towards me at a frightening turn of speed. It was so quick, as if it couldn't wait to bite the c**p out of me.

I raised my shovel, and then slammed it down. The rodent was sliced in half, its torn flesh bouncing about.

"What's up with this guy?"

Even though it was in two pieces now, the rat wasn't dead yet. It ended up as a severed torso, yet it was still trying to bite into my leather boots.

I lifted my foot up and stomped on it.

The farmers flinched and shrunk away.

"Since when?"

"Pardon?"

I squatted down and picked up the dead rodent, then glared at the farmer duo. "This thing was a zombie. A d*mn undead rodent, okay? So, since when did things like this little guy begin running around in the village?"

The farmers hastily exchanged glances with each other. Then, while making perplexed expressions, shook their heads.

"We don't know."

What a refres.h.i.+ngly honest reply, that.

"Is that important, your highness?"

They tilted their heads.

"Well, no. Not really."

I tossed the zombie rat away.

It wasn't only humans that turned into zombies. A portion of any lifeform that died near a shady spot, the 'Negative Field', would turn into the undead.

However, you didn't turn into a zombie for sure just because you got bitten by an undead. If the poison spread and you died from that, then sure, there was a good chance that you'd turn into one, but if not, you'd just suffer from high fever.

As long as you didn't die, you'd naturally recover. Meaning, it was that sort of an illness, no more and no less.

"This stench is pretty intolerable, though…."

This rodent, however, was no longer on the level of simple zombification. A seriously thick amount of demonic energy was permeating within it.

So much so, in fact, there was a higher chance of a human dying from its bites turning into an undead later.

Was this thing a hundred-year old zombie rat or something? If there was one, maybe two of these critters around, other animals or even a pa.s.sing human would have killed it, but….

"………"

I s.h.i.+fted my gaze again.

I spotted pitch-black shadows coagulating around a certain collapsing hut. Dozens upon dozens of zombie rodents, all with crimson eyes, were glaring at me.

Seeing that spectacle caused my eye muscles to twitch all on their own.

With such a vermin horde around, it'd been even more stranger to see a village that managed to escape unscathed.

"You two, you didn't start a vermin farm or something, did you?"

I asked the farmers, and of course, they hurriedly shook their heads.

They also saw the zombie rodents and began backtracking in pure terror.

"T-there is no way! I-it wasn't like this a few days ago…."

"Now I remember. You said that you left this village, didn't you?"

The farmers nodded their heads.

"Even if this place is our home village, everyone was dying from the plague so who'd want to stay here? Our families have left this world a long time ago already, so we didn't have any reasons to stay put. We're currently staying in the neighbouring village."

"They readily accepted you two?"

"In turn, the village tasked us with delivering those who died from the plague, you see."

Oh, so that's why they were accepted?

Seriously, man. So many things I've gotta do now.

I glared back at the zombie rodents. "Well, there's your evil spirits. Not only that, pretty dreadful ones at that, too."

Hundreds of zombie rats opened their eyes wider. And then…. began das.h.i.+ng towards us. My sole weapon was the shovel. Unfortunately, it'd be impossible to fight them with it.

"I-Imperial Prince-nim, run….!"

While glaring at them, I stabbed the shovel into the ground.

I sucked in a deep breath, and as whitish air exhaled out of my mouth, I muttered out the name of the skill.

"[Swamp of Death]."

< 003.="" imperial="" prince="" is="" a="" gravekeeper="" -2=""> Fin.