Well, I wanted to put this up yesterday but I was too busy cx But as a Black Friday special I'll give you this one upload ;D
Thanks to LightandDarkHeart for the review! And yeah, Mosa and Chronos just got back together but we'll see what happens to them.
Now let's get to what everyone's been waiting for!
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Golem Necromancer
"So these are the Baskervilles." Leo's thought rung in his head as he stood before the members of said household. A rattle of bells made them all turn towards the noise. Many of the servants turned ready for an attack but the small group that had entered their sanctum didn't move an inch. The ringleader was a young girl, her locks of blonde hair left to stray down to her ankles. Most of her features and that of her other five companions were hidden behind red cloaks.
She chuckled at the threat and simply raised her hands in mock surrender. "We mean no harm."
"How did you find this place?" Lottie snarled already wanting to snap the little girl's neck.
"We were invited, of course," she cooed clasping her hands together.
"That's not possible," Lily called in disbelief. "Only Baskervilles know how to get to this place."
"And we've got one of our own." The blonde came over and snaked her arms around one of her companions. "Isn't that right, Cloude-san?"
"Liar," Lottie immediately called out. Cloude was dead. And unless she was out of her mind, the dead couldn't talk much less walk.
With a whisk of her wrist she unveiled the face of the boy and showed them. "Am I now?"
Leo couldn't believe who he was seeing in front of him. "Claire?"
"No," Vincent said getting in between Leo and any possible contact that the girl and the others could have. "It's her younger brother. What's shocking to most here is that he's already dead."
"Of course he is!" The blonde's sudden remark made Leo scowl. How pleasantly she spoke of the matter disgusted him. She then giggled while covering her grin, "But I'm the one who makes the dead walk."
Lottie clicked her tongue in clear disgust. "A necromancer."
"Bingo~" the blonde jeered while flapping her sleeves. "We're Corvus from the Court of Crows."
"That lineage has been dead since the Lords took over," Lottie countered.
"We're just a little murder that managed to escape the grasp of that totalistic nation of ours. You see we despise the Court of Miracles, its Lords, and most specifically its King. We've seen what Baskervilles have done and we agree with your ideals. And as such we wish to serve you. So, would you accept these humble outcasts who aren't even your chosen ones from the Abyss?" She vowed before him, the other four following suit.
Leo thought about it for a second. Then a smile came to his lips, "A necromancer, huh? Sounds like a nice idea."
"We do have a request, my Lord."
"What would that be..."
"Let us dethrone the King. What the Court is planning...would be a hindrance to you and your plans. It would be best for us, who are actually from those nations, to defeat this unfair ruler in your stead."
"Very well," Leo agreed and walked over to the boy. He snatched the hood and covered his face, "But I don't ever want to see his face again. Understood?"
Kein gave a wicked smile under her hood. "Yes, Master."
"I can't believe it! A holiday!" Oz stretched out after coming out of the Duchess Rainsworth's office with Gil and Alice.
"So, are we just going out and enjoy ourselves?" Alice asked not really getting what a holiday consisted of.
"Basically," Gilbert answered.
"I can't wait to tell Claire!" Oz exclaimed, overjoyed.
"Claire?" Gilbert asked.
"Yep, you see the two of us came to a conclusion," Oz said recalling the conversation she and him had some days ago. "Because of the occurred she considers herself your servant now. But since you're my valet then she's technically my servant too. So in other words, she goes wherever I go. Like you."
"You sound happy about that," Alice pointed out.
"Well, Claire's a very good friend so I think this would be a good relationship. Besides, she'd be tons more useful than Gil," he joked.
"O-Oz..." Gil sounded offended even though he knew that Oz was only teasing. Probably...
"How? Although it's not that hard to be better than a seaweed head," Alice inquired.
"Well, you see, Claire said that since Gil's basically my baby-sitter that she'll be my weapon carrier and second bodyguard aside from Gil."
Alice suddenly stopped and sheepishly pulled on Oz's sleeve. "So Oz, if she's your servant then she's man girl servant too, right?"
"Um." Oz was having a hard time trying not to laugh at the girl's denotation of their friend. "Yes, I suppose so."
"Then she can cook me cookies like the ones she baked for us that one time, right!" Alice was so overcome with joy that her eyes were sparkling.
"That's not her job you stupid rabbit!" Gilbert's sudden outburst and their subsequent rambling made Oz laugh. He stared out of the window to watch the evening that had already turned to night. The lights outside were already lit and the cool air was hitting against the window glass. Just then something caught his eye. Something not far from the East Courtyard's outer ring.
"Oz?" the two called when they saw he wasn't coming along to bed with them.
He turned to them with a smile. "I'll be there in a second. I'm going to go welcome Claire with the good news." Without waiting for their answer he headed in the opposite direction of their room. He arrived at the East Wing and went outside were the forest and Pandora reached each other. He was right against the side were all the rooms were for the Rainsworth's. Right where Claire's was.
His eyes fell upon the dark, night sky. The stars were blinking beautifully in the sky. But what bothered him the most was the crimson-colored moon. He gazed out into the open woods and his demeanor suddenly changed. "You may come out now."
At his beck, six figures came out of the woods, all cladded in red cloaks. From what he saw he could discern some of them. Two teen girls, one young child, an older woman, an older man, and a teen boy.
The blonde teen girl came forth and gave a slight bow before him, her blonde locks reaching the floor. In her hands, she held a spherical object that was tucked away in a red silk cloth. She arose and behind her hood Oz saw the wicked smile that came over her. "Good evening, Oz Vessalius-kun. My name is Kein. It is a pleasure to finally make you acquaintance. Unfortunately, tonight, it isn't you whom we seek."
"I know," he said in all seriousness. "It's Claire, right?"
"What a sharp young scion," Kein cooed while chuckling.
"Unfortunately, I will have to tell you to leave. Now. You have no right being here."
"On the contrary," she called flapping one of her hands. "We've come to deliver justice to those rulers that took everything from us. They've wrong us much more than we ever deserved, so it's only just."
"It's a bit much calling yourselves 'justice'," he called out.
"Well, it is what the Young Master called it." Oz frowned upon the use of that phrase. "We're doing this so that the nations won't hinder with his plans or our own. They are such a liability to have now. And by those terms—" she hid the wicked smirk behind her raised sleeve. "So are you."
Oz's eyes widened and he managed to step back just in time to avoid the attack. It had been the other teen girl that had done it. She had jumped in the air and kneed the ground, barely missing her target. The ground suddenly dented out in a big radius as if something had forced it down. She tsked before coming to her feet and stepping back to Kein's side.
Kein clapped condescendingly at his moves. "Nice job there, Oz-kun. But can you dodge this?"
Oz barely caught sight of the older man that had suddenly charged at him. He hadn't recovered his footing just yet. He wouldn't be able to avoid the attack.
But before he had a chance to even think about it, someone else had blocked it. A thin sword held back the ice blade that the man had intended to attack Oz with. And the one holding the sword was none other than Angele.
"Oz!" At hearing his name, Oz turned to find Claire and Arbel heading his way. Claire grabbed the sheath in her hands and threw it his way. Catching it, Oz swiftly unsheathed his saber and stood ready to fight. Once he saw him armed, Angele drew the ice man out of the way and took him out to fight against him.
"Aqua!" Arbel called and summoned his Chain and went for the younger girl and older woman.
"Legion!" The spears appeared just beneath the girl that had attacked Oz and drew her away to fight with her. Now all that Oz had before him were Kein and the boy.
"Kein, huh?" he said with a nervous chuckle. "That's a pretty cute name."
"How flattering," she giggled behind her sleeve. "But that won't save you from our play time." She gave a nod over to Oz and the boy took a saber out of thin air before attacking him. Oz did his best to block and avoid the attacks that the boy gave him. But when he tried to attack, it was disheartening how easily he feinted from them and continued attacking him.
"Damn," he hissed under his breath when the boy drew back. "You're pretty good." The boy didn't answer and charged at him again. Oz decided to do a bold move and feint to the side. Not catching this, the boy fell for it and gave Oz enough of an opening to attack. The doctor's mask that the boy had was shattered when Oz thrust the hilt of his sword upward and made contact. The pieces fell from his face and gave Oz enough of glance to identify him. The boy scowled and stepped back away from his scrutiny and to Kein's side.
Dumbfounded, Oz simply stared and mumbled. "You're..."
Kein's sudden applause snapped him out of his stupor. "Nice job, Oz-kun. You recognized my dead puppet, I presume." She snapped her fingers and as if called the other four rejoined her. Under her breath she conjured, "Cerberus." From nothingness, a three-headed animal appeared and stood behind them. "See you around," she cooed and made them disappear with the Chain's powers.
"Oz! Are you all right?" He turned to find the three running to get back to him.
Once there he only stared at her for awhile before answering. "Yeah." Then as if nothing had happened, he remembered what he had intended to do in the first place. "We have a holiday tomorrow. We're going to the festival."
"Ah, sweet!" she exclaimed while putting her blade away. "About time too!" They started walking back together while Angele fell a bit behind by himself.
Leaving the two others behind, he came up to him. "Angele. May I have a word with you. In private." Angele seemed a bit perplexed but agreed nonetheless and took them to his room. After closing the door behind him, Angele turned to face him.
"What is it that you wanted to talk about, Oz-kun?" he inquired curious.
"I saw the dead walk."
Angele smiled as if thinking that he was joking around. "You must be day dreaming."
"No." This time he sounded confident about what he said. "I saw him."
"Him?" Angele repeated a bit curious.
"Claire's brother, Cloude."
"You must be dreaming then. Young Prince Cloude is dead," Angele said with a sullen smile.
"But it was him. I'm sure it was him. Even Kein said 'dead puppet'."
"Kein?" Angele's tone of voice made Oz turn up to him. The sudden change of expression he had was quite something.
"Recognize the name?"
"Yes. An old student of mine, actually." Oz came over to his desk while Angele continued to speak and began looking around his stuff. "She was an apprentice—"
"This is it!" Oz's sudden outburst made Angele stare at the young boy and at the piece of cloth he held in his hands. "This is the symbol I saw in his eyes!"
Angele took the cloth in his hands and the moment he saw it, his eyes narrowed. "I thought so."
"What?"
"Kein was a student I disowned after I learned that she began practicing necromancy." Angele gave the cloth back to him. "This was the symbol she marked her own parents with when she reanimated their corpses."
"She brings the dead back to life?"
"Don't misunderstand, Oz-kun," Angele said very seriously. "No one can bring the dead back to life. Not alchemists who claim they can create it nor necromancers who claim they can bring people back. Death is a simple state of mind which the body follows in. Once the mind is gone, all that is left is an empty shell. A Golem Necromancer like herself uses those empty shells to reanimate the body. But a special item is needed for that. Something containing his essence."
"So Cloude's body is being controlled by the Golem Necromancy of Kein's," Oz concluded. "So that's why I saw the symbol in his eyes. It's not even him anymore."
"It has been awhile since his passing so his body must have already decayed plenty. The one she is using must be an artificial copy of the original. All that would be left is something that contains his essence through which he can be controlled."
"So that means Kein must have something of Cloude's!" Oz exclaimed.
"Which is why we cannot tell our King of this."
"What?" Oz called in disbelief. "We can't just not tell her. She's impersonating her brother with a bunch of dirt and clay! Not only that but she has something of his that Claire will absolutely want back!"
"Exactly the reason why we shouldn't let her know until we are sure of it," Angele said with a frown on his face. It was clear that he didn't wish to keep this hidden but what choice was there. "First, we must find that item. Golem Necromancy ends once the source of the essence is broken. So once we find it, we must destroy it. Only then can the soul piece inside the item leave to its rightful place."
"And Claire would be devastated if she had to do that," Oz finished finally understanding him.
"We must defeat Kein and Cloude's golem by ourselves, Oz-kun." Angele gave a faint smile before addressing him again, "That is if you would help me."
Oz gave him a curt nod, "Of course."
"Tomorrow is your only holiday," Angele reminded him while watching the outside through his window. "I'll remain here along with the others. I'll count on you to let the King enjoy this small chance at a reprieve that you all have."
"Of course." With that settled Oz left and began heading to his room still quite disoriented about what he had to keep to himself.
"Oz!" He turned at hearing Alice and found her in a nightgown and rubbing her eyes. He smiled. She must have been looking for him all this time. "Are you done?"
"Yeah," he said quietly trying not to let his lie show. "Let's go to sleep, Alice." He took her hand and began guiding them to the room. He still couldn't believe what he had found out tonight. He wished he could tell Claire but the more he thought of it, the more he realized how right Angele was.
If Claire found out it would only break her more than she already was.
Well, we finally get some kind of glimpse of the puppet that Kein created of Cloude cx He's back people! Even if he is fake x3
So wanna know what will happen with him and Claire? Stayed tuned for the next chapter! :D
