Chapter 1: When it was strange, there was a farming thing (1)

No matter where I looked, it was a mountain of corpses.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I was roaming a battlefield.

All the corpses were priced goods.

This was, after all, a shopping district specializing in necromancers.

There was a time, long ago, when necromancy was a forbidden art and living corpses were objects of terror.

But now, recognized as a mainstream magic, such a thing was unimaginable.

Now, the living dead had become reliable partners for mages.

We could easily see undead everywhere in our daily lives.

These things, densely displayed, standing like mannequins.

Corpse dolls that would be revived, becoming one with their necromancer.

These were Cadaver Dolls.

From humans to beastfolk, elves, magical beasts, and even mythical beasts.

Perhaps because it was a high-end shop, the cadavers were diverse.

The condition of the dolls displayed behind the large window was excellent.

There wasn’t a single spot of decay.

‘Please, let me find one here!’

It was now or never.

I closed my eyes tightly and opened the shop door.

“Welcome, customer.”

Jingle. A bell rang.

A male employee, with a full-blown customer service smile, greeted me.

It was a moment that made me needlessly nervous.

“Hello.”

“Yes. Are you looking for any particular cadaver?”

I barely managed to open my lips, stiff as if from rigor mortis.

“I’m a Revenant student. I’m looking for a cadaver to make my soul partner.”

“I see. Starting from the upcoming second semester, acquiring a corpse doll is mandatory.

There will be external practicals as well.”

The employee, seemingly knowledgeable in this field, nodded.

Royal Revenant Necromancy Academy.

It was an academy specializing in necromancy, particularly Corpse Puppetry, which deals with Cadaver Dolls.

I was a student at Revenant.

…To be precise, I was barely still a student.

Because the threat of failing was imminent.

My grades in other subjects were decent, but my Corpse Puppetry was utterly hopeless.

The cadaver paired with me wouldn’t budge.

Not even a headless chicken, which even a child could supposedly revive if they had talent.

Chicken, Samgyetang, Dakgalbi, and so on.

I failed so often that I ended up eating chicken for all three meals.

The smell of chicken droppings still hadn’t left my mouth.

“Isaac Pedrolino. It pains me to make you repeat a year, but it can’t be helped.”

This morning, I finally received an academic warning from the professor.

Even though I stayed in the dormitory during the break and diligently attended supplementary classes, there was no progress.

“Ah, no way…”

I replied in a hoarse voice, almost a groan.

If someone had seen my face then, it would have been paler than a drowned corpse.

“I’ve given you plenty of chances.

If you can’t even raise a whole chicken, there’s nothing more I can do.”

The professor said with a slightly annoyed voice.

“Ugh.”

“Starting next semester, we’ll be using corpse dolls in earnest.

You have two days until it begins.

If you can’t show results by then, it’s over.

Don’t come to the academy anymore.”

I staggered up from the chair.

Perhaps pitying my appearance, the professor added, as if doing me a favor.

“The cadavers provided by the academy are, after all, mass-produced low-grade items.

Try to find a well-embalmed corpse.”

His words were sound, but for me, it was a difficult task.

As befitting the name of the best Corpse Master school, most students already had a proper corpse doll beside them.

Among them, some even had the remains of renowned heroes or divine beasts.

All of them were S-grade cadavers, carefully preserved by their families from early on.

The status of a necromancer family was determined not by their title, but by their ‘corpse spoon’.

Especially if fierce battles had occurred around their territory, or if they possessed the remains of a named ancestor, their honor was even greater.

My family.

To be precise, the Pedrolino noble family was rather pathetic.

‘They stubbornly insisted on being paladins until the very end, then were swept away by the tides of the era and hastily converted to necromancers.’

The corpses of paladins, by nature, resisted necromancy, making them utterly useless.

It was a day when I resented my ancestors who, for whatever reason, had stood against the darkness.

Anyway, my fate rested on the 1 million Necrons I had scraped together every last speck of.

If I failed and had to repeat a year, I would turn into a cadaver myself.

The employee led me with a cheerful demeanor.

Unlike my burning anxiety, we were in front of a coffin from which cool air emanated.

Inside, a lion beastfolk with rugged muscles and a wild mane lay dormant.

“Then, how about the corpse of Hercules, the fierce gladiator with ninety-nine wins and one loss out of a hundred battles?

He’s excellent with all cold weapons and incredibly strong.

Aside from the knife wound in his neck, he’s perfectly fine, isn’t he?”

“That’s very impressive.”

I turned my gaze to the side, where there was a red-haired woman’s cadaver.

Riding the momentum, the employee quickly explained that one as well.

“This young lady, Penny, is a 6th-circle elemental mage, specializing in fire.

As you know, undead are weak to fire, so she would give you an advantage at the academy.

Plus, she’s young and beautiful, isn’t she?”

What to do.

Both were named individuals, and I was practically drooling.

“What are the prices?”

“Hercules is 160 million Necrons.

Penny is 230 million Necrons.

If you purchase them in a lump sum, you can customize them as you wish.

I’ll throw in plenty of options too.”

Hundreds of millions of Necrons?!

That’s so expensive my eyes nearly popped out.

It’s not enough even if two zeros were added to my current funds.

I stammered in response.

“Don’t you have anything cheaper?

I’m a student.”

“How much were you looking to spend, customer?”

“1 million Necrons.”

The employee’s amiable demeanor, which had been there just moments ago, suddenly changed.

I was kicked out of the shop on the spot….

****

The situation was the same at other shops.

There were indeed places that offered outrageous discounts.

However, upon seeing a suspicious clause in the contract stating that if I died within six months, my corpse had to be donated to the shop, I fled as if escaping.

[Tires are cheaper than shoes, and corpses are even cheaper than tires!]

[Clearance! Clearance! We’re selling a friendly zombie family.

Ah! Don’t eat your daughter’s brain, you idiot!]

[It’s Cerberus! A Cerberus cadaver with two Hell Hound heads.

Although one head is a Pomeranian, that’s its charm…]

A street vendor’s stall, a little distance from the shopping district.

I moved my steps just in case, but it only led to more disappointment.

There were only cadavers that had rotted beyond control, or suspicious chimera undead.

As the saying goes, cheap things are useless, and these weren’t worth buying.

The cadavers provided by the academy were better quality by comparison.

As I sighed so heavily it felt like the ground would collapse from anxiety, a low, dignified voice reached my ears.

“Hey there, charming young man.”

It was an old man in a black robe, like a necromancer from an older era.

His long beard stretched out from beneath his robe.

In front of his bamboo mat, there was only a single rusty shovel.

He wouldn’t be selling that as a product, would he?

“Yes, I’m talking to you.

Come over here.”

Just as I was about to leave, thinking I’d misheard, he called out to me again.

Oh well.

I don’t care anymore.

I walked towards him, half resigned.

“What is it, old sir?”

“Why are you so dispirited, young man?! What’s your name?”

“Isaac.

Isaac Pedrolino.”

I blurted out my name to a stranger in a daze.

“Pedrolino? Hoho.

The one whose family has served as Paladin Commanders for generations?”

The old man stroked his beard as if something had just occurred to him.

“No one knows about that anymore.

Are you perhaps an acquaintance of my grandfather?”

Feeling a sense of welcome, I lowered my guard.

“Something like that.

Since we’ve met like this, it must be fate.

If you have any worries, tell this old man about them.”

If he knew my grandfather, then there was nothing to lose, right?

Despite it being our first meeting, I poured out the difficulties I was currently facing to the old man.

“Hmph.

There’s a simple solution, isn’t there?”

After silently listening to my complaints, the old man clucked his tongue.

Then, he tapped the rusty shovel with his hand and said:

“Exhumation破墓.”

Breaking graves?

I tilted my head and asked back.

“Exhumation?”

“To put it crudely, it’s grave robbing.”

Has this old geezer gone senile?

Then again, I was an idiot for thinking there would be a proper solution.

Without hiding my disgusted expression, I rejected the ingenious plan he proposed.

“Grave robbing is a crime strictly punished by royal decree.

And most tombs have already been plundered…”

GRAAAAAH-!

The old man roared so loudly my ears felt like they would burst.

“Kids these days have no romance!”

“Ro-romance?”

“Back in my day, we infiltrated pyramids to get pharaoh mummies.

We fought bloody battles with bald monks in temples to steal mummified monks.

We searched Dragon Valleys (龍谷) naked to find dragon bones.

Are corpses something you buy and sell?

You dig them up and steal them!

When you find a good corpse, you shout, ‘I found it!’

That’s a true necromancer, a ground wolf that chews on spirits and bones!!”

It was bluster, almost sophistry, but it had a strangely appealing resonance.

The old man gripped the rusty shovel tightly, then handed it to me.

“Here.

Night is coming soon.

The night is short.

Dig.

Get your own cadaver!

With this shovel, which has excavation effects, you’ll have nothing to fear.”

“Are you just giving me this precious thing?”

“No.

It’s 700,000 Necrons.”

That’s a rip-off.

This old man.

─This is what happened until I exhumed a squishy lich while grave robbing.