/n/i-became-the-first-prince-847/c-105
chapter-104

Left behind, Forgotten, and Returned (1)

The dead had come to the fortress at night, without fail, and the soldiers of Winter Castle had to suffer as they heard the sound of their lost ones throughout the night.

The first day entailed no more than dealing with the soldiers who had fallen for the lure of the undead.

On the second day, the situation was the same. I stood on the wall every night and fiercely growled at the darkness. The darkness would stop once I started reciting. It would study me and then disappear. I spent the third and the fourth night like that.

When the fifth day dawned, the boundary between night and day had begun to crumble.

Mid-afternoon, with the sun still in the sky, the dead had not yet withdrawn. The sound of their weeping echoed all over the castle. The grief spread by the dead during the night began to affect the soldiers in earnest.

The soldiers were suffering from sorrow and longing for those who they would never see again.

I had to stand on that wall and watch as they wept.

Although they knew that the undead were causing such mental wounds, the feelings of loss had become etched like scars upon the depths of their souls. None could tend to such wounds, so I was left with little choice.

I had to prevent the dead from growing stronger and wilder during the night.

Another day passed.

In the gloomy atmosphere of the castle, even the knights who held accumulated mana within their bodies began to shake.

“Your Highness, I’d rather open the gates and fight them,” the bold Count Balahard stated.

“Not possible.”

Vincent gave a cruel chuckle at the bad state that the soldiers found themselves in.

“Night and day, these grief-stricken soldiers do not know when it will end or what they can do. It is too harsh to expect them to endure more!”

“It is better than being taken over by ghosts.”

“Your Highness, in a short time, you will lose the strength to hold onto your sword! I’d rather open the gates and find a way for us to go before these-“

“That’s what they want,” I said in a firm voice as I pressed my point.

And it was exactly what these beings wanted. The dead were now waiting for the gates to open themselves. They wanted to take over the bodies of the living, to claim their blood and flesh.

“So you would like to wipe them out before they get in?”

“What weapon do you think I’d use to kill ghosts, to kill beings of unreality?”

If it was possible to cut the things down with swords, I would have done so already. Since ghosts were more like illusions, like a virtual manifestation of the death realm, conventional weapons could do nothing against them – at least as long as they hid in the darkness without taking on corporeal form.

“The soldiers’ patience has reached its limit,” Vincent said in a heavy tone.

I already knew this. Rangers were wandering around the castle, their faces gloomy, and the sound of complaints from all over the place was a sure sign that the soldiers were reaching their limit.

“The soldiers of Balahard are strong. They will not fall.”

All I could tell Vincent was to wait; the time would soon come.

I silently awaited that moment, and it came when the eighth night fell upon us.

‘Kyuuuhaaaahaaahuuu,’ the ghosts gathering under the walls wailed and whispered each night, and borrowed the voices of departed souls, crying out in those voices in a cruel mockery of life.

‘Kyuuaaah aaahhhhhh!’

Thousand of voices, those of deceased spouses and lost parents and children, roared in their collective wailing. Thick clumps of darkness now spread wide over the snowfield, permeating under the ground.

When I saw this, I shouted with all my effort, “All, prepare for battle!”

The knights took up the order fiercely and shouted it along the lines, “Each ranger to his location!”

The rangers, wracked by depression where they stood under the walls, now got up from their seats in amazement as they heard the orders being roared out.

‘Buwooo woo wooo wooo!’ spread the horn’s cry throughout the castle.

“Unseal the warehouse! Bring the weapons to the walls!”

“What are you doing, boys!? Move it, move it!” the knights who were guarding the gates shouted as they kicked the ranger’s asses, telling them to get their shit together.

The rangers who had flocked to the castle walls now struggled to take up their usual posts.

“What about your bow!?”

“Oh, I forgot!”

Some of the rangers had not even brought their weapons, standing around with empty hands.

I frowned as I watched this uninteresting skit play out on the wall. They were not acting professionally at all, but I didn’t blame them.

They had suffered the siege of the dead for an entire week now. Quite a few soldiers had collapsed or lost their minds. It was great that the rangers could even manage to follow orders, even if they followed them too hurriedly.

“All are ready for battle!” came the report of the knights when the rangers had finally taken up their positions. It was then that the ground began to shake.

Through the pure-white snowfield, there appeared hands of rotten, blueish flesh. Next followed the forearms and the blue-hued heads, hungry blue heads.

Bodies popped up all across the snowfield.

I watched it all with a firm face.

I had known that the dead would never be patient enough to await the opening of Winter Castle’s gates by themselves. The appetite of the deceased was not a patient hunger – they could never wait too long to enjoy their dinner. I had expected that, sooner or later, they would come to directly knock on our gates with physical bodies.

Still, there was something that I had not expected. It was that the corpses the dead would use as vessels would be so intact. They had entered the remains of Balahard’s soldiers and knights who had died fighting in the harsh winters, generation after generation.

The bodies of those soldiers who could not be buried now awoke after their long, frozen slumber. One could see the signs of the battles they had waged, with a limb missing here or there, but their human shapes remained more or less intact.

And among them rose the corpses of those who had but so recently died upon this field.

“Zane…?”

“My God! It’s Gibson!”

The rangers groaned as they started recognizing former comrades. Other veteran rangers kept their eyes peeled as they stared across the snow. Their faces were ashen pale as they looked to see whether they could recognize anyone dear to them among all those terrible corpses.

I did the same as them. Please don’t be here. Please don’t…