Translator: Silver  Editor: Namorax

「Nightmare」

When I regained consciousness I didn’t know why I was here.

The was a forest on one side and a gra.s.sy plain on the other.

The sun was high in the sky, so it was most likely around noon…… The sound of wind stroking the tree branches managed to reach the rock I was sitting on.

The smell of the moist earth reached my nose. The wind had also blown a few leaves off their branches.

I unintentionally stood up and examined the unfamiliar landscape.

…… Why had I been sitting here?

As I tried to remember what happened to me, I finally noticed my own appearance.

There was a jet black robe covering my entire body and there was a weird staff in my hands.

The staff itself was of an abnormal design and rather long.

It looked as if I were a stereotypical magician.

Although I was confused by my appearance, my body began to move as if on its own.

A black flame was sparked on the end of my staff and without a second of hesitation, the flame was thrown at a tree, instantaneously reducing it to ash.

As the black flames died out, the ashes of the incinerated tree was blown into the forest by another gust of wind.

My body raised the staff again and released the full might of the black flame onto the forest.

An entire section of the forest had became a sacrifice to the test of the magic’s full potential, and after the flames died off a good portion of the forest had been destroyed.

The branches and undergrowth that had previously blocked my line of sight were now cleared away…… my body silently walked over the remains of the forest until it eventually came across a simple road.

Without the forest blocking the way, I could easily see down the road.

When my body raised the staff again, a black orb appeared and quickly engulfed my entire body.

The next moment, the black orb had disappeared and my view of the surroundings had changed a bit.

When I looked around I understood what had happened.

The forest I had walked out of was about ten meters behind me. I even saw the trampled down area I had walked through previously.

The spell my body had used was a transfer magic spell.

Seemingly satisfied with the results, my body began to nimbly traverse the forest using transfer magic.

Before long I reached the ended of the forest.

The road that snaked through the forest continued on into the hilly area that opened up before me.

When I looked up I saw that the sun still hung near the center of the sky.

I used transfer magic to leave the forest behind and began making my way through the hilly area.

Soon, I came across a luxurious cargo carriage parked beside the road.

However, just from looking at the scene at this distance I understand that this wasn’t a mere rest stop.

There were multiple arrows sticking out of the carriage and there was no one sitting in the coachman’s seat. There were four horses tethered to the front of the carriage, but one of them had been hit by an arrow.

Next to the carriage, a group of men were fighting one another with shields and swords.

One group of men were wearing similar sets of light body armor and carried the same small shield and short swords. A few of them were also riding their own horse.

The other group that was apparently attacking the carriage’s guards had mismatched weapons and armor and were most likely some kind of bandits or highwaymen, given their dirty appearance.

The thieves outnumbered the guards two-to-one and were taking full advantage of it.

The situation had reached the point where the guards were falling one after another to the bandits’ attacks.

From my point of view, it was clear that the carriage was mere moments away from falling into the bandits’ hands.

My body raised the staff once more and was completely covered by the black sphere again.

In an instant the distance between me and the carriage shortened to about one hundred meters without any of the guards or bandits noticing.

The black flames once again ignited and I began to shoot fireb.a.l.l.s at the bandits.

My aim was true as the fireb.a.l.l.s struck some of the bandits and flared up into a ma.s.sive fire pillar, before reducing them to ashes.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!”

The bandits became disorganized as their companions were suddenly burnt alive before their very eyes.

The guards were also confused for a moment as they watched the bandits be consumed by the flames.

One of the bandits finally caught sight of me and pointed me out to everyone else.

“Hooo!!! There’s a magician over there!!!”

The bandits focused on me before they charged at me with their weapons raised.

However, almost all of them were shot down by my black fireb.a.l.l.s before they could even reach me.

I burnt any bandit who opposed me to death as I slowly made my way towards the carriage.

Despite the gruesome sight of watching people burn to death in front of me, I felt no pity for the bandits whatsoever.

“Boss! This guy is ridiculously strong!! We’ve gotta run!!”

One of the bandits called out to a nearby large bandit before turning his back on me and running away at full speed.

I pointed my staff at the fleeing man and shot a fireball at him.

The man was reduced to bones after being engulfed in black flames.

“f.u.c.k!! Who are you, b.a.s.t.a.r.d!?”

The tall man referred to as boss shouted in irritation and indignation as he threw his weapon at me.

The weapon headed straight for me and managed to catch the hood of my dark cloak.

My face became visible to everyone in the area after my hood fell on my shoulders.

For some reason this caused everyone to freeze for a moment.

Then everyone began moving at once as if their collective switches had been flipped. The bandits scattered in every direction, screaming their heads off, while the guards drew their bows and fired arrows at me.

There wasn’t much distance between me and the guards and the arrows were shot straight at me, but the moment the arrows made contact with my cloak they simply fell the ground.

“Why?”

“!?”

Even though I came to help these people it’s come to this. The guards stepped back in shock before one of them started to shout orders to the others.

“You lot go ahead with the carriage!! Two people stay with me to hold this thing back!!”

The supposed guard leader and two nearby guards drew their swords again. The remaining guards untied the wounded horse and set off on the cargo carriage.

When I took a step forward the leader raised his sword and shouted again.

“Don’t take another step forward!! You guys flank the thing’s right and left!!”

The leader dug his feet into the horse’s sides as he said that, making the horse charge at me.

The other two responded by leading their own horses around to my sides.

While my attention had been focused on them, the leader’s sword closed in on me in a flash. I was about to dodge the attack using transfer magic, but the two that had flanked me were attacking from behind.

Managing to dodge one of the attacks and block the other one with my staff, I turned around just in time to see the leader leaping from his horse to perform an overhead slash.

A dull, metallic sound rang out and sparks flew as my staff and the leader’s sword collided.

“This monster can use some sort of strange magic!!

Blue veins bulged on the leader’s forehead as he desperately attempted to sink his sword into my body.

As the leader glared at me while trying to push me back I was able to catch a glimpse of myself reflected in his eyes.

There wasn’t a nose or flesh of any kind on the skull that was my head, and pale red lights sat within my empty eye sockets.

The surprise of seeing my face caused me to touch it with the hand I wasn’t using to hold off the leader.

My fingers trembled a little when I felt the lifeless, cold bone that my face had become.

“Return to the earth, undead!!”

The leader took my momentary shock to disengage from our struggle and brandish his sword again.

“……annoying.”

Feeling that this affair had become rather troublesome, I raised my staff and launched a fireball at the man. The column of black flame that sprung up instantly reduced the man to a pile of ashes.

“You monster!! Haaaa!!!”

“You’re the captain’s enemy!!!”

The remaining two guards were enraged at their captain’s death and gave me a death glare as the tried to cut me down. However, I managed to dodge within a hair’s breath and shoot them down with fireb.a.l.l.s.

Once the two guards had been silenced, the only thing that could be heard in the area was the sound of the embers burning on the ground.

I didn’t feel much of anything as I looked around and realized that the carriage was already gone.

When I turned towards the direction the carriage had been facing, I could its backside in the distance.

However, it was only for a brief moment before the carriage crested a hill and disappeared.

I absentmindedly watched the carriage disappear before I looked down at my staff and sighed.

After standing there for a while, I decided to head back towards the forest I had came from.

As day gave way to night, I took a seat on a nearby boulder and looked up at the crimson evening sky.

Having realized my form in this world, I started to think about my future…… as I considered my options, I saw multiple lights appearing over the horizon and after some time pa.s.sed, I noticed the lights were heading for my current location.

When a group of one hundred horse-riding, spear-wielding soldiers caught sight of me, their eyes reflected an anger hotter than the setting sun.

The armor the soldiers were wearing and the weapons they had seemed to be one step above the guards’ equipment and they were all wearing mantles on their backs.

Originally, the mantles had been probably white, but under the setting sun they a.s.sumed a red hue similar to the capes of roman centurions.

Leading the soldiers was a man equipped with a luxurious set of armor, who was vigorously raising his weapon in the sky.

When the luxurious knight gave the signal, the ground began to rumble as all the soldiers rushed me simultaneously.

I began hurling black fireb.a.l.l.s at my attackers, but it was like throwing pebbles against a ma.s.sive wave, for when one rider fell several more replaced him.

The cavalry had blocked my ability to escape with transfer magic and spears were quickly approaching me.

Though I tried my best to dodge them, I was repeatedly stabbed by spears which carried enough force to crack some of my bones.

The soldiers at the rear of the wave made sure to lodge their spears into my body when they caught sight of me trying to dodge.

If this had been my original body I’d be dead, but with this body I only felt a slight amount of pain. I casually pulled out the spears, throwing one of them at the group of riders that were charging me once again, nailing one of them to the ground.

Despite that, the soldiers didn’t even flinch and prepared their spears to attack me.

“Depressing……!”

A low toned voice left my mouth as I hit the end of my staff against the ground.

A black sphere appeared at my feet and leaped into the corpses of the dead soldiers.

As the shadows were suck into the corpses, the bones of the deceased began to rise in a ragdoll-like manner. The reanimated corpses picked up their spears and began running towards their former comrades.

The soldiers didn’t stop their charge when they saw this, despite the fear and unease that was clearly visible on their faces.

…… Then h.e.l.l was unleashed upon the soldiers.

The reanimated soldiers suddenly raised their spears to the heavens. Dark tendrils were released from the undead’s weapons and jumped at their former comrades.

Holes opened up in the chests of the soldiers from with blood and organs flowing out…… soon this quiet hill was reduced to a h.e.l.lscape as screams and the sound of mortal combat filled the area.

Before long, there were no humans left standing, only the silent group of one hundred soldiers was left standing in the place that had been their grave.

At the center of this group of undead soldiers was a skeleton dressed in a dark robe, who proceeded to hit his staff against the ground before raising it into the sky.

The undead soldiers began to silently and slowly walk down the road that led to the hill.

The day had completely given way to night, and the footsteps of the funeral procession were swallowed by the darkness as they marched along.

It was at that moment my consciousness faded away.