A small-scale conflict—hardly worthy of being called a war—had just come to an end. The members of the Ban Ard Department of Rituals, looking as though they had just been pulled out of muddy water, were summoned before Ban Ard's true leader, Sunny.
Sunny didn't address them right away. Instead, he glared angrily at a mage from Rissberg Group, arguing furiously.
"What do you mean, it disappeared?" Sunny jabbed a finger at the blackened crater before them. "That Wild Hunt warrior fell right there! Everyone saw it! At that time, your people had it completely surrounded—"
"Master Sunny," the mage opposite him spoke with respect and restraint, though his tone clearly carried irritation, "Disappeared means exactly that. It was here moments ago, and now it isn't. It's gone. We can't find it. It's as if it never existed."
"But—"
"No but, Master Sunny." The mage interrupted rudely, patience finally spent. "If I recall correctly, half a year ago Ban Ard supposedly wiped out dozens of Wild Hunt warriors, yet not one single corpse was left behind."
"Why, then, do you expect Rissberg Group—an organization that ranks below Ban Ard among the mages—to succeed where you failed?"
"Besides…"
"Rissberg Group is not subordinate to Ban Ard. We are here to assist you."
The mage paused, glancing at the disheveled, downcast ritualists of Ban Ard who had just arrived. His lips curved in a faintly contemptuous smile.
"Rather than waste your breath on me, perhaps you should think about how to explain to the Brotherhood Sorcerer's Inquisitors that you used large-scale necromancy and still let all the elves escape."
"And you know as well as I do—none of the Brotherhood's inquisitors are easy to deal with."
"Now, please step aside, Master Sunny. I have work to do."
"We must find those skeletal riders that soar through the sky—to avenge your losses."
When he finished, the mage ignored the storm-dark expression on Sunny's face. With a shallow, arrogant bow, he straightened his spine and walked off, clutching a thick tome of parchment, heading toward where the Rissberg Group's mages were gathered.
Sunny stood there silently for a long time, his face dark as thunder.
Behind him, the mages of the Ban Ard Department of Rituals exchanged uneasy looks, none daring to speak.
"The long-ears escaped?" Sunny turned suddenly.
The rage and gloom on his face had vanished. He was expressionless now—his tone detached, as though asking about a cat that had gone missing around Ban Ard recently.
Yet the chill that swept through the ritualists was unmistakable.
As Sunny's eyes bored into them, Ignaz, his informant and the nominal head of the department, swallowed hard and stepped forward.
"Master Sunny… the elves took advantage of the Conjunction of the Spheres, breaking through the necromantic barrier to escape. But—"
"Did you see what I just went through?" Sunny interrupted him abruptly, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
No one dared respond. They didn't even dare exchange glances. They simply stared down at the scorched, blackened earth, as though they might find the remains of the elven leader Simlas Finn aep Dabairr buried within.
"I—the dean of Ban Ard, the leader you all chose, the future king of the Sorcerer Kingdom—was just humiliated by a bureaucratic mage from Rissberg Group!"
"And what can I say about it?"
Sunny's gaze swept slowly across the group.
"Tell me—what can I say?"
"Even half-dead elves can slip right out of your grasp… Don't tell me about Conjunctions of the Spheres or the Wild Hunt…"
He raised a hand to cut off one of the ritual mages who had dared lift his head.
"It's been a week. I gave you nearly a full week, even lifting the Brotherhood's ban on necromancy for your sake."
"One week. To completely and swiftly annihilate every last elf. Was that really so hard?"
"Malachi—tell me. Was it?"
Sunny's cold gaze locked on Malachi, standing beside Ignaz—the core member of the department.
Malachi met his stare, eyes burning, veins bulging on the backs of his clenched fists. Blood welled from his palms and dripped onto the charred soil.
Sunny regarded him in silence for a long while before shifting his eyes to the others.
"A few months ago, you all told me you didn't want to be mere tools maintaining magical barriers. I gave you a chance."
"And you disappointed me."
"You used necromancy to turn ten thousand living soldiers into undead—and achieved nothing."
"You've made both me and Ban Ard into a laughingstock in front of Rissberg Group and Grandmaster Ortolan."
"You yourselves are a joke."
"Now, all of you—"
Before he could finish, the same mage from Rissberg Group who had mocked him earlier approached again, forcing Sunny to fall silent.
"Grandmaster Ortolan wishes to speak with you."
Sunny cast one last dark glance at the mages of Ban Ard's ritual department, then turned and strode toward the direction where Ortolan awaited.
They hadn't gone far — not even halfway to the steward mage from Rissberg Group — when the man suddenly stopped, shaking his head.
"Not you, Master Sunny," he said. "Or rather, not only you."
"Grandmaster Ortolan wishes to see the ones who were in this forest from the very beginning."
The ritual mages of Ban Ard, who had just endured a storm of harsh rebukes, exchanged uneasy glances.
-----------------------------------
When they were brought to a place not far from the cave where they had been hiding, they saw a sight that made them fall silent.
A large crowd surrounded what was once a forest clearing — though "clearing" was no longer an accurate word. After the combined bombardments of the Wild Hunt, Ban Ard's mages, and the Rissberg Group sorcerers, the area was nothing more than a landscape of deep and shallow craters, scarred earth frozen or scorched, and terrain warped and raised by chaotic magic.
Beyond the crowd crouched a menagerie of monsters — some with reptilian scales like dragon-lizards, bearing long tails and disturbingly human faces; others with humanoid bodies but the bulbous, single-eyed heads of cyclopes. There were also grotesque amalgamations of beasts and vermin — limbs, wings, and organs mismatched into things that defied classification.
Even the necromancy-hardened mages of Ban Ard's Ritual Department — men who revered life and death alike — felt a deep, instinctive revulsion.
The kind of revulsion that twisted one's stomach by reflex.
But none dared show it. No one dared even let disgust flicker across their face. Instead, they feigned admiration, gazing upon the abominations as though they were marvels of arcane beauty.
Because in the midst of those monsters stood a man — hair and beard both a dignified silver-gray, older even than Ban Ard's late dean and source of magical lineage, Hen Gedymdeith — the founder of the North Continent's second greatest mage organization, one of the Five of the Chapter of the Gift and the Art: Grandmaster Ortolan.
Those monsters were the living embodiment of his genius — each one a walking thesis, a monument to a lifetime of mastery in the field of genetic mutation.
At the newcomers' arrival, the monsters tensed, feathers bristling, muscles coiling for attack.
Only when Ortolan raised his hand did they relax again, lying back down in submission, making the legendary archmage seem like the beast-king from some knightly tale.
That illusion, however, vanished the moment Ortolan spoke.
"Sunny, you've come."
Ortolan's voice was calm, wise. Stroking a lock of his gray beard, he was the very image of the venerable sage from every legend.
"I'm here, Grandmaster Ortolan," Sunny replied respectfully, curiosity flickering in his eyes. "Have you discovered where the Wild Hunt fled?"
Ortolan shook his head slowly, his long beard swaying over his black robe.
"Those ghostly riders — the ones said to gallop upon skeletal horses — did not flee."
"They simply failed to find what they sought here, and rather than waste their strength on us, they withdrew."
He lifted his gaze toward the faint light of dawn breaking through the canopy, eyes old yet still bright, filled with reflection.
"I always thought — even when I first heard, six months ago, that Ban Ard had been attacked by the Wild Hunt — that the stories were only that: stories."
"The tales of spectral knights heralding war, descending amid lightning, thunder, and nightmare howls — I thought them no more than myth."
"Yet today… I have seen the legend with my own eyes."
"For a moment, I felt as though I had returned centuries past, hearing my mother — long since gone to Melitele's golden fields of plenty — warning me with stories of the skull-faced riders in the sky, telling me to sleep before they came for me."
He chuckled softly.
"Heh… heh… heh."
Those gathered around him smiled politely, nodding in forced agreement.
"Indeed. Who would have thought the monsters of legend could truly exist?"
"Yet even monsters that foretell war are no match for the power of our Rissberg Civil Cooperative's sorcery and constructs — they fled in disgrace."
"All thanks to Grandmaster Ortolan's original binding spells — and the flight beasts he created!"
"If only we could've captured one! What a magnificent thesis that would've made… at the very least, a perfect stepping stone into the High Council's ranks!"
"Yes, yes! More than just one paper — capturing even a single Wild Hunt rider would raise Rissberg's share of council seats from twenty percent to twenty-five at least!"
At the mention of research papers, all the mages of Rissberg Group shared the same look of regret — and sighed in unison.
The Brotherhood of Sorcerers placed great importance on what they called the "contributions of mages to humanity."
But how could such a contribution be measured or quantified?
In the early days — when there were still few mages — recognition came from the nomination of great archmages whose reputations shook the Continent.
However, as the number of sorcerers steadily grew, and the supernatural world withdrew more and more from worldly conflicts, mages turned entirely to research instead of war. When even archmages became buried in their own experiments, the cursed foundation of it all — the academic paper — became the only standard of evaluation.
Among sorcerers, there was a saying: "An illiterate hedge wizard, even if he learns the forbidden spell that could annihilate the entire North, still won't get through the lowest door of the Brotherhood's councils."
"But a farmer from Ban Ard who happens to pick up a lost thesis of a master along the roadside, and then dons a proper mage's robe, might sit as a senior councilor — deciding the fates of those very same 'lords of magic.'"
Of course, that was just a joke. Advancement within the Council required more than publications — practical ability was also assessed.
Still, the humor revealed the truth: the weight of a thesis in the Brotherhood was second only to one's life.
At this point, Sunny's expression darkened.
After all, Ban Ard held the most seats in the Brotherhood's High Council.
Those seats were limited — and unless major upheavals struck other factions, any new position gained by Rissberg Group could only be seized from Ban Ard's share.
Worse yet, these Rissberg sorcerers — men whose abilities and reputations within the magical world were far inferior to his — were openly dividing up Ban Ard's council seats right in front of him.
Sunny's gaze slid toward one of his own — a ritual mage from Ban Ard — and in his eyes flashed a cold glint.
"Enough," came a calm, commanding voice.
Grandmaster Ortolan raised his wrinkled hand, and the chatter fell silent instantly — as though an orchestra had been halted by a single flick of the conductor's baton.
Gesturing with that same ancient hand toward Sunny, Ortolan said, "Come, Sunny. Bring your apprentices — let them see this…"
Sunny led the mages of Ban Ard's Ritual Department forward.
Only then did they see what lay before Ortolan.
A corpse — or rather, a zombie — was sprawled at his feet.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary undead.
Its flesh was rotten, muscles exposed yet taut with grotesque strength; its sharp canine teeth and twisted, feral face made it hard to believe such a creature had once been human.
And yet… there was nothing special about it.
It was just a normal zombie — one of countless others lying all around them.
No—something was wrong.
Sunny stepped closer, frowning deeply.
It wasn't quite the same. He might not specialize in necromancy, but a zombie — such a classic product of that forbidden art — was something every academically trained sorcerer was familiar with.
More accurately, intimately familiar with.
Necromancy was a forbidden school within the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. But to supervise, identify, and guard against it, one first had to know what its creations looked like — otherwise, an unwary mage could easily lose his life before realizing what he was dealing with.
Thus, as long as one wasn't some untrained hedge wizard, or a dropout expelled from Ban Ard or Aretuza, one should easily recognize the traits of zombies, revenants, and wraiths.
Even those very same dropouts had usually been warned — repeatedly — by well-meaning mentors.
After all, a corpse that once held magical talent was one of the most precious materials a necromancer could hope for.
But this zombie… its eyes were wrong.
No zombie's eyes ever shone this red. Its left eye, in particular, gleamed like a flawless ruby of the highest grade.
Sunny turned toward Ortolan, and their eyes met — Ortolan's sharp and clear despite his years.
"Is this one of Ban Ard's creations?" Sunny asked.
No, it wasn't something Ortolan himself had crafted. But what kind of peculiarity could make such an old master take this thing so seriously?
Sunny was just about to shake his head — when something occurred to him. He froze mid-motion, turning his gaze toward the elder mage Ignaz, and after a brief pause, his eyes settled on Malachy.
Malachy stiffened. He seemed ready to shake his head, to deny whatever thought had crossed Sunny's mind — but then hesitated, his thick brows drawing together.
Ortolan noticed instantly. Stepping forward, he narrowed his eyes.
"What did you remember?" he asked softly.
Malachy cast a brief glance at Sunny before answering, uncertainly: "When the battle with the Wild Hunt began… I felt something. A presence. It was as if… something was watching me."
"And when I turned to follow that feeling, I saw… a zombie."
"This one?" Ortolan asked.
Malachy hesitated, then said quietly,"I can't be sure. But… it looked very much like it."
Ortolan's lips curved, intrigue flickering in his eyes.
"A presence, you say? …Now that is interesting."
As he spoke, the old mage raised his withered right hand and made a small, effortless gesture.
The zombie's ruby-like left eye detached with a faint crack — and drifted neatly into the palm of Ortolan, the most powerful sorcerer in the Northern Continent.
...........
📢Advanced chapters on p@treaon📢
For advance chapters: [email protected]/Uchiha_Itachi007 (replace @ with a)
1. 20 advanced chapters of The Witcher: Wolf School's Hunting Notes.
2. 30 advanced chapters of What year is this? You're still writing a traditional diary?.