Occupational Hazard
"Hey, hey! Over there! In front!"
Observation Post No. 671, perched along the Exploration Boundary.
They had been maintaining their equipment to head out in search of Klein, who still hadn't returned even after the scheduled ejection time had long passed.
Then, at a fellow watcher's shout, they stepped outside and stared across the shadow-covered snowfield.
"Hah… he really came back alive."
"I'm not hallucinating right now, am I?"
The unknown land stretching beyond the Exploration Boundary.
For anyone to head there was practically the same as declaring suicide.
The moment someone stepped foot there by mistake, it became a demonic zone filled with endless hallucinations.
According to reports from decades ago, there were even horrifying rumors that some people had eaten their own companions after entering.
Yet contrary to everyone's expectations, Young Master Klein crossed the snowfield in a perfectly straight line without wavering even once.
And now he had returned as though nothing had happened at all.
Naturally, the watchers were dumbfounded.
"Y-You really came back alive?"
"You're not a ghost or an undead or something, right?"
What's more, unlike when he left, Klein had been carrying something on his back.
To bring something back from that unknown land…
The unimaginable had happened, and fear filled the watchers' eyes before curiosity ever could.
"Me, undead? You planning to get arrested for insulting a noble?"
In the end, it was only after hearing Klein Young Master's usual blunt tone that the watchers truly realized he had returned.
One peculiar detail remained:
he never told anyone what exactly he had brought back from there.
According to the watchers who accompanied him, it had felt like a giant slab of stone in texture and hardness, yet carried no sense of weight whatsoever.
"…Is this really everything you intend to report?"
"Yep. That's all."
I sipped the black tea Pie had served while brushing aside Corax's questioning.
Report to the watchers upon returning to the post.
Report to Vice Commander Boran on the way back.
And after arriving, report again to Knight Commander Corax.
Why the hell were the people of Leinrant so obsessed with reports?
I'd spent at least half a day buried in paperwork since returning to the Wall, so of course I was sick of it.
"You don't need to falsify reports like this. You can simply state that it's confidential."
Corax waved my half-assed report around as he spoke, but I merely shrugged as if I had no idea what he meant.
"Confidential? I don't have anything like that."
"Then we'll proceed under that assumption."
With a short sigh, Corax set my report on fire.
"What, you want me to write it again?"
"No. That won't be necessary."
A knight commander playing with fire in his office in the middle of the night.
As I watched my report burn away atop the desk, Corax shook his head.
"'Young Master remained secluded within the Wall after the battle. No unusual activity occurred.'
That is what I'll report to the main house."
"You sure that's okay? That'd be a false report."
At my question, Corax thought for a moment before shrugging.
"Better a false report than admitting we sent a Leinrant young master beyond the Exploration Boundary."
…Come to think of it, he had a point.
Unable to find anything to argue with, I simply nodded.
For the Great Ravens—who were infamous even in the North for their secrecy—to hide my movements like this?
Honestly, I was almost overwhelmed with gratitude.
Thinking that, I drained the remaining black tea from my cup.
Outside the window stretched the same unchanging scenery of the northern snowfields.
And lowering my gaze slightly, I could see people carrying something around with gloomy expressions.
"What are they doing? Didn't they say the Wall repairs were already finished?"
"The Wall repairs are complete. Now the most important work remains."
"…The most important work."
Something more important to the Great Raven Knights than repairing the Wall.
Realizing what he meant, I immediately rose from my seat.
"The bodies. Where are they now?"
More important than repairing the Wall was healing the families who had lost their loved ones.
Corax, wearing an expression as heavy as mine, called for Boran, who had been waiting outside the office door.
"…This is the morgue."
A large chamber prepared beneath the Wall.
Despite being called a morgue, none of the corpses lying there looked remotely peaceful.
"Two knights, five watchers, eight guards…"
Frozen solid by the brutal cold, they remained preserved exactly as they had been in their final moments.
Faces twisted with urgency.
Faces contorted in pain.
Or expressions filled with fury, as if they had intended to fight until the very end.
Some remained intact enough to recognize those emotions.
But most had been crushed so badly their original forms were unrecognizable.
"Are the bodies going to be burned like this?"
I asked with a frown, and Boran clenched his teeth.
"We would like to honor them properly, but the circumstances make it difficult."
"Figures."
This was a place where outside access was forbidden.
There were no priests to conduct funerals, no undertakers to handle the dead.
Just a remote, isolated place.
"There's nothing good about looking any longer. Perhaps we should return now—"
"The funeral. Exactly when is it?"
Before Boran could finish speaking, I interrupted him.
Caught off guard, he blinked and asked again.
"The funeral. When is it?"
"Y-Yes, one week from now…"
"One week. You're certain?"
As I looked over the bodies, I asked again, and Boran slowly nodded.
"One week… one week, huh…"
I muttered as I took in the sight of them.
I continued pondering for only a short while before finally deciding.
"Alright. I can make it in time."
After reaching my conclusion, I spoke to Boran.
"These bodies. I'll embalm them until the day of the funeral."
Silence lingered for quite some time after my words ended.
"Of course, I'll get permission from their families first. So what I need is for you to send these people some letters—"
"W-What kind of nonsense is that?!"
Only after I added that last part did Boran finally snap out of his daze and react.
"What's so nonsensical about it? Did you forget what kind of person I am?"
"I know, a necromancer! But Young Master, you're also a Leinrant noble, aren't you?!"
Watching Boran panic as if he'd just heard something outrageous, I asked back,
"So what if I'm a duke's son? Is there some rule saying nobles can't touch corpses?"
"No, that's not what I mean! There's simply no precedent for this…!"
I understood what he meant.
A child of a ducal house personally embalming corpses?
There probably wasn't a single precedent for that in the entire history of continental nobility.
But ever since hearing about these people in Corax's office, I had already decided I would do this.
'When you think about it, they died because of me too.'
The Archimond Order that created an undead horde and attacked the Wall.
Just as the name implied, the being they worshipped as a god was none other than me.
And the knowledge they sought was the necromancy inside my head.
If one traced the cause of these deaths far enough back, I was tangled somewhere within all of it.
'Maybe that's overthinking it. Maybe it's just an occupational hazard.'
That was what I thought inwardly, but I had no intention of changing the decision I'd already made.
Thinking that, I opened my mouth toward Boran.
"These are your comrades' final journeys. Does precedent really matter right now?"
Perhaps my words left him speechless, because Boran hurriedly lowered his head.
"I-I'll report this to the commander first… and then… I'll inform you!"
Still stammering afterward, he finally rushed out toward Corax's office.
A few minutes later, the answer Boran brought back from Corax was simple:
"Do as you wish."
One week passed with Young Master Klein shutting himself away beneath the Wall.
On the day of the funeral, the bereaved families gathered at the cremation grounds waited anxiously for Klein's arrival.
"He's coming."
Someone spotted him first and quietly announced his approach.
The fifteen bodies to be buried that day.
Together with the dead men's families and friends carrying the coffins, Young Master Klein—the one presiding over the funeral—finally appeared.
Not in the extravagant clothing of a noble, but dressed in black robes.
Having emerged from beneath the Wall after an entire week, Klein no longer wore the easygoing smile he usually showed.
Instead, his expression remained heavy and sunken throughout.
"Thank you for trusting me with the bodies of your precious loved ones."
"Y-Yes…"
"It is an honor enough that a Leinrant personally cared for my son…"
Klein personally stepped forward to greet the grieving families waiting for the bodies before showing them the deceased.
"Ah…!"
Dressed in pure white burial robes, their expressions looked peaceful, as though they were merely asleep.
With their hands folded together, they looked so serene that one could almost believe they were sleeping rather than dead.
"Y-Young Master…!"
As the bereaved families checked the bodies, a group of knights called out to Klein in trembling voices.
"What is it? Is there a problem with the bodies—"
"No. That's not it."
Answering Klein's question, the knights looked once more at their comrade lying there in his formal uniform.
He had clearly been struck in the head by an undead's iron fist.
They had seen it themselves—a skull so crushed that it had been impossible to even touch.
And yet…
"You restored all of this… by hand?"
Their comrade's face had been restored so cleanly that it looked no different from when he was alive.
Only then did they notice Klein's hands—roughened and blistered from long days of labor.
"Kh…!"
Several knights quickly turned their heads away, unable to stop their eyes from reddening.
"Th… thank you…!"
Some could no longer contain the emotions swelling inside them and grabbed Klein's hands while crying openly.
A Leinrant—the object of their lifelong loyalty—had personally restored the bodies and come to send them off.
As knights.
As guardians of the Wall.
What greater honor could there possibly be?
Hwarook—!
After the final farewells, the bodies were laid atop the pyres built by their families' own hands and prepared to ascend to the heavens.
The fifteen bodies carried by the watchers were laid side by side atop the wood, and the necromancer overseeing the return of souls engraved Runes of Rest upon them.
[Guide Klein Leinrant illuminates the path of those departing.]
With a brief hand seal, blue light settled gently upon their bodies.
[The lives they lived with all their strength shall become the support of those left behind, and the farewell of those remaining shall become the wings of those departing.]
At those words, the knights holding torches set the pyres ablaze.
[With all my soul and sincerity, I pray that your journey toward the heavens be peaceful.]
Beginning from tiny sparks, the flames gradually grew larger.
As though they had only now truly realized the farewell, the cries of those left behind filled the Wall.
"Hoo…"
The flames carrying the bodies of the departed surged upward toward the sky.
While everyone else lowered their heads in grief,
Klein alone lifted his gaze upward.
Only after watching the fifteen souls ascend into the heavens with a clear expression did he finally release a quiet sigh of relief.
"I don't know how to thank you."
The voice beside him belonged to Knight Commander Corax.
"No need."
Still unable to hide the exhaustion from going an entire week without rest, Klein answered while staring at the sky.
"This was our job to begin with."