Chapter 84: The Zombie Witch

It was a night perfectly suited for schemes and treachery — the midnight of a new moon.

Tokyo, the city that never sleeps, had long since lost the dazzling neon lights that once painted its skyline. In their place, soft glimmers of magical fire had begun to appear here and there, breathing life back into the darkened nights.

But the territory ruled by the Zombie Witch was different. It was pitch-black, as if the land itself had died, with not a single light in sight.

The Zombie Witch was one of the witches of the Tokyo Coven, overseeing the area spanning Fuchu, Kunitachi, and Kokubunji. In the earliest days of the Gremlin Disaster, when Tokyo’s dense population had fallen victim to mass death, it was the Zombie Witch who had animated the corpses into zombies and gathered them, sparing the city from the horrors of plague born from rotting bodies.

The number of zombies she recovered surpassed nine million.

Roughly half of them had crumbled away in the seven years since the disaster, mostly through battles with monsters, disintegrating into magical dust and vanishing from existence. But even so, more than four million still remained.

In the Zombie Witch’s territory, the dead far outnumbered the living. The living were bound by duty to serve the dead, and upon dying, would join the ranks of the undead themselves. Those who couldn’t endure life in a town reeking of decay — unless they had extraordinary reasons — would usually beg for permission to relocate to another territory.

Whenever someone requested to leave, the Zombie Witch would conduct a personal interview. If the applicant was unattractive, they were allowed to go. But if they had a pretty face, permission was denied.

The Zombie Witch was notoriously shallow when it came to looks.

In fact, her obsession with beauty had led her to forge a secret pact with none other than the Iruma Sorcerer — a man so strikingly handsome he seemed sculpted by the gods of beauty themselves.

The Iruma Sorcerer’s grand plan for a coup was simple: seize control of Tokyo’s witches, turn them all into puppets, and then breed high-performance offspring through unions between himself and the witches, assembling an army of magically gifted children.

The plan was as ruthless as it was ambitious. His intention was to wipe out all other sorcerers, save for one exception — the Seer Mage. Him, he would capture and enslave, using their magic to produce children with a natural aptitude for future sight.

The Iruma Sorcerer’s ultimate goal was global conquest.

It might have sounded like a child’s fantasy, but from the Zombie Witch’s perspective, his plan was shockingly realistic. She believed without a doubt that Iruma possessed the intelligence and power to actually make it happen.

The prospect of Iruma and the witches producing scores of children was something the Zombie Witch welcomed wholeheartedly.

If the children inherited Iruma’s stunning looks, they would no doubt be impossibly beautiful — tall, elegant, perfect. In particular, the idea of Iruma and the Blue Witch producing a child stirred great excitement in her; the offspring of two such flawless beings promised beauty beyond imagination.

But the opponents Iruma planned to overthrow were no ordinary foes. His targets included an elite roster: the Vampire Sorcerer, the Seer Sorcerer, the Blue Witch, and the Dragon Witch — all powerful beyond compare.

The Zombie Witch had believed Iruma’s coup had a high chance of success — nine out of ten, by her estimate — but she still prepared for the slim possibility of failure, choosing to remain hidden during the rebellion.

During the coup, the Zombie Witch did not lend Iruma her aid.

But she also didn’t resist.

She simply stayed quiet, watching from the shadows, ready to side with whoever emerged victorious.

Her ideal future was Iruma’s new world order, but even a world led by the Vampire Sorcerer wouldn’t be so bad.

Iruma had graciously accepted the Zombie Witch’s decision to sit on the fence. He was confident in his plan, but not so foolish as to forgo a backup. If the unpredictable happened and his coup failed, having the Zombie Witch as a hidden card was part of his strategy.

And, in the end, their secret arrangement proved invaluable.

Iruma’s grand plan was crushed by the Blue Witch, and he was killed.

The Zombie Witch, who had stayed silent and uninvolved, avoided the fate of execution by association. It was a close call.

But in the world of politics, no one trusts a fence-sitter.

Having remained neutral in the battle against Iruma, the Zombie Witch naturally drew suspicion. She wasn’t branded a villain, since she’d made no move to aid Iruma, but her reputation had taken a blow.

Now, both the Vampire Mage and the Seer Mage had their eyes on her, rendering her all but immobile.

Even so, her period of complete dormancy lasted only a few months. After that, cloaked in the cover of darkness, she began to stir once more.

The unexpected death of the Vampire Mage, slain during the Great Kaiju Invasion, had finally freed her to act.

With only the Seer Mage left to watch her, moving around was difficult — but not impossible.

One of the weaknesses Iruma had told her about regarding future sight magic was simple: darkness.

Future sight magic allows one to see future events, but it cannot illuminate them. If something happens in pitch-black darkness, the Seer cannot perceive it.

Since the world’s collapse and the loss of electricity, Tokyo had become a far darker place than before.

So the Zombie Witch began using her army of the dead to act on moonless nights, when even the faint glow of the moon would not betray her.

Her goal: to recover Iruma’s remains.

Iruma had been frozen to death, then thawed, burned, pulverized, and his ashes scattered into the sea — all to ensure that even if someone discovered a resurrection spell, there would be no chance of revival.

But the one thing that worked in the Zombie Witch’s favor was that all of Iruma’s bones had been scattered at sea.

Had even a single fragment been found and locked away, collecting the entire set would have been impossible — but fate had spared her that problem.

Just as the Dragon Witch had a keen nose for treasure, the Zombie Witch had a special, secret sense for corpses. She had never shared this ability with anyone.

Guided by the lingering, intoxicating scent of Iruma’s remains, she quietly deployed her zombies under the cover of each new moon, recovering the tiniest fragments, little by little.

The number of zombies she commanded was so vast that even if hundreds went missing, no one would notice. Even when her zombies spread out along the seabed of Tokyo Bay, gathering bones in the dark, no one was the wiser.

Strictly speaking, the Mermaid Witch had noticed — but her intellect had deteriorated. Seeing corpses walking along the seafloor collecting bones didn’t even strike her as odd. She was too busy searching for pretty jellyfish to give to her family.

The collection of Iruma’s remains had already been completed by the time the Blue Witch, who had defeated the Demon King, returned to Tokyo.

However, the Zombie Witch had held off on turning the remains into a zombie.

The time wasn’t right — not yet. The Seer still kept a watchful eye over everything.

The Zombie Witch’s necromantic magic came with certain limits: if too much time had passed since death, the body could no longer be made into a zombie.

During the zombification process, a body’s maximum magic potential would drop, and after death, a living being’s magic capacity would gradually diminish until it leveled out to the faint magic presence typical of inanimate objects.

If too much time passed and the body’s magical potential dropped too far, the moment it was zombified, it would undergo magic death — crumbling into dust.

But in Iruma’s case, the situation was different.

The Iruma Mage possessed an extraordinary amount of magic power, even exceeding that of the Blue Witch. There was still plenty of time before his residual magic dropped below the threshold needed for zombification.

All the Zombie Witch had to do was wait for the overworked Seer — barreling toward an early grave — to die, and the conditions for resurrection would be perfect.

Then came April, 2031.

Just as announced, the Seer entered a period of convalescence.

He left Tokyo for a while and relocated to a quiet ranch in Hokkaido.

Still, the Zombie Witch couldn’t shake her suspicions: Was the Seer really gone? Or was he pretending to leave, only to sneak back into Tokyo?

For about two weeks, she carefully watched for any signs. But in the end, she confirmed it — the Seer truly was in Hokkaido.

The Zombie Witch smirked to herself.

If it had been the Vampire Mage, such carelessness would never have happened. He would never have taken his eyes off her. He would never have let his guard down.

But the Seer had reached his limits.

In the end, he was nothing more than a commoner who had lucked into power. No matter how hard he worked or how desperately he tried, he lacked the instincts of a true natural. The difference in class was undeniable.

The Zombie Witch had spent over six years suppressing her every breath, playing the part of a harmless, harmless creature — until, at last, she had coaxed this moment of carelessness from her enemy. It was a victory earned by sheer persistence.

Beneath the National Hospital, in a cavern dug into the earth, the Zombie Witch had carved out her own sanctuary — a place swarming with countless silent, mindless zombies.

Only young male zombies with handsome faces, fine physiques, and excellent “specs” were permitted to gather there. It was her personal, exquisite necrophiliac reverse harem — her private collection of beautiful dead men.

In one dim corner of this decadent sanctuary, an especially thick darkness hung in the air.

But through the eyes of the Zombie Witch — empowered by the Night Vision magic she had learned from the Eye Witch— the darkness was no veil at all. She could see the pale, lovely mountain of bones stacked within.

Surrounded by her collection of handsome corpses, the Zombie Witch smiled faintly beneath her veil and lifted a magic stone into the air, weaving her spell.

“If you discard everything, I will gather it all… If you go forward, I will follow behind.”

From the ground, slender purple tendrils began to bubble up like writhing earthworms, gathering the scattered fragments of bone and piecing them back together.

Before long, the reassembled skeleton — that of a boy, around ten years old — stood completed, as breathtakingly beautiful as a masterpiece that could make one drool.

Ah, even reduced to mere bones, Iruma’s beauty remained so striking.

The handsome zombie boys surrounding her stared blankly at their master, sensing her rising excitement.

Then the Zombie Witch, panting heavily with anticipation, aimed her most powerful necromantic spell at the reconstructed skeleton, channeling the spell through the magic stone to amplify it.

“The mountain of corpses you stacked up… I will carry them all with me, wherever you go.”

A rough, grainy black smoke — like a swarm of gnats — spewed from her fingertips, wrapping itself around the bones and seeping into them.

Once the last trace of smoke had been fully absorbed, the skeleton gave a faint twitch of its finger — and then, with unnerving smoothness, stood up.

“Good morning, Iruma. Ufufufufu…!”

The Zombie Witch gazed dreamily at the moving, completely naked skeleton before her, her eyes lingering over every inch of it as if licking it with her gaze.

Because she had used the most powerful zombification magic — one that consumed a massive amount of mana — the reanimated body of the Mage of Iruma still retained the same personality and intellect he had possessed in life.

And yet, he was now bound to her will, compelled to obey her commands.

The Zombie Witch herself harbored no grand ambitions like Iruma once did. She cared only for one thing: gathering all things beautiful and adoring them. Whatever might happen to the world at large was of no concern to her, as long as her own little paradise remained intact.

And Iruma’s reanimated corpse was the perfect piece for her collection. He was both a marvel to admire and a capable servant to use as her hands and feet.

In the past, the two had forged a secret pact: if she ever discovered a way to truly resurrect the dead, she would cast that magic on Iruma.

But there was no reason to be so faithful to a deal struck with the dead.

The worst sorcerer Tokyo had ever known — a man who had nearly conquered the entire city — was now nothing more than the Zombie Witch’s cute, beloved little pet. She could even look forward to some stimulating, intelligent conversations through written notes.

Without wasting a moment, the Zombie Witch gave her first command to the moving corpse, intending to make it serve her.

But before she could speak, Iruma’s skeleton raised one finger to his lips.

The meaning was clear: Be quiet.

Intrigued, the Zombie Witch canceled her command.

It seemed Iruma had some secret scheme brewing, barely moments after his resurrection.

A skeleton could not chant spells — and though it was tougher, stronger, and more cunning than a living human, there shouldn’t have been much it could do in this state.

So, what exactly was he planning?

When the Zombie Witch waved her hand and allowed him to act freely, Iruma immediately reached for the nearest handsome zombie and, without hesitation, snapped its neck.

The Zombie Witch bristled at the sight — that particular zombie had been one of her favorites. But before she could act, Iruma gestured to her once more: Stay quiet. Just watch.

One by one, Iruma began snapping the necks of the other zombies, tearing their mouths open, and dismantling their bodies.

Once he had dismantled seven of them, he dragged out their fleshy parts and began embedding them into his own skeletal frame.

Lips, tongue, cheeks, throat, lungs.

He carefully sliced and reshaped the flesh, tearing strands of hair to bind pieces together, adjusting and refining as he worked — slowly but surely, he rebuilt his own body with expert hands.

The Zombie Witch couldn’t help but recall the human experimentation Iruma had once conducted, using people from her territory and from Ome. She’d never learned the exact nature of his experiments.

But now, watching this grotesque yet meticulous self-modification, she began to piece it together.

Iruma had used countless human test subjects to study the structural differences between the vocal organs of ordinary humans and those of transcendents.

He had learned precisely how to reshape human vocal organs to recreate the voice of a transcendent.

How many hundreds — or thousands — of lives had he consumed in pursuit of this knowledge?

The Zombie Witch watched in silent awe as Iruma reconstructed himself.

It was impossible — no medical knowledge from the previous era could explain it. Even among the world’s many transcendents, there were few — perhaps none — who could pull off a feat like this. In every sense of the word, Iruma’s genius was unparalleled.

And yet, her astonishment was only just beginning.

When the reconstruction was complete, Iruma’s newly rebuilt body, now clothed in raw, stitched-together flesh, moved his lips and spoke a single spell.

“I nullify the binding. I release the prohibition — Nabuu, I command it undone.”

An invisible force spread outward from Iruma, and the air rang with the sharp sound of shattering glass.

In that instant, the Zombie Witch felt the magic connection that had bound Iruma to her — the absolute control she held over him — snap.

She was left stunned.

It was most likely the lost magic once used by the Witch of Edogawa.

She had known that the Witch of Edogawa could cast spells to dispel magic. She had even suspected that Iruma might have learned this technique.

But she had never imagined that there existed a spell so precise it could sever only the subjugation enchantment while leaving the zombification itself perfectly intact.

Iruma had risen from the dead as a moving corpse.

He had reclaimed his flesh, his voice, and even his freedom.

All it had taken was a small opportunity — and he had solved every problem on his own.

And with a chill running through her, for the first time in nearly six years, the Zombie Witch remembered.

The true, unfathomable depth of the Iruma Mage.

And then, from the darkness, she heard it — a fresh, gentle, beautiful young boy’s voice, as clear and soft as spring water.

“Good morning, Zombie Witch. I imagine Tokyo must’ve felt rather lukewarm without me around, huh?”

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