#635 The Sacred Mountain of the Undead

“You know, those dragons are actually easy. If you want to avoid fighting them, that is,” S-class adventurer Golden Bat says. “Dragons are the strongest creatures, so they try to overpower anything they encounter, including humans. And compared to dragons, humans are like weak bugs, so they always look down on them. That’s your very means of escape.”

Golden Bat’s long bragging can be summed up concisely as follows.

Even if you encounter a dragon in a mountain dungeon, it will always mock you, so you won’t be immediately reduced to ashes. 

Usually, it will taunt or verbally torture you before attacking, so you can prepare your escape tools like flashbangs in the meantime and make a dash as soon as the opportunity arises. You can almost certainly escape by utilizing your much smaller figure and running while hiding behind objects.

“They’re creatures that can get by without using their brains much, so they don’t usually think things through. That’s why they’re easy to surprise and deceive. I’ve even talked my way out of some situations before.”

“Hear that, Veil?”

“Nghhh...!”

If you want to beat them, it’s impossible. But if you play your cards right, dragons can be surprisingly easy opponents to deal with.

Other people would snort and disregard this as rubbish, but words coming from the top-most S-class adventurer on earth hold weight, strangely enough.

But suppose you are an ordinary person with ordinary physical strength. No matter how well you outwit dragons, they will probably incinerate the entire area, inevitably killing you in the process.

It’s only with a high level of physical ability, knowledge, and resourcefulness—all of which are expected from an S-class adventurer—that one can manage to escape from a dragon should one desire to do so. 

“However! Lifeless Kings are not to be underestimated! As former human mortals, they know how cunning and witty humans are! And since they’ve lived far longer, they’re even more cunning and wittier than us!” 

On top of that, their magical power and physical ability go over and beyond that of mortal beings.

They will always outsmart you even if you try to get ahead of them with your shallow wit.

Since Lifeless Kings were originally mortals who turned into the most unfathomable undead monster, they’re not one to look down on their former kin, unlike dragons.

For human adventurers, for whom pride as an exceptional individual is their greatest asset, Lifeless Kings are a living nightmare.

“My saving grace is that Lifeless Kings mainly use cave dungeons as their stronghold. Maybe they don’t like the light because they’re undead, or they prefer to stay deep underground where the sun doesn’t reach them.”

Golden Bat is an alpinist, so he never encounters Lifeless Kings as long as he summits mountain dungeons.

There are times when he must enter cave dungeons to fulfill his adventuring duties, but if a troublesome Lifeless King is lurking around, he can retreat without hesitation.

He’s not obsessed with caves, after all.

But the same cannot be said with mountains!

“For some reason...! Only the Lifeless King Sage is the guardian of a mountain dungeon! Not only that, but he resides in the best mountain—Mt. Eternity—which towers over the border between the Demon and Human Kingdoms and is one of the highest mountains in terms of elevation!”

Golden Bat expresses his frustration by hitting the ground.

Is it just me, or he’s way too enthusiastic about mountains?

“I want...! I want Mt. Eternity to be included in the One Hundred Otherworldly Famous Mountains! And I want to put it first on the list!”  

He expresses a tremendous attachment to mountains.

“U-Um...can’t you just include it in the One Hundred Otherworldly Famous Mountains as it is? You already know how great it is, right?”

“I can’t!!!”

But why...?

“As someone who loves mountains and wants to share their wonders with the public, I only want to include mountains that I have summitted myself! That is the responsibility of a person who recommends mountains to others! If I don’t climb and experience the mountains myself, it’s just a secondhand introduction!”

What a pain in the ass.

I had a glimpse of an enthusiast’s unique fixations, but now I finally understood what this guy wanted to ask me to do.

Golden Bat wants to climb Mt. Eternity, a mountain he can’t skip when compiling his book, One Hundred Otherworldly Famous Mountains.

But there is a Lifeless King there, the natural enemy of adventurers, and he can’t go near it even with his S-class adventuring skills.

“Is that why you want our help? To fight off the Lifeless King and climb Mt. Eternity?”

“Yes.

“Ohhhh yeeeeeeeeeees!!!”

I finally got it right!

After patiently listening to this bastard’s story, I finally understood his goal!

Ahh, I feel so refreshed!

Now I can go to bed with no regrets!

Let’s go to bed!

Guess I can’t right now!

“You’re friends with a dragon and a Lifeless King, aren’t you, Saint? Could you use your amazing personal connections to get in touch with the Lifeless King lurking in Mt. Eternity and help me reach its summit?!” he begs.

“What do I get in return?”

“Once I finish compiling the One Hundred Otherworldly Famous Mountains, you will receive its commemorative first edition!”  

Uh... No thanks...?

It’s almost equivalent to doing voluntary work, but if I demand gratitude here, it will be easier for him to do what I say later on, and maybe he’ll even help Silver Wolf when he’s in trouble.

...Alas, the me of that time was oblivious to all this.

If he had the auspiciousness to feel indebted in the first place, he wouldn’t have been called the most problematic child in the Adventurer’s Guild...

But I’ll take a precautionary approach by narrating it in a foreshadowing tone.

“Well, I can try talking to him, I guess?”

“Yahoo!!!”

When it comes to Lifeless King-related issues, the person to turn to would be Sensei, another undead king.

I wanted to ask Sensei for advice, but I couldn’t. 

He was too busy preparing for his students’ graduation exams that he had no leeway to do anything else.

When I tried to talk to him, he was discussing something with the summoned god Odin. I felt bad interrupting, so I left.

I could’ve sworn one of them said, “Where should we station Fenrir?” but I pretended I didn’t hear it.

So, we can’t rely on Sensei this time!

As such, I called in a pinch hitter!

This farm isn’t home to just one Lifeless King, you know!

But rather than being a person...they’re more of an animal...?

Anyway, I picked him up and secured him as he wandered around the area!

Professor the Lifeless King!

...or so this cat is named!

“Nice to meet you, meow.”

Based on looks alone, he’s an ordinary cat.

But as he understands human language and possesses abilities beyond human knowledge, he’s definitely a Lifeless King!

“Some nerve you have to make me work for you! I turned myself into a cat because I didn’t want to work! If you really insist, bring me crunchy dried sardines first! Skewered is fine too! If you’ve got silver vine, I’ll work five times as hard, meow!!!”

For someone who says he doesn’t want to work, he’s pretty cost-effective.

On the other hand, Golden Bat is strangely shrinking in front of the Professor.

Wherever did his self-confidence go? 

“What? If it isn’t the fool who keeps invading my dungeon. Scared because you know I erased your memory each time you trespassed, meow?” 

Come to think of it, I heard that Golden Bat, who holds the record for finding the most dungeons, once found a dungeon where the Professor’s main body was kept.

However, the Professor doesn’t like others discovering his body, so he erases Golden Bat’s memory each time he finds his dungeon, making its whereabouts unknown again.

Normally, he’s just an adorable cat, but deep down, he’s a brutal and terrifying Lifeless King.

Is it because of this experience that Golden Bat instinctively fears the Lifeless King who lives in Mt. Eternity?

“I must say, you’ve picked a nasty opponent, dealing with the Sage. Makes me want to stay out of this, meow.”

“Huh? Are you perhaps acquainted with the Sage, Professor?”

Since they’re both Lifeless Kings, I figured they should be at least acquainted.

“Rather than mere acquaintances, he’s one of the three wise Lifeless Kings with the most potent magic. He’s on the same rank as Sensei and me meow.”

Sensei the Lifeless King.

Professor the Lifeless King.

Sage the Lifeless King. 

These three immortal kings are a cut above the other Lifeless Kings, and their knowledge and magical power are naturally in a different league.

They are also highly virtuous archpriests and have lived at least 1,000 years since their immortalization, which is more than any other king.

“So that makes Sensei the youngest of you three...?!”

“The most unique among the Three Wise Kings is the Sage. Actually, no, he’s unique even as a Lifeless King that it’s difficult to say whether he is undead. If there’s a better word to describe him than undead, it would be...”

It would be...?”

“A hermit, meow.”

“A hermit?”

“Anyway, if you want his permission to climb Mt. Eternity, you go big or go home. So let’s go and see for ourselves, meow!”

“Go where?”

“To Mt. Eternity, meow.”

I only wanted to consult with him, but before I realized it, the Professor was heading to the mountain.

Golden Bat takes up the Professor’s invitation, and we head for Mt. Eternity, where the Sage is supposed to be.

...Wait, huh?

I’m also going with them?