Chapter 30
IRINA THE BUTCHER was a legendary figure in the modern day. Long ago, however, she’d served as vice-captain of a famous mercenary group during a war.
The Black Lion Mercenaries, an elite group of thirty, was led by the Fiend Slayer Beowulf. Their exploits took them across the continent. Only Beowulf had the power to cut fiends down on his own, but he wasn’t arrogant. He cared deeply for his comrades, and all—including his clients—trusted him in turn.
He was the object of Irina’s secret love.
Given Beowulf’s title, most jobs that came to the mercenary group were fiend-extermination requests. Everyone in the group gradually specialized in hunting fiends, and they became well-known as fiend exterminators rather than proper mercenaries.
One day, the Black Lion Mercenaries received an extermination request from a major nation’s duke. The duke asked that they swiftly defeat a fiend that had suddenly appeared in the holy tomb where an ancient king lay. Left alone, the creature would disrupt a ritual held every four years. The reward was, in a word, exceptional.
Beowulf accepted the request. After getting the details, he had the Black Lion Mercenaries, including Irina, head to the holy tomb fully armed. The fiend they saw there was a silver wolf that almost looked…divine. It was the most ferocious enemy they’d fought by far, but the mercenaries didn’t retreat. Although it was a long battle, they found a way to victory. While they used Beowulf—whom the wolf feared most—as a decoy, Irina successfully cut off its head with her battle-ax.
Though several mercenaries were injured, they’d managed to defeat their strongest foe ever without casualties. Since the group prided themselves on exterminating fiends, they cheered joyfully at the victory.
In the next instant, something happened. White mist spewed from the wolf’s severed head and engulfed Irina. She screamed in agony.
Beowulf tried to save her, but the other mercenaries stopped him, telling him it was too dangerous to run into that mist; they didn’t know what it was.
He shook off their warnings and dashed to Irina. He didn’t know what the mist was—and that was exactly why he needed to rescue her right away. He loved Irina, so he couldn’t stop himself.
Irina’s own battle-ax cut him in two immediately.
Everybody watched breathlessly as Irina stepped from the thinning white mist. She was expressionless, and her eyes were lifeless. They looked at her. Then at Beowulf’s corpse, halved at the waist. Then at Irina’s battle-ax, covered in his blood.
The mercenaries’ first reaction was confusion. They all knew the love Irina harbored for Beowulf; they all knew he felt the same.
Irina’s face—which blushed when they teased her about that—was now icy pale. Beowulf’s eyes, which narrowed when he asked the others when he should confess to her, were frozen open.
“How could you?!” someone screamed.
That only provoked Irina to swing her axe, turning yet another comrade into a corpse.
Screams and shouts echoed through the holy tomb as Irina lunged. In the chaos, every mercenary but her was killed.
***
One person witnessed this tragedy from afar: a servant of the duke who’d approached the mercenaries. The moniker “Irina the Butcher” came from his ensuing report.
After the tragedy, Irina remained at that holy tomb, attacking all who approached. The silver wolf’s rotting corpse at her side, she became an even more formidable enemy than that fiend itself had been. It didn’t take long for the tomb to be sealed away.
***
Centuries later, someone stepped into that sealed location: Soul Howl. He’d come running after hearing rumors of an undead maiden.
Naturally, that undead maiden was Irina herself. The legend surrounding her buttressed her reputation as a butcher.
Writings on the holy tomb claimed that a group of bandits once broke in to plunder it, then killed each other over the loot. After Irina slayed all her former friends, their residual grudge killed her and turned her into an undead being. Even now, those documents claimed, Irina awaited more sacrifices in the holy tomb.
Soul Howl found the tomb based on a description and various other documents. Just as he hoped, he located the undead Irina in its depths.
Irina was strong, swinging that massive battle-ax around easily. Nonetheless, Soul Howl was already a famous Wise Man by that point, so he trounced her mercilessly.
After that, he tried to use a spell to purify her and make her his pawn, but his spell failed.
If undead were too strong, Soul Howl needed to weaken them before casting the spell. He’d expected it to work just fine at first, but then he realized that he needed to drain Irina further. Depriving her of more stamina, he tried the spell again. Once more, it failed. A special condition apparently needed to be met.
Realizing this, Soul Howl left and researched both the tomb and Irina further. One thing became clear: Irina was no thief. She’d been a mercenary with the Black Lions.
From that, Soul Howl realized that the literature about the holy tomb was all lies. He returned to the tomb and investigated a corner full of scattered skeletons. They were the Black Lion Mercenaries’ corpses. Tattered weapons and equipment remained there as well, though they were decayed and unusable.
One sword alone retained its shape and some sheen. A skeleton with only its upper half left wielded the blade, within which Soul Howl noticed a faint, wishful emotion still flickered. He picked up the sword and used necromancy to unravel that desire. It was weak, so he only managed to comprehend a bit, but it broke through his dilemma.
With that sword in hand, Soul Howl confronted Irina the Butcher again. At the end of their battle, he pierced her heart with the sword. Light poured from the blade and gently enveloped Irina, driving some kind of white mist out of her. It was almost miraculous.
After that, two phantoms appeared before Soul Howl. One was Irina, and the other introduced himself as Beowulf. From them, he heard the truth of what had happened at the holy tomb.
The Black Lion Mercenaries had received a request to defeat a fiend. However, the silver wolf wasn’t a fiend; it was a holy beast protecting the tomb. When they killed it, the person closest to the corpse was chosen as the new keeper of the tomb and cursed to be undead for all eternity. Designated the tomb’s new protector, Irina was deprived of her free will, and she attacked the intruders—the Black Lions. Ever since, she’d continued to slaughter all intruders.
After sharing the truth of what had happened there, Irina and Beowulf entrusted their honor to Soul Howl, then finally became light and disappeared. The sword stabbed into Irina’s corpse crumbled and disappeared as well, having completed its mission.
The desire Soul Howl sensed remaining in the sword had essentially been adoration of Irina. Beowulf’s deep love had, after so many years, finally released her from her suffering. Not that any of that mattered to Soul Howl; he was just excited to have her corpse.
Then a silver wolf appeared. It wasn’t the giant creature Beowulf and Irina had described, just a rather large dog. Was it the sacred beast’s pup? Regardless of its size, it exuded divinity.
“Are you one of the scoundrels who would defile this holy tomb?” the silver wolf asked Soul Howl.
Of course, he answered no.
“Then why have you come?” it pressed him.
He told the wolf that his objective was to obtain the nonpareil corpse of Irina the Butcher. His words seemed to get through to the wolf. Its sharp gaze softened. Then it quietly told him to leave at once.
Soul Howl didn’t leave right away, however. He asked about some things that had been on his mind: what did this holy tomb hold, and who were the scoundrels the silver wolf spoke of?
The wolf couldn’t answer the former. The latter, it explained, were a nobleman’s private army. Having said as much, the wolf approached Soul Howl with a scrap of old armor in its mouth that bore the emblem of said nobleman. Then the wolf once again demanded that the necromancer leave.
Soul Howl thus exited the holy tomb with Irina’s corpse in tow. As he did so, many specters revealed themselves to him. They harbored no malice, for they were Irina’s former comrades.
Each specter thanked him for releasing Irina and Beowulf, then returned to heaven. However, one remained. From that specter, Soul Howl learned about the duke who’d had the mercenaries kill the holy beast under the auspices of fiend extermination.
Stating that she was Beowulf’s mother, the specter asked that Soul Howl relieve her residual grudge. She promised that, if he granted this final wish, she would reward him by sharing the location of the Black Lion Mercenaries’ secret hideout. It supposedly housed many of the mercenaries’ personal valuables.
Beowulf’s mother said that a memento of Irina’s was sure to be among those belongings. She mentioned that because she recognized Soul Howl’s profession and desire to have Irina’s corpse. She seemingly knew quite a bit about necromancy.
Mementos were vital for Martyr’s Rebirth. They could be stored inside the Martyr’s Coffin, providing various unique effects, without the restrictions that applied to grave goods.
Soul Howl graciously accepted this unexpectedly useful request.
***
His only clue was an emblem on a piece of old armor, but Soul Howl spent time researching the duke’s family. He scoured literature, wandered through cities, and even got help from a friend who loved history.
This acquaintance was very eager to give him a hand. They enjoyed history even more than Soul Howl, and the hidden truth about Irina the Butcher seemed to pique their curiosity. Thanks to their efforts, Soul Howl finally identified the duke’s family.
How to clear up Beowulf’s mother’s grudge, then? Soul Howl had considered that along the way. Faced with the truth as it was, though, he was at a loss. The lineage of the duke who’d deceived the Black Lion Mercenaries had ended over two centuries ago. How could Soul Howl clear up the specter’s grudge when all the duke’s relatives were long dead? That was surely impossible.
Still, Soul Howl couldn’t give up this late, so he looked around the family’s ruined former home. In a well-secured library, he found a document on the duke’s lineage.
Its end had been caused by no less than a curse. At one point, everyone related by blood to the duke began dying untimely deaths one after another. Was that retribution for killing the sacred beast and defiling the holy tomb? Soul Howl thought so at first, but the text that followed changed his mind. It explained that the duke needed to obtain an artifact within that holy tomb by any means necessary to lift that curse.
In other words, the duke had done it to save himself and his bloodline. He couldn’t reach the artifact due to the sacred beast in his way, and while he was at loose ends, his relatives were dying. Hiring the Black Lions was surely his last ray of hope, and it had ended in tragedy. A painful revelation, to be sure.
However Soul Howl searched after that, he found nothing more; there was no way to relieve the specter’s grudge, ultimately. That was the truth, however, so he shared the facts with her. Amazingly, her expression lightened, as if a weight was lifted off her shoulders.
Beowulf’s mother couldn’t forgive what the duke had done, but the fact that he did it for his family resonated with her maternal heart. In turn, she gave Soul Howl information on the Black Lion Mercenaries’ roost. The necromancer impatiently wrapped up the part where the specter went to heaven so that he could rush off and find the mercenaries’ hoard.
But many years had passed since the specter’s time. The treasure had already been cleaned out, and the hideout vandalized.
Just before he lost his will to continue with this string of disappointments, Soul Howl found something on the floor. It was a simple item carved from wood, seemingly some kind of hair ornament. No doubt it seemed like nothing but junk to those pillaging the hideout for treasure.
But Soul Howl sensed the adoration in that hair ornament. He didn’t know whose love it was, but he knew who the item belonged to.
It was the memento of Irina’s that he’d been searching for.
***
“You’re as beautiful as ever, Irina.” Soul Howl stroked her hair as she lay in the coffin, showering her with pure love.
Not many people could understand his wicked love. Most would find it creepy and keep a wide berth. But he had friends he could be proud of.
And there was one other person who didn’t hate him, despite his unusual tastes. Far from it—that pushy woman openly pried into his business.
Soul Howl continued facing his many trials and tribulations, all to see that woman infuriated again.
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