Dark Fantasy Guide for the Summoner - Chapter 60

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 60.
Lorang Lefebvre Ⅰ
My entire body aches as though I’ve been beaten raw.
I feel as though I’ve endured pain like this before, somewhere.
‘Was it when the train derailed?’
Though the impact itself must be far stronger than it was then.
So there’s one thing I can gather from this.
‘……I’ve gotten stronger, at least.’
My Level has climbed two or three times over since then, so it stands to reason.
Throb.
……But even so, the situation is undoubtedly dangerous.
I crawled out of the putrid blood as best I could, caught my breath, and checked on the king vulture.
A pitiful sight.
If you dropped an enormous watermelon from a high-rise building, wouldn’t it end up like this?
“Haah…….”
My lower back is tight, my elbows throb, but seeing the state of this creature, it’s a miracle I got off this lightly.
……But where exactly am I?
Looking around, I spot a slope descending toward a cliff face.
‘Near a precipice?’
I can’t tell if I’m lucky or unlucky, but I choose to think of it as fortunate for now.
There are fewer Magical Beasts in this area, at least.
If a horde of Undead had been lurking in the place where I fell, I’d have been forced into a second battle in this condition.
‘Tch……. I need to rest.’
Fortunately, there’s a place nearby where I can catch my breath.
Not that there’s a mound with incense rising from it in particular.
I head back toward the slope.
Of course I have no intention of descending the cliff again, but at the far end of the gentle hill stands a Cottage.
Click.
I open the door and step inside—and there’s someone already here.
Lorang looks at me with disbelieving eyes.
“……You really did come back alive.”
What am I supposed to say to that?
I consider for a moment, find it difficult even to open my mouth, and simply nod.
“How, exactly?”
“……There’s always a way. I nearly died twice over.”
Three times? In any case.
I right an overturned chair and collapse into it.
The tension drains out of me all at once.
My body feels heavy, and my eyelids feel even heavier.
‘Hell of it all.’
This is no time for leisure, but my physical exhaustion has reached its limit.
As I press the heel of my palm against my dry eyes to try to open them, Lorang speaks.
“If you’re tired, go ahead and sleep.”
“……This isn’t exactly a safe place.”
“I’ll stand watch.”
The words reach my throat—*What do I have to trust about you?*—but I keep them to myself.
I know his nature well enough, don’t I?
Even in the crisis just now, if I hadn’t suggested it first, he would have never abandoned me to the end.
The reason is simple.
‘Lorang would never put his own life on the scales.’
It’s unsettling, but there’s no need to prioritize baseless suspicion in a moment like this.
There’s nothing quite as irrational as stubbornly insisting on something merely because it makes you uncomfortable.
“……I’ll rest just one hour. Wake me the moment it’s up.”
I watch Lorang nod, and then I fall asleep as if losing consciousness itself.
* * *
Creak…….
The wind wakes me.
More precisely, the sound of wind rattling the window.
“…….”
How long have I slept? I check the time—an hour and a half has passed.
‘Phew.’
My condition hadn’t fully recovered, but…….
It was vastly improved from before.
Of course, I could’ve been fooling myself, so I checked my Stress level first.
[Stress: 51]
It had climbed quite a bit in the meantime.
The fatigue was one thing, but the poison I’d contacted at the base of the cliff was likely the culprit.
Could I really push on to the Royal Tomb in this state?
Maybe returning should take priority, no matter how painful the withdrawal.
‘Lorang was…….’
……sitting before an old desk, reading something.
When he noticed my presence, he turned his gaze toward me.
“You’re awake?”
“What are you reading?”
Instead of answering, he handed me the book.
Looking at the cover, it wasn’t a novel—just what appeared to be an old journal.
I opened it once.
……January 27th. Overcast weather.
I’ve been transferred to a cursed posting. Lukbara Common Cemetery. I’ve heard there are only two possible ends for anyone who comes here: death or madness.
This was a cemetery keeper’s journal.
Not the high-ranked Undead keeper that occasionally appeared, but the real one—from when this cemetery was still functioning properly.
There might be some useful clues here.
I swear it: I will not become like them. I don’t want to die, and I have no intention of going mad. So from today on, I’ll record everything that happens here. To prove that I’m still sane.
Just wait and see. I will surely survive this place.
……March 31st. Still overcast.
Magical Beasts appeared in the forest again today. Wretched creatures digging up graves and devouring corpses.
The difference from usual was that my superior, James, died in combat.
James Hallopel.
If there was one person who still seemed human in this maggot-infested hell, it was him. The man who woke earliest and slept latest. Kind, responsible, he had been the exemplar for all cemetery keepers.
“Look at this picture. This is my daughter. Isn’t she adorable?”
His only flaw was an exceptionally human weakness—boasting endlessly about his daughter—and he died when an Aulbear’s claws severed his neck.
I buried James myself. It was the cemetery’s custom for the direct subordinate to bury their superior’s body.
Damn it all…….
How much longer can we hold on? This forest, this wretched forest……. Is it just my imagination? That black hell seemed to be creeping closer to us bit by bit. It must be an illusion. It has to be an illusion…….
……July 16th. Overcast.
My condition wasn’t good. My head felt foggy as though shrouded in mist, and my body felt sluggish. Sleep didn’t come easily at night, and opening my eyes in the morning was an ordeal. A fatigue that never disappeared, no matter how much I rested…… Something is wrong. Something in my body, or perhaps my mind, is changing.
……September 1st. Overcast.
Berik, who came as my subordinate, died. He was overzealous for his skill level, and it seems he lost his life trying to hold back the torrent of Magical Beasts alone.
Unlike James, my superior, Berik left not even a scrap of flesh. All we recovered as his remains were torn scraps of clothing.
……Is this our end? Whether sooner or later, will we all inevitably die?
Why did I even start writing this journal? I checked the first page to clarify my purpose. A bitter laugh escaped me.
I would definitely escape this place? No. That’s impossible. I will never leave here.
……October 10th. Torrential rain.
On a day when rain poured down, while on my usual patrol, I saw the ground beneath a grave writhing. At first I thought I’d seen wrong because of the downpour, but I hadn’t. From the wet mud, a hand with nothing but bones jutting out.
Undead.
The moment that word crossed my mind, I drew my sword and severed that arm. The ground then overturned and a moving skeleton emerged. A being that had forgotten death lunged at me.
I barely cut it down with my sword and reburied it beneath the desecrated grave. A cursed thing, something that should never emerge from the earth. I did what was right. Surely I did.
When I finished what needed to be done and wiped away what could have been rain or sweat, only then did I see the epitaph.
James Hallopel.
Ah――
The journal ended there.
After that, there were words that only psychiatric patients would scribble, listed without any context or coherence.
The desperate final words left behind by a madman.
“…….”
As I read, it came back to me.
This journal—it definitely existed in the game too.
It was the element that revealed how the Abandoned Cemetery came to be.
A device that added depth to the world itself.
This kind of detail was one of the reasons I had loved Popop.
‘But now?’
An uneasy feeling gnawed at me.
Unlike a game implemented across only a few pages, this handwritten account recorded the deteriorating mind of someone going mad—recorded it with uncomfortable precision.
“The Lukbara Common Cemetery was a national project, or so I’ve heard.”
Lorang murmured, gazing out the window. Fatigue had etched his features into an expression more melancholy than usual.
“It was meant to honor heroes who sacrificed themselves during the forest expedition. But good intentions don’t guarantee clean execution. The truth is, most of those assigned here were either complicit in corruption, had lost political struggles, or desperately needed money.”
It had become a dumping ground for the demoted and exiled.
Nothing unusual about that.
No labor force comes cheaper than criminals.
“Why didn’t you blame them?”
“What do you mean?”
“This woman, Aira. You must have suspected her from the start.”
A small jab of discomfort hit me.
Was his commentary about the cemetery just a setup for this ambush?
“And the other three would have followed your lead. Whether you’d abandoned her right there or made a preemptive move.”
…….
“Your approach was sound. In the end, it was their reckless goodwill that brought the crisis.”
I almost didn’t know what to make of it…….
I exhaled and spoke.
“You’ve served as Party Leader before, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“Then you know how terrifying the resentment becomes when a leader steamrolls decisions alone.”
…….
“Party Collapse isn’t some rare thing. It’s just grievances piling up quietly, over and over, until one day they explode.”
“So you were reading the room?”
“You could see it that way. But ultimately, I was the one making the final call. You’re right—I suspected Aira, but I had no certainty. So I accepted her.”
In other words, my judgment was the mistake that broke the party.
Popop was a single-player game, after all.
The moment my character died and the game ended, there was only one thing to blame—my own hands.
“By the way, the way you’re talking, it sounds like you suspected that woman too?”
“There was more than one suspicious thing about her.”
Indeed.
So that’s why he’d responded so quickly when Aira’s party members exploded.
My mood shifted, growing subtly strange.
All because this man happened to harbor thoughts closest to my own.
A sudden question occurred to me, and I asked it.
“Why did you join our party in the first place?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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