Re-written date: 7 / 2 / 2025
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Chapter 21: Holy Light
In the pitch-dark room, a man sat slumped on a worn wooden cot. Strangely, where his neck should've ended in a head, there was only emptiness—his head was currently resting in his own hands, eyes glowing faintly in the gloom.
"Viz, you idiot! You seriously went to the Adventurer's Guild looking for a Grand Mage? I knew you were naïve, but this is a whole new level! We're undead, you know! Who the hell smiles and offers help when they see something like me? I'm the infamous Headless Knight, remember…"
Yes. The one muttering bitterly to himself was none other than the feared legend of the Empire—the Headless Knight, Belldia.
Only, he looked nothing like the terrifying figure in the stories.
No blazing deathflames. No soul-chilling aura. In fact, he looked so… normal, he barely registered as an undead anymore. Fragile. Quiet. Almost… human.
And as Belldia brooded over his partner's trusting nature—imagining all the ways she could get herself captured or betrayed without him watching over her—the door creaked open.
A soft pair of footsteps echoed inside.
"You're finally back, you dummy—wait… who's that with you?!"
Viz stepped inside with a cheerful huff, followed by a young man with lazy eyes and a robe too clean for a southern wanderer.
"I'm not a dummy, Sir Belldia! This person is the one I brought to help you!"
The man behind her gave a short nod.
"Just a passing Grand Mage. Here to save a poor cursed knight, as requested."
Belldia stared at him. Then at Viz. Then back at the young man.
"...A mage? You're saying he's the one you dragged here? You saw what I look like, didn't you? If you think you can drag me to the Church for a bounty, think again. I might be cursed, but I can still—"
His words caught in his throat.
A wave of pressure rolled out from Edward's body—calm, refined, but unmistakably vast. Not the wild surging of an amateur, but the overwhelming presence of a true master. An ocean held beneath skin.
Belldia blinked.
"Wait… you're really a Grand Mage?"
"Of course. And yes, I came here knowing exactly who you are. Viz told me everything. You're the Headless Knight. She's a lich. I'm still here."
There was a beat of silence.
The knight's skeletal face, cradled in his gauntlet, twitched through a series of expressions—shock, disbelief, cautious curiosity.
"You're really not here to kill me?"
"If I was, I wouldn't be talking, would I?" Edward said casually. "I've heard the rumors. Everyone has. But I care more about what's in front of me than the ghost stories that pass for history in this world. And right now, all I see is a man who looks more tired than terrifying."
Those words, spoken without flair or flourish, struck deeper than any dramatic speech.
Belldia looked away, the head in his hand dipping slightly.
"...If only more people thought like you. Maybe I wouldn't have spent the last hundred years running and hiding like a beast in the woods."
Edward didn't respond with pity. He didn't need to. He simply stepped forward.
"I promised Viz I'd help you break this curse. In return, I have a job for you."
"A job?"
The Headless Knight narrowed his eyes. "You mean you want me to go kill someone?"
"No," Edward replied calmly. "It's honest work. No killing, no chaos. Just something I think you might actually be good at. And who knows? If you do well, people might even start to like you."
Belldia let out a sharp, bitter laugh.
"Like me? You're joking, right? Who the hell would ever like a headless monster like—"
Clearly, even if Belldia acknowledged Edward's sincerity, he wasn't ready to believe that someone like him could ever be liked by people. After all, he had hoped—countless times—that one day, even a terrifying existence like himself could be accepted.
But cruel reality always had a way of stomping on that fragile hope.
Applause and cheers no longer awaited him. What greeted the so-called Headless Knight was always the same: fear, hatred, and blinding holy light.
Everything he once had as a human—his pride, his comrades, his future—had been stripped away the moment he became undead.
Now, just being able to live quietly in the land that once nurtured him was already more than he could ask for.
—-Or so he told himself.
Edward, sensing the hesitation in the air, simply rubbed his chin and decided not to press any further.
"Well, whatever. Like I said—I'll break your curse. You work for me. Simple enough, yeah?"
Belldia blinked, then let out a quiet sigh.
"...Fine. Not that I think a headless knight like me is fit for any sort of honest work. But… it's better than dying pointlessly. I made a promise to this idiot, after all. I swore I'd help her find a place in the human world. I'm not backing out until that promise is fulfilled."
Edward raised an eyebrow. "Finding a place in the human world?"
Viz nodded with a warm smile. "Yes! Back when I helped Belldia escape the church and the knights, I made a deal with him—if I could get him safely back to the South, he'd help me make a life for myself here, among humans."
Her voice faltered just a little.
"But… as you'd expect, people aren't exactly welcoming to the undead. We've wandered from town to town, never staying long. Every time, it's the same. Fearful eyes. Angry voices. Doors shut in our faces. It's… hard."
Edward couldn't help but sigh. Two of the strongest undead in the world… chasing such an impossibly normal dream.
It was so ironic he didn't even know how to react.
But whatever. He waved it off.
"Anyway. You agreed, so let's leave it at that. I've already taken a look at your curse, and to be honest… it's gonna be a pain. Normally, curses like this are best removed using holy magic."
Belldia's head twitched at that, clearly not liking where this was going.
"Yeah, and that's the problem," Viz added with a sigh. "If Sir Belldia were human, this would be as easy as finding a priest to cast a simple Purification Light. But for an undead like him? Holy light's just a fancy word for 'getting vaporized.' Unless we find a way to filter out the lethal side effects, there's no way to lift the curse without hurting him."
Edward nodded in agreement. "Exactly. The one who cursed him was a damn lich. The curse is heavy, sophisticated… and saturated with necrotic hooks. It wants to destroy him. Unfortunately, that makes holy spells—our most effective anti-curse tools—completely unusable. Too risky."
In other words, they couldn't just brute-force the curse off him with a blast of holy light. Even if it worked, the process would likely destroy Belldia in the process.
After a moment of silence, Edward slowly began sketching a spell model in his mind.
"...All right. If holy magic's off the table, we'll just need to dilute it. A water-element formula should do the trick—holy light mixed with a high-yield water buffer should soften the effect enough to bypass the curse's defensive feedback. It'll be slower. Less stable. But it should work."
In this world, the Church wielded the power of Holy Light—what they called Holy Light Magic.
But unlike in other worlds, magic wasn't entirely monopolized by faith. If a mage had a strong affinity for the light element, they could cast holy-type magic as well. The effects were nearly identical… which, naturally, caused all sorts of political headaches.
At one point, the Church even tried to ban mages from using holy spells altogether. That almost led to an all-out war between the clergy and the Mage Tower.
Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
To avoid escalation, the Arch Mages of the Tower proposed a simple compromise:
The Church would call their version Holy Light Magic.
The Tower would call theirs Light-Elemental Magic.
Same spells. Different names.
A meaningless distinction on the surface—but it was enough to keep blood off the floor.