The Death Mage that doesn't want a fourth time

44 I will end you completely; there is no future for you

A little while earlier.

Vandalieu suddenly woke up.

「... The spirits are making a lot of noise.」(Vandalieu)

Has something happened? It doesn't seem like there's a large influx of monster spirits coming from the Dungeon where Borkus's party is crushing everything in their path.

Now that I think about it, Borkus returned from the Dungeon today so he should be in his usual spot.

So then, what was it? He couldn't get an idea of what it was even when he asked the spirits directly.

Well, it would probably be best to stay awake. I don't feel the presence of death, so it doesn't seem like there's a disaster-level high-Rank monster closing in on Talosheim, at least.

Let's relax and wait for now. It could be that Pauvina has just woken up and will be coming here any moment now.

「Mom is... asleep, huh.」(Vandalieu)

The small box on the bedside table that contained the enshrined fragment of Darcia's bone was silent. As he started to wonder what to do while waiting, Vandalieu felt a presence.

「...【Detect Life.】」(Vandalieu)

Casting a detection spell with quite a wide area of effect, he discovered that numerous life-forms had entered the castle. Who would visit at this time of night? The fact that there are reactions to this spell means that they aren't Undead, so just who are they?

Excluding people who visit the bathhouse, there should be nobody coming to the royal castle other than me, Pauvina and Borkus. Zadiris is away in a Dungeon today, and Basdia visited Bilde and the other mothers to ask them about childcare and is staying with them.

I invited Tarea to live in the royal castle as well, but she needs to live in the same building as her workshop as she's busy with work. She seemed very disappointed, so she'll likely come to live here once she's less busy.

Leaving that aside, who are these people?

「I'll use【Detect Life】one more time... They're coming here instead of going to the audience chamber?」(Vandalieu)

Which meant that they perhaps had business with Vandalieu, so he got up.

He waited, wondering something as silly as whether it would seem villain-like to greet them with,「Yo, I've been getting tired of waiting」, or,「About time.」

And then he felt a fairly strong presence of death in front of the door. This meant that someone on the other side of the door had murderous intentions towards Vandalieu.

Who is it? He wondered as he took the fragment of Darcia's bone from the small box on the table and placed it into his breast pocket to keep it safe.

Judging from the presence I can sense, it's not such an urgent situation, but just in case.

But living people who hold murderous intentions towards me... It's far too early to be one of the people reincarnating from Origin. Other people who could have a motive to kill me would be people related to Evbejia or its bandits, or humans from the Mirg-shield-nation, but that's unlikely as well.

It would be difficult for them to cross the Boundary Mountain Range, and even if they wanted to hire an assassin, nobody would accept the job.

The most likely answer was monsters, but there were no species intelligent enough to do something like sneak into the castle living near Talosheim.