Chapter 22 – Corpse Golem

Knights, combat machines using mana, a power that didn’t exist in the previous life, on a different level from ordinary people.

After regaining memories of my past life and fighting the Demon King’s army, I was extremely grateful to be a knight.

In this fantasy medieval world different from my previous life, I wasn’t trampled by others and didn’t die pathetically to the undead when fighting the Demon King’s army.

After regaining my past life memories, I sometimes grumbled about falling into this world without special talents or privileges,

But becoming a free knight was no small gift to me.

Moreover, although I unfortunately didn’t have the chance to become an official knight recognized by high nobles, even as just a free knight, I could pride myself on having skills surpassing official knights.

Thanks to numerous battles with the Demon King’s army, I was more adept at fighting undead than most knights.

For that reason, I could calmly wield my sword even facing the corpse golem, the Demon King’s trap said to be difficult for even a knight to handle alone.

Whoosh.

I swung my sword filled with mana widely.

Swordsmanship for humans was meaningless against the corpse golem, over 3 meters tall and weighing over 0.5 tons.

In fact, household swordsmanship learned at home was equally ineffective against other Demon King’s forces like skeletons or evil spirits.

Because of that, I had no choice but to flounder uncharacteristically when I first encountered the Demon King’s army.

Seeing that most knights in the same unit died back then, it was lucky I didn’t die.

However, I was able to quickly abandon such foolishness.

Fighting undead and the Demon King’s army, other knights and I created new swordsmanship for battling undead.

Instead of imbuing the sword with mana to cut through opposing knights’ armor, we imbued it with mana to cut through the morale contained in undead,

And created sword forms to deal with various undead that were just bones or unlike humans.

Rough swordsmanship completely different from the beautiful swordsmanship for facing humans.

That swordsmanship looked rather similar to the dirty swordsmanship of beast hunters hunting magical beasts.

Swinging my sword, I quickly approached the giant, but unfortunately, my swung sword didn’t reach it.

It was because the corpse golem reacted sensitively to my movements, unfitting its size.

Sensitivity unbecoming its bulk.

The corpse golem was infamous as a trap of the Demon King’s army not only for being made of gathered shattered corpses, but also for that sensitivity unfitting its size.

If I were an ordinary knight, it would have been a movement surprising enough to startle at the opponent’s reaction, but I was no newbie to be surprised by such things.

Slash.

As the sword passed through the air, a long line was drawn on the corpse golem’s thigh.

Blood flowed from the wound that opened simultaneously. Sticky blood like pus oozed out.

Whoosh.

I swung my sword and quickly retreated, returning the sword extended with mana back to its original state.

I wanted to continue the attack, but since the first attack didn’t work properly, I had to create distance.

I managed to wound the corpse golem by extending the blade with mana, but that level of injury was as good as nothing.

I had swung intending to cut it half off, but only managed to slice the skin.

Grooooar!

As I retreated, the corpse golem also charged at me with an agonized roar.

The wound on its thigh disappeared in real-time, and the pain-filled roar turned to anger as it pounced on me.

I sighed seeing the corpse golem’s wound disappear.

That damn healing ability.

Not even a troll, the corpse golem used its corpse body to instantly heal the wound before my eyes.

In fact, the corpse golem’s healing was hardly healing at all.

It merely moved other parts of its body to cover the wound.

For an animal, or even a magical beast, doing that would only worsen the wound, but it was fine for the corpse golem.

After all, the corpse golem’s body wasn’t living flesh, but just a defensive wall to block enemies.

Whoosh, whoosh.

The corpse golem had already approached me and was swinging its long arms.

‘Fast!’

I frantically moved my body to avoid the corpse golem’s attacks.

Ducking my head to dodge the left arm swung sideways, and twisting my body to evade the right arm smashing down.

As the corpse golem’s arms passed around me, the smell of rotting corpses filled my nose.

It was a smell that would have made even me recoil in horror before fighting the Demon King’s army, but now it was just an unpleasant odor.

Having successfully dodged, I swung my sword again.

Slash.

Perhaps because the corpse golem was close, I was able to succeed this time.

The corpse golem’s left arm was cut off and fell to the ground.

A scream, then an arm swinging again.

Seeing the corpse golem’s right arm falling towards me again, I swung my sword at the arm.

Thud.

This time only half was cut off.

It was because the corpse golem had piled layers of flesh on its right arm after seeing its left arm cut off.

Whoosh, whoosh.

The corpse golem kept swinging its half-cut arm.

Rotten blood sprayed on my body, and the smell of decaying corpses enveloped the surroundings.

While the golem swung one arm, the half-severed arm instantly reattached, and the completely severed arm gradually lengthened, returning to its original form.

Seeing it instantly return to its original form despite my efforts to cut it, I inwardly sighed.

Every time I fought a corpse golem, I felt its regenerative ability was completely unfair.

A body that heals infinitely until all the flesh falls off.

Add to that the corpse golem’s quick speed and reactions, and brute strength, and an ordinary knight couldn’t get close and defeat this undead.

Even inflicting dozens of fatal wounds wouldn’t kill it, yet one hit from it would be lethal…

In the end, this undead was an enemy that should be faced by a proper party with mages, priests, and knights.

However, that was irrelevant to me.

Though I was just a free knight, after countless battles I gained a few abilities other knights didn’t have.

Mana detection to grasp the movements of mana-wielding enemies, and instinct or hyper-senses to detect the movements of beasts and ordinary people.

They were all close to survival skills, but thanks to those two abilities, I could now perform a sword dance right in front of the corpse golem.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

The corpse golem’s arms and legs passed around my body at tremendous speed.

I dodged the undead’s attacks by margins less than a hand’s width.

And I swung my sword into the occasional openings that appeared.

Thud, thud.

Blood sprayed and flesh flew.

Those wounds healed instantly, but even more wounds were continuously created.

A fast and powerful undead with ridiculous healing ability.

In fact, there was nothing special about how a knight alone could defeat this undead.

You just had to cut the undead until no corpse flesh was visible at all.

It was a crude and absurd method, but I had caught several corpse golems that way before.

Of course, it felt like walking a tightrope between life and death each time, but I didn’t know a better method with the skills I had.

Thud, thud, thud.

Again I avoided the attack and thrust my sword into the opening.

Blood gushed and flesh burst.

Once again, the flesh moved to cover the recent wound.

I smiled seeing that.

‘It’s getting slower.’

The wound healing was getting progressively slower.

Wounds that had healed instantly before now had flesh creeping up slowly enough to be visible.

Noticing that, I looked over the corpse golem and saw why the healing was slow.

The corpse golem’s flesh, or rather skin, had thinned to the point where the bones inside were visible.

At this point, it would be difficult to bring flesh from nearby to cover wounds.

Bringing flesh from far away would naturally slow down wound healing.

I continued fighting.

Dodging attacks, swinging my sword.

How many minutes passed like that?

At some point, the corpse golem’s healing stopped. The wounds were left untreated.

No, the corpse golem had no flesh left to heal its wounds.

The corpse golem with no flesh left could hardly be called a corpse golem anymore.

It had become a strange skeleton with other bones attached all over a human’s black bones.

With the flesh armor gone, the rest was not difficult.

The movement and speed of the undead with only bones left were no different from before, but with no armor, it couldn’t block my attacks.

Thud!

As I swung my sword, the corpse golem’s shoulder blade shattered along with other bones.

Thud!

Then I thrust my blade into the arm bone swinging diagonally, cutting off the arm, and stepped on the rising leg to launch myself into the air.

When I lifted my body about 3 meters, the corpse golem’s head appeared in front of my face.

Unlike other parts, flesh still clung to the head, and human faces expressing numerous emotions were embedded in that flesh.

Slash.

I cut off the corpse golem’s face.

The emotions displayed on the face shattered as my sword passed through.

The corpse golem with its head cut in half collapsed.

I stood there catching my breath.

Fortunately, the corpse golem didn’t move again.

It was because of the mana I had imbued in my sword.

‘I won.’

I reviewed the fight while catching my breath.

‘It was easy.’

‘Too easy.’

Because of my specialty, corpse golems were originally easier for me to handle than other knights, but not this easy.

There were many crisis moments, and my skin would get scraped off.

But this time I never felt in danger.

It’s not like my swordsmanship skills suddenly improved dramatically, or my mana quantity explosively increased.

‘Did my hyper-senses and mana detection improve?’

The only abilities that seemed to have improved were the two sensing abilities.

Yet the fight was this comfortable…

It seemed I needed to properly investigate those two abilities.

After confirming the undead was dead, I turned my head to check if my companions were safe.

They both looked fine.

This time I needed neither Hoffman’s help nor the elf’s.

Neither could keep up with the speed of me and the corpse golem.

After confirming my companions were safe, I sighed again looking at the fallen undead on the ground.

‘I guess this one’s a dud too.’

If it were a troll, at least the blood would be worth money, but corpse golems had no parts worth anything.

In fact, other undead were the same in not being worth money,

Because of that, my plans to purchase an estate kept getting further away since the war with the Demon King’s army began.

In any case, with nothing to loot from the fallen undead, it was time to meet people.

As I turned my gaze to the ammunition depot, a shout came from there.

“Hands up! Move and I’ll shoot! Octopus!”

A password here? They really weren’t in their right minds.

And “octopus” of all things…

Since I didn’t know the word anyway, I just answered randomly.

“Squid.”

I thought bullets might fly, but surprisingly an answer came back.

“All clear on duty!”