A kind lich. That was something you only heard about in stories, and it was more likely something storytellers made up for shock value because there were so many evil liches.
A lich's very nature made it impossible for them to be accepted by human society. Seventy percent of humans openly discriminated against liches. From the liches' perspective, it was like being looked down upon by dogs.
No matter how much humanity remained, their undead bodies would subtly influence a lich's senses and thoughts, gradually causing them to lose their human perspective and become an entirely different species.
To a lich, who possessed eternal life and powerful magic, mortals truly were like dogs—a lower form of life.
Make no mistake, most liches equally disdained every living race, and that even included other, lesser undead. To a lich, a skeleton servant was just a tool, not much better than a dog.
Only those with equal wisdom or power could earn a lich's respect.
And because they lacked worldly desires, a lich's thinking tended toward absolute rationality. Only certain extremely strong emotions from their mortal life could be preserved. This emotion was like a cherished memory, a lingering passion, the only flavor they could still taste in their eternal existence, like a bittersweet chocolate.
In any case, the memory was usually bitter.
This was why many liches appeared perfectly rational ninety percent of the time, only to snap and become complete psychos at critical moments.
Ambrose hadn't been a lich for long, so he retained more of his humanity. And his most intense emotion was a hatred of poverty.
Not a love of money, but a hatred for the state of being poor.
It was poverty that had forced Ambrose to become a lich in the first place. He hated that feeling of having a way to extend his life but not enough money to afford it.
So what he pursued was the freedom to buy whatever he wanted, not to hoard a pile of money for adventurers to loot from his corpse.
For this very reason, even though Withered Rose's request was outrageous, she was actually offering the money. So Ambrose accepted without a second thought.
"That'll cost extra," "money is not an issue," "deposit paid in advance"... these were like incantations that dealt critical damage to Ambrose, each one capable of shaking his very soul.
Isabel, however, knew none of this. She could only try to think positively, hoping that the stories from fairy tales weren't all lies.
Ambrose could sense the shift in Isabel's emotions, but he paid it no mind. He was completely in work mode. First, he began to study the information Withered Rose had sent. One look, and he knew something was off.
It wasn't that the information was sparse. On the contrary, it was far too detailed—so detailed it didn't seem like it was gathered from outside sources. It was more like she had a mole planted within the Ryan Empire, and a high-ranking one at that.
The files documented over three hundred different defensive spells, not only marking their locations and coverage areas but even listing the personnel responsible for maintaining the magic circles.
If the information was genuine, this intel alone could probably fetch a million gold coins if he reported it directly to the Ryan Empire.
"How generous," Ambrose remarked with a sigh.
Although the information was valuable, he had no intention of selling out Withered Rose.
The most likely outcome of doing so would be his own swift assassination. The Ryan Empire would never believe Ambrose hadn't made copies.
And he, in fact, would make a copy.
Perhaps he could sell it to the Mountain Dwarves of Thunderhold someday. They absolutely despised their neighbor, the Ryan Empire.
Ambrose meticulously read through the data on the magic circles. The more he read, the more he felt this deal was a massive win. Many of the magical structures within were astounding. He'd never known defensive arrays could be designed this way. Once he saved up some money, he could give his own castle's magical traps a complete overhaul.
Absorbed in the documents, Ambrose lost track of time, until a horse-drawn carriage arrived at the castle gate just before dawn.
Ambrose spoke to the drowsy Isabel. "Your brother is back."
Isabel snapped awake. After drinking the Calming Draught last night, her nerves had settled. Bored, she had waited late into the night and unknowingly fallen asleep at the table.
To think she had fallen asleep in front of a lich—Isabel was shocked by her own audacity.
Now, hearing news of her brother, she asked anxiously, "Lord Lich, may I see Raul?"
"That's why I woke you up... Wait, what is this?"
With a flick of his finger, Ambrose conjured layers of light that coalesced into an image of the castle entrance.
Raul was there, his face etched with exhaustion. Yet he pushed himself to open the carriage door and haul out a bloody corpse.
Isabel couldn't help but let out a small scream, quickly clamping a hand over her mouth.
She had never seen such a horrifying scene. The carriage was crammed full of bodies. Some were disemboweled, others decapitated. Their deaths had clearly been brutal.
Raul, however, moved the bodies with a numb expression, as if he had become desensitized.
"Raul..."
Isabel couldn't believe this was her brother's doing. How could he have killed so many people?
Ambrose was even more surprised than Isabel. He teleported them both to the castle gate in an instant.
Raul was still moving a body when he suddenly saw Ambrose and Isabel appear. He froze for a second, then said excitedly, "I've brought the bodies! Twelve in total, more than you asked for! Please, honor your promise and let my sister go."
Isabel was sobbing uncontrollably. Only now did she understand that Raul had killed for her, trading twelve lives for her own slim chance of survival.
She knew she shouldn't blame Raul, but looking at the corpses, she couldn't bring herself to say a single word of thanks.
Raul gripped the gemstone controller tightly. If Ambrose went back on his word, he would command the alien skeleton to attack. Even if the odds were slim, he had to fight with all his might to survive.
However, to the siblings' astonishment, Ambrose said with a strange expression, "I told you to bring back living people. Why did you bring me a carriage full of corpses? Raul, I wanted you to bring fleeing freemen to live on my lands, not to collect specimens for me."
"What did you say?!"
The controller slipped from Raul's hand and clattered to the ground.
Ambrose shook his head. "What on earth did you imagine? Didn't I make it perfectly clear? I told you to bring back fleeing freemen. I even had your sister prepare Calming Draughts so they wouldn't be too agitated to listen to me properly."
Raul said, his voice trembling with emotion, "But... but... you gave me a tool for killing!"
"Of course I did," Ambrose said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Without my skeleton to protect you, wouldn't you have been captured and dragged back by your lord already? If you want to rescue other freemen from their lords, do you plan to do it with a weapon, or with your mouth?"
This time, Raul's mouth hung open, but no words came out.
Ambrose continued, "You trespassed on my territory. I overlooked it and healed you. I gave you the power to save your people. Yet in your eyes, I was already a monster who slaughters humans. You didn't even bother to ask for clarification, because in your heart, you believed it wasn't a misunderstanding. Humans... racial prejudice is your original sin."
Raul thought back on everything that had happened. It was just as Ambrose said. From the very beginning, the lich had never done anything to harm humans, nor had he ever ordered him to kill... How did it sound like this was all his fault?
Could it be? Was it really his own prejudice that led to this outcome?
Raul looked pleadingly at his sister, his voice trembling as he asked, "Is this true?"
Isabel had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but she could only nod. "Lord Lich did have me prepare many Calming Draughts. They... they are for the living."
Undead creatures had no use for Calming Draughts, so what Ambrose said was completely correct.
"Lord Lich, are you really willing to take us refugees in? We can live on your lands?" Raul asked.
Ambrose nodded. "Of course. As long as you pay your taxes."