Volume 1 Chapter 24 The Most Hopeless Stage Of Not Understanding Is When You Don't Even Know What You Don't Understand—So Stop Asking 'What Part Don’t You Get？'
The southern front stretched wide and empty, a plain so bare it looked like the earth had been scraped clean. A blanket of low, gray clouds pressed on the horizon, dimming everything into twilight. No grass grew here; the cracked soil whispered of battles long past.
"...Ahh, here it is." The voice came slow, amused, like someone finding an old friend. Draped in a tattered mantle, leaning on a staff polished smooth by centuries, Lich stopped at the ruins. The stone entrance jutted from the ground, carved and steady, as if it had outlasted kingdoms. It led down into shadow. The true ruin waited underground.
Just as Alice had said, Humans had been digging here with zeal. Around the site were camps of tents, racks of tools standing like skeletal forests, soldiers and scholars moving like ants. All of them were dead now. Lich had killed them.
"...There will be more inside, won't there. What a hassle. Lich hates killing without care. Still... if they get in the way, there is no choice. Don't worry, I'll bring them back later," he murmured, as if consoling the empty air.
At his side, a beastkin girl with fur the color of blood trembled so badly her knees knocked together. She was called Crimson—so often, in fact, that her real name was forgotten. One of Lich's students, she carried the rebellion of youth in her voice. Yet despite protest, she had chosen to study Necromancy under him, driven by a stubborn honesty.
"Um, s-sensei," Crimson stammered, claws gripping her sleeves. "T-to talk so lightly about killing people in droves, or—o-or saying you'll bring them back—life isn't... it isn't that cheap..."
"You always talk about the weight of life," Lich said, tilting his skull as if puzzled. "But life has no mass. To Necromancers, it is material, a resource."
"I know that. I—I understand it in theory. But... my heart just can't accept it."
"Want me to tweak it?"
Her ears shot up. "Eh? T-tweak... what?"
"Your ethics. Adjust them."
"...Adjust? How?"
"What is 'life,' really?"
Crimson swallowed. "Th-that's..."
"In Necromancy, life is soul, spirit, body, and memory. When people say 'life,' they often mean memory. Not always, but usually."
"I see..."
"And Necromancy studies life. Which means learning to meddle with memory too."
Her eyes went wide. "Wait..."
"So if memory can be changed... then ethics can be changed too. Morals, feelings, sense of right and wrong—they all come from memory. Tweak that, and you tweak the rest."
She went silent, lips parting with no words.
"Want me to tweak it?" Lich asked again, gentle, like offering a hand.
"I... I don't... but that's..."
"As a researcher, Lich should admit—Lich has never altered memory before. Do you know why?"
"...Because it's too blasphemous?"
"I don't care about blasphemy. That's just a word used to control. Call something 'blasphemous,' and suddenly God is on your side."
"Then why?"
"Because when you alter memory, you can't tell if you succeeded."
"...Ah."
"To verify, you need to know the original memory in detail. But how can you? The only way is to listen as they recount it. Which Lich cannot do. Know why?"
"Why?"
"Because Lich has zero communication ability."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the dry wind. Crimson's face bent into something mournful, though Lich could not read it. Human feelings were fog to him.
"Well then," he went on. "If you want your ethics altered, you'd need to return to the lab and recount your whole life. Only then could I set a baseline. So—want to try?"
"...R-right now? Going back now would be..."
"I thought it might be easy. You're young. Half your life is short. And you listen to me, which means some trust is there."
Her eyes narrowed. "...Do you want to?"
"Of course. Lich wants to try everything Necromancy allows."
She bit her lip. "Then... may I ask something?"
"Ask away."
"You want to experiment... on me, don't you?"
"Correct."
"...Do you realize telling someone you want to test on them lowers their trust, not raises it?"
"...Don't you ever feel the same? When you study Necromancy, don't you look at Lich and think: 'I want to experiment on him?'"
"...Not once."
"That's odd. Lich is fascinating, from a Necromantic view."
"I—people don't look at teachers, or friends, or anyone they care about, and think 'I want to experiment on them.'"
"But... it's Lich."
"Sensei, that's not how it works..."
And so their strange talk wound on—death whispered between steps, ethics shuffled like cards, and a fragile line of trust stretched thin between them, swaying with each word.