"Sir, please, think about it just for a moment.." In a large hall inside an abandoned castle, a hoarse, yet helpless, voice echoed in the space.

"Hmmm.. no, it isn't the right time yet" another voice sounded, but unlike the former one, the voice was deep, heavy, and carried some oppression. historical

Unlike the rest of the castle, which is filled with different types of undead, this hall is the only place where they don't wander aimlessly. The cracks on the walls, partially broken chandelier, and the slightly tattered red carpet showed that this room might be the most preserved place in this old castle.

In such a place, two figures could be seen at the end of the hall. This hall might make people feel creepy as their imagination starts to wander into all the horror plots, but those two weren't fazed at all. However, everything would make sense if you could see their looks.

A dark headless armor holding his head in his arm and a hooded robe lich. The former was sitting on a large chair and closing his eyes, and the latter was sighing with a helpless expression on his dead face.

"Rookie, you need to understand" The dullahan, Beldia, stood up from his seat and walked. Each step he took was slow and steady until he reached the window.

Under the sunlight, Beldia looked at the clear blue sky as the sun rays shone on his body before he said " I know your feeling, but.. this is our purpose!!"

"Staying here without doing anything despite..." Lich said helplessly. The flames in his eyes were flickering weakly before they exploded " PEOPLE THROWING EXPLOSIONS AT US EVERY DAY!!!!"

Beldia moved his head to look at Lich stomping on the ground in rage. The flames in his eyes were like a volcano, which rendered Beldia speechless for a moment. It made him forget the speech he was about to say.

"Hm, I'm with you. These explosions are annoying, but.." Beldia recovered and nodded because he agreed with Lich, but his expression gradually turned strange, even his voice became mild as he said " why did you.. want to retreat now?"

"...." The flames in Lich's eyes quickly vanished and turned into small sparks as he stood there silently.

Both of them stood in their positions speechlessly with an awkward silence.

During these days, nothing much happened to Beldia's army, they just stayed in the routine of waiting and fixing the castle after Megumin's explosions.

All the undead didn't care about having an explosion on their heads once a day, especially because they don't have that much awareness while Beldia felt the adventurers are trying to lure him out or test his strength, so he chuckled and sat on his seat waiting.

However, Lich was a different story. With each red gleam and magic circle, he felt his sanity slipping away. Every explosion and blazing flames were knocking on his nerves, driving him step by step towards madness.

He wanted to send the Undead's army to Axel a couple of times amid his rage, but Beldia always stopped him by saying this isn't the right time. Despite that, Lich couldn't stay still this time. Those explosions are making him insane, he even started to talk to himself during this period.. well, he usually does that, but that's not the point!!

During his wrath, he sends some undead to scout the way ahead. After all, even if he was angry, he was still rational and knew this mission was unusual, so he took steps carefully.

Sending just a few groups of undead, no one will suspect anything, especially because there's a graveyard with some undead in Axel.

However, they all died against some sort of strong holy magic. They didn't even leave the vicinity of the castle before Lich lost all contact with his subordinate.

Lich frowned as he felt things are tricky. Is there someone lurking around the castle and spying on them? This made him wary, but before he did anything, the feedback from his subordinate came as Lich sensed something that froze him like a statue.

That holiness and purity like clear water. He'll never forget this feeling as the painful, pitiful, and begging howls of his bone dragon and death knights are always hunting him, especially with the screams and mad laughter of that.. cult.

Lich moved like a rusted machine as he sat on the ground and hugged his knees in silence. It took him a moment to recover and rush to Beldia to ask him to run away from here.

Beldia was confused, but then he understood from Lich the story, however, he didn't leave. In the eyes of Lich, who seemed to look at a madman, Beldia laughed and said ' Those adventurers started to understand what is coming for them and are trying to check my power? Very well, let them try'

Then in the Lich's filled with despair eyes, Beldia refused any other suggestion. After that, Lich wanted to convince Beldia again, and this is how they are having the current conversation.

"I know your fears of.. them. But if we stay under their shadow our whole life.. well, death, we'll never move forward!" Beldia looked out of the window as his words silenced Lich.

"We're already dead, there's not much left for us as 'people'. The only thing we can truly keep is our obsession and regret. If we allow them to take that, then.." Beldia didn't continue, but Lich understood the meaning of his words.

"Now, look at us!" Beldia did a turn to face Lich. His cape was flying behind him before he said " Like pitiful creatures, they are silently lurking around, not daring to face us because they are afraid! Those lowlifes fear our strength and resort to the underhanded means, completely showing their true look!"

"Do you understand now, rookie? Those newbie adventurers in Axel should fear us!" Beldia clenched his fist as his voice vibrated in the empty hall.

After those words, the silence filled the hall again before Lich sighed and said " I understand, but.. I'll mobilize the army. The screams of my dragon are still in my ears"

"Uh..*cough* Hm, permission granted, you can even mobilize my death knights, I'll summon more to prepare a gift for our lurking guests" Beldia felt awkward as he coughed and recovered his image.

{This guy doesn't play according to the rules. Shouldn't he be now excited and looking forward to life(death) and the future? Well, he's a good follow anyway} Despite his calm and collected look on the outside, an entire inner monologue was happening inside Beldia's mind.

"I wonder what plans and ideas those adventurers came up with this time?" Baldia looked at the forest outside the window and said "Hmph, they should be already shaking from the number of undead in front of the castle and don't know how to pass them"

"Need to pass them?" Lich asked with a weird tone.

Do they need to pass them? Can't they just sneak around them, or throw one of those explosions? Lich was actually on his way to scatter the troupes slightly and let at least half of them bury themselves to make a trap and trick the enemy. This is the basic necromancer's tactics.

Lich wanted to give the enemy a false sense of security while Beldia wanted to crush them with sheer force.

"Of course! Step by step, they face all the trouble and danger to reach their goal, only to see me!" Beldia turned around as his red eyes were glowing.

*woosh*

A faint sound appeared from behind and something hit his body, but Beldia, who was in an excited state, didn't care and continued " A mighty enemy in an empty ghostly hall. This will fill them with despair.."

"Um.. Lord Beldia" Lich said uncertainly while tilting his head.

"They'll clench their weapons in fear, and.. Hm?" Suddenly, Beldia woke up from his fantasies and said " Do you smell that?"

Beldia's head inside the helmet moved a little before showing a confused expression and said " This smell.. Are you cooking something, rookie?"

{Why the hell would undead cook? And how can you smell?!} Lich had a blank expression before he pointed at Beldia.

"Hm?" Beldia felt weird, then he turned his head only to see his entire back burning in flames.

"Oh, I was the thing getting cooked, no wonder the smell was nice and fragra-..." Beldia nodded naturally before his eyes winded and he screamed " I'M ON FLAMES!!!"

"MY BEAUTIFUL CAPE!! NOOO!! PUT IT DOWN, PUT IT DOWN!!" Beldia started freaking out while Lich stood there speechless.

Although he knew he should act now, Lich felt completely speechless and couldn't move at all while watching Beldia freaking outland juggling his head in his arms.

*crack*

Suddenly, the window behind Beldia was completely shattered before a red shadow left a crimson trail in the air and hit Beldia's head.

The red bullet hit Beldia's head in the air as the impact launched him like a missile.

"AHHHHHH!!!!" Beldia's head turned into a ball of smoke and flames while flying through the other side window.

"Lord Beldia!" Lich ignored Beldia's body, which was rolling on the ground, and looked outside the window.

At the garden of the castle, Beldia's head fell in the middle of the undead while screaming "PUT IT DOWN, HURRY!!"

"Lord Beldia.." Lich was concerned for a moment, but then, his expression became dull again.

"THEY ARE ATTACKING! I NEED TO GO BACK AND LOOK COOL NO-..." Beldia started to say random stuff in the middle of the flames before an undead threw dirt at him, which entered his mouth.

These undead were working in repairing the castle, so they grabbed the shovels and poured dirt and sand on Beldia's head, drowning him while Lich watched in an awkward silence.

Meanwhile, near the castle, Kazuma put the sniper rifle down as he had a strange expression on his face.

"Wow, even with those skills, you're so bad at this" Leone whistled while looking at how much Kazuma missed now.

She had a bet with Kazuma to see if his skill could really help him aim that far, so they chose a target, which was a skeleton in front of the castle. But Kazuma missed with a long shot, which made Leone laugh.

"SHUT UP!!" Kazuma screamed before glancing at his hands. He selected the burning bullets and wanted to aim at the skeleton, but when the sniper rifle end passed a certain window direction, his Snipe skill made him shoot immediately.

He tried a second time to see what was behind the window, but the castle was very dim on the inside.

"C'mon you two, let's go!" Misaka said as she walked forward.

Kazuma shrugged, but he suddenly noticed that Kaguya, who was next to them, appeared at the front.

{Does floating also need you to stop time?} Kazuma spit in his mind about this Neet, who is too lazy to even move in normal time.

And with this, the group approached the gates of the undead castle as Kaguya had a weird and uncertain expression on her face.