The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 6 (Patreon)

Chapter 6 – Live Show

The big reveal to the families of her classmates went off about as well as could be expected. Yes, her being the sole survivor had stung them, but not as much as it could have. Forty years had been enough time for some closure, and there were a few next of kin who hadn’t even been alive when they’d been taken!

Returning the bodies of her dead classmates (properly de-animated, of course) went a good way to smoothing over any hurt feelings caused or old wounds dug up by her return. Sure, there were a few questions about why their bones were blackened, but that was easily explained away by the fact that she had used her magic to reinforce the bones with heavier materials, making them more durable and preserving them. She did NOT, however, mention that she did it to enhance their combat abilities.

Oh, sure, some of them had caught on pretty quickly why a necromancer would just so happen to have the complete skeletons of her classmates with her after forty years. Necromancers weren’t exactly common in this world, but over the last forty years they had made enough of a splash that everyone knew a bit about what they could do. But there was a difference between knowing that your family member’s dead body was used as a weapon and being told directly about it by the person who did it.

The other big reveal, of course, was her true nature. After talking it over with Lilah, Kaori had decided that it was best if she revealed that she was an undead from the start. This would cause some PR problems early on, certainly, but it was better than having to deal with ‘lies’ if it ever came out that she wasn’t human. Also, there was the little benefit of short-circuiting the questions and recriminations about why SHE was the sole survivor. After all, she didn’t ‘survive’ as a human.

The initial press conference with the local reporters and the follow-up with CNN had gone well. It was basically the same presentation as she’d given to the families, and a brief account of what had happened to her over the last forty years, with a few more details in the CNN interview. Lilah was more than pleased with how that worked out.

So, too, was Holly Gibson, the PR spokeswoman Lilah brought on to work with her. Gibson was American, but worked for a firm based in Japan, which was useful for establishing some international sensibilities with her public presence. The spokeswoman had immediately signed off on their initial thoughts of which shows to do, and offered further refinements to her idea.

Which is why she was now on the set of one of the more popular late shows, hosted in New York, barely two weeks after her return. When Holly reached out to the host, he had, naturally, been thrilled with the idea of getting the hot new topic on his live show. Not to inflate her own head or anything, but she was a big deal at the moment, which would kick his ratings up a ton.

“—and now for our featured guest, the Lost Sleeper, Kaori Akagawa!”

The clapping became a bit strained as she walked onto the stage. After all, she was wearing her royal robes and armor, complete with her crown and the staff she carried on her long campaign, with her true form visible for all to see. She did, however, keep the ring on which dampened her aura. No sense in being nasty about things.

The host, Jack Harris, was quick to cover his shock. “Oh, my. That is certainly one way to make an entrance, Kaori! You look like some kind of royalty, riding off to battle!”

Kaori smiles as she sat down. “Funny you should mention that, Jack. I spent the better part of the last forty years doing just that! And this is my actual crown.” She touched the mithral crown as she said that.

“Really? I know the reports said that you and the other Lost Sleepers were summoned to another world, like something out of a story, but you actually became royalty? How did that happen?”

“The hard way, I’m afraid. It wasn’t like the fairy tales, you know, where the summoned hero is treated like a king, and wins the heart of the fair maiden for slaying the demon king, thereby gaining the princess’s hand in marriage, or anything like that. We were tools to be used, and expended. And when we complained, we were enslaved.”

“It seems like a fairly dumb idea to summon someone and then enslave them.”

The lich chuckled sadly. “Unfortunately, it would have worked all too well, if they hadn’t been stopped. You see, summoned heroes are invested with a great deal of potential power, allowing them to grow quickly, and reach greater heights.”

A brief sigh, “But no one who goes ripping people from their home for their own convenience cares much about things like ‘consent’, so they also have no problem with damnable inventions like slave collars which literally shackle someone’s will, making them little better than puppets. Those puppets can still grow, after all, which means they make for perfect weapons.

“It is ironic, then, that I was saved by the Demon King’s assassins. Well, ‘saved’ is a strong word for it, since I ended up like you see, but I at least was able to get my freedom back.”

“We’ve all heard the story of how you managed to defeat the poison that was killing you by turning into an undead. But how did you then get to be royalty, if the kingdom had betrayed you?”

“Well, the assassins made sure to get the King while they were killing all of us, which broke the slave magic temporarily. No living creature but the owner can remove a slave collar once it is set, but the moment I became undead, I was no longer living. With all the deaths, the castle was thrown into something of an uproar, and I was able to escape.

“The next day, the Princess was found dead in her bed. You see, my friend, Marina Davis, had a familiar, a serpent. She was dead, but it seems like someone helped the serpent into the Princess’s bed before they escaped the castle.”

Jack made a show of gulping. “Note to self: don’t get on summoned hero’s bad side.”

Kaori laughed politely, but it didn’t quite reach her blue flame eyes. “Always a wise choice, Jack. Anyways with the royal family dead, the country quickly fell into civil war. I wasn’t willing to just sit back and do nothing, so I went to the graveyards, and recruited reinforcements, the way only a necromancer could.

“Not that I needed to worry so much. By the time I was ready to make my move, the main players had already bled themselves plenty. It didn’t take much for me to take them out, with them all focused on each other. Still, it was another decade before my new kingdom was secure enough that I could start thinking about external affairs.”

“So, being royalty in a world with established magic, you had to have seen some really incredible things, right?”

“Oh, yes, Jack. I saw many incredible things, both great and terrible, and I learned a lot. In fact, during the twenty years of my long campaign against the Demon King, once I had united my new country, I made sure to visit every country I could, and stop by their libraries, picking up any knowledge I could.”

“Knowledge like the summoning ritual that brought you to that world?”

The lich shifted slightly. “Well, I might have gotten a bit mischievous there. You see, I was still upset with the whole idea of snatching someone from another world to deal with your own problems, so I made sure to ‘borrow’ every copy of the ritual I could find. I didn’t want anyone else to go through what I did, after all.”

“But doesn’t that mean you were basically leaving them without a way to defend themselves from monsters?”

“Jack, they had a world of magic and swords. They were plenty capable of defending themselves. Part of the reason things were so bad is because it was cheaper to just summon heroes than pay for and train a professional army or adventurers to the skill level needed to take down threats. So, they let things get bad enough that summoning heroes was their only choice, again and again.”

“YOU MURDERING WHORE! GOD WILL SMITE YOU FOR YOUR SINS!”

A shout from the audience ripped all eyes from the lich on stage. Standing in front of the doors that had just been thrown open were a trio of humans dressed in the white combat robes of the Purifiers, religious zealots that sought to wipe out anyone they deemed to be ‘unclean’ or ‘impure’. All undead were pretty much at the top of their hate list. And all of them were holding Sanctified Spellrifles, assault rifles blessed by a priest and holding spell rounds designed to be especially lethal to the undead.

Ignoring the crowd that was still frozen in shock, their leader pointed his gun at Kaori, and the other two followed suit. “DIE, MONSTER!” And, with that, they opened fire.

What should have happened was a scene of the evil undead being riddled with bullets, and burning out of existence. What actually happened was that, without even taking her eyes off Jack, a flick of Kaori’s wrist caused a translucent ebony shield to snap into place over the stage. The blessed rounds were designed to pierce through the necromantic magic used by the undead, but the difference in power level was so extreme that the bullets simply melted as they hit the shield.

Undeterred, the leader cried out, “Go to full auto, brothers!” More bullets hit her shield, with the only effect being that the archlich was losing patience with the fools. Finally turning to look at them, she pointed her finger at them, unleashing three bolts of ebon lightning that arced unerringly through the air to strike the three assailants.

The men tried to scream, but it was cut off as their bodies fell to the ground, limp and lifeless. Their faces were frozen in what looked like expressions of complete agony. Worse still was the fact that the three men’s souls were visibly still standing where they had been, open mouthed at their sudden downfall.

The newly dead spirits didn’t get a chance to complain, before the archlich’s staff tapped the ground. The onyx eyes in the skull head of her staff glowed black, and the three spirits screamed as they were drawn into the staff’s headpiece, to await some untold fate. Only then did the shield around the stage fade away.

Kaori had never even moved from her chair.

“Sorry for that. It seems some idiots believe that all undead are a scourge to be wiped out, or some such nonsense. Same thing happens in every world, unfortunately. Fortunately, these ones were especially weak.”

Jack, for his part, did his best not to impersonate a fish out of water, and did a better job of it than the crowd, who split their attention between staring at her, and watching as crew dragged the three apparent corpses off the set. Taking a big breath, he said, “Are they… are they dead?”

“Oh, no. Their bodies are still alive. I just extracted their souls temporarily so they wouldn’t cause any more trouble. I can put them back later, promise.”

Jack didn’t seem to know what to do with her giving him a cutesy undead smile, all while talking about ripping souls out of bodies, so he decided to carry on with the interview. “Well, enough about the past. What are your plans for the future, Kaori?”

“I’m glad you asked, Jack. In the short term, I plan to go and visit the countries my classmates came from. After that, well, I am waiting for the legal issues to work themselves out, and then I want to find a nice place to live, and perhaps visit one of the universities with a good Thaumaturgy program, and study how people in this world use magic.”

“Really? You seem to have an extremely good handle on magic already, from what we just saw. What use could you have for more?”

“Oh, that was just raw power, Jack. But magic can be shaped by the mental state of the user. Basically, magic in a world with a scientific method may work differently from one where magic was always present. For instance, my sister introduced me to this thing called a ‘Casting Aid Device’, which they had no concept of in the other world. So, I can’t wait to see what other new magics and new ideas this world might have!”

Jack looked surprised at that. “Really? I can’t believe a magical world wouldn’t have something like that!”

“Oh, it is true, Jack. In the other world, a mage might use a focus for their powers, but that was not the same as these CADs I’ve seen, and was more like an aiming device. They helped you channel power, and improved accuracy and cast time, sure, but they didn’t have the sheer utility of a CAD like my sister has, which can help run calculations for all the various effects, giving someone far greater control.

“The downside, of course, is that a CAD is more fragile than an ironbone and mithral staff reinforced by enchantments to be nigh unbreakable, and they have to be frequently recalibrated to match with their users, while being somewhat limited when it comes to spells and effects not in their onboard database. On the other hand, my foci allow me to use any of the spells I know, quickly and easily, and switching between foci is like switching from driving one vehicle you’ve had for years to another of the same make. It feels slightly off, but, except in high performance situations, the difference doesn’t matter.”

“Fascinating. I’m sure there are professors in universities all over who will be clamoring for you to be a guest lecturer in their courses.” Jack looked over to the side, and said, “And it seems like we are going to take a quick commercial break now. When we get back, more from Kaori Akagawa, the Lost Sleeper Returned!”

As the music cut for a commercial break, a staffer came up to us, and said, “The police are here, Miss Akagawa. They would like to question the three men?”

“Of course.” Kaori looked to Jack, and smiled. “I’ll just pop their souls back in, and be back to continue before the commercial break’s over.”

“Sure, sure. That’s fine.” Poor man seemed afraid of her. Maybe she would send him a gift basket when this was done. Holly would know the right brand to send, she was sure.