Deus Necros

Eternal Quest III Update.

Pride and Prejudice.

Part 1

[Understand the properties of Nightbreaker and [Noctivex] by learning metallurgy under Andre]

You have yet to complete Daggers in Shadow.

[Daggers in Shadows]

Eliminate Teresia The Blind and obtain the Upgrade to the Soul Letting Lantern.

***

The notification arrived with the same cold timing it always had, indifferent to thrones, nobles, and the kind of politics that got people killed quietly.

Ludwig kept his face still while the words hung in his perception, crisp and unavoidable, as if the world itself had decided to itemize his life in front of witnesses.

The hall’s air was still heavy with incense and tension, the scent clinging to fabric and polished stone. Somewhere behind him, nobles shifted their footing in careful increments, too trained to fidget openly, not trained enough to stop trying.

The quest line about Andre pinned itself to the center of the moment.

Studying Metallurgy.

The system’s phrasing made it sound civilized, like a lesson in a workshop rather than a necessity wrapped around cursed steel.

Nightbreaker and Noctivex were items that only gained their full potential when he owned [Lord of all that is Metal]. A notion that so far, he has no idea how to obtain. And only by learning can he use those tools.

Tools that decided who lived and who died.

And without them, there was no possibility of ever defeating the Prideful Death.

—

“I don’t mind,” Ludwig told Andre, “I’ll let you study it, but I still need it. Since I need it to find the person who tried to summon the demonic ritual first.” Ludwig said.

He kept his tone practical, giving Andre exactly what the craftsman wanted while drawing a hard boundary around ownership.

Andre’s eyes were the eyes of a man who saw weapons as puzzles that could be solved with enough time and enough stubbornness.

Ludwig respected that, but respect didn’t mean surrendering the weapon. He needed Nightbreaker for what came next, and the system had already underlined that truth in brackets.

“Isn’t she dead? She slit her own throat.” The Emperor said.

The Emperor’s question was calm, but it carried the weight of authority demanding a clean conclusion.

Ludwig’s jaw tightened slightly before he answered, not from fear, but from irritation at his own inability to completely take her out in one try.

“No,” Ludwig shook his head, “As much as I would like to. She is one of the former apostles of Necros. They all have pseudo- immortalities. She killed herself so the demonic ritual doesn’t use her soul for the process. And ended up escaping. I can still track her. Once I’m done with that, I’ll come back to Andre.”

He didn’t embellish it. He laid out the logic like a sequence of steps, because that was what it was. Teresia’s suicide had been an escape route, not a surrender.

Ludwig’s fingers flexed once near his side, a small reminder to himself that the enemy wasn’t gone, just repositioned.

He watched the faces near the throne as he spoke. Pseudo immortalities was the kind of phrase that made noble minds recoil. It implied rules they didn’t control.

“It seems you’ve been putting a lot of effort into eliminating evil. But to fight against an Apostle of Necros, is that wise?” the Emperor said.

Ludwig heard the real question beneath the framing. The Emperor wasn’t asking about morality.

He was asking about scale. An apostle meant divine involvement, and divine involvement made emperors cautious even when they pretended otherwise.

“Former.” Ludwig emphasized, “They gave up the quest given to them by Necros for their current lives.”

The emphasis mattered. Former meant deserter, not divine anymore.

Former meant the enemy had walked away from Necros and sold themselves to something else. Ludwig didn’t allow the room to pretend this was a simple matter of serving a dark god. If they wanted simple, they could go back to fairy tales.

“And how do you know that?” The Emperor said.

Ludwig answered without hesitation, because hesitation would invite interpretation.

“Because I’m the current Apostle of Necros, the only one,” Ludwig said as he turned to the second price.

He angled his gaze toward the second prince deliberately, and the boy’s reaction confirmed what Ludwig suspected. The prince’s expression tightened in surprise, eyes widening for a fraction too long before he tried to mask it.

He hadn’t told his father. Whether that was protection for Ludwig, or calculation didn’t matter much.

The nobles did not handle the statement with grace. A few faces drained of color. Several people stiffened as if the words had physical force. Others leaned into the moment with scandal-hunger, forgetting that the last time the empire panicked about dark things, people died because crowds needed someone to blame.

Ludwig stood still and let them react. It was safer to be the calm center than to try to control a mob of silk and fear.

“You serve an evil god!” someone from the nobles said.

The accusation came from within the crowd, hidden behind proximity and numbers. Ludwig didn’t even scan. He located the voice immediately and turned as if he’d been expecting it.

“You there,” Ludwig said.

The crowd subtly betrayed the man by shifting away, creating space around him like a wound opening. The speaker flinched when he realized he’d been singled out, his bravado already cracking at the edges.

The man, a middle aged man wearing quite the luxurious clothes seemed to flinch for having been recognized.

Not even the wealthier, and the more powerful nobles, counts and dukes wore material as expensive or as tacky. This man seemed to want to prove that he too belonged to the higher ranks of nobility by displaying his wealth. But just because you have money doesn’t give you a noble’s heart.

The clothing was loud, and the desperation behind it was louder.

Ludwig had seen men like this in every world, even his former one. People who mistook gold for legitimacy, who believed status could be purchased and worn until it became true.

In this hall, that kind of insecurity made people reckless, and reckless mouths created dangerous rumors.

“W-what, am I wrong? You serve an evil and vile god, or are you going to kill me for saying the truth!” he said, doubling down on his own misunderstanding.

He tried to trap Ludwig with the oldest tactic in the book. If Ludwig denied, it sounded like guilt. If Ludwig threatened, it sounded like evil. If Ludwig did nothing, the insult spread. Ludwig chose a fourth option.

“What do you know about Necros?” Ludwig asked.

The question cut cleanly through the man’s performance, forcing him into specifics. Ludwig’s voice stayed level, and that calmness made the man’s agitation look uglier.

“Nothing good, he is the god of death, and all his servants are warmongers.” The man said.

A children’s myth spoken with adult arrogance. Ludwig didn’t bother correcting it point by point. That would be arguing with ignorance and lending it dignity.

“Then you know nothing. They say ignorance is bliss, but in your case is a curse. I’d be more careful about what I say about someone you’ll eventually meet.”