Chapter 153.

PART 1.

Kritika is shaken up badly from the events of yesterday. After all, in her immaculately perfect life, she has never seen a gruesome death like the one she saw yesterday. Even in the Academy, she actually managed to avoid the conspiracies and the bloodshed that usually goes on there.

It disturbs her how easily Hatori is handling this. No jitters, no doubt, no reaction about the death he saw yesterday. He just shows up in the morning, and observes the house, looking out for that strange thing which she only glanced at, before it escaped his attempt to capture it.

Hatori is going around, sensing the presence of that soul, while also monitoring anyone who removes their locket. Thankfully, they seem to be following his instructions for now, having someone die by getting stung to death by bees can be quite encouraging after all. ‘Now, if this bitch would stop following me around, I will be able to hunt this soul in peace.’ He thinks to himself.

‘Maybe talking to her will work? After all, isn’t that what Kangana said? Clear communication and all that crap.’ He thought. Liking this idea, and hoping that humankind has not devolved yet, Hatori speaks with Kritika. “Listen, you should leave me alone. I’m trying to hunt a dangerous soul here. you saw what happened the other day, didn’t you? you should not be around me; I won’t be able to protect you.”

There. Hatori thinks this is a nice enough summary. She should be able to understand this and leave him to do his work in peace. “What are you talking about? You need to be protected. You’re young. You can’t fight that thing if it appeared?”

Hatori suffers a blue screen of death in his mind for a total of two seconds. He then marches to Niraj’s office and opens the door. “Sir, we need to talk. I realize that I sound petulant, but please tell your daughter to stop following me around.”

“Daddy,” Hatori winced after hearing that word. It signifies that the person is totally spoiled rotten, and the adult figure is going to be useless when it comes to containing their behavior. “He needs protection. He just doesn’t realize it, since he is so full of confidence due to all the things he has learned.” She smiled sweetly. “Aren’t I doing a good thing?”

“Ye… yes.” Said Niraj, after some hesitation. He looks at Hatori with an expression, ‘Well, what could we do?’

“Sir, if she gets injured, I refuse to take responsibility.” Hatori turns around and walks out, not even waiting for Niraj’s reply.

PART 2.

Munshi has come up with a plan to finally get rid of Manoj. The plan is simple, something like this they have already used on Anantayudha. Put Manoj in a cage, and then murder the hell out of him. For this purpose, he created a special cage, which is currently in pieces. More specifically, each rune-carved stone is a piece of that cage. Munshi merely needs to throw these stones in a particular pattern, and the prison will spring up on its own. He idly runs his fingers across the runes he has carved, feeling the crisscrossing symbols with the tips of his fingers. He may have gotten the artificial vision, but he still draws the runes by touch.

‘Next thing, calling my battle spirit.’ he thought to himself. With his knees creaking, he draws a summoning circle on the floor of the room he is provided on the floor and then channels the magic through it. ‘I’m getting too old for this. I don’t think those calcium potions are going to keep my knees strong for long.’

An eye-searing beam of light congeals over the circle, and a woman gracefully lands on the ground. “Wow, you look older than I saw you last time.” were her words of greeting.

“Chandramukhi.” He sighed.

He met her when he was in the third year of his necromancy, having just accepted the permanent apprenticeship from his master. He made fun of her name, calling her arrogant for calling herself moon-face. Who does that? She took offense to that, and it took everything Munshi knew at that time to survive her wrath. Later, she helped him out during some cases, tagging along with him. later, they created a contract, where Munshi could summon her if he required some firepower. He didn’t have time or resources, or else he would have called her to face Anantayudha a year before, instead of letting Hatori face him alone. truth to be told, that sudden attack and the resurrection of a battle mage left him rattled. He made so many poor decisions at that time, which are quite clear in hindsight.

“Chandramukhi.” She mimics his voice. “What kind of greeting is that? you must be really bothered to call me, and not even greet me properly.” She smiles fiercely. “I hope that challenge is worth my time.”

PART 3.

After he left in such a huff, he expected two things. either Niraj would listen to him or would come down upon him like a ton of conjured bricks, and tell him to leave. But much to Hatori’s surprise, nothing of the sort happened. Kritika is nowhere to be seen, so he continues his exploration of the house, to find some hiding places for that soul.

He finds a door that is locked pretty tight. Judging by the dust around this area, no one has come to this room for a long time. the door also has some bars outside, which further intrigues Hatori. “Excuse me, may I ask why this room is closed?” Hatori asked one of the servants.

“We don’t know.” Answered the woman. “The room has been like this for years.”

“Will you open it if I ask?” he asked.

“No!” exclaimed the woman. “The master will not be pleased.”

“But this is necessary. How else am I supposed to solve his problem?” asked Hatori.

“I’ll tell him,” she said. “He will decide.”

“Fine by me,” said Hatori, deciding to go with her to explain the situation to Niraj.

He was initially unwilling to open the room, but Niraj conceded after Hatori argued, and explained the reasons clearly and concisely. He comes, and using the master key of the house, opens this old room.

The scene inside was shocking, to say the least. there was a pile of bones inside, the person in question clearly died in this room, and no one knew of this during the entire time. “Did you know about this?” asked Hatori, unfazed.

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“No. this house has been in our position for the last ten years, we didn’t know about this at all.” Said Niraj, after composing himself.

Hatori spies a diary nearby. He summons it to his hands after sensing for some enchantments, and finding none. “Interesting. Apparently, these are the bones of the brother of the owner of this house. He was into some seriously fucked up shit.” They were shocked to hear such foul language, so Hatori gives the diary to Niraj and he paled after reading everything.

“Fucked up indeed.” He sighed and gave the diary to the next man.

In the window, Hatori gets a reflection of an abnormal face, which looks like a human but is not human at the same time. he turns around and sees the soul at the door. “I will sacrifice you all, and reclaim this house!” it tries to run, but Hatori was faster.

Several lightning spikes came in the path of this soul, and it howled in pain when a few of them found their mark. The soul retaliated with a blast of magic, rotting the wooden columns of the nearby support, and this part of the room crashed upon them. Niraj shields everyone, while Hatori continues to battle the soul.

He has trapped the soul in his chains, and he is trying to hit it with the dispersing spell. nearby, Kritika watches the entire battle from the protection of her father. The game of cat and mouse ends when the spell of Hatori finally ends. However, the final spell of this soul still continues after it disperses, and hits Hatori in the gut, throwing him in the wreckage of the destroyed room.

“Ug!” he groaned while being trapped under rotten wood. Niraj and the servants lift the wreckage off of him in a hurry and carry him to a room despite his protests.

PART 4.

Munshi and Chandramukhi arrive at the graveyard in the night, Avinash is sent by Kishore to help out the necromancer. The boy wonders what could he do in this situation? He is not good with anything related to necromancy. Fighting and some runes are the only skills he can offer. He is pragmatic enough to admit that he could equal Hatori in the fighting department, but he cannot compete with him when it comes to runes.

“Where is he?” whispered Chandramukhi, Munshi motioned in the direction where he sensed the soul of Manoj. It is in a weakened state, which is good. it should make their job easier here.

Scattering the stones with a spell, Munshi attacks Manoj. The necromancer in the soul-form is startled badly, and tries to escape, but soon realizes that he is trapped in a cage. This is just humiliating. First that ward, and now this cage. Due to his ghostly existence, he can’t even scream abuse at Munshi. But he still has enough strength to animate the remaining dead.

“Go, kill him,” said Munshi, as he saw the corpses breaking out of the ground. “Now, look sharp boy, and use fire spells. and remember this lesson. A corpse which is turned into ash is the best.”

Munshi and Avinash fight the undead with their backs to each other. Avinash used the whips of fire to keep the corpses away, while Munshi used the blasts of strong fire to turn them into ash. Avinash’s attacks provided him time to charge these spells. seeing his undead army being dispatched so handily is giving Manoj a panic attack. he would be frothing from the mouth if he had a physical body.

“Hi there.” he shrieked; he knew that this spirit was not to be messed with.

But there is no way for him to escape. He tries to fly around the cage, but the spirit corners him. “Stop moving, would you?” she said, and after grabbing him, takes a bite from his head with a loud crunch. “Ug. Bitter melon. But at least the vitality is good.” she smirked.

Turning the final corpse into ash, Munshi senses around for more threats. He will do another sweep in the daytime to find any remaining corpses. But for now, he dismantles the ward and the cage, and leaves with Avinash and Chandramukhi, looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

PART 5.

The next day, Hatori speaks with Munshi, telling him everything that happened yesterday. “So, you managed to disperse the soul?”

“Yeah, but I should have used a shield. Its last spell struck me. the damage wasn’t that bad, but they didn’t let me go.” Said Hatori.

“I’ve got something to tell you as well,” said Munshi. “We’ll talk about that when we meet.”

“Fine.” Said Hatori, putting the mirror down.

There isn’t any dangerous news, so he knows that this time, it wouldn’t be something like the City of Throne being attacked. Hatori heard some words outside, and they attracted his attention. He stops to listen in the middle of his packing, then continues to listen while he gets done packing his things.

“Besides, I’ve got no interest in him.” said the voice of Kritika. “I mean have you seen his face? If you see those creepy missing eyes in the dark, you’ll get scared. I’ll just seduce him, and dump him later.”

The door opens, and Hatori walks out. the people to whom Kritika was talking paled after seeing Hatori, while Kritika switched her haughty expression to a loving one. “Hi there. are you okay now?” she asked, care dripping from her tone.

“You know, your plan didn’t have a chance of succeeding.” Said Hatori, pointing to his ears when she looked at him blankly. “I hated your constant presence around me. besides, I’m done with this case. So, continue to be delusional, it is none of my business.”

He then walked away, leaving Kritika standing with her mouth agaped behind him. he spoke with Niraj, and then took his leave. ‘I must be careful of the girls from now on. I cannot let them manipulate me through their charms.’ He thought. In a way, this mission was educational for Hatori.

PART 6.

Porus is back in the City of Throne. He has toured enough for now; it is time to focus on some matters that are waiting for his attention. Trade agreements, negotiations, political appearances, all of these have to be managed. Though there are still some locations that he wishes to visit, he decides to do that during his second tour. After all, who says he can go on a tour only once? He has a massive list of places that he still wants to visit.

Zeko has left for his house. The time for vacation is close, and he wishes to be in the house for Hatori’s return. The king is happy that his student is acting like a mother hen. He needs some emotional attachments in his life, which are not about his job or his obligations. Though the king does acknowledge that Hatori was an obligation at first, the boy has clearly grown on Zeko.