Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Orlin’s Truth Chapter 61: Orlin’s Truth Between practicing his new skills one day, Kai stood before Orlin.

Training kept him low on energy, but he never felt his mind sharper, not even in his past life during MMO dungeon raids with three energy drinks in his system.

He pushed himself beyond his limits and started sending out zombies to bring back animals to absorb so he could maintain his pool of life essence.

‘I’ve grown.

But it’s not enough.’ Orlin watched him with an unreadable expression, then slowly nodded.

“You’ve done well, Kai Tensen.

Better than I expected.

You’ve surpassed the threshold of what most necromancers can ever hope to.

You’ve proven you are ready.” Kai exhaled, bracing himself.

“Ready for what?” A book appeared in Orlin’s hands, bound in ancient black leather, its spine cracked with age.

The moment Kai laid eyes on it, a strange sensation crawled over his skin.

Orlin extended it toward him.

“This tome holds what I have withheld from you.

The truth about necromancy.

Its past.

My past.” Kai hesitated before taking it.

The leather felt unnaturally cold beneath his fingers, almost as if it resisted his touch.

He met Orlin’s gaze, searching for an answer in the old man’s tired eyes.

“Why now?” “Because you’ve earned the right to know.

And because it’s time I stop hiding from it.” Kai turned the pages carefully.

The text was written in an old dialect, but the meaning sank into him as though it had always been waiting in the back of his mind.

‘The Necromancer Purge.’ He had read loosely about the gods striking down evil before the history books began.

Garrett, his father, talked about it as well, but that was only from the world’s perspective, the tales of monstrous beings, of their unnatural thirst for power, of their extermination.

‘But this book is different.

It’s written by those who were there.

Who saw everything.’ Orlin remained silent as Kai read, his fingers tightening over the edges of his robe.

The truth was far messier than what the world believed.

Necromancers had once been scholars, healers, and protectors of knowledge lost to time.

They studied the soul, the passage of life and death, and sought to understand what lay beyond the veil.

They lived longer than most, built cities and castles with the dead, and solved a lot of shortages of manual labour with their undead.

But their greatest sin, it seemed, had not been the magic itself.

It was the discovery of the Variants.

The Variants.

A people born of magic itself, their existence an aberration in the eyes of the world.

Marked by elongated ears, pallid skin, and strikingly vibrant eyes, they were neither fully human nor entirely something else.

And the world had feared them.

When necromancers refused to abandon the Variants, choosing instead to protect and study them, the world had turned against them.

The purge that followed had not been a war, it had been extermination.

“You betrayed them,” Kai whispered, his grip tightening on the tome.

“You turned against your own.” Orlin sat in his usual chair by the hearth, swirling a glass of something dark and thick.

He didn’t deny it.

“I did.” Kai’s stomach churned.

“Why?” Orlin let out a slow breath, staring into the flickering flames.

“I was tired, Kai.

You cannot begin to understand what it is like to live for centuries, to watch everyone you care for turn to dust while you remain.

I wanted an end to my suffering.

An end to my cursed longevity.” His voice was distant, empty.

“So, I sought death the only way I knew how.

I turned myself in.

I led them to the others.” Kai felt sick.

“You sold out your own people just to die?” “Yes.” “But you didn’t.” Orlin laughed bitterly.

“No.

Death never came for me.

The gods and the world denied me even that.

I survived when all the others fell.

And now, all I have left is regret.” The room fell into silence, heavy with the weight of Orlin’s confession.

Kai wanted to rage, to shout, to demand justice for the necromancers who had been betrayed.

But another thought gnawed at the edges of his mind.

“If necromancers were such a threat, why weren’t they wiped out sooner?” Kai asked, voice quiet but firm.

“Why did the world fear them so much?” Orlin’s expression shifted.

His usual sharp demeanour softened, replaced by something more sorrowful.

“Because of the Variants.” Kai frowned.

In the tome, it mentioned variants.

Humans whose lives had been permanently and fundamentally altered by the effects of magic.

They had long, pointed ears, skin as pale as death, and eyes of unnatural beauty.

‘Just like me…’ But history painted them as abominations, creatures twisted by dark magic, unnatural mistakes that needed to be culled.

“Does anyone still know anything about the variants, or necromancers?” “A handful of people who, with their magic, have lived for centuries.

The gods themselves.

Probably a few members of the church.

I wouldn’t even say that more than fifty people in the world know the truth, and you’re one of them now.” “But what’s the truth?

Who is in the right?” Orlin leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Right?

Wrong?

That doesn’t matter.

What matters is the truth, and the truth is that necromancy isn’t evil, Kai.

It never was.

But when the world started seeing Variants…

When people began to be born changed, with traits that weren’t human…

the world needed something to blame.” “The Variants were linked to necromancers,” Kai murmured, realisation dawning on him.

“They were our children.

Our creations.

Not through twisted rituals, as the world claimed, but through natural birth.

The magic we wielded had seeped into our bloodlines.

Our offspring were changed, gifted, or cursed, depending on your perspective.” Kai swallowed hard.

“And that’s why the world turned on necromancers.” Orlin nodded.

“They feared what we represented.

Magic was something to be controlled, studied, bound to laws.

But we proved that it could change humanity itself.

And that terrified them.” Kai sat back, his mind spinning.

A famous person had once said that history was always written by the victors, but this was too much.

This history changed everything that people knew about the world.

Entire portions of history completely deleted from the world.

Necromancers weren’t hunted simply because they raised the dead.

They were hunted because they defied the natural order, not by manipulating corpses, but by creating something new.

Something different.

The more he thought about it, the more his skin crawled.

Kai had never questioned it before.

But now, he wasn’t sure he could trust anything the world had taught him.

“Did you ever regret it?” he asked, voice quiet.

“Betraying them?” Orlin’s gaze was distant, lost in the past.

“Every single day.” Kai clenched his fists.

“Then why are you still alive?” Orlin chuckled, but there was no humour in it.

“Because the world will not grant me the mercy of death.” “And?” “And that’s what I need you for.

You, the first known born necromancer and Variant ever, in the entire history of the world.

All variants were blessed with magic, but none with necromancy.

At least, not until you.” With that, Orlin stood and strode toward his office.

As he entered, the door sealed behind him with a pulse of powerful magic, locking Kai out.

Kai stared after him, the weight of everything settling heavily on his shoulders.

‘I thought that maybe he was undead, or perhaps some necromancer that didn’t use necromancy, but this…’ Everything had changed.

CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Jhaydun Orlin was a necromancer?

Shocker!

But now you know the history of the necromancers and variants.

Is that all there is to know, though?