Memory manipulation. It sounded simple, but in practice, it was an immensely complicated process. Just because one's necromantic power was strong, or their mastery of necromancy profound, didn’t make memory manipulation any easier.

With his hand pressed against the crown of the unconscious Alius’s head, Karnak spoke. "Technically, anyone can manipulate memories, you know?"

Even a solid blow to the back of the head with a club could serve as memory manipulation of sorts.

"The problem is, it comes with huge side effects and a high failure rate." The key was to alter the desired memories with precision, as much and as finely as needed. "First, I’ll erase the part where he started having suspicions."

A faint current of magic flowed along the needle, touching upon the center of Alius’s memories. Alius’s body trembled slightly. With this, he would now lose a portion of his memories from a specific point in time.

Specifically, from the moment he was struck by Future Leven’s onslaught alongside Lapicel. To Alius, it would now feel as though he had passed out at that point and remembered nothing afterward.

"That part is easy." The real challenge lay ahead. "I have to edit his memories of the aftermath."

Had Alius raised his suspicions at the scene of the battle with Future Leven, things would have been much simpler. Karnak could’ve just wiped his memory clean and woken him up with a simple explanation: "You got stabbed and knocked out. That’s all."

But Alius had spent quite a while brooding over it on his own before finally coming to confront Karnak. So if Karnak merely erased the memory of witnessing the Angel of Radiant Wings, what would happen?

Alius would be left with the memory of puzzling over Karnak, even though, to his knowledge, he had never seen the Angel of Radiant Wings at all. A contradiction would arise in his mind. He would remember having doubts, remember agonizing over them, yet have no recollection of what had caused those doubts in the first place.

Who had he been suspicious of? What had he been worrying about? The memory would make no sense.

"That kind of thing drives people insane." This was the true difficulty of memory manipulation.

It wasn’t enough to just erase or alter a moment in time. One had to also naturally weave through the memories that followed and remove inconsistencies.

"First, let’s plant a memory of waking up."

Originally, Alius had collapsed from exhaustion and rested against a crumbling section of the fortress wall after treating Lapicel with healing magic. Karnak subtly modified that memory.

Instead of remaining conscious, he had fallen unconscious alongside Lapicel, and it had been Karnak’s group who later woke him up. Creating new memories like this wasn’t easy. It required rebuilding them from fragments of existing memory. It was a task so complex that most necromancers couldn’t even dream of attempting it.

But for Karnak, it wasn’t particularly difficult. In the past, Alius had also passed out during battle and had been woken by Karnak and Varos. Karnak simply linked this new memory to that old experience, making the transition feel natural.

"Good. That part’s done."

Now came the trickiest part of all. During the post-battle cleanup, Alius had been doubting Karnak all along. How could Karnak alter those memories without creating contradictions?

Varos cautiously asked, "Can’t you just make up some other memory and plant it instead?"

"For old memories, that works just fine," Karnak responded.

In fact, altering old memories didn’t even require necromancy. Simple brainwashing would suffice. Just as someone with no history of childhood abuse could come to believe it if it was repeatedly drilled into their mind. But that only worked for memories long past.

"You can’t change recent, vivid memories like that," Karnak explained.

It wasn’t a matter of needing immense power or extraordinary magic. What mattered was the ability to fabricate information well.

Karnak suddenly asked a question. "Varos, let’s say you tried to write down everything that happened to you today in words and pictures. How would you go about it?"

"Eh?" Varos tilted his head, then asked, "You mean like keeping a diary?"

"Not just a simple diary. I want every single detail." Karnak gave a wry smile as he continued. "Everything your eyes saw today, everything your ears heard, everything you tasted, smelled, and touched. Every feeling, every experience, the entire world as you perceived it."

"Uh... I have no idea what you’re talking about," Varos admitted.

"Well, I guess it’s hard to understand if you’re not a mage." Karnak shrugged. "To put it simply, you’d have to recreate Alius’s entire experience of the day. Even if you tried to write it all down, it’d take at least dozens of volumes."

That was why it was effectively impossible to completely reconstruct someone’s memory.

There was just too much information. So Karnak usually preferred memory swaps when tampering with someone’s mind.

Instead of implanting entirely new memories, he would slip new elements into existing ones, letting the subject themselves naturally fill in the gaps. Rather than fight the brain’s processes, he would coax it into completing the puzzle for him.

"Human memory can be sharp at times, but surprisingly dull at others. That’s why it tends to patch over minor inconsistencies on its own," Karnak continued.

For example, say a man named Michael committed murder. To alter this memory, you simply swap the name to Mike instead. If this Mike actually existed in real life, the memory of the murder would adjust itself accordingly, and Mike would take the place of the original culprit in the mind.

"If I throw in a suitable suspect in my place, Alius’s memories will naturally adjust to fit," Karnak concluded.

Serati, listening nearby, wore a dazed expression. She felt as if she had a faint grasp on Karnak’s explanation. But she didn’t quite understand all of it.

Still, there was one thing she was sure of. "So in the end, you’re just pinning it on someone else again?"

"That’s why I picked someone who wouldn’t feel too wronged by it." The target was none other than the Silver Knight Kairon. "Karnak, Kairon. Conveniently similar names, too, don’t you think?"

Thus, the necromancer Alius had been suspicious of was no longer Karnak, but Kairon. Alius’s entire memory flow shifted accordingly. The reason for his suspicion? While dealing with Kairon, who had surrendered, Alius had sensed a faint trace of darkness from him.

Though Kairon had committed treason, it was under the coercion of Gellard, who had been held hostage. And indeed, once Gellard’s death had been confirmed, Kairon had promptly returned to the righteous path of the goddesses.

Alius couldn’t lightly suspect such a man of necromancy, so he had sought out Karnak to discuss his concerns.

Karnak said with a satisfied expression. "Good, that creates a scenario that’s similar enough but different. He’ll just get a thorough investigation and then they’ll chalk it up to Alius’s misunderstanding."

In this case, Kairon would be wrongfully suspected, but it wasn’t a real issue. After all, he wasn’t actually a necromancer.

***

Once the memory manipulation was complete, Varos and Serati seated Alius in a chair and stepped outside the tent. Moments later, Alius regained consciousness. Because the memories had been connected so seamlessly, he had no idea that he had even fainted.

With practiced nonchalance, Karnak asked the same question as before. "Is there something you wish to say to me?"

The conversation began again, as if it were happening for the first time.

"I want to believe my senses were mistaken, but no matter how I think on it... they weren’t." But then, the dialogue naturally diverged. "I suspect Sir Kairon might be a necromancer. But doubting a silver knight, accusing him of being an agent of darkness, is no small matter..."

"I see, that is quite a concern," Karnak replied, feigning contemplation. "But if you look at it another way, is this not the perfect opportunity to interrogate him without issue? Regardless of the circumstances, Sir Kairon did commit treason against the goddesses."

"That’s true," Alius agreed, rising to his feet. "I’ve made up my mind thanks to you, Lord Karnak. We must interrogate Sir Kairon, of course, as respectfully as possible."

With a look of relief, Alius stepped out of the tent. Varos and Serati returned inside shortly after.

Glancing toward the exit, Serati muttered under her breath. "It’s honestly amazing."

She had just seen Alius leave the tent, his expression free of any awkwardness or lingering doubt.

She asked Karnak. "Just by changing the name in his memory, everything flows so naturally?"

"I told you, didn’t I? Memories have their own way of patching themselves up," he answered her.

Memories naturally filled in the blanks to erase contradictions. By simply changing the name at the core of the suspicion, all memories of that person’s actions shifted to the newly named suspect.

"That’s why they say in necromancy, stealing a name is stealing a fate," Karnak commented.

***

Having fully crushed the rebellion, the subjugation force marched home in triumph. Amid the praise of many, they disbanded and returned to their respective nations.

It was a clean and complete conclusion. The eyes of the world then turned toward the fallen Strauss family. Their head, Martial King Gellard, was dead.

His heir, Emile Strauss, was missing. No one knew whether he was dead or had fled, but if he was still alive, he was now a traitor to both the royal family and the goddesses.

Silver knight Kairon and the family’s knights, its main strength, had all confessed their crimes and awaited punishment. The family had been thoroughly shaken to its core. Now, everyone wondered. What would become of this once-great martial family?

***

In the central region of the Ethriel Kingdom, in the Delphiad province, stood the Strauss manor. Leven was meeting with the vassals and knights of the household after having returned home.

"You are now the sole direct heir of the Strauss family, my lord."

"Therefore, once Lord Gellard’s funeral has concluded, you must ascend as the head of the family..."

There was no issue with Leven succeeding the position of family head. His bloodline was unshakable, and no one doubted his rightful claim. However, there was another problem.

The lord of the Strauss family was not merely a high-ranking noble. He was the one who would inherit the illustrious title of the Martial King of Delphiad. And yet, the mentor who should have guided this young heir to that title was gone. Gellard had died before he could pass down his teachings.

No matter how outstanding Leven’s natural talent was, how could he possibly reach the heights of the Martial King of Delphiad without anyone to instruct him?

"What are we to do about this?"

"Couldn’t we seek the guidance of Sir Kairon or the other masters?"

The Strauss family, after all, still had many strong warriors besides Gellard. There was the silver knight Kairon, and even two knights who had reached the purple-tier of mastery.

"We’ve heard that you, too, my lord, have already reached the blue-tier at such a young age. If you were to receive their guidance, surely you could one day ascend to the realm of the martial king..."

But the knights shook their heads.

"It is not so simple."

Though these men were indeed powerful, none of them had truly grasped the ultimate essence of Delphiad swordsmanship. The reason the Strauss family had produced martial kings across generations was because their school’s deepest secrets held the key to fully awakening the talent of their disciples.

"But we can’t simply give up, can we?"

"Let us at least summon them here."

"If you were to dedicate yourself in seclusion for the next decade or so..."

As the vassals carelessly carved out the path of his life, Leven watched them with a conflicted expression. To be fair, their suggestions weren’t entirely wrong. If he had no other way, he might have followed that route himself. That is, if it weren’t for a certain conversation he had just days prior.

—Ah, the essence of Delphiad swordsmanship? I know it all. Want me to teach you?

—I am aware that Sir Varos is deeply versed in Delphiad swordsmanship. But the method of nurturing an heir is the most closely guarded secret of our house. It is passed down only to the heads of the family.

—Right. And I’m telling you, I know all of it.

—What? Who could have taught you something like that, Sir Varos? 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

—Sir Leven taught me.

—I did?

—To be precise, the Leven of the future.

Yeah... it’s not like there’s no way forward.

But if the new head of the Strauss family declared he would train under an unheard-of young knight from some obscure provincial territory, it was obvious how everyone would react.

How am I supposed to explain this?