My Harem of Dangerous and Crazy Women as a Reincarnated Necromancer

"We’re going to pretend none of this happened... ¿ok?"

Yuki nodded once, Alice nodded without looking at him, and Rose straightened up, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with a finger.

"As you wish, Master," Rose said with a smile.

Then Mark sat down on the throne and rested his elbows on the armrests, while the five stood before him.

"Alice, I assume Rose already filled you in on what happened outside," he said, turning to look at her.

"Yes, I’m aware, my lord," Alice replied with a slight nod. "Rose told me about the group of inquisitors you encountered during your walk."

"Good, then I don’t have to repeat the details."

Mark leaned back slightly in the throne.

"The group was led by a woman who identified herself as Captain Hod of the Holy Inquisition," Mark said, watching Alice’s reaction. "Do you know her?"

Alice frowned slightly, as if searching her memory.

"Frankly, no, my lord," she replied after a couple of seconds. "The name doesn’t ring any bells."

"I see," Mark said, letting out a faint sigh.

"While I knew my direct superiors and the members of my squad, beyond that... I barely spoke to anyone else in the order."

Mark was about to respond when a voice interrupted him from his right.

"Excuse me, Master," Aria said, raising a hand.

Mark turned his head toward her.

"Did this Hod have short white hair with golden streaks?" Aria asked, hand still raised.

Mark blinked, surprised by the precision of the description.

"Yeah?" Mark replied. "Exactly like that, how do you know that? Do you know her?"

"Of course I know her," Aria said, lowering her hand. "She’s my cousin."

"...Your cousin?"

"Yes, Master," Aria confirmed, nodding. "Hod Lightwood, she’s the daughter of my mother’s sister."

"Really?"

"That’s right, we grew up together in the same house for most of our childhoods."

Mark was somewhat taken aback by the information the blonde woman had just shared.

’So the person who was tracking us turns out to be Aria’s cousin... this world is ridiculously small.’

"Although," Aria added, bringing a finger to her chin with a thoughtful expression, "it seems pretty strange to me that she’s involved in inquisition matters."

"Why?" Mark asked.

"Because Hod was always in the adventurers’ guild," Aria explained. "For as long as I can remember she always wanted to be an adventurer, it was the only thing she talked about when we were little girls, and she never showed the slightest interest in the clergy or the inquisition."

"If that’s true, then what was she doing leading a group of inquisitors?"

"That’s what I don’t understand, Master," Aria said, frowning slightly. "For someone from the adventurers’ guild to end up working with the inquisition, something pretty significant must have happened."

Then Alice decided to speak again.

"It’s probably because of the restructuring," Alice said in a tone noticeably more serious than the one she had been using until now.

"Restructuring?" Mark asked, confused.

"To keep it short, after the Knight of the Dawn, Elyndra, disappeared," Alice explained, glancing sideways at Ely, "the clergy was left paralyzed and in chaos."

Mark felt Ely, who was standing to his left, shift with slight discomfort at hearing that name.

"Elyndra was the pillar of the clergy," Alice continued. "She wasn’t just the most powerful warrior they had, she was also a symbol, living proof that the Goddess protected humanity through her chosen ones."

Alice paused, then continued.

"When she disappeared without a trace, everything in the clergy fell apart... so the inquisition was forced to take on part of its functions, and to try to keep things running they had to start recruiting heavily from outside."

"By outside you mean adventurers?" Mark asked.

"Adventurers, mercenaries, independent knights... anyone with the necessary skills who was willing to work for the inquisition," Alice confirmed. "The restructuring was quite drastic and many positions were replaced overnight."

"That makes sense..." Aria said in a low tone. "If the inquisition was desperate to fill positions, Hod would logically have been a perfect candidate, she was always quite skilled."

Then Ely spoke again.

"Well... in my defense, I barely remember anything about what I used to do in the clergy," she said, crossing her arms with a carefree tone.

Ely paused for a moment.

"And besides," Ely continued with an enormous smile on her face, "now I have a much more important mission than anything I did before."

"And what mission is that?"

While Mark was the one who asked, he could already guess the kind of answer Ely was about to give.

"To please you, my beloved Master," Ely said, pressing her palms together. "That is my one and only mission in life."

"Mine too, Master," Aria added.

"You copycat," Ely whispered.

Mark simply lowered his gaze to the floor and let out a long sigh.

’This just keeps getting more and more complicated...’

Because now he didn’t just have the inquisition looking for Alice.

It turned out that the person leading that search was a relative of one of his subordinates.

And on top of everything, the reason the inquisition existed in its current form was because Ely, his first subordinate, had disappeared from the clergy, causing an institutional crisis they apparently still hadn’t recovered from.

’Because somehow everything always leads back to me...’

Then Mark raised his gaze again and looked at everyone present.

"Listen," he said in a tone that made all of them focus their attention on him instantly. "Whatever the case, we now know that without meaning to, we’ve caused quite a large scandal."

Mark paused.

"So the best thing we can do right now is keep a low profile while we figure out how I can recover my powers."

"That sounds sensible, my lord," Alice said, nodding.

"Well thought out, Master," Aria followed.

"I couldn’t expect anything less from my beloved Master," Ely continued with a smile.

Yuki, for her part, as was already her custom, simply nodded slightly.

"The problem is deciding where to start," Mark said, bringing a hand to his chin.

It was then that Rose stepped forward.

"On that subject, Master," she said in a tone that suggested she had been waiting for the right moment to speak. "I already have some suggestions about where we should head first."

"Go ahead, I’m all ears."