From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 25: The Ones Taken

The librarian didn't answer immediately. Instead, she walked to a display case built into the wall, housing different scrolls. Next to it was a table with a pair of gloves.

Carefully, she put them on and pulled a brittle roll of parchment sealed with half-melted wax. None of them dared to breathe in case it crumbled into dust.

"What did the Queen tell you?"

"That he was her dearest advisor and friend. I saw the glass casket that housed his body, and it had..." he lifted his own cane up to the light. "A perfect copy of this cane."

He told her how it had moved when he squeezed his own, and that Alaric, the 12th mortician, would have been his mentor. "...and how she hasn't successfully summoned another one in 100 years."

"...I see. But what happened to him? Did she tell you?"

Lucian shook his head. "No...no she didn't."

The librarian heaved a deep sigh. "While she was content to omit the official story published across the kingdom, I am not. His body may lie in the Queen's museum, but his soul completely disappeared. And a body without a soul is just a husk."

Lucian looked at Rosa. "Is this true?"

Rosa nodded. "It was a complete mystery. One evening the 12th Mortician retired into his quarters and never returned for breakfast. I had just started as a maid in the palace then—I'd never heard her cry so loud since. His body was always cold and never showed signs of decay."

The librarian nodded. "We received the missives the very next day. 'Alaric has disappeared and left only his body.' I traveled to Atraeum to ask what it meant for our treaties. She was deep in her own grief and refused to see me...or any of the diplomats."

Rosa's face grew grim. "Until one day...he arrived."

Lucian didn't even have to ask. "The Spymaster."

"Yes. He's charming, efficient, and evil. But he helped the Queen handle all of our concerns. I'll never forget how he said my name."

Lucian waited for her to continue. "My name is Gethra—I was too preoccupied to introduce myself earlier, forgive me—but he purposely addressed me as Gertha. Twice. And always in that...horrible tone. Like he was about to devour me."

"What did he look like?"

Gethra shook her head warily. "Mortician Bowcott, that Spymaster has multiple forms. Describing them all will take a millennium in the very least. He's just...constantly creepy. That's how I know it's him."

She shook her head like she could dislodge his image from her mind. "So the official story is he left his mortal body and disappeared—to where, we have no idea. But according to the last scroll he penned before he left Staesis..."

Gethra carefully opened the scroll and Lucian started to read.

"I must go to where the rewritten rites ended. Underneath Staesis. Near where death was sealed—but not silenced. Perfected preservation—that is my legacy. I only regret not telling Marguerite. 

But I needed to go. The road of a mortician was full of aches and I can't bear them any longer."

As he reached out to touch the scroll, the Grimoire inside his satchel pulsed once, like it recognized something familiar.

"You aren't the first to carry that book," Gethra said. "Or that cane. But I believe you might be the last."

Her statement felt like she strapped a pair of cement shoes on his legs and tossed him into a lake. "Me being the last is...a bit much. I don't think I can do this forever, either."

Gethra tilted her head. "You're the first I've heard admit that. The others claim they love the work and can do it until the end of time."

"I...I love being a mortician, but it's not a—" Lucian stopped himself and his cheeks flushed a deep red. It was all he thought about, until he died in the bar. Some of his happiest memories included the dead.

But I liked them more when they stayed dead. When they were just problems to solve. Now they're...like people. Real people. What is wrong with me?

Now Lucian understood why his own reflection gave him a pitying glance back at the funeral home.

Gethra said softly, "After Alaric vanished, the town held a vigil that just...never ended. The sadness twisted into something else. The mayor referred to it as a loop of reverence...and repression."

She glanced at the preserved library, tucked away from the rest of the town. "They replaced funeral rites with silence. And when it failed...they took Alaric's scroll and rewrote it into efficiency."

Lucian turned to the painting one last time. "He looks like someone who wanted to save everyone." Someone who thought the world would be kinder if he was so good he could rewrite the rules. Exactly how I feel. And...he wears my face.

Gethra's voice was somber.

"That's how the rot started. And why all this had to be built. Mayor Gray hired scribes to rewrite the books. Redacted every rite and every name. The funerals were replaced with footnotes. I was told to adapt or leave."

Lucian chuckled. "Clearly, you stayed."

"Someone had to remember," she said as she replaced the scroll as carefully as she had retrieved it. "And I couldn't allow Alaric's mistakes to be the only voice left."

For a long time, the only thing they heard was the fireplace's gentle crackling. Rosa sat on a carved bench, hands folded in her lap and visibly trembling—but still herself.

Lucian leaned on his cane.

"Gethra...can I ask a simpler question, then?"

She looked at him, and only now did he notice her eyes were pure black. Her expression was unreadable behind the horn-rimmed glasses.

"I was sent here because someone wrote to the Queen requesting aid. But how am I supposed to help anyone when no one will speak to us? The laborers shut down when I approach. The mayor speaks in riddles. If I can't stop the parasite trying to possess Rosa, she has two days left until she continues to decay."

"You're asking the right questions," Gethra said, voice thin. "And I may have the answer."

She walked to another alcove—a low, sealed cabinet this time—and pulled out a leather-bound book filled with jagged handwriting and timestamped entries. Her finger hovered over the most recent pages.

"One of the townscorpses awakened."

Lucian almost let go of his cane in surprise. "You're serious?"

"He was a laborer in the water routing quarter. They reported him humming while shoveling ash. Then...he asked someone where the sunrise had gone."

Lucian blinked. "What happened to him?"

She waved her right hand in the air and the memory appeared before his eyes. In it was the town laborer looking panicked, clutching his shovel like it could save him. A cane pointed at him, and Lucian saw the familiar carvings along the handle.

Two Whisperbound were summoned then, transparent at first, looking like a gentle mist before they became gray monsters swathed in tattered robes. They descended upon him and then the body was no more.

They even took his shovel.

"He was relocated. No explanation and no blessing. He wasn't even replaced until the next Return."

She snapped her fingers and the memory folded in on itself, disappearing with a soft pop. "The town knows what happens when the dead remember they're supposed to sleep. That's why they're so afraid of you."

Lucian looked at his cane. Its silver edge caught the flickering firelight and shimmered faintly, like it was listening.

"One mortician brought them endless sleep. Now another has appeared...they think I'll start the waking?"

"No," Gethra corrected gently. "They think you already have."

Rosa stirred then, her voice dry. "Maybe you weren't supposed to fix what they built."

Lucian didn't answer.

Deep inside its satchel, the Grimoire pulsed like a second heartbeat—steady and waiting.