Four years ago...

"Hey, where are you going this summer break? Papa's taking me to Durcesa, you know!”

“Eeh, how nice! My papa isn’t taking me anywhere! I’m stuck with his boring etiquette lessons instead! Etiquette lessons! I’m not some highborn noble lady! I’m a mage!”

“Hehe, he’s still big about you being a court mage? Doesn’t he want you to inherit his business instead?”

“Haven’t I told you? That’s for my big brother. Not that I’d want to. I’m not good at all with numbers and bookkeeping and all that junk!”

Cheerful conversations could be heard everywhere in the Mira Magic Academy as students in droves left the premises. It was summer break, and they were leaving to be back with their families. Most of them had stagecoaches waiting to pick them up. Only some left by walking, like a certain redhead girl this short tale would be about.

She walked at the sidelines with no other student beside her to converse with, unlike the others. She hugged a book close to her chest—her eyes looking straight to the road in front of her. Her expression was neutral, though perhaps there was a little sign of distaste in the corner of her mouth. She wore a dull and cheap-looking black robe, unlike the other students who wore colorful and stylish outfits. Looking closer, you can see that it had been repaired so many times, to the point that it had patches all over the garment. In fact, it looked closer to the rags the poor would wear than a proper mage robe.

And then, said robe caught fire.

She yelped, and she immediately patted her burning bottom with her book.

It died down, but not before it made a hole at said robe, revealing the fact that she was currently not wearing any underwear.

"Oh my, would you look at that? You're quite the pervert, aren't you?"

A fancy-looking stagecoach had stopped near her, with another redhead sneering at her through the window. Just from her gaudy robes, you could tell that she was rich, the complete opposite of the poor-looking girl she was sneering at. One of her arms was outside the window. She didn't even bother to hide the wand she had used to start a fire on her robe.

"Where are you going this summer, Felicia? I never know where your home is, come to think of it. Oh, right, you don't have any, don't you?"

Felicia didn't reply. She didn't even give her a look as she hurried her steps, covering the hole on her thin robe with her right hand.

This offended the rich redhead. She never liked to be ignored like that.

"Everyone! We have quite the pervert here! She doesn't wear any panties under her robes, can you believe that? That goes against the academy's dress code, isn't it?"

"Really? Eww, gross. What kind of a lady wouldn't wear undergarments."

"Even her entire outfit is gross. It's an eyesore to look at and I bet it smells bad as well."

"Really, how did she even pay for her tuition in the first place? Don't tell me that she stole the gold from somewhere?"

"I heard she's one of those scholarship folks."

"Ah, that explains it. Those folks are dirt poor bums after all."

As if rehearsed, the surrounding students all three harsh words to the poor girl. Not a single one of them stood for her, or even whispered a kind word for her under their breath.

She continued to walk, enduring the derisive laughter entering her ears. Her cheeks were red of humiliation, and her eyes were shivering, almost as if she was holding back tears. She now placed her book on her exposed bum.

Only when she was out of sight of them that she bit her thumb until it started to bleed—her tearful eyes immediately switching to that of pure anger.

No matter how many times she ended up in a situation like that, she could never get used to it. Ever since she got better grades in alchemy than that Merinda girl, she immediately turned hostile against her, even though in every other grade, Merinda was much better than her.

She knew that if she were to fight, she would win. An arrogant girl like her would be easily caught off-guard by the many tricks she had under her sleeves. In fact, she could easily humiliate her in public if she wanted to—the same way she had humiliated her so many times.

However, she had sworn to herself, that she would not draw attention to herself and not to show herself to be a capable fighter. She would only be good at alchemy, and that's that.

It would be disastrous for her plan if the Academy, or even the Council, would start paying attention to her.

I’m not a complete fool like that little girl.

She was referring to the one and only Marina Greenwood, who had made a complete spectacle of herself when she entered the school last year. As a result, she drew the attention of Merinda as well, as she ended up becoming her newest victim.

She ended up having to walk across town still with her exposed buttocks, awkwardly covering them with her book, drawing some not-so-polite stares from onlookers. She had run out of panties to wear, thanks to them either becoming too small or their cheap waistbands breaking apart. She was poor, so terribly so, especially since she had to pay the rent for her shack on her meager adventurer income, as well as all the alchemical reagents and tools she needed for her experiments. Her clothes could wait.

Her shack—she wouldn't call it a house, was located at the southern outskirts of the city. It was used to be a storage house of her landlord, but it was no longer in use due to its deteriorating condition. And she had been able to rent it at a relatively cheap price, though she agreed it could be cheaper.

It was the ideal place to be used as her lab, since the owner never checked on her or the shack, as long as she paid her on time.

Once there, she opened the door and closed it behind her.

She was immediately greeted by the familiar scent of herbs and drugs and all the strange concoctions she had on the shelves. She took out her wand and lit the candle hanging inside a lamp chained to the ceiling. It was dim, but she was already completely used to it. She then put the book on her work table.

That's right. I need to check the corpse first.

She then went to a trapdoor in the corner of the room, lifting it open with both of her hands. As she was no longer in public, she no longer cared about exposing herself to anyone. She bent down freely, giving an excellent view of her soft and full bum as she lifted over the cover.

She then climbed down to the basement, using the ladder that was already put there beforehand.

And this was where her true, forbidden research was kept hidden, away from the prying eyes of the world.

A foul odor of death and decay entered her nostrils, but she was already used to it, just like she was used with the smell of alchemical components up above.

Inside were at least a dozen animal and monster corpses, either hung on the wall or put on the tables and shelves that filled the room. From household pets to cats and dogs, to actual monsters like wolves and bats.

She walked over to the corpse at the end of the room. It was a corpse of a giant snake. She took it down from the wall and immediately examined it with her bare hands.

"Tch, another failure. It decomposes too quickly again."

She returned it back to the wall before biting her right thumb again. It was her habit. Every time something didn't go her way, she would bring it to her mouth and press it with her teeth.

"This isn't good. My research isn't progressing anywhere. If only I can get that necromancy book… but that old coot isn't giving me the permission I need. Even though I had acted like a model student to him…"

"I have no choice. I would have to use my body once again. I know he has been leering at me for a good while. He wants me."

For just a split second, a sad smile appeared on her face.

Before turning to a wide grin.

"It's fine, isn't it? I have promised to myself. I will use whatever means is necessary to advance my research. I will give my everything. My heart. My body. Even my very soul. If I could bring my ideal world to existence."

"A world free of death."

---------

The next day, after another night spent falling asleep on her work table as she worked on her formulas, she departed back to the city to visit the Adventurer's Guild.

Of course, she had fixed the hole on her robe for yesterday. Her mother teaching her how to sew really came in handy. She wouldn't need to waste money going to the tailor or buying a new robe.

Summer break was the perfect opportunity to earn money, as she could take more well-paying quests that would take her quite a distance away from the city. Ranking wise, she already reached C-rank, due to the amount of quests she had done over the years.

She went to the job posting board, looking around for any quests that would yield the most money with the least amount of effort needed.

Hmm? What's this? A B-rank quest to gather alchemical ingredients?

...

Perfect. I could find all of these in one mountain. It would take more than a month going back and forth from me, but the payment is worth it, so I don't mind.

But to think I would have to return to that place…

She took the parchment and gave it to the receptionist. You are allowed to take a quest one rank higher, so a C-rank like her can take a B-rank quest just fine.

-----------

She then departed immediately, opting for travelling by foot instead of taking a stagecoach to the south. She didn't have any money to waste, even though taking them could significantly cut the amount of days she would have to travel.

Her destination was to the south of Mira, which meant she would enter the part of the Magocracy that’s under the jurisdiction of the Vehta Family and its ruling patriarch, Monas Vehta. He was a Grandmaster-level Earth mage, which reflected in his green and lush territory, filled with many forests. In fact, to enter his territory from Mira, you had to pass through a forest first. The Kuluasa Forest was its name. You would be able to find a town built just outside of it on the other side, named the same as said forest.

The Kuluasa Forest was, unfortunately, not that safe of a route to take. Even though the road cut straight through said forest, with a decent chunk of the trees sacrificed for said purpose, the monsters from the remaining green part of the forest would sometimes pop out and attack travelers. They were weak, thankfully enough, though it meant merchants and other travelers who couldn’t defend themselves would have to hire an adventurer or two to guard them as they crossed said forest.

Monsters weren’t the only thing you had to worry about however, as lately, there had been talks of a new bandit gang taking camp in the area, ransacking any travelers that were unfortunate enough to lack the ability to defend themselves.

It wasn’t that odd however, as bandits would come and go in the forest, usually after someone wealthy enough to ask for an extermination mission of them came along and posted a high level request on the Guild.

The locals who frequently traveled through it had petitioned both the Capital and the Vehta Family for a constant patrol in the forest to make the route safer, but so far, neither of them seemed to care enough to bother.

Which was why she ended up having to face them on their own.

--------

“Alright, pretty little missy! You’re a mage, aren’t cha? Now take out your wand and throw it on the ground, or else my archer friends up there on the trees would turn you to cheese before you could even chant a single word.”

The big brute of a man in front of her had jumped down from a tree as she was traversing the road, brandishing a giant axe that he was holding in a single hand.

Night had fallen, and he wisely abused the reduced visibility so his ambush would be more successful.

And behind her were two sword-wielding bandits,  preventing her from just turning tail and fleeing.

Most mages would just surrender at this point. Mages were creatures that were weak to ambushes after all. With no chance to cast their spells, they might as well be ordinary citizens who couldn’t defend themselves.

"Come on, Missy! I really ain't wanna wound that pretty face of yours! Girls as good-looking as you would fetch a pretty price on the market after all!" 

The slave trade wasn't that popular in the Magocracy, but black markets still existed. The Council didn't really ban its practice after all. The only reason it wasn't popular was because the nation itself had no need to rely on it for its income.

"Or would'cha rather be my girl instead? I promise I'll make you feel really good, hehe…" He licked his lips in a most repulsive manner.

"You'll do."

"Huh? What? Speak up, Missy! I can't hear—Ugaaahh!"

He looked down.

And saw that his abdomen was bleeding profusely, as if he had just been stabbed by a sword.

The two behind her saw what happened, and they were just as baffled.

"A-a shadow… a shadow just—Guwaaahhh!"

"Y-you bitch!"

The one remaining man charged forward and slashed at her.

Only to find that his blade went through her like she wasn't even there.

"Graahhh!"

A shadow pierced through his chest, and the last thing he saw was the demonic grin on her face.

"Aaarghh!"

"Ugyaahh!"

"Raaghh!"

The archers all fell down one by one from their trees, pierced by similar shadows in their vital organs.

They thought they were doing the ambushing, but it was the opposite.

She already knew they were there from the start, and she already cast her shadow magic in anticipation beforehand. The girl they ambushed—she was nothing more than her shadow clone. The real her was hidden in the shadows from the beginning.

Her clone vanished, and her real self rose up from the nearby shadow.

With a gleeful grin, she walked over to the big guy's corpse and pointed her wand at him.

"Reanimate."

The corpse immediately twitched all over, as if an electric current was passing through it.

And then, it stood, grabbing back it's giant axe in the process.

"Now, let's see how long you can last."

---------

She made it through the rest of the forest safely, with only just a handful of monsters that she joyfully slaughtered using her zombie bandit.

That joy abruptly ended however when the zombie, after just four hours of usage, shriveled and fell apart.

Such was the current limitation of her necromantic ability. She wasn’t yet able to control more than one corpse at the same time, and she couldn’t make it last for long.

It was already a miracle she could learn necromancy in the first place. She did it by applying the magic theory of golem control to corpses, combining it with some dark magic on the side. Unlike golems, who always had a control unit inside it that could receive commands from the mage and relay it to the rest of the body, she had to rely on the brain inside the corpse instead.

I need it… I need that book…

The Book of Necromancy, apparently written by the Necromancer King himself 500 years ago.

She had reached her limits. She needed the knowledge written in it if she were to get anywhere close to her goal.

After resting at the town just outside the forest, she headed west. It was another ten days of walking through the countryside until she reached her hometown.

And along the way, she passed through numerous empty and abandoned villages, with its houses overgrown with vines and moss, barely keeping itself from collapsing.

It was the result of the Crystal Plague.

Eight years ago, a strange plague devastated the region. It slowly made anyone afflicted to grow mana crystals on their bodies, until they eventually suffered organ failure from their organs crystallizing, leading to certain death.

The strangest part of the plague however was that the ones afflicted were only those with no magic potential. Magicians were entirely fine. The non-mages, however, they all suffered.

No cure was ever found. The plague eventually stopped on its own, but not before killing so many people in the process.

Including her entire family.

---------

She stood on the hill at the edge of her village, where her old house used to be.

From there, she could see the mountain she was heading to. How many times had she gone there to gather medicinal herbs, when she still had her dream to become an alchemist?

"I wanna be a great alchemist when I grow up, Daddy! I want to heal everyone with my medicine so everyone can be happy!"

How foolish.

There are so many ailments and diseases out there with no cure to be found. Even if she were a genius that devoted her entire short, human life to find new cures, she would only be able to find a handful of them in her lifetime. Alchemy is hard. Really hard. Far more technical than just casting fireballs or healing spells. Especially medicinal alchemy, where you need to also study the inner workings of the human body, a field of knowledge woefully underdeveloped. And yet, it is the only way to develop cures for rare, incurable diseases as healing magic is oriented far more towards healing wounds and afflictions you can get in battle. 

There is only one permanent, ideal solution to eradicate the world of all illnesses forever.

To turn everyone into immortal undead. 

Only then the mythical Panacea would become a reality. Not through alchemy, but through the power of necromancy.