We continued our tour of the facility.
The captured weapons, starting with the magic cannons, had each been improved upon.
However, it seemed there were still issues to work out, and immediate practical deployment appeared difficult.
The closest to completion, apparently, was the firearm.
Even so, there was a sense that practical deployment would eventually be within reach.
The director explained with full confidence, so there was no doubt about it.
There was no need to rush.
Weapons development was always a long-term project, and there was no particular urgency to bolster our fighting strength.
I expected reliable results from the staff, even if it took time.
There was no need to push her too hard.
Next, we were led to a large room.
It had a higher ceiling than the others, and most of the room consisted of cages.
The finely divided cages occupied everything except the walkways.
They were stacked in multiple tiers, filling the room all the way up to the ceiling.
Multiple barriers had been placed on the iron bars.
If anyone touched them without authorization, an alarm would sound immediately.
As expected, the containment was rigorous.
Groans emanated from the countless cages.
By now, those sounds were familiar to me—the voices of captive ghouls.
The ghouls inside the cages lay on their sides, clad in restraints.
Decay of their bodies had not progressed much; they were all relatively recent specimens.
Not a few of them were indistinguishable from humans at a glance.
This was where they researched methods for returning the undead to the living.
The undead confined in the cages were spies from foreign nations.
They had infiltrated the Royal Capital, and rather than simply executing them, we had chosen them as experimental subjects.
The undead in storage had decayed too far and were becoming skeletons, so these ones suited our purposes.
If we were to try returning them to life, we wanted to start with fresh undead.
Metal plates were affixed to each cage.
They listed detailed conditions organized by category.
They indicated what experiments had been conducted on each undead.
Looking at them, it was clear that remarkably meticulous testing was being carried out.
The researchers' passion and anguish were evident.
"We've tried various medications and spells, but we simply cannot find a workable method. The transformation from the living to the undead is considered irreversible, so overturning that is, after all..."
The director looked around the room and trailed off.
Her shoulders slumped, but that only showed how difficult a task it was.
I knew as well as anyone how impossible this was.
So I had no intention of pressuring her.
As things stood, returning a fundamentally transformed creature to its original state was close to impossible.
Even within the magical laws that produced such a vast variety of phenomena, this was essentially common knowledge.
"You may prioritize other research and development, but don't give up on this. Continue investigating."
"Y-Yes! Understood!"
The director straightened her spine and replied to my instruction.
I didn't want to push her too hard, but if she gave up, that would be a problem.
This much should be just right.
(Perhaps I should be looking into this on my own as well.)
As for the method of returning the undead to the living—it wasn't being researched for my own use.
I, who was deeply bound to the Valley of the Dead, would probably remain undead no matter what.
The nature of that bond was itself a powerful curse, one that could not be undone by any means.
This was far beyond what researchers could solve by racking their brains.
Setting my personal circumstances aside, establishing this technology would be quite useful.
Various applications could be imagined.
For instance, someone like Dolda might be returned to being human.
He had once been a pirate of legendary renown.
Regaining his original personality would allow him to fully utilize his considerable abilities.
"If I were to become a living being, I wonder what that would be like."
Grom murmured almost absently.
A difficult question.
In his case, the circumstances of his creation were far too complex.
He had been born as a powerful undead, created by synthesizing a mass of undead through my authority and imbuing them with the memories and experiences of the dead.
Endowed with vast amounts of miasma and mana, Grom was a monster second only to me.
Honestly, this went far beyond a matter of being irreversible.
The scale was entirely different from a single individual's transformation.
Turning Grom back into a living being would be practically impossible.
(Would extracting his soul and transplanting it into a living body be more reliable?)
Even that would require an extraordinarily advanced technique.
It was a completely different field from the research conducted in this room.
There was no particular need to make Grom living again, so he would not undergo any major transformation.
In any case, no progress had yet been made on this research, so we would have to take a long-term view.
Fortunately, there was no shortage of undead to work with.
As long as it could be conducted in parallel with other research, that would suffice.
Having finished touring the cages in the room, I made my request to the director.
"I'd like to see that particular research now."
"...Very well. This way."
The director looked slightly awkward, then quickly stepped out of the room.
From there, she began leading the way in silence.
Grom and I followed her.
Along the way, Grom leaned in and whispered to me.
"She seems rather uneasy. What's this research all about?"
"You'll see when we get there. It's not exactly pleasant."
If we were ranking things by how enjoyable they were, the weapons would come first.
Grom had been gazing at the weapons in development with visible excitement.
He had listened eagerly to the director's explanations and enthusiastically praised the weapons, insisting they absolutely had to be adopted by the Demon Lord's army.
He had apparently taken quite a liking to weapons deployment.
Compared to that earlier part of the tour, the research we were about to see was bound to be dull.
"We've arrived. Here it is."
The director stopped before a room located at the very back of the facility.
The magical security devices set up around it were particularly stringent.
Unauthorized entry would be virtually impossible.
The director passed through multiple authentication systems before opening the door.
We followed her inside.
The room was similar to the one we had just left.
There were numerous cages, and shadows of figures could be seen within them.
The one difference was that what lay in the cages were not undead but unmistakably corpses.
Most of them were either completely skeletonized or in advanced states of decay.
There were also fragments of flesh floating in liquid-filled glass containers.
It was not a pleasant sight.
A small number of staff were present in the room.
They were immersed in their work, not even glancing our way.
They must have been deeply focused.
Some were writing documents, while others were examining corpses.
Seeing all of this, Grom murmured in a low voice.
"Th-This is surely..."
"Research into resurrecting the dead."
I said without emotion.
As expected, Grom fell silent with a solemn expression.
"How's the progress?"
"As the reports indicate, there is not yet any sign of success, and we have nothing concrete to show for our efforts. I am deeply sorry..."
"Don't worry about it. It can't be helped."
I offered words of comfort to the bowing director.
Bringing the dead back to life was a true miracle.
Rising again through undeath was, to put it bluntly, an imitation.
It merely meant having transformed into a different existence—the undead—and was entirely different in meaning from resurrection.
It should have been far more difficult than returning an undead to life.
It was only natural that no path to success had emerged.
If it could be achieved easily, I would have done it long ago.
The very reason I hadn't was why I had prepared experts and facilities and put them to work.
I intended to monitor the progress of this research on a timescale of years.
It was that difficult, and at the same time, it harbored irreplaceable value.
After that, Grom and I departed the facility.
We had been able to see everything we wanted to check.
In the future, I wanted to continue inspecting the facility periodically and hearing the staff's opinions and requests.
The staff there were excellent, and they would surely bring about the results I sought.
On the way back, I noticed Grom's restlessness.
He had been fidgety for some time now.
He would start to say something, only to stop himself at the last moment, over and over.
(Is there something he wants to ask me?)
I had a vague sense of it, but I made no move to bring it up.
It was not something I wanted to initiate.
I thought it would be fine if Grom simply left it unaddressed here.
But after wrestling with himself, he finally ventured cautiously.
"Um, My Lord. The resurrection of the dead—is it really—"
"Exactly as you're thinking. You're not wrong at all."
I answered quickly.
What Grom wanted to bring up was undoubtedly that person.
He knew the circumstances of how I had become what I am.
And if the topic of resurrecting the dead came up, that person would naturally come to mind.
With my abilities, I had not been able to bring that person back.
She had refused to become undead.
Perhaps it was my own psychological limitation, but either way, reality remained the same.
That was why I had decided to look for another way.
While weapons development continued alongside it, I had ordered the researchers to make the resurrection of the dead a reality.
It was an outlandish proposal, but they were faithfully pressing forward with their research.
"I must be fixated on it. Do you think me foolish?"
"Not in the slightest! I intend to devote myself entirely to fulfilling My Lord's wish!"
Grom clenched his fist and answered without hesitation.
Those were not hollow words.
He truly believed it from the bottom of his heart.
I felt renewed gratitude for my loyal retainer's devotion.