"You just said, 'Raging Souls are impossible to appease'?"
Iver keenly caught the detail in Merlin's words. "What does this mean? Is my soul still lingering in this world as well?"
"...Yes."
Merlin felt somewhat awkward saying this to a hero of old.
But he still puffed out his chest and told Sir Hellerchein the truth. "The giants of old obviously couldn't hold funerals for you. Even if some civilians preserved parts of your remains, they couldn't tell whose body parts they were, let alone invite elven priests from the Theocracy to the Isle of Avalon to hold a funeral.
"These souls, unable to find rest, all transformed into undead because of their powerful resentment. They became far more terrifying and powerful than they had been in life.
"...And among them, the most ferocious undead is you."
Merlin spoke frankly. "That is precisely why our king is conducting the still-experimental Heroic Spirit Summoning Ritual. We will summon the heroic spirits who once fought the giants and have them fight alongside us.
"After the battle ends, we can also rely on your connection with the undead to forcibly purify you. After all, heroes of old should not have transformed into undead feared and hated by the people simply because they had no graves...
"...But I think we may not need to wait until the battle is over. To oppose an Apostle, relying on only 'heroic spirits' may be far from enough. The best method I can think of is to use a heroic spirit as a medium and transform your soul from the past into the Wild Hunt..."
As Iver listened to Merlin explain his plan and watched him begin arranging the ritual, he gradually understood.
--The word "heroic spirit" originally referred to undead who retained their reason.
Normally, undead were