Chapter 323
"This is new information about Professor Walter."
Simon immediately took out the envelope Kajan had handed over and began reading the documents. Among them was a clipped newspaper article.
"!"
In the photo printed in the paper, Walter was standing at the podium, waving his hand. And the moment Simon's gaze moved to the creature beside Walter, the world seemed to shake as if an earthquake had struck.
"H–How… how is this possible?"
Standing next to Walter was none other than the chimera made from the man and woman he had fought fiercely against just the day before.
"It seems Professor Walter realized there had been an intruder in the building's basement. So that morning, he presented that chimera at the conference. He made the first move."
Simon widened his eyes as much as possible and scanned the photo.
It was undoubtedly the man-and-woman fusion chimera. However, the one he had faced last night had been much larger and grotesque to the point of being gore-inducing.
The chimera in the photo, while of the same type, was incomparably smaller.
It was like a baby conjoined twin with two heads sharing one body. The materials even seemed to have come from beast-type monsters, making it far less repulsive.
'...So he dealt with it like this.'
With this, there was no longer any point in making the basement chimera public. Even if they tried to make an issue of it, Walter could just say he would take better care of it from now on and get away scot-free.
"At this rate, we can't even report it to Lady Neftis or the Keyzen headquarters."
It seemed Kajan was thinking the same thing.
"T–Then, what if I personally told Lady Neftis…?"
"Get a hold of yourself."
Kajan shook his head.
"Lady Neftis is the ruler of the entire Dark Alliance, Simon."
"..."
"And putting aside whether she would even listen to you, there's no justification, no practical benefit, and no evidence whatsoever to investigate Professor Walter. An investigation wouldn't even be recognized."
Even Simon had to admit he was right.
'Tsk.'
He leaned his head back. This was the first time he had encountered such a cunning enemy.
And even scarier, Simon himself wasn't one hundred percent certain yet whether Walter was truly the enemy or just an ordinary professor.
"He's an active Keyzen professor, Simon."
Kajan's tone softened a little.
"He's got far more power and weapons than we do. I know you're in a hurry, but if you act recklessly, you'll only bring the backlash down on yourself."
Simon let out a small sigh and looked at Kajan.
"What about Count Caron, the one connected to Walter?"
"I contacted them at dawn. The Thieves' Guild is moving. I'll let you know as soon as good information comes in."
"Yes, sir."
Walter's slippery evasiveness only made Simon more determined. Just as he was burning with fighting spirit—
"What are you two talking about so seriously, Simon?"
Someone suddenly appeared behind them.
"P–Professor Hongpeng!"
Simon jumped to his feet, and Kajan gave a light bow.
"What about your candle? Why are you here?"
To Hongpeng's question, Simon replied with a big smile.
"I put it out before coming!"
Simon demonstrated how he gathered Darkness into his fingers and flicked it.
A satisfied smile spread over Hongpeng's face as she watched.
"Excellent."
Seeing Simon flick his fingers with little snaps, Hongpeng's heart melted away. Truthfully, she felt like just kidnapping him on the spot, locking him away somewhere, and making him study Magical Combat nonstop.
"But."
Hongpeng's gaze shifted from Simon to Kajan.
"Who's this student slacking off all the way out here?"
"Class K, Kajan Edvalt. My business here is done, so I'll be taking my leave."
Kajan bowed again and turned his back.
"Hold it right there."
Hongpeng spoke.
"What about your main duties?"
"..."
"As a Keyzen instructor, I can't just overlook a student cutting class."
Kajan was working under Neftis' orders, infiltrating Keyzen as a student to carry out his mission, but it was true that his current identity was that of a student.
Kajan turned his expressionless face back toward Hongpeng.
"If you can't overlook it, what will you do?"
"I'll have to take you to speak with your K-Class supervising instructor."
Kajan began scratching the scar near his eye with a weary look.
"You won't hear much from him."
The atmosphere suddenly turned strange.
Caught in the middle, Simon looked nervously between Hongpeng and Kajan.
They weren't going to start fighting just because they were annoyed, right? After all, Kajan already had a history of getting into a brawl with Hongpeng's twin sister, Belya.
"Or."
Hongpeng's eyes curved like a fox's.
"If you can prove your strength like a proper Keyzen student, I'll let it slide."
As she said that, she pointed toward the training course.
Kajan sighed.
"I'm not sure what this is about, but make it quick."
* * *
Only a few minutes remained until class ended.
The teaching assistants were cleaning up the training course when Hongpeng approached.
"Sorry! Just one more student will run the course!"
The assistants gave her puzzled looks. Hadn't all the capable students already gone?
Then Hongpeng clapped her hands, calling the students together.
"Everyone, gather up!"
Students who had gone to drink water or were chatting here and there came over, and Simon joined them as well. Hongpeng had them sit down and spoke.
"How was it running the course?"
The students raised their voices eagerly.
"It was fun, but way too hard!"
"I couldn't get the timing right!"
As the students noisily shared their thoughts, Hongpeng smiled and turned around.
"Then, we'll just watch one last person run it, and call it a day!"
Step, step.
Kajan was walking toward the training course with a displeased look. Seeing this, Simon let out a small laugh.
'Professor Hongpeng must have planned this from the start.'
The pretext was to "prove his strength", but in truth, she must have recognized Kajan's power at a glance. Above all, they were both Magical Combat users.
"Simon! What's going on?"
Dick came rushing toward where Simon was.
"Why is Kajan over there?"
"Simon!"
Maelyn and Kamibarez followed close behind. Maelyn looked toward the training ground with a serious gaze.
"That's Senior Kajan, right?"
"Yeah."
"Simon! What happened?"
With a smile, Simon replied,
"It's nothing, we were just talking for a bit, then Professor Hongpeng caught him."
Before long, Kajan, now standing at the front of the training course, looked at Hongpeng and spoke curtly.
"My movements won't be of much use as reference for the students."
"That's fine."
Hongpeng replied with a smile.
"It's enough to just show that there are Magical Combat users like this."
Kajan frowned and scratched the scar on his eye. At that moment, Assistant Bred walked over.
"Well, whatever. We're short on time, so let's start right away, student."
Kajan gave a slight nod. Bred muttered under his breath, "Rude kid.", then dropped his arm.
"Begin!"
Tap!
Kajan started running. Wooden mannequins, each with countless arms, spun toward him. Kajan's arms began to move.
Pababababababat!
"Wooooaaahhh!!"
Kajan didn't back away while striking, but instead, as if indifferent, he ran forward at full speed, knocking the arms aside.
The way his head and arm joints bent at unnatural angles was grotesque yet striking.
Ku-goo-goong!
The first obstacle.
A huge, jet-black straw bale, imbued with enchantments, dropped down. Kajan looked at it, then simply kicked it.
Bang!
The mass of straw really did fly out of the course like a ball, crashing to the ground with a pop!
Immediately, the second obstacle, three skeletons holding shields, came charging forward.
Still charging ahead while swatting away mannequins, Kajan stomped hard on the ground.
Ku-goong!
A huge crack suddenly split the floor, tripping up the skeletons. Kajan kicked their shields away and headed for the final obstacle.
More mannequins filled the space, and beyond them, five scarecrows stood in a row.
Kajan slowly extended his index finger, and his nail turned pitch-black.
Skwuaaaaaaak!
With just that single index finger, he unleashed 'Fang', leaving a claw mark from bottom to top. The gray flash severed all five heads in one sweep.
"Phew, training complete!"
Bred spoke with a dazed look.
"...C–Cleared in one minute and twelve seconds!"
"Wooooaaahhh!!"
"Crazy!"
"What did I just witness?"
The students shot to their feet. In the back, Simon clapped enthusiastically.
"Did you see that? That guy's my and Simon's roommate! Hahaha!"
Dick, face full of excitement, bragged to the nearby Class A students. One of them asked,
"You close with him?"
"Of course! Simon and I are like sworn brothers!"
Kajan bowed slightly toward Hongpeng, then leapt away, disappearing.
Assistant Bred, who had been watching, broke into a cold sweat.
'...I–Is he really a student? If we fought, I'd lose.'
Hongpeng, looking very satisfied, smiled at the students.
"You all saw that, right? I hope watching this student's combat and performance gave you some fun inspiration. Then, that's it for today!"
"Thank you!!"
* * *
Many things happened over the weekend.
First, they succeeded in hauling up the corpse of the Abyssal Horror from the ocean floor. Its condition was fairly good, so Vanilla expressed interest in purchasing it, and several other companies joined in.
It looked like the auction would proceed once the appraisers had determined the price.
Meanwhile, the Vanilla headquarters stated that returning the skull of the former Swordmaster, Ancient Undead Magnus, posed no problem, but because it was an undead that did not use magic and had low Darkness conductivity, it was unsuitable for becoming a lich. Another major reason was that there was no matching torso bone for this skull.
So Benya said she would personally search for bones suitable for making a lich.
The outside matters were progressing well enough, and for the rest of the weekend, Simon spent his time busily preparing for the performance assessment.
Before making a lich, he first had to master the lower stage, the Skeleton Mage. In addition, he had to learn the Four Major Curses, train in high-level blood poison, create new Magical Combat techniques, practice handling the Divine Beast Akallion, train the kittens in transformation, and learn legion commander techniques from Feer, and so on.
Even if he had ten bodies, it wouldn't be enough.
Still, Simon was certain that if he could get through this period, he could grow even stronger.
Not just in one or two fields, but as a necromancer as a whole, it felt like he was being upgraded across the board. The expectation was so exciting that he hardly noticed the fatigue.
And so the weekend passed.
The fourth after-school BMAT, hosted by the Necromancer of the Cards, 'Endolas Vaudeville'.
The second match began.
"Run, run!"
"This way!"
As students rushed out of the Keyzen campus, scattering quickly to search for new cards, Simon stood at the second-floor window, arms folded, looking down at the scene.
[If you win the next battle against a student, you will be awarded 1 extra point.]
[Target: Boletdis]
A new message floated above the card attached to Simon's chest.
'So the target changes with each match.'
It meant he couldn't let his guard down. At least one student in the whole school would be aiming for him.
Simon set off as well.
Dick tried to persuade him to join a siege battle theme, but Simon decided to postpone that for later.
This time, he had a somewhat personal objective.
'Ah, she's moving.'
From the window, he had been keeping watch on a black-haired female student.
When she entered the study hall building, Simon jumped out the window and quietly followed alongside.
'No sound from her footsteps.'
Once inside the building, he lost sight of where she had gone.
Just as Simon turned his steps toward the hallway—
Swae-aek!
A crimson-black glow rushed in.
Simon quickly ducked to avoid it, gathering Darkness in his leg.
Ta-at!
He spun in midair, launching a roundhouse kick, while the crimson-black glow surged toward his face.
Cheok!
Chuk!
By a paper-thin margin, his leg and the dagger stopped right in front of each other's faces.
"...Simon?"
Loraine lowered her dagger, her expression startled.
Simon lowered his leg and smiled.
"Hi, Loraine. Looking for a card?"