Necromancer Academy and the Genius Summoner-Chapter 442: Episode

The Naga swarm’s attack had transformed the festive Parona Peninsula into a scene of horror. The blue moonflowers lining the streets were stained crimson with blood. The bustling market, once filled with laughter, now echoed with screams.

<Bone Armor>

Simon’s arm was a blur of motion. At his gesture, eight skeletons scattered, and bone armor materialized around the fleeing tourists with a series of sharp clicks. With another wave of his hand, their bodies levitated into the air and were carried to safety behind a nearby hill.

“Run!” he shouted.

He continued the cycle, stripping the armor from those who had regained their senses and were now running, only to instantly reapply it to the next group of terrified residents. The top priority was to evacuate everyone to the Lord’s Castle, where Meirin was standing guard. He knew Dick and Kamibarez were doing the same in their designated areas.

’Still, what in the world is going on?’

Infusing his leg with Jet-Black, Simon slammed a kick into an approaching Naga’s abdomen. The creature flew backward, crashing into a market stall with a splintering crack. He spotted several more Nagas behind the wreckage. He immediately took a defensive stance, but they paid him no mind, running straight ahead as if possessed, completely ignoring their fallen comrade.

’They’re all moving in the same direction.’

The Nagas weren’t relentlessly hunting the fleeing people. Their movements seemed less like a hunt and more like a purposeful migration. The chaos was simply a byproduct of their path cutting through a populated city.

’Dick said the Naga Queens must have arrived.’

For a swarm of this size, at least twenty queens would have had to enter the peninsula. But Simon hadn’t seen a single one.

’Something’s not right.’

Mulling this over, Simon arrived back at the Parona Deimos Museum. He strode to the entrance and tried the doors.

They rattled in their frame but refused to open. They were locked.

To be precise, the door handle was chained shut and secured with a heavy padlock.

With a metallic rattle, Simon shook the door again, pinpointing the lock’s location. ’Right about here.’ He pressed his right fist to the wood, closed his eyes, and channeled Jet-Black into his knuckles. Then, drawing his fist back, he settled into a familiar stance. It had been a while since he had used Hongfeng’s piercing technique.

’<Hongfeng Original – Cheon-hyung>’

His fist struck the lock with a sharp crack. He heard the broken mechanism clink against the floor on the other side. Simon shoved the door, and it swung inward as the chain unraveled with a grating shriek.

Inside, guards lay collapsed on the floor. Simon quickly shut the door behind him, rewrapping the chain around the handle to block any pursuing Nagas. He then knelt to check on the guards. ’Not dead,’ he noted. Just unconscious.

Bruises marked the backs of their heads, their jaws, their abdomens—blunt force trauma, not the savage claw marks of a Naga attack.

Simon’s lips thinned as he moved deeper into the museum. ’An intruder, then. But why knock out the guards instead of killing them?’ The goal had to be theft—to steal something valuable under the cover of the chaos outside. And in this museum, only one object was truly priceless.

’They say it’s an incredible paleontological asset, difficult to even put a price on! The teeth were damaged, so the museum director had them filled with real gold! It’s a masterpiece that can only be seen here at our Parona Peninsula’s Deimos Museum!’

’The fourth floor!’

Simon took the stairs two at a time, bursting through the fourth-floor door with a clatter.

’Thank goodness.’

A wave of relief washed over him. The priceless Deimos skull was still intact.

But his relief was short-lived.

A flash of silver sliced through the dim light from his side. Simon instinctively arched backward as the world seemed to slow, his focus sharpening to a razor’s edge. A spearhead lunged for his face. His gaze traced the long shaft back to its wielder—a blond man. As the weapon shot past, Simon’s left hand lashed out, grabbing the shaft and twisting its trajectory.

The spearhead plunged into the chest of a second attacker approaching from his left.

’More than one,’ Simon registered.

He followed through with a sharp kick to the spearman’s knee, wrenching the weapon free and swinging it in a wide arc. The two men before him were cut down by the spearhead. All four assailants looked identical.

’Poof! Poof!’

The men vanished like scattered embers. At the same instant, a sharp crack echoed from above. With a grating shriek, the grand chandelier broke free, plummeting toward him.

Simon effortlessly raised his left fist.

’<Hongfeng Original – Chwi-ta>’

With a deafening crash, Simon’s fist met the chandelier’s core in a perfect, upward strike. The fixture exploded in a shower of glittering crystal, the fragments scattering across the floor like sand.

“What is the meaning of this?” Simon asked, lowering his fist, his expression impassive. “Malcolm Randolph.”

A stifled laugh echoed from the shadows of the unlit exhibition hall. A moment later, a boy identical to the attackers stepped out of the darkness.

“It’s been a while, Simon Polentia.”

Simon’s brow furrowed, his suspicion confirmed. An artificial Naga swarm. A museum break-in. And Malcolm Randolph. It all meant one thing—

“This Naga attack... it was all the Randolph Gang’s doing, wasn’t it?”

Malcolm just laughed, offering no answer.

“Get a grip, Malcolm. You’re a Kizen student.”

“No.”

Malcolm’s expression hardened.

“Not anymore.”

Simon’s mind raced.

“You’re planning to quit Kizen?”

“I belong to the organization. When my performance is lacking, I have to take responsibility.”

Responsibility. After muttering such nonsense, Malcolm swept his bangs from his eyes.

“My rank plummeted from tenth to one hundred twenty-eighth, and the liquid bomb scandal damaged the organization. I’m just taking responsibility. And this whole snowball effect—”

His murky eyes locked onto Simon.

“—it all started with my duel evaluation against you.”

Malcolm said nothing.

“Ironic, isn’t it?”

At Malcolm’s question, Simon lowered his gaze.

“...You son of a bitch.”

That quiet reaction seemed to provoke Malcolm more than any insult could have.

“What, are you pitying me now?”

He hadn’t said any of this to garner pity. In Malcolm’s world, human behavior was a set of predictable patterns. A morning greeting was met with another. A lady offered the back of her hand; a gentleman kissed it.

Sometimes, the next line in a script was preordained. This was one of those times.

Simon should have sneered. ’Is this really someone else’s fault? In a meritocracy like Kizen, your failure is your own.’ A cold, mocking dismissal would have been better.

“I—”

Simon’s mouth opened.

“I don’t pity you.”

A vein pulsed on Malcolm’s forehead.

“You’ve really mastered the art of pissing people off, haven’t you?”

A nerve throbbed in his neck.

“I know, I know, I get it! My skills are lacking! My effort wasn’t enough! This is what I get for fucking overreaching during our duel. But the human heart is a treacherous thing.”

His gaze turned sinister.

“Why do I keep wanting to blame you?”

A shimmer of afterimages flickered around Malcolm’s body before scattering in every direction.

Simon’s eyes narrowed.

“Malcolm, calm down!”

“I heard your friends earlier. They called you ‘President.’ Don’t tell me you actually became the Student Council President?”

Simon said nothing.

“Huh. Judging by your face, it must be true. Well, look at you, doing so fucking well.”

Malcolm’s shoulders shook with bitter laughter.

“At the start of the semester, the gap between us wasn’t that big. Now, one of us is treated like a useless piece of trash, back to being a common thief. The other is soaring, all the way to Kizen’s Student Council President. Wow. We’re still just teenagers, but our paths have already diverged so completely.”

He finished his self-pitying tirade, staggering as he pressed a hand to his forehead.

“...Whatever. This is the only path left for me. If I fail, the organization will kill me.”

Twenty doppelgangers surged toward Simon.

“You’ll just step on me again for your own ambition, won’t you? Can’t have the great Kizen Student Council President looking bad if the damage gets out of hand. Right?”

The lead doppelganger threw a punch shimmering with Jet-Black.

“Malcolm. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“What, giving me a lecture now that you’re the big-shot president?!”

Simon dodged the blow with a mere shrug, his feet planted. More punches flew, but he evaded them with minimal motion, bending his knees and tilting his head.

“You son of a biiiitch! Stop playing with me...!”

Simon’s leg snapped up, his heel cracking against the chin of the shouting doppelganger. His fists became a blur, striking the faces and shoulders of the others. Two more scattered like dust.

Doppelgangers swarmed him from behind, seizing his legs.

“Kuaaaah!”

The last four charged, brandishing hidden spears.

“Open Gate.”

As Simon whispered the command, six subspaces tore open around him. The metallic, bone-plated legs of his Overlords shot out with a sickening scrape. The blades slashed through the surrounding doppelgangers, then rose to form a protective cocoon around Simon. All the doppelgangers were annihilated, their ownerless spears clattering to the floor.

“I was wondering when you’d bring that out,” Malcolm’s true body remarked from a distance, his expression hardening.

Between the six blades, writhing like serpents, Simon stood unharmed.

“Malcolm. Give up now and call off the Nagas.”

“I told you! This is the only path I have left!”

Malcolm sent a new wave of doppelgangers forward.

“If you want something, you crush your enemies and take it! That’s the Kizen way!”

He clearly had no intention of stopping. Simon had no choice. He recalled the Overlords into his subspace and drew a magic circle on his palm. Tucking it against his side to continue its preparation, he summoned a new set of undead.

“Come forth.”

Six regular skeletons appeared, flanked by a Skeleton Archer and a Mage.

With a clatter, the skeletons collapsed into heaps of disconnected bones as Simon lowered his palm. When he raised it again, hundreds of bone fragments shot into the air.

’<Bone Nail>’

The fragments scattered, embedding themselves in the approaching doppelgangers. Every piece moved according to Simon’s will, and the clones were systematically pierced and destroyed.

’The doppelgangers’ weakness is their durability.’

They could be shattered with a single, solid hit; overwhelming force wasn’t necessary. While he prepared a high-level spell, a screen of Bone Nails was more than enough for defense.

The twenty doppelgangers vanished even faster than they had against the Overlords. Gritting his teeth, Malcolm sent another twenty.

’And their second weakness.’

Simon reached a hand behind his back. As if on cue, the Skeleton Archer’s bow landed in his hand. An arrow was already in the other. He nocked it in a fluid motion.

He fired the enchanted arrow. Malcolm, focused on controlling his clones, hastily ducked. The arrow thudded into the wall behind him and fell still.

’If he moves, he loses control of the doppelgangers. His evasion is unstable.’

“You bastard!”

Leaving his defense to Bone Nail, Simon fired arrow after arrow in a light, harassing volley. His archery was formidable; every shot was aimed at Malcolm’s head.

“Kugh!”

Finally, Malcolm changed tactics. He pulled a potion from his subspace and threw it. His doppelgangers caught it and charged.

’Liquid bombs?’

Even as the Bone Nails tore through them, the doppelgangers tossed the potions into the air. The vials shattered with a series of sharp cracks, and the spreading liquid coated the floating bone fragments. The bones wavered, then fell to the floor, inert.

’This is...!’

“Kabara’s Poison!” Malcolm shouted, casting another spell. “It neutralizes the residual Jet-Black in the bones, making them temporarily unrestorable! Did you think I wouldn’t prepare for a Summoning major?!”

With Bone Nail neutralized, Malcolm pressed his palms together and shoved them forward. This was his trump card, originally intended for the second-year duel evaluation.

’<Malcolm Original – Decouple Doppelganger>’

A grotesque chimera of ten doppelgangers erupted into being, a tangled mass of limbs thumping against the floor. It scuttled toward Simon with the speed of a centipede.

’I won!’ Malcolm’s lips trembled with excitement. ’Even if he slashes it with the Overlord’s blades, it will just scatter into smaller entities!’

’KABOOM!’

But it wasn’t blades that met the creature. A volley of black fireballs slammed into the doppelganger chimera, engulfing it in a massive explosion.

Simon calmly raised his index finger. Four Skeleton Mage skulls ascended into the air. Emerald smoke coiled around them, each one blazing like a miniature sun.

’<Simon Original – Skulldron>’

The high-level black magic Simon had been preparing was neither Chaos nor his Royal Guard. Against doppelgangers, notoriously weak to area-of-effect spells, there was no better counter than Skulldron and its barrage of Jet-Black flames.

“Let’s end this, Malcolm.”