Necromancer Academy and the Genius Summoner-Chapter 446: Episode

Cutting cleanly through the ocean waves, Simon forged ahead, riding atop his undead Deimos. His feet were planted firmly on the skeletal creature’s back as he studied the sea chart Dick had given him.

’Let’s review,’ he thought, recalling the guide’s words at the museum.

’”This marks the current location of Deimos. Here in Parona, we track its position a month in advance! At its current speed, it should pass by with its followers tomorrow afternoon.”’

Deimos circled the continent’s seas on a fixed route at a constant speed. Tomorrow, it was scheduled to pass through the narrow channel between the Parona Peninsula and the island. If it arrived sooner, it could annihilate the Nagas, but its pace was immutable. The Randolph Gang had undoubtedly built their plan around that fact.

“In the end, this is the only way.”

He glanced down at the undead Deimos slicing through the water, Jet-Black energy flickering across its bleached bones.

“You think you can do this, Deimos?”

He felt a tremor of anxiety from his summon through their mental link. Simon soothed the creature’s nerves and checked the chart again.

“It should be coming into view soon... Ah!”

As if on cue, it appeared. A vast, black stain on the distant sea. It wasn’t stationary; it writhed and pulsed, inching ever closer. It wasn’t a single entity, but a colossal mass formed by tens of thousands of living creatures moving as one beneath the waves.

’...Are all of those sea creatures?’

The sheer scale of it was staggering, leaving him momentarily stunned. Through their connection, he could feel Deimos’s own terror escalating into a frantic panic.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to make you fight that.”

Moments later, the legion was upon them. Simon activated the oxygen-providing magic circle Meirin had developed and recalled the trembling Deimos to his subspace.

’Splash!’

He dove into the ocean. The icy water shocked his system, and the primeval silence of the deep enveloped him. With no time for awe, he swam at top speed toward the black mass.

’...Wow.’

A countless, churning swarm of darkness blotted out the sea as it advanced, pulling in the local sea monsters like a magnet and swelling its ranks. At its head was a whale of such jaw-dropping size that it defied belief. This was the true adult Deimos, the undisputed Ruler of the Sea.

’Am I insane? What the hell am I doing here?’

The moment his eyes met the creature’s, his resolve began to crack. Every cell in his body screamed at him to flee. He’d harbored a sliver of hope—a one-percent chance—that he might be able to take down the adult Deimos if everything went perfectly. Now, faced with its reality, he saw how utterly foolish that notion was.

He had to distinguish between the possible and the impossible. He purged the thought from his mind.

’Get a grip. Focus on what you can do!’

He bit his lip until he tasted blood, the sharp pain grounding him. Desperately suppressing the primal fear rising within him, he faced the leviathan head-on. It had noticed him by now, but it paid him no mind. To a creature of its scale, he was less than a speck of dust.

’This is madness, but...’ A cool smirk twisted Simon’s lips as he spread his arms. ’I have to make it happen!’

’Wooooong!’

’Woooong!’

In his hands, Phantastus’s original spell, ‘Sleep’, began to form. The plan was simple: put the adult Deimos to sleep. With its command weakened, he would use his own undead Deimos to seize control of its leaderless army and return to Parona. With that force, he would crush the Naga swarm and save the peninsula.

’Sorry, but I’ll be borrowing your army!’

He honed his focus. The world around him fell silent, his heartbeat slowing to a steady rhythm.

’More. Deeper.’

Sound vanished. Time itself seemed to warp, stretching into a crawl. As his mind ascended to a state of heightened awareness, he poured all his concentration into the magic circles forming on his palms. On one side, the adult Deimos and its legion. On the other, the two small, insignificant magic circles in his hands.

Yet he faced it without flinching.

’A ‘Sleep’ spell meant for humans won’t be enough!’ Simon’s eyes blazed. ’I have to pour everything I have into this and elevate the very spectrum of its power!’

’Gush!’

He flooded the magic circles with a torrent of Jet-Black, far exceeding their capacity. The internal balance shattered, circuits and formulas fracturing under the strain, but he didn’t stop. He reconnected every broken circuit, redrew every damaged formula, pushing the spell to the absolute brink of destruction.

-Think of black magic as the scarred body of a warrior! It constantly changes and evolves to fit the situation!

This was a massive expansion, far beyond what the magic circle was designed to handle. The spell’s internal ecosystem was torn apart and rebuilt again and again. He pieced it together until it was nothing but a patchwork of raw power.

’Failure and wounds are just part of the process!’

Sparks ignited in his mind.

’Accept it all as the pain of evolution!’

The magic circles, pushed to their limits, began to twist into bizarre, unrecognizable shapes. He was no longer holding a spell, but a screaming demon of raw magic.

’I can do this!’

Blood trickled from his lips from the Jet-Black backlash, his eyes shot with red, but through the pain, Simon felt an exhilarating sense of ascension.

My eyes contain all things. My hands grasp all things.

He set no limits, drew no lines. He embraced failure as a stepping stone, stitching the tattered remnants of the spell into something new. And then...

’Thwack.’

He felt something shatter within him, a sensation like sunlight breaking through clouds.

Three-dimensional stems erupted from the two-dimensional magic circles. It was the result of the tense tug-of-war between his relentless demand for evolution and the spell’s desperate attempt to maintain balance. Instead of exploding, the magic circle had chosen to expand in a completely new direction.

’Ah!’

The stems bloomed, creating a constellation of interconnected magic circles that began to share the central circle’s overwhelming load. This was it.

’The state Chairman Phantastus spoke of!’

A corner of Simon’s mouth lifted as he watched the approaching Deimos.

’Ruuuumble!’

The Leviathan must have sensed the suspicious energy emanating from the tiny speck before it. It opened its cavernous mouth. The surrounding seawater rushed in like a vacuum, violently pulling Simon toward it.

Maintaining his focus, Simon finalized the magic circle in his right hand and prepared to fire it like a projectile.

’Hit your mark!’

This wasn’t Phantastus’s creation. This was a true original, a spell only he could wield.

’Simon Original – ‘Sleeping Deimos’’

A dark blue flash shot out and struck the roof of the whale’s mouth. The curse took hold.

’One shot isn’t enough!’

He immediately completed the circle in his left hand and fired a second time, striking the creature’s throat. Two stacks. But...

’Rumble-rumble-rumble!’

Deimos showed no sign of fatigue.

’Even this isn’t enough?’

Despair began to creep in. Just as Simon’s body was about to be sucked into the creature’s cave-like maw...

’Thump.’

Deimos closed its mouth. The violent rush of water ceased, and a cloud of white bubbles rose to the surface.

’Gooooooooooh...’

In the profound silence of the deep, the leviathan’s enormous eye turned toward Simon. The spell hadn’t put it to sleep, but Deimos had clearly stopped its attack of its own volition.

Behind him, sea monsters that had spotted him bared their teeth and brandished their tentacles. But Deimos emitted a low pulse, a command that held them back.

’What’s going on?’

Simon stared at the creature in disbelief. He had cast a curse and failed to put it to sleep, yet he felt no hostility from it.

’Is it... comfortable?’

With a playful nudge of its massive head, Deimos bumped the tiny land-dweller. Pushed back by the current, Simon spread his hands again.

’I don’t know what’s happening, but!’

The ‘Sleep’ spell he’d learned from Phantastus, unlike other curses, was designed to induce a state of pleasant relaxation. Deimos didn’t perceive his spell as an attack. It simply wanted more of the comforting sensation.

’Up to five stacks!’

He began weaving the same curse again. In his heightened Compello state, he actively utilized Jet-Black’s memory-retaining properties to recreate the complex spell. And finally...

’This is the last one!’

Five stacks of ‘Sleep’. A sixth would create an imbalance and diminish the effect. This was the limit. After casting the final spell, Simon left the rest to fate.

As expected, Deimos did not fall asleep. It was impossible for a hastily constructed curse to knock out such a colossal being. And yet...

Unmistakably, the creature was overcome with a pleasant, bone-deep weariness.

’Srrr...’

Of its own will, the great whale prepared for slumber. It oriented its body vertically in the water and became perfectly still, entering the unique, motionless sleep of its kind.

As the whale drifted into sleep, the power of its commanding wave dropped by half. A portion of the sea monsters, freed from its control, immediately turned their attention to Simon.

’Gurgle!’

His oxygen spell had run out. Simon held his breath and swam desperately as a swarm of black monsters closed in, their tentacles and teeth flashing in the gloom. Escape was impossible. An octopus monster’s tentacles coiled around his body, dragging him down as shark-like creatures moved in for the kill.

’Now!’

As he was being pulled into the depths, Simon tore open his subspace. And from within...

-Wooooooooooooo!

A new Ruler of the Sea emerged.

---

“Hold them back! Hold them back!”

Meanwhile, the battle on the Parona Peninsula had raged through the night and into the dawn. The local necromancers, the Kizen students, and the hired mercenaries were holding the line, but exhaustion was setting in, and defeat seemed inevitable. The late hour, the peninsula’s isolation, and the sheer number of Nagas swarming the coast made the prospect of timely reinforcements impossible.

“We need support! The Lord’s Castle’s barrier is breaking!” a messenger cried, his voice strained with panic. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The necromancers on the beach exchanged grim looks.

“Support? We’re getting slaughtered here!”

“Let’s just save ourselves! If we necromancers fortify a position, we can hold out for a few days.”

As despair mounted, such talk began to spread.

“Are you serious?” Meirin demanded, stalking toward them. The necromancers flinched at her furious expression. “If we retreat now, the people in the castle will be massacred! You know that!”

A middle-aged necromancer shook his head. “Ahem. You’re still a student, so you may not understand, but in a situation like this, there are no good options.”

“I have children,” another added. “I won’t die a dog’s death in this backwater!”

“You people are really...!”

“Meirin! Calm down!” Kamibarez urged, holding her back.

“If you have enough energy to argue, you have enough to help!” Dick yelled, hurling a potion bottle. A viscous liquid spread across the ground, trapping the Nagas that tried to cross it.

’Click!’

Dick flicked a lighter and tossed it over his shoulder. The liquid ignited with a ’whoosh’, and the pained shrieks of burning Nagas filled the air.

“Where’s Simon?” Dick asked.

Kamibarez shook her head. “He’s not back yet.”

“Damn, I’m starting to get worried. That idiot didn’t really go pick a fight with Deimos, did he?”

“...I was thinking the same thing,” Meirin admitted grimly.

’Swoooosh!’

The only beacon of hope on the crumbling front line was the Mercenary King, Arthur.

“Hahahaha!”

As a swordsman first and a necromancer second, he conserved his Jet-Black, relying on his blade to cut through the monsters with tireless vigor. His stamina, which far surpassed that of a normal human, seemed limitless.

“He fights well for an idiot,” was Meirin’s assessment.

’Click! Click!’

Behind the fighting, a reporter was diligently snapping photos of Arthur with a magic camera.

“A desperate situation! Betrayed by his comrades! Yet the King of Mercenaries fights on! Ahh!” The reporter’s eyes grew moist as he framed his shot. “A worthy final story for my career!”

“Hey, mister. You shouldn’t be here,” Dick said, approaching him bluntly.

“Don’t come any closer!” The reporter swung his camera toward Dick, and the Kizen student instinctively flinched back. “I know we’re all going to die on this island!” the reporter declared with grim resolve. “My body may be devoured, but this camera and my notes will remain! I will dedicate my life to chronicling the deeds of heroes!”

“What’s he on about?”

“Professional dedication, I guess. Just leave him,” Meirin sighed.

While they spoke, the Nagas finally overran the beach. The necromancers who had been planning to flee were long gone. Kamibarez clenched her fists.

“The Mercenary King can’t do this alone! We have to fight together!”

“Right.”

Meirin, Kamibarez, and Dick took their places beside Arthur, who was panting, his sword planted in the sand for support.

“E-Everyone!” Arthur’s face was a mask of tearful gratitude. “You’re here to meet an honorable death with me...!”

“Who’s dying?!” Meirin shrieked.

Kamibarez, gathering Jet-Black in her hands, added, “It’s too early to give up. If we hold on a little longer, Simon will return! He’ll definitely find a solution...!”

At that very moment.

-’Wooooooooooooo!’

As the first light of dawn broke through the darkness, a sound like a great ship’s horn echoed across the Parona Peninsula.