Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 112: No Better Room

It was a man. A unique-looking man. He had an even more unique strut. Rather than footsteps, they all heard nothing as he approached them.

It seemed he was drifting, like his feet were barely touching the stone.

He wore robes of deep, midnight blue, embroidered with constellations that seemed to move on the fabric. His face was a map of wrinkles, carved by time and terrible knowledge, and his eyes were completely white.

He wasn’t blind, but it sure looked at it.

Above his shoulder was the crest of a Scholar Class and a level of 150.

Aethelstan’s eyes widened. That was surely Omares the Intelligent. A Lvl 150 Scholar! Imagine! He must know everything in the world about... everything.

The sheer pressure of the man was suffocating, and he barely even had any mana.

The aura wasn’t like the sharp, aggressive pressure of a warrior like Azmagrab. It was heavy, like the crushing weight of an ocean.

Stenya Alvorian, the young Arcanist in the back row, gasped, clutching her chest. Even Bromm stopped grinning, his instincts screaming that this frail-looking old man was dangerous.

Omares stopped at the podium. He didn’t speak loudly, yet his voice whispered directly into twenty pairs of ears.

"Look at the statues," Omares said.

The students looked up at the towering stone heroes.

"They are beautiful, are they not?" Omares asked. "Heroic. Noble. Immortalized in stone."

He turned his white eyes toward Aethelstan.

"They are also dead."

The silence in the room became absolute.

"Johnny the Star-Caller," Omares pointed a withered finger. "Died screaming in a Pool of Acid because his Healer was two seconds too slow. Aztafar the Shield. Crushed by a Gravity Press because his Vanguard overextended. And we all know the tragic take of Idemay."

Omares lowered his hand.

"They failed. Not because they lacked power. They were Outworlders. Their stats dwarfed others, even yours. They failed because they believed the applause. They believed they were the protagonists of a story that guaranteed their victory."

The old Scholar walked closer to them, the temperature in the room dropping.

"You do not have the luxury of being Outworlders. When you die, the hope of your Kingdoms die with you."

He stopped in front of Liraeth. She trembled, her earlier confidence evaporating under his blind gaze.

"You are here to learn how to kill," Omares whispered. "Not how to duel. Not how to spar. How to exterminate."

He turned his back on them, his robes swirling.

"Say goodbye to your soft beds. Say goodbye to your titles. From this moment on, your life belongs to the strategy."

He waved a hand, and the back wall of the Tutorium began to rumble, splitting open to reveal a massive, scorched training arena filled with magically constructed golems.

"Training begins now."

—

Firstly, they were taken to their separate rooms.

There were no servants in the residential wing where the rooms were.

The hallway was the same marble, although slightly duller. Along the walls were twenty identical wooden doors, each marked with a number and nothing else.

"These are your quarters," Warden Havelock had said, tossing a heavy ring of iron keys to Aethelstan. "One room per asset. No sharing. No modifications. You sleep where you are told."

Aethelstan gave them random keys. There was no better room; Havelock had made it clear that every room was the same.

Liraeth was shocked when she entered hers.

It was ten feet by ten feet. The walls were bare, rough-hewn granite that leeched the heat from the air.

In the corner sat a bed—if it could be called that—consisting of a wooden frame and a mattress stuffed with straw that poked through the thin, grey wool blanket.

After that was a wardrobe to hang her clothes and armor, and a space to keep weapons or sharpen blades. Finally, a single, waist-high wooden chest at the foot of the bed and a bucket in the corner.

"Is... is this a joke?" Liraeth whispered, stepping inside as if the floor might dirty her boots. She spun around, looking for a bell to summon a maid, but found only damp stone.

She touched the mattress. It crunched.

"Straw?" she gasped, her voice pitching up. "I am a Windwhisper! My sheets are spun from Moon-Spider silk! I cannot sleep on... on dried grass!"

Others were not too displeased with the space.

Like Bromm Axebringer. He walked over to the bed and punched the mattress. Dust flew up.

"Hah! Firm," Bromm grunted. He tossed his massive heavy axe onto the bed, the weapon sinking into the straw with a heavy thud. "Finally, a room that doesn’t smell like perfume and smooth rock. Good for the back."

He looked across the hall at Liraeth, who was currently holding a washbasin bucket with two fingers like it was a dead rat.

"Don’t worry, Princess," Bromm bellowed, laughing. "If the straw scratches your delicate skin, you can always sleep standing up like a horse!"

Liraeth slammed her door in his face, the sound echoing down the corridor.

Corisande closed the door of her room softly behind her. She stood in the silence for a while, taking in the small space, the grey light from the high, barred window filtering down onto her armor.

It was greatly different to her life in the castle. But, she wasn’t at all troubled.

Corvell was right. Despite the circumstances, she was truly happy to be here. She was free at last, from the suffocating walls of the castle.

She walked to the small, rickety desk pushed against the wall. It was scarred with the knife-marks of previous students: initials of boys and girls who had probably died years ago in a nameless Gate World.

Slowly, Corisande reached up to her neck. Her fingers found the clasp of a silver necklace with a pendant of pure, solidified moonlight.

She unclasped it.

The silver chain pooled in her palm, cold and light. She looked at it for a long time, watching the faint blue light within the gem.

With ginger hands, she placed the necklace on the scarred wood of the desk. The soft clink sounded incredibly loud in the small room. She ran a thumb over the silver one last time, then pulled her hand away.

For the Prince of Valoris, he barely cared for any of this. He didn’t even bother to check his bed.

Aethelstan stood in the exact center of his room, his golden armor gleaming unnaturally bright against the drab stone. Adrenaline and anxiety reverberated within him.

This was it. No more guards. No more tutors holding back their strikes to let the Prince win. No more father telling him to wait.

He waved his hand, summoning his interface. The golden light washed over his face, highlighting the sweat beading on his forehead.

He stood and inspected his stats, noting the areas he had to get better at, the attributes he had to increase.

Suddenly, a magically amplified horn blasted through the corridor.

The voice of Warden Havelock boomed through the stone walls.

"TRAINING COMMENCES IN FIVE MINUTES. DO NOT BE TARDY, HEROES!"

Aethelstan dismissed the interface, his eyes narrowing.

"Finally."