Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Necromancer School’s Summoning Prodigy — Episode 1
There is no romance in the life of a baron’s heir.
A remote provincial domain, so obscure that even the capital questions whether it truly exists.
Beneath a cloudless sky, the windmills of the mill turn with vigorous purpose, and across the sprawling pastures, cattle and goats graze contentedly.
Thwack. Thwack.
On the far side of the forest, the men of the village are deep in their timber work. Robert, good-natured as always, must have cracked another joke—the sound of raucous laughter drifts across.
Life in this small domain is peace itself, a slow life to savor.
Still, Simon finds himself quite content with existence here.
“Simon. What do you think is the most important virtue a lord must possess?”
Lost in thought for a moment, Simon’s father, Richard, walks beside him and poses the question.
Caught off guard by the sudden inquiry, Simon’s mind races to find an answer.
“Well… magnanimity? Perhaps that?”
Richard smiles warmly.
“Not a bad answer at all.”
“Then what’s a good answer?”
Richard slowly raises his arm and places his hand over his heart.
“A burning heart.”
Simon blinks in surprise at the unexpected reply.
“…I beg your pardon?”
“Just as the trees change their raiment with the seasons, so too must a lord’s virtues shift with circumstance.”
Richard gently strokes Simon’s hair with a smile.
“A lord must be a friend, a parent, even a villain when need demands. But a lord who treats his people with a burning heart—such a lord gains the power to convey sincerity in any situation. That is the bond of lord and subject.”
“My lord!”
Richard and Simon turn. Several grown men are shouldering a massive log, and from their expressions, the burden clearly weighs heavily upon them.
“Forgive us for interrupting your walk! If it pleases you, we would beg your aid with this!”
“Of course, Charles. Gladly.”
Simon watches his father with a slightly tense expression.
Richard Polentia is an ordinary rural lord, but he possesses one singular gift.
“Stand back, Simon.”
With eyes closed, Richard speaks several incantations in rapid, hushed tones, then opens his palm. A dark glow rises into the air and transforms into the shape of a magical circle.
Simon’s eyes sharpen with caution as he glances about. The circle activates, and trees and brush around them begin to shudder.
‘They’re coming!’
The ground undulates like a black marsh, and from it rise arms, grasping toward the sun as if in supplication.
Those arms are composed entirely of bone fragments, bleached white and devoid of flesh.
Undead.
Creatures possessed of mindless aggression toward the living.
Yet here in this domain, something entirely contrary to that common knowledge is unfolding.
Clatter.
Clatter-clatter.
The skeletons that have risen from the ground rush forward and begin to help support the log that the men have been carrying.
“Thank you, my lord!”
The villagers themselves show no fear of the skeletons; instead, their faces beam with relief, as though salvation has arrived.
“Keep up the good work.”
That’s right.
Simon’s father is a Necromancer.

* * *
It has been quite some time since Necromancers came to dominate half the world.
It began with the Talhern Empire.
When the Emperor of Talhern dispatched a force of fifty thousand soldiers to Kiezen—the stronghold of the Necromancers—seeking to break free of their influence, Kiezen sent only ten Necromancers in response.
A mere ten.
And it was then that history bore witness to what would be called the Rose Retreat—when the fifty-thousand-strong army bound for Kiezen turned their horses around and marched back to the empire’s capital.
All of them Undead.
The capital of Talhern lay in ruins, and the Emperor bent the knee to Kiezen.
Thereafter, the throne of Talhern was claimed by a corpse—rotting and decrepit, the Emperor stripped of his title.
The officials of the empire bowed to that heap of decay, and millions of citizens endured thirty years of puppet theater at the hands of a putrefying cadaver.
A fragment of history that laid bare the power and terror of Necromancers.
Rising to prominence, the Necromancers gradually expanded their dominion until they now wielded influence over half the continent. The other half fell under the domain of the Priests—the Necromancers’ sole counterforce.
In the decades since the Hundred Year War, which erupted between these two irreconcilably opposed powers, peace has endured.
A fragile peace, but peace nonetheless, now settles across the continent.
‘…Perhaps it’s nothing that concerns our domain either.’
Simon found the history of such wars felt like tales from a distant country.
If he were to count the most significant events that had occurred recently in Leshill, the domain he would one day govern, they amounted to little more than Charles’s cow successfully delivering two healthy calves after a long silence, and Kalon slipping while mopping the floorboards with a mop, requiring three stitches to his forehead.
Simon arrived at the manor house with a slight, hollow laugh.
Of course, the term “manor house” was something the people of the domain insisted on calling it—in truth, it was just an ordinary wooden cottage.
Compared to other impoverished lords who, speaking of the dignity of nobility, at least maintained modest fortifications, Richard, the lord of Leshill, was remarkably unpretentious.
Squeak.
“Mother, I’m home.”
As he stepped through the door into the house, the warm, comforting scent of wood enveloped him. Along the walls, a fireplace crackled and popped as the logs burned down.
“Simon! You’re back?”
A gray-haired woman in an apron poked her head out from the kitchen. It was Anna, Simon’s mother.
“Yes, I’ve just come from helping with the logging in town.”
“Have you eaten?”
“…You know I had lunch earlier.”
“I’ve baked some bread with leftover dough—spread some jam on it and eat it.”
She must have been possessed by the ghost of a mother who starved watching her son go hungry. Anna was the sort of woman who couldn’t be satisfied unless she was feeding people at all hours of the day.
Simon pretended not to hear and pointed to a tray on the table.
“Mother, what is this?”
“That’s a brew made from Lehak Mushrooms.”
Lehak Mushrooms were poisonous fungi commonly found in the Southern Mountains, and when placed in water, they produced floating droplets that resembled green oil.
To consume it would bring a week of stomach cramps and diarrhea—but matters changed entirely once Anna laid her hands on it.
She rolled up her sleeves and approached the tray with the mushroom brew, placing her hand over the water.
Hmmmmmm.
“Oh!”
Simon let out a soft gasp of wonder.
At the same moment white light rippled from her hand, the poison began to neutralize. The green impurities that had been floating vanished like a painting being erased, leaving only the mushroom’s pure nutritional essence intact.
The white aura that emanated from her body as she purified the poison was the hallmark of what was commonly called Holiness—the power of the Priests.
That was right.
Simon had been born between a Necromancer and a Priest.
He had never heard the full story of what had transpired between his parents.
He only knew that the two of them had shared a forbidden love that seemed to belong only to fairy tales, and that he was the result of that union.
“Simon!”
Anna’s voice called from the kitchen, though he hadn’t noticed when she’d returned.
“I’ve made apple pie—come eat!”
“…All right, I’m coming.”

* * *
The day passed as it always did. Simon dragged his weary body to bed.
Leshill was quiet today, and would be quiet tomorrow.
He drifted to sleep utterly convinced that this peaceful existence would continue unchanging forever.
But.
Flutter.
Change had already begun.
A letter that flew through the window stuck fast to Simon’s face.
“Guh.”
Simon raised his arm to pull it away, his eyes opening.
“Hello?”
At the unfamiliar voice, Simon blinked.
Someone was sitting at the window, where moonlight streamed through mournfully.
A girl with beautiful silver hair that fell to her knees radiated an otherworldly, almost mystical presence. She looked as though a forest fairy had simply stepped out of a storybook.
“It’s time now.”
Her voice, ringing sweet as honey, pulled him fully from sleep.
Simon’s expression went slack for a moment before he quietly drew the blanket up over his head.
“Don’t pretend you don’t see me!”
The girl’s face twisted with frustration as she descended from the windowsill.
“You saw me! Get up, quickly!”
At her insistent cries, Simon reluctantly threw back his blanket and pushed himself up on his elbows.
“…How did you even get here? Did you lose your way? Where’s Mother?”
The girl let out a small sigh, then recovered her composure and smiled. Moonlight streamed through the window, making her silver hair shine with an almost transcendent radiance.
“I found my way just fine. I came looking for you, Simon.”
Simon’s face registered shock.
You know my name.
“……Why me?”
“Read that letter.”
Her voice held a solemnity that belied her youth.
Simon carefully broke the seal and opened the envelope. The paper crackled as he withdrew a stiff, folded sheet.
Bang!
“Simon!”
“Simon! What was that noise?”
The door swung open, and Richard and Anna rushed in. In the same moment, they locked eyes with the silver-haired girl.
“Ah……!”
“Neftis!”
As though they were old friends rather than strangers meeting for the first time, their faces lit up. The girl smiled and waved in return.
“It’s been so long! Richard, Anna!”
The three fell into animated conversation. Simon felt a sudden chill of exclusion as he watched them.
His father Richard had the eager expression of a boy, while his mother Anna was already bustling about insisting she prepare a meal at once.
“Simon. Greet her properly.”
Richard said.
“This is Neftis Arkbold.”
Wait. Just a moment.
Where had he heard that name before?
Neftis Arkbold.
Neftis Arkbold.
No—could it be……?
‘Neftis Arkbold of Kiezen!’
The apex of every necromancer who ruled Kiezen.
The architect of the Talhern Incident, who had turned an emperor into a puppet of death itself.
A witch of death who had lived for three hundred years.
And that girl was her?
‘Then what is this?’
Simon’s hands trembled as he withdrew the letter.
“I’ll make you a proper offer, Simon Polentia.”
The girl’s voice sang through his ears like a melody as he read the letter.
[Admission Letter to Kiezen – Simon Polentia]
“Come to Kiezen.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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