Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 170
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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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Summoning Genius of the Necromancer Academy — Episode 170
They passed through the Sacred Gate without incident.
But the inspection process wasn’t over yet. While the Sacred Gate could detect impure beings, items forbidden by the Federation—drugs, banned books, and the like—had to be checked manually by officials.
The inspectors would naturally come to search the cargo wagon themselves, but Simon had already devised a way to slip out beforehand.
Flap!
Simon felt the broker draping the wagon in Blue Cloth. The broker then tapped the wagon twice, signaling that no one was nearby.
This Blue Cloth had the effect of blocking the flow of mana. By covering himself with it and activating the Teleport Magic Circle drawn on the bottom of the box, they would slip away to another location.
‘All I need to do is get inside the Sacred Federation.’
The borders of the Sacred Federation had White Magic deployed to prevent unauthorized Teleportation. But once they were inside the Federation, using Teleport would be no problem.
“All right, let’s get ready.”
The two of them squeezed their bodies as tightly as possible into the Teleport Magic Circle. In the process, they had no choice but to press against each other in an awkward embrace.
Simon was startled, but Rette kept her expression carefully neutral as she placed her hand on the magic circle and spoke.
“Random Teleportation within a radius of our arrival point. If we’re unlucky, we could fall into water or land in the middle of a convent. Are you ready?”
“Uh? Yeah. I’m ready.”
She murmured a soft “Here we go” and activated the Teleport Magic Circle.
Whooooosh!
Simon’s body lifted off as the magic circle ignited.
‘Ugh!’
His entire body rushed forward at tremendous speed, unable to make sense of anything.
Like traveling through a narrow pipe at extreme velocity within an abstract painting of mixed colors, everything blurred together. Feeling it again, he found himself missing the Teleportation of Kizen, handled by true professionals.
The world spun violently, and intense nausea crashed over him.
Just when he thought he truly couldn’t endure it any longer—
Whoosh!
The spinning stopped, and at last he felt solid ground beneath him. Cradling his forehead, he took a moment to gather himself, then slowly lifted his head and looked around.
“……?”
Everything around him was golden light. Lifting his gaze, he saw a cloudless blue sky above.
Simon had landed in the middle of a wheat field.
“Goddess above.”
But then he heard Rette’s voice from below.
“Grant me patience that I may not slay him as he atones for his sins, and bestow upon me restraint that I may not bathe in his blood.”
“?”
Looking down, Simon realized he was pinning Rette to the ground. Horrified, he quickly apologized and rolled aside.
“Just now.”
She sat up, speaking coldly.
“You’ve violated my mind in five hundred different ways. Thank the goddess for her gift of patience toward you.”
“……But we had to Teleport while holding each other like that. There was no way around it.”
“Shut your mouth.”
The two of them slowly got to their feet.
The wheat was extraordinarily tall. Wheat normally reached about one meter, but for Simon, only his head was visible above it, and for Rette, barely the crown of her head showed.
“This wheat appears to have been grown using Sacred Agriculture.”
She brushed dust from her clothes, paying special attention to the spots where she’d made contact with Simon.
“Sacred Agriculture?”
“Yes. Before farming begins, a Priest is summoned to hold a service, and Holy Power is infused into the soil. This allows crops to grow splendidly. It’s the blessing of the goddess.”
“Everything imaginable exists here, doesn’t it?”
She smiled with superiority and crossed her arms.
“Everything? Not at all. The harvest yield of crops, which are fundamental to national administration, is entirely different. How does the Dark Alliance manage?”
“……We just spread manure to improve soil fertility, practice crop rotation, and sometimes my father goes to town and buys fertilizer to spread.”
Rette clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
“Spreading something that stinks like dung onto fields—how barbaric. How is that different from us taking our own shit and putting it back in our own mouths?”
“No, that’s completely different. You don’t understand what fertilizer is—”
“Anyway! From now on, you’ll see the superiority of the Sacred Federation demonstrated frequently. Prepare yourself.”
She turned sharply and strode forward with long steps. Perhaps being in her own homeland gave her a sense of psychological security. She certainly seemed to be in good spirits.
“Wheat thief!”
It lasted only a few minutes.
A voice cried out, and from all directions, farmers armed with farm tools rather than weapons came rushing forward with an ominous intensity.
“Finally! We’ve been waiting for when you’d show up!”
“Everyone, charge!”
The atmosphere became not merely unusual but outright menacing. Rette suddenly grabbed Simon by the hem of his clothes.
“What are you standing there for! Run!”
A chase erupted without warning. The farmers surged into the wheat field in a flood.
Sharp farming implements converged from all directions as the wheat field split open—a sight genuinely terrifying. The farmers looked ready to swing weapons first and ask questions later, so retreat was clearly the wisest course.
Rette and Simon bolted across the wheat field in chaos and ducked into a small warehouse nearby. It was crammed with various tools and straw.
The moment Rette locked the door, Bang! Bang! came the sound of it being kicked in.
“Found them!”
“Hey! Open up! You going to open this or not?”
The hinges shook as though they’d splinter any second. Simon, bracing the door with his full body, spoke.
“What do we do now?”
“We can’t tell them we teleported here. No point exposing our movements unnecessarily.”
Rette had already pulled the Efnel Uniform from her bag. She kicked off her shoes and slipped on stockings.
“I’ll need five minutes to change into the Efnel Uniform. Please hold them off.”
“Five minutes? No way! Do it in two! Skip the stockings—just get the clothes on!”
“Stop looking, you lunatic! Let me get dressed!”
Crash!
The small windows on both sides shattered, and rake-like farming tools thrust inside, sweeping viciously through the space. Afraid of being caught, Simon crouched down instead.
Crack!
Simultaneously, a shovel punched through the door above Simon’s head. He yelped and drew a magic circle on the door with his left hand.
Guardian Shield
A pure white barrier of sacred power unfurled, blocking the door. Under the furious assault of the farmers, the door was smashed to pieces, and now they hammered directly against the shield.
“Rette! Hurry!”
Simon braced the shield against his back and shouted.
“If you so much as peek, I’ll kill you and then go to heaven.”
“I’m not looking!”
Click!
At last, with her top buttoned up, she traced a magic circle in the air and snapped her fingers.
Whoooosh!
“Ugh!”
A blinding light consumed Simon and Rette. It obliterated the warehouse in an instant and scattered in all directions.
“Ack!”
“What is this…!”
The farmers staggered backward in terror before the immense wave of sacred power.
After the brilliance faded, beyond the collapsed warehouse, a boy lay sprawled on the ground, and beside him stood a girl in a white uniform.
When Rette untied the ribbon in her hair, her snow-white locks shimmered and danced in the breeze. The farmers’ eyes went wide as saucers.
That was unmistakably an Efnel Uniform made from sacred cloth.
“Do you still not”
Rette’s frigid voice rang out.
“understand the situation?”
Clatter! Thud!
The farmers dropped their tools in unison and prostrated themselves on the ground.
“We pay reverence to the Priest of Efnel!”
The dramatic shift left Simon dumbfounded. Rette, by contrast, seemed perfectly at ease with it all, snorting softly as she gazed down at the prostrate farmers. So the Sacred Federation truly did have its rigid class system.
“The Goddess in her grace bestowed these beautiful wheat kernels, so I descended to marvel at them—yet you dare threaten my life by drawing blades without warning? Are you prepared to die?”
“We have committed a sin worthy of death!!”
The farmers cried out, bowing their heads to the ground.
Watching them tremble in abject fear, Simon blinked. So this was indeed the Sacred Federation, with its rigid class structure firmly in place.
“If you’ve truly committed a sin worthy of death, then naturally you must be punished, yes?”
Rette’s voice turned ice-cold as she extended her hand.
“All of you—”
“Priest.”
Simon rose to his feet and bowed solemnly. The dexterous sign of the cross he traced was entirely convincing—exactly as a priest would make it.
Clasping his hands together, Simon spoke.
“The sin of these faithful in failing to recognize you, Priest, is grave indeed. Yet I humbly beseech you to have mercy upon them, for they have been desperate to catch the thief who damaged the wheat field, and ask your forgiveness.”
The farmers, who moments before had cowered in terror, lifted their eyes toward Simon with expressions of utter shock. They clearly hadn’t expected him to plead on their behalf.
Rette’s face twisted with something between disbelief and annoyance.
“Forgiveness? I take you along for a few days and you forget your place, creeping out of line? How dare a novice priest presume to second-guess a Priest’s judgment?”
“This golden wheat field, so magnificent that you yourself descended to marvel at it, is blessed by the Goddess. To protect grain touched by Her grace is the farmers’ sacred duty, though a humble one. They stumbled in their zeal to preserve the Goddess’s blessing, but their sin springs from sincere faith—I most humbly ask that you find it in your heart to lighten their punishment and grant them forgiveness.”
‘…Damn. This bastard.’
Rette suppressed a soundless laugh inside her mind. Since when could his tongue work so deftly?
Rette had intended to punish the farmers for threatening her safety.
But Simon’s argument—that their mistake arose in service to the Goddess’s will—meant that a Priest serving the Goddess should forgive them. Weigh a Priest’s personal grievance against the Goddess’s will, and the Goddess’s will always carried more weight.
Moreover, he had only just explained Sacred Agriculture to these people, yet he wove it into his words with such finesse that the locals hadn’t even noticed—three inches of tongue speaking volumes with that kind of clever application deserved genuine praise.
“That’s quite true. Do lift your head.”
Rette said she’d let it pass this once, and only this once.
Watching the farmers bow and express their gratitude, Simon found himself newly appreciating just how formidable the power of a Priest in the Sacred Federation—and of Efnel itself—truly was.
Though the actual destination lay some distance away, the farmers immediately offered to prepare a carriage.
While the two of them waited briefly, the table filled with an endless array of dishes.
‘…I feel like I’m at home.’
They were only staying about thirty minutes until the carriage arrived, yet the farmers kept bringing more food, which left Simon at a loss. He felt self-conscious about the free meal, but Rette ate without hesitation, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Please, don’t hold back.”
Rette said this matter-of-factly.
“When novice priests or Priests come visiting, it’s simply our custom to offer food. Especially—there’s even a saying that if you don’t feed novice priests in the middle of their 19 Austerities until they’re full, the goddess will curse your household.”
“What a peculiar custom.”
“Besides, it’s not free, so eat your fill. I’ll pay for it soon enough.”
In truth, it would have been odd to refuse food that had already been prepared. Simon tried a bite of the Sacred Federation’s distinctive wheat noodles.
“It’s delicious!”
“Of course it is.”
Compared to Dark Alliance cuisine, the seasoning was lighter, almost bland. Still, it was quite palatable.
Rette then departed with the farmers for a while and sprinkled Sacred Flame over the field they were preparing for planting, then returned. The farmers rejoiced, bowing their heads as though a goddess herself had descended upon them.
She trudged back to her seat beside Simon and resumed eating wheat noodles.
“It must be nice being a Priest—never going hungry.”
“If you’re so jealous, become one yourself.”
Rette said this with a snort of laughter.
“But tell me—have you ever ridden a train before?”
“A train?”
* * *
Whoooooosh!
The moment they arrived at the city by carriage, the two headed straight for the station.
Simon’s eyes, though he’d been a country boy even in the Dark Alliance, nearly bulged out of his head.
“W-what in the world is that?”
A wheeled mass of metal, belching white steam tinged with Sacred Flame, was approaching the station. The tracks lay on the ground, yet in places they also hung suspended in midair.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
This train wasn’t stopping at this station. It departed as is, and Simon stood gawking, his eyes wide as saucers, watching it disappear.
“Five days.”
Rette placed both hands on her hips with a smile.
“That’s how long we’ll be riding the Sacred Train across the length of the Sacred Federation. Brace yourself—the Heresy Inquisitors will be crawling all over it.”
“…Ha ha.”
Even Simon had to admit it was turning out to be quite the eventful summer break.
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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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