Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 18

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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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The Necromancer School’s Summoning Prodigy, Chapter 18
Unable to keep pretending he hadn’t noticed, Simon turned his gaze toward the window. The girl’s face dropped out of sight just as quickly.
…….
Did she not want to be discovered?
Simon turned back and retrieved a fresh Chiffon Cake. Her face crept back up above the windowsill.
Blink, blink.
The girl’s blue eyes flickered. Each time the Chiffon Cake drew near Simon’s mouth, her blinking accelerated.
Simon smiled to himself and opened his mouth.
“Why don’t you come over and join me, Neftis?”
At his words, the girl’s face shot up above the sill.
“Oh! How did you know? Is it really okay?”
As if she’d been waiting for this very moment, Neftis vaulted over the windowsill and scampered over, settling down on her knees before the Chiffon Cake. She gazed up at Simon with wide, round eyes.
The sight of her reminded him of a puppy waiting eagerly, tail wagging, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Of course. Please, help yourself.”
“Hehe, thank you!”
She picked up the Chiffon Cake with her small, delicate hands and began eating with soft, contented sounds.
As her two small cheeks puffed and worked, Simon felt an overwhelming urge to set aside all thoughts of being Keyzen’s sovereign and simply pat her head.
“Would you care for something else as well?”
Simon pulled out additional snacks he’d bought from the shop, and each time he did, Neftis’s eyes sparkled with delight.
“I love this so much!”
She mumbled the words while enjoying the Jam Sandwich.
“At home, they never let me eat sweets!”
“……Ahaha.”
And so Simon found himself having a dessert time with the legendary Necromancer, someone he’d once thought he’d never meet in a lifetime. The two of them shared snacks and exchanged stories.
From gratitude for the Subspace gift, to tales of Lorraine.
Naturally, the conversation drifted toward school life.
“This is your first time at school, right? How do you like it?”
“I’m having fun!”
Simon answered immediately.
“The professors are wonderful, my classmates are kind, the lessons are engaging…… I’m surprised to find I’m actually well-suited for school.”
She nodded with a bright smile.
“Ahh, that’s wonderful. Talking with you here at Keyzen reminds me of Richard.”
“My father?”
“That’s right! Your father was also a student at Keyzen. Didn’t you know?”
It was the first he’d ever heard of this. She chuckled and wagged a finger at him.
“Richard was something else. Unlike the mature person you are, he was a troublemaker—a legendary problem student.”
“……My father was?”
Simon’s mouth fell open.
The idea that his dignified, stern father had been a troublemaker in his school days was so incongruous that he couldn’t reconcile the image of father with that of a mischievous boy.
“On top of all that, his mind was sharp as a blade. He’d cause trouble and then clamber right over the professors’ heads. I can’t count how many times I had to go fetch Richard and drag him back from trying to skip class.”
“……It’s, hard to believe. Did my father manage to graduate from Keyzen safely?”
She shook her head.
“No. He withdrew during second year.”
“……I see.”
“He suddenly declared the school was too confining and left. Keyzen had never had a student like that before. Richard was truly a special case in every way.”
Neftis laid her arms flat on the ground and gazed up at the ceiling.
An emotion—something profound and wistful—flickered across her face, at odds with her youthful appearance.
“Back then, I was young too.”
…….
Simon wanted to object to something, but felt it wasn’t the right moment, so he held back.
“Anyway! Richard probably hasn’t left a corner of Rockssom unexplored. If you look carefully, you might find traces of your father scattered throughout the school!”
“Oh! That would be fun to discover.”
She rose from her seat and brushed off her skirt with a pat-pat.
“Well, I have evening plans, so I should be going. If I’m late, I might get scolded. Hehe.”
“Already?”
The words escaped Simon’s lips before he could stop them, and he was surprised at himself.
The time with her had been so enjoyable and had passed so quickly that he’d inadvertently let his true feelings slip out.
“We’ll see each other again soon, Simon.”
Neftis smiled warmly.
“Thank you for the snacks! Goodbye!”
Just as Neftis vaulted through the window, something small—a slip of paper—tumbled from her clothes.
Simon snatched it up and rushed toward the window in a panic.
“Neftis! You dropped this—!”
Whoosh.
She had already vanished without a trace.
Simon scratched his head and examined the paper’s surface, turning it over.
“Given the circumstances… she must have meant it for me.”
Simon murmured to himself and sat on the edge of the bed. Then he unfolded the paper, which had been folded in half.
It was a map.
The map showed a point beyond the boundaries of Keyzen, past the school’s interior, marked with a skull symbol at the destination.
A skull? Usually, wouldn’t a treasure chest or something mark the objective?
Simon studied the map carefully. There was no other information besides the destination marker.
Why had Neftis shown him this place?
“If you look carefully, you might find traces of your father scattered throughout the school.”
Simon steeled his resolve and clenched his fist.
He decided to depart the very next day.

* * *
The first weekend morning at Keyzen dawned.
Since the location marked on Neftis’s map was the Forbidden Forest, entry restricted, he decided to depart once darkness fell.
Richard and Karzan had left early, and Simon buried himself in catching up with his Summoning textbook.
He opened a few other subjects to study as well, but found he couldn’t concentrate on them.
Since he had to choose a primary discipline before the Group Assignment came due, Simon resolved to commit this weekend entirely to Summoning.
‘The difference between Skeletons and Zombies. First: command obedience. Skeletons are compliant to the Necromancer’s orders, but Zombies rely on instinct, and their hatred of the living amplifies, making them difficult to control.’
‘The next stage after Zombie is the Ghoul. Their numbers are sparse, but they’re incomparably stronger than Zombies. Wow—they can leap up to three hundred meters in a single bound?’
‘There’s even something called a Tattered Golem! When am I going to be able to make one?’
He’d never known studying could be this engaging. Time flew by, and each time Simon checked the clock, he swallowed his reluctance.
After pouring his entire day into Summoning studies, as the sun began to set, Simon finally moved into action.
In the dormitory’s overnight absence log, he wrote: “One-night, two-day visit to Rochester.”
Crunch.
He left Keyzen’s main gate and arrived at the Forbidden Forest as darkness fell. The reason Keyzen prohibited entry to this forest was simple.
‘A monster-infested zone.’
Monsters inhabited the Leshill Mountain Range too, but what kinds roamed Rockssom remained unknown.
Simon stepped forward carefully.
‘There’s a stream flowing to the east and Keyzen’s wall visible to the west. Okay, I’m going the right way.’
Following the map closely, progress remained smooth so far.
But as he ventured deeper into the forest, animal calls grew more frequent, and droppings appeared. He probed with a stick—still moist, squelching. Whatever left it had been here recently.
‘…Ugh, I just want to turn back.’
It would have been a lie to say he wasn’t afraid, but Simon steeled himself. Moving as slowly as possible, he deadened his footfalls.
And then.
A low growl sounded from nearby.
Simon’s body went rigid.
He clamped his hand over his mouth and dropped into a crouch.
Eyes adjusted to the darkness caught a black silhouette standing beneath a tree’s shadow. It sniffed the air, nostrils flaring.
‘A monster.’
The creature’s head turned. Its eyes—glowing in the darkness—fixed on Simon.
Pad-pad-pad!
‘So fast!’
Simon’s hand shot to the Short Dagger at his belt. Eyes gleamed in the dark, and a silvery arc slashed through the air with a shriek, bearing down on him.
Simon drew the dagger and swung to meet that trajectory.
Clang!
Steel struck steel, and Simon’s body tumbled backward. The creature’s claws raked again, scoring long gouges in a tree as it passed.
‘A Werewolf!’
Dangerous enough that any ordinary person meeting one would call it a death sentence. Fortunately, this one wasn’t fully grown—its frame was small.
‘Before coming to Keyzen, I would have run…’
Simon repositioned his dagger and pushed himself up. With his left hand, he channeled Black Aura through his Ring and pulled an imaginary lever.
Click-whirr.
A Subspace tore open beneath him, and bones erupted from within.
‘Restoration!’
The bones scattered in mid-air assembled with precision around a skull at the center. Two Skeletons materialized before Simon, their feet striking the ground.
‘Done!’
Simon clenched his fist.
The first time he’d used a Necromancer’s skill in actual combat.
It felt reassuring—profoundly so. Beyond raw power, the sheer fact that he wasn’t alone brought a wave of psychological relief.
In an instant, the odds had shifted to three-to-one. The Werewolf flinched at the sudden disadvantage, but its teeth bared and it pressed forward with renewed ferocity.
Thwip. Thwip.
Simon drew two battered Short Swords from his Subspace, and the Skeleton caught them as they flew through the air.
—Roaaaar!
The Werewolf lunged, and the battle began in earnest.
Scrape!
The Skeleton’s blade carved a long gash across the Werewolf’s abdomen. But the creature pressed in, its right arm sweeping down in a brutal arc at the Skeleton’s upper body.
Crash!
Half its bone-frame flew apart in that single blow. The backlash of the severed undead connection sent a sharp, throbbing pain through Simon’s head.
But in that opening, the second Skeleton wheeled around and drove its Short Sword deep into the Werewolf’s exposed flank.
—Roaaaar!
The Werewolf shrieked in agony. Simon thrust his right arm forward.
‘Restoration!’
The shattered bone fragments quivered, then reassembled as if time itself had reversed, reforming the Skeleton’s body. The restored Skeleton immediately plunged its Short Sword into the Werewolf’s chest.
“Now! Drive it back!”
Both Skeletons, blades still embedded, drove the impaled Werewolf across the ground and slammed it against a tree behind them.
The tree shuddered with the impact, and leaves rained down.
‘This is it!’
Simon charged in last, Short Dagger in hand. The Werewolf, pinned against the trunk, thrashed its arms savagely and shattered his Skeletons—but it was too slow.
Squelch!
Simon’s blade found the Werewolf’s throat faster than the creature’s strength could fail.
The sickening sensation of flesh and muscle tearing flowed through his wrist, but there was no time for squeamishness—not when both their lives hung in the balance.
Simon gripped the handle with vicious force.
Crunch. Crunch.
At last the Werewolf’s body went slack. Simon staggered backward, gasping raggedly, until his legs gave out and he collapsed onto his rear.
‘…That… that was close.’
His lips trembled from the lingering combat tension.
‘No time for this. I need to clean up, fast.’
If the commotion and blood drew other monsters, he’d be in serious trouble.
Struggling to his feet, Simon attempted Restoration. One Skeleton was too damaged to save, but the other recovered enough to move again.
Simon stowed the restored Skeleton in his Subspace and pressed onward.
‘Come to think of it, that was my first real fight since entering Keyzen.’
In just four days, his combat strength had grown tremendously.
If he endured a year—or even three years—in this place, how much stronger could he possibly become? The thought was impossible to resist.
After another twenty minutes of walking,
‘Here it is.’
He’d reached the location marked with a skull symbol on his Map. The area was eerily barren—nothing around but soil and stone.
The only notable detail was that no trees or grass grew in this spot.
‘Looks like I’ll need to dig.’
Simon opened his Subspace and retrieved the shovel he’d borrowed from the dormitory grounds keeper.
He caught the spinning shovel deftly as it fell from above, rolled up his sleeves, and began excavating.
Thunk! Thunk!
Had anyone been watching, they would’ve marveled at his remarkably skilled technique.
The work didn’t take long. The shovel struck something hard.
Simon crouched and brushed away the soil carefully.
‘Stone floor.’
A dark, distinctive rock comprised the surface beneath.
As he cleared away more earth, Simon discovered a shallow depression in the center—a handprint carved into the stone itself.
He pressed his right palm against it; the size was almost a perfect match. Yet it seemed unlikely that a relic would open with something this simple.
Closing his eyes, Simon activated his Core and channeled Black Aura into his palm.
Hummmmmmm!
As his Black Aura flowed into the relic, light ignited beneath the stone—and with a grinding crack, the floor swung open.
‘Stairs!’
A staircase descended into the darkness below.
Simon’s face broke into a smile of triumph.
What secrets lay hidden here? And why had Neftis directed him to this place?
Simon felt his heart hammering in his chest as he moved forward.

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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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