Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 247

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

The Summoning Genius at Necromancer School — Chapter 247
“The victor is Simon!”
There was no applause, no cheering.
Only a deathly silence hung over the assembled nobility.
Today was a ball hosted by the Dresden Royal Family, and this was the Royal Palace itself — so the nobles could not bring themselves to applaud the victorious Simon. They merely sent him sidelong glances, their eyes wide with shock.
“Your Highness!”
“Are you… are you hurt?”
The royal faction nobles rushed forward in a throng to check on the fallen prince’s condition.
Lorain and Serne approached Simon with unhurried steps.
“You all right, Simon?”
Lorain brushed the dust from his torn clothes as she spoke.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You did great, Simon.”
Serne drew close with a gentle, knowing smile.
“It feels like your skills are back on track now — you didn’t even need to resort to that.”
“That?”
At Lorain’s question, Serne shrugged.
“You don’t need to know. It’s a secret shared only between Simon and me.”
Simon gave a wry smile. If Serne kept explaining it like that, there would be room for misunderstanding…
“The Queen approaches!”
“!”
The crowd suddenly parted left and right.
A woman appeared in an ornate dress — unmistakably royalty at first glance. She was a middle-aged woman of somewhat heavyset build, with a cold, sharp expression that made one shiver.
“Your Majesty!”
Everyone bowed to the Queen.
She walked forward and looked down at the prone Andrew. As his eyes fluttered open, he caught sight of her and trembled with visible fear.
“Pathetic.”
Her words, delivered in an icy tone, held no warmth whatsoever.
“I can’t bear to look at you. Take him away.”
Black Knights stepped forward, seized Andrew by both arms, and dragged him away. Lorain watched the Queen’s actions in silence.
‘It was all your doing, wasn’t it.’
Unlike the King, who cooperated with Kizen, the Queen was a staunch anti-Kizen faction. Her deepest wish was that the kingdom escape Kizen’s influence forever.
The sudden interruption of the ball, Andrew’s intrusion — all of it must have been the Queen’s plan. Of course, everything had come to nothing when Simon defeated Andrew.
“…”
Perhaps frustrated that her scheme had been ruined, the Queen fixed Simon with a terrifying glare.
Lorain stepped forward to take the force of that gaze instead, while Serne spoke to Simon and deliberately redirected her attention.
Ultimately, the Queen said nothing more and turned away, disappearing into the crowd.

* * *
After the duel ended, the ball resumed normally.
Simon went for treatment. The royal physicians examined him and, fortunately, diagnosed him with only mild fatigue and slight anemia — nothing serious.
While Simon was undergoing treatment,
Crunch!
Thwack!
In the Separate Palace where the Queen resided, raw violence was unfolding.
“To suffer such humiliation at a ball!”
The Queen was beating Andrew mercilessly with the heel of her shoe.
She was an ordinary woman, and Andrew was a Necromancer, yet he dared not even meet her eyes properly.
In truth, Andrew’s cruel nature came from none other than this Queen. When her eyes rolled back, she cared nothing for blood relations or anything else. Save for Princess Molly, whom the King treasured above all, there was hardly a child of hers who hadn’t felt her fist.
“Do you think I gave you this opportunity for this?”
At the ball, when the Queen learned that Princess Molly had brought Simon’s group, she decided to use it to her advantage.
She went to Andrew, who had a grudge against Simon, instructed him to request a duel, and promised to handle all the aftermath herself.
It would have been an excellent chance to humble Kizen — but Andrew, unbelievably, had lost to a 1st Year student. The royal family had suffered great shame, and in the end, only Kizen’s honor had been elevated.
She halted, breathing heavily, her face twisted in fury, snorting with rage. Her heel was already soaked in blood, as was Andrew’s face.
“The promise.”
She opened her mouth.
“What promise did you make to that child, to be granted should you lose?”
The Queen already knew the situation from the Black Knights.
Andrew had drawn an R on his chest and staked even the royal name itself on accepting Simon’s conditions.
“…”
Andrew’s lips trembled as he passively endured the blows raining down on him.
His face laid bare a terrible fear, a desperate sense of failure.
“Speak truthfully, without deception.”
She spoke with eyes wide open. Andrew, quaking with the terror of a man about to die, forced out his words in a strangled voice.
“I… I gave away the exclusive right to clear one of the kingdom’s dungeons.”
Her expression froze cold.
At the same moment, her foot descended slowly. Knowing this meant she was ceasing her violence, Andrew clung to the hope and cried out desperately.
“Mother! I was—!”
“You are no son of mine.”
Andrew’s chest collapsed inward as though struck. The queen left him there, his eyes hollow, his mouth hanging open in stunned silence.
‘Fool.’
Dungeons possess potential value beyond measure.
No one knew what resources or treasures might lie within them—and yet one had been carelessly handed over to a seventeen-year-old boy who knew nothing of such matters.
Depending on that boy’s choices, the very fate of the kingdom might hang in the balance.
She had wanted to apply subtle pressure through her own methods, to force him to settle for a more modest reward, but the boy had formidable allies in Lorain and Serne. Intimidation was impossible.
‘Still, he’s nothing but a teenager in the dark. I’ll present him with alternative compensation in the morning.’

* * *
“I’ll have to decline.”
Simon spoke from where he rested on the bed.
The Treasurer, who had come bearing the queen’s new proposal, was caught off guard by Simon’s curt refusal.
Contrary to what he’d expected—that the boy could be charmed into agreement—Simon hadn’t even heard the full offer.
“Well, student.”
The Treasurer clasped his hands together and forced a business smile.
“Four thousand gold—double the original commission! Four thousand gold! Enough to buy several houses! Please, won’t you reconsider—”
“Wow, look at the adult shaking down the kids.”
Serne interjected, drumming her nails as she sat in a chair. She’d been camped in Simon’s room since yesterday.
“Dungeon clearance rights can be sold for tens of thousands of gold, not four. Trying to extort just two thousand by claiming the kids are too naive to know better? That’s pretty shameless.”
‘Please, just stop interfering…’
The Treasurer seethed inwardly, but forced himself to maintain his smile.
“Ah, well! Her Majesty the Queen says she can offer three times the amount. Moreover, she wishes to bestow commendation directly upon—”
“Sir Treasurer.”
This time a voice came from the opposite side. A girl with hair black as ebony, wearing pink pajamas she’d brought from home, lay draped across the sofa, swinging her legs back and forth.
She glanced up from her book.
“Simon was conscripted into an unfavorable duel, yet he fought for his life and won. He’s simply asking for the reward promised. Has the royal family’s word become so cheap?”
‘This is driving me insane.’
Before Simon could even speak, these two girls were advocating for him like counsel at a trial.
The carrot approach clearly wasn’t going to work. It was time to shift tactics.
“I’m ashamed to confess this to honored guests from abroad, but…”
Moisture glistened in the corners of his eyes.
“The truth is, the kingdom’s finances are in dire straits. Recently, the granary regions have suffered a brutal drought. Her Majesty the Queen herself has chosen to share in the people’s hardship by going without meals—”
“That’s your problem, not ours.”
Serne cut him off, setting down her mirror with a sharp click, then crossed her legs with deliberate allure.
“What exactly are you doing here? If you pledged your royal word, you keep it. Did you really think we’d let it slide just because we’re still students?”
“I—I was speaking directly to Simon!”
The Treasurer looked toward Simon, sweat dripping down his face. Simon smiled gently.
“Serne just said what I wanted to say.”
‘Blast…’
He’d gotten tangled up with difficult people indeed.
This negotiation was shaping up to be far more demanding than he’d anticipated. He found himself resenting Prince Andrew for carelessly speaking in front of so many witnesses.
‘I can’t just bully them with adult authority.’
His gaze drifted momentarily to Lorain in her pink pajamas.
If that girl spoke one word of defiance in front of the Death Witch, the entire kingdom could be wiped from existence.
Rumor had it she’d even leveled the Sky Islands of Efnel—was Langoustin truly beyond her reach?
“Please, don’t worry too much.”
Simon spoke.
“I’ll choose a dungeon that won’t place too heavy a burden on the kingdom.”
“Si-Simon, student! Won’t you please reconsider just once more—”
“Wait, how about we do this instead?”
Serne stretched one leg out and propped it up on the chair.
And then she abruptly began pulling off the Stocking she was wearing.
“???”
The Treasurer stood bewildered at her sudden action, and she—having removed one Stocking and crumpled it into a ball—walked toward him.
“Hold out your hand.”
The Treasurer extended his hand as though bewitched, and she pressed the Stocking into his palm.
“It’s an additional clause. I’ll give you this, so let’s make it a condition that you hand over the Dungeon as promised. What do you say?”
“……!!”
The Treasurer’s eyes trembled with emotion. His chest, suddenly unburdened, opened like a door swinging wide; tangled threads of worry came undone all at once. The sensation was one of perfect, crystalline relief.
Was this what ancient scholars felt when they uncovered the secrets of Rune Language after a hundred years?
“Yes, yes! A Stocking! A Stocking, no less! I never would have conceived of such a stratagem!”
“Then let’s go report this to the Queen.”
“Yes! Yes! Understood!”
“What are you suddenly—wait, just a moment!”
Before Simon could stop him, the Treasurer bolted from the room at full speed.
Lorain cast him a look of utter disdain.
“Your personality is truly terrible.”
“Ho ho ho!”
The Treasurer raced through the palace at a gallop, breathless with haste. His mind held but a single thought: he must convey this wonderful news to the Queen at once.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
The Treasurer burst into the Queen’s chamber.
She happened to be in the midst of an emergency meeting with her officials when she saw his radiant smile and rose to her feet immediately.
“Your face tells a good story! Have you reached an accord with those children?”
“Yes, I have succeeded!”
The Treasurer held aloft the Stocking with great ceremony. The torn, now-useless Stocking unraveled from his hand like a ribbon.
“The Stocking! It is the Stocking! We have added to the contract the condition that we receive this Stocking!”
“…….”
A thick silence fell over the chamber.
“Is it not extraordinary? At this rate, I did not think the Dungeon a poor trade at all!”
The officials stared at the Treasurer as though he were mad.
The Queen, too, and even the attendants tidying the room, regarded him with eyes full of scorn.
“Drag that fool out at once and beat him senseless with a cudgel until he comes to his senses.”
“Y-yes?”
The officials seized the Treasurer by both arms and dragged him from the room.
“Your Majesty! This is unjust! Please, just look at this! It’s the Stocking, I tell you!”
Even as he was dragged away, the Treasurer continued his lament about the Stocking.
And there, at the nape of his neck, a single feather was plainly embedded.

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