Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 387

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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 School, Episode 387
Day four.
Simon climbed the hill again, choosing a vantage point that overlooked the surrounding terrain.
He hefted a spear forged from dungeon ore across his shoulders and scanned the vast grassland with keen attention. Herds of monsters resembling buffalo roamed the meadow, clustered together in loose groups.
They were massive creatures, their bodies covered in mineral plates of a brownish hue, with tails that lashed about like whips.
[Ugh, there are way too many.]
The observation came from Herseba. Now transformed into a staff, she perched rigidly atop Simon’s head.
[You’re not planning to catch all of them, are you, little one?]
“No. I only need to snag a couple of the right ones.”
[The right ones?]
Simon nodded.
“Find me one with scars on its body.”
[Scars, scars. A creature with scars, you say.]
Herseba climbed higher. Simon, too, turned his gaze back to the landscape below.
The monsters in this dungeon never preyed on one another, never fought among themselves. They had no concept of territorial disputes, food competition, or males vying for females.
They fought only one circumstance.
When they encountered an outsider—a human—they went berserk, charging and attempting to devour.
‘That means scars on the body indicate fights with outsiders. The monsters don’t battle each other.’
Simon glanced down at the book in his hands—something he’d retrieved from the stomach of a monster he’d hunted before.
‘I might find something like this again.’
[Found it, little one! Over there!]
Simon looked where Herseba pointed and spotted a monster among the herd whose entire body bore long scratch marks. A long spike-like object was even embedded in its mineral hide.
“Good eye! That’s the one.”
Simon kicked up dust as he sprinted down the hillside.

* * *
Once he’d figured out the strategy, hunting became far simpler.
He’d pummel the monsters with the mineral weapons he’d crafted beforehand, shattering the mineral plating on their surface, then cast Curses or Overlord on the exposed flesh to ravage their bodies.
As for Herseba—
[Kyaaaah! Kyaaaaaaa!]
She drew the attention of the other buffalo herds while fleeing in frantic chaos. Thanks to her efforts, Simon could isolate a single monster and hunt it safely.
“Here we go.”
He applied two stacks of Sickness, the nausea curse, to disrupt the creature’s movements, but the monster thrashed violently in resistance.
As Simon teetered precariously atop it, he caught sight of the spear shaft protruding from around its abdomen.
‘This is it!’
He gripped it tight with both hands and pulled with all his strength.
Blood erupted as the shaft wrenched free with a satisfying crack. The blade was forged from mineral, just like his own spear.

The shaft looked worn and ancient. Simon felt his hypothesis crystallizing further.
‘This isn’t the work of a Kizen student.’
Blood erupted as the shaft wrenched free.
Thud!
At last, the monster succumbed to the nausea and blood loss, collapsing.
Simon quickly applied a presence-concealing potion to the creature’s body, then dragged it to a secluded spot.

* * *
Crackle, crackle!
After a successful hunt came the spoils: meat and clues.
Perched atop a steep hill, Simon built a campfire and skewered several chunks of meat on branches, suspending them over the flames.
“You did good work, Herseba.”
[I’m exhausted!!]
Simon soothed her whimpering while continuing his butchering.
This time too, the stomach yielded skeletal remains and various artifacts. There was also a book.
“jackpot!”
Simon spread the plunder before him with satisfaction.
That made three books he’d collected so far.
Among all six hundred and forty-seven students seeking to uncover the dungeon’s secrets, his results were unmatched.
[But little one,]
Herseba, now in staff form, hopped over and settled before the book.
[Why do these books end up inside monsters’ bodies? And who wrote them in the first place?]
“There are two possibilities.”
Simon held up his fingers.
“First: people entered the dungeon before us. Second: people were already living here when we arrived.”
[Either way, there were people here.]
“Yeah.”
They seemed to have been wiped out by monster attacks. Still, the traces were there—books written, weapons crafted—evidence that they’d struggled to survive in this dungeon in their own way.
Simon opened one of the books. A language he’d never seen before, squiggly and unfamiliar, filled every page alongside various illustrations.
[Can you read it?]
Herseba asked, and Simon shook his head.
“It’s my first time seeing this language. But there are so many pictures I can guess what it’s about.”
Simon decided to use this knowledge to craft a new mineral weapon.
There was a special method for processing the ore.
“Like this.”
He set a raw chunk of mineral on the ground. Then, as if working with a primitive stone tool, he placed another sharp piece of mineral precisely at the edge and struck down hard with a hammer-stone.
Clang!
A clear, ringing sound echoed out.
After striking the four corners several times, the ore cracked with a satisfying fracture, breaking into chunks that would serve perfectly.
[Oh! There’s a method like this!]
Now he embedded the ore firmly onto a spear shaft, poured on Adhesive Potion, and let it dry to finish.
It was disposable, but when it pierced a monster, the hard shell would shatter while the point drove deep into the flesh, dealing significant damage.
Simon crafted several bundles of spears while his mind churned.
‘There are still too many unsolved mysteries.’
The dungeon’s monsters didn’t eat.
Their digestive systems had atrophied dramatically, and their excretory organs had vanished entirely. The skulls and objects they’d consumed remained sitting in their bellies for that very reason.
But no matter how he thought about it, something felt wrong—creatures that massive moving and acting without consuming any food whatsoever.
There had to be an energy source that replaced food intake. He needed to discover what it was.
‘And most importantly, I need to figure out how all these clues connect to the Dungeon Master’s location.’
It was day four, and he still couldn’t grasp the dungeon’s logic. Simon sprawled across the grassland, flipping through the books he’d acquired earlier.
A compendium of the dungeon’s flora and fauna.
Since he couldn’t read the text, he simply turned the pages quickly, scanning the illustrations.
‘Hm.’
And then, the final page.
A human appeared.
A figure sitting cross-legged, with plants sprouting from the body, and white hands rising from the ground below, reaching toward the person.
‘What is this.’
Simon’s expression grew serious as he straightened, sitting up.
‘It feels symbolic.’

* * *
Rocksum.
Kizen Grand Hall.
“Right then! We’re already on day five of the Advancement Evaluation!”
The host Conrad, dark circles heavy beneath his eyes, held up his documents.
His face was lined with exhaustion, but his voice remained strong—professionalism intact.
“We’ll have a brief mid-evaluation! It’s already day five—how are the students faring? Professor Hong Peng!”
“It’s difficult.”
Hong Peng gazed at the monitor, chin resting on his hand.
“Clearing the dungeon will take longer than my initial estimate. Somewhere between one and two months.”
Every student had a clear objective—defeating the Dungeon Master—but within this hellish environment, they were being battered from all sides.
Survival itself consumed all their efforts, transforming what should have been a Dungeon Master strategy evaluation into what looked more like a Dungeon Survival test.
“They’re going mad.”
Watching the monitor show a student breaking teeth on ore because there was nothing else to eat, the host shook his head slowly.
“This could become a real disaster! Especially if the exam really does stretch for one or two months like Professor Hong Peng said—it’d be terrible! Ideally, someone would defeat the Dungeon Master quickly and end this trial.”
Hong Peng nodded in agreement.
“The ones worth noting are the students who’ve formed parties.”
Elisa’s four-person party.
And students like Dick and Jamie had also completed three-person parties.
They shared monster-hunting strategies with each other and secured food through hunts. With survival assured, they could spare more attention for finding the Dungeon Master.
“And… ah!”
A blue-haired boy appeared on the monitor just then, tending a campfire while turning the pages of a book.
His face was clean, and his nutritional condition appeared excellent.
Because Simon had spent so long in the rural countryside and possessed a strong constitution, he maintained a stable life in the dungeon unlike the other suffering students.
“My, he’s reading quite leisurely. I wonder what book that is?”
the moderator asked.
At that moment, Hong Peng’s eyes widened sharply.
“I need to correct myself.”
“Pardon?”
“Not two months as I said earlier—two weeks.”
A satisfied smile played at her lips.
“It all depends on that Simon now.”

* * *
Day five.
The moment Simon woke, he was startled.
Overnight, the hill that had been nearby vanished entirely. He’d positioned himself behind it as a sort of shelter, but waking to find the area completely bare gave him a shock.
And where the hill had been, there remained an enormous footprint.
When Simon followed the footprint, he found a colossal monster that looked almost identical to the hill from before, trudging along sluggishly.
“Surely not……”
Simon quickly pulled out the Flora-Fauna Compendium and began flipping through it.
Monster illustrations appeared on the right page, plant illustrations on the left. He’d passed over it without much thought before, but now a pattern became visible.
All the monsters in this dungeon were―
!
Simon felt a chill and spun around.
The moment he saw the sprawling trees, his breath caught and dread bloomed within him. He’d never found such ordinary trees so terrifying.
‘……That’s right—both the animals and the plants were covered in minerals. The animals didn’t consume food, and the plants had some with facial features like eyes, noses, and mouths.’
From observing the monsters in secret, Simon had reached a few critical realizations.
The monsters in this dungeon transformed into the surrounding terrain and natural features of the dungeon itself—trees, hills, rocks, and such.
Pressing their bodies flat and crouching down, their organic tissue would undergo metamorphosis and solidify into specific forms, whether stone or plant. Conversely, those that became plants could revert back to animals.
It was impossible by continental standards, but at least the monsters of this dungeon possessed such biology.
‘……I need to be careful.’
He’d also discovered how the dungeon’s monsters obtained energy.
When they expended their energy, they seemed to transform into plants and recharge through photosynthesis and similar means.
‘In that case.’
Crackle!
Simon opened the final page of the compendium—not a monster, but a human transformed into a plant. And beside it, what appeared to be the ‘White Hand’.
‘What could that mean?’
There was no harm in trying various things. Simon decided to mimic it, at least.
He connected cord to minerals to fashion a sort of mineral clothing, draped it over his body, and sat down in a cross-legged position.
“Huuuh.”
Then, taking a light deep breath, he closed his eyes.
Closing his eyes and gathering his concentration was Simon’s specialty.
It wasn’t long before.
‘……Ah!’
He felt his consciousness growing distant.
He nearly lost his senses entirely. He had to maintain his rationality by any means.
‘Focus, focus.’
For several dozen minutes, he clung desperately to the thread of reason.
Throb.
Something white and thin like a terminal nerve rose from the ground and attempted to establish contact with Simon’s body.
Simon ignored it. Soon it seemed to realize Simon was not a dungeon monster and fled in panic.
Simon’s eyes snapped open.
‘It definitely made contact with me just now!’
This was the true identity of the ‘White Hand’ that had appeared in the compendium.
And Simon could feel the residual sensation throughout his body.
Even after rising, he could sense which direction that white nerve had retreated.
A smile tugged at the corners of Simon’s mouth.
‘……I found it!’

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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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