Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 660
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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 660
We arrived safely in Bilkenos.
I parted ways with the Grand Duke after arranging to meet again tomorrow morning.
Now I was walking through the Northern Entertainment District at night. Since the inn I’d booked for lodging was quite a distance away, I decided to enjoy a leisurely evening stroll.
Drinking dens were everywhere. Without exception, bearded men with flushed faces were roaring at the top of their lungs and raising beer mugs into the air.
Duels erupted constantly. To be honest, in this Northern Region, anywhere people gathered in groups was essentially a duel arena. In a place where strength and courage were virtues, people endlessly sought to prove themselves.
Dissatisfied? Duel. Bad food? Duel. Bump into someone on the street? Duel.
The clang of steel rang out everywhere. “That’s it!” “Push harder!” The spectators’ cheers were particularly fervent.
As I was taking in the sights of the Northern Region,
“Hmm, hm—”
Erzsebet had once again pressed herself firmly against my side. I glanced over at her as we walked.
I had learned that the Legion Commander possessed a new technique called Geheim—one that drew out and detonated the potential of Ancient Undead.
But I still didn’t fully understand how such a technique manifested.
—Think about why your Ancient Undead follow you.
I had some notion of it. Erzsebet admired her father, Richard, and now she followed his son—me.
If that were the case, then what was I supposed to give her in return…?
‘Ugh!’
My face flushed as I shook my head vigorously.
She was undead. A difference in race? A difference in species? That was hardly the issue. This biological chasm was simply too wide to bridge.
“Legion Commander?”
Erzsebet rolled her eyes toward me.
“You seem to have much on your mind. Is something troubling you?”
“Ah, it’s nothing at all.”
I forced a laugh and brushed it off.
Ancient Undead—who have lived for centuries at minimum, and over a thousand years at most—are the most mysterious beings in this world. Especially those Ancient Undead bound by contract to a Legion Commander seem to lack something, and they follow the Commander in order to fill that void.
‘In return for Erzsebet’s loyalty, what can I possibly give her?’
While I was lost in such thoughts, I had somehow arrived at the inn’s entrance. Erzsebet had brought wine, cheese, and fruit as usual.
She didn’t eat any of it herself, but it seemed she enjoyed the quiet moments we spent talking together.
‘I should discuss Geheim with Erzsebet tonight.’
Just as I reached for the inn’s door handle,
“…….”
I sensed something odd and my hand froze.
A moment of hesitation crossed my face before I grasped the handle again.
“Legion Commander.”
Erzsebet’s voice had turned rigid as she called to me. I simply smiled faintly and pulled open the door, stepping inside.
People filled the place.
Warriors from the Northern Region. They crowded the cramped inn room, every last one of them armed, and they fixed me with savage stares.
A harsh atmosphere hung over everything. I walked calmly between them. The innkeeper and his wife stood in the kitchen area, clutching each other with terrified expressions.
“…….”
I recognized some faces. There was the man I’d beaten last night, his face still puffy with swelling. Scattered among the group were others who’d also taken my fists.
‘Revenge, then.’
I sighed lightly and opened my mouth.
“What exactly are you trying to do here?”
“You caused quite the spectacle, stranger.”
A middle-aged man sitting squarely at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor spoke up.
He drained the beer mug in his hand. His throat bobbed as beer trickled down his beard.
Once he’d emptied the cup, he tilted his head to one side.
‘This one is the leader.’
I immediately recognized him as someone extraordinary.
He wore a white fur garment that appeared to be from some monster, and atop his head were what looked like sharp, triangular animal ears. He bore the characteristics of both a beastkin and a northerner.
But what was most striking was the flag resting against his opposite shoulder.
This man was a Flag Bearer.
Thwack!
He extended his palm outward.
At that, the very man I’d beaten before walked forward with a slouch, dropped to one knee, and thrust his chin upward against the Flag Bearer’s palm with a soft smack.
“This fellow here,”
Squeeze.
The Flag Bearer gripped the man’s chin firmly and shook it.
“Has an ugly temperament, but he’s young with real potential—so I marked him as my heir to succeed me as Flag Bearer.”
“…….”
“Word’s gotten around the Northern Region that you picked a fight with an outsider—and a soft-handed noble at that—and got yourself thoroughly beaten.”
Each time his palm struck, the man’s face snapped sideways, his cheeks bulging grotesquely. It was a pitiful spectacle, yet the warriors standing around showed not a flicker of expression.
“So my reputation among the Flag Bearers is in tatters.”
He released the man’s chin and drove his boot into his abdomen in the same motion.
Crash!
The man skidded across the tavern floor and slammed against the wall, where he finally came to rest.
“I trust you’ll understand my position.”
The Flag Bearer rose and brushed off his hands. Plucked beard hairs drifted lazily to the ground.
Creak. Creak.
He moved forward. With each step, the tavern floor groaned beneath his weight. He passed Simon without pause and continued toward the door.
“All that talk about Northern honor and pride.”
He stopped.
Simon turned with a smile playing at his lips.
“Not exactly an honorable method, is it?”
This punk!
Curses erupted from every corner of the room, and the ring of steel being drawn filled the air. Simon showed no sign of alarm, speaking with perfect composure.
“I’m the Grand Duke’s guest. To spare you both inconvenience, I won mercy after victory—and now this is how my kindness is repaid. You’ll forgive me if I find it slightly irritating.”
The Flag Bearer turned back.
“…Guest, you say? Everyone in Bilkenos knows about the time you threw yourself at the Grand Duke before she marched out and got rejected.”
Hahahaha!
Jeers erupted throughout the room.
“And even if you truly were the Grand Duke’s guest, it wouldn’t change a thing.”
The Flag Bearer slowly raised his arm.
“In the Northern Region, guests who vanish in a single night are hardly rare.”
He swept his arm downward in a sharp gesture, and every warrior in the tavern roared and surged toward Simon.
The sound of impact and shattering echoed relentlessly.
The Flag Bearer saw no reason to join in; he left the work to his men and stepped outside.
“Before deployment, the sight of blood brings bad luck—so I’ll spare the woman’s life.”
He said this as he looked at Erzsebet, who stood outside the tavern.
“It’s unfortunate about your master, but in the Northern Region, it pays to watch your tongue.”
Erzsebet merely smiled.
The Flag Bearer decided she was a strange woman and continued walking.
“Huh.”
The wind bit cold.
He wasn’t pleased about burying a young outsider here, someone with no connection to the land—but there was no helping it.
‘The boy who brought down my successor must have had real skill, at least.’
With only moderate strength and no restraint, he’d brought this fate upon himself.
The Flag Bearer would have let the punk’s insolence slide had the boy shown proper deference. He clicked his tongue and walked on.
He craved something strong enough to burn his throat tonight.
He was looking for a suitable tavern on the main thoroughfare when—
“Commander! Commander!”
One of his men came running from the inn, his face drained of all color.
“Something’s wrong!”
“What is it?”
The man trembled, scarcely able to speak. He gestured wildly as if to explain, then shook his head violently and shouted.
“Just come! You need to see it with your own eyes, Commander! This—!”
“…?”
The Flag Bearer returned to the tavern with his man.
Not much time had passed, yet the inn was eerily quiet.
‘Is it already over?’
The Flag Bearer entered the tavern with long strides, one hand resting on his flag.
“Listen here, you dogs—cleanup can wait. Hm—?”
His eyes went wide.
The tavern walls were drenched in blood. Warriors lay everywhere—embedded in the walls, sprawled across the floor with their lower halves hanging limp.
In the horrifying silence, nothing but moans rose from the room.
And then.
Atop a heap of bodies piled like a hill sat a blue-haired boy, his legs spread carelessly, his gaze blazing with cold light.
“You’re back?”
The moment their eyes met, the Flag Bearer felt every hair on his body stand on end.
“How is this—? Who—? What exactly are you?!”
“A guest of the Grand Duke, you say. No.”
Tap-tap.
Simon rose from his seat with a dismissive gesture of his hand.
“Call it an alliance, then.”
Simon walked forward with his arms loose at his sides. Through it all, Erzsebet stood propped against the wall as if dizzy, murmuring softly to herself: “So impressive. I want to devour him.” Things like that.
“These useless wretches!”
The Flag Bearer set the banner down on the floor and tore away the fur cloak draped across his shoulders. Rippling muscles, honed through countless battles, lay bare beneath.
“Hagh!”
A torrent of dark energy exploded from his body.
Of course—this man was a Necromancer too. Hair woven entirely of shadow aura sprouted across his frame as his body began to shift and warp.
‘…Metamorphosis!’
The Necromancer School had plenty of students specialized in this black magic. In an instant, he transformed into a leopard wreathed in shadow aura, its teeth bared.
Scrape—!
He even condensed shadow aura in his right hand, pulling it into the shape of a blade.
“I’ll end this without suffering.”
The Flag Bearer cracked the tavern floor beneath his feet as he charged forward with brutal force.
He closed the distance in a heartbeat and swung his shadow blade at Simon, but—
Crack!
Something flashed in a straight line before Simon, and the blade he’d wielded shattered cleanly in two.
‘My shadow blade!’
His eyes dropped, and he saw long metallic tentacles like extensions sprouting from the floor.
Crunch—!
At the same moment, Simon stepped forward and stomped down hard on the Flag Bearer’s instep.
“You’re not running now.”
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
Clatter-clatter!
His right arm, which he’d held in reserve, suddenly became engulfed in countless bones. They formed into a gauntlet of armor so massive that Simon’s arm appeared several times its normal size beneath the weight.
<Heavy Bone Gauntlet>
The Flag Bearer’s face went rigid as he watched the massive arm rise.
If that connected—
“Wait—!”
Boom!
Simon twisted at the waist and delivered a perfect blow. The Flag Bearer, struck by the bone gauntlet, tore through the tavern floor and plunged deep into the earth beneath.
“…C-Captain!”
The soldiers still in their right minds, the innkeeper couple, and even the subordinate who had come to relay news to the Flag Bearer—
Everyone in the room could only gape in shock.
“I didn’t kill him.”
Simon dismantled the bone gauntlet as he spoke. The single gauntlet crumbled back into multiple skeletal forms.
“But this matter isn’t something I can just let slide…”
Simon lowered his head as he murmured.
Something was touching his abdomen.
The Flag Bearer’s subordinate’s eyes blazed crimson with fury.
“C-C-Captain! You’ve truly lost your mind?!”
Even as the Flag Bearer’s fist was driven down into him, he had snatched up the banner that fell to the floor and made it touch Simon.
“Hck… hck-hck…”
The Flag Bearer lifted his head from the rubble, trembling. Teeth fell in gruesome succession.
“Just die. Just… die…!”
Snap!
Simon kicked his face to knock him unconscious, then examined his own body. The spot where the banner’s tip had touched had warped into a perfect circular shape, like a target.
Thump!
Every cell in his body sounded an alarm.
Goosebumps prickled across his skin as cold sweat trickled down his spine.
Simon’s gaze turned toward the window.
Whoooooosh!
The black night sky churned like a typhoon, spinning in a great circle.
“Damn it all! Everyone run!”
The Flag Bearer’s subordinate bolted outside, shouting. Simon, having grasped the situation, smiled slightly and spread his legs to shoulder width.
‘Now things are getting interesting.’
The role of the Flag Bearer was, in essence, one thing.
To mark the ‘target’—even if it meant sacrificing one’s own life.
The door burst open.
And the Grand Duke answered at once.
Squeal—!
A window swung open at the very top of the City Gate within Bilkenos.
A woman with black hair was raising a bow.
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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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