Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 676

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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 676
A secret land forbidden to humanity.
Frost Field.
A column of soldiers crested the ridge, cutting through the bitter cold and fierce blizzard that howled across the wasteland.
“Ahahaha! Wonderful! Marvelous!”
Chronos, perched atop a colossal Undead Crab, burst into wild laughter. Each time his body convulsed with mirth, the creature’s pincers snapped and clattered in rhythm.
“By now the Northern beasts must be in chaos, eh? Just imagining the Grand Duke’s rotting expression sets my heart aflutter!”
“Chronos.”
Boldmont, the Earl, approached from his side and spoke.
“The soldiers are exhausted and freezing to death. Aren’t we marching far too hastily?”
“Ha! Don’t fret over a few soldiers, Earl!”
Chronos laughed freely and unfurled a fresh Magic Circle upon his palm.
“Who knows when the Grand Duke’s pursuit might arrive? We must hurry to capture the Northern Deity and claim Frost Field. Up we go!”
He gazed approvingly at the newly formed circle, then flicked his wrist to send it skyward.
The Magic Circle rose like a balloon into the air. The Earl’s gaze naturally followed it upward.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
Above the marching Kingdom Army hung a colossal Magic Circle that resembled an artificial sun. Chronos’s newly created circle ascended into an empty space within the vast formation, its circuits meshing with the larger design.
The formulae shifted in response, interlocking like gears.
“A gift for you all!”
Chronos turned backward and called out.
“I’ve simply numbed most of your pain sensation! You won’t feel the cold anymore, will you?”
The Magic Circle deepened to a fiercer crimson. A ruddy aura bloomed across the soldiers’ bodies, and their movements quickened dramatically.
“But I must confess my surprise, Earl.”
Chronos turned to regard Boldmont again.
“I despise the tedious work of managing curses in detail, so by default I curse all humans except myself and Romario. Yet somehow you move without hindrance?”
“These artifacts carry curse resistance,” the Earl replied.
He parted his coat, revealing countless charms and talismans hanging in abundance.
“I prepared them for this meeting with you.”
“Hahaha! Your preparation is indeed thorough! You’ve played your hand well.”
The Earl’s eyes gleamed with intent.
“Once this affair concludes, I shall claim governance of the Northern territories, as promised.”
“Of course, of course. How could it be otherwise? That’s what ‘watchers’ are for, after all.”
So speaking, Chronos stroked his chin and glanced backward.
“It’s about time the pursuit catches up with us, I’d say—”
“The Grand Duke will not come.”
Commander Romario, marching ahead, spoke in a low voice.
“She is not one to move rashly and spoil her own designs. We focus on the destruction of the Northern Deity.”
“Quite right, quite right.”
The Earl unfurled his map and checked his compass, then pointed ahead.
“There it is.”
The Kingdom Army crested the mountain and gazed down. Romario’s and Chronos’s eyes widened in unison.
“Eerie,” Romario murmured.
Romario spoke.
“Magnificent,” Chronos breathed.
Chronos spoke.
Witnessing their opposite reactions, the Earl bowed respectfully.
“That is the refuge of the Northern Deity, who has ruled Frost Field for over a thousand years. The Abyss.”
Below the mountain lay a crimson floor.
The Abyss spread across a basin hollowed from the mountain range of Frost Field. Countless Undead nests dotted the landscape, their emerging inhabitants moving swiftly. At the center, between the nests, gaped an immense chasm in the earth itself.
A hole so deep and dark its depths were unknowable.
“The Northern Deity hides within that hole, then?”
Chronos licked his lips with his tongue, grinning. At that moment, Romario, who had been observing the Abyss, turned quietly to look back.
“It comes.”
“What? The Grand Duke’s pursuit?”
“No.”
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The entire mountain trembled. From countless ridges scattered like brushstrokes across the peaks, avalanches began to cascade downward.
All these avalanches moved as though alive, their direction shifting toward the Kingdom Army as they descended.
Whoosh!
Romario drew his blade.
“The Northern Deity’s army.”
Indeed, scattered throughout the cascading avalanche were countless eyes, large and small. Chronos chuckled and unfurled a magical circle in each palm.
“Show them!”
He lifted the magical circles into the air and affixed them to the circle already floating in the sky. The red light blazed fiercer, and the soldiers’ eyes ignited with flame.
“Necromancers of the countless legions! This is how I, Chronos, handle an ambush!”

* * *
The Northern Region did not pursue the Kingdom Army, opting instead to move according to the originally scheduled date.
The Grand Duke, too, had little spare time to oversee Simon’s training during these two days. She needed to focus on restoring Hate and rebuilding the combat strength of the 2nd Corps.
Simon began his personal training regimen. Before the Grand Duke departed to restore the 2nd Corps, she had drawn up a detailed training schedule for him to follow.
And whenever he had spare moments or rest days, he devoted himself to uncovering the Geheim of the Ancient Undead.
[You’ve been spending a lot of time with me lately, haven’t you, little one?]
Herseba spoke. Perched atop a staff hovering in midair was a woman made of sand, her long hair flowing like dunes.
[What are we training today? Mummy Control? Or should we open the World of Sand for a change?]
“That drains way too much energy. And we’re heading out soon anyway.”
Simon stopped walking and sat down on a rock, rummaging through his bag.
“Today I’d rather talk.”
[Talk about what?]
“Your life before you became undead.”
What Simon pulled from his bag was none other than painting supplies.
He unfolded the legs of the easel with a click, setting it down on the ground and placing a canvas on top.
“And about the place where you lived.”
[I told you before, didn’t I? I don’t remember well!]
“Then now’s a good time to recall it leisurely.”
Simon drew pigments from his bag.
[So you’re going to paint?]
“Two birds with one stone. Don’t worry about it.”
This canvas had originally been used in the royal studies class at Kizen. It was a preparatory tool for learning the distinctive scripts of various nations, though Simon had been more interested in drawing than calligraphy, which was why he’d bought pigments as well.
He wasn’t particularly skilled at painting, but he had some experience sketching landscapes during his leisurely time in Resshil.
[So you’re going to paint? Or listen to my story?]
“Both.”
Simon made broad strokes of primer across the white canvas.
“You said you ruled as a king before becoming undead, right?”
[Yes! I was a king who led many people!]
Herseba began chattering animatedly.
Before becoming undead, she had been a Dungeon Master. But she couldn’t remember why she’d been in that dungeon or how she’d become its ruler.
Perhaps that was why. When asked to share stories of her past, she responded with a certain embarrassment, grumbling that she didn’t remember anyway and couldn’t imagine why he kept asking about something that didn’t even seem like a good memory.
Yet Simon sensed something subtle in her voice.
Longing.
Simon believed he must not overlook that emotion.
“How long had you been king?”
[I don’t know. Back then I had no sense of time… but it felt like I ruled for an incredibly long time?]
“I see. How did it feel to be king?”
Since she couldn’t properly remember her previous life, Simon focused mainly on asking about her emotions.
[Well…?]
She pondered for a moment before speaking.
[Lonely?]
“You were lonely?”
Simon stopped his brush, startled.
“But a king rules over many people. Usually you wouldn’t have time to be lonely, would you?”
[That’s……]
She scratched her temple as if embarrassed.
[My memory’s fuzzy, but my people were… well, they were like that.]
“Like what?”
[They didn’t respond. Mechanical, I guess? They never did anything for me first. They just did their jobs, over and over.]
Her voice lost its energy.
[If I asked them to play, they’d play. If I asked them to hold me, they would. They only moved with explicit commands. They never came to me on their own.]
“……”
[That’s why I prefer things now.]
She lifted her head, gazing up at the blue sky above.
[Listening to Pier’s nagging, always bickering with Erzsebet, building sand castles and playing with Prince, and Achemous—taciturn but kind. Even when I do nothing, they all come toward me first. They do things I never asked for, things I never expected. Sometimes it makes me angry, but—]
Her lips curved upward.
[That’s why I love it. This new life.]
Simon smiled softly in return.
“That’s good to hear.”
Simon kept pressing her for stories of the past, and Herseba obliged, recounting memory after memory as they surfaced.
Simon began to form an impression.
When she spoke of her city, the emotion in her voice was unmistakably tinged with longing, a bittersweet ache, and yearning.
Yet at the same time, it seemed she hadn’t been satisfied with her life as a Dungeon Master.
‘She longs for and yearns after a life she wasn’t satisfied with?’
Something didn’t add up.
But the more he listened to Herseba speak, the stranger the impression became, and finally Simon understood.
What she was longing for wasn’t the life of a Dungeon Master.
‘Something deeper than that.’
He didn’t know how she’d become a Dungeon Master, but before that happened, there seemed to have been some other life.
Her Ability made it clear.
She possessed an Ability to construct and build the life she yearned for out of sand. The fact that her citizens never responded was likely because her Ability had created them.
[Isn’t it funny?]
She laughed bitterly as she spoke.
[To long for a fragment of a dream I can’t even remember.]
She couldn’t be certain whether that life was something she’d actually experienced or a fiction born from her imagination.
So she found herself ridiculous—bound to a life she couldn’t even remember.
“Whether something is real or not doesn’t matter.”
A smile formed at Simon’s lips.
“What matters is what you think and what meaning you give to it. That’s why I want to know your story even more.”
Tap.
At last Simon set down his brush, having finished the painting. He held up the canvas somewhat sheepishly to show Herseba.
[Oh.]
Her eyes went wide.
It was the golden city that Herseba had made in her World of Sand.
But.
“I painted the home you imagined, using a much richer palette of colors.”
The golden city was constructed entirely of sand. A single hue.
But the city Simon had painted was different.
Wooden houses and brick houses stood side by side, grass and trees grew, and people were smiling.
[Oh.]
It admittedly wasn’t a masterpiece, but traces of careful effort were evident.
Her body trembled.
[Ah, ah.]
She—
would have wept.
With a body of sand, tears could never fall, yet the feeling was there. If she’d possessed flesh, this would have been the moment they came.
Simon stepped closer and gently brushed the corners of her eyes with his fingertips.
It was joyful.
The fact that there existed someone who acknowledged and honored even what wasn’t real.
[Tha…… nk you.]
As if giving voice to her emotion, dark shadow began to pour forth from Herseba’s form.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble!
She was casting Aurification. She was trying to recreate the city Simon had just painted.
Flinch.
Simon stepped back, seized by a strange exhilaration.
This was just like—
‘The feeling when Prince uses Corpse Explosion……!’
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble!
Herseba cast Aurification, and a city vaster than any she had ever constructed outside her World of Sand began to rise.
[Ahhhhh!]
Watching the buildings surge upward, Simon was certain.
‘This was it.’
This was Herseba’s Geheim.
[Oh!]
Crack!
In the next instant, her sharp voice rang out, and Herseba’s city crumbled like a sand castle at the shore, collapsing inward.
Simon, watching from a distance, smiled wryly.
‘She still has a long way to go, it seems.’
[Ugh!]
She shook her body in frustration.
“Why did it suddenly fail?”
[I don’t have enough imagination! The center of the city came together well, but I can’t figure out how to construct the outer districts!]
“That’s manageable.”
Simon rolled up his sleeves and sat before the canvas once more.
“I can draw for as long as it takes. Let’s try again! Is there anything else that comes to mind about the city?”
And so, after a long series of attempts.
Shortly before the war with the Northern Deity, Herseba’s Geheim was prepared.

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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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