Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 73
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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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Necromancer School’s Summoning Prodigy Chapter 73
A golden Saturday morning after the midterms had ended.
Kizen’s main gate teemed with students eager to descend into Rocksum.
Along one side of the entrance, a long queue of hired carriages waited patiently. Students bound for picnics in the valleys or along the beach haggled with their drivers.
While some students buzzed with excitement for the blissful weekend ahead,
“Ugh—seriously! What is this!”
others found themselves clinging to a wild hippopotamus bolting across the landscape.
Merin’s face was twisted in utter dismay.
“I must be insane! Monster cooking secrets, my foot—!”
To find herself in this predicament on a golden weekend, no less.
Merin felt the urge to reverse time, find whoever had suggested this, and smack herself across the head.
The chain of events had been simple enough.
Merin and Kamibarez had pestered Simon to teach them Hong Peng’s monster cooking techniques, so Simon had sent a letter to Hong Peng.
Hong Peng had gladly accepted and provided a time and meeting place.
When Simon’s group arrived at the designated spot, four hippos were grazing idly across the grass.
That was all there was to it.
“Hey, Merin! Isn’t your position looking pretty risky right about now?”
Dick, clinging to the rear hippo, teased her as he always did, but Merin shot back with contempt.
“I’m wearing leggings today, you maniac!”
“Oh, I didn’t catch that.”
“Get down and look for yourself, seriously.”
She growled and silenced him with her glare, then stole a glance sideways.
Kamibarez hung there with an expression of resigned acceptance, while Simon—
‘…Damn it. Of course he’s the only one doing this well.’
Simon gripped the hippo’s torso with both legs, maintaining perfect balance as the creature loped forward. His stability was on another level entirely—the sort of thing only instructors could manage.
After that grueling journey, the four of them finally arrived at their destination.
“Huff! Puff! Wow, that was really exhausting! I’ve got nothing left in me now that we’re here.”
Dick panted with his hands braced on his knees. Merin and Kamibarez were already sprawled across the grass.
Only Simon stood upright, calmly reviewing Hong Peng’s letter.
“Rest a bit, then we head out right away.”
According to Hong Peng, teaching the monster recipes themselves wasn’t difficult, but they’d need prey. So he’d proposed they hunt down something called a Thruslak.
It was, in effect, a quest.
According to Hong Peng, Thruslak were ecosystem disruptor species wreaking havoc on Rocksum’s forests.
They were originally inland monsters, but somehow they’d invaded Rocksum and, with their voracious appetite and breeding capacity, their population had exploded catastrophically.
Hong Peng’s task was for them to capture the alpha among the Thruslak.
Since the monster would be butchered and eaten once the hunt concluded, capturing the boss specimen without damage was paramount.
“Ugh, no matter how I think about it, I feel like we got the short end of the stick.”
Merin pushed herself up with a groan. Simon spoke to her in a soothing tone.
“Professor Hong Peng must have his reasons. And we get to practice monster hunting—that’s good for us too.”
“…I suppose that’s true.”
“Simon!”
Kamibarez dashed over to Simon’s side.
“What is it, Kamibarez?”
She ducked behind his back, her expression taut with tension as she pointed.
“Look, look—over there!”
Simon’s gaze turned.
Three Thruslak, having caught the scent of humans, shambled toward them with deliberate slowness.
They had squat, stocky frames, their entire bodies covered in teal fur, and faces that looked like a hybrid of gorilla and boar.
“This is insane. We’re supposed to eat something like that?”
Merin made a face of utter revulsion, while Dick chuckled.
“Sounds better than I expected? I bet it tastes like monkey meat.”
“I’ve never even eaten that!”
Grrroooowwwl!
The Thruslak began their charge.
‘Right, I forgot.’
Simon turned to survey his team.
His teammates, busily preparing Dark Magic, stared at him with wide eyes, wondering what was happening.
‘This is the first time we’ve fought properly as a full group like this.’
In the Cyclops performance evaluation, there had been positional constraints for set formations, but today was different. A stage where they could all combine their full strength without limitation.
Simon felt a peculiar thrill at that realization as he turned his gaze forward once more.
“Let’s begin.”
Simon pulled an imaginary lever.
From the Subspace, he withdrew one Skeleton wielding a spear and another bearing a Shield. The shielded Skeleton surged forward with speed, colliding head-on with the Thruslak.
Crash!
The Thruslak’s primary weapons were its razor-sharp claws and fangs. While the shield-bearer deflected the assault, the spear-wielding Skeleton wheeled around and drove its weapon forward with tremendous force.
The spear tip pierced deep into the Thruslak’s torso with a wet sound, but the dense muscle prevented it from passing clean through.
“If I may.”
Dic approached with fluid grace and touched the Skeleton’s spear lightly.
‘Enchant.’
The spear darkened to pitch black and drove straight through the monster’s body, erupting from the far side. The creature’s eyes rolled back, and it went limp.
“Watch out—they’re coming from both sides!”
“We know!”
Whoosh!
Merin, standing to the right, swept her arm in a broad arc. Black flames clung to the bodies of the approaching Thruslaks, causing them to writhe and thrash in agony.
“Hah!”
To Simon’s left, Kamibarez crouched in firing stance, launching Blood Bullets with each shot.
The moment each Blood Bullet struck a Thruslak, a crimson explosion tore through it—destructive enough to shatter the upper body of a monster in a single blow.
Simon moved into action as well.
He pulled three Skeleton Archers from the Subspace, along with a 1-Gold bow he’d received free from the weapon shop.
‘Load.’
Scritch.
Simon and the Skeletons nocked arrows simultaneously, drawing the bowstrings taut.
‘Fire!’
At his command, Simon released the tension in his right hand naturally—and four arrows, not one, launched at once.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
They struck the approaching Thruslaks mid-charge.
Two arrows in the head, two in the chest. The creature fell dead without another sound.
‘Reload.’
Click. Scritch-scritch.
Simon and the Skeleton Archers reloaded in perfect unison.
‘Fire!’
This time the arrows flew in different directions. Thruslaks emerging from the undergrowth fell one by one as each took an arrow, collapsing in succession.
“Front! They keep pouring out from the front!”
Dic shouted. More than six Thruslaks were surging from the brush all at once.
Seeing this, Merin called out:
“Simon! Kamibarez and I have enough firepower—focus on holding the line!”
“Roger.”
One of the Summoner’s greatest advantages was the flexibility to adapt to shifting battle conditions.
Simon stuffed the Archers back into the Subspace and summoned regular Skeletons in their place.
Using Cross Operation, he formed six shielded Skeletons into a single row.
“Enchanting now!”
Dic drew a Shield from his own Subspace, applied Enchant to it, and handed it to a Skeleton that lacked one. In the blink of an eye, a Defensive Formation was complete.
Boom!
Boom!
The charging Thruslaks hurled themselves against the shield wall with their full weight. Simon gritted his teeth, maintaining the formation.
‘Hold!’
He connected his consciousness to Skeletons 1, 3, and 5, then shifted to 2, 4, and 6, cycling back and forth continuously.
The moment consciousness broke—mere seconds—the Skeleton formation would falter, so he had to keep cycling through Cross Operation to hold it.
“…Ugh! I can’t hold this much longer!”
“Pull the Skeletons now, Simon!”
Simon looked up. Merin hung high in the air, dark flames flickering in the palm of her hand. She spun her body once and swung her arm downward in a wide arc.
Fwoooooooosh!
The dark flames rained down on the Thruslaks’ heads, detonating in a massive explosion. The Skeletons sidestepped cleanly and retreated unscathed.
Nearly perfect control. The blackened ash heaps crumbled to dust before the shield wall.
“Nice work, Merin!”
“That’s the basics.”
She descended lightly to the ground, brushed back a strand of hair from her ear, and smiled.
Growl!
At that moment, a Thruslak lunged from behind her. She whipped around, her sky-blue hair streaming.
Boom!
Instantly, a crimson explosion erupted across the monster’s body, and it dropped to its knees. In the distance, Kamibarez lowered her hand.
“Thanks, Kamibarez!”
“You’re welcome!”
Having cleared the first hurdle, Simon’s party pressed forward. They cut down the Thruslaks one by one as they emerged, pushing deeper into the forest.
Perhaps thanks to their training against the Cyclops, the four of them moved with nearly perfect synchronization.
“Geez, this is no joke.”
Dick, having sliced through a Thruslak’s torso, glanced back as he spoke.
One section of the forest had been blackened by the force of Merin’s firepower.
“But Merin, is it really okay to use Dark Magic fire spells like that in such thick forest? What if we start a wildfire?”
“Dummy.”
Merin drew a spell circle, her brow furrowing.
“Flames from the Primordial Dark Element System are artificially manifested fire—they extinguish on their own after time passes.”
“Ah, I see.”
“So maybe you should disappear too.”
“Ooh, I like Merin’s style!”
“Good grief.”
Meanwhile, Kamibarez was breathing heavily, having expended so much blood. Dizziness was beginning to set in, along with symptoms of mild anemia.
“Kamibarez, are you all right?”
Simon quickly approached and assessed her condition.
In that instant, her gaze shifted to the smooth curve of his neck below his face.
Her heart suddenly raced like a wild thing, and a terrible thirst seized her. Her nose began to tingle, and her mouth opened of its own accord.
Just once.
Just once would be enough—to sink her fangs there and drink her fill…….
“Kamibarez?”
“……Hah!”
She jolted in alarm, scrambling backward in her seated position and covering her mouth. Simon tilted his head in confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
“N-no, nothing’s wrong! I’m just a bit dizzy.”
“Then let’s take a rest.”
Simon waved his hand at Dick and Merin, who were ahead, signaling for a break. Both of them felt the need to rest as well, so they nodded in agreement.
‘Ugh… why am I like this.’
Kamibarez buried her face in her palms.
It had been nearly five years since she’d felt the vampire instinct stirring. She’d thought she’d suppressed it for good. But Simon kept shaking the foundations of that certainty.
“Kamibarez! Are you okay?”
Merin rushed over. Kamibarez managed a smile and assured her she was fine.
“Hmm.”
Meanwhile, Dick was examining the traces left in the ground.
“There’s a good chance that leader Thruslak is nearby. I’m seeing far more footprints than usual—much larger ones too. It looks like it was here quite recently.”
“Is that so?”
Simon withdrew something large from the Subspace and set it on the ground.
It was a Golem Core.
“Then while we’re resting, I’ll prepare a golem. With this, we can break through the forest in one go.”
“Oh, good idea!”
Simon dug a shallow hole in the earth with his hands, placed the Golem Core in it, then connected his consciousness to the core and began channeling darkness.
Crunch. Crunch-crunch.
The earth began clinging to the Golem Core like iron to a magnet. Everyone watched with fascination, as none of them had seen a golem being created before.
Boom! Boom!
Just as the golem was reaching about one-third completion, an unusually heavy footstep echoed through the forest.
Dick drew his sword and shouted.
“Everyone, be careful! Something’s coming this way!”
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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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