Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 84

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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 84
-I’m sorry, Merin.
-The gap between us is really that wide?
-You are no longer the Heir.
‘…….’
It wasn’t a pleasant dream.
Merin, who had been sifting through fragments of memories she’d rather forget, snapped back to awareness and opened her eyes.
The rough, uneven ceiling of a cave came into view. The crackle of a campfire drifted past her ears.
A little cold, but her mind felt distant. She pushed herself up groggily and rubbed her eyes.
“……?”
She was wearing unfamiliar clothes — a Robe that was slightly too large. Even with her arms stretched fully, only the tips of her fingers peeked out.
She looked around again. This was a cave, and outside, rain fell softly and steadily.
By the campfire at the cave entrance sat a lean, muscular man with his upper body bare.
Just then he turned back and smiled.
“You’re awake?”
“S-Simon?!”
Why was he half-naked again?
Alarmed, Merin quickly lowered her head. That’s when she noticed what she herself was wearing.
“Wh-wh-wh-what the—!”
Under the Robe draped over her, her underwear was still damp. Heat flooded her face, and she instinctively crossed her legs and covered her chest with her arms.
Defensive and hunched, her voice trembling, she managed to speak.
“Wh-where are my clothes?!”
Simon gave an awkward laugh and pointed with his fingertip. Near the cave’s mouth, damp boy’s school uniform and girl’s school uniform hung side by side on plant vines strung like a clothesline, drying.
“……Sorry.”
Simon let out a self-conscious cough.
“If you’d stayed in wet clothes, you’d have caught a cold, so…….”
“……!!!”
Merin’s face flushed scarlet to the tips of her ears — she’d reached the absolute limit of what shame she could bear. Her eyes even glistened slightly with tears.
“Y-you fr-freaking perverted psycho!”
“M-Merin! Please keep your voice down……!”
She wanted to grab something and throw it at him, but unfortunately there was nothing within reach. Simon scrambled to his feet, perspiration dripping down his face.
“I swear! Nothing happened, I promise! I had my eyes closed the whole time I was taking off the wet uniform!”
“Haa, phuu. Haa.”
She shuddered violently, then hid her face behind her palms.
Simon stayed silent, waiting patiently for her to calm down.
“…….”
About ten minutes passed without a word. Finally, when she was ready to face reality, she lowered the hands covering her face. Her face was still crimson, of course.
“……What happened?”
Simon explained the whole situation, as if he’d been waiting for her to ask.
A high-ranking Named had intervened while they were fighting each other, and caught in the shockwave, Merin had lost consciousness. Rain had started falling, so they’d found a cave below the Cliff and taken shelter there.
‘The story checks out completely. Not a shred of doubt.’
She knew Simon wasn’t the type to do anything strange.
But still — being undressed by a boy! She felt like burying herself in a mouse hole out of sheer mortification.
Huddled and tense, she glared at Simon, her nose sniffling.
Simon quickly looked away, pretending to scratch the side of his head.
“……Simon.”
“Yeah.”
“T-turn around.”
Merin spoke in a whisper barely audible.
“Turn around? Why all of a sudden?”
“Ugh! I’m changing clothes, dimwit, so turn around!”
Simon jumped in shock and quickly spun toward the fire, staring at the flames intently.
She wanted to send him outside the cave if she could, but with the rain falling, there was no choice.
“S-stay right there and don’t move, okay? If you turn around, I’m really, really, really going to kill you!”
She was trying to sound threatening, but her voice trembled so much that there was no menace in it whatsoever.
Like a small, soaking-wet puppy shivering in the rain, trying to make threats.
Simon kept his expression neutral and replied.
“Got it. Take your time.”
“…….”
She hunched her shoulders and awkwardly pushed herself to her feet, sneaking glances at Simon before reaching into a Pocket Dimension and pulling out a dry towel and fresh underwear.
Simon still showed no reaction whatsoever.
…….
She exhaled in silent relief, then grasped the Robe draped around her shoulders.
But the one most tense in this moment was not Merin—it was Simon.
‘What—why am I suddenly so on edge…….’
Contrary to his usual composure, the seventeen-year-old’s heart thundered wildly in his chest.
His eyes were fixed on the campfire, but every sense had surrendered helplessly to his hearing.
As though he were trying desperately to perceive what he could not see.
Then came the soft drag of fabric, and the Robe she’d been wearing dropped heavily to the ground.
Rustle. Rustle.
Followed by the sound of wet underclothes being removed.
His throat tightened. Saliva kept sliding down his gullet despite himself.
Splash.
At last the wet garments fell to the ground with a damp, heavy sound—sodden from the rain.
She really had taken everything off.
All he had to do was turn around, and he would see Merin without a thread on her.
The moment that realization struck him, Simon’s heart hammered out of control.
‘I’d—I’d rather be outside right now.’
Unable to stop himself from picturing her, Simon trembled under the weight of his own shame.
Merin was his friend. To harbor such thoughts about a friend was a sin. He had to reclaim his reason, somehow.
Simon threw himself desperately into repositioning the firewood, forcing his mind elsewhere.
Rustle.
Merin dried her wet body with a cloth, then changed into clean underclothes and wrapped herself tightly in Simon’s Robe, buttoning it firmly before finally allowing herself a long, relieved sigh.
She approached the rigid figure of Simon slowly.
Huff.
Then she dropped down beside him with a thump, settling her weight against his side as they faced the campfire.
Simon glanced toward her, caught sight of her bare white legs beneath the Robe’s hem, and immediately whipped his head away in alarm.
“What?”
Merin giggled and jabbed him in the forearm.
“Why are you more nervous than I am? You’re hopeless.”
“……I’m not nervous.”
She let out a soft laugh, drew her legs up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. For a moment, a peaceful quiet settled between them.
“Are you hungry?”
Simon got to his feet.
He stirred the pot simmering over the fire with a ladle, then poured the steaming soup into a small bowl and handed it to Merin.
“Meat broth.”
It was made according to Hong Peng’s recipe.
Her eyes widened. She’d never imagined she would come across anything like real food on this island.
“……Thank you.”
She took the bowl and spoke softly.
Her stomach was growling terribly. She picked up the spoon and carefully brought the first taste to her lips.
‘Wow!’
It was exactly the same taste as the meal she’d had at Hong Peng’s cottage before.
She had a second spoonful, then a third. Simon watched her eat with quiet satisfaction.
“Simon.”
“Yeah.”
Setting down the now-empty bowl, her face flushed, she spoke with shy frankness.
“……Thank you. For saving me.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She rested her chin on her knees and gazed at him steadily.
“But why did you save me? Honestly, you could have just left me there. I attacked you first.”
Simon’s expression suggested the question was ridiculous.
“You didn’t really mean to take me out either, did you?”
…….
“I could tell. I can’t just abandon my teammate for a whole semester over some trivial trouble.”
Simon let out a dry laugh and extended his fist.
“Right?”
She laughed awkwardly and held out her fist to bump against his.
“Mm—no, this still doesn’t feel right!”
“What? Is something uncomfortable?”
She raised her right arm, which wore the Tung Pad, instead of answering.
She unfolded a spell circle in Dark Element and entered a command, layering it over the Tung Pad.
‘Wait, that command is…….’
Simon was equally familiar with all the Tung Pad’s commands.
Merin’s Tung Pad gaped open like a mouth, and a tongue shot upward several meters.
She extracted the green sphere the tongue had been holding. It was an enormous lump of Points.
“Merin! What are you—!”
“What do you mean what? I can’t walk around stabbed like this. I’m taking payment for saving you!”
Back and forth they bickered—him refusing, her insisting.
Merin forcibly brought the sphere to Simon’s Tung Pad. His Tung Pad eagerly swallowed it whole.
“Ah……!”
The numbers on the Tung Pad surged upward. Interpreting the figures, Simon had gone from roughly 127 Points to 260.
Simon jumped to his feet.
“How much did you just give me?”
“Everything except 1 Point.”
She spoke casually, spooning soup into her mouth.
“Isn’t that only fair? I should’ve been eliminated back there.”
“But you…….”
Simon spoke with a hardened expression.
“You’re still aiming for first place in this evaluation, aren’t you?”
……
She gazed silently at the campfire, then let out a small laugh.
“Of course! There’s still two days left. If I just hunt down the Named Monsters, I can easily aim for first.”
……Ha.
The tension naturally eased between them. The two set about scraping the meat broth from the pot with equal enthusiasm.
Outside the cave, rain continued to fall in a steady drizzle.
Just past the campfire lay a sheer cliff that dropped away endlessly. Still, you could see the entire island from here—the view alone was worth it.
‘It’s warm.’
The more Merin thought about it, the more she appreciated Simon for finding such a place. Safe, her belly full, a pleasant drowsiness settling through her limbs.
“Merin.”
Simon spoke up then, carefully broaching the subject.
“Can I ask you something?”
“If it’s some perverted question, I’ll kill you.”
“No, nothing like that.”
Simon paused for a moment before continuing.
“Why are you so obsessed with first place?”
……
Her eyes sharpened as she stared out of the cave, saying nothing.
“There’s someone I absolutely have to defeat.”
“That person is probably…….”
Simon picked up the thread.
“Serne Aeindarc. The special admission student, number two.”
……
Merin’s reaction to Serne was remarkably volatile.
He remembered the day they’d first been assigned as team members—merely mentioning Serne’s name had sent the atmosphere turning vicious.
And when Hector had called her “Serne’s lapdog,” she’d genuinely lunged at him with murder in her eyes.
“Right.”
She nodded simply, confirming it.
She released her arms from around her legs, pressed her palms against the ground, and stretched her back more comfortably.
“This is something I’ve never told anyone in Kizen, but the truth is, I was the official Heir to the Ivory Tower.”
Merin, not Serne? This was completely new information.
“It was decided that way from childhood, so the Ivory Tower family kept appeasing me, and I became pretty cocky about it. I didn’t understand then how heavy the position of official Heir truly was—I just thought it was fun the way the adults bowed and scraped. I was immature.”
But then, she continued.
“One day, the Tower Master suddenly took in a new adopted daughter.”
Simon quickly grasped the thread.
“That adopted daughter was Serne.”
“Yes. She was my age, and anyone could see she’d been brought in as my exact opposite. The Tower’s people reacted poorly—muttering about sudden adoptions, obvious schemes. Without proper lineage and no legitimacy whatsoever, I thought my position as Heir was secure. But…….”
Her voice grew taut with tension.
“Serne was a prodigy. Or rather, a monster—a word like ‘genius’ couldn’t begin to capture what she was.”
……
“I spent nearly half a year mastering the Dark Magic Form Transformation. She finished it in a week. No matter how complex the theory, she grasps it instantly, and teach her one thing and she understands a hundred. The Ivory Tower values bloodline, true, but…… beside Serne’s talent, every other concern became meaningless. Before anyone realized it, the entire tower—beyond factions, beyond family—was drunk on expectation. When Serne matured and became the next Tower Master, they said, the Ivory Tower would reclaim its former glory. And I…….”
She smiled bitterly.
“I was pushed aside. The adults never stopped comparing us. I was always the fool meant to make Serne shine, and whenever I was called to public events, I was nothing but an embarrassment. By the time I grew old enough to think straight, by the time I came to my senses…….”
Merin shrugged.
“I was finished. The elders rewrote the tower’s own laws to make Serne the official successor. After that day, the way people looked at me changed entirely. The family elders, the servants, my friends, even my parents. Everyone gave up expecting anything from me.”
“…….”
“Then we turned seventeen, and because of a pact with Kizen, Serne got to study there as a special case. So I took the entrance exam on my own merits and got into Kizen myself.”
Simon could finally understand it all.
That was why she clung to first place so desperately, why she never slept properly, why she drove herself like a woman possessed.
To surpass Serne. To earn her family’s recognition again.
In truth, Merin’s attack on him had seemed somewhat lacking in justification. But now, hearing this, he understood.
Simon was the special admission number one. The number one who had pushed down Serne—her goal—to number two.
Of course, the gap between Simon, who had only recently begun studying Dark Magic, and Serne was vast beyond comparison. The difference between one and two wasn’t determined by ‘a difference in skill’ at all.
Still, Merin must have burned with competitive fire. If she beat Simon, wouldn’t the distance to Serne below him shrink?
“I won’t give up, not even if I die.”
She clenched her fist.
“Everyone says it’s impossible, but someday I’ll get back what was taken from me. No matter what.”
Simon smiled quietly.
“You can do it. I’m rooting for you, Merin.”
“Hmph.”
She snorted, but there was a faint smile playing at the corners of her mouth, betraying her true feelings.
“Oh, and you know all 961 first-year students came to this island, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Serne’s on this island too. If you run into her, avoid her at all costs. I’ve watched her from up close for years now, and the more I see, the more I think…… she’s not quite…….”
Merin’s expression turned grave.
“Human.”

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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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