Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner

Chapter 212

Simon sprinted to the spectator stands so he could get a good view of the screen with Meilyn. He could hear the crowd cheering next to him.

On the screen, Meilyn was fighting against the old priest by herself.

She had clearly created a difficult obstacle by covering the entire ground in ice and skated across, going straight ahead and until she was past the point of pursuit.

The look on her face showed she was absolutely exhausted. She then entered the Kizen campus, gasping for breath and with a face full of spite.

The host exclaimed,

[Living up to her role in the Ivory Tower, let's give it up for Meilyn Villenne, the ninth student to—!]

"Kizen, you fucking crazy bastaaaaaaaaaaaards!"

She started cursing as soon as she entered.

Her raspy voice was slightly muffled out by the crowd's cheers, but she shouted again,

"And HQ says they're all human, huh? Bet you're so determined to kill the students! Try telling me that this was a performance assessment and I'm going to—!"

Flash!

Snap!

Flash!

Suddenly, the flashes of mana cameras forced Meilyn to freeze.

Reporters rushed in, followed by scouters from various organizations. There were even people from the Ivory Tower.

'Urk.'

Only now did Meilyn realize what was going on.

"Student Meilyn! How do you feel about passing the test within the top 1%?"

Shouted one reporter as he raised his mana camera. More and more reporters swarmed toward her, and the crowd chanted her name.

After a moment of stunned silence, Meilyn fixed her windswept hair, straightened her back, and fixed her tie. Then, she clasped her hands together and smiled broadly.

"Hello~ I'm Meilyn Villenne, from the first-year Class A."

Her voice had the calmness of a gentle spring breeze, and Simon couldn't help but chuckle.

She was saying things like how she worked hard, that it was all thanks to the dark spells she learned at Kizen, and she gave a completely different story from what she had just been screaming.

She carried herself with a sense of professionalism, waving at the mana cameras with a smile.

Finally, after a brief interview with the host, she sighed heavily and stepped off the stage.

"Ugh, damn it all. It's pissing me o—"

"Congratulations, Meilyn."

Simon, who had been waiting, clapped in celebration. Meilyn went red when she belatedly spotted him and waved back.

"As expected, you were here before me. What place did you get?"

"First."

"Wow, honestly, you're…"

She whimpered, then suddenly yelled,

"Hey! Didn't you lose your mind when you saw that first divine monster from the Prima Materia? Wasn't that just way too much?!"

Simon agreed with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, that was evil."

"I know, right! Those inhumane bastards! They're just crossing the line, doing this on the first school day!"

After finally being able to vent what she was forced to bottle up for the camera, she turned back to the screen with a genuine smile instead of the professional one she was forcing before.

"What about Cami and the commoner bastard?"

"I don't think you need to worry too much."

Simon briefed,

"They're both progressing in the center of big parties, and Rick is even acting as the boss of his."

"He does like being the know-it-all."

Scoffed Meilyn.

"He must be finding it so cathartic to be a commoner telling the nobles what to do, right?"

"Dunno."

Simon shook his head.

"When he builds a team, he always starts at a disadvantage because of his status. But eventually, everyone trusts and follows him. Don't you think that's his real strength?"

Meilyn blinked.

"That's a pretty good way to put it. Did he bribe you to say that or something?"

"Nah, I genuinely do think that."

"Heh. Siding with him because y'all always hang out together."

She snorted and looked at the other screen.

"There's no need to mention Cami, I guess."

When Rick first looked at Camibarez, he said she wouldn't last long in Kizen with how unathletic and soft-hearted she was. But none of that could be seen now, and she'd become a fully-fledged Kizen student.

False goodness is always eventually seen through, and true goodness will always rise to the surface. So it brought a smile to Simon's face to see Cami finally getting the respect she deserved.

Walking back to the waiting room, Simon and Meilyn chatted about their experiences since being separated.

Once they got there, they found that there was plenty of room. Perhaps the other students had gone to wash up after fighting. Neither Hector nor Chatelle, the S.A.3, were around.

Simon and Meilyn sat down and chatted further, cheering Rick and Camibarez on.

"Whoever organized this test must secretly be a devil."

Meilyn gritted her teeth, seemingly still angry, as she watched Camibarez dodge the many priests' attacks.

[The 68th to 75th students are coming in!]

The rankings were filling up fast.

* * *

* * *

Camibarez's final ranking was 347th, and Rick's was 420th.

Unlike the top-ranked students like Simon, Meilyn, and Hector, who reached the goal with overwhelming individual skills, they dropped a bit because they were part of a larger team. But they were still comfortably ahead of the stragglers who placed worse.

"Simonnn! Meilynnn!"

Camibarez ran right to them, covered in dirt. Simon and Meilyn both gave her a big hug, even patting her on the head for a job well done.

"Cami! Thank you so much for today!"

"See you sometime in Rochest!"

Her teammates, who grew attached while fighting together, waved as she left.

Camibarez waved back, then looked at Simon and Meilyn once more.

"I'm glad I get to stay in school with you guys!"

She laughed innocently.

"Gosh, why are you acting so silly? It's breaking my heart, honestly."

Said Meilyn as she squatted in front of Camibarez, examining the wounds on her knees and feet.

The battle had been so fierce that one of her shoes went missing, and the elbow of her uniform was soaked with blood.

"Let's go and get them treated before those scar."

"Yeah!"

Meilyn took Camibarez' hand and led her to the clinic.

Not long later, Rick, seemingly in better shape than Simon expected, waved from a distance. His leisurely gait and greasy smile carried Rick's trademark playfulness.

"Good job, Rick!"

"This was easy~"

The two boys fistbumped in triumph.

"Huzzah."

Stretching, Rick glanced around.

"Where are the girls?"

"At the clinic. Don't you have to pay it a visit?"

"Nah, I only got a small scratch."

Rick demanded to get a rundown of what was going on instead of getting treated, and Simon told him everything he'd been told by the assistant teacher.

"Wow, a publicity stunt with a bunch of reporters… As expected from Kizen."

"You don't seem too surprised."

"Of course I saw this coming! How adults think is more or less the same, really. They're all about profit and prestige in any situation. You can say they're simpler than kids."

After a while, the last of the bottom students came in, and the opening exam was over.

In addition to ranking people by order of entry, they said that the final scores would be calculated based on crisis handling, self-regulation, long-distance transportation, and, most importantly, countermeasures against divinity and priests.

As a side note, they also made sure to clarify that the Nether Whale was safe and sound.

The carcass of the dead Nether Whale and the red sea of blood was a large-scale illusion involving numerous Crows. It was a great success for setting the scene, and many students freaked out upon seeing it.

Students who successfully completed the test were given an hour of free time before the opening ceremony.

The public baths were packed. When they came out after cleaning up, a new set of Kizen uniforms were ready for them.

There were no major changes to the design. Rick, always interested in magical tools, read the instruction manual and said they seemed to have a little more resistance to divinity.

After changing into their crisp school uniforms, the smell of fresh new clothes filling their nostrils, students made their way to the Great Hall.

Simon and Rick also walked amongst the crowd, chatting. Then, a voice from behind interrupted them.

"Are you really telling us to go just like this? You've gotta be kidding me."

"It's the first day of school!"

On their way to the Great Hall, a commotion had broken out near the gate that led to the main teleportation magic circle.

Rick looked puzzled.

"Eh? What are they doing over there? One of them is from our class, too."

The students clustered at the rear gate were all dressed in baggy lime-green clothes that looked more like pajamas than school uniforms.

'Ah.'

Simon looked at them with sympathy, quickly grasping the situation.

They were the 50 failed students from the opening exam.

"Outsiders aren't allowed here."

The servants were sweating profusely, blocking the failed students from entering.

"Outsiders? Fuck, did you just say outsiders? I'm a student here!"

"What kind of school expels students on the first day?!"

A few other students stopped to watch, intrigued.

Most of them then turned away and continued on their way or watched from a distance, but some of them dared to come closer and tease the unfortunate students.

"Gosh, how lame."josei

"Just accept it. There was no need to come all the way here in the first place."

They were usually students who already had grudges against the failed students.

"Isn't that Rekon from Class B?"

"Serves him right for being so smug. Come on, send them away already, servants."

The winners sneered, and the losers cried and screamed in pitiful anger.

"And you call yourselves human?!"

"Piss off, 'civilians'. You still think we're on the same level?"

"You couldn't even talk back to me in class…!"

Inevitably, just as the conversation became a shouting match, someone slipped through the servants using Etherealization.

"It's Etherealization!"

One of the failed students majoring in Necromancy rushed out onto the Kizen campus at a terrifying speed.

Thump!

However, a woman in an equally Etherealized form quickly knocked him to the ground.

"There is no escape."

Of course, Kizen dispatched people who could stop people with Etherealized forms.

She grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back out onto the campus.

"…Assistant Teacher Arita?"

That brought her to a screeching halt.

"R-Right? It's me, Rekon! The same Rekon you adored! That Rekon who got a score of 90 in Necromancy!"

The boy shouted and pleaded, grabbing at the assistant teacher's pants.

"Please call Professor Umbra! There must be something wrong! I'm in the upper squad of the Duel Eval and my grades are in the top 100, yet I'm being thrown out? Because I was thrown into my trauma with absolutely no warning?"

"…"

"You know it too, assistant teacher! I almost got killed during the Saintess incident! And that happened because I was trying to protect the students who ran in fear!"

The assistant teacher bit her lip slightly, then said,

"You're not a Kizen student anymore. Let me escort you outside."

Rekon's face twisted as he was betrayed by even her. He used his Etherealization again to wrench himself out of her grasp.

"Rekon!"

"Hey! You bastards!!"

Rekon shouted at the students after rematerializing.

"What are you laughing at?!! Oh, is it because you fuckers survived? Did any of you even reach the upper squad?!"

The crowd of students booed and jeered.

"You're lame. Get lost, Rekon!"

"Your parents are counts, aren't they? So what if you can't be a necromancer? You've still got a pretty future ahead of you."

Rage flashed across Rekon's eyes and he was about to bring out his jet-black when…

"What's all this fuss all about."

A man's voice, neither faint nor loud, drowned out every other noise and enveloped the audience. Students scrambled to clear a path.

The man who walked forward was dressed head to toe in a white suit, and a white fedora was pressed to his head.

In an instant, a breathless silence settled.

He took his hand out of his pocket and gently grabbed the brim of his fedora, taking it off to lift the shadow from his eyes.

It was Bahil, one of Kizen's star professors.

In fact, he had just left the test headquarters and was headed to the Great Hall.

"I don't like to repeat myself. What's all this fuss all about."

——