Chapter 218
“Assistant, prepare.”
At Aron’s nod, a male assistant grabbed a sword and dashed breathlessly onto the track.
The assistant ran quite far from the starting point before coming to a stop.
Aron pulled a skeleton out of subspace. It was nothing special, just a common Island Ratman skeleton you could see anywhere.
The skeleton stood at the starting point, sword in hand.
‘What is he trying to do?’
Simon and all the students stared at the skeleton with puzzled expressions.
They saw the skeleton bend its knees and lift its heels. It looked like a charging stance.
Tzapat!
The skeleton standing at the starting point vanished with a gust of wind. Some nearby students let out small screams, crouching down or holding their skirts.
“!”
At that moment, Simon clearly saw it with his own eyes.
With a single charge, the skeleton had reached the assistant standing more than 20 meters away. The skeleton added the momentum from its charge as it swung the sword.
Claang!!
An explosive sound, so loud it was hard to believe it came from a skeleton.
The assistant, struck by the blow, was thrown into the air and rolled several times along the track before stopping with a fall break.
Chaak.
Landing smoothly, the skeleton mimed pointing its sword at the assistant who had collapsed. The assistant, now sitting on the ground, shook his head in a half-dazed state.
“Skeleton Dash.”
Aron spoke amidst the stunned silence of the students.
“A specialized charging technique used by skeletons.”
Waaaah—!
Cheers and applause erupted from all around.
Simon, clapping along, already felt his body itching to try it out.
“Silence.”
The surroundings fell quiet in an instant.
“If you thought black magic was exclusive to necromancers, you were mistaken. Necromancers can also command their undead to use black magic. If you take it a step further, you’ll even be able to control magic-type undead like Skeleton Mages.”
A grin slipped between Simon’s lips. Maelyn, who was standing next to him, flinched and turned to look at him.
“Hey! What’s with that creepy smile?”
“No, I just like this.”
He felt black magic was so vast and profound. Just knowing there was still so much more to learn made him feel happy.
Simon composed himself and focused on Aron’s lecture again.
“Of course it won’t be easy, but if you master this technique, even skeletons can be used to take down priests or other opponents. Understood?”
“Yes!!”
Indeed, if a skeleton could perform such a dash, it could launch a preemptive strike or apply pressure before a priest’s holiness could pour in.
It was no different than a mere monster with a sword turning into a high-speed, live round.
Everyone wanted to learn this technique.
“Then, we’ll go straight to practice.”
The assistants busily moved around, setting up straw dummies tied to poles across the track, the same type knights used for sword training.
“The principle behind Skeleton Dash isn’t difficult. To put it simply, it’s like commanding a skeleton connected to your thoughts to perform a ‘Darkness Step’.”
The magical principle was simply adding a small formula next to the summoning magic circle engraved on the skeleton’s skull.
Now, they had to guide the skeleton’s Darkness to its feet, concentrate it, and explode that Darkness to launch it forward.
It wasn’t a particularly difficult principle, but performing it was another matter.
Aron shared detailed tips on commanding black magic to undead, then lined the students up on the track for practical training.
“I’ll go first!”
The first to step forward confidently was Maelyn. She handed the sword to her skeleton and commanded it to charge.
Tzapat!
The skeleton stepped on Darkness and shot forward beautifully. The watching students let out gasps of awe.
“As expected of an elite!”
“First try and it worked?”
However, although the explosion of Darkness beneath the skeleton’s feet was successful, the pressure was so strong that its leg bones shattered and scattered.
In the end, Maelyn’s skeleton flew forward with just its upper body and dropped in front of the straw dummy. A complete failure.
‘Ugh.’
Maelyn’s face flushed bright red, and Dick, along with the other students, burst into noisy laughter.
“Pwahaha!”
“She was told to do practicals and developed a whole new technique instead!”
“A new technique where you sacrifice the entire lower body for one charge?”
Then Dick cupped his hands like a megaphone and shouted:
“Maelyn’s Original! Lower Body Break!”
With her face still beet red, she picked up one of the bones from the ground and threw it at Dick.
“Ugh! Let’s see how well you do!”
Snapping at her classmates, she stole a glance at Aron.
She fully expected to be scolded, but to her surprise, Aron’s expression wasn’t bad at all.
“For a first try, not bad. That was upper-tier.”
“Huh, huh?”
Maelyn blinked in confusion.
“This happens when you focus all your attention on the dash and neglect the skeleton’s condition.”
Aron tapped his own shin and ankle as he explained.
“With such powerful force, it’s natural for stress to fall here. For a human, it’d just be muscular overload, but skeletons just collapse. Next time, as you initiate the dash, pay attention to reinforcing the connections between the lower-body bones.”
“Th-thank you!”
Maelyn bowed her head, then looked down at Dick and the others with a smug ‘see that?’ expression. Their mouths clamped shut.
Next students followed.
Aron had a reason for saying Maelyn was upper-tier. Most students couldn’t even get their skeletons to move forward, they just toppled right at the starting point.
Others managed to dash, but leapt in place instead of moving ahead.
Some managed to charge, but every bone in the skeleton scattered upon impact, accidentally impaling the straw dummy with Bone Spear instead.
“Toto Amoriya!”
Toto, a promising student hoping to major in Summonology, also failed. The skeleton’s body stayed intact, but only its foot launched forward and hit the straw.
Once again, the students erupted with laughter, and a new nickname was born: “Toto’s Original – Skull Kick”.
“Well done. Upper-tier.”
“Th-thank you.”
Aron praised him, but Toto, who wanted to make a better impression, looked a bit disheartened.
Then Aron opened his mouth again.
“There’s no need to be discouraged. Let me tell you, there isn’t a single student who succeeds on the firs—”
Oooooooohhhh!!
Just then, an intense cheer erupted from the direction of the track where the assistants were running practice. Aron and Toto both turned their heads toward the source of the sound.
It was Simon’s turn.
His skeleton shot forward in a straight line and slashed its sword, cutting the straw dummy clean in half, the pieces falling to the ground.
The skeleton, having halted on the track in a slashing stance, adjusted its posture and raised its sword. At the starting point, Simon clenched his fist in joy.
“……”
“……”
Toto turned to look at Aron. Aron averted his gaze and cleared his throat with a fake cough.
“……Don’t mind him, he’s just a lunatic.”
“One more time.”
Simon was completely immersed in honing this new skill after such a long time. The skeleton returned to the starting point on the track.
The Darkness leaking from the skeleton’s skull traveled down its bones, gathering intensely at its toes. In that state, he had it crouch into a launch position.
‘Feel it like stepping down to crush the Darkness.’
He recalled the first time he had taken a Magical Combat class.
But now, in the second semester, he wasn’t the one stepping on Darkness, it was about making the skeleton do it. That was an entirely different level.
Simon slowly raised his concentration, then suddenly opened his eyes and activated Absolute Order.
‘Fly!’
Taat!
The skeleton kicked off the ground and soared forward. Dust scattered at the point where the skeleton had stood, and a black trail spread out from there.
Soaring ten meters, the skeleton swung its sword and sliced through the straw dummy.
Waaah!
Cheers erupted from the students watching nearby. A Summonology assistant with a clipboard marked the results.
“Jump distance: ten meters. Target cut! Very good.”
Simon thought again about how effective this skill really was. Being able to instantly close a ten-meter gap with a mere undead made of bones, it was ridiculously efficient.
However...
‘Something’s missing.’
Although the distance had increased compared to the first try, Simon was still not satisfied. He walked over to the dummy he had just cut.
‘I didn’t slice cleanly through. It only grazed the edge.’
Using Absolute Order to command the dash greatly improved the skeleton’s speed and stability. But the detail was lacking.
When using Absolute Order, the skeleton focuses solely on executing the command ‘Fly’. Because it’s concentrating entirely on that single action, its focus during the actual strike—the most important part—drops.
Once Simon identified the issue, the solution came to him immediately.
‘Then this time, with two Absolute Orders!’
Simon tried two sequences in a row.
Fly → Slash.
Fly-and-slash.
Both attempts failed. In the first, the skeleton focused entirely on the first command, Fly, and ignored Slash.
In the second, issuing two Absolute Orders at the same time made the skeleton focus only on flying.
Even though he hadn’t achieved satisfactory results and continued to fail, Simon only became more determined.
‘I’m going to break through this wall before today’s class ends!’
There was one person who, from earlier, had been constantly glancing at Simon, unable to ignore his rapid progress and remarkable performance.
‘Of course that bastard succeeded.’
Seeing Simon proudly executing the dash technique, Hector’s competitive spirit flared up like wildfire.
“Hector Moore? You’re up.”
At the assistant’s words, Hector turned his gaze back to his skeleton. His fiery eyes even made the nearby assistant flinch.
‘There’s nothing he can do that I can’t. Whatever he pulls off, I can do too.’
Hector extended his right arm and issued the dash command to the skeleton.
Buuuuuuung!
The skeleton dashed and sliced through the straw dummy five meters away. His faction members watching from behind erupted in cheers.
“That’s Hector for you!”
“He’s just on another level compa— huh?”
Suddenly, the faction members all went quiet. Hector too.
His mind boiled with irritation.
“Failure.”
The assistant said, checking a box on the clipboard.
While the dash and attack itself had succeeded, the skeleton’s foot bone had been blown off. After slicing the dummy, the skeleton had collapsed to the ground due to missing feet.
“Briefing.”
Hector demanded, eyes fixed on the assistant.
“Please.”
His voice was brimming with anger and frustration. The assistant smiled awkwardly and shrugged his shoulders.
What a fiery temper for a kid.
“The bonding between the bones seems to have been solid. But you were overly excited and focused too much on force. That caused a momentary lapse in your control of the undead, and the bone bonds weakened. Maybe try relaxing a bit next time?”
At those words, Hector immediately summoned a new skeleton and set it at the starting line. He closed his eyes, calming himself.
‘Empty your mind. Cast away all idle thoughts. Focus only on what’s ahead.’
Hector’s eyes opened slowly. Now, all he could see was the straw dummy ten meters ahead.
‘Cha—’
Waaaaaaah!!
“That bastard Simon again! This time it’s eleven meters!”
“Amazing, Simon!”
Waaaaargh!
At that exact moment, Hector’s skeleton burst into eight pieces upon launch. The sword it held was lodged in the straw dummy, but the skeleton itself had shattered and scattered across the ground.
“Graaaaah!!”
Hector exploded in fury like an erupting volcano.
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters