Chapter 259
"Thank you for your hard work!"
"Great job!"
It took all three craftsmen working together for a solid four hours, but they finally succeeded in engraving the magic circle onto the skeletal remains of Deimos.
Everyone exchanged words of thanks, without showing any sign of fatigue.
"You all did a great job."
Benya, who had been waiting nearby, also stepped forward with words of encouragement.
"Oh, don’t mention it, milady. It was a fun project for us too."
"How often do you get to work on Deimos?"
Diego smiled softly and turned to Simon.
"Now, the owner should fire it up, no?"
"Yup!"
Simon closed his eyes and connected to Deimos' lingering thoughts. The skeleton, reborn through Darkness, began to twitch and stir.
‘As expected of a high-tier monster. Its resistance is stronger than I thought.’
But Simon was confident when it came to undead control. He repeatedly transmitted a powerful will to the skeleton.
‘Rise!’
Thump! Thump!
Deimos' bones, which had been still like fossils, started to twitch and jump as if they were freshly caught from the sea, full of strength and vitality.
"Ooh!"
Benya and the craftsmen, as well as the warehouse staff watching nearby, cried out in amazement.
‘I actually did it!’
And no one was more overwhelmed than Simon.
From acquiring the materials to inscribing the final magic circle, he had been involved in every step. This was the first undead he had devoted so much care to from the very beginning.
"Careful! It's knocking everything over!"
But the real problem was that Deimos was too full of energy.
Even though there was no water, it flopped around wildly, knocking things off shelves and spilling buckets.
"S-Stop it!"
It was a nuisance. Simon, flustered, broke into a sweat as he approached, but Deimos leapt about and struck Simon's cheek with the bones of its tail.
As Simon collapsed, Benya and the craftsmen burst out laughing.
"When undead are awakened for the first time, they often react wildly out of shock. In the trade, we call it ‘fever time’."
Simon suddenly recalled when he first made the skeleton archer, and its skull had bitten his arm.
"……I, I wish someone had told me sooner."
"Sorry, it's just so natural for us that we forget to mention it."
At this rate, Deimos would run around all day and wreck the entire warehouse. When Simon tried to approach again, the craftsmen stopped him.
"Let it tire itself out."
"It’ll calm down in a few hours."
It was already causing trouble for the folks at Vanilla, and Simon didn’t want to wait that long.
Simon issued an Absolute Order to Deimos.
‘Stop!’
Immediately, Deimos, who had been flailing about, froze as if someone had flipped a switch.
But Simon remained on guard. He opened his arms in a gesture of peace and slowly approached.
Sss...
He extended his right arm, palm open, and moved forward cautiously. Fortunately, Deimos stayed still.
Simon gently stroked the bridge of Deimos’ nose with his right hand.
He could feel its thoughts calming. Perhaps recognizing its master, Deimos no longer resisted Simon’s touch and lowered its guard.
Encouraged, Simon moved closer, knelt down, and embraced Deimos, gently stroking its torso.
Gasps of admiration echoed from around him.
"……He’s good."
"Keyzen students really are a cut above from the start."
With Deimos calmed, Diego approached.
"Since you've successfully taken control, let's test out that skill too. You remember how to do it, right?"
"Yes, I’ll try it now."
Simon stood up and closed his eyes.
He could clearly sense Deimos’ thoughts and the presence of the magic circle powered by Darkness.
Simon activated one of the runes on the magic circle using Darkness, then issued an Absolute Order.
‘Current Cannon.’
As soon as Simon gave the command, Deimos opened its jaws wide. Darkness gathered in a circular formation inside its mouth, sucking in everything around like a vortex.
Simon pointed toward an empty space.
"That way!"
BOOOOM!
A blast of wind shot out from its mouth. The resulting shockwave made everyone's clothes and hair whip around violently. The wind scattered mid-air before reaching the wall.
Ooooh—!
The staff watching let out low gasps of awe.
"When a monster dies and becomes undead, it loses most of its former powers and abilities."
Diego said.
"But Simon, thanks to your help, we managed to preserve as many functions as possible. We even recovered the most important ability, Current Cannon. You’ll really feel its power when you use it in water."
"Ah…"
A sea opened up in Simon’s mind.
He imagined himself cutting through the currents with Deimos, firing cannon blasts to sweep away enemies.
Just the thought of it gave him chills.
‘Now I’m not afraid of underwater battles!’
Of course, it hadn’t been tested yet, but Simon couldn’t help the surge of confidence.
He turned around and said,
"It’s all thanks to you, seniors! Thank you so much."
The craftsmen smiled, clearly pleased.
"We learned a lot too."
"It went smoothly thanks to you, Simon."
At that moment, Diego cleared his throat and glanced to the side, muttering softly.
"Sorry about earlier."
"…Huh, huh?"
"For being a bit touchy, I mean."
The two junior craftsmen burst out laughing.
"Ah, no! It’s totally fine! I didn’t mind at all!"
"You brat."
Diego walked up and draped an arm over Simon’s shoulder.
"If you ever need work in the future, come by anytime. You’re always welcome."
"Hey, just quit Keyzen and settle down here! We make good money!"
"We’d welcome Simon with open arms."
Suddenly, bearded uncles surrounded Simon, trying to recruit him.
Stiff as a board, Simon darted his eyes toward Benya, silently begging for help.
"What’s with these creepy old men?"
Benya strode over and pulled Simon out of the crowd.
"You looked like death when I first called you in to help, but now…"
Diego laughed heartily.
"That was then, this is now. Are you already treating him like one of your own?"
"If Simon gets moved to the management division, I’m quitting! He’s meant to be an engineer!"
Simon looked flustered. The three of them were already talking like he belonged in Vanilla.
"Well. In my personal opinion—"
Benya gently placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder.
"I think he’s too big a fish for us to keep just because we conquered him."
Diego laughed.
"Haha! What, then? Is he heading to Keyzen HQ or the Ivory Tower?"
Simon could only scratch the side of his head.
* * *
After finishing his trip to the fish market and returning to Keyzen, Simon sat down to write a letter.
<To Mom>
He started with well wishes for Anna and Richard, and updated her on how he was doing. Then, at the bottom, he added a small note.
<Is there any way to send a letter to Lete as well? There's something I’d like to tell her.>
Right below that, he wrote the message he wanted to send to Lete.
It was a simple greeting. Though unlikely, in case the letter was intercepted along the way, he omitted any other details and went straight to the point.
<Remember the evidence we got from the train? Can you check if the name ‘Judah’ appears there?>
The name Judah left Simon with a nagging feeling. As he racked his memory, he began to suspect he had seen something similar on the Holy Train.
To be more precise, when the Blood Heaven Cult had hijacked the Holy Train, after defeating their bishop, Simon had retrieved documents and evidence.
Now he was asking someone to check if the name Judah appeared among those items.
Simon put down his quill, stretched out, and looked up at the ceiling.
‘Lete must be doing well at Efnelle. I wonder if she’s still ranked first. Has baby Ran grown much?’
He had a mountain of things he wanted to ask, but decided to hold back.
He slipped the letter into an envelope, sealed it neatly, and dropped it in the dormitory’s mailbox.
For the remainder of the weekend, he practiced handling Deimos. He knew going back to the beach where he'd been before would draw attention, and it wouldn’t do any good to expose his full capabilities. So Simon trained alone on a secluded shoreline.
And so, the next morning—
A new week began. The students were thrown into a frenzy on the very first day by Jane’s announcement.
"There will be the third BMAT test scheduled for the end of this week."
Aaah—
Students groaned in dismay, some clutching their heads with overwhelmed expressions.
By now, everyone in the academy knew the exam's theme was related to the ocean, but actually fighting in the water posed a major challenge.
‘I wish the exam would just hurry up and get here.’
On the other hand, Simon, who had succeeded in acquiring a new summoned creature at the Ballot fish market, was feeling confident.
Of course, it wasn’t that he was looking forward to the exam—he was just excited to finally use Deimos the Skeleton in real combat.
"And there's one more important announcement."
Jane flipped to the next page of her documents as she continued.
"Before the BMAT, there will be one round of dueling evaluations."
Aaaaaaah—
Cries of despair burst out from every direction. The BMAT was already overwhelming enough, and now they had to deal with dueling evaluations too.
"Wow, Keyzen’s schedule is infamous for being intense, but isn’t this too much?"
"Even the underwater adaptation training is killing me."
Most of the students were struggling, but Maelyn snorted.
"Just perform as you always do. Everyone's overreacting."
Simon nodded in agreement.
"Yeah. Let’s just do what we always do."
"As expected of the upper squad! You can just feel the confidence."
Dick joked playfully. Simon and Maelyn were currently in an upper squad and held a perfect win record.
In contrast, Dick and Kamibarez had slipped a few times and were still in a middle squad.
"Our Kami’s going to move up this time, right? You’ve improved a lot over the break."
Maelyn said, her eyes sparkling.
Kamibarez let out a sheepish laugh and gave an unsure smile.
"I’m not really sure… Honestly, I like the middle squad! I don’t want to fight Simon or Maelyn!"
"Wait a sec! What kind of statement is that? The middle squad has me, Dick Hayword, the middle-tier legend, y’know?"
"I’ll go all out against Dick!"
"Ohoho! You know I don’t go easy on girls, right?"
Dick playfully shadowboxed into the air in a mock declaration of war, and though clumsy, Kamibarez mimicked a tiny punch in response.
Maelyn squealed about how cute she was and pulled Kamibarez into a tight hug, making her yelp in surprise.
Jane let the students chatter away for a bit as she looked over her next set of documents, then finally spoke again.
"Quiet."
At Jane’s single word, silence immediately fell over the classroom.
"This evening, you’ll be notified of your opponent in both male and female dormitories, so make sure to check. Students in the lowest-ranked squads should focus on the dueling evaluation, while the rest should give their all in the BMAT. That’s all."
"Thank you!"
Jane ended class early that day. Everyone began laughing and chatting as they packed their things.
"Guys! Can I borrow your time for a sec?"
Claudia Menzies and her friends walked up onto the podium.
"They’re at it again, seriously."
Maelyn muttered in exasperation. Claudia made eye contact with her, but the two turned their heads away in opposite directions without a word.
"We’ve been boycotting Professor Belya’s class all last week, as you know, but she kept pushing the poison-drinking sessions."
Claudia raised her voice. At the same time, Hector and his faction stood and began leaving the lecture hall.
Claudia waited quietly, glancing at Hector, and once he was gone, she raised her voice even more.
"This isn’t just ignoring student voices, it’s a declaration of war on our basic human rights. If you go to her next class, Professor Belya will make you drink poison again. No, maybe she’ll make us drink it for the whole year. And don’t forget, the poison we’re ingesting doesn’t even have a verified source. What kind of side effects could there be? We could suffer for the rest of our lives! I say this without a doubt, that class is complete madness."
Rumble rumble—
At that moment, the lecture hall doors swung open, and students from other classes flooded in.
They were all students who had joined the boycott against Professor Belya’s class.
"One more time—no, however many times it takes, I’ll ask you sincerely."
Claudia said.
"For the rights of us students, I hope you’ll join the boycott against Professor Belya’s class."
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters