Chapter 352
“You’re a first-year too, right? Nice to meet you.”
A male student in a green checkered school uniform greeted him with a loose, grinning face.
“I’m Benz, from Aland, majoring in Summonology.”
The three great Necromancer schools.
If Keyzen stood at the very top as the greatest necromancer school in history, a prestigious institution among prestigious institutions, there were also three great public necromancer schools considered a tier below.
Aland, Sierra, and Moyran.
When Keyzen held its first-year entrance exam, these three schools would refer to Keyzen’s exam contents, grasp its trends and principles, and then rush to announce their own entrance exams for new students.
Though somewhat overshadowed by Keyzen’s aura, these were also elite schools where nobles from significant noble families enrolled.
‘This is my first time meeting an Aland student.’
Since the other party had greeted him first, Simon stood up from his seat.
“I’m Simon, also an aspiring Summonology student.”
“Aspiring?”
Benz glanced back at the two friends standing behind him. Then all three burst into laughter, puhahat!
“Ah~ sorry.”
Benz chuckled.
“It’s just, the way ‘aspiring’ sounds is kind of funny.”
“So, you’re not a major like us then?”
“If you’re studying it, you’re studying it. What’s with ‘aspiring’?”
Keyzen students chose their major starting from the second year, but in Aland, you picked your major the moment you enrolled.
To nitpick over a simple difference in curriculum.
Simon felt not anger, but rather a faint sense of novelty.
‘Feer.’
[Yeah?]
‘When students from different schools meet, is it usually this tense?’
[They’re just idiots.]
At that moment, Benz stepped closer to Simon.
“You came to present a thesis too, right? Looking forward to it, aspiring student!”
He held out his hand. Pretending not to notice the handshake offer would be strange, so Simon took it.
Squeeze.
Benz’s grip tightened.
‘Really.’
Simon gave a wry smile. It was childish, and not worth countering, so he just stayed still.
Benz’s hand trembled slightly as he seemed to be putting all his strength into it.
Simon turned his head slightly to look at the other two students. By now, they were already scanning Simon’s outfit up and down.
“...Hmm, Keyzen uniforms are pretty nice.”
“I heard the girls’ uniforms are even better.”
“But it’s too pitch black, looks like a suit, kind of tacky. Doesn’t have that school-look charm.”
On their side, a little uniform review session was happening.
Simon also took a look at the Aland uniforms.
Overall, the only real difference was the green-based color scheme; the placement of the logo and accent points made them look very much like they were imitating Keyzen.
The checkered pattern on the pants and skirts felt a bit too much, but the more he looked, the more it seemed… okay.
Simon smiled slightly.
“Your uniforms are nice too.”
“!”
The two students flinched, their faces turning bright red.
“Wow! Did you hear that? He’s totally mocking our uniforms!”
“This is how they slap a ‘Keyzen knockoff’ frame on us!”
‘?’
Simon had meant it as a sincere compliment, but the Aland students’ inferiority complex kicked in immediately.
“Ugh!”
Meanwhile, Benz was still grunting, trying to crush Simon’s hand. This time, Simon applied a tiny bit of force back.
Crack.
“Ahhh!”
Benz let out a short scream and dropped to one knee. The other Aland students gasped, raising their index fingers as though about to cast a curse.
“Let go of Benz!”
“Ah.”
When Simon released his hand, Benz glared at him with teary eyes.
“You! How dare you hurt my hand…!”
“Oh, here we go again.”
A third party’s voice came from behind.
“That handshake-backfire routine, doesn’t it ever get old?”
“Ohohoho!”
The students who ridiculed the Aland group as they entered wore red-colored uniforms.
Dark red jackets with six gold buttons in a military-style design. The collars were high, covering part of their mouths.
Rather than school uniforms, these were closer to formal dress uniforms, and they seemed a bit less practical for movement. When they appeared, the Aland students ground their teeth.
“Sierra’s trash…!”
“Yeah, and here comes the next grasshopper uniform.”
The relationship between the two schools seemed to be extremely hostile.
As they traded strange nicknames in their war of nerves, Simon quietly edged backward.
“Look at them trembling. Guess they still haven’t gotten over the shock of losing the Si-Al match.”
The Sierra students laughed among themselves. Benz’s brow twitched.
“You’re bragging over just a 5-point difference? If you guys hadn’t bribed the referees in the Al-Si match—!”
“There’s nothing uglier than refusing to accept a loss and clinging to baseless accusations. And, say the match name properly, it’s the Si-Al match.”
“It’s the Al-Si match!”
Whether it was Si-Al or Al-Si, Simon didn’t care.
While the two schools fought, he decided to slip away.
“Calm down. Why are we fighting among ourselves?”
This time, a pair of male and female students in blue uniforms approached.
They were from Moyran.
Their uniforms had a completely different design from the other necromancer schools — blue base, heavily decorated. Belts around their waists, epaulettes on their shoulders.
“Don’t forget. Our goal is the destruction of our common enemy, Keyzen.”
At that, the gazes of the other two schools turned to Simon.
“In truth, it’s the Witch of Death and Keyzen HQ that are truly great. The school itself is plagued with endless rumors that it’s all inflated. If we crush them at this conference, their prestige will take a scratch.”
The other schools, fired up, nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, Keyzen is way overrated!”
“Always looking down on people just because of uniform color.”
“They even unilaterally canceled the exchange match because of some BMAT or whatever they’re doing.”
“Yeah, that test totally buried the Si-Al match news.”
“It’s the Al-Si match!”
“Honestly, that whole ‘saint’ of yours getting attacked, total bluff, right?”
“Have you actually even seen a real saint?”
Murmur murmur murmur murmur!
Simon was starting to get a headache.
“...Please, one at a time.”
He looked at the students of the three schools.
“Is there really any need to wear each other down like this? Isn’t it enough for each of you to just be satisfied with your own school?”
“O-of course!”
“Our school is amazing! We just hate being looked down on by Keyzen!”
They started boasting, how proud they were to attend Aland, how Moyran’s post-graduation employment rate was the highest, and so on.
“Then—”
Simon opened his mouth.
“If you had the chance to transfer to Keyzen, you’d stay in your current school, right?”
“......”
“......”
In an instant.
A heavy silence crushed the air around them.
An awkward breeze swept over the students.
“Y-you…!”
“This is exactly why we hate Keyzen!”
Perhaps embarrassed by that earlier awkward silence, everyone’s faces flushed as they began shouting all at once.
Yet, not a single one of them said they would stay at their alma mater if given the chance to transfer to Keyzen.
[Kahahahaha!]
Feer burst into roaring laughter inside Simon’s head.
[That feels good! You really hit them where it hurts, boy!!]
‘No, I just…’
“Oh my~”
Right then.
“What are you all talking about that’s so fun?”
Tok, tok.
With brilliant ivory hair fluttering behind her, Serne was walking toward them. Never had Simon been so glad to see her appear.
“……”
Her mere arrival silenced every student.
An aura that flowed naturally from her very being.
A suffocatingly high level of dignity.
Was there any human who could look down on her? No, even regard her as an equal?
It didn’t matter whether one knew Serne or not. Every student felt pressured by her presence.
“Oh my, why did you all suddenly go quiet? Keep badmouthing Keyzen.”
Wearing a captivating smile, she approached the frontmost Aland students. Then she lifted Benz’s chin, the same Benz who had shaken hands with Simon, with her index finger.
“Go on, say it.”
“Uh, u-uh-uh…!”
As her eyes, pulling him in like a whirlpool, drew closer, tears quickly welled in Benz’s eyes.
“I-I was wr—!”
Shff.
At that moment, a white feather landed on Benz’s neck.
“I hate Keyzen!!”
Benz shrieked.
“When our school begged for an exchange match, they totally ignored us! It was an agreement between schools, but you always cancel unilaterally! You think you’re so great?!”
“Yes! That’s exactly it!”
Serne moved on to the next student.
“Adults see the uniform and always ask if it’s Keyzen, and when you say you go to a necromancer school, the Keyzen name comes up first. It’s depressing and it kills your self-esteem.”
“Good! If you’ve got complaints, be honest about them!”
“First off, their kids have no manners. I’ll admit they’re elite, but why do they always smirk when they see our uniforms?”
“Yeah, yeah! Even I’m from Keyzen, but I admit that’s true!”
As Simon watched Serne force students to spill Keyzen insults with her feather, he gave a bitter smile.
‘…Whose side are you even on?’
Of course, Serne had her own intentions.
‘Simon! Are you hearing this? This is how bad Keyzen is!’
Without any ulterior schemes, she was simply, purely making them badmouth Keyzen.
As someone competing with Loraine for Simon, Serne wouldn’t miss such a chance. She genuinely enjoyed hearing criticisms of Keyzen.
However—
‘Why are you doing this to us?!’
The students from other schools were tasting hell.
Even if the words were the same, saying them voluntarily versus being forced to say them in front of others were completely different things.
‘What’s going to happen to us now?’
‘A-are we really not going to be able to transfer?’
Everyone knew the truth, the top career path for students of the three great necromancer schools was transferring to Keyzen.
“Come on, quickly.”
Now this crazy woman in a Keyzen uniform was glaring with sharp eyes, forcing them to insult her own alma mater. And the students couldn’t even refuse her orders.
“Put more force into your insults!”
The situation had completely reversed. Students darted their eyes around as if begging for help, but—
“……”
“……”
Despite the ruckus, none of the adults passing by paid them any attention.
Even with such noise, they were treated as if they didn’t exist.
It dawned on them with a chill, Serne had already taken control of this space.
“Then next!”
Serne passed Aland and Sierra, moving to Moyran.
“Moyran, always compared to Keyzen, I have high hopes! What do you think of Keyzen?”
Speaking sweetly, she rose slightly on her toes and attached a feather to the neck of a Moyran male student.
“……”
It was the very student who had first shouted “Down with Keyzen.”
He let out a small sigh, then plucked the feather from his neck and dropped it to the floor.
“!”
For the first time, Serne looked surprised.
“I don’t need this. I’ll speak my mind on my own.”
He walked past Serne to glare at Simon.
“I love my school, Moyran, in my own kingdom. Even if I had the chance to transfer to Keyzen, I’d stay at the alma mater that chose me. And—”
With eyes burning, he continued.
“I won’t retract my statement that Keyzen is overly inflated. At this academic conference, I intend to clearly show the difference.”
‘Ooo!’
Several students looked at him in admiration.
Simon felt the same.
Rather than sniping from the sidelines and gossiping, openly declaring a desire to compete was far more likable.
Simon smiled and said,
“Yeah, I’ll also do my best at this conferen—”
“I don’t like it.”
Thuk, thuk, thuk, thuk, thuk, thuk, thuk, thuk, thuk.
With the sound of countless feathers piercing, he collapsed to his knees before Serne. She pouted in displeasure.
“Why are you running your mouth against my will?”
From her twisted lips came a voice that had sunk low.
“All humans, except for the tiny handful I acknowledge, should be obedient dolls before me.”
Serne extended her foot.
The kneeling boy stretched his neck forward as if to lick her shoe, his shoulders trembling as he resisted with sheer willpower.
“Stop it, Serne.”
Simon spoke.
“!”
Serne Eindark, who no one thought could be stopped, instantly changed expression at Simon’s words, her face blooming like melting spring snow.
“Oh, it’s just a joke~”
She winked playfully and clapped her hands, and at last, all the students returned to their senses. Then she skipped over to cling tightly to Simon’s side.
“So? Do you hate Keyzen a little more now?”
“…That was just you forcing them to say it.”
“What are you saying! I only stirred up their feelings so they’d be honest. I didn’t make anything up.”
Worried she’d cause more trouble, Simon quickly took Serne away.
Kajan, who had been leaning against a pillar watching, sighed deeply and joined them.
“I knew it. Don’t mess with students from other schools. That’s a warning.”
“Hehe.”
As the three left, the students, still wearing dazed expressions, let out sighs of relief.
“…Keyzen really has big shots like that attending.”
“Y-yeah, the level really is different.”
“But who was that woman?”
“She had red hair, right?”
“Wasn’t it black?”
“Was it even a woman to begin with? Could’ve been a guy.”
They had already forgotten what Serne’s face looked like.
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters