Chapter 355
Simon wandered around Pentamonium, taking in the various events.
With things like demonstrations of mechanical undead and lectures by high-ranking summoners, there was plenty to see, and he had a great time.
As night fell, he returned to the lodging. Simon and Kajan would share one room, while Serne would take another.
He was about to read a book and do a bit of curse study before going to bed when—
—Let’s talk for a moment.
Kajan called Simon out.
Whether it was in the dorm or not, the meeting spot was the same. When Simon went up to the roof of the lodging, Kajan was gazing up at the night sky.
‘Come to think of it, it’s a full moon tonight too.’
Approaching him, Simon asked,
“Where’s the wine?”
“I’m on duty right now, so forget it.”
As Simon plopped down beside him, Kajan spoke.
“I’ll get straight to the point. The reason I called you here—”
His gaze flashed like a blade.
“—is because I have a mission report.”
Simon swallowed hard and nodded.
* * *
The next morning.
Finally, the big moment had arrived.
“Wow, my heart’s pounding!”
“My voice keeps cracking, what should I do?”
The morning’s agenda was the first-year necromancer student thesis presentations.
Simon leaned against the wall, quickly skimming the script of the thesis he had prepared. Because Serne had been running late, Kajan had gone to fetch her.
“Oh~ working hard, huh? Keyzen.”
Just then, a male student in a green checkered school uniform spoke to him.
Simon searched his memory.
First-year from Aland, name was Benz, if he remembered right. The one who shook hands with unnecessary force.
“Ah, no need to be so guarded. Today, no tricks, purely—”
Rustle!
He unfolded a thick stack of thesis papers.
“—I’ll compete with you using summoning skills alone.”
If that was the case, Simon welcomed it. Smiling warmly, he said,
“I’ll look forward to it, Benz.”
“!”
At that one sentence, Benz’s face turned red with embarrassment.
‘K-Keyzen remembered my name, what an honor…! No, wait!’
He suddenly smacked both cheeks with a slap! slap!
‘Don’t be happy over something like that! That’s humiliating!’
Then he turned his head to look at his reflection in a nearby window.
“Who am I?”
Muttering to himself, he straightened his tie and gave his reflection a confident smile.
“A proud student of Aland.”
“……”
Simon decided to pretend he hadn’t seen anything.
“Anyway!”
Recharging his self-esteem, Benz jabbed a finger at Simon’s chest.
“This year’s Pentamonium thesis presentation is the worst in history! We’d better be careful!”
“Why is it the worst?”
“Heh. You don’t know anything! Look over there!”
Benz pointed toward the three judges sitting at the front.
“From the right—Calavan the Citation Hell, Vintra the Paper Shredder, and Latonia the Proof Parrot.”
“Wha… what?”
“They’re the most notorious judges in Pentamonium. Normally you might see one of them, but this year, the dreadful trio is all together in one place.”
Benz rubbed his shoulders as though he had goosebumps.
“Yesterday was brutal too. We second-years all had our mentalities crushed, saying stuff like ‘I’m nothing’ or ‘I should reconsider my future’. Some seniors even sat around in the dorms bawling.”
“…It’s that bad?”
“They’re demons who gnaw away at your confidence until there’s nothing left.”
Benz let out a heavy sigh.
“But we’re just starting to follow the proper black magic curriculum this year, right? If you tell a student to write a thesis, how original can it be? This setup is just designed for us to get shredded.”
“Hm.”
“So I prepared the most complex words and logic possible, so the judges won’t understand—”
“What are you two doing?”
A pleasant, spring-breeze-like voice interrupted. Benz turned and was startled, stepping back.
“Y-you’re…!”
With ivory hair flowing like in a photoshoot, Serne approached with her hands clasped behind her back. Then, wearing a sly, foxlike smile, she leaned forward slightly.
“Were you bothering Simon again?”
“N-no! I was…!”
Benz’s lips trembled so much he couldn’t speak properly.
This woman was the sun. Standing directly in the radiance of a noble sun without shade, it felt like he was being roasted from head to toe like a shriveled squid.
Just meeting her eyes felt like an honor. Being near her was uncomfortable. It made him feel like he should look up to her from below. Like he should crawl along the ground before her.
“Serne.”
At that moment, Simon spoke in a gently admonishing tone.
“?”
When she turned her bright smile toward Simon, Benz finally felt the suffocating tension in his chest lift.
“I-I’ll be going now!”
Benz dashed down the stairs in retreat. Serne watched his back for a moment, then asked,
“What were you talking about?”
“Just about the thesis review.”
“Serne Eindark. That’s your second warning.”
Kajan, who had followed behind, sighed as he spoke.
“One more time you use your power over something trivial, I’ll report it to the higher-ups and send you back to Roke Island.”
“That’s so mean~! I didn’t even do anything, I was just standing there!”
Serne’s lips jutted out in a pout, but Kajan simply ignored her.
Strangely enough, although Serne would openly pick fights with Loraine, daughter of Neftis, she seemed to at least listen to Kajan.
Simon guessed it was probably because Kajan was also on her personal recruitment list.
“Take your seats.”
Thus began the first-year thesis presentations.
Among the necromancer schools, Sierra would be first. A first-year girl in a red uniform stood hesitantly, glancing around nervously.
“You look like you’re already in the dark before you’ve even started.”
Vintra the Paper Shredder, the middle judge, spoke.
“Yesterday’s second-years were the worst. Aside from one person, nothing worth seeing.”
Calavan the Citation Hell, the judge on the right, added.
“It’s a dreadful level, but even so, as professionals we must not let emotions sway us. We must judge fairly.”
Latonia the Proof Parrot, the judge on the left, said.
The judges exchanged light banter before the presentations, but to the students, it was no different from hearing demons converse.
Soon Vintra, in the middle, spoke with a serious expression.
“Begin.”
“Y-yes!”
The girl projected her visuals with a mana crystal, then placed both hands over her chest and took a deep breath. Opening her eyes wide, she looked directly at the judges.
“I am Elaria Rekrel, first-year summoning major from Sierra. The topic of my research is the habits and physiology of the swamp undead known as ‘Dragonbone Ghost’, and their utilization.”
The moment she finished speaking, all three judges leaned back in their chairs with bored expressions. Already, from their faces and gestures, they radiated an aura of I’m not interested.
The Sierra girl looked a little flustered, but without wavering, she continued her presentation.
“The Dragonbone Ghost is an undead that mainly inhabits swamps, and is primarily found in the territory of the Kingdom of Carlos. Its body length is approximately 2 to 3 meters, tail length 30 centimeters, shoulder height is…”
“Next.”
“Ah, yes! I’m sorry! The Dragonbone Ghost is known to be formed when the corpse of a monster that has sunk into a swamp undergoes decay and transforms into an undead. Especially in deeper swamps…”
“Next.”
“The Dragonbone Ghost is classified as a skeleton, but due to its nature, restoration techniques cannot be used on it. Instead—”
“Next!”
They didn’t even give the student who had prepared her presentation a chance to speak properly. The girl’s pupils began to tremble with anxiety.
But, true to her necromancer spirit, she went bold. She skipped about 80% of her content, flipped through the thesis straight to the back, and brought out the information that would spark the judges’ interest.
“Please look at the projected screen. This is the summoning magic circle formula for the Dragonbone Ghost that I prepared in advance.”
At last, the judges adjusted their posture.
“As you can see, the core rune is ‘Funeral’. And the supporting formula for this is—”
“Wait.”
This time, Calavan the Citation Hell spoke. The eyes behind the glasses flashed.
“I’m pretty sure there’s already a research paper that uses the Funeral rune to create a Dragonbone Ghost. State your source.”
“T-the source is…!”
While the girl floundered, Calavan opened a subspace and manipulated the magic circle, causing several documents to pop out with a snap.
She used an enlargement spell to make them big enough for the audience to see.
<Assembly-Centric Modeling Methodology for Designing the Dragonbone Ghost>, and <A Summonological Interpretation of the Funeral Rune>.
“Even with a quick search, I found two. So, Student Elaria? What exactly is the difference between these two papers and yours?”
The audience began to murmur, and Elaria stammered,
“O-of course there are previous papers related to the Funeral rune and Dragonbone Ghost! But I used the Candal Theorem for the deformation rate and rotation value of the formula…”
“Prove it.”
This time, Latonia the Proof Parrot cut in.
“Prove, in a reasonable manner, why you thought the Candal Theorem was a good match for designing the Dragonbone Ghost.”
“Ah, ah, yes!”
She hurriedly scribbled a few formulas on the board, but Latonia gave a derisive snort.
“It’s obvious you forced your own thoughts into the framework of the existing <Summonological Interpretation of the Funeral Rune> paper.”
“W-what?”
“I’ll prove why the author of that paper didn’t use the Candal Theorem and went with a simple calculation instead.”
Latonia stood up from her seat and began writing formulas on the board. The student thesis presentation suddenly turned into a classroom lecture.
The irony of a judge teaching the presenter. But as one of Pentamonium’s elders, there was no way a mere student could interrupt him.
Even after she had been thoroughly dismantled by Latonia, the attack continued.
“Why didn’t you cite the source for your formula?”
“That’s not how you handle a Dragonbone Ghost. Have you even tried assembling an actual Dragonbone Ghost corpse?”
“What on earth are they teaching kids in Sierra?”
The judges were like hyenas. The moment they spotted even a small weakness, they tore into it relentlessly, scolding as if to kill.
One look at the girl’s stunned expression was enough to tell her mental state had cracked.
“I’ll state the evaluation result.”
Finally, Vintra the Paper Shredder held up the girl’s thesis.
“Trash. Zero points.”
Then, she began tearing the paper to shreds right in front of the girl’s eyes. Sprinkling the torn scraps at her feet, she said coldly,
“Did you think too lightly of Pentamonium? Thought you could just slap something together like making a chimera?”
“Don’t think we’re being too harsh.”
Calavan the Citation Hell spoke coldly.
“With no minimum preparation, no sincerity, no consideration, and stuffing it with obvious content—you’re the one who first disrespected Pentamonium.”
In the silence that followed, the girl bowed her head like a criminal and walked down the steps. When her friends rushed up to pat her back, the tears she’d been holding back finally fell.
‘That’s a bit much.’
From his seat in the audience, Simon frowned.
Of course, it was true that Elaria’s thesis had its flaws, but did they really need to push a student who had only just begun learning black magic this far?
Smack!
Vintra the Paper Shredder slapped the table with her palm and spoke.
“From the very start, I’m extremely displeased! Next!”
As the order progressed, the atmosphere in the hall grew more and more grim.
“Trash. Zero points. Next!”
The stage floor was littered with shredded thesis papers.
“And you call this a thesis! You think this is a school assignment?”
“This is why the peace generation is a problem! When I was a student, from beginning to end…”
“Setting everything else aside, there’s no sincerity or respect. Isn’t it normal to at least be familiar with the basic format for a Pentamonium thesis before coming here?”
Rip, rip, rip, rip.
Like a threshing machine, the mental states of the students who stepped onto the stage were ground down. Sierra, Aland, and Moyran all failed to escape the blade.
The only exception—
“This one’s at least better.”
A male student from Moyran.
The same one who had declared yesterday in front of Simon that he would crush Keyzen, received fairly good evaluations.
“Still a long way to go, but among these, you’re the best so far.”
“It’s not like we’re expecting much. If they just give us this level, we let it slide.”
For the first time, Vintra the Paper Shredder returned a thesis without ripping it apart.
Receiving modest applause from the audience, the male student naturally cast his gaze toward Simon.
“Now, it’s their turn.”
Vintra the Paper Shredder crossed her arms as she spoke.
“Step up, Keyzen!”
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters