Chapter 389
Simon’s party set off on their journey once more.
They crossed several steep hills and finally reached the depths of the mountain range. The number of monsters steadily increased.
“But hey,”
Maelyn muttered as she rubbed the back of her neck.
“Am I the only one bothered by that?”
Behind the three walking side by side, Hector trailed at a distance, walking alone and slowly.
“...It’s unsettling. That brute quietly following us like that, it’s weird. What if he suddenly flips and attacks us from behind?”
Toto responded to her concerns.
“W-We should be fine, right? There’s an Observer floating overhead, and we all have recording artifacts on us.”
Simon agreed and turned to look back.
“Hector! Since we’re cooperating anyway, how about we talk about what we’ll do from here?”
“Y-You idiot! Don’t do that!”
Maelyn panicked and started slapping Simon’s arm. Hector, who was following behind, also twisted his expression into a scowl.
“Don’t give me orders, Simon Follentia!”
So he reacts like that, huh. Simon smiled quietly.
“...What are you grinning about?”
Hector scowled and began striding toward him. Maelyn and Toto jumped in alarm and immediately took combat stances.
“Hey, Hector. Before we move on to the second year.”
Simon said, and Hector’s steps came to a halt.
“Want to have a personal match? Just between us. To see who’s stronger.”
“……”
Hector pressed his lips into a thin line.
“About what you want to talk about.”
Step.
Darkness surged, and in an instant, Hector appeared beside Simon and spoke in a low voice.
“Go ahead.”
Simon grinned, and Maelyn and Toto looked back and forth between the two with surprised expressions.
“First, let’s talk about the information we’ve gathered so far...”
Simon and Hector quickly exchanged intel.
They also discussed what tactics they would use when confronting the dungeon master. Hector willingly offered to take the frontline.
“...Sometimes I feel like boys’ brains are stuck in the Stone Age.”
Maelyn whispered to Toto.
Clatter!
Suddenly, stone debris fell toward the four of them. Everyone looked up.
There were people standing atop a high hill.
“Well, look who it is! Simon Follentia!!”
A loud, villainous laugh echoed through the air.
From that high vantage point, it was hard to tell who was who, but the figure with a white uniform draped over her shoulders was unmistakably Special Admission No. 7—Elisa. Three other party members stood behind her.
“Brace yourself!”
She raised her hand gleefully.
“Because an avalanche caused by an unbelievable coincidence is about to begin!”
Two ghost ships hovered above the cliff. It looked like they were planning to bombard the cliff to cause a rockslide.
Toto protested with a stiff expression.
“Th-That’s so cowardly! What are you doing!?”
“Elisa Celine.”
At that moment, Hector interrupted.
Recognizing his voice belatedly, Elisa’s jaw dropped.
“H-Hector? Why are you with Simon…?!”
“Hey there~”
Maelyn waved with a smiling face beside him.
“Then I guess it’s okay if I just happen to burn your ship down too?”
Elisa’s two most feared opponents were standing right here.
“Elisa.”
Simon took a step forward.
“We know where the dungeon master is.”
Her eyes widened dramatically.
“…You know the dungeon master’s location?”
“Yeah. Rather than fighting us here, wouldn’t it be better to join forces and take down the dungeon master to get a good score and move on to second year?”
“……”
“The choice is yours.”
Her party members looked at her, clearly waiting for her decision.
Elisa bit her thumb anxiously.
“Elisa Celine is a politician to her bones.”
Hector said in a low voice.
“She values justification and practicality. No way she’s turning this down.”
Just as Hector predicted, Elisa agreed to join the dungeon master hunt.
“But! I have one condition.”
Coming down from the hill, she thrust out her hand.
“I’ll be the leader…!”
“Don’t make me laugh! I’m the leader!”
Maelyn burst forward, outraged.
“You should be groveling and begging to join us, and you’re talking about what? You really think we’d hand power over to a politician?”
Hector also frowned.
“What nonsense. I was supposed to be the leader.”
“And where did you suddenly come from!?”
True to form, the necromancers’ strong identities clashed as they fought over who would be the leader. Simon sighed as he watched the quarrel.
He needed to mediate before things got out of hand.
“Guys, listen to me. First, let’s—”
Woooooooooooooooo!
Simon stopped mid-sentence. The arguing trio also went silent.
The surrounding landscape turned blood-red. The rocks, the cliffs, the ground—all glowed crimson as though scorched by a burning sunset.
Everyone looked to the sky.
“What… is that…?”
In the sky of the dungeon floated a ring. A massive ring of blood so enormous it defied description.
It swirled like liquid and blocked the entrance to the dungeon, staring down at all the students below.
“Did someone trigger the dungeon’s trap?”
“Looks like the boss monster is coming out!”
The other students assumed this was just part of the dungeon and readied for battle, but not Simon.
A sickeningly ominous feeling rose inside him. Cold sweat trickled down his back, and his neck stiffened as his mouth went dry.
All his senses screamed red alert.
‘I’ve heard of that somewhere before…’
Simon rummaged through his memories. And then, a memory buried deep in his subconscious surfaced.
A story Loraine had told him.
—They say the entrance of the dungeon is blocked off with a black magic spell called the ‘Ring of Blood’. Anyone unapproved who approaches the ring has their blood boil until they die.
—Because no army or police force can enter, the place became a den of criminals and the depths of evil itself.
That was it. During the after-school BMAT session, when he asked Loraine where Sillage had gone, that was her answer.
She had definitely said that Professor Sillage had gone to lift the Ring of Blood.
‘So why is that here in this dungeon…?’
“Kyahhh!”
“H-Hurk!”
Lost in thought, Simon turned around in shock.
Thump-! Thump-! Thump-! Thump-!
The sound of heartbeats pounded madly from every direction. Hearing other people’s heartbeats this loudly was impossible under normal circumstances.
“M-My body…!”
Maelyn, Toto, Hector, even Elisa.
Every student except Simon began to glow red-hot like molten metal in a smelting furnace. From their hearts, unnatural vein-like structures spread rapidly.
The effect spread from the chest, where the heart was, to their legs and heads.
The students screamed. It was pandemonium.
‘What is this? What the hell is happening…!’
“Simon!”
Simon quickly turned around. Even Maelyn’s transformation had spread down to her legs, and was now covering her face.
“I…!”
Chrrrrrr—
She couldn’t finish her sentence and froze like a statue, completely paralyzed. Simon felt his heart sink as he looked around.
“Toto! Hector!”
The other students were also completely enveloped in a molten red glow.
The once-noisy crowd fell silent as if it had all been a lie.
Thump— thump— thump— thump—
Only the sound of heartbeats echoed. Simon quickly rushed over and placed his hand on Maelyn’s shoulder.
“Ugh!”
Hot.
It wasn’t heat a human body should emit.
‘So that ring in the sky really is the cause?’
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Even the Observers that were supposed to be floating in the sky had overheated, turning red and falling like rain.
‘But why am I the only one still normal?’
Thump!
Just then, Simon felt his heart beat irregularly.
He clutched his chest and staggered. A surge of heat suddenly rushed through his body.
He was beginning to transform like the other students.
“Damn it!”
He immediately sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and activated a magic circle on his body to initiate blood poisoning.
‘Resist it with Toxicology resistance mode!’
He channeled the Darkness stored in his Core throughout his body and transformed his blood into blood poison.
The moment it became blood poison, his blood surged in revolt, as if trying to forcefully reverse the process.
That ring in the sky was likely an ultra-wide-range curse of the Haematological type. If it was one that altered the nature of blood—
‘I’ll counter it with resistance to blood transformation.’
With eyes closed, Simon pulled out a detox kit from subspace, picked out ingredients by feel, and chewed them.
‘Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!’
Thump—
Thump—
He should’ve summoned skeletons in case monsters attacked, but there was no time for that.
He didn’t know how long it took to establish the resistance mode, but Simon kept his focus, soaked in sweat.
And finally—
“Haahhhhh.”
The heat in Simon’s body gradually began to subside.
Simon opened his eyes with a hardened expression.
‘...Thank you, Professor Belya.’
Feeling the transformation lift, Simon stood up. He moved lightly to confirm his improved condition.
Woooooooooooooooo!
The Ring of Blood was still spinning in the sky.
He looked around.
The students, as if trapped in a blazing furnace, were frozen in place with only their hearts pounding unnaturally and violently.
It was as if their hearts had been pulled out and their bodies had turned to stone.
Could he bring them back?
“If this is just a curse…”
Maybe holiness could fix it.
Looking around, Simon decided to start with the one who looked the sturdiest—Hector.
He placed both hands on Hector’s body. It was so hot it felt like he’d get burned, but he grit his teeth and endured it.
“I can do anything.”
Muttering like a self-hypnosis, Simon opened his eyes wide.
<Cure>
Paaaaah!
A white flash erupted from Simon’s palm.
Cure, a white magic spell that removes curses and poisons. A dangerous spell for a necromancer, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“…Damn.”
But there was no change in Hector’s body.
If it were a simple curse, there would’ve been some reaction. But there was none.
‘This isn’t just a curse.’
Simon exhaled deeply and closed his eyes. With everyone’s lives on the line, it was hard to stay calm.
After a long moment of thought—
“Feer, Herseba. Come out.”
Simon summoned his main summons. From a massive subspace, Feer emerged, and from a smaller one, Herseba appeared.
[Kheheh! You sure about this, boy?]
Feer approached, cloak fluttering, resting the greatsword of destruction on his shoulder.
“It’s fine. The Observer and the recording artifacts have all been neutralized.”
Bzzzt! Crackle!
Simon’s artifact necklace had already been disabled the moment the Ring of Blood activated. Feer tore it off with his greatsword and dropped it to the ground.
“This isn’t the time to worry about exposing the Legion. It’s an emergency.”
[Got it!]
Simon donned Feer’s Bone Armor, then ran swiftly with Herseba beside him.
Thud! Thud!
Boosted by Feer’s strength, they leapt over the rocky mountains. Simon sank into thought as he moved.
‘Now that it’s come to this, the only option is to clear the dungeon as fast as possible!’
He picked up speed even more. Along the way, he saw a few students who had made it this far, but they were all transformed, glowing red.
“…Even Shatel.”
He saw a large statue-like figure—it was Shatel Maer, the giant-blooded hybrid.
If even someone that strong had been taken down, there was only one possible explanation.
Haematopoiesis Injection.
A curse that changes the blood. And Simon was the only one whose symptoms were delayed.
Considering that, it wasn’t hard to figure out who the culprit was. Simon’s jaw clenched.
[Boy! We’re here!]
“Yes.”
As they sprinted to the mountain’s peak, his vision caught sight of the only entrance, a narrow canyon leading inward.
[…Ugh! Horrible.]
Herseba trembled.
The monsters guarding the path to the dungeon master were all blood-soaked corpses strewn about.
Just imagining having to fight through that made him shudder, but things were likely even worse now.
Simon passed through the canyon of corpses without resistance, without spilling a drop of blood.
[There are traces of a broken barrier, boy!]
The path to the dungeon master’s chamber showed signs of a completely shattered barrier. Someone had destroyed the entire dungeon.
Simon confidently stepped over the shattered barrier and finally entered the dungeon master’s chamber.
A vast basin-like space, walled in by towering rocky cliffs.
And there, at the center—
“…Ah.”
The dungeon master.
A pure white, deer-like monster with thousands, tens of thousands of wriggling white tentacles, had a crimson spear pierced through its chest.
Someone had already taken out the dungeon master.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
And standing before the dungeon master.
A man.
With autumn-leaf-colored brown hair and intelligent eyes behind glasses—at the sight of him, fury flared in Simon’s gaze.
“Professor Walter…!”
“That name, I’ve discarded it.”
Walter took off his glasses and dropped them to the ground, then smiled darkly.
“Call me Professor Sillage.”
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters