Chapter 445
Zzzeeeerrrk!
Arthur’s sword split the Emitter in half.
“It worked! We did it, Simon!”
Arthur shouted with a radiant smile, but Simon’s expression hadn’t yet softened.
“Arthur.”
“Yes?”
“The Emitter is acting strange.”
Zzzech!
Crack!
As the Emitter split apart, unstable tremors shook the crimson core at its center, and a scarlet wave burst out.
‘!’
Simon felt as if every hair on his body stood on end. The wave was so powerful that even a human, not a Naga, could sense it.
Jijik! Jik!
The Emitter finally seemed to have exhausted its lifespan, the power shutting down completely as acrid smoke spewed out. The crimson core dimmed and shattered into fragments.
‘What’s going on?’
Simon quickly scanned the surroundings. With the Emitter gone, the Nagas should have lost their command system and fallen into confusion.
—Kyaak!
—Kererereruk!
Instead, they grew even more frenzied. Even the distant Nagas charged toward Simon and Arthur.
“H-how is this possible? We destroyed the Emitter!”
Arthur shouted while slashing down a Naga.
“I don’t know either!”
Simon kicked one away as he answered.
Perhaps the Emitter had some kind of device installed? He didn’t know the exact reason, but one thing was certain—when destroyed, it had released a wave so powerful even humans could feel it.
“Simon! What do we… huh-uhhp!”
Bwoooong!
Arthur ducked in terror. A massive scythe sliced through a few strands of his red hair.
It was the attack of the Chaos Reaper Simon had summoned.
“Wh-what the hell are you doing, Simon?!”
“Sorry! But it’s not like I wanted to!”
The Chaos Reaper, nearly depleted of the magic circle’s chaos residue, went berserk and began attacking allies.
Struggling to control the magic circle, Simon shouted,
“Just stay low like that!”
In this timing, it might actually work out.
Dodging the Reaper’s swings, Simon manipulated the Chaos magic circle engraved at his waist.
‘Release!’
The summoning of the Chaos Reaper was undone, its body dissolving, then transforming into hundreds of Chaos streams that shot up into the sky.
A wide-area chaos bombardment spell, using the Reaper as sacrifice.
<Simon’s Original – Chaos Barrage>
“Arthur! Let’s get out of here first!”
Simon grabbed Arthur by the scruff of his neck, leapt off the ground, and dashed away.
“Huh? Uwaaagh!”
Kukwakwakwakwakwak!
Purple slashes rained down across the area, bombarding madly. Nagas were torn apart by the strikes, while Arthur flailed in panic.
‘Internal Darkness Divergence!’
Droplets of Darkness dripped from Simon’s body. With his back turned to the bombarded battlefield, he calmly escaped.
* * *
At the same time, inside the Deimos Museum.
“Damn it, what now?”
Malcolm, who had cut the ropes with Blood Poison, was gazing outside the museum.
He had given Simon the Emitter’s location, so it was certain he’d gone and smashed it. But instead, an even stronger wave spread beyond Pharonna, reaching the sea.
“No way……”
“That ‘no way’ is correct, young master.”
Malcolm whirled around in shock. A man in a black suit bowed his head.
“…Did Father send you?”
“Yes.”
Cold sweat drenched the back of Malcolm’s neck.
This bastard… just how much had he seen?
“Father entrusted this mission to me alone.”
“Yes, that is correct. I am merely a monitor, uninvolved in the mission.”
The man raised his head to meet Malcolm’s eyes.
“And this particular Emitter was designed so that, the moment the barrier was damaged, the Core would sacrifice itself to unleash an ultra-wide wave.”
“…What?”
“Your weak resolve was something the Boss had already foreseen.”
Even the fact that Malcolm would leak information to a third party, that the Emitter would not be retrieved but destroyed, Margel had predicted it all.
“This is the final message the Boss gives you, young master.”
His eyes gleamed.
“If you wish to save your mother, don’t play tricks. Steal the item, and bring it back.”
Brrrk!
Malcolm bit his lip until it bled. His vein-bulging fists trembled.
“Then, I’ll expect you to complete your mission.”
Leaving only those words behind, the man vanished through the door.
‘Damn it!’
If he wanted, his father could have retrieved the item himself. The fact he deliberately left it to Malcolm proved one thing.
Margel was testing him.
‘Damn it!!’
Grinding his teeth, he lifted his head.
There lay the very skull of Deimos, the item Margel had ordered him to obtain.
* * *
The Pharonna Peninsula’s response was swift.
They had already prepared for an attack from the Randolph Gang, so the evacuation process worked flawlessly.
First, all residents and tourists were urgently evacuated into the walled territory-fortress. Though the walls and gates were old, necromancers employed by the Lord of Pharonna reinforced them with barriers.
But if all Nagas focused solely on the fortress, it would still be dangerous. So most necromancers went outside to fight monsters directly while carrying out rescue operations.
Considering the scale of the incident, the low number of casualties was nothing short of miraculous.
Meanwhile, inside the Lord’s Castle of Pharonna—
“We sincerely thank you, Keyzen students!”
A necromancer from Pharonna bowed deeply.
“Without you, a terrible disaster would have occurred.”
Maelyn and Kamibarez, now in Keyzen uniforms, accepted the thanks with smiles. The necromancer’s gaze fell on the red badges pinned to their shirt collars.
“Would you like to take command? You could directly lead Pharonna’s necromancers….”
Maelyn waved her hand.
“Oh, no, no! That won’t be necessary. Honestly, we didn’t even attend the Opening Ceremony, so we’re not fully second-years yet.”
Clenching her small fist, Kamibarez said,
“Instead, if there’s anything we can do to help, please tell us!”
“Would you really? Thank you so much! At the beach, our necromancers are holding back the Nagas, but the forces are greatly lacking. If you went, it would help immensely!”
Maelyn turned to Kamibarez.
“Kami, can you keep fighting?”
“Yes!”
“Then let’s go right away. Time to show what the Keyzen Student Council can do!”
Maelyn felt an intense pressure to resolve this crisis perfectly.
In a way, their luck was utterly rotten. Just as the new student council was about to begin, an incident like this broke out on a trip.
If the president and officers were present yet failed to suppress the disaster, campus opinion would turn sharply against them. In the worst case, Simon’s 330th-term student council could be dissolved before it even began.
‘I have to stop that!’
Maelyn’s eyes blazed with determination.
The student council was her precious chance to stay with Team 7 forever.
Of course, beyond that, she also wanted to flaunt herself standing beside Simon as Keyzen’s “Number Two” in front of Serne. Just imagining Serne’s expression thrilled her.
‘I won’t give up the vice president seat, no matter what!’
“Maelyn?”
Kamibarez tilted her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing at all! Let’s go!”
The beach, pointed out by the necromancer, was less than ten minutes from the fortress.
As the two left the fortress and walked, they happened to see two boys approaching.
“Maelyn! Kami!”
It was Simon and Arthur.
“Simon—!”
Kamibarez beamed brightly and waved her hand, Maelyn also smiled in relief.
“Hey! Why are you so late!”
“Sorry.”
Simon stopped, panting heavily. Kamibarez glanced at Arthur, who was standing next to Simon.
“Um, who is this?”
“I’m Arthur Bleman! I was also hired by the Pharonna side to fight!”
“They say he’s the Mercenary King.”
Simon added. The two girls’ eyes went wide.
“What a load of crap.”
Then only Maelyn’s eyes sharpened.
“The current Mercenary King is ‘Riothamus Bleman!’ Who are you to impersonate him? Suspicious!”
Arthur jumped in alarm.
“H-he’s my grandfather! I’m the Mercenary King now! Really! Please believe me!”
Unable to stand being wronged, his eyes welled up with tears again.
“Having fought together, he doesn’t seem like a bad person. Anyway, let’s talk about what happened.”
Simon explained everything from the beginning—meeting Malcolm, fighting him, and destroying the Emitter.
Listening, Maelyn angrily swept her hair back.
“Ugh! I’m so pissed! That Doppelganger bastard endangered my vice president seat, is that it?”
“Huh?”
“N-no, nothing! So Malcolm’s the mastermind behind all this?”
“Malcolm’s just a pawn. If you want the real culprit, it’s the Randolph Gang and their boss.”
Rustle.
Suddenly, the sound of grass being trampled came from behind. Arthur instantly reacted, gripping his sword, but two arms shot up from the bushes, a mischievous voice calling out.
“It’s a person! A person!”
The three of them brightened at once. Seeing their reaction, Arthur lowered his sword too.
“I thought I heard Simon’s voice. Turns out you were all here?”
It was Dick. His uniform was caked with dirt, evidence of fierce battle.
“Commoner! What took you so long?”
“I went around gathering information.”
Dick briefly reported on the current situation, and Simon also explained the Emitter to him.
“Alright, let me sum it up.”
Dick sat down and spread out a map of the Pharonna Peninsula. The four of them gathered around.
“This is the Pharonna Peninsula.”
Dick pointed at the part of the continent that jutted out. Three sides were ocean, the northern inland side blocked by a high mountain range.
“The Lord’s Castle is here.”
It was located at the southern tip of the peninsula. Below that was the sea, and further down was Pharonna Island.
“Originally, the Nagas attacked along the entire Pharonna coastline. But after the Emitter was destroyed, the situation changed.”
“How?”
“The southern Nagas, living on Pharonna Island and its waters, started moving up.”
Pharonna Island was a forbidden zone, crawling with monsters. But the wide-spread wave had riled up the Nagas living on the island and nearby shores.
“Now the Nagas’ invasion route is this.”
Dick drew an arrow rising from Pharonna Island up to the peninsula. The arrow landed on the beach, where necromancers were currently fighting.
“Just so you know, there’s a hell of a lot of them.”
Dick’s tone grew serious.
“I released an Observer to scout, and the whole sea is black with Nagas.”
The four of them stiffened.
Arthur especially clawed at his own hair in despair.
“M-maybe this is all because I destroyed the Emitter…!”
Dick shook his head.
“Sooner or later, the island Nagas would have attacked anyway, Mercenary King.”
“Then what do we do now?”
Kamibarez asked.
“The only good news is that the Nagas’ movement path is uniform.”
Dick emphasized the arrow with his quill.
“There are so many packed together, they’re clogging up. Normally they’d spread out or circle around, right? But it’s like they’ve gone insane, they only push forward.”
Simon spoke up.
“That strong wave from the Emitter must’ve done it. The movement order got engraved into their minds.”
“Ohhh.”
Dick nodded in immediate agreement.
“Exactly! That’s why the monsters turned brainless like undead.”
“Then there’s only one thing we need to do!”
Kamibarez pointed at the beach with her finger.
“Block them here!”
“Right, Kami.”
The Nagas usually stayed in the sea, and when they came out their skin color shifted as they adapted to land. This was the moment to strike, according to Kamibarez and Dick.
“But there are too many.”
Maelyn put her fists on her hips.
“You said the sea’s black with them, right? Even if we hold out, our Darkness will run out in 4–5 hours at most.”
“Hmmm……”
Enduring alone wouldn’t solve it. The Pharonna Peninsula was so remote that reinforcements would take a long time to arrive.
And they didn’t have the firepower to wipe out Nagas floating in the middle of the sea in one go.
The four racked their brains for solutions. Some suggested evacuating civilians with the lord into the mountains, but it wasn’t realistic.
Meanwhile, Simon, eyes closed, was imagining something in a completely different direction.
“Guys.”
Simon’s eyes opened.
“There is one way.”
“Hm?”
“Remember? Tomorrow the adult Deimos will be passing nearby with its sea creatures.”
“Of course, I thought of that too.”
Dick marked the sea route between the peninsula and the island with his quill.
“If Deimos passes here with its sea monsters, they’ll clash and fight each other, which benefits us. But Deimos won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon. It’s not coming early just for us.”
Arthur agreed.
“No matter what happens, by tomorrow afternoon the Nagas will already be on Pharonna’s land! Deimos passing then is meaningless!”
Everyone was pessimistic about this plan. But Simon’s eyes gleamed with sharp intelligence.
“But Deimos… doesn’t it have more than one Deimos?”
“?”
Simon suddenly stood up.
“Leave this to me! You guys focus on defending the shore.”
“Hey, Simon! Where are you going?”
In the middle of the strategy meeting, Simon suddenly bolted off somewhere. Maelyn started to rise, but—
“Let him go. Simon must have something in mind.”
Dick shrugged.
“Unless……”
Kamibarez hesitated.
“Simon does have that baby Deimos undead, right?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“What if… he makes his undead Deimos fight the adult Deimos that’s coming, to steal its army…?”
Now that she mentioned it.
According to what they’d heard in the museum, Deimos had the habit of fighting one another when they met in their territory, to steal troops.
Maelyn and Dick burst out laughing.
“Come on, Kami. That’s way too far-fetched.”
“Hahaha! Yeah, be serious. How could an undead possibly…”
Their gazes suddenly shot forward.
“Get back here, you crazy bastard!!”
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters