Chapter 483
The notorious course registration season of Keyzen had begun.
Four hundred students scattered across the campus like grains of sand, sprinting in every direction. Everyone started from the same point, but most of them wouldn’t be able to arrange their timetables the way they had originally planned.
Simon was just as desperate.
“The fiercest competition will be for Professor Jane’s Darkness Dynamics. I need to run to Professor Bahil’s as fast as possible and then come back.”
At that moment, Simon’s head snapped upward.
From the sky, a massive butcher’s knife was plummeting straight down.
Kukwooom—!
Sand fragments exploded as it struck. Simon twisted his body in midair to dodge, then landed on the ground.
“Again?!”
A monster, its whole body gleaming with a gray sheen, growled menacingly.
Simon swiftly raised his hand. Bone fragments burst out from his subspace, floating into the air and snapping together with precision, forming the shape of a spear.
<Bone Spear>
The Bone Spear shot forward like lightning in the direction Simon pointed, piercing straight into the monster’s chest.
Taang!
But it bounced off harmlessly.
“What the…?”
It hadn’t been like this before. Initially, only fairly ordinary monsters of roughly danger level 3 had been lurking around the 2nd-year campus. Attacks had worked on them just fine.
But the closer he got to the Katarology building, the more gray monsters appeared and none of his attacks seemed to affect them.
“Damn it!”
Simon leapt just in time. A beast-shaped gray monster raked its claws across the wall where Simon had been.
<Bone Armor – Gauntlet Mode>
The Bone Spear that had been returning to him disassembled and wrapped around Simon’s right arm like a gauntlet. With it, he swung hard at the monster’s skull.
“?!”
His fist passed through the monster’s body like a ghost. In return, he was slammed by a vicious kick.
[Barrier Gauge: 91%]
Clicking his tongue, Simon retreated.
His blows couldn’t hurt them, but they could still strike his suit. If the barrier gauge hit 0%, he’d be forced into a mandatory 30-minute rest.
Simon had no choice but to stop fighting and run.
[Kehhahaha! Struggling, aren’t you, boy?]
An all-too-familiar voice echoed.
Simon glanced down at the skull-shaped badge pinned to his uniform. Its eyes flickered with a dark blue glow.
‘Feer!’
Relief washed over his face.
‘It’s been a while since you’ve come out to watch!’
[Indeed. I’ve been busy trying to find a way to restore broken ‘Kal’… But more importantly—]
The badge’s eyes swiveled.
[I recognize this trial!]
Simon skidded to a stop just as a gray monster’s giant arm smashed into the ground where he’d been standing.
[Think about the place, boy!]
Dodging attacks, Simon muttered under his breath.
‘The place?’
[Exactly! Richard figured it out in twenty minutes.]
Simon’s brows sank in annoyance.
‘Why are you comparing me to my father again?’
[Kwahahaha!]
Destroying the monsters wasn’t his top priority anyway. Reaching Bahil’s laboratory was. Avoidance was the best option.
‘Good thing I used to look down at the campus from the student council office.’
Luckily, the student council hall stood in the center of the 2nd-year campus. He’d often admired the view while working there, so the layout of the campus was perfectly etched in his mind.
‘And the route Dick taught me!’
Simon ducked under a gray monster’s swipe and darted into a narrow alley between buildings. Behind him, two monsters collided as they tried to follow.
‘I can do this!’
He shot out of the alley into open space.
Flash!
A card lying on the ground flared with light. Simon’s eyes widened.
‘Endolas Vaudeville’s card!’
The card’s radiance wrapped around him. In moments, beams of light formed a circular barrier like a dueling ring.
He was trapped. This was the card-world he’d seen during the Black Magic Aptitude Test.
A gray monster emerged in front of him—the same kind from the campus. It walked on two legs, with an unnaturally muscular upper body, and its arms ended in blades.
‘I’ll have to defeat this thing to escape.’
The creature charged, swinging its bladed arm in a vicious downward arc.
Whoosh!
Simon feigned a guard, then sidestepped at the last second.
Its blade barely missed, and Simon clenched fist shimmered with Darkness.
<Hongpeng’s Original – Chwita>
Bwoooong!
But once again, his Magical Combat had no effect. His fist passed straight through the monster’s body.
‘Calm down. Don’t just fight—analyze the situation.’
Simon narrowed his eyes.
‘This isn’t reality. The barrier, the monsters—everything’s fabricated for course registration season. What’s the examiner’s intent?’
The examiner’s intent. That thought struck him like lightning. He was on his way to Bahil, and this was near the Katarology building.
Simon raised his finger toward the monster.
<Exhaust>
The curse of fatigue shot from his fingertip, striking the monster dead on. Unlike before—where it shrugged off every attack—this time the curse worked.
‘Just as I thought.’
This wasn’t mere registration. These monsters, conjured by Endolas Vaudeville, were a test—meant to judge whether students were truly qualified to attend this class.
To take Katarology, one had to prove themselves by conquering the trial with curses.
Thoom!
Simon kicked off the ground, narrowly avoiding another strike. Even with Exhaust cast, the monster hadn’t slowed down at all.
‘So that’s not the right curse. I need the most effective curse to target its weakness!’
His gaze shifted to the monster’s spindly legs. The corners of his lips curved upward as he drew a magic circle with his right hand.
—Humans, standing on only two legs and walking upright, are creatures of unstable balance. Simply knocking them down renders most of their actions impossible.
Back in the early freshman days, during the first duel evaluations, there had been one curse that students used constantly.
A technique Professor Bahil himself had crafted for frightened first-years, designed to trip an opponent by targeting only a localized part of the body, usually the feet.
<Leg Down>
Simon’s curse shot like an arrow toward the monster’s legs. The curse rippled across them, and the monster, unaware, reached forward to seize him.
Thud!
Like a falling tree, it toppled headfirst to the ground.
‘The problem is the monster; the solution is the curse.’
And when Simon used the correct curse, at last the fallen creature’s nape shimmered with a green-marked weak point. Instantly, Simon hurled his Bone Spear.
Puuuk!
Perfect penetration.
The monster’s body shattered like glass fragments, and the barrier enclosing Simon vanished.
[Khuhuhuhu! Exactly the same timing as Richard. Well done, boy!]
Simon exhaled a light sigh and smiled faintly.
‘If I’d timed it, I’d probably have been just a little faster than my father.’
* * *
The rules of Keyzen’s course registration changed and were renewed every year.
This time, as Simon had discerned, each subject’s trial could only be cleared by using the techniques and knowledge of that very subject, to break through monsters and traps.
“Decipher this, quick!”
“Look out!”
Those heading for Toxicology had to traverse an area swarming with venomous monsters. To pass, they had to fight back with opposing toxins, or detoxify themselves while trudging across poison swamps.
If a card trap activated, the mission was even more explicit: within the card-world, a victim lay collapsed, poisoned. Only by diagnosing and detoxifying them could students escape the barrier.
Around the Spiritology building lurked monsters vulnerable only to spirit techniques. Near Haematology, monsters existed that could only be brought down through bleeding effects.
Students clicked their tongues at the unexpectedly high difficulty.
“Ughhh, damn it, Keyzen’s 2nd-year is brutal right from the start!”
Maelyn swung her arms, conjuring waves of Darkness fire, melting giant glacier monsters in a torrent of flames. But then, another monster appeared—its entire body made of water—completely unfazed.
“Idiot commoner!”
“Leave it to me!”
Dick slammed a button. A pre-set Darkness trap flared, electrifying the ground with high voltage. The watery monster spasmed and collapsed, liquefied into a puddle.
“We did it!”
Kamibarez cried out, having blasted the advance group of monsters away with her Darkness wind spells.
The barrier lifted, revealing the campus again.
“Damn, this is way tougher than the intel I had. Teamwork’s basically mandatory.”
Dick wiped sweat from his forehead. Maelyn turned her head, looking at the buildings behind them.
“Do you think Simon’s okay?”
“Worried about him?”
Dick teased, smirking. Her face flushed bright red.
“H-he’s my friend! Of course I’d be worried! And why do you have to make it sound so dirty?”
“What? It was just an innocent question. You’re the one— Ow! Owowow! Don’t pull my hair!”
“This isn’t the time to fight!”
Kamibarez jumped between them, breaking it up.
“And if it’s Simon, he’ll be fine! He’s skilled with curses, and with a Skeleton Mage backing him up, he can easily handle the Darkness Dynamics mission that requires counter-elemental magic.”
Dick scratched his head.
“About that route to the Katarology building I told him…”
“Yes?”
“It’s the fastest route, sure. But logically, wouldn’t it also be the one full of traps?”
“……”
The two girls’ expressions stiffened slightly, but Kamibarez quickly smiled, regaining composure.
“I still believe he can do it.”
“Ooooh, that’s some strong faith. Why’s that?”
She beamed brightly.
“Because Simon’s the Student Council President of Keyzen!”
* * *
Huff! Huff!
Simon was panting hard as he ran.
‘This test isn’t about who gets there first!’
The difficulty was higher than expected. It was obvious the other 2nd-years were struggling as well. Perhaps taking it slow wasn’t such a bad idea,nso long as his barrier gauge didn’t hit 0% and force a thirty-minute lockout.
At the moment, Simon was trapped inside his second card trial.
A dueling-ring-like barrier encircled him, and three gray monsters were advancing.
Kiiieeeeeee!
One shrieked hideously. Each cry rattled his skull with vibrations.
‘Good thing I kept my freshman-year Katarology textbook with me.’
Holding the textbook in his left hand, Simon hastily sketched a magic circle with his right. He’d momentarily blanked on the formula—so he was reviewing on the fly.
‘This is it!’
At last, he finished and raised his finger.
<Silence>
The silence curse drifted out like smoke, striking the shrieking monster. Its throat closed—no sound emerged.
‘That’s better!’
Simon quickly finished it off with a Bone Spear once its weakness was revealed.
Oddly enough, he found it useful to revisit the curses he’d learned as a freshman. Cruel as it was, Keyzen really was the finest educational institution.
‘Next.’
He looked up. A flying monster swooped, spitting flames. Its wings were large, but what stood out most were its human-like, oversized ears.
‘For a type like that, this curse works perfectly.’
As Simon prepared another spell—
—Ingenious! Excellent!
A man’s voice suddenly echoed in his head.
—Because you hadn’t pre-learned! Because your mind wasn’t shackled by formulas and equations, you could think with the blankness of a white canvas! Such originality is only possible then!
—Thinking that motion-sickness curses must always use vibration formulas, now that’s the brain rotting in stereotypes! You’ve done splendidly. This is how curse equations ought to unfold!
Simon remembered. During Katarology class, when Hector’s faction mocked Special Admission No.1 for not even knowing vibration formulas, Bahil had defended him with those very words.
‘…It all comes back to me.’
Simon lifted his finger.
<Sickness>
The motion-sickness curse struck the monster.
The effect was devastating. It staggered mid-flight, spiraled down, and crashed into the ground, shattering to pieces.
‘So the correct curse here was Sickness. Which means only one’s left.’
The toughest one.
An undead-type. It gnawed at its own body, writhing in agony, yet growing stronger the more flesh it devoured.
Exhaust and other weakening curses had no effect.
‘What curse… would work on this thing…?’
—Simon Follentia. A curse set developed just for you.
Another memory scene unfolded in his mind.
—You’ll find it in no book. It’s unique. A set of curses crafted solely for you.
—When a teacher finds a gifted student, he wants to teach them. Let’s call it the bond of master and disciple. As long as you’re a student, learning is your duty. So accept it as such.
Biting his lip, Simon completed a new curse.
One of the Four Great Curses Bahil had prepared for him while teaching Compellonia.
The first of them.
<Indolence>
The curse of numbness struck the monster.
Moments ago, it had alternated between tearing at its flesh, attacking Simon, then tearing more—but the instant Indolence took hold, it dropped its weapon and began ripping at its own body madly.
Finally, it devoured its own heart—annihilating itself.
Shhhhh—
The barrier dissipated, and the familiar campus returned.
“Haah…”
Simon exhaled, uneasy, and lifted his gaze.
Before him now stood the Katarology building—and within it, Bahil.
‘…When I see him, what am I supposed to say?’
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters