Chapter 511
The morning of the third day of the mission evaluation had dawned. With Nirti’s death, the war with the “Executioners” had finally come to an end.
Simon had seized control of the Gold Mine Dungeon and safely evacuated the people.
Although some members of the Executioners were captured for information, every single one of them had their internal devices triggered—their heads exploded and they died instantly. One of the entry conditions to the Executioners was having that very device implanted in their bodies.
What did they take human life for?
Seeing such extremes just to silence mouths, Simon’s disgust only deepened. He became even more curious about the existence Nirti had called the ‘Elder’.
Loraine contacted trustworthy people from the Keyzen headquarters, and once they arrived, the post-processing would begin.
Before headquarters could get there, Simon completely ransacked Nirti’s laboratory and seized all the classified documents. Of course, as always, they were written in a strange, indecipherable language. Simon let the Legion carry off half of the documents while giving the other half to Loraine and the headquarters side.
With their own intelligence capabilities alone, there was a limit. Keyzen HQ would also gather information to decipher the material. Once the secret of interpretation was solved, Loraine promised to inform Simon as well.
Afterward, the Gold Mine Dungeon was sealed shut.
It was a little regrettable, but it was also the site of a horrific event, and he didn’t want to reveal the existence of the 7th Legion to Keyzen. This was the right decision.
The next problem was the position of Tarados’ next ‘lord’. The people of Tarados recommended General Amin as their lord, and Loraine herself stepped forward, saying she would obtain the Dark Alliance’s approval.
But Amin shook his head.
“I am a sinner. Even if I secretly helped the people, the fact remains that I was manipulated as a lackey of the lord.”
At those words, Loraine coolly shook her head.
“If you truly think yourself a sinner, then doesn’t that mean you, more than anyone else, should take responsibility for this land of Tarados, which no one dares govern?”
She was right. Which noble from the Alliance would ever genuinely work for this place?
The collapse of Tarados had started because of an outsider lord who colluded with external forces.
“For the people of Tarados, to take the highest place, take responsibility, and throw yourself into it with all your might—that, I believe, is the greatest atonement.”
General Amin bowed deeply.
Persuaded by her words, Amin finally accepted the position of lord.
“Loraine.”
“What?”
“Just now, you really sounded like the leader of the Dark Alliance.”
“……Don’t tease me.”
Though she turned her head in embarrassment at Simon’s joke, a faint smile lingered on her lips.
As for the Ganes Guild, with Ganes’ death, the thieves completely fell apart and scattered. In the meantime, a bandit leader named “Karak”, who called himself part of the pro-Serne faction, and her followers caused an uproar.
“We will follow the Queen to the very ends of the continent!”
“Ooooooooh!”
At this, Serne raised her lips in a sly smile and said,
“You’re no longer needed, so beat it~”
Karak cried out as though heartbroken.
Abandoned like that, Karak’s faction seemed to be quitting banditry and starting work as free mercenaries.
And lastly, Simon wrote a letter.
“Loraine, is it possible to contact the Dresden Kingdom?”
“There’s no problem if you use headquarters’ communication network. Why?”
“There’s something urgent I need to deliver.”
* * *
“Huufff! Huff!”
The Dresden royal palace.
Duke Perutz, the Minister of General Affairs, was frantically packing his belongings in his office.
He grabbed stacks of documents and shoved them haphazardly into a bag, hurriedly throwing on his coat.
“Damn it! Damn it all!”
A new message had just arrived.
Keyzen had moved, Nirti had been defeated, and Tarados had been liberated.
And the one most closely tied to the Tarados branch was none other than himself. If any documents there pointing to him had fallen into Keyzen’s hands, his life was at risk.
‘That woman Nirti! Always so unstable, and now she’s finally gone and done it!’
There was a meeting in the palace in two hours, but he had to flee the country first.
He put on a hat and was about to leave his office when—
Bang!
The door was kicked open, and palace guards rushed in, spears pointed straight at Duke Perutz.
Perutz felt faint, but forced himself to stay composed and shouted.
“Wh-what is the meaning of this?! Who sent you?!”
“I did, Duke Perutz.”
A girl in a gray school uniform skirt swept into the room.
The moment he saw her, Perutz let out a strangled gasp.
“...P-princess Molly!”
It was Molly Dresden, the youngest princess of the kingdom, who had recently entered Keyzen as a special admission student.
“I was in the middle of my mission evaluation with the new friends I’d just made, but when I heard the news, I rushed back here.”
With genuine fury on her face, she brushed her hair back.
“I’ve heard everything from the Student Council President-senior. That a public official of the kingdom colluded with a group called the Executioners in Tarados, ignored the suffering of the people, and used your authority to block all information from entering the kingdom?”
Duke Perutz shook his head frantically, his lips trembling.
“T-this is a conspiracy! It’s nothing but slander from opposing nobles who want to eliminate me!”
Molly coldly smiled and waved evidence before his eyes.
“You burned all the documents from Tarados. But some survived in the incinerator at your home before they were completely destroyed. To ignore the voices of the people like this!”
“Y-you...!”
As the Duke trembled, he suddenly spun around, trying to hurl himself out the window. But Molly swiftly raised her index finger.
A secret technique she had secretly learned from a school senior.
<Leg Down>
The curse struck his legs as he dashed toward the window, making him lose his balance and crash to the floor.
The guards rushed in, pinning him with their knees and binding his hands.
“......Ohhh.”
The necromancer who had come with Molly let out a murmur of admiration and canceled the binding spell he had been preparing.
“R-remarkable, Princess! You’re truly beginning to show the form of a proper Keyzen student.”
“Silence.”
“Y-yes!”
Without even joy at succeeding in her first real combat curse, Molly glared at the captured Duke with blazing eyes.
“All the image Dresden has built up! And you dared to ruin it like this!”
She was ashamed.
Such a horrific thing had been happening within the kingdom’s territory, yet she had known nothing of it.
And worse still, it was Simon Follentia, the Student Council President she so desperately wanted to recruit, who had exposed the kingdom’s failings and saved the people.
‘What if Senior Simon thinks badly of our Dresden?’
The thought dried her lips.
As the Duke thrashed and screamed his innocence even while being dragged away, she burst out furiously,
“You won’t die peacefully! Duke Perutz!”
* * *
With the revelation that Duke Perutz, Minister of General Affairs, had conspired with the Executioners, a storm of blood swept through the Dresden palace.
Though the kingdom had planned to interrogate him, he too met his end when his head exploded.
Then the kingdom’s elite Dark Knights pieced together the servants’ testimonies of his movements and descended into the palace’s underground.
The sewers beneath the royal palace. The deepest part of them.
“Ugh!”
“Ugh!”
The stench of rotting corpses wafted through the air.
All kinds of monsters lay strewn about, reduced to mere bones, and the Dark Knights discovered traces of a Teleportation Magic Circle.
Something dreadful had been lurking in the sewers, feasting on monsters.
But before the Dark Knights arrived, the Executioners had surely already moved that horror away using the magic circle.
The kingdom did not take this lightly. To root out the Executioners, they decided to cooperate with Keyzen and dispatch necromancers across the nation.
Meanwhile, Simon, after taking sufficient rest in the village of Tarados, decided to return to Keyzen early.
Loraine remained behind to oversee Tarados’ post-process, while Serne headed for the Ivory Tower, saying she was going home.
“Truly, thank you for saving Tarados.”
“Really, thank you, Simon-brother.”
As Simon prepared to ride the teleportation circle back to Keyzen, he received words of gratitude from Lisa, her brother, the carriage driver who had taken them around, and the people he had saved. General Amin even canceled his lordship inauguration ceremony to come running just to see Simon.
“You don’t need to bow so deeply.”
Simon waved with a smiling face.
“I only came to Tarados for my own purposes. Our interests just happened to align.”
“Hah! Such humility!”
“You saved hundreds of thousands of Tarados’ residents!”
“We will never forget it!”
The townsfolk were already preparing to build a statue of Simon in Tarados. His face burning red, Simon sweated bullets as he begged them not to.
“And General Amin… no, Lord Amin.”
“Yes, please speak.”
“Nirti was a monster born of Tarados’ resentment.”
“...Yes, I heard. They say she was the daughter of adventurers killed by villagers while raiding the Gold Mine Dungeon.”
General Amin had not experienced the Gold Mine Dungeon incident firsthand. He was an outsider who had been assigned here after a new lord had taken over.
But now, as the new lord, he said he bore responsibility for what had happened.
“This time I realized… horrible misfortunes can turn people into monsters. There’s no guarantee another Nirti won’t appear again in Tarados.”
Simon extended his hand.
“Please, may there never again be anyone who suffers unjustly or irrationally. I entrust the fief to you.”
General Amin clasped Simon’s hand and bowed his head.
“That noble will, I will uphold with my very life and soul!”
* * *
Simon returned safely to Keyzen.
After releasing the Ancient Undeads into Feer’s ruins, he went straight to the dormitory of the Summonology Department and dove onto his bed.
‘Haaaah.’
He stared blankly up at the ceiling.
He wasn’t sleepy, but the mission evaluation had been so intense that he felt dazed.
“Toto’s not back yet.”
This was a four day mission evaluation. Today was the third.
Which meant tomorrow was still free time. Simon trembled his arms with glee.
“Today I’ll rest properly, and starting tomorrow…”
Bzzz—chhhk
A broadcast echoed down the hallway.
—Student Council President Simon Follentia. Student Council President Simon Follentia. Please report immediately to Professor Jane’s research office. That is all.
So it seemed there was no such thing as leisure time for a student council president.
Simon fetched his student council coat from the council room, put it on, and arrived at Jane’s research office.
He cleared his throat lightly, checked his tie and shirt, then politely knocked on the door.
“Professor Jane. It’s Simon.”
“Come in.”
Click.
Simon carefully opened the door and stepped inside. Bathed in bright sunlight, Jane sat frowning, scratching her quill across papers.
As always, she was wrestling with a mountain of documents.
“Professor, did you call for me?”
“Yes.”
Jane gestured.
“Sit down.”
“Ah, understood.”
Simon sat on the sofa, back straight, fists resting neatly on his knees, quietly waiting.
Silence. Only the scratch of the quill could be heard.
For some reason, tension crept up his spine.
‘...What did she call me for?’
Perhaps she wanted to hear a direct report on the Tarados incident.
Simon ran through everything in his head again—what parts he could speak of, and what parts he could not. Making sure nothing contradicted or overlapped.
Jane, of all people, would see through a flimsy lie in an instant.
About ten minutes passed in that silence.
At last, Jane signed the final document, set down her quill, and lifted her head.
“Student Council President.”
Simon stiffened.
She hadn’t called his name, but his title. Which meant this was likely not about class, but an official matter.
“Yes, Professor!”
“I considered taking another student, but it’s fortunate you returned early. Prepare to go out.”
Jane rose from her seat and put on her coat.
“There’s somewhere we must go together.”
“Wh-where?”
She tilted her head slightly and replied,
“To escort this year’s transfer students to Keyzen.”
Simon’s eyes widened.
‘Transfer students?’
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters