Chapter 555
The next morning.
The first class was Katarology. Simon went to school nervously, worried that strange rumors might be spreading, but the atmosphere in the lecture hall was no different than usual.
His friends greeted him as they always did when passing by.
‘Thank goodness. Maybe they didn’t spread it around?’
Simon allowed himself a moment of optimism. But in reality, those girls had been unable to keep their itching mouths shut and had already spread the rumor far and wide.
The content of the rumor went like this:
The Student Council President Simon and overall 4th-ranker Merida were seen at night in the main building, spreading out a blanket and entangled with each other doing something indecent.
Normally, rumors spread only when they were somewhat believable and sounded plausible. This one, however, felt more provocative than credible, leaving most with the impression that it was ridiculous.
Considering Simon and Merida’s usual conduct, and above all, the notion of laying down a blanket in the heavily trafficked main building to do something indecent—it simply didn’t hold water.
Had the place been an empty classroom, the rumor might have spread more widely.
Even gossip-loving students quickly lost interest; anyone who brought it up was treated like an idiot. Only the two girls who had actually witnessed it were left frustrated to the point of madness.
Of course—
“Y-you filthy pervert freak!!”
There were still some who believed it.
Maelyn, who was taking the same class, suddenly grabbed Simon by the wrist, dragged him outside, and pummeled his face with a cushion.
“M-Maelyn! Wait—mmpf!”
“H-how! How could the so-called Student Council President, who should be a role model for students, do something so shameless with a girl at school—!”
Her face was bright red as she flailed about with the cushion. Simon grabbed it and asked:
“Hold on. What exactly did you hear I supposedly did?”
He was curious to know the exact content of the rumor. But at his question, Maelyn’s face flushed tomato-red.
She stammered “Th-th-that is…” while backing away, and then, reaching her limit of embarrassment, screamed:
“Why would you make me say it, you pervert?!”
“……Simon.”
Next to her, Kamibarez looked pale and wrung her hands.
“I’m… shocked. You became an adult before us……”
“I said it’s not true, Kami! Why are you saying that too?”
Kuhuhu.
Laughter came from the side. Simon turned and saw Dick covering his mouth, clearly amused.
“It’s you, isn’t it, Dick.”
Even a ridiculous rumor could sound convincing once Dick got hold of it.
“Ah~ I just happened to hear a funny story and only shared it with Student Council members. Now the explanation’s gotta come from you, right?”
“……Fine.”
Simon explained what had really happened.
“Merida cast Sleep on you?”
“So that’s why you ended up in that tangled position!”
“……Don’t say ‘tangled’, Kami. It sounds wrong.”
Simon awkwardly scratched his cheek and turned to Dick.
“Do me a favor.”
He meant: spread the clarification. Dick hopped down from the window ledge, shrugging.
“No need. The rumor’s already dying out on its own. No point scratching at a scab—better to just let it fade.”
“I hope so.”
“Heheh. Still, for a month or two you’ll probably keep getting teased about you and Merida.”
Dick poked Simon’s arm.
“If it were true, you’d be the hero of men. Simon the man’s man!”
“……Just shut up.”
Simon glanced nervously around, worried someone might overhear.
Maelyn, still clutching her cushion, spoke anxiously.
“But Simon, why did you suddenly get paired with Merida?”
“She was assigned as my dispatch partner this time.”
“Oh?”
Dick suddenly jumped in.
“Wow! Then maybe on the dispatch trip, that rumor will become reality…!”
Smack!
Maelyn smacked him on the back of the head with her cushion, sending him sprawling. Kamibarez said:
“Still, I’m glad it’s finally decided, Simon! Where’s the dispatch to?”
“Ah, that’s…”
Simon scratched the side of his head and glanced at Maelyn.
“The Ivory Tower.”
“Wh-what?”
Maelyn looked completely surprised. Simon explained what had happened.
“……The Festival of Time. Right, it’s about to begin.”
“You know about it?”
“Of course I do, I’m from the Ivory Tower! I’ve even been inside a few times.”
From her explanation, it didn’t sound like an especially dangerous place.
Of course, Maelyn had still been young then, and hadn’t opened her Core yet, so she’d only explored the lower floors where danger was minimal. As for the upper floors, she admitted she couldn’t say.
“A place where the time of the continent flows… it sounds wonderful! I’d love to visit one day!”
Kamibarez flapped her wings eagerly.
“Not fair! Some people get sent to a desert, while others go to a festival? That’s just blatant discrimination.”
Dick grumbled.
While they were chatting, Simon glanced sideways at Maelyn.
—From this point on, it will be a secret mission entrusted only to the Student Council President.
It was top-secret. He couldn’t reveal it even to his friend from the Ivory Tower.
This wasn’t just an ordinary dispatch.
Keyzen Headquarters had given Simon, as Student Council President, a special mission: retrieve information and data from within the Tower of Time.
In short, he was to play the role of a spy.
At that moment, Simon had made one thing clear.
—I understand I can’t refuse this mission, but I have no desire to get dragged into the power struggle between Keyzen and the Ivory Tower.
—Ah, I see how you could misunderstand.
The headquarters official had answered seriously.
—It’s top secret, so I can’t tell you details. But know this: this concerns the peace of the entire continent.
—What?!
—The Master of the Ivory Tower is plotting something.
Simon recalled that conversation.
Maelyn seemed truly unaware. She knew about the Festival of Time, but had no idea Simon was being dispatched to the Ivory Tower.
But there was someone who would know.
—Something fun is going to happen soon.
Serne Eindark.
She was the official successor of the Ivory Tower, belonging to the faction hostile to Keyzen.
And above all, the Tower Master was her foster father.
‘Hmph. I really hope I haven’t gotten caught up in something troublesome…’
Simon pressed his temples. More than anything, he just wanted to return safely and learn Dullahan.
* * *
The day of dispatch, evening.
Simon left the dormitory in a tuxedo with a bow tie.
For the first time in a while, he had dressed to the nines. His bangs were slicked back to expose his forehead neatly, and he tried on the new dress shoes he’d just bought.
[Khhuhuhu! This Ivory Tower trip shall be entertaining!]
‘I’m counting on you, Feer.’
To be safe, he decided to take Ancient Undeads along again for this external mission.
Through subspace, he brought Feer, Herseba, and Akemius.
Currently, Erzebet was trailing ‘White’ under Simon’s orders. If necessary, he could summon her using Herseba’s ability.
The beast of plague, Kal, was fused into Feer’s sword, and the Prince could be summoned as long as there were zombies. If need be, the entire 7th Legion could move.
Having finished preparations, Simon stepped into Keyzen’s teleportation magic circle.
He crossed space and arrived.
“Ah.”
Above him stretched a star-filled night sky.
When he lowered his head, dazzling lights stung his eyes.
Simon found himself in the middle of a great city.
Towering spires reached competitively toward the heavens, and the noise of the crowd was deafening.
Simon stood in awe.
‘So the Ivory Tower was this bustling?’
For ordinary continent-dwellers, the phrase Ivory Tower conjured the image of a solitary tower standing alone on an empty plain, inhabited by reclusive eccentrics who did nothing but bury themselves in research.
But in truth, the tower’s technology spread outward as well, naturally forming an enormous metropolitan sphere.
Bwoooooo!
There was even a train right in the middle of the city.
‘Amazing! A train, and this isn’t even the Holy Federation!’
Even in this age of necromancers, daily necessities used by ordinary people were still mostly powered by mana.
Mana stones, mana screens, communication crystals, memorial crystals, mana lamps, mana stoves, and so on.
Of course, Darkness-based tools performed better, but without a means of production surpassing a necromancer’s Core, their fatal flaw was the high price.
Mana-based products, on the other hand, could be mass-produced and were affordable.
The Ivory Tower must have amassed colossal wealth through such mana technology.
‘Impressive.’
A city of advanced technology and wealth that surpassed even Langerstine.
That was Simon’s first impression of the Ivory Tower. Even the architecture, and the people walking the streets, were different—their clothing alone marked them as wealthy.
Enjoying the new environment, Simon opened his map under the glittering lights.
‘It’ll take a while to walk to my destination.’
Since he was here anyway, he decided to take the train.
Not just any train, but a special sightseeing train that only ran during the Festival of Time. Though the ticket price was a steep 500 silver, he boarded.
‘Oh.’
The train glided slowly forward, one side of the car nearly all glass, offering a wide-open view of the city’s nightscape.
“Welcome, tourists, to the Ivory Tower!”
Each car had a guide, explaining details about the city.
“For over two thousand years, the Ivory Tower has served as a pioneer leading humanity……”
As Simon listened, he looked over the photographs and paintings displayed along the train wall.
Most of them praised the Ivory Tower’s long history. Some showed the tower rising proudly from jungles, deserts, and glaciers.
‘So the Ivory Tower was in all those places too? Did it move locations frequently back in the day?’
One picture in particular caught his eye. It showed a naked, ape-like proto-human with an arm around a robed wizard holding a staff. Both grinned and flashed a V-sign.
‘That’s just too much of a lie!’
Leaving aside whether an ape and a mage would ever pose for a friendship photo, there hadn’t even been magical cameras in that era.
“This photo—weren’t there no magical cameras back then?”
A tourist voiced the exact thought Simon had. But the guide, unflustered, replied solemnly:
“In the ancient continent there existed a legendary magical system known as the Arcane Civilization. Its mysterious technologies remain beyond analysis even today……”
Whenever something seemed suspicious, the guides invoked Arcane Civilization.
It was a kind of cheat code.
Still, after browsing all these materials, Simon thought maybe the Arcane Civilization really had existed.
‘That would explain why the Ivory Tower once researched reversing time itself…’
After sightseeing and enjoying himself, Simon arrived at his destination.
‘Honestly, walking would’ve been faster.’
Because the sightseeing train circled slowly around, it took quite a while.
Simon spread out his map again.
Looking over the whole city, two towering spires dominated the skyline.
On the left stood the smaller white tower—the present headquarters of the Ivory Tower.
On the right loomed the larger, taller, weathered gray tower. Once the Ivory Tower’s old headquarters, it was now called the Old Tower or Tower of Time.
‘There it is.’
Of the tower’s two-thousand-year history, it had served as the headquarters for seventeen hundred of them.
The Tower of Time now rose before his eyes.
Woooooooom!
A strange aura swirled around its summit. Golden bands, reminiscent of Neftis’ divine ability, wrapped around the tower’s body before fading away.
What on earth was going to happen here?
Simon walked forward with a tingling sense of anticipation.
“Make way, make way!”
Carriages rattled to a stop in front of the Tower of Time. Gentlemen and noble ladies descended in turn.
“Count Calbrain and his wife, confirmed.”
At the entrance, a butler checked the arriving guests, and behind him stood armored soldiers—the security was airtight.
‘……Well, I made it safely at least.’
But his partner, Merida, was nowhere in sight.
Simon had thought they would depart together from Keyzen, but Merida insisted on using another route. She had promised to arrive exactly on time, but not even a shadow of her was to be seen.
Growing anxious, Simon scanned his surroundings.
‘!’
In the dark of night, beneath the soft glow of a streetlamp, he spotted a girl sitting on a bench.
Clad in an off-shoulder black dress, the face was one Simon knew well.
‘Merida?’
She sat there, nodding off in a doze.
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters