Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner

Simon heard the whole story from Pier.

Simon went unconscious as he received the attack flying towards Elizabeth instead of her, and Pier and Elizabeth formed a temporary alliance to face a common enemy, working together to capture the Priest. According to Pier, it was a very boring battle.

“Let her down first.”

Simon decided to listen to her story first.

Before dying from suffocation by the smoke from the bonfire, the priest came down from the ceiling and knelt, tied in a cobweb.

“Thank you! Thank you! Uhuhuhuhuh! I was so scared!”

Melting in tears, she looked as young as expected. She clearly looked like she was Simon’s age, or a year or two older.

“I don’t think it’s time to say thank you yet. Answer the questions that I’ll be asking from now on.”

“Yes! Sniffle!”

“Are you a student of Efnel?”

It was quite an important question. Kizen and Efnel were on an armistice, but they were definitely in a hostile relationship, and Simon letting her go could be a problem.

But she frantically shook her head and denied it.

“D-Definitely not!”

[Kuhehe! You’re lying from the first question.]

Pier grinned and pointed his greatsword at her. The priest’s face turned pale.

“I’m telling the truth! Please trust me!”

[Stand.]

She jumped to her feet, terrified. Pier cut off her robe from bottom to top with his greatsword.

White legs were exposed through the cut robes, and a pure white skirt was visible. As it went to the top, you could see an outfit anyone would know.

Efnel’s school uniform made with Holy Shroud, said to surpass that of Kizen’s, armed with advanced defenses against dark magic.

Even the pattern of Efnel attached to the school uniform was exactly the same.

[Sly priests always lie through their teeth anyway.]

Elizabeth placed her hand on the priest’s shoulder and moved her tongue. 

“Hiek!”

The priest shut her eyes tight.

[There’s no need to listen anymore. Let’s kill her right now and continue our talk.]

“Trust me! The truth is, I-I……!”

She blushed and lowered her head. She then gently bit her lip and opened her mouth carefully.

“I was expelled from Efnel two years ago.”

‘……Hm?’

So she wasn’t a second-year? Simon blinked at her unexpected answer.

Pier and Elizabeth looked uninterested, but Simon had a reaction. She looked at Simon with desperate eyes.

“Please trust me! I was indeed in Efnel for a while! However, I’m just a mediocre commoner like anyone else and couldn’t hold out in their 1st year, getting kicked out! Killing someone like me won’t bring any benefit to Kizen!

“Then why are you still wearing the uniform of Efnel? I’m sure they retrieve it when someone gets expelled.”

Her face turned even redder.

“……I-I impersonated. Them.”

“Impersonated?”

“Yes. Times were really tough back then, and I also couldn't accept the fact that I was kicked out of Efnel…… So I forged a fake student ID and school uniform, took missions, and made money as an Efnel student! That’s it!”

Her expression contorted with shame and sorrow.

“But I couldn’t find any mission with rumors spreading in the Holy Federation…… so I took missions in the dangerous Dark Alliance……”

[Are you telling us to believe such an obvious lie?]

Elizabeth smirked at her and grabbed the hem of her top.

Elizabeth ripped her clothes as the girl looked up with a puzzled face.

Riiiip!

“Kyaaaaaah!”

She screamed and shrank back in surprise. Elizabeth frowned as she looked at the torn pieces of clothing in her hand.

[……It’s really nothing but fabric?]

The girl sobbed and lowered her head more.

“Don’t be too harsh on her.”

Simon got up from his seat and moved toward her.

She shrank even more, turning her body away so that the torn part couldn’t be seen.

Rustle.

Simon took off the robe he was wearing and covered her body.

“Are you okay? Cover yourself with this.”

“Ah…… Thank you!”

The priest’s eyes welled up with tears.

And…

[……]

Elizabeth, who was watching that, immediately felt a mixture of complex emotions.

“I’ll ask you again.”

Simon returned to his seat at a leisurely pace and sat down.

“First of all… Hm. What’s your name?”

It was a very kind tone.

She answered, quickly sitting on her knees, facing Simon.

“I-It’s Ellen Zile!”

“How did you get this mission?”

“Through a middleman that goes in and out of the border…… I was told that there was a high-paying job eliminating undead in the Dark Alliance.”

Not a word of Simon’s interrogation could enter Elizabeth’s head.

“Have you seen the Lord of Arnish?”

“Ah, yes! I heard the details of the mission from him.”

“Do you have any evidence to prove that you received the mission from the Lord? Like documents or down payments.”

Everything… was very annoying.

Simon treating the priest kindly.

The priest looking at Simon with interest and talking.

‘……’

Purple petals were fluttering. 

Elizabeth felt something overlapping between the two of them talking.

The memory was still clear. The image of man and woman whispering their love to each other in a field full of violets.

The man she once loved more than anyone, Richard Polentia.

The woman who stole such a man from her, Anna Cross.

It was like this at that time too. Elizabeth, who followed after Richard on a hunch, hid in the grass and witnessed the two of them hugging each other.

She saw the necromancer and the priest kissing each other.

* * *

* * *

[……]

I thought I had forgotten it already.

This feeling… This terrible thing called feeling was once again forming an eternal nightmare in her heart.

“Okay, this should do.”

Simon obtained the documents provided by the middleman, the down payment from the Lord, and even the forged Efnel student ID.

Ellen also didn’t care about the money as long as she could save her life. Whatever it was, she just wanted to live.

[Boy. What are you going to use all that for?]

“I’m going to visit the Lord later.”

Simon grinned.

“I need to extort everything I can.”

[Kuhahahaha! Very well, very well. As expected from Richard’s son!]

“U-Uhm……”

Ellen carefully asked while reading Simon’s countenance,

“Then, can I now—”

[Simon Polentia, was it?]

Elizabeth spoke, cutting off Ellen.

[Sure, I’ll accept your offer to join the Legion.]

Simon’s eyes widened.

“Really?”

[Yes, but I have one condition.]

Her eyes gleamed fiercely.

[Suffocate that priest to death with your own hands. Right now.]

Ellen’s face turned pale.

[That’s my only condition.]

“……”

Simon raised his head and looked straight at Elizabeth.

As their eyes met, Elizabeth felt her heart beating rapidly.

He really looked like him.

That man…

She thought it was going to be disgusting. The child born between Richard and the woman she didn’t even want to mention.

But it wasn’t.

That expressionless face made her heart race frantically.

It broke down the nightmares of the heart and made warm springs appear.

She couldn’t understand her own feelings either.

Was it Richard again?

You couldn’t forget him in the end?

Was hating him just words?

Don’t you have pride or anything?

Half of him has that woman’s blood flowing, you know?

‘But.’

Elizabeth wrenched her eyes closed.

She really didn’t want to admit it, but…

He was already irresistible to her.

“Former Captain of the Spider Troops, Elizabeth.”

Finally, Simon’s mouth opened.

“Tell me why I have to strangle Ellen to death.”

[It’s to prove if… I want to know if you’re worthy of being my master.]

“I know.”

Simon’s voice was weighty.

“I’m asking why I have to prove my worth to you.”

[……What?]

“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”

Simon slowly rose from his seat.

“It’s true that you once belonged to my father’s Legion, but he’s him, and I’m me. I’ll form the Legion with my own judgment and standards. But after observing you for a while, you’re……”

Simon’s cold voice…

“Disqualified.”

…pierced her chest.

He broke her heart and set loose the nightmare of her feelings once more.

“Even though you’re undead, you have too many emotions in your thoughts. You don’t even know what’s important after being swayed by your emotions. What in the world can I prove by strangling that woman?”

Her heart sank with the feeling of a guilty conscience.

It felt like she was naked.

“Telling me to prove it must also be an excuse.”

“You’re just doing what you want to do. You want to manipulate me according to your impulsive and vulgar desires. I can’t believe or trust you like that. There’s no value in an uneasing existence like you in my new Legion.”

Simon turned his back.

“Let’s go back, Pier, Ellen.”

[……]

The moment she saw Simon’s back. Elizabeth almost unconsciously reached out her arm.

“Looks like…”

Simon’s eyes as he glanced back were so cold.

“We wasted our precious time.”

* * *

The night was getting late. Simon, who had gotten out of the abandoned castle, was heading to the Lord’s castle with Pier and Ellen.

[By the way, Boy.]

Said Pier.

[Are you really going to give up on Elizabeth? Her abilities are useful in many ways, you see.]

“Hey, no way.”

Answered Simon with a soft smile.

“This is just fighting over dominance. It was inevitable in order to not be swayed by that obsessive Elizabeth. But for sure, she’ll have no choice but to come to me in the future.

The corners of Pier’s lips rose up.

[If so, don’t tell me… It was all part of your plan to get struck by that divine spear?]

“No comment.”

Pier giggled.

[This little kid…… Thinking of petty tricks just like your father! Kuhahaha!]

Ellen, who was furtively looking at Simon from the side, intervened.

“I’m sorry for that attack back then.”

“It’s fine, Ellen. You didn’t shoot it aiming at me anyways.”

“But is your wound really okay? Your chest was pierced by a divine spear……”

Simon said while touching his chest,

“I’m fine. Fortunately, I don’t think the spear went right through my core.”

“Ah, that’s a relief!”

Actually, Simon didn’t realize it, but the divine spear properly pierced the core.

Pier also saw it. He was going to rip both Elizabeth and the priest to pieces with the anger of losing the contractor, but when he checked the condition of Simon’s core, it was intact. The Legion’s contract was also unaffected.

It was something that couldn’t happen with common sense, so even Pier had no choice but to think that, luckily, it didn’t hit the core.

‘How mysterious.’

……No matter how much he thought about it, it made no sense.

“Pier? What are you doing there on your own?”

[Nothing. I’m on my way.]

——