Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner

Rick’s match wasn’t that flashy, but it had that kind of fun where you felt immersed and absorbed.

Simon and Camibarez were also applauding from the audience seat, but Meilyn was resting her chin on her hand with a sour expression on her face.

“……Ah, I’m sure that our groupmate won, but why do I feel so embarrassed?”

“Hahaha!”

[Meilyn Villenne from Class A. Ivan Varshani from Class C. Please proceed to the waiting room.]

Hearing the announcement, Meilyn stood up.

“Well, I’ll come back with an easy win.

“Go Meilyn! Go!”

“Do well.”

As Meilyn headed to the waiting room, she ran into Rick coming up to the audience seat.

Rick raised his hand to give a high-five, saying, “Yeah~”, seemingly in a good mood, but Meilyn scoffed and passed by him.

“Tsk! I swear she doesn’t even have the faintest amount of sociability.”

Grumbled Rick as he approached Simon and Camibarez, high fiving them.

While the three of them were happily discussing the Duel Evaluation, you could see Meilyn walking toward the middle of the stadium.

Meilyn’s opponent was Ivan Varshani from Class C. He was a Combat Magic aspirant with a strong body.

“Looks like this match will be a fun one too.”

Said Rick while sticking his hands in his pockets.

“It’s whether Ivan sticks close to Meilyn, or Meilyn bats him away before he does.”

“You can do it, Meilyn!”

Following the referee’s instruction, Meilyn and Ivan approached each other and shook hands.

“I didn’t expect to go against such a big shot in just my first duel.”

Smiled Ivan.

“It’d be better to remember this moment as an honor for your family, commoner.”

Meilyn took her hand back and folded her arms arrogantly.

“Because later, you won’t even be able to look me in the eye.”

“Mm, yeah. However, I believe it’ll be a good experience for you to be trampled by a commoner now.

“How funny.”

After having a light war of nerves, the two turned their backs and walked away.

Formerly a boxer, Ivan’s body was made up of compressed muscles through numerous trainings and exercises.

Meanwhile Meilyn’s physique was soft and thin, like she had never dirtied her hands in her life.

The two finally stood face to face at a distance. The referee, who checked the condition of the two students, lowered his arm and shouted,

“Begin the duel!”

As soon as the match began, Ivan stamped on the floor and rushed toward Meilyn.

‘Push her to the limit so she won’t be able to do anything……!’

Then, his eyes widened. Dark flames suddenly erupted in front of him.

Flaaaaaash!

Ivan hurriedly hit the brake and swerved.

It was a close one. He was wearing a protective suit, but sweat dripped off from the burning heat.

“Oh my, how simple.”

Said Meilyn while raising a Dark Flame to the tip of her index finger. 

“Did you really think that this is a stage where you could win with stupid, pre-emptive attacks?”

Flash!

The battle flowed to the point where Meilyn continuously poured flames and Ivan tried to avoid them, looking for an opening.

Watching from the audience, Simon exclaimed in admiration,

“That’s amazing. She managed to finish Dark Flare that quickly?”

“Nah.”

Rick shook his head.

“That’s jet-black elemental magic that’s at a lower level than Dark Flare. Dark Flare takes more time to cast.”

The jet-black elemental system.

It was a modern, jet-black recreation of the elemental magic of the now non-existent pure mages. Its unique characteristic was that, whether it was fire or ice, it had a slightly blackish tinge.

Even if a pure mage and a Necromancer cast magic at the same time, the jet-black elemental system would complete it much faster. The power was also stronger, and you had more advantages when controlling the variables.

Indeed, a complete superior.

“As expected from the Ivory Tower.”

The Ivory tower used to be a holy land for mages, once being called the ‘Tower of Magic’.

However, it had also changed as it went along with the trends, and in current times, Necromancers were the mainstream.

But perhaps because their original character still remained, most of the Necromancers of the Ivory Tower were good at jet-black elemental magic using the Mechanics of Jet-Black.

Of course, that was also true for Meilyn.

“Haaaah!”

As Meilyn swung her arm, flames stretched out like a wall and blocked Ivan’s path. Ivan dodged by a hair's breadth and gasped for breath.

[Meilyn Villenne: 100%]

[Ivan Varshani: 71%]

‘That’s definitely tricky. I was only dodging, but my gauge is already like this……’

Ivan wiped his lips with his hand and doubled the amount of jet-black within his body, it getting hotter and hotter.

‘There’s nothing to be nervous about. Just keep distracting her and stop her from using big dark spells. Just once. If I just get one chance……!’

“I told you a while ago, right, Commoner?”

Meilyn smiled and raised left hand that she hid behind her back.

Fwoooooooooooosh!

“That you’re simple.”

A Dark Flame incomparable to the previous ones in size rose up from her left hand.

Ivan’s mouth widened.

‘Wh-When did she complete that Dark Flare?!’

Actually, it was only recently that Meilyn learnt to multi-cast Dark Flare.

She slowly prepared a Dark Flare with her left hand while firing a light jet-black flame spell with her right.

With this growth, she, the top of the class, had made a step closer to perfection.

Now that she finished the Dark Flare, it was unnecessary for her to do small pokes.

Meilyn let her right hand hang down and made the flame on her left bigger.

“The game is over. Do you wanna go on?”

“I think it’s too early for you to say something like that!”

* * *

* * *

Ivan’s lips twisted. His heart beat madly, and his blood was boiling.

‘No matter how strong the dark spell is, it’s no use if it doesn’t hit!’

Ivan stamped on the floor and launched himself. It was quite a speed, seemingly creating afterimages.

As Meilyn was about to swing her left hand straight ahead, Ivan’s body twisted in the opposite direction.

She flinched and withdrew her hand. If she had continued to cast it, she would've wasted the Dark Flare that took so much effort.

‘Hehe. You won’t ever be able to throw that!’

Ivan was skilled in using jet-black on his body to enhance his speed, even when compared to many Combat Magic aspirants. He was confident that he’d be faster than anyone else in Kizen during these 1-2 minutes of raising his tempo to the maximum.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Ivan circled around Meilyn as if toying with her.

Meilyn was moving her head and body diligently with her Dark Flare in front, but she could hardly catch Ivan.

‘Do you get it, noble? The skill level of dark magic and victory in an actual battle are two completely different things!’

Ivan stopped accelerating in an instant, found Meilyn’s back, and rushed in like a flash of light.

His fist, which had been strengthened by the jet-black, was directed towards the back of Meilyn’s head. Sensing victory, the corners of Ivan’s lips were raised into a smirk.

‘……!’

However…

Meilyn’s shoulders naturally twisted, and her head tilted to the side.

‘She reacted to this?!’

His fist cut through air, and Meilyn and Ivan’s eyes crossed.

She smiled proudly.

“Did you think that my Combat Magic was weak?”

The boiling Dark Flame on her left hand engulfed Ivan’s body in an instant.

Fwooooossssshhhhh!

The two crossed before falling apart.

The explosions were so loud and the heat so great that the audience members seated close had to cover their faces.

[Meilyn Villenne: 94%]

[Ivan Varshani: 0%]

The referee raised his arm.

“The match is over! It’s Meilyn Villenne’s victory!”

Fwoosh!

Ivan, engulfed in dark flames, was kneeling on the floor with a look of disbelief. Meilyn smiled as she combed her hair back behind her ear.

“Try harder~ commoner in the lower squad.”

Applause and praise poured out from all over the audience for her nearly perfect match operation.

“Ah… honestly.”

Rick giggled.

“She’s so rude, but I can’t talk shit. She’s good.”

Simon smiled and nodded.

“Kizen is only cares about merit, after all.”

Simon was also having various thoughts while looking at Meilyn from the audience seat.

‘If I keep winning the duels one by one, maybe a day will come when I’ll fight against Meilyn, too. Then how should I counter her Dark Flare?’

Anyway, starting at some point, his right side was exceptionally quiet. Simon turned his head.

Shiver.

Camibarez’ legs were trembling, and her face was pale.

“……Cami?”

“It’s my turn already.”

She fidgeted with her fingers.

“……Simon, Rick, and Meilyn all won. If…… If only I can do as well……”

“Th-There’s no need to feel pressured about it.”

Meilyn also returned to the audience seat. She looked very excited after just winning the duel, but she didn’t really make it obvious when she saw Camibarez shivering.

Two matches passed after Meilyn returned to the audience seat. As time passed, Camibarez’ face grew paler and paler.

“Guys! Look over there!”

Rick pointed to where he was talking about.

“It’s Professor Silage! He probably came to see the ma—!”

Simon quickly covered Rick’s mouth, but it was already too late. Meilyn looked at Rick with an exasperated expression. 

“You really can’t read the damn mood, huh?”

It was only natural that Silage, a professor in Hemomancy, had an interest in Camibarez, a vampire from the Ursula family.

Camibarez’ shivering got worse when she saw Silage, and Rick scratched his head with a sheepish face.

[Camibarez Ursula from Class A. Egir Atelier from Class C. Please proceed to the waiting room.]

“I-I’ll be going!”

She jumped up from her seat, and the other three consoled her and cheered harder than ever.

“What kind of style does Egir have?”

Asked Simon after Camibarez left. Slowly, Simon started having fun and became interested in this Duel Evaluation.

“Very textbook.”

Rick summed it up neatly.

“He’s not particularly good in any particular field, so I believe he’ll fight by combining various basic skills. I can’t wait to see how Cami, an extremely aggressive Hemomancer, will break through it.”

“In terms of qualification, Cami is outstanding. She’s an Ursula, after all.”

Meilyn crossed her arms and said,

“The problem is how well she handles her nervousness……”

“Yeah.”

After a while, you could see Camibarez and Egir walking towards the center of the stadium.

Egir was a tall, neat-looking male student. The two shook hands as instructed by the referee.

“Nice to meet you.”

“N-Nice to meet you toooo……”

A very tense face and a voice devoid of all confidence.

Egir, who was thinking of the image of violent Ursula vampires, was bewildered by the appearance of a completely different opponent.

‘Is she really an Ursula?’

Watching the slouching girl made him feel a little pitiful, but he could never go easy on her.

Soon, the two took a distance from each other and prepared for battle by activating their cores.

“Are both of you ready?”

“Yeah!”

“Yes……”

The referee nodded.

“Well then. We’ll begin the Duel Evaluation between Camibarez Ursula and Egir Atelier.”

While a strained atmosphere was in the air, the referee dropped his arm and shouted,

“Begin the duel!”

——