NOVEL WEB Chapter 300
"This place is dangerous, so hurry up and get out of here."
"P-Professor!"
After telling Simon to move, Aaran then went to the window which Magnus had been blown away through.
There, he found Magnus standing there, unharmed. Aaron came down, keeping some distance from Magnus, and the two men stood face to face.
"How many years has it been? Professor Aaron."
Said Magnus.
"You used to be an enthusiastic rookie professor, but it seems like you changed a lot."
"…You're as troublesome a kid as ever, Magnus Alban."
Enormous hostility was surging in Aaron's eyes.
"How boring."
Magnus sneered with evil eyes.
"A professor weaker than their students deserves to die."
Aaron's mouth twitched slightly, but he raised his arms as if he thought even taking time to argue was a waste.
"Why did you come back to Kizen?"
Rrrrrrrrrrumble!
Beyond the rooftops of the boy's dorm, two massive undead battleships of bone appeared.
The bottom part of the battleships opened up, pouring down red skeletons that were inside the ship.
"A battleship of undead, huh?"
Magnus looked to the sky.
"With advanced hive magic installed on the battleship, you control the undead, distributing the caster's commands to subordinate entities. It allows you to artificially increase the number of undead you can control. This is honestly…"
Magnus smiled.
"Horribly boring."
Crush, crush!
At his feet, countless shadows with eyes and teeth began to pour out.
"A necromancer with a finite number of skeletons? That's no different than a chef with no arms. It makes me even wonder how you get through your tedious existence without feeling abhorred at your own puniness."
'It's the Legion.'
Aaron gave the command to attack.
From the undead battleship, an innumerable stream of flying red skeletons began to pour toward Magnus.
Then, the shadows beneath Magnus' feet burst up into an equally countless swarm, swallowing or parrying the skeletons away.
"Try harder."
Magnus sneered as he watched the remains of the red skeletons rolling around the ground.
"How much are those skeletons per piece? Looks like you've already lost a couple days' pay."
Aaron swung his arms in the air.
"!"
Magnus' eyes slightly widened.
In addition to the two existing undead battleships, two new ones were approaching from behind him.
"Excluding Commanders like you guys, humans are bound to face the 'limit' of numbers."
The four battleships opened their gates.
"That's why humans struggle to overcome their limits."
Red skeletons poured down like a torrential rain, coloring the sky like a swarm of red locusts.
"And in the process, we endlessly become better."
Swiiiiiiiiish!
The flying skeletons swirled around Magnus, forming a red tornado.
Magnus licked his lips.
"This is a rare sight indeed, but what are you planning to do with all these small fries?"
Just then, the skeletons spinning around—creating the red tornado—stopped in unison.
Magnus looked around, wondering what was going on, but the real deal was happening beyond what he could see.
All the ships had begun to split open like flower buds. Inside of each was a massive magical circle of jet-black.
'So the battleships themselves were magic circles!'
Ka-tooooooooooosh!
Rays of Destruction were fired at Magnus from east, west, north, and south. Magnus unleashed the shadow monsters once more and wrapped them around him like a shield.
"This is pretty surprising."
While Magnus remained in place, focusing on defense, the red skeletons that had stopped now rose into the sky.
They scattered into hundreds of bone fragments, gluing, fitting, and connecting themselves together to form a completely unnatural structure.
It was an upside-down tower.
{Aaron Original - Tower of the Dead}
"Get lost. Now."
Said Aaron, lowering his arm.
"You damned disciple!"
The upside-down tower of skeletons descended upon Magnus, who was still pincered between the four rays.
Hundreds of Magnus' shadows came out, wrapping around the tower and trying to crush it, but the tower tore through them like paper, crushing Magnus' skull and stabbing through his chest to the ground.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumble!
Soon, half of the tower was embedded into the ground, creating a thick cloud of dirt all around the boys' dorm.
"…Woah."
Alongside the forming crowd of students in their own rooms, Simon, who was watching this scene from his dorm window, couldn't help but have his jaw drop.
[Kuhehehe! Pretty good!]
Even Pier, who's quite stingy with compliments, was forced to admire Aaron's strength.
[To think a mere summoner, not even a Commander, could go that far!]
Soon, all the skeletons returned to the undead battleship.
Aaron conjured a wind to blow away the dirt and walked toward Magnus, who had been eviscerated.
He touched Magnus' crumbling body and stood still in thought.
"Professor!"
Jumping out of the window, Simon was approaching him.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm pretty sure I told you to stay away."
As the Bone Armor wrapping around Aaron disappeared, he returned to his usual shorts and slippers.
You could see his scraggly beard and bristling leg hairs.
Simon smiled at that odd imbalance and said.
"You took care of him, didn't you? Magnus."
"That one was a fake."
Said Aaron.
"Some sort of a biological clone."
"Th-That was a clone?"
Simon stammered,
'He, he was strong enough to leave Kajaan a bloodied mess, but that was a clone?'
"I've heard that the Fifth Legion has a very versatile Ancient Undead named 'Alahze'."
Aaron pushed himself up.
"With Alahze and Magnus working together, this sort of thing shouldn't be too hard for them. First, don't think any common sense will work with the Commanders."
"…"
Then, Aaron drew closer to Simon and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Do you have any idea why Magnus targeted you?"
Simon felt a prick on his conscience.
"Magnus is an extremely dangerous man. He's an eccentric who isn't under the control of the Dark Alliance and Kizen HQ, and no one knows for sure where he is. How did you get involved with such a dangerous man?"
"I-I don't know either."
Simon faked an expression of horror like a normal student.
"That was my first time seeing him."
This was true.
"What did he say?"
"Something about an undead's wavelength or something, but I didn't really understand because it was too complicated."
"…What about that bleeding student from before?"
"The dorm managers took him to the ward. I'm about to head there myself."
"Got it."
Aaron formed a magic circle, retrieving Magnus' remains, and trudged off.
"I'll be the one to give a report to Nefthis. Rest."
* * *
* * *
The top of Washuburn mountains.
The Castle of Demon.
Inside the castle, in the vast bathhouse, an undead entered. The zombie in a butler suit sighed heavily.
[The bath is messed up again.]
Inside the bath, a man with long hair was tilting his head back, bleeding.
The sulfur bath he was soaking in had turned to a pool of black, and red chunks of flesh protruded from the magic circles on his chest and stomach.
"It was fun, so it's fine."
Magnus replied in a tired voice, and he pushed himself up. His thin body was stained red.
"Clean it up."
Undead with cleaning tools rushed in, draining the water and clearing away the remains of flesh.
Magnus slipped on a gown and took a sip of water.
[Did you accomplish anything?]
"I don't think I have anything to put down as an accomplishment other than meeting with my old master. I was interrupted before I could exchange a few words with that bastard Simon."
Magnus raised the corner of his mouth.
"Still, I got a hunch."
[A hunch?]
He recalled the very first moment he'd come face to face with Simon.
"…Who are you?"
It was quite memorable.
The boy was burning with pure anger as soon as he saw him.
He pushed aside any bewilderment about the situation, any kind of consideration or questioning of who had done this to his roommate, and just went straight to fury.
Magnus thought it was unnatural.
"Lorain Archbold must be a bluff set by the Witch of Death. The Commander of the Seventh Legion is Simon Polentia."
[You sound certain.]
"Almost."
The zombie butler held his glasses and closed his eyes.
[However, your actions this time were too hasty, Commander. Perhaps the Witch of Death will somehow find and dispose of our cooperator inside Kizen HQ as well.]
"Hoh, are you blaming me?"
The zombie butler let out a bitter smile,
[How could I when I spend so much time with you, Commander? I was merely reporting the consequences of your actions.]
Dripping water, Magnus walked and sat down on the skeleton throne. The zombie butler handed him a towel.
[How was it to return to your alma mater?]
"It was decent entertainment."
Said Magnus with a smirk.
"Other than that…"
[Hm?]
"Looks like someone else in Kizen besides me is preparing something."
[Is that so?]
Magnus rested his chin on his palm.
"It seemed like he was going to cause something big. I look forward to it."
* * *
The Magnus incident was over for the time being.
It was a good thing that there weren't many students in the dorm.
Kizen HQ released a subpoena to Magnus for an investigation. Of course, he wouldn't comply, so it seemed like they were using the Crows to find him.
This wasn't a bad thing for Simon, as it meant that Kizen's eyes would now seriously be on Magnus.
On the other side, Simon went to the ward to visit Kajann.
"Kajann has already been discharged."
"What?"
He heard something unexpected from the ward.
The Kizen ward, famous for not letting the students go when they're injured, had discharged Kajann right away.
Simon headed to the night-duty room of the first-year men's dorm, where Kajann had returned to.
"Ah, you mean Mr. Kajann? He said he needed a place to bathe."
"To bathe… you say?"
To have a bath after bleeding that much…
He probably didn't go to have a real bath, but to pour that strange potion he used on himself. Kajann would pour that fuming potion on himself whenever he got hurt.
"There's no hot water in the boys' dorm right now, so I told him to go to the manager's bath in the second-year girls' dorm."
Simon flinched.
"G-Girl's dorm?"
"Yes. I heard that there was an order from the higher-ups to cooperate with Kajann on everything."
So one of Nefthis' entourage was treated differently after all, huh?
Simon understood and headed straight for the second-year girls' dormitory building.
Swaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
And sure enough, as he arrived in front of the girl's dorm manager's bathhouse, he heard the sound of water running.
For a moment, Simon felt his morals wavering in front of the sign that said women's bath, but then he realized that as long as there were no others, it should be fine.
Then, he lightly knocked on the door of the bathhouse.
"K-Kajann? Are you in there?"
He couldn't probably be heard over the sound of the water. Just in case, Simon opened the door just a little and poked his head in.
Swaaaaaaah.
The bathhouse was small because it was only used by the staff or managers, not the students. There were no changing cabinets or anything, and the first thing you could see when you opened the door was a cloud of steam.
There was only one bathtub as well. And amidst the steam, a man with gray hair was pouring a potion on himself.
It was Kajann.
"…So it's you, Simon."
Said Kajann, his voice weary. The floor of the bathhouse was a mess, mixed with water, blood, and potions.
"A-Are you alright, Kajann?"
"Yeah."
"I'll go in."
Simon decided to get cleaned up as well.
He took his clothes off and put them in the basket as Kajann did.
"I'm sorry, Kajann. I got you into all this trouble…"
"Why are you apologizing?"
Kajann scratched the wound beside his eye with his fingertip.
"Protecting you is part of my job. And injuries in the line of work are inevitable, so there's no need for you to apologize."
Simon helped Kajann pour the potion over his body. As he poured the potion into the open wounds, a different kind of steam rose, and the wounds began to heal. However, like the long scar across Kajann's face, the healed wounds left a scar. His body was full of scars.
And so, Kajann finished healing and went into the bath.
Simon brought some cleaning tools and started mopping up the mess they had made in the bathhouse, with blood and potions covering the floor. He felt like he should be the one to clean it up, at least, since they borrowed the female's bathhouse.
Scrub, scrub.
Simon pointed something out as he scrubbed at some stubborn potion marks on the floor with a wet towel.
"You seem like you've been avoiding me ever since the second semester started."
"…"
He had barely spoken to Kajann lately.
Kajaan was always already asleep whenever Simon returned to room 409.
In the first semester, the reason he was out every night was because of the Saintess incident, but even after the incident was over, he still kept on going out.
"I'm not avoiding you on purpose."
Replied Kajann.
"I'm on a mission."
"…I mean, there's no priest anymore on Roke Island. What's your mission?"
"What kind of dumbass would divulge the details of their mission to an outsider?"
'An outsider?'
Simon made a bittersweet face.
"We're roommates, and we fought against the Saintess together."
"I keep my private and public life separate."
Simon sighed heavily, placing a hand on his forehead after being given the cold shoulder by his senior.
'When will I ever get along with him?'
"Now I am the one who wants to ask you something."
Said Kajann as he saw Simon's reaction.
"Isn't it the same for you, feeling troubled over something you're hiding?"
——