Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 236

[Keeeeeeeugh!]

[Kuruugh!]

Hearing the commotion, the kobolds let out horrible shrieks as they began to swarm toward the procession of Simon and his 23 guards.

Concentrating, Simon raised his right arm. The skeletons crouched down, ready to pounce, as their mint cloaks fluttered behind them.

Sshhk!

The royal guards shot out, leaving trails of green as they moved. The first to arrive immediately beheaded the nearest kobold using the momentum of the dash, then turned to stab through the heart of another.

One strike, one kill. With each flutter of a cloak, another head fell. The swordsmanship was fluid and refined, to the point where it felt impossible for the stiff skeleton.

[Boy! Another horde of kobolds at four o’clock!]

Simon moved in the direction Pier called out.

The skeleton archers each notched an arrow and immediately dashed, firing from close range to execute three kobolds on the spot.

[Kueeeeeee!]

Other kobolds flew in, swinging hammers and steel weapons, but the skeleton archers slipped out with another dash and reloaded. The next volley was faster than the kobolds trying to catch up, and all that remained was corpses.

Simon was simply walking straight forward, not even having to stop. The royal guards escorted him as a network of green trails formed around him.

From a distance, it almost seemed like he was being protected by flashes of light from a mint barrier.

Using only 23 skeletons, he outnumbered the endless waves of kobolds.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The spectators watching from the Kizen campus couldn’t help but be astonished.

“Brilliant!”

“What are those skeletons?”

“He enchanted them with the golem!”

The excited shouts of the crowd filled the stands, and no one was looking at the other students’ screens.

They threw their arms into the air and shouted Simon’s name. The people who had bet on Simon were freaking out in ecstasy as if they met a living god.

“As expected, the S.A.1 is different! He had a plan from beginning to the end!”

The equally excited MC could barely keep himself seated and shouted at the top of his lungs,

“Did you all see that? He made the skeletons inherit the power of the blood golem!! 23 undead being operated at once! And on top of that impossible feat, they’ve also gotten stronger! Was there ever another summoner like him in the world!?”

“Well, a genius is a genius.”

Chuckled Belya, crossing her arms.

“Professor! Is it possible for a first-year student to operate 23 undead simultaneously?”

“I’d say it’s difficult, to say the least, but those ones aren’t controlled using the standard methods.”

Said Belya, pensively locking her fingers together.

“I’ve traveled the world and fought many powerful people. But strengthening skeletons by using a blood golem? I’ve never seen an ability like that before.”

Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!

The royal guards swung their swords tirelessly. Bodies piled up every step Simon took.

But the closer he got to the holy grail, the more monsters he encountered besides kobolds.

One of the most notable was a grimmander.

It was a medium-sized monster bred by the kobolds. It looked like a mixture between a chimpanzee and a snake, and its entire body was covered in tough scales.

Bwaaap!

The creature’s belly glowed red as it breathed in. Then, a wave of fire spewed from its mouth.

Simon made no move to dodge or defend himself, but simply walked forward. Two of his royal guards jumped in front of him.

Slash!

The green swords cut through the flames and dispersed them to protect their master.

Simon flicked his wrist. Two zombies burst out of his subspace, and two more royal guards rushed in, picking the zombies up and dashing in.

They let go of the zombies a decent way back from the target, allowing the momentum to carry the payloads the rest of the distance.

The zombies, upon landing, clung to the monster. They bit down and tore their claws into anything they could grab.

With everything going according to plan, Simon clenched his fist.

{Corpse Explosion}

Kaboooooooooooom!

Two loud explosions went off, and the fleshy, scaly monster collapsed on the ground. All of these moves took place in less than five seconds.

“Taking out a tricky monster in the blink of an eye! That’s amazing!!”

Exclaimed the MC to the cheering crowd.

“A combination of skeletons and zombies! And to top it off, the famous Corpse Explosion! It’s like watching the finest summoners controlling undead! Is he really a first-year?!”

“Hey, you bastard! I can’t see! Stop covering the screen!”

As Belya shouted and stood up to see, the anger in her eyes was quickly replaced with curiosity once she saw what was happening.

“Oh, he’s gonna have some hard time on this one, I bet.”

“What? Ahh! A new monster appeared!”

Perhaps the explosions had attracted it. A large, green monster incomparably stronger than measly kobolds stomped forward.

“This beast is at the top of the food chain in this island’s ecosystem, eating kobolds for every meal. It’s a timber troll!”

Timber trolls were level 4 monsters, so it just ignored the attacks from the royal guards and charged straight for Simon.

It swung its massive arm like a club, forcing Simon to pull out his Overlord.

Two tentacle blades came up from either side to block.

Clang!

As the two blades were forced back from the impact, three other blades shot forward at the troll’s exposed neck and calves.

But the troll was practically unharmed, the Overlord barely scratching it.

“Ah! As expected, it’s tough! So much so that even Simon’s best summon can’t cut through!”

“Kizen placed that there as something for the students to avoid.”

Simon calmly drew another blade from behind him, intentionally reserving this tentacle over the other five, and flexed his right hand open.

Two of the nearby royal guards crumbled to the ground, the Cloud around them flying out and coating the Overlord’s opened blade.

The silver blade, coated in the mint green cloud, turned a metallic light emerald.

Then, the tentacle quickly rotated, building speed until…

Slash!

The timber troll’s head flew into the air. The blade had suddenly extended and sliced cleanly through its victim.

A stunned silence fell over the crowd.

It didn’t last long.

“A single strike! He killed the timber troll in a single strike! What a way to use it!”

Amid everyone’s excitement over Simon’s performance, a broadcast servant gestured for the MC to cut things short.

Seeing that, the MC belatedly came back to his senses.

He realized that he had been talking about Simon the whole time. He had an obligation to cover as many students’ performances as possible in a fair manner.

“Now, let’s see the other students! Yes! Give it up for Hector Moore!”

Several audience members booed and jeered in disappointment as other students appeared on the main screen, leaving the MC sweating profusely, but he continued on regardless.

‘Whew! My dear wife, my beautiful daughter, Daddy’s working so hard to make a living here… You don’t know the half of it.’

* * *

* * *

“Huff! Phew!”

Simon gasped in a series of rough breaths. Weird colors swirled around the edges of his vision, and his mana was running low.

The royal guards were quite a drain on his mental stamina.

[Kuhehe! You went on too much of a rampage! You should’ve just smashed a Holy Grail and ran away, but you’ve slain over 100 kobolds now!

‘That’s true.’

He saw the Holy Grail he was walking to on a hill in the distance.

But more and more kobolds were coming, likely hundreds in number.

The royal guards—now down to 21 after the Overlord attack—weren’t enough to break through with how tired he had become.

This was the third wall he was faced with today. Simon struggled to think up a plan as his mind begged for rest, but the task looked more and more impossible with each passing second and droop of his head.

At this rate, he’d run out of energy before the kobolds ran out of numbers.

‘If I’ve walked this far, we’re close enough. Let’s hit the Holy Grail with everything I’ve got.’

Simon raised his trembling arm to the sky.

Whiiiirrr!

The same magic circle that had sucked in the blood golem’s Cloud was conjured again.

This time, the Cloud animating the royal guards was sucked into the magic circle, and the undead reverted to their normal forms.

‘After this, I’m spent.’

With the magic circle in his palm, Simon jumped into the air, stepping on jet-black to get higher.

“I hope you’ll continue to display that kind of brilliance in the future. Of course, I’m not saying this as a professor in Kizen. It’s just my personal wish.”

Bahil’s voice echoed in his head.

“He even left room for the formula to increase in firepower as you grow up. It’s up to you to fill in the blanks.”

He also heard Aaron’s voice. It was as if they were pushing him forward.

It was time to see if they pushed him far enough.

Simon inscribed another formula into the magic circle and activated it.

The ratio of his current Cloud was about 6:4 of jet-black and blood. For this spell to work, he would have to skew that ratio significantly.

‘I’ll dismantle the Cloud here!’

With a single twist of a palm, the Cloud’s blood and jet-black completely split as they were sucked into the magic circle.

Simon then attached the magic circle to his hand and pointed it at the chalice in the distance.

Bwooooooooooosh!

A brilliant emerald burst out in front of him before partly expanding further into a mass of dark-blue jet-black, blotting out the sun.

The principle was simple. Before learning {Cloud}, all Simon could use his SM-1 blood for was multiplying jet-black.

It was the exact same as what he did when he fired a Blood Bullet at the Magical Bullet Shooting Range.

‘I’ll recreate it, right here and right now!’

Crushing the Cloud had transformed it into a giant bomb that was effectively just a Blood Bullet of extraordinary size.

Simon shaped the blood and jet-black within the magic circle into the shape of an arrow and drew it back in a bow made of jet-black.

{Remade Blood Arrow}

With a deafening crack of the drawstring, a jet-black arrow shot out.

The mere act of firing was enough to send Simon flying several meters backwards into the air. A dark-blue wave fed on his blood, growing larger and larger, until…

Smaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!

It hit the small relic perfectly.

The Holy Grail replica was hurled into the ground, sending dirt and mud spraying in every direction.

The monsters bunched around it were blown far in the air, the shockwave of the explosion enveloping the entire surroundings.

As his vision began to fade from the high stress he had put on his body, the voice of the recollection spell echoed in Simon’s ears.

[You have passed the fourth stage. The test is now ending.]

Feeling himself being teleported away, Simon blacked out.

* * *

“…!”

Simon woke up.

He was in a hospital room, dressed in a patient gown with tubes poking out of his body.

His tattered gym clothes were still visible underneath, and the mana screen at the far end of the room was playing other students’ attempts.

‘So it’s over. Feels like I’ve been in hospital a lot more as of late.’

Relieved, Simon turned to look at the door.

It was closed.

Knowing that no one would interrupt him, Simon asked,

“Pier?”

No answer.

Did the clone fall out of his clothes on the way here?

Alarmed, Simon tried to pull himself up.

Wiggle wiggle.

Suddenly, he noticed a bump beside him in the white blanket. It was moving slowly, like a caterpillar.

“Wah!”

Simon freaked out and tried to back away, but suddenly, the blanket was lifted, and a little girl popped out.

“Hallo!”

“Nefthis??!”

“I heard you went unconscious again, so I got worried and paid you a visit!”

She was munching on something.

When Simon recognized what it was, he was horrified. It was Pier’s clone, taking the form of a badge.

She was nibbling at it but then pulled it out of her mouth.

It was dripping with saliva.

“Bleh, that tastes disgusting.”

She flung the badge into Simon’s arms.

Pier’s nauseated cries poured into Simon’s head as soon he touched the clone again.

[I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her! How dare sheeeeeee!]

‘…Haha.’

“I guess I should start with a congratulations?

Nefthis wiped the drool off her mouth and smiled.

“Well done on passing your test, Simon!”

——