The Summoning Genius of the Necromancer School
On the beach, pirates were stacking up the offerings they had plundered from the village.
The wooden boxes filled with offerings had already formed a large hill or wall.
"Good! Very good!" Captain Gile laughed heartily as he lifted the jewels from inside the boxes.
"Indeed, the wealthy territories have offerings of a different quality! Hahaha!"
"Captain!" Gile turned his head.
A pirate, with a swollen eye from an unknown blow, was running towards him in a panic.
"We need reinforcements! There's a massive counterattack from the city...!"
"What?" Gile frowned.
The naval forces should have been neutralized.
"Is it the remnants of the navy from Blue Harbor?"
"N-no."
The pirate was sweating profusely.
"Just the residents! The flower shop owner, tourists, chefs..."
"Are you out of your mind?" Just then, with a loud bang, the reporting pirate's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed.
Behind him stood a man dressed as a chef, smiling and holding a frying pan.
"Ahhh!"
"Ugh!" The sight of pirates flying through the air behind the stacked wooden boxes was visible.
Gile jumped up.
"What’s going on!"
With a crash, the stacked wooden boxes fell as the flying pirates collided with them, revealing the villagers marching confidently forward.
They were indeed the flower shop owner, chefs, tourists, and others.
'This is hard to believe.
Is that report true?' A woman in a swimsuit was seen grabbing a pirate by the collar and slapping him.
With each slap, the pirate's teeth scattered like shrapnel.
'So it is.' Gile's expression turned serious.
These people were all wearing something like bone armor.
It was the work of a necromancer.
There should only be a few proper necromancers in Blue Harbor, so that meant...
"It’s you. The boy in the black uniform."
A boy in black stood behind the ordinary residents, dripping with sweat.
Gile clicked his tongue and stroked his long mustache.
"Kizen was supposed to handle this, and yet here we are. I shouldn't have allied with those people!"
"Did you just say that?" Simon smirked.
"So there was a traitor, huh?"
"Hehe! Think whatever you want!" Before long, the residents had surrounded Gile.
Everyone was filled with confidence, having gained life power from Simon's Bone Armor.
Yet, Gile stood calmly, stroking his mustache.
"Attack all at once!" The residents clad in Bone Armor rushed forward in unison.
At that moment, Gile's eyes gleamed, and his muscles bulged.
Simon shouted in shock, "Wait...!"
Boom! With a tremendous shockwave, ten villagers who had charged in were sent flying.
Those struck head-on lost their Bone Armor and fainted.
"Whoosh!" The chef quickly darted in from behind and swung the frying pan at Gile's head, but Gile didn't even turn around and raised his arm to block it.
With a loud bang, the frying pan shattered against his bare hand.
"Monster...!"
"Get out of the way, old man!" The girl in the swimsuit dove into Gile's side and slapped him with her palm.
Slap! Gile's head turned sharply from the blow.
A loud impact echoed, and the wind spread out, causing the surrounding sand to swirl.
Her slaps had the power to knock out pirates' teeth, but...
"How cute."
Gile grinned, with only a handprint left on his cheek, leaning his face closer to hers.
"Is this what they call industry rewards these days?"
"Ah...!" She stepped back in surprise.
Grabbing the hilt of his sword at his waist, Gile unleashed his mana and drew his sword.
She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head with her arms.
Boom! A tremendous pressure caused whirlwinds to rise all over the beach.
The girl, crouched in her spot, trembled and opened her eyes.
"Ah!" In front of her, Simon was seen extending his legs straight.
He had kicked Gile's arm holding the sword upward.
His legs trembled.
"I thought I didn’t feel the darkness," Simon said, dripping with sweat and smiling.
His gaze was fixed on the swirling mana around Gile's sword.
"I’ve never seen an Aura user before."
"Hahaha! You should have come out sooner!" As Simon withdrew his foot, he said, "Everyone, step back. He’s a formidable opponent that cannot be faced without a Core."
"Wait! I can still fight...!" Simon swung his arms and dismantled all the Bone Armor on the citizens.
Startled, they finally retreated.
"I tell you," Gile said, stretching his neck.
"I really hate necromancers."
"......"
"In fact, I was planning to kill him once this was over."
It seemed he was referring to the traitor.
And that traitor was likely a necromancer as well.
Simon could roughly guess how the situation was unfolding.
However, wanting to draw out more certain information, he naturally continued the conversation.
"It's rare to see someone using Aura in this day and age."
"Rare?" Gile said, twirling his sword.
"You necromancers are the problem. You divide people into mainstream and non-mainstream without any proof. You belittle Aura and pure magic as outdated just because they are different from you."
"I’ve never belittled them."
"Well, when you saw my Aura, your eyes looked like you were seeing a rare monkey at the zoo, and that bothered me."
Gile adjusted his grip on the sword and posed it over his chest.
Then, he slammed his right leg into the sandy ground and charged forward.
'Gauntlet mode!' Simon quickly pulled back his right arm.
As bones gradually covered Simon's right arm, he threw a punch.
Boom! The sand on the beach erupted like a fountain around Simon and Gile.
Clang! The black-clad Simon's gauntlet clashed with Gile's sword, creating sparks as they struggled against each other.
"Ugh! As expected...!" Simon said, pushing the sword away with difficulty.
"That stance of raising the sword to your chest! I believe that’s the swordsmanship stance of the Baldwin Kingdom's knights!"
"Oh! You recognize it!" Gile forcefully pushed Simon's gauntlet away.
But he didn’t rush in immediately.
He seemed quite pleased with Simon's keen observation.
"What’s there to hide! My family has been a knightly lineage for generations!"
'...
A pirate?' In a world dominated by necromancers, knightly families had been in decline.
That was the flow of the times, but in his youth, Gile had not given up.
He honed the sword and Aura passed down through his family and finally succeeded in passing the exam to join the knightly order of a great territory.
However...
"Out of 200 members of the knightly order, 198 were necromancers who had opened their Cores."
A bitter smile lingered on Gile's lips as he spoke.
The irony of being ostracized as an old-fashioned knight within the order.
He had never been given a proper chance to showcase his skills.
He was even excluded from large events, unable to stain his sword with blood.
It was hard to watch the useless ruffians babble about practicality and such.
Disillusioned, Gile eventually left the knightly order and turned to the sea, becoming the captain of three large pirate ships.
'Criminal unemployment...' Hearing the story, Simon felt a complex mix of emotions.
"So you’re a student of Kizen, the pinnacle of necromancers."
Gile raised his sword above his head.
A bluish mana rippled along the blade.
"It should be fun to kill you!"
With that, he swung his sword in a wide arc.
Boom! The slash cleaved through the beach, and Simon stepped back to evade, while the surrounding people screamed and retreated.
"Many necromancers have come to hunt pirates! But every single one lost their heads to my sword!" Gile laughed loudly.
"You’ll be the same, Kizen!"
Gile charged in, swinging his sword imbued with Aura.
As the sword passed, piles of sand erupted like waterfalls.
Simon dodged the third strike to the side, leaning back and extending his fist.
With a crack, Gile's face contorted, but he smiled even as he was hit and swung his sword.
'Gah!' The sword grazed Simon's chest.
The fabric of Kizen's uniform made a sizzling sound.
The internal defensive magic had activated.
"Again! Another grappling technique!" Gile grinned.
"Only a purely honed body can determine a warrior's strength! You can't win with just grappling techniques!"
Simon, who had ducked under the swinging sword, lowered his posture and kicked upward with his right leg.
Crack! Gile's head snapped back, but the sword he swung did not stop.
'No impact at all!' Simon stepped back, tumbling away on the black ground.
Gile wiped the blood from his lips and grinned.
"An unyielding body and strong will! A warrior needs nothing else but that!"
"Well, your story is quite pitiful."
Simon exhaled deeply and extended his right arm.
"But that doesn’t erase the sins you’ve committed."
Whoosh! Behind the direction Simon extended his arm, a massive mound of sand rose like a giant monster.
He had secretly buried the core of a golem in the sand and was now creating a sand golem by letting black mana seep through.
Creak! The mound of sand, hardly resembling a golem's arm, lifted and struck down at Gile.
Gile did not dodge this time either and took the attack head-on.
However, the fine sand of the beach did not clump together like other soil and scattered upon hitting Gile's body.
Sand got into his eyes, nose, and mouth.
"Spit! Ugh! Useless!"
In the moment Gile's vision was obscured, Simon dashed in like a flash, grabbing Gile by the back of the head with his Bone Armor gauntlet and leaping up.
'Over there!' Among the items the pirates had stolen, he aimed Gile's head at a very sturdy safe.
Bang!!! With a tremendous noise, the safe crumpled.
For an ordinary person, their head would have shattered and killed them instantly, but Simon knew Gile's durability.
'Not yet!' Simon opened a spatial pocket and retreated.
Potions made during his poison studies poured out from the spatial pocket, splattering onto Gile's face and body, while Simon sent the bones scattered around flying.
Chaos! The bones moved and shattered the potions clinging to Gile's body.
His entire being was soaked in paralysis and poison potions.
"The knight...!" Gile trembled as he stood up.
"Will never fall!"
"Yes, it certainly looks that way."
"You necromancers! How shameful to use poison like this! Know your disgrace!" Gile shouted as he charged forward.
Whoosh! His sword swung directly at Simon.
Simon easily evaded by merely leaning back.
Whoosh! This time, it was a diagonal slash.
Simon tilted his head to dodge, then countered with a punch to Gile's face.
Crack!
"Ugh!"
Gile staggered, pressing his forehead.
The poison made his vision spin, and he couldn’t stand properly.
"You bastard! What have you done to me!"
Facing a Gile intoxicated by poison was like eating soft rice.
Simon dodged Gile's forced swings and spun his body.
His waist twisted, and his heel lifted.
Boom! A perfect kick landed on Gile's face.
The sound of a hard fruit's skin cracking echoed, and blood splattered everywhere.
"I agree with your thoughts."
Gile's body flew several meters, rolling on the ground.
Simon approached him step by step.
"Chivalry, Aura, swordsmanship—none of them are outdated relics. It’s just that..."
Looking at Gile, who no longer moved, Simon dusted off his hands.
"You are simply the relic."