Club Season Chaos
"Now, the teleportation circle back to Kizen is on the rooftop of the exhibition hall. You just need to go up those stairs."
Shun, his eyes brimming with tears, wrapped Simon in a tight hug.
"Me, and Blue Harbor too — we will never, ever forget this debt we owe you. No matter what happens to you from now on, we'll be on your side without fail. You're welcome here anytime, Simon."
"……"
Simon smiled as he patted Shun's head.
"Thank you, Shun. I'll never forget what happened here for as long as I live."
And so the Overlord was transferred into Simon's subspace, and Erzsébet slipped in after it. Simon exchanged his farewells with Shun as well, then made his way toward the stairs.
On the rooftop of the exhibition hall, a teleportation circle leading to Kizen had indeed been drawn.
The henchman bowed his head respectfully.
"Is everything ready for your return to Kizen?"
"Yes."
Simon grinned.
"Let's go home."
The circle worked without a hitch. Having safely returned to Kizen, Simon drew in a huge breath of air.
"Hooah, ha! I missed this air."
At a leisurely pace, he made his way down the hill where wildflowers bloomed in riotous profusion and arrived at the first-year campus.
It was still Mission Period, so things ought to be quiet until today's deadline was up…
"Huh?"
It was not quiet at all!
Colorful triangular party flags hung high across the campus, radiating festival cheer, and flashy banners and balloons dotted every direction. Even promotional banners had been strung along the sides of the buildings.
And above all, the open grounds of the first-year campus were packed edge to edge with booths of every size.
The students inside the booths were shouting themselves hoarse trying to grab the attention of passersby, while the grounds swarmed with students browsing the booths and others handing out flyers.
What? What's going on?
He'd been away for a while, and suddenly the whole school was in festival mode.
Just as a bewildered Simon was glancing around, a voice called out to him.
"Hey, you! You're a first-year, right?"
A girl in a Kizen uniform had approached him. She'd gone out of her way to ask if he was a first-year, and sure enough, a red mark signifying second-year status was pinned to her collar.
Simon quickly bowed his head.
"Yes, senior! Good morning!"
"Hm? Ah, good morning."
She pulled a flyer from her pocket and held it out.
"I'm with the Dungeon Research Club. Come check us out if you're interested."
"……Yes?"
She winked and moved on. Simon watched her hold out flyers to other passing students as well.
A club?
Simon took a look at the flyer.
The pride of monsters! The greatest mystery of our age, where danger and treasure coexist! Aren't you curious about 'Dungeons'?
Membership Benefits — Activity funding, club points, free rental of exploration gear, and dungeon expeditions in place of missions!
Oh right, today's the start of club season.
He'd heard a little about clubs from Dick before.
Looking up, he confirmed that something truly ridiculous was unfolding all around him.
The usually aloof second-years were completely falling apart because of club season. Some donned absurd costumes and made fools of themselves; others cornered passing juniors and turned on the charm.
This is a bit awkward.
For the first-years of Kizen, the second-years — their seniors — were not exactly beloved figures.
There was a measure of respect, of course, for people who had survived over a year of the brutal life they themselves were currently enduring. But the second-years were uniformly prideful and prickly.
Merely crossing paths with one often earned a first-year a scolding — sloppy greetings, no manners, that sort of thing. Some even made juniors run personal errands for them, or dragged them into dark alleys for a beatdown (though getting caught by a professor or TA meant disciplinary action).
Recently, there had even been an incident where commoner second-years relentlessly tormented noble first-years, making everyone all the more on edge.
Against that backdrop, seeing the second-years come forward and actively approach the first-years was almost surreal. It was a spectacle that existed, in effect, only during club season.
Simon looked around as he walked toward the dormitory.
A battlefield of ferocious competition stretched out before him.
A pack of beautiful female seniors were physically pulling on both arms of an overweight first-year boy, fighting over him. The boy's face had gone red, his expression one of pure bliss.
And on the opposite side, a male senior with sculpted, statue-like features had a first-year girl pinned against a wall, waving a club flyer.
The moment she seemed about to falter, a burly senior from an athletic club came charging in, club flag in hand, and started yelling at him. The girl, while telling them not to fight over her, was busily rolling her eyes as she tried to decide which side to pick.
"……"
Simon felt his head go numb.
This wasn't even apocalypse-era Kizen. What on earth was happening?
I need to get out of here. Fast.
Just as Simon, driven by instinctive alarm, moved to hurry toward the dormitory —
"First-year! There's a first-year over here!"
"Where do you think you're going!"
Second-years who had spotted Simon came swarming over and blocked his path.
"Hey, first-year! Stamina is national power! How about joining our physical training club?"
A boy abruptly lifted his uniform shirt to show off his chiseled abs.
"Muscle-heads, get lost! Hey, first-year! No — first-year sir! Are you perhaps interested in dark magic, where you can dream any dream you please?"
"Kizen is pragmatism, always! Forget those clowns — how about our shapeshifting club? It's a massive help on infiltration missions, and…!"
Murmur murmur murmur!
As the seniors kept pressing in, the cornered Simon was desperately racking his brain for an escape route.
Just then, a girl suddenly grabbed Simon's wrist and started running.
"Haha! This first-year belongs to our Jet-Black Swordsmanship Club!"
"He's getting away!"
The other second-years came swarming after Simon. Just as a full-blown chase was about to erupt —
"Ghk!"
The swordsmanship club girl suddenly went limp and hung her head.
"Uuuuugh…… so tireeeed."
"S-Senior? What's wrong…?"
The rest of the second-years also suddenly began complaining of exhaustion and collapsing to the ground.
As Simon blinked in confusion, he saw a man walking toward him, standing perfectly upright.
He was a towering man of at least 190 centimeters, with Jet-Black billowing off his entire body. Where his foot fell, the surrounding grass and flowers rotted and withered.
"Found you. Simon Polentia."
The man stopped in front of Simon.
"I am the president of the Kizen Curse Research Society."
An inexplicable sense of foreboding made every hair on Simon's body stand on end. When the man raised his arm, Simon tensed up and braced himself.
Thud.
"……?"
But the man abruptly dropped to his knees before Simon.
"Please, join our Curse Research Society!"
"Wh-what?"
"I'm begging you! If you don't join, I'll die!"
The second-year senior clutched at Simon's trouser leg. Simon, flustered, tried to pull him back to his feet, but the man wouldn't budge an inch.
How did it come to this…?
The Curse Research Society president still could not forget the look in Bahil's eyes from a week ago.
— Recruit the first-year Simon Polentia into the Curse Research Society, by any means necessary.
— P-Professor?
— If you cannot manage even this much, then I suppose our connection ends here.
The corner of Bahil's mouth had curled up in a sneer.
— Fail, and you will step down from your position as my Direct Disciple.
Absolutely — no matter what happened — he could not give up his place as Bahil's Direct Disciple.
He had no idea how extraordinary that first-year could possibly be for Bahil to react so intensely, but for him, this was a matter of his entire Kizen life being on the line.
"S-Senior! Please don't do this here!"
Simon tried to haul him up, but the man held firm.
Five more seconds. If he could just hold on for five more seconds, a high-purity mental curse would take root in Simon's body. After that, whatever he did would be simple…
Sssss.
Just then, a red thread rippled into being between Simon and the Curse Research Society president. The man's eyes went wide.
BOOOOOM!
A hemomancy spell detonated in midair, blasting both of them backward. The Curse Research Society president toppled over onto his back.
"Some senior you are. Don't pull dirty tricks on a junior."
A blonde girl in a coat with red embroidery on the sleeves was striding toward them.
The students nearby murmured and stepped aside, clearing a path for her. Simon looked up at her as well.
"I am the president of the hemomancy research society, 'Sadam'."
she said with force.
"Ah, yes. I'm Simon Polentia, a first-year."
"I've been briefed on SM-1, the new blood type you possess. It doesn't matter how good you are at curses or summoning. In our field of hemomancy, you are a one-of-a-kind existence."
She walked up slowly and brushed her finger just under Simon's eye.
"Jet-Black depletion symptoms. This mission must have been quite the ordeal for you."
"……!"
She crossed her arms again.
"If you join 'Sadam,' our society will throw its entire weight behind researching SM-1 blood. SM-1 amplifies Jet-Black at the cost of blood. Train with it enough, and you'll finally break free of Jet-Black depletion and be able to command a far more vast quantity of it."
Simon blinked. He hadn't been particularly interested in clubs, but this was a tempting offer.
Come on over. Join us.
She, too, had been waiting for Simon to appear. And with good reason.
The emergence of SM-1 blood will turn the world on its head. And I intend to place your name second on the SM-1 research paper.
— Professor Silaje
That was what Silaje had said when he took her on as his Direct Disciple.
Silaje wanted Simon Polentia as his Direct Disciple, and the first step toward that goal was getting him to join Sadam, the hemomancy research club.
If Simon encountered hemomancy through the club and gradually found it enjoyable, an opening would naturally emerge for him to change his major.
"Hey."
At the voice behind her, she reacted instantly and leapt back. The ground where she had been standing was rotting pitch-black.
"Aren't you forgetting the order of things?"
Ssssss.
All traces of his earlier humiliation gone, the Curse Research Society president rose to his feet with a murderous expression.
"You're one to talk about order. What is this, a cafeteria line?"
"You've grown a lot. Seems like only yesterday you were crying your eyes out after losing at the first-year evaluation."
At that, the Sadam president smirked.
"And why do you conveniently leave out the part where I've won three straight against you since then? You were nothing but a stepping stone to my growth."
"Why, you…!"
Just as the two of them began channeling their Cores, ready to tear into each other —
KRA-KOOOOOOM!
A chair dropped out of the sky without warning. The two club presidents — and every student nearby — shrieked and scrambled backward.
Ghk!
Simon stared through the billowing cloud of dust. There sat a man in the chair, legs crossed, radiating arrogance.
He wore a Kizen uniform, but over it he had draped a cape, and atop his head sat a crown. He rested his chin on his hand and grinned.
"So you're the infamous Simon, Special Admission No. 1?"
"Ah, yes."
A second-year. He flung a club membership form down at Simon's feet with a flourish.
"You'd best feel lucky! I hereby grant you the honor of joining 'Noble'!"
"……Yes?"
KRA-KOOOM!
THUD!
Half of the chair he'd been sitting on rotted away, and the other half was smeared in blood. The man leapt nimbly off the ruined seat and clicked his tongue.
"We have saboteurs, I see."
"I was talking to him first!!"
The three of them glared at one another with lethal intensity.
And as Simon watched his seniors from a safe distance away, only one thought filled his mind.
Ugh, I just want to hurry back and try out the Overlord.