The Mutant Club Interview
The three first-years, Simon included, exchanged small talk while they waited for the seniors to return.
The bespectacled first-year boy was named Fitzgerald.
He was a Summoning-track applicant from Class M, and from everything he said, clearly the scholar type — someone who lived and breathed theory. He hadn't mastered every subject the way Meilin had, but within his major, Summoning, he was talented enough to rank among the top five in the entire school.
"I heard about your Golem. I'll admit it was impressive."
Fitzgerald pushed up his glasses.
"But it's inefficient in the Duel Evaluations. A strategy of stacking a Golem outside the arena only works while the opponent doesn't know about it. Once they do, it's dead in the water."
"I think so too."
Simon nodded with a smile. The answer seemed to catch Fitzgerald off guard; he narrowed his eyes slightly, gripping the opposite arm of his glasses.
"Most people get angry when you undercut their single greatest point of confidence."
"Why would I get angry? Criticism is always welcome. But if you're right that the Golem is inefficient, what would you do instead?"
Fitzgerald laid it out smoothly, as if he'd been waiting for the question.
"Pretend you're building a Golem instead. Feint with your most famous Golem tactic to gain the psychological upper hand, then decide the match with a different core element. That's the strategy I judge to be most effective."
Simon blinked in surprise. It was exactly what he'd been thinking himself.
"And you are…?"
Fitzgerald shifted his gaze to Toto.
"Who is he, again?"
Toto gave an awkward smile and answered quickly.
"I'm T-Toto Amori, from the same Class A as Simon! I'm aiming for Summoning too!"
Looking at him again, Simon was struck by just how small Toto was. Was he actually smaller than Camibarez, who was a girl?
Simon even caught himself wondering whether the boy had hobbit blood somewhere in his ancestry — some other race mixed in.
"What's your Duel Evaluation squad?"
At that question, Toto's face fell.
"B-bottom tier… Last time I was in the very lowest squad…"
"My recommendation: give up on Summoning right now and latch onto Professor Bahil's coattails."
Fitzgerald advised him matter-of-factly, adjusting his glasses.
"Not to insult you — but if you want to survive at Kizen, you don't have a choice."
"…But!"
Toto clenched his fidgeting hands into fists.
"I-I don't have any talent except Summoning! And more than anything, watching Simon's first Duel Evaluation made it absolutely clear to me!"
Toto's eyes as he looked at Simon were a tangle of emotions — longing and admiration, and beneath them, the pure competitive fire of a rival in the same field.
"I think gritting your teeth and pushing through Kizen with everything you have is the coolest thing in the whole world!"
"…"
Fitzgerald let go of his glasses and crossed his arms.
Simon braced himself, certain the boy was about to go off again about inefficiency —
"Coolness matters."
was all Fitzgerald said, turning his head away. Simon and Toto exchanged one baffled glance.
BANG!
"First-years! Sorry I'm late!"
The cream-haired girl who had brought Simon here burst into the clubroom, and the three first-years shot to their feet.
"…Yaaawn, oh, you're here?"
Dió, who had been sleeping the world away on the sofa, rubbed his eyes and yawned, then lazily looked around the room.
"…Where's the pig?"
"Who expects *him* to show up? We'll start with just us!"
Dió nodded and rose from his seat like a zombie — planting both feet on the floor, back hunched, dragging himself upright.
"…This way."
Dió led the first-years onward. Simon had assumed it was nothing but a shabby, cramped clubroom — but when Dió cleared away a bookshelf, there was, astonishingly, a door behind it. They opened it and descended a staircase into the basement, where a large, brightly lit space opened up before them.
Fitzgerald, Simon, and Toto lined up side by side, and in front of them stood the girl, arms crossed proudly, long hair whipping around her. Dió shuffled over to her side at a snail's pace, clutching an armful of documents.
Hooo-hah.
Hands planted on both hips, she drew a deep breath.
"Pleasure to meet you, first-years!!!"
The high-volume voice shook the entire room. Her sheer lung power was overwhelming — Simon half wondered if she'd studied vocal performance.
"My name is Benya Vanilla!"
She thrust her index finger toward the ceiling.
"Second-year Summoning major! And my dream for the future is world conquest! Looking forward to working with you all!!"
"…?"
Simon blinked.
Was she really a second-year at Kizen? Not a second-year middle schooler?
"…As you've no doubt already guessed,"
Dió added with a long sigh,
"…this is our club president. Honestly, a nice, normal club would be better for you three anyway— guhuhk!"
Benya leapt into the air and drove a flying side kick straight into Dió's face. His body sailed several dozen meters and slammed into the wall.
Thankfully it wasn't solid stone — the surface cushioned the blow like a soft mattress — but Dió slumped down like a dried fish anyway.
Tap.
She landed on the floor and straightened her posture.
"That zero-motivation lump is Dió Patel. He's just my grunt — feel free to ignore him."
"I have a question, senpai."
Fitzgerald raised his hand. She grinned and pointed at him with the tip of her finger.
"I like students with initiative! What's the question?"
"I'm curious what you mean by the significance of world conquest."
Fitzgerald tilted his glasses upward.
"No hero in the continent's history has ever achieved domination through military force. Even the great Lady Nephthys has been unable to do anything about the Holy Federation, guarded as it is by its seven Saintesses."
"An excellent question! And you're right — I don't particularly favor conquest by force either!"
She nodded along, then continued.
"I will conquer the world with undead!"
"Undead…?"
"That's right! People simply don't understand the true value of the undead! Think about it! Where else in the world can you find labor that's this low-cost and high-efficiency? The undead are a gift from the cosmos to this continent!"
Excited, she raised her voice.
"Sure, there's the matter of aesthetics, humanity's instinctive revulsion toward the dead, and above all their aggression toward the living — so today only necromancers with their cores open ever use them! But I won't stand for that! I'll spread the undead into every civilian field and make the world a far richer place!"
She clenched her fist.
"Conquest by force sacrifices ninety-nine people for the sake of one — that's not true conquest at all! I'll fascinate even the people of the Holy Federation with the value of my undead!"
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
In the stunned silence, only Fitzgerald was applauding, wearing an expression of terrifying earnestness.
"I hereby join the club."
"Excellent!"
Simon felt his mind going numb. It seemed the fourth-dimensional types really did speak the same language.
'This place really isn't normal, is it.'
Simon turned his head toward Toto.
The boy was blushing shyly, his eyes fixed entirely on Benya's face as she whipped her cream-colored hair around and passionately poured out her vision.
"S-so beautiful…"
Good grief. This one was in even more danger than Fitzgerald.
"You there!"
At that moment Benya strode right up and planted herself in front of Simon.
"Still hesitating about joining?"
"Ah — yes."
"Join, Simon."
Fitzgerald urged him from the side, adjusting his glasses.
"Being able to watch the beginning of a legend from his school days is a merit that nothing else in the world could buy."
Sweat trickled down Simon's smiling face.
Meanwhile Toto had retreated a step to the side, clutching his pounding chest.
"S-she's so close! To a senpai…!"
"Hm?"
Benya noticed, strode over to Toto, and placed a hand on his forehead.
"You seem to be running a slight fever, my friend."
"H-haaaaaahk!"
Toto shuddered like a man being electrocuted.
"Perhaps a visit to the infirmary first—"
"I-I'm fine! I-I'll join the club!"
She lifted her hand from his forehead, blinked, and smiled.
'S-she smiled at me! A senpai smiled at me!'
That smile sent Toto straight into a state of spiritual unconsciousness.
'…'
Simon, on the other hand, was looking at her hand. It bore far too many scars and calluses to belong to an eighteen-year-old girl.
Her dream of world conquest was absurd, but the passion and effort behind it were real.
And judging by the materials scattered around the clubroom, she clearly had the skill to back it up.
'…As a fellow Summoning student, there's a sky's worth of things I could learn from her.'
Simon thought it over slowly.
Friends who shared his interests and his conversations.
A workshop where he could build and develop undead with his own hands.
And a connection to the daughter of the chairman of the Vanilla Group — the finest undead manufacturer on the continent.
In terms of immediate value, the club fell short of Sadam, the Curse Research Society, or Noble. And yet the one Simon's heart leaned toward could only be the Mutant club.
"I apologize, senpai, but I have one more question for you."
"Yes! What is it?"
"If you got your hands on a completely new type of undead — one that no one had ever used before — what would you do with it?"
She didn't even pause to think. She just beamed.
"Crash into it headfirst with them, of course, and break it in together! Days where the unknown and the everyday live side by side — just imagining it makes my heart race! Could there be any happier way to live?"
"…Ahaha."
Simon grinned and nodded.
"Then I'd like to join as well."
"Excellent, all of you! So everyone's made up their minds?"
"…Well, about that."
Dió, having flown across the room courtesy of Benya's kick, returned with his back hunched once more and spoke up.
"…Our club's situation isn't great, but even so, we have no intention of accepting first-years who fall below our standards."
Dió waved a flyer as he spoke. Benya smirked and crossed her arms as well.
"You all saw the membership requirements, right? Ownership of a special undead, and operational skill of a high enough level to use it!"
Truthfully, the Mutant club held plenty of elements that would appeal to any Summoning-track student. Forget everything else — the mere existence of Benya Vanilla, and the chance to build a connection with her, would have had dozens of students agonizing over whether to apply.
But the membership requirements were absurdly strict compared to any other club.
Ownership of a special undead — and the skill to wield it.
The current first-year Summoning applicants were only as far along in their lessons as fluently handling lower-tier undead, skeletons included.
Simon, who had taught himself to construct and command Skeleton Archers and Mud Golems entirely on his own, was an endlessly abnormal case.
There were, admittedly, a few Summoning students who owned something that could be called a special undead — but they were a handful of strong players, and they wanted clubs ranked even higher than this one.
The Mutant club specialized in special undead, which made it a niche within a niche of Summoning — yet its requirements remained punishingly strict. That was exactly why applicants were so few.
"Now then — let's begin the interviews!"
Benya clapped her palms together with a sharp smack.
"So! What kind of distinctive summons have you three bonded with? Show me!"