Simonkness
“A mark only you can recognize? What's that supposed to be?”
Kajan asked, curiosity lighting his eyes.
“Well, funny story about that.”
Simon's story drifted back into the past.
During his fight with the Priest in the Forbidden Forest, he had snatched up a loose stone from the ground, imbued it with Jet-Black, and hurled it.
—Hit him! Show me your face!
He still remembered how desperate he'd been when he threw it.
Clearly the Priest hadn't expected Simon to fight back at all, because he'd turned his head a beat too late. The attack had torn a small rip in the right side of his hood.
“Blood.”
Simon had glimpsed it in that instant — a dark red stain spreading across the frayed edge of the hood.
“The Priest probably has a scar on his cheek.”
A potion would have healed the wound, of course, but if it had cut deep enough, Simon reasoned, a faint trace of a scar might still remain.
Kajan folded his arms and sank into thought. He seemed to be running through the faces of everyone aboard the dragon ship, searching for anyone with a scarred cheek.
And his conclusion was:
“Inconclusive.”
Kajan shook his head.
“The scar might have healed clean, and there are a hundred ways to hide one. More than anything, you can't pin a suspect on a single scar.”
“...Yeah, fair enough.”
Simon had already checked plenty of people himself, and no one had stood out.
Then Kajan opened a subspace and pulled out a small pair of glasses.
“Just in case. Take these.”
“What are they?”
“Something I've carried with me ever since I fell into the Priest's trap.”
Simon accepted them immediately and put them on. They didn't seem to have any prescription, but the world blurred at the edges of his vision.
“Wear those, and you can see the real face underneath a Bio-Face. If the Priest is wearing one to hide a scar, it'll give him away.”
“Oh, nice.”
The odds of it cornering the Priest outright were slim, but it was better than nothing.
Simon tucked the glasses carefully away against his chest.
Kizen's relentless daily grind began all over again.
Preparation for the practical assessments, preparation for the Duel Evaluations, and even preparation for the final exams months down the line.
“Ah! Simply magnificent.”
Bahil, the Curse Studies professor, clapped his hands together with a smack.
He had called Simon up to the front of the lecture hall to write a curse equation on the blackboard, and now he was walking the students through — line by line — just how flawless, creative, and utterly original Simon's equation was.
“Simon, tell us. Why did you leave out the oscillation formula from Sickness?”
“Ah... that's...”
Simon scratched the side of his head.
Make something up, or come clean? After a moment's agonizing, he decided on honesty.
“I don't really know the oscillation formula, so I swapped in a dissonance formula instead.”
Scattered snickers rippled through the room.
“Special Admission No. 1 doesn't even know the oscillation formula?”
“Sure, he's good at Summoning, but the fundamentals, am I right?”
Hector's faction chimed in one after another, practically vibrating with anticipation. And at that very moment—
“That's originality! Brilliant!”
Bahil was glowing.
“Because he never studied ahead! Because his mind is a pristine blank page, uncorroded by textbook formulas and standard equations! That is precisely why a thought this original could emerge!”
Bang bang!
Bahil hammered the blackboard, lectures pouring out of him in an excited torrent.
“Everyone assumes motion sickness curses must run through oscillation formulas! Thinking that way is a brain pickled in prejudice! Vibration is not the only cause of motion sickness. Humans can get sick purely from a mismatch between the movement the body feels and the visual information the eyes receive! Think of the nausea from riding a fast carriage over paved roads, or the dizziness from staring at a mana screen for hours — those are exactly this type!”
Bahil went on to explain, in breathless detail, the visual motion-sickness effect produced by the dissonance formula in Simon's Sickness curse.
“Outstanding work. This is exactly how a curse equation should be developed! Now — applause!”
Clapping broke out around the hall. Simon bowed his head, utterly at a loss under the crushing weight of the praise.
Bahil laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Simon's idea is genuinely excellent. But the life of a curse is fast casting speed, so let's have you start slowly with the oscillation formula first, shall we?”
“Ah, yes, Professor!”
So we're going with oscillation after all, you absolute—!
The aspiring curse students raged internally, but none of them dared say a word aloud.
Bahil gave Simon's back an affectionate thump as he returned to his seat.
His eyes are literally dripping honey, Professor.
Chehekl, the Head TA standing at the base of the podium, sighed.
A Kizen professor's one-sided crush on a student, hm. It was a rare sight, certainly.
Still, there is something special about watching the great Bahil coil himself into knots of desperation... truly exquisite.
But this was exactly the moment to stay alert. Bahil was a man who could redline without warning at any time.
Honestly, by this point it wouldn't have surprised anyone if he'd simply cursed Simon's body and made a puppet disciple out of him — and the only thing holding him back was the fear that doing so might damage Simon's genius itself.
“Chehekl.”
At Bahil's voice, she spun around, startled.
“Ah — yes, Professor.”
“The TAs will run the practical portion for the remaining time.”
That was strange. Class A lessons were usually something he insisted on guiding in person, all the way through the practical exercises.
Chehekl bowed, still wondering.
“Understood.”
Bahil strode out of the hall, and Chehekl stepped up to the podium.
“Fifteen-minute break, then we begin the practical. TAs, gather in front of me.”
Having supervised the students' practicals and wrapped up the class without incident, Chehekl came to the door of Bahil's research office. She gave it a light rap with her knuckles.
“Professor, it's Chehekl.”
“...”
No invitation to enter came, but she opened the door with the ease of long habit and stepped inside.
And froze. Across the vast blackboard that covered the entire back wall of the office, Bahil was furiously dragging chalk, scrawling out equations in an unbroken stream.
So the man's finally gone off again. Been a while.
Chehekl waited quietly, hands folded.
Another hour passed like that. At last, the blackboard packed edge to edge with equations, Bahil wiped the sweat from his brow and turned to her.
“When did you arrive, Chehekl?”
“An hour ago.”
“The class?”
“Handled. Speaking of which — what is that equation?”
Bahil grinned and slapped the board with a resounding thwack.
“You've heard that the wild harpies' recent raids are giving the Dresden Kingdom a headache, yes? This is a Sickness curse adapted for flying monsters.”
Her eyes went wide.
“A new version of Remake Sickness.”
“Exactly! Airborne monsters, it turns out, tend to shake off Sickness curses that rely on oscillation formulas — because the curse was built for humans, with no consideration for a harpy's sense of equilibrium. So I've designed a brand-new curse built on cross-sensory motion sickness!”
Bahil's fingers danced as he explained.
“A mismatch between visual information and balance information! Under this formula, a harpy flying straight ahead will feel as though she's banking sharply downward. The reverse holds true as well! The longer they fly, the deeper the dissonance swallows them — until, before long, a vicious bout of nausea sends them crashing into the ground.”
“...”
A genuine weirdo, a downright pervert of a man — but that talent of his was the real deal. As a curse specialist herself, Chehekl could only admire it, purely and simply.
“Hold on. So the praise you heaped on Simon earlier wasn't just for show, then?”
“Haha! You've worked beside me for years and you still don't know me, Chehekl?”
Bahil perched himself on the arm of the sofa and raised both hands, palms out.
“My praise for that boy was one hundred percent sincere!”
“...”
“The way his mind approaches equations is simply built differently from ordinary students'! It's twisted — just slightly, deliciously askew! Listening to his answers, even I walk away with fresh inspiration every time!”
Bahil huffed a breath and pressed on.
“The very first day of Basic Dark Magic, on Professor Jane's test — when he derived 1,200,146 without using the Theron Formula, combining the ancient Rune Script of Jet-Black Mechanics, the instant-skeleton equation from Summoning, and Exhaust from Curse Studies? That was talk of the faculty lounge for weeks. It's exactly the same thing!”
Tap-tap! Tap-tap!
Bahil drummed the armrest rhythmically with his fingertips.
“His creativity with equations is like a spring that could fly off in any direction! And if it turns out his parents deliberately withheld any early tutoring — if it was all by design, so that originality would bloom the instant his genius detonated — then... ahh! I tell you, my respect for their foresight and resolve would curdle into outright fear!”
“Yes, yes, Professor, I understand your point perfectly.”
He looked ready to start bowing toward the direction of Simon's parents' home. Chehekl lifted her clipboard.
“So — what's the name for this new Remake Sickness?”
“Hmm.”
Bahil considered it for a moment, then spoke.
“Simonkness...”
“Terrible.”
Bahil chuckled and rose from his seat. Then his face abruptly shed all trace of humor.
“Professor Silaje is moving.”
“...”
“Word is his blood research — this so-called SM-1 — has finally begun producing visible results.”
Simon had never managed to find any footing in Hemomancy class.
His SM-1 blood was a new type that had never existed in the world. It behaved in a form entirely unlike conventional blood techniques, and because so little research had been done, even Silaje had no way to teach him.
So Silaje had dispatched his disciples scattered across the continent to push the research forward — and now, at last, the results were coming to light.
“I'd estimate about two weeks before Silaje completes an SM-1 curriculum tailored for Simon.”
“That's a crisis.”
Chehekl said it flatly.
“Exactly! A crisis! And Professor Hong Peng's counteroffensive frightens me too!”
Bahil clasped his hands together, his tone grave.
“I hear she's begun teaching Internal Jet-Black Eruption in this cycle of her Magic Combat classes. Why would she accelerate the curriculum like that? And sure enough, the only student who mastered Eruption in that lesson was Simon Polentia! She intends to grow his Martou by leaps and bounds!”
Chehekl frowned.
“Well... the rumor I heard says Simon turned down Professor Hong Peng's Direct Disciple offer.”
At that, Bahil burst into loud laughter.
“And you believe such an obvious bluff? Even if the rumor were true, Hong Peng is not the kind of woman who gives up over a little thing like that. Everyone's fooled by her clumsy continental accent and that guileless face of hers, but she is a tenacious, avaricious creature to the bone.”
“Summoning on top of everything else, and now Martou and Hemomancy too...”
The rivalry converging on a single student had reached insane levels. Chehekl heaved a long sigh, then looked up at him.
“But Professor Bahil? Didn't you say it yourself, back at Simon's Duel Evaluation against Malcolm? That there was no need to rush — that the boy would land in your hands regardless. I'd assumed you had some reason for boasting like that.”
“I did. Of course I did, Chehekl!”
Bahil walked to the end of the blackboard and pulled a cord. A bundle of papers, several layers deep, came tumbling down from beneath the board.
“I am crafting curses for one purpose only: for my Simon.”
“...Ugh, that name-calling is repulsive.”
“A brand-new Simon Polentia Original, a gift from me to him! I intend to show him a class of curse in a different dimension entirely from that frivolous little Bone Armour of his!”
Cold, hard logic said Simon was currently thriving on Summoning alone. He'd even crushed Special Admission No. 10 in the Duel Evaluations.
So it was, in a way, only natural that Simon showed little interest in growing his other disciplines. Focusing on his strength rather than piling on more means of attack was a wise judgment for a student to make.
“So I have decided to understand him! Isn't it obvious? Why bother cursing an opponent you could fell just by swinging your Overlord from where you stand? That would be needless labor!”
And so Bahil had pivoted.
Not a combat-oriented curse, but something utterly new — a single move capable of seizing that boy's attention.
“When this research is complete, I guarantee you — Simon will be mine! The only problem is time.”
Bahil stroked his chin, back and forth.
“Whether Silaje establishes the SM-1 style first, or I finish developing the Simon Original curse first.”
Chehekl let out a laugh of pure disbelief.
“If Simon ever found out, he'd be beside himself with joy. The mighty professors of Kizen, hanging off his every limb, scrambling to impress him. Honestly — why does everyone go this far?”
“Isn't it obvious?”
Bahil shrugged.
“Because the gains when he enters your discipleship are worth several times whatever effort you put in now.”
The corner of Bahil's mouth curled upward, long and slow.
“No — several dozen times over, that's why.”
After finishing their Curse Studies class, Simon's Group 7 headed to the dining hall together.
All four of them sat down with the limited-menu hamburger steak set in front of them — again.
Camibarez beamed.
“Phew~ that was close today! We only just squeaked in — there were two people left behind us!”
“Tell me about it.”
Dick propped his chin on one hand and speared a fry with his fork.
“The other students are getting faster and faster at digging up info. Looks like some community I don't know about got created. Might need to look into it.”
“All that fuss over nothing.”
Meilin sniffed dismissively and cut into her hamburger steak.
And yet she was always the one who ate the limited menu with the most relish.
“Hey.”
Simon glanced around.
“Does the mood feel kind of... off to anyone else?”
“Y-yeah, actually.”
Not just the students — even the TAs who'd come in for a meal were murmuring among themselves, faces stiff.
Dick held up a hand — one sec — pushed back his chair, and went off to eavesdrop on the gossip.
“What's going on?”
“Don't tell me Efnel pulled something? Some kind of preemptive strike?”
“N-no way!”
Just then Dick came sprinting back to the group, sweat beading on his face.
“Dick! What happened?”
“Haaah... it's definitely big news, all right.”
Dick ran a hand through his hair, his expression conflicted.
“Professor Lang of Toxicology — she's dead.”