The Offer Declined
“......”
Simon deliberated.
He understood that Professor Hong Peng's offer to become her direct disciple was sincere. But then again—what did he want?
Magic Combat as a major.
There was no denying that Hong Peng's class had been genuinely fun. The outdoor curriculum, the crises that kept springing up one after another, eating meals out in the field, the high-intensity competition.
There had been brutal stretches, but as long as he thought of every one of them as part of the forging that would make him stronger, he could endure them.
And yet.
“It's an offer beyond what I deserve, and I'm grateful for it. But honestly—I'd like to decline.”
Simon rose from his seat and bowed deeply. She didn't seem the least bit surprised, giving a composed nod.
“May I ask why?”
“There's another field of study I want to pursue more deeply right now.”
“Hmm—”
Her eyes curved into crescents.
“Good. Thank you for telling me straight out, so I won't be left nursing pointless regrets.”
“......Ah.”
“But don't think for a second that this means I'm giving up on you, Simon.”
“Sorry?”
Her brown hair swayed slowly in the breeze.
“You still have a whole year left before you have to declare your major, don't you? I'll work harder. Hard enough to change your mind.”
Simon could only stand there dumbfounded. Did I really make that much of an impression?
“And to be honest, I've gotten curious about how far you'll go, Simon. For my own sake, too.”
She stood and swept her hand through the air. A jet-black teleportation circle unfurled across the floor.
“Even if you're not my disciple, that's fine. If you ever need my help, come find me anytime.”
“......Thank you, Professor.”
“Keep what happened today between us. You're free to go now.”
Simon bowed once more, then stepped onto the circle.
FWOOSH!
The moment Simon vanished, a gust of wind swept through, rattling the ornaments in the house.
Hong Peng settled onto her creaking wooden chair and gazed out the window with a lighter heart.
“Professor Hong Peng!”
The door burst open and one of her teaching assistants came rushing in.
“What happened? What about Simon?”
She smiled warmly and shook her head. Brad's face twisted, and he bit his lip.
“He refused a professor's offer—the nerve of him......!”
“It's fine, Brad.”
She gave the assistant's shoulder a light pat and looked out the window again. Brad huffed and grumbled on.
“I still don't understand why you suddenly took a shine to that student! Why not make the offer to Hector instead? He's clearly got more talent for Magic Combat. Or any of the other four Magic Combat hopefuls—they all have plenty of potential......!”
“A genius.”
she said quietly.
“I've seen plenty of geniuses come through Kizen. But that kind of genius? He's the first.”
“......Sorry?”
She offered no answer, only a smile.
Simon was the last of Class A to arrive back at Kizen.
He was worn out from the grueling session, but fortunately there were still more than two hours before the afternoon class.
He returned to the dormitory, handed his uniform off to the henchmen to wash, and headed for the bathhouse to scrub off the sweat.
“Simon!”
It was in the bathhouse that he ran into Dick. Dick had arrived a little later than him, and for some reason his face was absolutely buzzing with excitement.
“Heh heh heh! You won't believe what happened to me earlier—even after hearing it!”
“What was it?”
Dick glanced around, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“I was traveling by teleportation circle, right? And suddenly I felt like I slammed into something—BAM! Blocked mid-transit! When I came to, I was standing in Professor Bahil's research lab, of all places!”
Simon blinked.
“Professor Bahil from Curse Studies?”
“That's the one!”
“Did something happen while you were there?”
“He just had me clean.”
“......”
Simon gave a wry smile.
“I've heard about this from upperclassmen who went through Kizen! The teleportation scouting! Professor Bahil has his eye on me, right? Does that mean I get to be a direct disciple too?”
Simon turned his head away, sweat pouring down his face.
“May......be? Could be.”
“Holy crap, I've got a connection to one of Kizen's real power brokers! You know what a direct disciple is, right? Your whole school life just blooms open! They say even disciplinary action and expulsions get waved off as long as your supervising professor is watching your back!”
“That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard all year.”
At the voice cutting in out of nowhere, Simon and Dick turned around. Hector and two members of his clique were standing there.
“A dirt-poor commoner nobody like you, a direct disciple of Professor Bahil? Even a stray dog walking past would laugh.”
His friends snickered along. A smile playing at the corners of his mouth, Dick rose slowly from his spot.
“Aw, did somebody's poor wittle feelings get hurt? It's supposed to be all about you, huh? And here Professor Bahil seemed to think I was worth a second look. Must sting.”
“Watch your mouth. Merchant trash.”
Hector took a step forward. Up close, he was massive—tall, broad, and solid with muscle from head to toe.
“Careful. I know your type inside and out—being merchant trash myself.”
Dick drawled it out, waving his wrist in lazy circles.
“You got shown up in Magic Combat class by Meilin too, remember? But of course, in your world only you have a sob story and a hard life. You're just another piece of trash with a fancy name, you bastard. Walking around like graduating from some noble house's education program makes you royalty or something.”
Hector flared up and thrust out his right arm. A jet-black magic circle sketched itself across his palm, and Dick's body wrenched sideways, slamming hard into a pillar.
“Kh—KHAK!”
“A lowborn mutt should learn which words stay in his mouth.”
Bloodshot eyes blazing, Hector swept his arm out to the side.
“Die right here, you bastard.”
KKKKRK!
A curse. As Dick clutched his throat in agony, the students around them murmured and rose to their feet.
“Ghk—ghkkkk!”
Even in the middle of it, Dick managed a twisted grin and flipped Hector the middle finger. Hector's expression froze over, ice-cold.
“H-Hector, calm down!”
“Hey! Isn't this crossing the line? Casting a curse outside of class hours—!”
The two friends rushed in to pull him back, but a single irritated sweep of Hector's arm sent them sprawling.
Just as Hector began sketching a magic circle on his other palm—
“......!”
A sole shot toward his face—WHAM!
CRACK!
Hector barely crossed his arms in time to block it. Sliding across the slick bathhouse floor, he dropped to one knee.
The impact canceled his half-cast curse, and Dick staggered back, wheezing, freed from the pain.
Tap.
Simon touched down on the floor, his eyes burning with murderous intent.
“There it is. Wondered when you'd finally step in.”
Hector grinned as he rose. Jet-black erupted from both his hands, while Simon fed his own jet-black into the ring on his finger and gripped an imaginary lever.
In that split second, one hair's breadth from eruption—
CRASH!
A bucket came hurtling into the floor at Hector's feet and shattered, shards flying everywhere.
Hector and Simon flinched, and the other students screamed in alarm.
“......Too loud.”
Shhhhhhooooo.
The man soaking in the bath rose to his feet. Water streamed down a back so densely covered in scars that the mere sight of it was enough to turn one's stomach.
“You lot really want to die that badly?”
And Simon knew him. Simon's eyes went wide.
'Kajaan!'
It was none other than the man who spent his days lying around Room 409 like a corpse.
“......Kajaan Edvalt.”
Hector lowered his arms, studying the man.
“I've heard the rumors. You're still clinging to this school, huh?”
Kajaan silently cracked his neck. With every twist came a sickening series of pops, loud enough that it was hard to believe they could come from a human body.
“Hector!”
“C-Careful, man. That guy's eyes are messed up in the head.”
His friends rushed over and formed a protective screen in front of Hector.
But then—
“Let's drop it.”
The words out of Hector's mouth were unexpected. The two friends turned to stare at him in bewilderment.
“You'd do well to handle yourselves carefully too. There won't be a second warning.”
Hector strode out of the bathhouse without a backward glance. His friends stood blinking for a moment, then scrambled after him like men fleeing a fire.
“Dick!”
Simon hurried over and checked on Dick, who lay sprawled on the floor.
“You okay?”
“It was nothing.”
Dick chuckled weakly.
“The curse he hit me with was just a scare tactic. Like that bastard ever had the guts for more.”
Shhhhooo.
With the commotion over, Kajaan lowered himself back into the bath and closed his eyes. The other students sharing the tub could be seen quietly edging away, not daring to look at him directly.
Simon rose to his feet.
“Kajaan. Thanks for the help......”
“You're loud too.”
he said, without even turning around.
“Get lost.”
“......”
A faint smile crossed Simon's lips.
He really isn't a bad guy after all.
It had been a minor incident, and in the end it blew over without any real trouble.
As it turned out, Dick had been deliberately provoking Hector, hoping to bait him into a disciplinary offense. Of course, since Simon had stepped in and attacked Hector, any punishment meted out would have hit both of them—so Dick had cleanly abandoned the plan.
When a sheepish Simon heard the whole story and apologized, Dick just laughed brightly.
“Honestly, you jumping in was way better! When you kicked Hector, I felt it all the way down to my bones. So satisfying.”
Half of Dick's provocation had been genuine anger, and besides, it was still the Student Protection Period—any discipline now couldn't land a fatal blow. Hector, no doubt, had known that too.
By the time they finished showering, freshly laundered uniforms had already been delivered to the dormitory door, spotless thanks to washing magic. The two of them changed quickly and made it through their last afternoon class without incident.
When their schedule was finally done, dusk had settled in around them. Simon and Dick were eating dinner and heading back to the dormitory.
“WOOOO! The weekend's finally here!”
Dick shouted, stretching his arms to the sky.
“Simon, what are you doing this weekend?”
“The weekend? Nothing planned, really.”
“Aw, come on, you can't do that! At Kizen, how you spend your weekends is half the game.”
“Says the guy who obviously has plans?”
Dick nodded.
“Honestly? My weekend schedule matters more than my weekday classes. I'm heading down to Rochest.”
Rochest, Kizen's satellite city.
A small-to-mid-sized city kept bustling by the constant foot traffic of Kizen staff, students, and henchmen. Famous as a necromancers' retreat and student town, it was packed edge to edge with countless restaurants, inns, and shops catering to necromancers—and it was a common sight to find Kizen students working part-time jobs there to earn money for class materials.
On weekends especially, students flooded in and the streets swelled with enormous crowds. In fact, when Kizen students talked about going out for the weekend, it was more or less synonymous with going to Rochest.
“So what are you planning to do there?”
“Business.”
Dick answered with surprising gravity.
“The monthly stipend Kizen hands out as living expenses isn't nearly enough to live on. And it's not like I'm such a prodigy that I can count on scholarships. Gotta play to my strengths, and fast.”
Simon nodded. Classic Dick—always three moves ahead.
“Simon, you should set up some kind of income stream too. Professors supplying us with materials like they do now—that only lasts through the Student Protection Period. The monthly stipend can't possibly cover the massive material costs Kizen's classes eat through. That's why the upperclassmen each have their own private revenue routes.”
“Hm. Really?”
Having to be self-sufficient even outside of class—so life here was anything but easy. And Simon, whose passion lay in Summoning, a discipline with absolutely astronomical material costs, would need to prepare his own countermeasures.
“Heh heh. Or, you know, you could just wait around until I've got a foothold in Rochest. Might even find you a job.”
“No thanks. The money I need is money I earn myself.”
“......Oho. Look at you, so sharp when it comes to money.”
Before entering the dormitory, Dick slipped off toward Rochest to prepare for tomorrow—quietly, of course.
Leaving Kizen grounds on weekdays was technically forbidden, but Kizen's famously freewheeling culture meant that as long as you weren't caught, it was hardly a scandal.
Simon entered the dormitory alone. In the spirit of the coming holiday, he'd bought a snack from the campus store and carried it up to his room.
He'd meant to give Kajaan a proper thank-you if he happened to be there, but today, even Kajaan was out.
Left to himself, Simon sat down in the middle of the spacious room and tore into his snack—a pillowy pack of six mini chiffon cakes.
He popped one into his mouth.
Delicious. He was savoring the rich butter flavor, chewing away contentedly, when—
“......”
He felt someone staring at him.
Simon carefully rolled his eyes toward the window. There, clinging to the windowsill, was a girl blinking her eyes open and shut, open and shut.
'N-Nephthys?!'
For the record, this was the fourth floor.