White Monsters on the Shore

Simon racked his brain, trying to piece together exactly what situation he was in.

First there had been a strange, deafening boom. The Underworld Whale had thrashed in agony, the ship inside it had lurched — and then everything went dark. When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere on a coastline veiled in sea fog.

He needed more information. Scooping up his soaked uniform jacket and shoes, Simon waded through the shallows, splashing step by step.

Once he climbed out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the water onto the white sand, the soft grit beneath his feet felt strangely pleasant. A little farther on, the terrain gave way to trees and grass.

For someone raised among rugged mountain ranges, Simon's eyes went to the plants first — past the trees, to the flowers and grasses blooming beneath them.

This is…

The vegetation of Roc Island.

To be precise, it was the kind of environment common to the island's western reaches. Professor Hong Peng's classes had dragged him all over the island, so he knew it well.

So somehow, I made it back to Roc Island?

He turned around. A vast ocean stretched to the horizon, waves breaking with a long, rhythmic hiss. Whatever else was unclear, one thing seemed certain — he was on the island.

Now, let's think this through.

While traveling via the Underworld Whale, someone had attacked. The Whale had crashed, and Simon had lost consciousness. Somehow, adrift on the waves, he had washed up on the far edge of Roc Island.

That was the most natural sequence of events he could reconstruct.

…Though there are far too many things that don't add up to just swallow it whole.

Simon set his shoes on a nearby rock, twisted his uniform jacket like a wrung-out rag to squeeze out the water, gave it a few hard shakes, and pulled it back on. It was damp, but there was nothing to be done about that. It was then that he noticed something else — the Protective Spell that should have been woven into his Kizen uniform was gone.

He drained the water from his shoes, crammed in a handful of moisture-absorbing leaves from a nearby plant to deal with the worst of the damp, and laced them back up. He had no time to laze around drying his clothes.

I need to find my group members.

Just as Simon steeled himself and moved to set off—

-Screeeeeech!

A sound like metal scraping against metal split the air. He froze mid-step and snapped his gaze toward its source. Somewhere deep in the thick undergrowth, something was pushing through the darkness of the forest toward him.

A monster? Or a wild animal?

Simon tensed and readied himself for combat. And the moment he laid eyes on what emerged from that darkness, a gasp of pure disbelief escaped his lips.

Impossible.

It was a monster, pure white from head to toe, its face riddled with hollow pits where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. He knew exactly what it was.

It felt like a hammer blow to the skull. How could he forget something that happened barely two months ago?

The Prima Materia monsters…!

It was as if the horrific nightmare of the Saintess incident — a nightmare he'd tried to bury — was being forcibly dragged back out into the light. The instant he saw the thing standing squarely on four legs before him, Simon almost wished this were a dream.

-Screeeeeech!

The white monster lunged on all fours.

The turmoil in his head settled at once, and cold combat logic took its place.

I'll end this in one strike with the Overlord.

Simon held his ground, waiting — then brought out two of the tentacle blades. He raised one like a wall to block the monster's attack, and angled the other low to the ground, timed for the moment the beast's strike was deflected and its movement stiffened.

Shaaaaa-k!

The blade punched up through its belly and heaved. Simon drew a skeleton's short sword from his subspace, gripped it in his own hand, sprinted up the length of the blade, and in one motion cleaved through the monster's neck. The white head tumbled free of the body, and the creature itself disintegrated like ash, melting away into the air.

Thud.

Simon landed on the sand and tossed the short sword above his head; the subspace yawned open and swallowed it whole.

"That settles it."

That brief exchange had given him several decisive pieces of information.

First — the thing he'd just fought was unquestionably a monster made from Prima Materia.

Second — Prima Materia was an artifact that endlessly spawned strange monsters, drawing its essence from the wielder's own power. And if you asked what that essence was, it was exactly, precisely the same as Flema's.

Divinity. Someone is using Holy Power to create these monsters again.

The more information he gathered, the less the threads seemed to untangle. How on earth had a priest gotten onto Roc Island?

Tuk-tuk.

Something dropped to the ground behind him, and Simon's head turned. What he saw was proof of his hypothesis in the most blatant terms possible.

The air rippled, and — as if space itself were excreting it — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a white lump fell and landed with a wet plop. Without even a semblance of proper causality, a new white monster was born. This one rose onto two legs like a human, and the moment it drew breath, it bared its teeth at Simon and dropped into an attack stance.

"…Oh, come on."

Simon let out a hollow laugh and took up a fighting stance.

"If my theory's right, you people are the absolute worst."

The monster kicked off the sand and charged.

Click.

Click.

Countless screens spread out beneath the dim lighting — nearly a thousand Mana Screens in total. And astonishingly, every single one of them was broadcasting the plight of a shipwrecked Kizen first-year scattered across Roc Island.

Listening to the voice of the first student to engage, the man seated in the chair smiled as though thoroughly entertained.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"That's right. The absolute worst."

The man rolled the wine glass between his fingers. He wore a jet-black uniform, his chest weighed down with a cascade of medals, epaulettes on his shoulders and a staff in his other hand.

"You all enrolled knowing exactly what this place was, didn't you?"

His name was Evangelos Alphonia — an executive of Kizen Headquarters, a necromancer known by the moniker 'Needle.'

"Lord Evangelos."

Two staff members of Headquarters approached his chair and bowed their heads.

"All 948 first-years of Kizen. The exam has begun."

"Ah, yes. Good."

At a flick of Evangelos's hand, the staff hurried back to their stations. The magical flying devices called Observers — cloaked in invisibility magic so the students couldn't see them — trailed each student and fed their footage to the Mana Screens.

"Some students, like that one, are quick on the uptake, and yet…"

Evangelos's gaze, fixed on Simon, slid sideways across the wall of screens.

"We've got plenty of panicking little darlings too, I see."

Evangelos laughed out loud.

One child collapsing where they stood. One screaming. One on the verge of tears. One in flat denial of reality. For this year's first-years, the end of the first semester must have been an ordeal they couldn't bear even to remember.

A Saintess herself had infiltrated Kizen, sealed the entire first-year class behind a barrier, and attempted to slaughter every last one of them — an incident without precedent. They were the only generation in history to live through it.

No one had died, but many had been injured, and even now, students plagued by traumatic pain and nightmares of those days were far from rare.

But Kizen did not soothe their wounds and trauma.

With cold cruelty, it dug into them — and demanded that its students face what they had endured head-on, and overcome it.

"Come on! Come on! How long are you going to drag that noble uniform of yours through the dirt? Get your head straight. If you don't want to die, snap out of it and fight!"

Evangelos raised his voice, waving his staff.

"Honestly — nobody even died back then, did they? And here you are whining about trauma over a thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that barely counts as an incident. Truly a peaceful era, I see. Out in the field, people witness things a hundred times more horrific. If you can't stomach this much—"

Evangelos's eyes gleamed.

"—then you have no right to call yourselves Kizen."

The staff members, who had been stealing nervous glances at him while they worked, felt a chill crawl up their spines.

Then Evangelos turned his head and spoke.

"Everyone, keep your wits sharp. Monitor the students' psychological states and behavior closely. Any darling whose crisis response is noticeably slipping gets cut immediately."

"Yes, sir!"

"Hooah!"

Simon exhaled a rough breath and lowered his leg. The monster, having taken a direct Jet-Black-infused roundhouse kick to the skull, went limp — then scattered and dissolved into the air.

The number of monsters Simon had taken down was just now passing ten.

If I keep fighting them one at a time, this will never end.

He needed a clear plan of action.

Two scenarios played out in his mind.

Either Efnel had truly attacked Kizen, seized the Prima Materia, and was now churning out endless monsters with it —

— or Kizen itself had staged this entire situation to test its students.

Simon leaned toward the latter. There was no need to overthink it; the timing and circumstances were simply too artificial. The incompetence implied by Kizen — the Kizen — letting the Prima Materia slip into priestly hands a second time, and an Efnel offensive with zero prior warning erupting on the exact day of the opening ceremony? Both strained belief.

There was also his quiet faith that if the Pope's heart had not fully tipped to one side, Israfil, the Moderate Faction's Saintess, would have done everything in her power to prevent a war.

But wait — to make these white monsters, wouldn't you need a priest? How would Kizen be producing divinity-born monsters?

The thought occurred to him, but Simon shook his head and shelved the question. Chase a question's tail like that and there'd be no end to it.

One thing was certain: whichever scenario was true, he had to head for the Kizen campus.

If this was an exam, the moment he reached the campus, the exam would be over. And if this really was a priestly assault, then all the more reason to get to the Command and Control Room and stop the Prima Materia from being used.

All right. Let's move.

Simon made his decision and started forward. Honestly, it wasn't strategic judgment driving him — he was worried sick about his three companions. Though whether they were even on this island was anyone's guess.

For now, all he could do was trust in their skill, as fellow Kizen students.

-Screeeeeech.

-Kikik.

But he'd barely been walking when he found more of the Prima Materia monsters. A pack of seven — small, medium, and large mixed evenly — came charging at him.

No time to deal with them one by one.

Simon detonated Jet-Black through his legs and plunged straight into the pack.

He dodged a small one's swipe and vaulted onto a medium's back. The mediums and larges swung their fists, but Simon leapt again, ran up a large monster's arm, and in an instant was atop its shoulder. With their limited intelligence, the beasts tangled into a snarling knot of their own limbs while Simon was already leaping down from the large one's shoulders.

Bone Armour!

The subspace opened, and two skeletons clamped onto his body.

Forward!

With an Absolute Order, he activated the skeletons' gravitational pull, creating a glider-like effect. Simon's body slid swiftly through the air behind him, the monsters a chaotic pile-up of tangled white bodies.

Exam or no exam — I'm ending this madness as fast as I possibly can!

Sweep past the small fry, and take the shortest route straight to Kizen.