Welcome to Becoming My Chess Pieces
"Hah! Hah!"
"Over here!"
The moment Dick, who had been dropped on the northern coast of Roc Island, opened his eyes, he began rallying the Kizen students scattered across the beach and getting a handle on the situation.
Gathering up students paralyzed with panic from the shock of the crash and the appearance of the holy monsters, talking them into following him with nothing but the tip of his tongue and becoming their emotional anchor — for Dick, it really was a simple matter.
"Something's coming from above!"
At someone's shout, Dick's head snapped up as well. A Prima Materia monster shaped like a bird had come into view.
"Scatter! That one's capable of long-range attacks!"
Everyone hurled themselves to the ground at once, hiding behind the hill.
Thwip!
From a hole bored through the center of the bird monster's body, a pillar of light made of pure divinity shot forth.
As clods of dirt geysered into the air, Dick and the students huddled low, bodies drawn tight. The monster sprayed divinity in every direction and then drifted off elsewhere.
"Th-that thing really was trying to kill us!"
One male student muttered, sunk deep in panic. The freckled girl beside him picked up where he left off.
"...Yeah, something's off about this. I know it's Kizen and all, but firing divinity with the intent to destroy a student's core is going too far!"
"Right? For a simulation the stakes are way too high. This is basically real."
Watching them drift off into their own wild imaginings yet again, Dick let out a long sigh.
The island survival assessment had been perfect. He'd slowly grilled and boiled those fumbling nobles who couldn't even start a fire until they fell in line behind him.
But this time the situation was so extreme that the kids kept trying to slip out of his control.
"And why are we heading into the forest at all? Let's just hide around here. Someone might come by on a boat."
"Alright, alright! Listen up!"
This couldn't go on. Unable to watch any longer, Dick clapped his hands together sharply.
Trailing around with clever types like Simon was one thing, but dragging this lot of ordinary kids around was genuinely exhausting. Still, he had no choice right now. Those guys could handle fights far better than he could, so he had to look after them somehow.
"If you've got brains, use them for once! Did your professors tell you that the Integrated Second Semester would run on a quasi-wartime curriculum, or didn't they?"
"...Th-they did."
"Even so, this is way too harsh."
"Okay! Everyone, get a grip. Looks like your brains have curled up from the shock and stopped working properly, but if you calm down and think it through quietly, the examiner's intent is crystal clear."
Dick thrust up his index finger.
"Confront your trauma head-on."
While delivering his speech with great conviction, Dick kept glancing surreptitiously at the empty air.
"The Saintess's terror attack left the entire first semester in limbo. Tons of injured students, tons of kids complaining of psychological stress. They even moved the break up early because of it, remember? That means the incident was never properly concluded. Did you really think Kizen would just let that slide? They're recreating the Saintess's attack and telling us to overcome the fear of the past and break past our limits — that's the examiner's intent!"
"B-but you saw it too!"
A male student, visibly terrified, shouted back.
"Those things were shooting divinity like they meant to kill! A direct hit wouldn't just mean failing as a Kizen student — it'd mean failing as a necromancer! How could Kizen possibly allow—"
"Then here's a question for you."
Dick cut him off.
"What was the single most important assignment in this break homework?"
"!"
Only then did every student's mouth fall open. They exchanged glances with one another and began to murmur.
"...Competitiveness against priests!"
"R-right! How to block divinity! They said we'd present what we'd prepared in the first class of second semester."
Dick nodded and jumped in.
"The presentation is a decoy. The biggest assignment of the break — competitiveness in anti-priest combat. And that—"
Dick spread his arms wide.
"—is exactly what this simulation is testing!"
Gradually, a calm steadiness settled into the students' widened eyes.
It was true — they had been worrying far too much.
If Efnel's assault had actually destroyed Kizen, what would happen to us, trapped on this island? Would the Dark Alliance collapse too, and would we become vassals of the Holy Federation? If war broke out, where would we even run?
It wasn't reality. This was merely an exam, a simulation.
Just thinking that much was enough to steady their wavering hearts.
"And one more thing."
Dick casually picked up a nearby pebble and chanted an enchantment over it.
"Right now, I'll show you the biggest proof of all!"
Turning, Dick hurled the pebble with all his might.
The black pebble flew in a straight line — then suddenly struck something mid-air with a sharp tick! and ricocheted away.
"Huh?"
Every student shot to their feet. From a stretch of empty air, an Observer — its invisibility shattered by the impact — popped into view.
"Gotcha-chacha!"
Before anyone knew it, Dick had cast a net like a practiced fisherman.
The Observer, trying to flee, was caught fast in the net and hauled in, and Dick leapt on top of it, seized the thing, and slammed it straight into the ground.
"Caught it!"
"Th-that really is an Observer!"
"It's been secretly watching us this whole time!"
The students screamed in excitement. Dick picked up a jagged stone from nearby and chanted an enchantment over it as well.
"Well, no — it might not be."
"What? But you just—"
"I'm saying it's not 100%. It could've been sent by Efnel to observe us. I'll smash it open and dissect it to find out."
Chuckling as he looked around at the stunned students, Dick went on.
"Better safe than sorry, right~? I hear this is crazy expensive equipment, and that's a shame and all, but being observed by the enemy is as good as death."
As Dick pinned the Observer beneath both knees and hoisted the stone high above his head, a red glow flared up urgently from the Observer as a warning indicator activated.
Beep! Do not damage the Observer during the examination.
Beep! Beep!
Watching the Observer blare its alarm for all it was worth, as if begging for its life, Dick let a sly grin spread across his face.
"Need any more evidence?"
Every student shook their head quickly. Dick rose to his feet and brushed the dirt from his uniform.
The Observer scurried off in a panic, turning invisible once more and vanishing from sight.
"Alright! I know a lot more about this exam than you do. You want to survive, don't you? You'd absolutely hate to go home on the very first day of term without even setting foot past the campus gates, right? How would you even face your parents after that goodbye at the dock? Am I wrong?"
When the students nodded with stiff faces, the corners of Dick's mouth curled upward.
"So from now on, put your faith in me and me alone."
Welcome — you've just become my chess pieces.
Exam Operations Headquarters.
"Ha! That brat. His actual skills are nothing special, but his little gray cells never stop churning."
Evangelos, the Chief Exam Proctor who had been watching the whole scene unfold on his screens, burst into loud laughter.
"Finding the Observer and milking it for all it's worth? Ahh, that's the kind of guts a necromancer ought to have! Flag that boy for monitoring too."
"Yes, sir!"
Having finished scrutinizing Dick, Evangelos glided his wheeled chair back toward the center of the room.
The overall situation was smooth.
Some students still hadn't pulled themselves out of their panic, but a handful of standouts were already pushing toward the center of the island. Their quick situational judgment pleased him greatly.
Special Admission No. 2, Serne, who had formed her own honor guard out of feathers and reigned over her followers like a queen.
Special Admission No. 3, Chatel, advancing with the stubborn, plodding inevitability of a siege engine, annihilating every monster in her path.
Special Admission No. 7, Elisa, taking to the air rather than the ground, routing through the sky aboard her Ghost Ship.
The Special Admission students go without saying. Well, they started on a different footing from the regular students to begin with.
Beyond them — Meilin, constructing a boat out of ice and exploiting the river route.
Camibarez, tracking down the injured and Blood Flow majors alike by their scent and weaving the scattered survivors into one enormous cooperative network.
Even Fitzgerald, hoodwinking the island's beasts and monsters with his Chimera to draw the creatures' eyes and pressing forward without fighting at all.
By now, the regular students were actually advancing faster than the Special Admissions.
As the semesters went on, the gap between the Special Admission students and the regular students would only keep narrowing.
But still.
Evangelos's gaze drifted toward a single screen.
The one who stands out most is someone else entirely.
Staring blankly at Simon's figure reflected on the monitor, Evangelos turned his head.
"For Simon Polentia and the other four who've entered the farthest ahead — prepare the next tribulation."
"Yes, sir!"
Evangelos laced his fingers together and smiled a sinister smile.
Now then — let's see what you do this time.
Simon climbed the hill and surveyed the situation from above.
The closer he drew to Kizen, the greater the number and size of the prowling monsters became. The terrain offered no help either. Just ahead lay a wide-open stretch of grassland with no trees, no brush — nowhere to hide, no obstacles to speak of.
It went without saying: facing enemies of that scale alone, one by one, was impossible.
Time to start preparing.
This was no moment to be stingy with his jet-black. Simon drew an object out of his subspace and set it down on the ground.
Simon's trump card for this anti-priest exam was—
"It's been a while."
The Mud Golem.
At its long-awaited return, the Golem Core rang out with a cheerful ting! ting!
Simon gave the core a gentle pat, then dug a shallow pit in the ground nearby and set it down inside.
Now, focus.
The break homework from Kizen: how to counter priests who hurled divinity.
Simon had racked his brains over it every which way.
It was certainly difficult. For a would-be Summoning major whose strength lay in undead, countering priests who poured out his bane, divinity, was hard enough — and above all, the truth was—
...Why do I even need to counter them?
Since his battle with Flema, Simon's body had acquired a measure of immunity to holy attacks.
He could take a white-magic spell like Exorcism — lethally fatal to necromancers — head-on with his bare skin and walk away unharmed.
But he hardly stands in front of Jane and announce, 'Divinity doesn't work on me, so I'm all good.' So, as a Summoning-major hopeful, he had researched a genuine countermeasure of his own.
And this was the answer I came up with.
Simon stroked the Golem Core and gathered his concentration.
Golems were a slightly unusual species among summons.
A Golem Core counted as undead, capable of connecting to lingering thoughts, but strictly speaking it was not undead at all — it was closer to a Chimera. And because its body was composed of natural materials rather than flesh, divinity was not critically lethal to it.
Simon stepped back and took his place a short distance away from the core.
Then he closed his eyes and slowly raised both arms.
Whooooooosh!
The jet-black Simon had injected into the Golem Core began to rage wildly. The sand, mud, and rock around it slapped and clumped onto the core, layer upon layer.
I'll construct it in a different form from the standard Mud Golem.
It had to be built not for combat, but specialized for speed and evasion. So Simon abandoned the conventional golem shape entirely.
Simple and mobile.
Around the Golem Core, he shaped a broad, flat form like a surfboard. He left out the arms and legs, fitting wheels in their place, and built an engine at the rear to drive them. The power turning that engine was, naturally, jet-black.
Hssssssss.
Seen from above, it looked like nothing more than a streamlined mud board.
Simon hopped aboard.
This was the board-style Mud Golem Simon had prepared — a design inspired by the wheels of the Divinity Train.
"Let's ride!"
Vreeeeee!
The engine roared to life on jet-black, and the golem's wheels began to turn.
Within moments, the board carrying Simon scattered sand in its wake and shot forward like a bolt.