The Weight of an Order
[AAAAAAARGH!]
Pier recoiled from Simon in a flash of alarm.
[Unthinkable! Horrifying! A son born of my friend and my mortal enemy! How in the world could such a——!]
It was the first time Simon had ever seen Pier this rattled. On a sudden whim, Simon cleared his throat and launched into a flawless impression of Anna.
"Darling~ Dinner is served!"
[GWAAAAAAH! Stop! Stop it, I say! The nightmare! The nightmare returns! Out of my head this instant!]
Watching Pier writhe in torment, Simon doubled over laughing. Consider it revenge for having to learn about a chapter of his father's past he'd never wanted to know. And somehow, he had a feeling the two of them would get along even better from now on.
"Looking forward to working with you, Pier."
[Do not smile like Anna! Damn you!]
"Hahaha!"
Morning broke on the next day.
Until late afternoon on the last day of the weekend, Simon stayed at Pier's side, learning the art of operating a Legion.
[It is a mistake to think of undead as beings governed by common sense! The reason undead under a necromancer's control sometimes lash out and devour people is that the summoner lacked a proper understanding of the undead!]
Pier's lessons unfolded entirely from the undead's point of view. Compared with the lectures of Kizen's professors, it was a completely different perspective—and for the one doing the learning, a refreshingly entertaining one.
[It is a powerful death-will that drives the undead! Among the things humans are capable of, the closest thing to it would be an unshakable 'will.' ]
Simon tilted his head.
"Will, you say?"
[Precisely! Allow me a simple example. Say you, a Kizen student, have an irritating senior. All day long, again and again, you think about killing him. Then the undead at your side remembers that will.]
Simon was nodding along when a sudden chill ran through his entire body.
"Wait. Don't tell me——!"
[Indeed. From then on, that undead will seize upon any moment your gaze falters and attempt to devour your senior!]
Flames roared up in the hollows of Pier's eyes.
[Even if your hatred for the man fades! Even if time wears the memory away to nothing! The undead will hunt his life forevermore.]
"Th-that's insane!"
Pier gave a low chuckle.
[I will share such cautions with you as they arise, so fret not! Now, back to the matter at hand. When controlling the undead, nothing matters more than a powerful will. Boy! Issue an order to that skeleton standing blankly before the wall—command it to attack!]
"Ah—yes, sir."
Simon rose from his seat and extended his right arm.
"Attack that wall."
Pat, pat.
The skeleton scurried over and began scratching at the wall with its fingers and kicking it with its feet, in a listless, halfhearted fashion.
[That will not do.]
Pier shook his head slowly.
"……Then how should I do it?"
[Watch closely.]
Pier's expression turned ferocious.
[The moment you issue an attack order to the undead, whatever the target may be—you must harbor hatred for it! A parent's killer! The demon that slew your beloved! Hate that wall as you have hated nothing else in this world! Crush it! Tear it apart! Bathe in its blood!]
The skeleton's movements began to change. The scratches grew deep enough to gouge the stone, and it started hurling its whole body against the wall in wild, ragged blows. And with each blow, Pier's voice rose higher and higher.
[Die! Die! Die! Die! You have no right to live! No right to exist! Perish in agony! I will seize your limbs and tear them asunder, drag out your entrails and feed them to the swine! I will savor your flesh, morsel by morsel, chewing each bite slow and thorough! Die! Die! Die!]
KRA-KOOM!
BOOM!
KRA-KA-BOOM!
The assault grew ever more ferocious. Eventually the skeleton began slamming its own skull against the wall, shrieking a scream that curdled the blood.
Simon could only watch, his face going pale at the sheer savagery of it.
[Do you understand now, boy? The stronger the will, the more it draws out the undead's latent strength and fighting spirit!]
"……While cursing, though?"
[I merely explained it in human terms—the words themselves are not what matter! A first-rate necromancer can imbue even the command 'chop firewood' with a will of iron! And among wills, the negative emotions—rage, hatred, bloodlust—are the ones that grip the undead most powerfully!]
But Simon could barely hear Pier anymore.
The skeleton attacking the wall was breaking apart, shattering beyond any hope of repair.
"P-Pier! At this rate——!"
[Then make it stop. You are the first voice of authority in the Legion.]
Simon nodded and fixed his gaze on the skeleton.
"Stop! Stop it now!"
BANG! BANG!
But the skeleton did not stop. Its skull was cracking apart, both its hands dangling loose at the wrists—and still it pounded the wall, howling like something possessed.
"Can't you hear me? I said stop!"
The skeleton didn't even pretend to listen. It began convulsing outright, its aggression climbing to ever more disturbing heights.
Pier observed in silence. It might come as a shock to young Simon—but this lesson needed to be hammered into his mind and understood, here and now.
The power a will could carry, and the weight of a necromancer's command.
That skeleton would not stop until it was ground to powder. Even with its body crumbled away, even with nothing left but hands and feet, it would hammer at the wall until its very existence was erased.
Because that was what it meant to be undead.
"STOP——!!!"
At that moment, Simon's eyes flared wide and he roared.
The air shuddered; the ceiling rang. A scream so raw and violent that even Pier flinched. And then—
Scraaape.
At last, the skeleton stopped.
Its gaze kept sliding, sly and sidelong, back toward the wall—but it did not dare defy Simon's command.
"……Hey."
Simon glared at the skeleton, breathing hard.
"Defy my order one more time, and I won't let it slide."
He had no desire to watch a creature of his own summoning mutilate itself any further. Under that grim glare, the skeleton hastily tore its eyes from the wall and snapped to attention.
Seeing this, Pier let out a small gasp of admiration.
'……This whelp is already invoking the Absolute Order?'
This was no level reachable through mere instruction about imbuing one's will. It genuinely exceeded all expectations.
'What in the world were you raising out in that rural backwater, Richard?!'
Simon wiped his mouth with his sleeve and straightened his posture. Then, as if nothing had happened, he scratched his head with an awkward expression.
"Pretty pathetic, huh? Can't even keep proper control over my own undead."
[On the contrary. Well done.]
It was, of course, praise from the bottom of his heart.
[In real combat you will have no time to spew curses or bark threats the way you just did. Keep training until you can pack a complete will into a single command and move the undead with it alone!]
"Yes, sir, I under——"
Suddenly Simon swayed and pressed a hand to his forehead. One side of his head throbbed with a dull ache.
[You have simply strained your nerves too far. The life of a necromancer is lived in permanent company of mental affliction. Rest, and rest thoroughly!]
"Ghh—yes, sir."
Rest or no rest, he hadn't eaten anything since the night before. Simon said it was about time he headed back to Kizen.
[You will need a means of communication once you return to Kizen!]
Pier tossed him a small skull he had produced from who knows where.
[It is my proxy. Should anything happen at Kizen, use it to call for me.]
"Ah—thank you."
It was a skull with a soft, almost squishy feel to it. Simon took a pin from his bag and fastened it to his uniform, the way other students decorated theirs. It wasn't a bad-looking piece, honestly—it could pass as fashion.
"See you next weekend, Pier."
[Heh heh! I shall expect new achievements in one week's time!]
"Count on it!"
Gathering his things, Simon left the ruins behind.
By the time he arrived at Kizen, dusk was settling over the grounds. Simon completed his return report without incident and headed into the dormitory.
[KUAHAHA! It has been far too long, Kizen!]
The proxy skull dangling from Simon's uniform squirmed as it spoke. Naturally, the voice reached Simon's ears alone.
[You said the Student Protection Period has not yet ended?]
"Right. It ends next week."
[Excellent! Then much entertainment lies ahead! Kheheheh!]
Simon opened the door to Room 409. Dick was sprawled on his bed, and Kajan had been nowhere to be seen all weekend.
"Oh, Simon! You're back!"
Dick sat up on the bed, his face bright.
"Hey, Dick. Good weekend?"
"Not bad. It being the first one, I mostly just got to know the merchants, lined up a few investment promises—that kind of thing. How about you?"
Simon set Pier's proxy down on the desk, shrugged off his uniform jacket, and hung it in the closet.
"Just met up with someone I know. Pretty good weekend, all in all."
In truth, "pretty good" was a gross understatement. After all, Simon had spent this weekend becoming one of the only seven Legion Commanders in the world.
The proxy skull on the desk grinned broadly.
"Glad it went well. Oh! More importantly—did you see next week's schedule got posted?"
"No, not yet."
Kizen's faculty were active, field-duty necromancers, and the students themselves moved around constantly on missions and other assignments—so the timetables were fluid. The entire student body had to check an updated schedule once a week.
"Tomorrow morning and afternoon, both slots are Basic Dark Magic."
"Basic Dark Magic…… that's the one with the team project, right?"
"That's the one."
Every Kizen freshman took nine courses.
Curse Magic, Jet-Black Mechanics, Summoning.
Spirit Magic, Hemomancy, Toxicology, Magic Combat.
Divine Defense, Basic Dark Magic.
Among them, Basic Dark Magic was a special case: its presiding professor became the homeroom professor of Class A. The course ran on fixed four-person teams and evaluated all eight of the other subjects.
"I really hope it's Professor Bahil who gets assigned to Class A."
Ever since the teleport incident, Dick seemed thoroughly taken with Bahil. He shook his head.
"Anyway, that's not the point. Looking at the schedule, it seems we'll be picking our teams in tomorrow's Basic Dark Magic class. And once a team is decided, it stays fixed for the entire semester. This is a matter of life and death for our whole time at Kizen."
"I'd say so."
A team composition that would carry them through an entire semester. It went without saying how much that mattered. Simon's expression turned serious as he gave a slow nod.
"Building the team means we have to be incredibly strategic about it."
Dick's eyes gleamed.
"For starters, it's an advantage if the four members each excel at different subjects. I'm pretty mediocre across the board, but my highest entrance exam score was in Jet-Black Mechanics, so I'm thinking of going in on that."
Simon thought for a moment before answering.
"I haven't taken the exams yet, but…… Summoning is probably my strongest."
"Okay! So that's one Summoning, one Jet-Black Mechanics. The balance is genuinely great!"
Dick flipped through a notebook filled with profiles of Class A students and kept going.
"Which means our next priority recruit, no question, is a Curse Magic major."
"Curse Magic? Why's that?"
"Let me explain. Watch closely."
Dick set his notebook down and pulled out fresh paper and a quill from the desk drawer.
"The subjects with the highest grade multipliers at Kizen. There's a thing people call the 'Three Great Disciplines of the Necromancer'—Curse Magic, Jet-Black Mechanics, and Summoning. Students shorthand it as 'CurseJetSum.'"
Dick neatly wrote out the three subjects on the paper and circled them together.
Simon looked down at the page with careful eyes.
"So we've already got 'Jet' and 'Sum' covered. That's why we need a Curse specialist."
"Sharp as ever, Simon! Well, these days Summoning's share has shrunk, so some people swap it out for Spirit Magic and say 'CurseJetSpirit,' or just lump them all together as 'CurseJetSumSpirit'…… but the fact is these three are the most widely recognized."
Simon nodded.
"And beneath the Big Three sit the 'Four Great Majors.' Spirit Magic, Hemomancy, Toxicology, Magic Combat. Shortened to 'SpiritBloodToxinBlade.' These matter too, but rather than something everyone learns across the board, they're usually chosen as a major and studied in depth."
Dick wrote out all seven subjects on the paper, then added the last two remaining courses at the bottom.
"Then there's the auxiliary course, Divine Defense, and the comprehensive core requirement, Basic Dark Magic. Together people call them 'DivineDark.' You can't choose either as a major."
"Got it."
Simon counted off on his fingers, sorting it out in his head.
"CurseJetSum. SpiritBloodToxinBlade. DivineDark. Nine subjects total."
"Exactly."
"Four people to a team, right? Say we bring in a Curse major and complete the Big Three—who should we recruit for the last slot?"
"That is exactly what we're putting our heads together over right now!"
Dick turned the page with obvious relish.
"First off, among the Four Great Majors, we should screen out the Magic Combat hopefuls. Those types tend to be good at Magic Combat and nothing else. I already checked all of them in Professor Hong Peng's class."
"……So we have to account for that kind of thing too."
"Yep. Also, as a rule, Curse Magic applicants score high in Divine Defense, and Hemomancy kids tend to overlap heavily with Toxicology, so their scores run high there as well. You have to map all of it out."
Simon and Dick wrestled over the recruitment plan deep into the night.
Dick, with his encyclopedic knowledge, drove the planning, while Simon—listening quietly—kept landing sharp, unexpected critiques that caught him off guard. More than once Dick immediately conceded the point and adjusted course.
The result:
"Perfect! Then we lock it in with this?"
"Yeah."
For tomorrow's team-forming class, their recruitment list—first choice through tenth—was set.