The Grin Before the Win
‘Now I've really got the feel for it!’
After several more attempts, Simon slapped his knee.
He'd decided to try just one more time. The skeleton that had just used Dash was making its way back to the starting line of the track.
The solution, as it turned out, wasn't anything grand. Having been made to Dash over and over, the skeleton had simply grown familiar with the technique.
And Simon himself now had the skeleton Dash drilled so deep into his skull it might as well have been carved into bone.
For a target that far away, you don't run on two legs and cut it down.
You fly, and you cut.
With that conviction hammered firmly into his mind, Simon issued the Absolute Order.
‘Cut it down!’
Booooom!
The Dash was only ever a means to an end — the end being the cut itself.
The skeleton soared a full ten meters through the air, sliced clean through the rice-straw target, and landed. Its jumping power had been joined by a leap in the sword's accuracy as well. At last, Simon had a success worth being satisfied with.
Dick and the other students watching around the track erupted in enthusiastic cheers.
‘Well, I'll be.’
Watching from a little distance away, Aaron felt the corners of his mouth curl upward.
‘I was worried his instincts might rust over the break. Instead, his focus and learning speed have only gotten sharper. And...’
His gaze shifted toward Hector, who was glaring at Simon from across the track like he wanted him dead.
‘Hector. Making a genius like that your rival can only end in misery. You've still got the advantage in every other subject. Why obsess over Simon alone?’
Gritting his teeth with a grind of enamel, Hector took his own turn again and sent his skeleton leaping.
After countless attempts, Hector finally pulled it off too. The Dash came up short at three meters, hardly practical in a real fight, but he managed to sever the rice straw properly without so much as damaging his skeleton's frame.
Aaron stroked his bristly stubble.
‘Hector's overall level is high, but raw learning speed was never his strong suit. Picking things up this fast in such a short window is the exception, not the rule. Is Simon's presence simply spurring him on?’
Aaron's eyes moved back and forth between the two boys.
These two could push each other to greater heights. As long as they never collided head-on, a rivalry like this was, from an educator's standpoint, nothing short of ideal.
"Professor."
One of the teaching assistants called out to Aaron, miming checking a wristwatch. Aaron's voice boomed across the field.
"Alright, that's enough! That wraps up today's practical."
The assistants herded the students over and lined them up in front of Aaron.
Pushing their undead control skills to the limit for the first time in a while had clearly taken its toll — quite a few students were complaining of headaches and dizziness.
"Take your seats."
Aaron commanded the students to sit, then checked the time one more. With about ten minutes left before class ended, he skimmed down the checklist the assistants had drawn up and spoke.
"The students I call will come forward. Simon Polentia. Hector Moore."
As the students began to murmur, Simon and Hector rose and stepped to the front.
"You two showed the greatest improvement in today's class. We'll close out the lesson with a brief match between you. It's a friendly bout with no bearing on your grades, so no pressure."
The students clapped and whistled as if they'd been waiting for exactly this. A good fight to watch was always welcome.
Simon shot Aaron a wry smile.
‘Professor, you really didn't have to pair me up with Hector again.’
The corners of Hector's mouth lifted.
‘Professor Aaron! First thing you've done in a while that I actually like!’
Aaron explained the rules.
Since they'd learned the Skeleton Dash in today's class, Simon assumed the match would be something simple, like measuring Dash distance. He was wrong.
"A summoned minion battle,"
Aaron declared.
"Each of you may field exactly one minion: an Island Ratman skeleton. Aside from controlling your skeleton, the summoner is forbidden from using any dark magic whatsoever. The winner is the first to knock the opponent's skeleton's skull to the ground, even once, through direct combat. Understood?"
Both boys nodded.
Soon, at the assistants' direction, the two took their distance from each other and drew their skeletons out of the subspace. An assistant raised an arm.
"Ready."
Both boys bent their knees and ratcheted up their concentration. The skeletons crouched before them fell into fighting stances of their own.
"There's no way Simon loses this one."
Meilin craned her neck between the onlookers and muttered under her breath.
"He can use the Skeleton Dash out in the open. That's a straight-up advantage. Is Professor Aaron trying to keep Simon's flame alive or what?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk."
Dick waggled a finger side to side with an insufferably smug look.
"Ahh, that's our Meilin. Thinking far, far too simply."
She let out a growl like a monster, and Dick — genuinely startled — hastily hid his hand behind his back. Beside her, Camibarez, who was sitting with her knees drawn up, spoke up.
"Then what do you think, Dick?"
As if he'd been waiting for exactly that question, Dick whipped his head toward her.
"Honestly? Blocking a Dash is easy. This match is really about equipment."
"Equipment?"
Curious, Camibarez was about to ask more when the assistant's cry of "Begin!" rang out.
Simon instantly pulled Jet-Black to the tip of his skeleton's feet.
‘One Dash — smash the skull, and it's over!’
Hector responded by throwing open his subspace. From it, he pulled a massive pike and tossed it to his skeleton.
"That's it!"
"Knew it!"
Cheers rose from Hector's faction. Simon froze the Dash he'd been preparing mid-charge.
‘Right — there was never any rule against weapons.’
The perfect counter to a charging attack. Hector's skeleton now held the pike.
The instant Simon ordered a charge, all Hector had to do was extend the spear. Between the momentum of the incoming skeleton and the pike's longer reach, Simon's would be skewered first, every time.
Hector's summoning control was top-tier, too. There was no way he couldn't time a thrust to a charge. And on top of that, none of the weapons Simon currently carried out-ranged Hector's pike.
"If you won't come to me, I'll come to you!"
Hector split his lips in a wide grin and ordered his skeleton to attack. It sprinted forward and thrust its spear, and Simon had his skeleton raise its sword to block.
Claaang!
The two weapons collided in a spray of sparks. Hector's skeleton unleashed a storm of attacks.
Hector himself clearly had considerable skill with the spear, because every thrust was precise and airtight. Simon's skeleton could do nothing but desperately parry.
"Come on, come on!"
"Keep pushing him!"
The students, quickly absorbed in the fight, began shouting in excitement. After deflecting a few thrusts, Simon's skeleton turned its back and fled.
"Gwahahaha! What do you think you're doing?!"
Hector's skeleton kicked off the ground hard and shot forward head-on.
Simon's eyes went wide.
‘Hector's three-meter Dash!’
Simon hurriedly issued a defensive order. The skeleton, which had been running away with its back exposed, spun in a full rotation and swung its sword.
CLAAANG!
Spear met sword with an earsplitting shriek of metal. By a hair's breadth, the extended spear's trajectory was knocked off course, scraping past just beside the skeleton's skull.
"So close!"
"Hector's got the momentum!"
The atmosphere had tilted completely in Hector's favor. Simon's skeleton wobbled, then steadied its stance.
"What's the matter, Simon Polentia?!"
Hector, riding high on his advantage, bellowed.
"You learned a brand-new technique and you won't use it?!"
"......"
Then, a faint smile crept across Simon's lips.
Clink!
Simon's skeleton dropped the sword from its hand. The watching students leaned in, half expecting it to draw a spear or some other weapon from its subspace — but Simon never even opened one.
‘Bare-handed?’
‘Is he serious?’
As the students murmured among themselves, Simon's skeleton crouched in place. Then it pressed both palms flat to the ground.
Hissssss.
Simon's eyes flashed with concentration.
‘Recreating the feel from that day.’
Click! Click!
Bone fragments began detaching from all over the skeleton's frame, swapping positions with one another and starting to reassemble.
The losing condition was the skull touching the ground. But Simon rapidly rearranged only the other bones — all while keeping the skull attached to the torso.
Full reassembly.
Watching Simon's skeleton slowly transform before his eyes, Hector felt rage rise up in him, veins bulging at his forehead.
‘You little—!!’
Hector hurriedly ordered his skeleton to attack, but Simon's slipped every thrust with ease, retreating as it continued its reassembly.
Watching the skeleton's gradual transformation, the other students belatedly grasped what was happening and burst into cheers.
The exact technique Simon had demonstrated before the whole class on the first day of Summoning, back in the first semester. Even Aaron's palms had gone slick with sweat just from watching.
‘...Chilling to witness, every single time.’
Simon was recreating the bipedal monster known as the Island Ratman — in the form of its pre-evolution ancestor, the Gray Rat.
An insight that seemed to transcend the very natural order of the world. Simon's skeleton, now a four-legged beast, was weaving between the spear thrusts.
Whoosh!
The Gray Rat skeleton leapt high, opening a wide gap between itself and its opponent.
Front paws planted on the ground, hind paws braced behind, haunches raised — a predator's hunting stance.
A lump of saliva slid down Hector's throat.
He, too, halted his skeleton and had it take up a guard stance, spear leveled forward.
"You little...!"
"Sorry, Hector. It's over."
The Gray Rat skeleton was gathering Jet-Black into all four legs — fuel for the Dash.
"What nonsense! Nothing about the fight has changed!"
"The difference in leaping power between a humanoid monster and a beast-type monster."
Simon's lips moved.
"Do you truly understand it?"
The Gray Rat drove all four paws into the ground and launched itself.
Hector's skeleton reacted, hastily thrusting its spear upward. A simple motion — nothing more than an arm raised high. But faster than that simple motion—
Crack!
The Gray Rat skeleton, streaking through the air, slammed its forepaws into the skull a beat sooner. The late spear tip did no more than graze past a single hind leg.
Thud!
Hector's skeleton's skull, severed clean from its neck, went tumbling across the ground. Behind it, the Gray Rat skeleton touched down lightly on all fours.
Click-clack! Click-clack!
Like something out of a transformation sequence, the skeleton's torso rose up off its four legs until it stood on two once more. Its bones reassembled themselves one final time, from crown to toe, beast-shape flowing back into human form.
Walking on two legs, the skeleton picked up the skull rolling across the ground and — mimicking Simon's own gesture — held it aloft above its head.
The teaching assistant shouted, face flushed with excitement.
"Victory goes to Simon Polentia!"
Out of a deep silence, the students who had been watching in total absorption began to snap awake one by one, gasping as if emerging from a dream.
WHOOOAAAAA—!!
The entire track vanished beneath a wall of thunderous cheers.