An Ordinary Conversation
Bahil's curse class was one every student had been waiting for. He ranked first among the professors they respected, first among the role models they most wanted to emulate, and his class satisfaction rating stood alongside Hong Peng's at the very top of Kizen. In the lecture hall, Bahil always conducted himself with complete professionalism, and beyond his own considerable ability, he excelled as an educator — weaving his vast knowledge into explanations students could easily grasp.
But even Bahil, who seemed perfect in so many ways, had been wrestling with a major worry of late.
Tap, tap.
Bahil turned around at the sensation of fingers drumming on his shoulder. Chief TA Chehekl was glaring at him with a look that could peel paint.
"...Professor. That expression keeps slipping out. That expression."
"Ah, my apologies."
"And you might want to wipe your chin."
Bahil dabbed lightly at his mouth with his sleeve, then fixed his gaze once more on one corner of the lecture hall.
It was Class A's practical session. Teaching assistants were scattered across the room, guiding the students through curse practice, but Bahil's attention was riveted on a single spot.
"Just so we're clear, I'm not going easy on you?"
Meilyn was swinging her sky-blue hair freely as she stretched her arms out one after the other.
"Of course not. Going easy would defeat the whole point."
Her opponent was Simon.
Meilyn was, after all, an all-around elite averaging in the 90s across every subject. In Curse Studies she scored a staggering 96 — back when Group 7 had first been formed, she'd volunteered for the curse position without a moment's hesitation, so confident was she in the discipline.
Realistically, Simon had little chance of beating her with curses alone. It was a subject where the gap between them ran deep.
The two took their places facing each other at a set distance.
"Simon Polentia, Meilyn Villenne — are both students ready?"
"Yes!"
One-on-one duels were underway elsewhere in the room as well. An assistant raised her clipboard and called out.
"Then — begin!"
Whoosh.
Simon instantly spread his legs to shoulder width and thrust both hands forward. Jet-black rippled and gathered between his two upturned palms, spinning together into the circle of a magic circle.
Meilyn, by contrast, lifted only her right arm with an airy flick and was completing her circle at her leisure.
"Take this."
⟨ Exhaust ⟩
The versatile debuff curse they'd learned in the very first class of the semester shot out in the form of gray mist.
Simon's magic circle was still mid-assembly — roughly sixty percent complete.
'Hngh!'
As the curse bore down on him, force surged through Simon's eyes. His completion speed abruptly skyrocketed, and before he'd even registered the circle snapping into place, he flung it straight at the incoming curse.
⟨ Cancellation ⟩
BOOM!
By the slimmest of margins — a hair's breadth — the curse and the finished circle collided and canceled each other out. The impact staggered Simon, and he landed hard on his backside.
This class was devoted to Cancellation, the counter-curse designed to break an opponent's curse. The exercise was meant to drill it in: students traded blows back and forth, one exchange at a time.
"You have time to be sitting around down there?"
This time it was Meilyn deploying Cancellation. Refusing to be outdone, Simon readied an Exhaust right from his seated position.
By the time Simon's Exhaust was complete, Meilyn was standing with her hair swept back behind her ear, Cancellation finished and waiting, entirely unhurried.
'...Wow. She's genuinely incredible. The gap really is too wide with curses alone.'
Straightforward tactics wouldn't win this.
Simon tilted his prepared Exhaust circle ever so slightly and squeezed a bead of jet-black from his fingertips, adding a few characters of formula.
Meilyn's eyes went wide.
'Huh? What did he just add? I couldn't see...!'
⟨ Exhaust ⟩
Simon's curse shot out immediately. Meilyn tensed and brought her right-palm Cancellation circle forward to meet it — and the curse suddenly swerved downward.
'An Exhaust that changes course?!'
The curse sailed clean past her right hand and hooked toward her waist. A knowing smile spread across Simon's face.
'I win!'
BOOM!
But her left hand shot up out of nowhere and blocked the Exhaust.
Her balance thrown off, she stumbled back a few steps sideways — yet she'd taken the curse without so much as a scratch.
'Two Cancellations!'
"Silly! Did you already forget I can do multi-channeling?"
She raised both arms and smiled.
The tables had turned completely. Simon scrambled to ready a Cancellation, but Exhausts were already extending from both of Meilyn's hands. He blocked one, took the other full-on, and staggered backward. The assistant checked her clipboard.
"That's it — good work, you two."
"Woo-hoo, I won!!"
Meilyn threw both arms into the air and cheered. Simon let his arms droop in disappointment, though privately he felt he'd held his own well enough against Meilyn in a pure curse duel.
"It's a friendly match with no official winner, mind you,"
the assistant said flatly.
"But if you insist on a ruling, Meilyn loses on a rule violation."
"What? Huh? Why!"
"We agreed to exchange exactly one spell each. I explained it three minutes ago. Already forgotten?"
Meilyn's mouth fell open in wounded protest. Simon burst out laughing.
"You did the same thing in dodgeball last time, remember? You keep breaking the rules."
"S-shut up!"
Meilyn's face went scarlet as she shouted him down.
Simon was still laughing, about to say something more —
"Just now."
Suddenly he felt someone approach from behind at speed. Bahil was standing behind Simon before either of them knew it, eyes gleaming.
"What formula did you add to that Exhaust?"
Simon's face stiffened.
It wasn't without reason that professors stressed keeping a magic circle original. A circle was a complex ecosystem — disturb one small thing carelessly and the whole structure collapsed. Pull too many bugs from a garden and the flowers die, unable to be pollinated; then the birds that fed on those bugs die off too, every last one.
Catastrophic explosions from reckless modification were so common they were called a necromancer's inevitable fate. Every formula and sequence in the circles taught at Kizen existed for a reason.
"Professor, that's—"
"Answer the question."
Bahil's expression was utterly grave. Simon stammered out an answer.
"I mixed a load factor into the Exhaust's launch formula. It makes the curse heavier right after firing, so it sinks downward—"
"And you exploited that to induce a bending effect."
"Yes, sir."
"On what grounds did you believe the original formula would remain undamaged, when you grafted a separate expression onto it?"
No matter how he turned it over, the question sounded like an accusation. Simon forced out his reply through a rigid face.
"It was... a hunch. That it might work this way. I'm sorry."
Simon bowed his head deep.
The atmosphere had turned so tense that even Meilyn couldn't bring herself to interject; she could only watch Simon's back.
And that was a mercy. Neither of them saw the expression Bahil was wearing at that moment.
'A genius who makes a man ache with impatience.'
Bahil found himself composing a line for the memoir of his distant future.
'He wasn't guessing — he understood it through his skin. There was no hesitation in that hand adding the formula, not a flicker of unease. As casual as jotting down a thought that happened to occur to him. Just — tap, tap.'
The corners of Bahil's mouth climbed all the way to his ears.
'Never once in my life has my profession been so satisfying as it is right now.'
"Professor Bahil!!"
Chehekl, who'd been watching the exchange, came rushing over in alarm.
"Y-you said you had to stop by your research lab, remember?!"
"Thank you for reminding me, Chehekl."
Bahil's expression snapped back to normal, and the two students raised their heads.
"Simon Polentia. You will come with me."
"...Yes, sir."
The two of them walked out of the lecture hall side by side.
Convinced Simon might be walking straight into disciplinary action, Meilyn hardened her resolve and set after them with a grave face.
"Professor! Just a moment, I have something to—"
"Stop."
Chehekl stepped in and blocked her path.
"You can relax. Professor Bahil didn't call Simon out to scold him."
"Assistant—!"
'Scold him? Please. He's probably ready to burst into song.'
Students tampering with a circle they'd been taught was, granted, something a proper educator ought to reprimand severely — techniques that advanced belonged to upper-year territory.
But Bahil was no ordinary educator.
And just as Chehekl expected—
"You did well back there."
Bahil was praising Simon.
"Keep exercising that flash of ingenuity in the future. Though of course, this isn't a remark from a Kizen professor — it's my personal wish."
"...Yes? Yes?"
"Hardly a thrilling topic, so let's save the rest for the walk to my lab."
Bahil brushed it all off breezily, then said in a low voice:
"The kind of ordinary conversation ordinary people have."
Simon managed an uneasy smile. Wasn't constantly emphasizing how 'ordinary' you were exactly the hallmark of people who weren't?
On the way to the research lab, Bahil gazed out the window for a moment before speaking again.
"How did you spend the break?"
Wow. Genuinely ordinary conversation.
Simon answered, inwardly relieved.
"I helped my father with his work."
Bahil's eyes flared bright.
"Oh! And what sort of man is your father? Was he a necromancer? His name? His profession? Did he attend Kizen? What does he do now?"
...He couldn't have dragged the words former Legion Commander Yona out of Simon at knifepoint.
As Simon hemmed and hawed, Bahil belatedly realized his mistake and cleared his throat with a cough.
"Ahem. My apologies. Some students prefer not to discuss their families, of course."
"...I'm sorry."
"Back to ordinary conversation, then."
Bahil smiled pleasantly.
"What dark magic did you practice over the break? Any new techniques?"
"Yes! I did! I practiced Corpse Explosion, and I converted a mud golem into a mountable type, and—"
KRRRUNG!
'Summoning. Again. Again. Again.'
Furious, Bahil swept his arm violently through the air where Simon couldn't see. The curses flung loose by his rage crackled as they sailed out past the window.
"Professor. Wasn't there some kind of noise just now?"
"I can't imagine what you mean."
A short while later, a scream rang out from below — a couple whispering sweet nothings on a bench. By then they'd both turned into raccoons and tumbled off the seat. It was a curse that transformed people into animals for two full hours.
"Something's really kicking up a fuss out there."
At the sound of animals shrieking their heads off, Simon's gaze drifted to the window. Bahil shrugged.
"Wildlife must have wandered in. In any case — how much have you deduced about this exam's theme?"
"Nothing confirmed yet, but I'm thinking it's some kind of trap dungeon built around a wide variety of weapons."
Saying this, Simon stole a glance at Bahil's face — but not a muscle on it changed.
"I'm afraid professors can't give students any hints. So. How are you preparing, Simon?"
"With my golem—"
Bahil's arm whipped violently through the air once more.
This time, the bones of a group of boys playing ball off in the distance all turned to something like soft-bodied mollusks, and they collapsed to the ground in limp heaps. Their screams poured out.
"What on earth is that sound?"
Simon peered out the window in alarm, but outside was perfectly peaceful. The curses had landed behind the building.
"Now, come in."
Bahil, his face a flawless mask, stopped with impeccable composure in front of the lab door.
"There is something I have prepared for you."
From this day forward, everything about the balance of power around Simon was about to change.