Remake — Blood Arrow
—Kyaaack!
—Kurlk!
Startled by the commotion, a horde of kobolds began swarming in from every direction, shrieking their warped cries.
Simon raised his focus and lifted his right arm. As if a bullet had been chambered, the skeletons waving their emerald cloaks bent their knees.
Tzut!
The Royal Guards shot forward, leaving streaks of teal light in their wake. One dash — and the lead kobold's head rolled. A twist of the hips — and the second's head went flying.
One strike, one kill. Every time the emerald cloak billowed behind them, another monster's head dropped away. It was a flexible, refined swordsmanship that no one could mistake for a stiff skeleton's clumsy swings.
[Boy! A pack of kobolds incoming, four o'clock!]
Pier's voice turned Simon's head. The Skeleton Archers loaded three arrows onto their bowstrings in unison, dashed straight up to the kobolds, and loosed — felling three at a time at point-blank range.
—Kyaaaah!
Other kobolds came flying in, swinging hammers and crude blades, but the archers dashed clear, reloaded, and loosed again. Before a single one could lay a hand on the archers, every last kobold had been pierced and toppled.
Simon simply kept walking forward. The Royal Guards escorted him in a dazzling blur of blue-green light.
From a distance, it looked as though a shield of teal flashes were protecting him. With just twenty-three skeletons, he was overwhelming an endless, wave-like tide of kobolds.
WAAAAAAAH!
The crowd watching the screens across the Kizen campus could barely contain their shock.
"Incredible!"
"What on earth are those skeletons?"
"He's clothed his skeletons in dark magic!"
The spectators' excited shouts washed over the island.
No one was watching any other student's screen. They thrust both arms into the air, chanting Simon's name over and over. The spectators who had bet their money on Simon looked ready to topple over, as if welcoming a god descended to earth.
"That's Special Admission No. 1 for you! From start to finish, he had a plan!!"
The announcer, every bit as worked up, had long since abandoned his seat and was roaring at the top of his lungs.
"Did you all see that?! He granted the power of the Blood Golem to his skeletons!! Twenty-three undead under simultaneous control! And they're even stronger than before! Has there ever been a summoner like this in the history of the world?!"
"Eh, that brat's always been that brat."
Byeolya snickered with her arms crossed.
"Professor! Is it even possible for a first-year to control twenty-three undead at once?"
"Normally? Not a chance. But that's not ordinary thought-based control he's using, you know."
Byeolya laced her fingers together and went on, suddenly serious.
"I've wandered the world and fought plenty of strong ones in my time. But you're telling me splashing a Blood Golem's blood over skeletons makes them stronger? I've never even heard of an ability like that."
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!
The Royal Guards swung their swords without a hint of fatigue. Corpses piled up along every path Simon took.
But the closer he drew to the Holy Grail, the more monsters appeared that weren't kobolds.
A Grimander. A mid-sized monster raised by the kobolds, its body a mix of reptile and chimpanzee, covered from head to toe in scales that looked hard as armor.
Flare!
The creature's belly flushed red, and a breath of flame erupted from its gaping maw.
Simon kept walking — no dodge, no guard, not the slightest defensive motion. Two Royal Guards leapt in front of him.
Shreeeung!
Two teal sword arcs crossed in an X, and the flame was simply cut out of the air, gone.
Huuuh.
Simon extended a finger. Two zombies burst out of subspace, and two more Royal Guards sprinted over, scooped them up, and dashed.
Carrying the zombies across a vast distance in the blink of an eye, the skeletons hurled them at the monster. The zombies slammed into it and began tearing at it with their teeth — and from far away, Simon clenched his fist.
<Corpse Explosion>
KWAAAAAAAANG!
Two massive eruptions, and the hulking, scale-covered beast came crashing down. The entire sequence of control had taken less than five seconds.
"A tricky monster swept aside with ease! Truly remarkable!!"
The announcer held forth above the roar of cheering.
"A combination of skeletons and zombies! And the finisher — the famous Corpse Explosion! We're witnessing the pinnacle of undead control! Is this really a first-year's level?!"
"Hey! Can't see a thing! Get out of the way of the screen!"
Byeolya, who had leapt to her feet yelling in irritation, let a flicker of intrigue cross her face.
"Oh. That next one's going to give him real trouble, though?"
"Hm? Ah! A new monster has appeared!"
Perhaps the Corpse Explosion had stirred up the noise, but a green monster far larger than any kobold was bearing down on the stage.
"The apex predator of this ecosystem — the monster that devours kobolds — the Timber Troll!"
A large monster, and a Danger Class 4 one at that — the Timber Troll ignored the Royal Guards' attacks entirely and hurled itself straight at Simon.
The troll swung its massive arm like a weapon, and Simon drew out the Overlord.
Two tentacle blades rose from either side.
CLANG!
While the two blades absorbed the blow and recoiled, three others carved across the Timber Troll's neck and legs. But they left only shallow gashes; the troll was barely fazed.
"Ah! As expected, tough as nails! Skin so hard even Simon's prized strongest summon can't cut through it!"
"That's Kizen's fault for putting a troll in there, honestly."
Simon calmly drew out one more blade behind his back and raised his palm.
Two Royal Guards waiting nearby collapsed to the ground, and their Cloud flew over to coat the Overlord's blade.
The silver blade turned a brilliant emerald.
<Flan Blade>
The blade swung in a single streak of teal light.
Shkk!
The Timber Troll's head soared into the sky. Screams of horrified disbelief burst from every corner of the stands.
"One strike! He felled the Timber Troll in a single stroke! To think there was even a usage like that!"
As everyone raved over Simon's exploits, the broadcast henchman was making urgent cutting gestures at the announcer.
The announcer belatedly came to his senses. Come to think of it, he'd been talking about nothing but Simon this whole time. He had a duty to cover as many students' feats as fairly as he could.
"And now, let's move on to our next students! Yes! It's Hector Moore making his move!"
When another student appeared on the main screen, a few spectators couldn't hide their disappointment and let out boos.
Wiping sweat off his brow, the announcer carried on as if nothing were wrong.
'...Hhh. Nelly, honey. This is really how Daddy earns our bread, huh.'
"Haaah! Whew!"
Simon panted, breath after ragged breath. His vision swam and his mental strength was scraping bottom.
The Royal Guard really was a technique that devoured an enormous amount of mental power.
[Kwahahah! What a magnificent rampage! We should have smashed the Grail and bolted, but you've already cut down nearly a hundred kobolds!]
'You're right about that.'
The Holy Grail was visible on the hill far in the distance.
But more and more kobolds kept flooding in. Their numbers had already swelled past several hundred.
Twenty-three skeletons — the Royal Guards, now reduced to twenty-one — simply couldn't carve a path all the way through before his mental strength gave out.
The third wall he'd hit today alone. Simon desperately clung to a mind that felt ready to collapse at any moment.
If it goes on like this, I'll run dry first.
We've come far enough. Time to take the Grail down in one blow.
Simon raised his trembling right arm toward the sky.
Wuuuuuum!
It was the very same magic circle that had once drained the Blood Golem's Cloud, unfolding once again.
Every wisp of Cloud animating the Royal Guards was sucked into the circle, and the undead reverted to their ordinary forms.
'This is the last one.'
Pressing the magic circle to his palm, Simon stepped onto the Jet-Black and leapt into the air.
—Show us more flashes of that brilliant ingenuity in the days to come. Of course, that's not a professor of Kizen speaking — merely my personal wish.
Bahil's voice surfaced in his memory.
—I left room in the formula to augment its power as you grow. Filling in what remains is now your task.
Aaron's voice, too. Those voices felt as though they were pushing at his back.
Exactly what he'd hoped for. In midair, Simon carved the additional formula into the circle and activated it.
KA-GAGAGAGAK!
Originally, the ratio of Cloud's blood to Jet-Black sat at roughly six to four.
He wrenched that ratio violently out of shape.
'Here — I shatter the Cloud itself!'
Within the magic circle, the blood-to-Jet-Black ratio of the Cloud — a formula Simon had already distorted once before — collapsed completely.
He aimed it at the Holy Grail, far in the distance.
FWAAAAAASH!
The radiant emerald power turned back to jet black, dyeing the sky dark.
The principle was simple. Before Simon had ever learned Cloud, SM-1's original effect was the multiplication of Jet-Black.
The very same effect he'd felt when he fired his first Blood Bullet at the Magic Bullet range.
Exactly that.
'I'm recreating it — right here, right now!'
Crushed and compressed, the Cloud transformed into a colossal bomb carrying the Blood Bullet's effect.
Simon reshaped that bomb into an arrow, nocked it onto a bowstring woven of Jet-Black, and drew.
<Remake — Blood Arrow>
With a launch that felt like it would split his eardrums, the black arrow shot forth.
The mere release kicked up a backblast that sent Simon's body flying several meters through the air. The dark blue-black mana devoured his blood, swelling larger and larger.
And then — dead on target.
WHAM!
It smashed through the Holy Grail, buried itself in the earth, and erupted. The densely packed monsters were flung sky-high, and the blast spread in a fanning arc several hundred meters from the point of impact.
As his vision grew distant, the voice of the Memorize magic echoed at his ear.
Stage 4 of the examination has been cleared.
The examination is now concluded.
Feeling the teleportation take hold, Simon lost consciousness.
"...!"
Simon, dead to the world, snapped his eyes open.
An infirmary. He was wearing a patient's gown, with tubes running into his body all over.
He could see his shredded gym uniform nearby, and on the mana screen at the far end of the room, a match was in progress.
'It's over, then. I've been in and out of hospitals a lot lately.'
Simon turned his head in relief. After confirming the door was firmly shut, he opened his mouth.
"Pier?"
No answer.
Could his shard of Pier have fallen off his clothes somewhere on the way here?
Alarmed, Simon tried to sit up —
Squirm. Squirm.
Something lumpy was moving under the white blanket, wriggling like a caterpillar, inching along slowly.
"Whoa—!"
Simon scrambled back in horror, and suddenly the blanket flew off and a tiny girl popped out.
"Hiiii!"
"Nephthys?!"
"I heard you collapsed again, so I came to check on you!"
She had something stuffed in her mouth, gnawing on it absently.
When Simon got a look at what it was, he nearly fainted. It was one of Pier's shards, shaped like a badge.
She poked at it with her teeth a few times, then pulled it out of her mouth — dripping with spit from end to end.
"Blegh. Tastes awful."
She flung the badge at Simon's chest.
The instant it touched his body, Pier's shriek of utter disgust poured into Simon's mind.
[I'll kill her! I will KILL her! How DARE that woman—!]
'...Haha.'
"Well then, greetings first, shall we?"
Nephthys wiped the corner of her mouth and flashed a bright smile.
"Congratulations on passing the exam, Simon!"