The Barrier Has Fallen
"I've heard quite a lot about you, Simon Polentia."
On the way to the artifact auction house, Simon found himself in conversation with a noble who had appeared out of nowhere.
And not just any noble—an Ivory Tower noble, at that.
"You truly do draw attention wherever you go, young man. You made quite the splash here in Pentamonium, and word has already spread far and wide. Haha!"
Simon offered a modest business smile.
"You flatter me."
"And—"
The man's eyes drifted to the girl with ivory hair clinging tightly to Simon's arm, and a satisfied smile spread across his lips.
"You seem to be on very good terms with our successor."
"Ohohoho!"
Serene laughed elegantly, hiding her mouth behind the back of her hand.
"We're more than just close. More than friends? Less than husband and wife?"
As Serene chattered on like a songbird, Simon kept his smiling face and offered no comment.
The Ivory Tower noble turned back to Simon and said, "If you're amenable, we'd like to invite you to an academic conference hosted by the Ivory Tower."
"Ah, I would be honored, of course."
"Pentamonium may possess a great wealth of knowledge and historical records, but the fact that they trade that knowledge—buying and selling it for money—makes them closer to merchants than true scholars. A shame, really."
Even a veiled jab at Pentamonium, woven in as a plug for themselves.
Having parted ways with the Ivory Tower man, Simon stopped by a nearby café to rest for a while.
"Simon. Say ahh~"
Serene held out the ice cream in her hand. Simon, flustered, leaned his head back slightly.
"......The Ivory Tower guy is gone now, isn't he?"
"Oh, come on. What does it matter?"
Serene said with a sweet smile. But the brows drawn together and the determined gleam in her eyes made it clear she had no intention of backing down.
Finally, Simon, all too aware of the eyes around them, reluctantly took a bite. The moment he did, Serene opened her mouth wide and swallowed the spot his lips had touched in a single gulp.
"Hey—!"
"?"
Serene blinked innocently and began licking the ice cream from every angle, tilting her head this way and that, her foxlike eyes curving with each motion. She knew exactly what she was doing, and was pretending she didn't.
When Simon, overcome with embarrassment, turned his head away, Serene giggled as though his reaction was simply adorable.
"Some people have all the luck."
Kajan, seated beside the two of them, said flatly, "More importantly, an outside café like this is terrible for security. The artifact auction starts soon, so finish eating."
"Ugh, seriously!"
Serene was still smiling, but a vein had begun to bulge faintly on her forehead.
"You have zero tact! When I was talking with the elders, you just trailed behind me going help me, help me~!"
"Guarding Simon comes first. And no matter who he's speaking with, there's always the chance Magnus could approach in disguise."
"You're an exhausting person to be around, you know that?"
As Serene bit into her ice cream with a sulky expression, Simon was whipping his head around with a stiff look on his face.
"What's wrong, Simon?"
"Doesn't something seem off?"
"Of course it's chaotic. There are this many people in the café."
"No, no. That's not what I mean."
Simon stared intently out the window. Then he abruptly shot to his feet and ran out of the café.
Once he escaped the noisy café and got outside, it became certain.
"KYAAAAAAAH!"
Raw, unfiltered screams echoed from every direction.
Kajan and Serene followed him out. The screams were ringing in their ears as well.
"Run! RUN!"
"They said the city was safe!"
Seeing people whose faces had drained to the color of paper, it was clear something had gone terribly wrong. As the screams drew nearer and nearer, it finally became visible what the people in the distance were fleeing from.
Zombies...!
They were zombies—running on all fours.
"Huh? What is this? Didn't some idiot necromancer fail to control their spirits?"
"That's far too many for a mistake like that."
The zombies that had first appeared one or two at a time in the distance had now swelled into a horde beyond counting.
Kajan nodded with a grave expression.
"Those are zombies that lived outside the barrier."
Simon's head snapped around.
"Hold on, Kajan! You mean—!"
"Yes."
Kajan said in an icy tone, "Something has gone wrong with the barrier that surrounds Pentamonium."
ALERT! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!
Undead monsters are on the loose within the city. All visitors, please evacuate immediately to the nearest Glass Tower!
Sirens and alarms blared from every corner of the city, warning of danger.
The swarming zombies, the evacuation broadcast proving that this situation was no 'show,' and the flashing red emergency lights on top of it all.
The vibrant city plunged into a chasm of chaos in the span of a heartbeat.
"Simon! Look over there!"
Serene pointed behind them.
Barriers were beginning to unfurl around the seven Glass Towers—the largest and tallest structures, the very heart of Pentamonium. It was an automatic system that activated the moment an alarm sounded, to protect the archives stored within.
"If we don't run now, we won't be getting into any Glass Tower."
"......"
Simon closed his eyes.
Hundreds, thousands of emotions and thoughts whirled dizzily through his head.
When he opened them again, his gaze settled on the zombies and the terrified crowds of people.
"Let's guide the civilians to safety first. We can buy them the time they need."
Simon opened a subspace pocket. The Skeleton Archers, responding to his will, instantly came pouring out.
"Shoot every zombie you see!"
At his command, the archers nocked arrows with lightning speed and let them fly. The arrows slammed squarely into the heads of the zombies chasing down fleeing people—thwack!thwack!
Then Simon swept both arms outward like a man shaking out laundry, and a flurry of skeleton bones shot through the air and latched onto the bodies of fleeing civilians. Lifting them into the sky, the bones carried them away to safety.
"You two, help as well!"
"I suppose we have no choice~"
Serene seized her ivory hair in one hand, shook it a few times, then let it flutter loose like a photoshoot. As her hair swayed, countless feathers came cascading down to the ground.
"Come on out."
The feathers transformed into magic circles, and from within them emerged the 'Feather Soldiers' Serene had presented in this year's thesis.
The Feather Soldiers took to the sky to engage the zombies, while Serene herself coated other feathers in Jet-Black and hurled them like throwing knives. Wherever the feathers passed, zombies collapsed in sprays of blood.
"Multiple hostiles incoming from the right."
Kajan dropped into a combat stance. An enormous tide of zombies was surging in from their flank.
"Wait. Kajan."
Simon stopped Kajan's charge. Far in the distance, fireballs large and small were streaking through the air toward them.
BOOOOOOOOM!
KABOOOOOOM!
Beneath a massive bombardment of black flame, the zombie horde on the flank vanished without a trace.
"We'll help too! Kizen!"
Students from Aland, Sierra, and Moiran postponed their own evacuations and joined the front line.
The moment they swept their arms, unfamiliar summons burst up from all around—plant-type monsters, and even undead that glided through the air like manta rays.
VMMMM!
Then Pentamonium's counterattack began as well. Guidance magic circles spread across the ground everywhere, and enormous 'Patchwork Golems' began descending from the sky toward them.
The golems, flying down like comets, crushed the surrounding zombies beneath them as they revealed themselves on the battlefield.
"Fast, aren't they."
Kajan remarked, "Pentamonium's defense systems are online."
While projecting barriers over the seven Glass Towers, they were also casting barriers remotely over crowded restaurants, outdoor theaters, and the like.
The moment zombies touched those barriers, they crumbled with a crackling hiss into pitch-black ash.
This side is more or less under control.
Simon scanned his surroundings and spotted the one Aland student he actually knew.
"Benz!"
At Simon's call, undisguisable joy bloomed across Benz's face.
He still remembers my name!
"I'll leave this area to you. Fight at your own pace, and retreat into the barriers along with the civilians."
"Okay! Leave it to us!"
Golems rained down in every district, and barriers unfurled one after another.
Even though the city's barrier had been breached—something that had never once happened in all of Pentamonium's history—the city was responding capably.
Above all, the visiting necromancers rolled up their sleeves and stepped forward. Everyone who could fight came out to the front, and in the meantime, civilians fled inside the Glass Tower barriers.
Simon, Serene, and Kajan moved from battlefield to battlefield, rescuing civilians without pause.
If it's a zombie war, then obviously—
Under normal circumstances he wouldn't even consider deploying the Legion's Ancient Undead, but in a chaotic melee like this, with undead already crawling everywhere, it was acceptable.
"Help me out, Prince."
Simon spoke into the ring on his left hand, then placed his palm against the body of a fallen zombie. Immediately, black lightning split the sky and struck down onto the corpse.
[Just as I expected—]
And slowly rising to its feet was a small boy wearing a faded crown.
The moment he opened his eyes and saw the pitch-black zombies blanketing everything around him, he let out a hollow laugh.
[Every single time I get summoned, it's like this. Every time.]
"Prince! I need your power!"
[Hohoho!]
Prince gripped the crown atop his head.
[So it's finally time for this hidden card to make his move!]
He activated the power of the 'Crown.' Prince's Crown held the power to command zombies.
Among the pitch-black horde swarming in for the kill, some of the zombies' eyes shifted to the same color as Prince's.
And the zombies under Prince's control—
Corpse Explosion!
As Legion Commander, Simon could detonate them with Corpse Explosion.
BOOOOOOOOM!
KABOOOOOOM!
Massive explosions erupted all across the horde as it swarmed in. Each Corpse Explosion wiped out nearly ten to twenty zombies at once.
"Keep it up!"
[Got it!]
Thanks to the devastating combination of Simon and Prince, the zombies teeming across one entire line of the battlefield vanished without a trace.
"Ooh, well well well~"
Serene, who had been directing her Feather Soldiers, strolled over with a grin.
"This is the first time I've ever seen such a cute little undead."
[Wh-what did you just say?!]
Prince erupted in fury, glaring up at her.
[I am Prince, ruler of Deathland and the pinnacle of all zombies in this world! Don't you DARE call me cute!]
"Oh my~ but you're so adorable."
Serene paid him no mind and stroked his head with smooth, patronizing pats. Prince's face flushed scarlet with rage.
[Stop treating me like a CHIIILD!]
"Want some candy from big sis?"
[I don't WANT your candy!]
"Both of you, quit goofing off and help!"
The Simon-and-Prince combo, backed by monstrous firepower, stabilized the tide of battle in one stroke.
However, with zombies endlessly pouring in through the breached barrier, it was like pouring water into a leaking bucket.
"They're reporting that the civilian evacuation is nearly complete."
Kajan said, listening to the report coming through his communication crystal.
"We should head back to a Glass Tower too. It's too dangerous out here."
"Right!"
The three of them made for the nearest Glass Tower, the one housing the Summoning school.
"Oh, come on."
But the barrier had already enveloped the entire tower. A complete lockdown.
"Shouldn't they give it a little more time before sealing up~? There might still be people outside."
"Let's try somewhere else."
The three cut their way through the zombies and headed straight for the next Glass Tower. But here, too, the building's barrier had fully descended.
"Someone upstairs in Pentamonium must be getting anxious."
Kajan said in a displeased voice, "To them, nothing is worse than their archives being lost. They must have decided that sealing the entrances comes first, even if it costs lives."
"Ah! Look over there!"
Serene pointed through the barrier at the interior of the Glass Tower beyond.
It was a mess. As if a disaster had swept through, the surroundings were smeared everywhere with blood, and zombies were shambling about.
"Oh no. Did zombies get inside before the barrier fully deployed?"
"......"
Then Simon's face turned noticeably pale.
"Simon? What's wrong?"
"This building."
Simon's expression turned grim.
"It's the building where Sasha is."