He Is Here, Right Now
[He is here, right now.]
Simon, frozen like a statue, whipped his head around, scanning his surroundings.
“Where? Where?”
Pier said nothing, simply extending an arm. A space beyond the ruins, once drowned in darkness, brightened.
And Simon beheld it.
A slithering mass of mud, trapped inside a large, transparent rectangular tank.
—Uhhh-uhhhhh.
Uttering a strange wail, the thing writhed feebly.
“This is….”
[Karl, the Demon Beast of Pestilence.]
A sigh poured from Pier's mouth.
[Once an Ancient Undead who served as a commander of the 7th Legion.]
With a tense expression, Simon approached and laid a hand against the tank. The thing only squirmed; he could feel no thought, no will, nothing at all.
“How did this happen?”
Simon's voice trembled.
[When it was first discovered, it looked far more horrific than this.]
While Simon had been on his vacation, Pier and the other Ancient Undead had stormed the White Tomb Dungeon, the place they suspected Karl was hiding.
No adventurer, treasure hunter, or archaeologist had ever learned how to enter the White Tomb Dungeon. The Dresden Kingdom had been agonizing over its potential, clutching it possessively, but in truth it was closer to a colossal headache.
Pier, however, knew the way in.
[I was certain that dungeon was Karl's nest.]
One of Karl's abilities was the power to turn a dungeon into its nest. It would enter a dungeon, devour its Dungeon Lord with its own body, and use that power to seize control of the entire place.
Then it would drink down the dungeon's vast reserves of energy to churn out its extreme-venom undead minions without end.
Karl had wandered from dungeon to dungeon, expanding its influence that way, until it was defeated by Richard and Pier when they broke into its domain. After that, it underwent 'Legionification' and became one of the commanders of the 7th Legion.
And years later, when Richard disbanded the Legion, Karl—yearning for freedom—sought out a new dungeon to inhabit. That dungeon was the White Tomb.
Pier had once tried to capture Karl in the past, so he knew both that Karl would be in the White Tomb Dungeon and how to enter it.
[But that place was no longer a dungeon.]
Jet-black flames blazed like torches in Pier's skeletal eye sockets.
[It had been transformed into a testing ground for humans.]
Even to Pier, an Ancient Undead himself, it had been an appalling sight.
Humans with bloodshot eyes churned out copies of Karl's body as if running an assembly line, and used the compounds drawn from Karl's flesh for all manner of chemical experiments. At the center of it all, the tattered remains of Karl lay trapped in a tank, worked to the bone.
The dungeon itself had been commandeered—turned into both a laboratory and a factory under human control.
Karl's ability to bar outsiders from entry had become a poison instead. This mysterious group had infiltrated the dungeon by some special means, and made it their secret base.
Wait a second. I feel like I've heard of a case just like this before.
Simon rested his chin on his hand, then spoke up.
“Hearing all this, something's bothering me. The entrance to the 'White Tomb Dungeon' was guarded by the Dresden Kingdom the whole time, wasn't it? How did that many people get inside?”
[I have my own suspicions about how they entered, but nothing certain.]
Pier crossed his arms.
[Only Richard and I know the way into Karl's dungeon! They likely didn't come through the front—there must have been some other route around it.]
“….”
[Let me continue the story.]
At any rate, Pier and the Ancient Undead confirmed Karl was still alive, and a battle broke out with the mysterious group.
The enemy unleashed strange technologies and firepower unlike anything seen in life, but they were woefully outmatched against four Ancient Undead.
[Of course~ those rascals were strong, I'll grant them that.]
Erzsébet said this as she poked and prodded at Prince's head.
[They even managed to kill our dear Prince once.]
[Don't do that!]
Prince yanked Erzsébet's hand off his own head, fuming.
[In the end, we won that battle.]
Pier said.
[We wanted to capture those humans and wring every last secret from them—but the moment the tide turned against them, they blew their own brains out!]
Simon shuddered as he listened.
“Suicide…?”
[Yes, and the most important executives had already burned the critical documents and vanished somewhere long before.]
This time it was Akemus who spoke.
[Still, we secured what materials we could, Young Master. It is a regret that we could bring back no more than this.]
Beside Akemus stood a mound of books and papers, piled high enough to pass for a hill. Simon's eyes went wide.
“What do you mean? This is a huge haul!”
Simon hurried over and began examining the books.
He set down the first one he opened, picked up another, opened a third—
…I can't make out a single one of these characters.
Every book here was crammed with squirming, writhing script, like worms crawling across the page. No matter which book he tried, none of it could be deciphered.
[Ooh, what's this? What's this?]
Herseba came swooping in and perched on Simon's shoulder. Her eyes, mounted at the tip of her wand, swept over the text.
[Oh, this—!]
Simon turned to her at once.
“Herseba! Can you tell what it says?”
[Nope, not a word.]
Simon, irritated, dipped his shoulder low, then thrust it upward with a snap. Herseba went sailing through the air before wheeling around mid-flight.
[I'm in no mood for games, boy.]
[Your expression is grave, boy! Have you some suspicion, perhaps?]
“Yes.”
Simon closed the book and sighed.
“Hasn't there been a strange surge of incidents like this lately? People seizing dungeons by some means or another and doing terrible things inside them.”
Back in the second semester of his first year, there had been that nameless dungeon Silaje was reported to have been dispatched to.
Its entrance had been sealed with the 'Blood Ring,' and all sorts of criminals had flooded in.
How had they made the dungeon their own? Simply sealing the Dungeon Lord wouldn't have been enough.
Then there was the recent affair in the Holy Federation with Lethe—the 'Ice Dragon Karissa.' Even when the Dungeon Lord Karissa wandered outside her dungeon, it remained perfectly intact.
And finally, the mysterious group that had seized Karl's dungeon and experimented on Karl himself.
“I'm certain these three cases are connected somehow.”
The Blood Sky Cult and Silaje.
The Misenaishi clan and the Ice Dragon Karissa.
And the experimental group that took over Karl's dungeon.
It was uncanny.
“We'll need to dig deeper. Please keep tracking and investigating—commit as much of the Legion's strength as you can spare.”
Erzsébet let out a thoughtful hmm and smiled.
[How intriguing. It seems we've become entangled in something rather thorny, haven't we?]
Prince sprang to his feet.
[Those bastards did this to our comrade Karl! I will never forgive them!]
Akemus lowered his posture respectfully.
[Could this have no connection to Magnus's 5th Legion?]
“It doesn't.”
Simon answered immediately.
“If Magnus wanted 'Karl,' he'd have taken Karl whole. He'd have had no reason to use him as a lab specimen like that.”
Just then, Herseba, who had been mulling it over, spoke up.
[Hey, squirt! What if we look at it this way?]
“Go on, Herseba.”
[Those people captured that Karl creature and experimented on him until he was falling apart, right? Every experiment has a purpose. What do you think their purpose was?]
Simon crossed his arms and closed his eyes.
“Maybe they were trying to artificially reproduce Karl's abilities? Ancient Undead are the most enigmatic beings in the world. Mass-producing those extreme-venom copies of Karl's body, and….”
[Not the copies.]
Herseba's eyes gleamed.
[What if the first goal of the research was the ability itself—the power to turn a dungeon into one's nest?]
“…!”
Goosebumps raced up Simon's arms, and his head snapped up.
“That's it—that's exactly it! The research already succeeded! That's how the humans were able to seize the inside of the dungeon!”
[Precisely.]
And that resolved the greatest mystery of all—how those strange experimenters had been able to enter the dungeon Karl had claimed for his own.
The thought reminded Simon of the final showdown with Silaje at the end of his first year.
At the time, Simon had trapped Silaje inside Herseba's dungeon, but Silaje had opened a blood-red portal like a leech and summoned the faithful of the Blood Sky Cult into the dungeon.
“The Blood Sky Cult can move freely between dungeons! Their special portal technology works by punching holes through space itself!”
Prince tilted his head.
[Wait, so you're saying those Blood Sky Cult bastards are still out there? Is this their doing too?]
“No. It means someone else exists—someone who links the Blood Sky Cult and the Misenaishi together.”
Simon then did his best to decipher the materials Akemus had gathered, but it proved difficult.
The writing system lay far beyond the linguistic frameworks of the continent.
As he pored over the documents a while longer, dawn was already creeping in.
Simon now had to go prepare for his first class.
“I'll be at school, so if you learn anything at all, contact me anytime. Oh! What are you going to do about Karl?”
Simon said, glancing at the undead slumping limply against the glass wall.
[For now, we've decided to take our time and investigate further!]
Pier said.
[Karl as he is now looks less like an Ancient Undead and more like a plain corpse—but Karl's venom has value in its own right. We'll work out another way.]
“Yes.”
[And—take this, boy!]
Pier flung a new trinket, carved from his own bones, at Simon. It was shaped like a skull badge.
[A means of contact!]
Simon turned the little trinket over in his hands and laughed. It was small and adorable.
“No wonder—the design just keeps getting cuter with every new semester.”
Kehahahaha! Pier laughed heartily.
[Too crude a design and they'd suspect it of being an artifact, you see! I studied the 'tastes' of the students!]
Simon pinned Pier's trinket to his uniform.
[I also have something for you, Young Master.]
This time Akemus approached and handed over something of his own. Five jet-black feathers.
“What are these?”
[Like the one Pier gave you, they are a form of my own essence. Please carry them on your person. Anywhere on the continent, should the Young Master fall into danger, I will fly to the place where these feathers are without fail.]
“Ah—thank you.”
He already had Pier's trinket, but he figured the feathers might prove useful someday, and tucked them into his inner pocket.
[…Pier has his badge, Akemus his feathers, Prince his ring.]
Erzsébet came clacking over on her heels.
[I cannot be outdone! This girl must leave her mark upon our Legion Commander as well!]
Sensing a dark omen, Simon took a step back.
“What are you planning this time?”
[Fufufu!]
Erzsébet spread both arms wide and lunged.
[A kiss upon that slender neck of yours, my Legion Commander—!]
Simon was quicker, stamping down on his Jet-Black and shooting into the air, and she fell forward embracing nothing but empty air.
[That is far too cruel!!]
“I'll come back later!”
And so Simon parted ways with the Ancient Undead. Herseba, too, found the sub-dimension too stuffy, so it was decided she would stay here for the time being.
When he had entered, moonlight had been streaming down; by the time he left, morning sunlight was already leaking through.
I'm late!
By the time Simon returned to the dormitory, everyone was already racing toward the school.
“Simon!”
The moment Simon stepped into the dorm room, Toto nearly jumped out of his skin.
“I thought you'd left already!”
“I had something to take care of. Let's hurry too—we've got no time.”
Simon grabbed his things, threw on an outer coat, and sprinted down the stairs. The two of them were among the very last of the second-years to leave the dormitory.
“I told you not to run indoors!!”
Proctor Margaret's roar echoed after them. Simon and Toto, startled out of their wits, tiptoed their way out the door.
“Ugh, my heart almost fell out of my chest!”
Toto muttered, clutching himself.
Hmm.
Simon was racking his brain for a fast way to reach campus.
The Summoning dormitory was a considerable distance from campus. Even if he started running now, he'd be late.
Perhaps that's why the students ahead of him were already riding shabby-looking summoned creatures as they ran.
“Toto! Got anything usable?”
Toto shook his head, on the verge of tears.
“Something that could carry both of us….”
“Then leave it to me.”
Simon pulled the Golem Core out of his sub-dimension and dropped it to the ground. Toto's eyes went wide.
“What are you doing with a golem?”
“Won't take long. Give me a minute.”
Simon stretched out his arm.
Jet-Black surges forth—
⟨ Summon Golem ⟩
Whooooosh—!
Responding to Simon's Jet-Black, the sand, mud, and rock around him began slapping onto the Golem Core in great heaping layers.
It's been a while since I used this spell.
The gathered earth and sand were finely sculpted with Jet-Black into a broad, streamlined body. He skipped the golem's arms and legs, and instead fitted it with wheels—and an engine at the rear to spin them. The power driving the engine, of course, was Jet-Black.
From above, it looked as though he'd built an enormous streamlined mud board.
Simon hopped right on top of it.
“Toto! Hold on tight!”
“Got it!”
Toto scrambled on behind him and had barely grabbed Simon's waist when, with a rush of flowing Jet-Black, the golem board lurched forward.
“Whoaaaaaaah!”
Terrifying speed. The scenery streaked backward in a blur.
Simon laughed freely, one hand pinning down his wind-whipped hair, while Toto clung to Simon's back repeating nothing but “Aaaagh! Aaaagh!”
The golem board swiftly overtook the other students, drawing startled stares each time it passed.
“We're running straight to campus like this!”
“Aaah, Simon! You're going too faaaast!”
The two of them arrived safely in front of the lecture hall.
“Uuuurgh.”
Toto staggered along, his hair a complete disaster.
Simon laughed breezily, hands jammed in his pockets.
“You okay?”
“N-no, I don't think I'm okay. After going that fast, my stomach suddenly….”
Grrrrumble.
Grrroan.
It seemed yesterday's meals had chosen this moment to start an uprising. Toto waddled along miserably.
“I-I'm stopping by the bathroom first, so go on ahead!”
“Got it.”
Simon watched him dash off, clutching his belly.
Five minutes until class. Simon gripped the door of the lecture hall with an unhurried stride.
And the moment he opened it—
Whoooosh—
A cool breeze washed over him. There before him stood a girl with black hair, rippling in the wind.
She was staring out the window, her face expressionless.
Lorraine?
For a moment, he wondered if he'd walked into the wrong room. He'd assumed that when he opened the classroom door, of course Dick, Meilin, and Camibarez would be there to greet him.
But no.
This was a new semester now. A new class. New studies, new lectures waiting for him.
This room is my class now.
Simon moved through the awkward air of the lecture hall on its first day.
“Oh.”
Just then, the black-haired girl noticed Simon. The blankness melted away, and a warm smile spread across her face.
“Hello, Simon.”
“Hello, Lorraine.”
Simon smiled back at her.
This time, he thought, it was his turn to speak first.
“Mind if I sit next to you?”