The Answer Is a Curse
The infamous course registration season at Kizen had begun.
Four hundred students scattered like grains of sand and tore across the campus. They all started from the same point, but the vast majority would fail to build the timetable they'd planned.
Simon was in just as much of a hurry.
Professor Jane's Jet-Black Mechanics class will have the fiercest competition. I need to get to Professor Bahil as fast as I can, then double back.
Just then, Simon's head jerked up.
A enormous kitchen knife was falling out of the sky.
KWA-BOOM—!
Sand fragments burst outward with the impact. Simon twisted his body midair to dodge, then landed on the ground.
"Again?!"
A monster with a gray sheen covering its entire body was growling low in its throat.
Simon swept a hand upward, and bone shards spilling out of subspace rose into the air, clicking together piece by piece until they formed a spear.
<Bone Spear>
The Bone Spear shot toward the direction Simon's hand faced and struck the monster dead center in the chest.
Tyaeng!
It bounced right off.
What?
It hadn't been like this at first. Ordinary Danger Class 3 monsters had simply been lurking all over the second-year campus, and attacks had worked on them just fine.
But the closer Simon got to the Curse Studies building, the more of these gray monsters appeared — the kind that shrugged off every attack.
"Kuh!"
Simon leapt straight up. This time a beast-shaped gray monster raked its claws across the wall where he'd been standing.
<Bone Armour — Gauntlet Mode>
The Bone Spear returning to Simon broke apart and wrapped around his right arm like a picture coming to life. Simon slammed his fist into the back of the monster's head.
"!"
His fist passed through the monster's body like a ghost. Instead, Simon took the monster's kick head-on.
Simon clicked his tongue and fell back. He couldn't deal a single point of damage to these things, but they could hammer away at his suit. The moment his Barrier Gauge hit 0%, he'd be forced to sit out for thirty minutes.
Left with no choice, Simon stopped fighting the monsters and simply ran.
"Khekhekhek! Having a rough time of it, boy!"
The familiar voice rang out. Simon looked down at the skull-shaped badge fastened to his uniform; its two eye sockets were flickering with a blue-black glow.
Pier!
Simon's expression brightened considerably — he'd been genuinely glad to hear from him.
It's been a while since you came to watch!
"Indeed. I've been up to my neck trying to find a way to restore that broken 'Karl' of ours! But more importantly—"
The badge's eyes shifted.
"I have seen this exam before!"
Simon stopped short and darted backward. The gray monster's massive arm smashed into the ground where he'd stood.
"Think of the location, boy!"
Dodging the monsters' attacks as he ran, Simon asked, "The location?"
"Yes! It took Richard all of twenty minutes to figure it out."
Simon's eyebrows drooped in a sulk.
Comparing me to Father again?
"KWAHAHAHAHA!"
For now, finding his way to Bahil's lab mattered more than figuring out how to destroy those monsters. If he could avoid a fight, avoiding it was the best option.
Still, it helps that I used to look down over the campus from the Student Council President's office.
By lucky chance, the Student Council building sat at the very center of the second-year campus. The view was good enough that he'd often gazed out over it while working, and now a perfect map of the grounds lived in Simon's head.
And the route Dick taught me!
Simon ducked under a swing from one of the gray monsters and slipped smoothly into an alley between buildings. Behind him, the two monsters chasing him crashed into each other.
I can do this!
The moment Simon came out of the alley into open ground—
Flash!
A card lying on the ground flared with light. Simon's face fell.
A card of Endolas Vaudeville!
Light poured out of the card and coiled around Simon. In moments, a ring of light — just like the 'ring' of a dueling arena — encircled him, forming a barrier wall.
There was no escape. This was that same card world he'd seen at the BMAT.
A moment later, a monster popped up in front of Simon.
The very same gray monster from the campus. It walked upright like a human, with a lower body far too thin for its absurdly muscular upper half, and blades fixed to both arms.
I suppose I have to bring that thing down to get out of here?
The monster charged and brought its bladed arm down in a straight, plunging arc.
WHAM!
Simon feinted a guard from where he stood, then slipped just slightly to the side.
The monster's arm missed him by a hair's breadth, and Simon's cocked fist rippled with Jet-Black.
<Hong Peng Original — Chwita>
BUUUM!
Just as expected, Magic Combat didn't work either. Again, Simon's fist passed straight through the monster's body.
Stay calm. Stop trying to fight it and analyze the situation.
Simon's eyes narrowed.
This isn't a real battlefield. This barrier, these monsters — they were all manufactured for course registration season. What's the examiner's intent here?
The examiner's intent. The moment he thought of it, a flash of insight streaked through his mind. He was on his way to see Bahil right now — and this place was near the Curse Studies building.
Simon's index finger pointed at the monster.
<Exhaust>
The exhaustion curse streaking from his fingertips struck the monster's body dead-on. A creature that had deflected or shrugged off everything thrown at it took the curse cleanly.
"So that's it."
This wasn't a simple course registration. These monsters, created by the Card Necromancer Endolas, were testing whether students actually deserved to sit in on their chosen classes.
To take Curse Studies, you had to beat this exam with a curse.
TYAENG!
Simon kicked off the ground and soared over the monster's attack. Even after eating the Exhaust curse, the monster hadn't slowed one bit.
So this isn't the right answer. I need the curse that's most effective against that thing!
Simon's gaze dropped to the monster's spindly legs. The corner of his mouth curled up, and he spread a magic circle with his right hand.
"Humans are creatures with a deeply unstable sense of balance, rising on their hind legs alone and walking with their backs held stiffly straight. A simple fall renders most of their actions impossible."
The curse students had spammed an absurd number of times back in the early Duel Evaluations of first year.
A technique Bahil had invented himself, for the first-years terrified of their first Duel Evaluation — a curse applied only to a localized area, like the legs, to bring the target down.
<Leg Down>
Simon's curse shot toward the monster's legs like an arrow. The curse shimmered over the monster's limbs, and the creature — oblivious — stretched its arms out to grab Simon, and then—
KU-BOOM!
Like a felled tree, it crashed face-first into the ground where it stood.
The problem is the monster. The answer is the curse.
And the instant Simon laid the correct curse on it, a spot on the fallen monster's nape lit up green. Simon immediately hurled a Bone Spear at it.
FWOOSH!
A perfect hit, straight through.
The monster's body shattered like glass fragments and came apart, and the barrier surrounding Simon dissolved.
"Khekhekhek! You figured it out at almost exactly the same moment Richard did. Well done, boy!"
Simon let out a light breath and smiled.
"If we'd been keeping time, I'd have been a little faster than my father."
Kizen's course registration rules were changed or updated every year.
And this year's registration, just as Simon had deduced, worked by forcing students to break through monsters and traps using only the techniques and knowledge of the class they wanted to take.
"Someone decode this for me!"
"Incoming!"
Students heading to Toxicology had to push through an area crawling with every kind of venomous monster. Some fought the creatures off with poisons of the opposing property; others had to cross the poison swamp while detoxing their own bodies as they went.
Students caught in one of the card traps received a slightly clearer mission: step into the card, find a person collapsed on the ground, identify the poison afflicting them, and neutralize it to escape the barrier.
Beyond that, the area around the Spirit Studies building was home to monsters that only Spirit techniques could harm, and Hemomancy had monsters that could only be felled through bleeding.
The students clicked their tongues at a difficulty far beyond what they'd expected.
"Ugh, second year at Kizen! This is filthy brutal right out of the gate, seriously!"
Meilin swept her arm roughly and kicked up a Jet-Black flame field. The enormous ice monsters were engulfed by her fire and melted away — but it did nothing to the next one, a creature made entirely of water.
"Idiot peasant!"
"Leave it to me!"
Dick pressed down hard on a button. A pre-laid Jet-Black trap activated, flooding the ground with high-voltage current, and the water-made monster went slack and collapsed in a puddle.
"We did it!"
Camibarez shouted, having just blown away the monsters ahead of her with a Jet-Black wind field.
The barrier soon lifted, revealing the Kizen campus once more.
"Man, this is way tougher than the intel I had. Team play is basically mandatory."
Dick wiped the sweat from his forehead. Meilin turned to look back at the buildings behind them.
"You think Simon's okay?"
"Worried about him?"
When Dick asked with a knowing smirk, she went red and made a strangled 'Urk!' sound.
"O-of course I'm worried, he's my friend! And why is your tone all sleazy?"
"What's that supposed to mean? It was an innocent question, and you're the one getting worked up over noth— Aagh! Ack! Stop trying to rip my hair out!"
"Now is not the time to be fighting!"
Camibarez wedged herself between the two and pulled them apart.
"Besides, Simon will be fine! He's great with curses, and he has Skeleton Mages too — so the Jet-Black Mechanics missions that need opposite-element magic should be totally doable for him!"
Dick scratched his head.
"You know that Curse Studies route I told Simon about?"
"Yeah."
"It's the fastest one, sure — but realistically, wouldn't he run into a ton of traps taking it?"
"......"
The two girls' expressions stiffened slightly, but Camibarez quickly recovered her easy smile.
"I still believe he can do it."
"Oho ho, that's some serious faith! What makes you so sure?"
Camibarez beamed.
"Because Simon is the Student Council President of Kizen!"
Hah! Hoo!
Simon was running hard, breath ragged.
This exam was never about who could get there fastest — it was about how at all!
The difficulty was higher than he'd anticipated.
The other second-years were surely struggling too. If it weren't for the Barrier Gauge dropping to 0% and the 'thirty-minute suspension', he honestly thought going slow was a viable strategy.
And now Simon was caught in the second card's trap.
A duel-ring barrier enclosed the area around him, and coming his way were no fewer than three of the gray monsters.
-KYIIIIIIII!
One monster flung its jaws wide and let out an eerie shriek. Each time it did, Simon felt an impact rattling through his skull.
Good thing I brought the first-year Curse Studies textbook.
Simon held the textbook in his left hand while drawing a magic circle with his right. He'd blanked on the formula for a moment and was hastily reviewing it.
That's it!
The instant Simon completed the formula, he raised his index finger.
<Silence>
The silence curse stretched out like smoke and struck the shrieking monster, and no more sound came from its throat.
"Now we're talking!"
Simon finished off the weakened, silenced monster with a Bone Spear.
Reviewing the curses he'd learned back in first year was, he had to admit, oddly productive. Brutal as it was, Kizen really was the finest educational institution around.
Next.
Simon looked up at a monster spitting fire from the air. It had huge wings — and, above all, ears grown large and human-like.
For a type like that, this curse is a direct hit.
Just as Simon swiftly prepared the curse—
-Original! Brilliant!
A man's voice suddenly surfaced in his memory.
-Because you didn't study ahead! Because your thinking is a pristine blank page, unmarred by formulas and equations, that such an original idea could occur to you!
-The motion-sickness curse obviously calls for a vibration formula! To even think that way means your brain has been pickled in convention! Splendid, truly splendid. THIS is how you unfold a curse equation!
That was what Bahil had said, back when Hector's faction had sneered that the Special Admission No. 1 didn't even know what a vibration formula was.
......And now I'm remembering it.
Simon thrust his index finger forward.
<Sickness>
The motion-sickness curse flew and struck the monster's body.
The effect was potent. The monster wobbled drunkenly through the air, then crashed into the ground all on its own and burst apart.
So the answer really is Sickness. Then there's just one left!
The trickiest one of all.
An undead type. A monster that tore off pieces of its own body and ate them — writhing in agony even as it devoured itself, growing stronger by the moment.
Exhaust and every other weakening curse he tried simply didn't work.
What curse is the answer for this one......
-Simon Polentia. This is a curse set I developed just for you.
Another scene unfolded unbidden in his mind.
-You won't find it in any book. Curses that exist nowhere else in the world — made for Simon Polentia alone.
-When a student is this exceptional, what educator could resist teaching them? Call it a bond of master and disciple. As long as you're a student — as long as learning is your proper station — you need only accept it as that.
Simon bit his lip and completed a new curse.
The Four Great Curses Bahil had prepared for him so that he could master Compellonia.
The first of them.
<Indolence>
The pain-link curse of Indolence struck the monster's body.
The creature — which had been tearing off its own flesh, attacking Simon, tearing and attacking again in an endless loop — dropped its weapon the moment the curse took hold and began devouring its own body like a thing possessed.
Before long, it ate its own heart and destroyed itself.
SHUUUUUU—
The barrier lifted, and Simon was back on the Kizen campus.
"Haa."
Simon lifted his head, his feelings a tangled mess.
Right in front of him now stood the Curse Studies building — the one with Bahil inside.
Wh-when I see him... what am I supposed to say?