The First Student at the Door
The battle for course registration among the second-years was unfolding more fiercely than ever before.
As the competition heated up, some students had even taken to flying, but that was hardly a wise choice — it not only drew the hungry eyes of every flying monster in the maze, it left them completely exposed to the floating Cards of Endolas drifting overhead.
‘Alright, then.’
Simon had made it safely to the front of the Curse Department building. He'd thought himself quite fast, but there were already students who'd arrived before him.
“This way!”
“Check if there's another entrance around back!”
And yet something strange was going on. Every single one of them was ignoring a perfectly fine front door, circling around back in search of some other way in.
‘Is something up with the main entrance?’
Simon's head turned. Three students lay sprawled before the front door, trapped inside a coffin-shaped barrier, groaning and squirming.
‘Forced 30-minute rest. They took an attack and their Barrier Gauge hit zero.’
Which meant someone had beaten them badly. The cause was easy enough to find: planted in the ground right in the middle of the fallen students was a single enormous card.
Needless to say, it was one of Endolas Vaudeville's Cards.
‘...I see. The front door is the fastest and easiest route — and a powerful monster is waiting for anyone who takes it.’
There was no time to take the long way around. If he didn't move boldly, the classes he wanted would never fit on his schedule.
What this moment called for was audacity — and resolve.
While the other students hunted for detours, Simon walked alone, head high, straight toward the front door.
Fwoooosh!
The moment Simon drew close, light flashed across the giant card, and in an instant it carved out a separate space.
The space was far vaster than the one inside the trap cards he'd seen before. Darkness pressed in from every side, and something enormous was rising from the floor below.
‘A golem?’
Its entire body was coated in black ore, and only its two eyes glowed a blinding white.
Worse, it was outright hostile. The instant it spotted Simon, it swung a fist at him with everything it had.
BOOOOOM!
Simon threw himself sideways.
The golem's outstretched fist pulverized the floor tiles, detonated a nearby fountain, and plowed on to reduce a vendor stall to splinters.
‘Thank goodness this isn't the real campus.’
This was a separate world, split off in the image of the school. Simon shifted the completed magic circle to the tip of his index finger, ready to fire.
The fastest, simplest curse in his arsenal.
Exhaust
Severe fatigue and physical slowdown — stacks with each cast
The Exhaust curse shot out in the form of smoke and struck the golem dead on.
‘It landed!’
The curse had clearly taken hold.
But the golem's body only slowed down enough that you could barely tell. Simon had to hurl himself out of the way of its next attack all over again.
“Ngh!”
His penalty for dodging half-prepared was a brutal roll across the hard floor. His whole body ached, but even as he tumbled he was already prepping his next curse.
Sickness. Weakness.
He unleashed curse after familiar curse in rapid succession, but the golem's assault lost none of its bite.
KRUUUUUNG!
A colossal golem arm brought down an entire building nearby.
Ducking the debris raining from the sky, Simon sprinted in a frantic scramble. A whole lecture hall crashed down, desks and chairs bursting out of it like shrapnel.
‘Three curses landed and there's barely any reaction. How am I supposed to beat this thing?’
While dodging and firing curses nonstop, Simon collected data.
Time passed, and a few crucial facts came to light.
First — this golem did not build curse stacks. Even though the first Exhaust had hit, the second simply bounced off.
Second — he waited for Sickness to expire, then cast it again. It landed, but the effect was drastically weakened. It seemed a curse that had been used once on the golem granted it immunity, slashing its potency.
‘Now I get it.’
At last, Simon grasped the examiner's intent.
‘Don't lean on stacking. Take it down with one overwhelming curse. That's the test.’
Simon hid himself behind the rubble of a collapsed building, panting, flipping through his Curse Studies textbook with trembling hands. Any curse he didn't use regularly was one he'd only skimmed in class — never fully committed to memory.
‘Found it!’
The moment he found the page, Simon drew a magic circle in midair.
“Rune Script — shading. Series modifier — expansion.”
He'd never cast it outside of class, but his head — and his jet-black — still remembered. Finishing the circle in a flash, Simon balanced it on his fingertip and aimed it at the golem like a gun barrel.
A curse that darkens and narrows the target's vision.
Blind
Obscures and constricts the target's field of vision
Fwoosh!
The Blind curse streaked like a bullet and slammed into the golem's face. Come to think of it, the only part of the golem's body that stood out at all was those two white eyes.
Soon the Blind took effect — the golem's once-brilliant eyes clouded to a dull grey, and it could no longer track Simon with its former razor precision.
‘It's working, but this isn't the answer.’
Blind was nothing more than a stalling tactic. He had to finish this before it wore off.
Simon rose slowly from cover and stepped forward.
‘The single best move I have.’
He spread his palm and closed his eyes, drawing his focus up and up.
Grrrrrrrumble!
The sensation of his whole body sinking into still, deep water. Droplets rising and blooming around him.
Somewhere in the dark abyss of the sea, the bellowing cry of a whale thrums against his ears.
‘I have to recreate that feeling. Perfectly.’
The ruler of the sea, looming before his eyes.
He remembers that enormous pupil, drawing in all creation as it approached.
And the one and only countermeasure he'd pulled out to face it.
KEEEEEEEING!
A magic circle began to draw itself across the boy's palm.
‘Overload the circle — push the jet-black supply past its limit!’
The circle tore apart, and above it a three-dimensional magic circle blossomed open like a flower bud, dragging the dreadful power sealed within his black mana out into reality.
Simon's eyes opened at last.
The very curse he'd once used to subdue a colossal monster.
With a launch cry like the song of a whale, a stream of deep indigo water surged out, writhing and coiling, and washed over the golem's body.
WHUUUUSH!
The instant it touched, an effect like a wave breaking against rock erupted outward. The golem's body swayed — and then toppled where it stood.
KWAAAAAK—!
The colossal shockwave sent everything nearby flying, the floor rippling beneath its force.
Simon endured it, arms wrapped over his head.
“...?”
He opened his eyes cautiously.
The monster lay spread-eagled on the ground, sound asleep — and beyond it, a door made of cards had come into view.
‘I did it!’
Afraid the monster might wake at the slightest noise, Simon couldn't even celebrate properly. He crept through the door on tiptoe.
VUUUUUUM!
The barrier shattered completely, and the instant he passed through that door, Simon was standing in the third-floor corridor of the Curse Department building.
Direct travel.
Just as the exam's difficulty had been brutal, the reward granted to whoever cleared it was extravagant in equal measure.
‘Alright — let's go!’
Second-Year Campus. Curse Department building.
Bahil's new office.
Click.
Chehekl, the Curse Department's Head TA, set down a teacup on its saucer.
“Your coffee, Professor.”
She stepped back a single pace, folded her hands, and waited.
“...”
This was the same coffee the man used to guzzle like an addict, but the figure in the immaculate white suit before her showed little interest. He simply leaned back in his chair as though sprawled across it, breathing and nothing more.
All around the room were the belongings and documents hauled over from the first-year campus — none of which he had bothered to unpack even now, with the semester already underway.
The colossal blackboard that occupied an entire wall was the same.
Chehekl looked at that blackboard. Traces were still visible — the name Simon Polentia, scrawled over and over until the surface was a mania of ink.
“Professor, today is course registration day.”
“...”
“The students are coming. You need to drink your coffee and prepare to receive them.”
Sliide—
Bahil's finger moved.
He had an oddly fastidious streak, insisting only on tableware he used himself. Even dining out, he was the sort of man who'd ask the restaurant to plate his food on the dish he'd brought along.
Click.
Bahil's fingers closed around the handle of the coffee-filled teacup. Chehekl watched with hopeful eyes — but for a full minute, nothing followed. Then the strength simply drained from his fingers.
Whereupon he stuck the finger straight into the freshly brewed, piping-hot coffee, drew it to his mouth, sucked it clean, and let his arm hang limp again like a patient's.
Was this a human being, or a zombie?
“Professor!!”
Chehekl, unable to watch any longer, felt sparks fly at the corners of her eyes.
“What on earth are you doing? You vanished without a word and burdened every other professor on campus! So your favorite student isn't taking your class — is the world ending?”
“Yes.”
Bahil's mouth opened.
A limp, drained voice, utterly without vitality.
“My world has ended.”
“Ended? You! What about your insane ambition to lay a curse upon the world itself! You're the one who said Simon Polentia was merely one piece of that plan!”
“Chehekl.”
He let slip a feeble smile.
“He is a talent that might emerge once in ten thousand years. But my lifespan is shorter than ten thousand years, I'm afraid. The finest necromancers live, what, a hundred and fifty years? Far too short to wait for the next ten-millennium treasure.”
“...No, Professor!”
The corner of Bahil's mouth lifted.
“It can't be helped. It was my mistake. I was too hasty. I should have nurtured him into an exceptional curse specialist over years of positive reinforcement before laying a hand on him. A boy of merely seventeen — his Core open for less than a single year — and I tried to teach him Compellonia. Simon is clever. He must have seen through it at once. What I intended to do to him.”
“...”
Chehekl fell silent, and Bahil's lifeless eyes drifted toward her.
“Chehekl, you are a talent wasted under me. Do as you please. I will write you a recommendation to Nephthys myself. Teaching children directly as a Curse professor would be new territory for you.”
“Professor.”
“If not that — well, you always wanted to be rid of me, didn't you. That's fine too.”
“Professor.”
“Or perhaps you wish to take your revenge on me—”
“What I want revenge on is you dying on your feet like this!!”
She roared.
“What is this?! Is this really all it takes to break you? The Bahil Amagar the whole world hailed as the greatest of all time?”
She snatched the attendance roster off the floor and hurled it into Bahil's face with a satisfying thwack!
A moment later, the roster slid down in a flutter of pages, revealing Bahil's reddened face and his weak, helpless smile.
“It seems students have come to register, Professor.”
Hearing footsteps, Chehekl suppressed her emotions and straightened her tie.
“Prepare yourself. Showing yourself like this is disrespect to the students.”
“I am beyond caring anymore...”
“Prepare. Yourself.”
Chehekl said it coldly and walked off, heels clicking. Right on cue came the sound of a knock at the office door.
“Yes, coming.”
She gathered her voice and opened the door.
And then—
“Ah!”
Chehekl's perpetually frozen face brightened visibly.
“Professor! Look here! This is the very first student who's come to see you!”
“...”
Bahil swept a hand through his unkempt hair and straightened up on the sofa.
And then—
“!”
He found himself staring.
At the blue-haired boy shuffling hesitantly into the office, clutching a course registration form for Bahil's Curse class.
“H-hello, Professor Bahil.”
Simon bowed his head politely. Bahil stood frozen like a statue, saying nothing.
An awkward silence stretched.
“Um...”
Simon scratched the side of his head, sheepish, then quickly steadied himself and spoke.
“I think I said some things in the infirmary that went too far. I'd like to apologize.”
“...”
“Even if my intentions weren't pure back then — if it hadn't been for the Compellonia you taught me, I would have died in my battle against Silaje. You saved my life. Thank you for teaching me curses all through my first year.”
And he bowed his head once more, with deep formality.
‘Ah...!’
Moved beyond words, Bahil's eyes welled up.
How.
How could a student like this possibly exist?
“I chose Summoning as my major, but... well... even so, I want to keep learning curses from you, Professor Bahil. From now on, too.”
I want to keep learning curses from you, Professor Bahil. From now on, too.
I want to keep learning curses from you, Professor Bahil. From now on, too.
I want to keep learning curses from you, Professor Bahil. From now on, too.
I want to keep learning curses from you, Professor Bahil. From now on, too.
The words spun madly through Bahil's mind, over and over.
“If you'll have me, I'm requesting your permission to enroll.”
Simon held out the registration form with both hands. Bahil accepted it with trembling fingers.
His chest ached. His throat closed up.
Strangely, he couldn't say a single word.
I was too greedy.
It was I who wanted to keep teaching you, all along.
His mouth wouldn't open. No voice would come. He simply couldn't speak.
So Bahil, with shaking hands, took up his quill and signed the document.
“Thank you so much!”
Simon beamed.
After exchanging a few more words with Chehekl, Simon left the office.
And the very moment he was out the door—
“Eeheehee.”
Laughter spilled from Bahil's lips.
“Eeheehee! Khek! Kekkek! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Like a man unhinged, he began to laugh, his whole body undulating like some boneless invertebrate.
The light had returned to his eyes.
Blood flowed through his body again.
His heart began to beat.
“Yes! Yes! YES! I was waiting too, all this time! Simon Polentia!!”
“Keep your voice down!”
Chehekl jumped in fright, pressing a finger to her lips and glancing anxiously at the door.
“Simon Polentia has left, and the second student has just arrived.”
“I haven't the slightest intention of wasting this joyous feeling on those worthless rabble! Chehekl!”
Arms spread wide, he cackled like some twisted wraith.
Simon Polentia —
that boy who had tasted even the realm of gods —
had said he wanted to keep learning curses from him.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! Simply wonderful!”
Fully revived, Bahil spun on his heel to face Chehekl. At some point, a sly, scheming smile had crept across his lips.
“Chehekl! Are you familiar, by any chance, with the slang term students use — ‘dept-trait’?”
“...I— I don't think so.”
“Haha! Unacceptable! An educator worth the name ought to take an interest in the culture and language of his teenage students!”
Her superior had transformed in a matter of minutes, and she had no idea which rhythm to follow anymore.
“‘Dept-trait’ is short for ‘department trait’! And the single most defining dept-trait of the Summoning Department is said to be this.”
Bahil swept a hand across his face, madness blazing in his eyes.
“Transfers.”
“...”
“The Summoning Department's transfer-out rate has held first place among all seven departments for fifty straight years. Senior Aaron may rejoice over Simon Polentia for now — but only for this semester!”
The corner of his mouth curled upward.
“I will take Simon back. Without fail.”
‘You never had him to begin with.’
Chehekl heaved a long sigh.
She worried, just a little, that she might have unsealed a monster.
But only for today — for this one day, she decided to be purely, simply glad that Bahil was Bahil again.
“Send in the second student.”