The True Requiem
The atmosphere around the twin professors had changed.
Rin, standing on the left, raised her index finger and spoke. "Now, repeat after me. Slowly — as slowly as you possibly can. Finde-die Die-be!"
Simon stumbled through it, following her words as carefully as he could. "Fin-ded-ie D-ie-be!"
"See? Your rhythm's breaking apart, isn't it?" Run, on the right, pointed it out sharply. "Next, this one. Ra-v-ri-ma-đưa ra. anh!"
"Rav-rima-đưara. anh!"
Once again, Simon fumbled the beat and tripped over himself. Failing even with two Kizen professors giving him a private lesson! His face burned with embarrassment.
So I really am tone-deaf after all?
"Then let's try something easier! Rin?"
"Sounds good to me. Run!"
The two girls waggled their index fingers and spoke in perfect unison. "School-bell goes- ding. ding. ding. Hurry now- gather round."
"???"
Simon made a blank face. Hadn't the difficulty just plummeted?
"Come on! Repeat after us!"
"Ah — yes, ma'am."
It was a little humiliating, but Simon obediently did as he was told. The twins nodded together.
"See that! You're doing great, Simon!"
"So what do you think the problem is, Simon?"
Simon scratched the back of his neck. "That one wasn't a requiem — it was just a simple song."
"You sing ordinary songs just fine, so why does the rhythm fall apart only on requiems? Simon."
"Have you ever stopped to wonder why it's the requiem, of all things, that throws off your timing? Simon."
Come to think of it...
The two girls circled around him, switching places with a smile.
"You've known it all along, you see."
"What the correct answer really is."
"Honestly, Finde-die Die-be should be sung the way you sing it — Fin-ded-ie D-ie-be."
"That's the original."
Simon's mind snapped taut. What were they trying to tell him?
"In your first Requiem of Summoning class, the requiem taught to the students was a human song."
"The system works a human-made magic circle with human vocal sounds, so the melody has to be bent to fit the circle."
"But what you sing, Simon, is the raw, unrefined method."
"You're not tone-deaf, Simon. You know the real thing — that's why the borrowed version feels foreign to you."
"And so, we're going to teach you something new."
The two cleared their throats, spread a soundproof barrier around them, and began a new song in unison.
"Der König von Undead fiel hier nieder――!!"
⟨ The True Requiem ⟩
"!!"
Simon felt goosebumps erupt across his entire body.
"Repeat it."
Simon reproduced their music exactly as he'd heard it. A short piece, only a few lines long — and this much, even Simon managed without trouble.
"You understand it now. Keep singing."
"Close your eyes, and raise your Jet-Black."
Simon closed his eyes and began to sing.
"Ich sclwöre bie-de Dun kelheit."
The emotion surged. As if rewarding him for his earlier humiliation, the song poured out of him impossibly well, like a lie.
"Good — you're doing it!"
"Like you're commanding the undead-"
"Stronger!"
"Put your will into it!"
Grimacing, shouting the song out, Simon felt a churning tightness well up beneath his chest.
"Louder!"
"Higher!"
Simon drew in a huge breath.
Then — with the sensation of violently coughing up everything that had been stuck deep in his chest —
"Der König von Undead fiel hier nieder――!!"
Without even realizing it, Simon wielded Absolute Command — not through a deathly wail, but through his own voice.
Grroooaan.
Grraan.
The moment Simon sang, the stone burial chambers woven throughout this labyrinthine place groaned open, and skeletons and zombies began to rise.
THUD!
Thud!
Zombie arms clawed up out of the floor, and skeletons came swarming, scattering light from their eye sockets.
"Der König ist Zurück―!!"
One.
Two.
Dozens — no, hundreds of the graveyard's undead gathered before Simon.
"Just as we thought."
"That's it exactly."
The twin professors clasped hands. Every undead in the place had risen and was kneeling, worshipping Simon.
"Ah."
Only then did Simon open his eyes — and shuddered at the scene spread around him.
[Keh-heh-heh! You walked right into that one, didn't you?]
Came the snickering of Pier's avatar.
"Nephthys was right."
"Right, right."
The twin professors approached, eyes gleaming, and asked in absolutely perfect unison:
"You're the 'Seventh', aren't you?"
Simon flinched.
"We heard from Nephthys. Baby Legion Commander."
"We've been watching you. Baby Legion Commander."
The twins' eyes flashed.
"Nephthys wants you to take the next step up."
"Because in her plan, you are the most important 'key.'"
The hundreds of undead let out the wailing cry of the dead.
The twin professors' hands rose.
"Congratulations on passing-"
"our trial so successfully."
Every risen dead in the graveyard opened its jaw and howled.
For Simon, it was an experience he would never forget for the rest of his life.
The next morning.
"The undead are beings poised on the boundary between life and death, and necromancers are those who breathe a special life into the departed."
Second-year Intermediate Summoning class.
"Of course, the Priests of the Holy Federation call it a bizarre puppetry that jerks corpses around — but there's a reason it's qualitatively different from that. Necromancers make use of the skills the undead possessed in life."
Professor Aaron was pacing the podium, textbook in hand, lecturing.
"The power to control lingering death-resentment and draw an undead's living skills out even more strongly — the Rune of Reminiscence and its foundational formulas are required learning for every summoner. It isn't something you use only for Skeleton Knights. From now on I'll be explaining a variety of its variations and structures. Open your textbooks to page sixteen."
The students turned their pages and took notes on what Aaron chalked onto the board.
"……"
Simon, staring blankly into space alone, turned his head at the sharp snap of fingers. Lorraine, in the seat beside him, was watching him worriedly.
"What's wrong, Simon? Did something happen?"
"Ah — no. It's nothing."
Simon hurriedly pulled himself together.
"That's not like you at all."
This time it was Toto, in the seat across, who spoke. "This is the first time I've ever seen you space out in Professor Aaron's class."
Lorraine narrowed her eyes. "……Could it be that you're heartbroken over failing the requiem yesterday?"
Then a snickering laugh drifted in from the seat behind them.
It was Serne.
"I bet the shock of finding out he's tone-deaf hit him pretty hard~"
"Th-that's not it!"
Simon said, going red.
"You four back there — quiet down."
At Aaron's words, the four of them shut their mouths and turned their eyes back to their textbooks.
Yesterday keeps coming back to me.
Smack! Smack!
Simon slapped his own cheeks and refocused.
And just as he was about to start copying the board again —
-Keereeet!
"!"
A corpse spider, somehow arrived without him noticing, was tapping at the window.
Simon startled and glanced around. Fortunately, Aaron and the TAs were looking elsewhere.
Moving as naturally as he could manage, Simon opened the window. The corpse spider slipped a folded note through the gap, dropped it onto his desk with a plop, and was gone.
A letter from Erze! Did she find something?
At the moment, Erzsébet was in the Dresden Royal Library, investigating the unidentified group that had experimented on 'Karl'.
Simon rustled the paper open.
To my beloved Legion Commander,
Even now, as I write this letter in the library, the maiden's thoughts are of none but you, my Commander. The mere thought of the all-day date voucher you so graciously granted as your reward sets this maiden's heart aflutter……
Believing I have conveyed even one ten-millionth of the maiden's devotion to you, I hereby deliver my interim report. To state the conclusion first: I have not yet deciphered this language. The deeper I dig, the more convinced I become that these characters are less a language than a highly sophisticated cryptographic formula.
I am sifting through the materials in case some pattern may yet emerge, and in doing so I discovered a scribble left by whoever wrote or read these documents. Naturally, the scribble was written in the continental tongue.
"Tarados. Requires a large-scale cleaning."
— Your devoted Erze
"!"
Simon bent his head low over the page.
Tarados. What's that? A person's name? Or a place?
And what did "requires a large-scale cleaning" mean? Thinking of the atrocities those people had committed, the word sent an inexplicable chill crawling up his spine.
Pier. Pier.
Simon tapped the Pier avatar that hung from his uniform like a badge.
A moment later, light kindled in the avatar's eyes.
[Keheheh! Why did you call, boy?]
Please look at this. It's Erze's interim report.
Pier read the whole note through, then spoke.
[Tarados is a place name! It sits at the very far edge of the Dresden Kingdom, no less.]
Hm.
[Who knows what those fiends are plotting out there!]
Simon nodded. According to Erzsébet, judging from the state of the ink, the scribble hadn't been left long ago.
A crucial lead, won at great effort. He absolutely did not want to lose it.
What should I do?
Just as Simon crossed his arms, deep in thought —
"That's all for today's class."
Aaron declared the lesson over. As if they'd been waiting for it, the students burst into chatter.
"Quiet! I have one announcement."
Aaron dragged the chalk he was holding across the board in one smooth stroke.
"Mission Assessments begin this weekend."
The students' faces brightened.
Mission Assessments. Among Kizen's notoriously brutal curriculum, there was a general understanding that the assessments were on the easier side. You could pick missions within Roc Island and stay at school to rest, or choose something simple and slip off the island for what felt like a healing vacation.
Simon had made good use of them too — hunting down his father's Ancient Undead, securing funds and new undead. For a Kizen student, it was precious time to get outside. Simon had always looked forward to assessment season.
"I understand why you're pleased. However."
The corner of Aaron's mouth lifted.
"From second year on, the rules of the assessments change a little."
The request sheets Simon had faced in his first year had been as follows:
White Request — Missions within Roc Island. Zero probability of Priest encounter.
Blue Request — Missions within the Dark Alliance. Extremely low probability of Priest encounter.
Red Request — Missions within the Neutral Zone. High probability of Priest encounter.
Black Request — Missions within the Holy Federation. Guaranteed collision with Priests.
And the single greatest change to the second-year assessments was this:
"The White Requests are gone. Second-years do not take missions inside Roc Island."
The students immediately began to murmur.
"The minimum is a Blue Request. If you want high marks, you'll take a Red Request or a Black Request. And within your second year, every one of you must —"
Aaron raised his index finger and drew a 'one' in the air.
"— select a Black Request and clear it."
The students' mouths hung open.
The Black Requests were missions for true professionals — infiltrations deep inside the Holy Federation, where Priests crawled over every street.
"……That's insane."
"I figured I'd never see the Holy Federation before graduation."
The students fell into considerable confusion.
"Wh-what do we do, Simon?"
Toto trembled as he looked at him. "They say the Holy Federation is a living hell where no human can survive! Rivers run with blood instead of water! Human corpses float down them! Monsters starved for Holy Power roam the land!"
Simon smiled wryly. "I don't think it's quite that bad."
"Sending us to a place that terrifying! We won't even make it past the border — we'll get caught by an Inquisitor and die! They'll hang us from the Red Cross!"
BANG! BANG! Aaron rapped the lectern.
"Silence."
The room quieted again.
"You have plenty of time yet, so think it over carefully. The faculty recommends that for Black Requests, you wait until the second semester, when your skills have built up a little more."
Aaron walked with his hands behind his back, slippers shuffling along the floor.
"Tomorrow night, request boards will be installed in the lobby of each major's dormitory. From second year onward, plenty of missions suited to your declared majors have been added, so check them. Make sure you use this chance to build real combat experience you can't get inside these walls. Dismissed."
"Thank you for the lecture, Professor!"
The students rose from their seats one by one and filed out of the lecture hall. Simon packed up his textbook, eyes gleaming.
Pier. You know what I'm about to say, don't you?
[Keheheh! About time I stretched my legs!]
Pier's avatar's eyes flashed.
[I shall have every battle-force of the Legion ready to deploy at a moment's notice!]
Simon nodded and rose from his seat.
The time had come for the Legion Commander 'Pion' to act once more.