The Sky Stadium of Sierra
Leaving Aland behind, new companions joined the party.
"Simon! I let my guard down too much back there!"
Benz, still in his green uniform, thumped Simon on the shoulder with a grin.
"I never dreamed a Summoning Department student would pull an illusion curse! If I hadn't fallen for just that one thing, who knows how the match would've gone!"
One of the Aland girls walking alongside them snorted, looking thoroughly unconvinced.
"Oh, give it a rest. We all watched the Kizen president smash his way out of your plant stems with his summons. And you actually believed it would work *again*? Any necromancer worth their salt would've been suspicious from the start."
"You wouldn't know—you weren't the one inside it! That illusion was so real I swear—!"
Benz protested, then turned to Simon.
"Right, Simon? All I did was get caught off guard in a duel between summoners! Next time, I'm winning for sure!"
"Then consider yourself welcome to challenge me anytime."
Simon answered with a smile.
"I'm glad we'll get to study together at Kizen, Benz. Let's all work hard and climb up there together."
"You bet!"
Benz flashed a wide, toothy grin, while the Aland girl let out a long, resigned sigh.
"...Beaten in skill *and* in character. It's a total rout."
"You two, quit being so loud back there!"
Simon, Jane, and the transfer students from Aland emerged from the dirt path onto the open grounds behind them, and the forest slipped quietly shut, hiding the road once more.
"Farewell, Aland!"
Benz threw both arms up in the air and shouted toward his alma mater. The other two students seemed to be sorting through their own feelings, gazing back at the forest with expressions tangled between excitement and reluctance.
"You've arrived, I see."
Beyond the path, a servant dispatched from Kizen was waiting for them.
"Professor Jane. The teleport array for Sierra is ready."
"Thank you for your trouble, Tajo."
At her expressionless gesture, the students scrambled onto the teleportation array.
* * *
The Kalos Kingdom. Melberg Canyon.
Heavy, sweltering air, the musty smell of damp rock, and on every side, terrain dominated by towering walls of stone.
The gorge was narrow and deep, its sheer cliffs plunging at a merciless angle—one misplaced step, and you would roll all the way down to the craggy drop hundreds of meters below.
A school lives in a place like this?
Simon wiped the sweat beading on his forehead as he scanned the surroundings. Jane, who had been walking ahead, stepped out of the canyon and spoke.
"We've arrived."
The students hurried to her side—and every one of their eyes went wide.
"Whoa...!"
It was as if a god had painted the mountain red with a single brushstroke—an impossibly vast, crimson rock formation rose before them. Almost nothing grew there; not a patch of grass, not a single tree. And along the smooth, barren ridgeline, buildings jutted up in jagged spires.
Simon's eyes gleamed.
That's the next necromancer school—Sierra!
"W-Wait."
The corners of Benz's mouth began to twitch.
"They're not seriously expecting us to *climb* all the way up there, are they? Those Sierra bastards! This is a scheme to wear Simon out before the match...!"
"There will be a mana elevator."
And just as Jane said, when they drew near the cliff face, Sierra's staff were waiting with an elevator already raised. It was easily large enough to fit five people comfortably.
Jane and the students stepped onto the elevator platform, where a magic circle had been inscribed, and the staff courteously closed the gate around them. Simon brushed a hand against the wall—it was made of pure mana.
"We will now ascend. For your safety, please refrain from jumping around inside the cabin."
Clunk!
A few turns of an engine, and the elevator began to rise, pumping upward like a piston, faster and faster.
"Wh-Whoa! It's so fast!"
"I can't look down!"
The Aland students, visiting Sierra for the first time themselves, crouched down low with their heads in their hands. Jane glanced at Simon.
"Student Council President. How are you feeling? Will you be able to face one more opponent?"
"Of course, Professor!"
Simon answered briskly.
He had known today's schedule would pit him against the representatives of both Aland and Sierra. The reason he'd kept his duel with Benz focused almost entirely on curses was simple—he'd been saving his strength.
In this next fight, I'll need either the Imperial Guard or Chaos. One of the two, at least.
Ka-thunk—
At last the elevator reached the summit and came to a halt. In a matter of minutes, they had scaled a rock mountain thousands of meters above sea level.
The doors opened, and Jane and the students stepped out.
"Ugh, what the—"
"It's hard to breathe."
Having been thrust abruptly into such a high altitude, they felt the thinning oxygen immediately. Their ears felt stuffed, and a faint dizziness crept in.
Straight ahead lay the Sierra campus.
As if matched to the red cliffs themselves, every building in the school had been raised from red brick and earth. The architecture was rather distinctive, with rounded, domed roofs, and solemn stone statues dotted the grounds.
And just as at Aland, the Headmaster of Sierra and his faculty stood waiting at the entrance to welcome them.
"Welkam! Karamut!"
The Headmaster of Sierra greeted them in the native tongue. He was a bearded man in a red suit, his forehead bared beneath a sharply parted hairstyle. Spreading his arms wide, he welcomed Jane and the students.
"Welcome! Vice Headmaster Jane, honored students! Welcome to Sierra, the prestigious school that proudly carries a long and storied history and tradition!"
"Thank you for your hospitality."
Jane and the Headmaster of Sierra shook hands, exchanging smiles.
"Now, now, come inside! I shall introduce the school to you personally."
The Headmaster of Sierra was a man of considerable pride when it came to his institution. He didn't let a single building or facility pass without raising his voice to extol it.
"This is our special training facility, where students can experience simulated combat! It cost an enormous sum, but seeing the delighted faces of our students, I find myself thinking it was well worth the investment!"
"How impressive."
"Ah, Vice Headmaster Jane! Last year, the exchange match had to be canceled because Kizen ran its pre-Festival curriculum, but this year, we may look forward to it, yes?"
"Yes. I will personally raise the matter with Lady Nephthys."
While the adults conducted their business, the students from Aland staked out their own corner of the tour, rivals' pride on full display, whispering to each other as they hunted for flaws.
"The gym's a bit small, don't you think? Ours is like three times bigger."
"Wow, an apple pie costs a hundred silver. Prices here are way too high."
For his part, Simon looked around with bright, sparkling eyes, feeling for all the world like a tourist.
When else would he get the chance to visit Sierra? From the architecture down to the classroom environment, everything was different.
Every so often, students in red uniforms would wave at him from the windows of a building. Simon waved back with a smile.
"Hmm—"
The Headmaster of Sierra, who had been quietly observing Simon, turned to Jane.
"So that young man is Kizen's new Student Council President."
"Yes."
Jane nodded.
"A second-year Student Council President! How refreshing! Kizen truly is a step ahead of everyone in every respect! When I heard it was a second-year, I naturally assumed it would be Miss Lorraine Archbold or Miss Serne Eindark paying us a visit! Haha!"
"..."
At that remark, Jane's eyebrow twitched.
"He is an exceptional student who took first place among the entire second-year class. His becoming Student Council President was the most natural course of events."
"Is that so! Although—the transfer evaluation match has always been an event where Kizen's upperclassmen instructed and evaluated our Sierra students, has it not? That is precisely why I find myself a touch concerned."
The Headmaster's eyes narrowed to slits.
"If our student were to win, Kizen's reputation might suffer a slight... hahaha!"
"You needn't worry yourself over that in the slightest—"
Jane's expressionless face curved into a smile.
"I would suggest you wake up from that dream."
Though the words themselves were pleasant enough, her voice was chilling to the bone.
"Hahaha! That's the Vice Headmaster Jane I know and respect."
Having said that, the Headmaster of Sierra lowered his voice.
"Then how about we make a little personal wager? If our student wins, Professor Jane takes over Sierra's Jet-Black Mechanics lectures for one year. What say you?"
Absolutely not!
Simon, who had been eavesdropping on the two adults, nearly dropped his jaw.
Jane's lectures were ones even Kizen students would fight for the chance to attend. For Sierra to try to wring labor out of her—the already overworked Vice Headmaster of Kizen—as a guest professor was beyond absurd.
"Very well."
Professor Jane?!
"But if *our* student wins, then I expect you, Headmaster, to take charge of cleaning the toilets in Kizen's main building for one year."
Jane hadn't just raised the stakes—she'd stacked five more on top.
"Hahaha! Now that sounds like fun! Agreed!"
As the two adults locked horns, only Simon, caught in the middle, felt his mouth going dry. Cold sweat trickled in beads down the back of his neck.
Th-That's just a joke... right? It has to be a joke.
* * *
"And that concludes the campus tour. Now, let us proceed to the stadium."
Following the Headmaster of Sierra's lead, the party stepped onto the teleport array set up in the plaza and were carried off to the arena.
And the moment Simon finished teleporting and opened his eyes—
WAAAAAAAAGH!
A thunderous roar of cheers erupted from the stands. The entire stadium was packed to the brim with students in red uniforms. It looked like magma boiling over at the peak of a mountain.
FWOOOOSH! FWOOOOSH!
Mana fireworks burst overhead from every direction, and flames roared upward.
An upbeat, shoulder-pumping tune washed over the arena—Sierra's school anthem, apparently. The students belted out the lyrics at the top of their lungs, arms slung around one another's shoulders, whipping the atmosphere into a frenzy.
In the middle of it all, cheerleaders in matching uniforms waved their pom-poms and led the chants.
Unbelievable.
But what startled Simon wasn't the crowd or the fireworks.
It was the stadium itself.
Built thousands of meters above sea level, this arena consisted of dozens of narrow, pillar-like rocky knolls rising from the void, spaced at even intervals. Simon looked down—clouds drifted beneath his feet, and beyond them, a dizzying abyss.
Fall from this height, and there'd be no corpse left to find. No question about it.
"Welcome, Kizen!"
"First time seeing Sierra's Sky Stadium?"
"WAHAHAHAHA!"
The Sierra students hurled taunts from the stands one after another. Simon scratched his cheek with an awkward smile.
...There ought to be limits to home-field advantage.
What they'd done at Aland earlier was child's play by comparison.
Without flight techniques, fighting properly in this Sky Stadium of Sierra looked all but impossible.
Simon himself had no technique specialized purely in flight. And it went without saying that Sierra, playing on home turf, would send their most aerially gifted necromancer as their representative.
[Thank you all for waiting so loooong!]
A male student in a red uniform was shouting into an amplified crystal from the stands.
[I'm Merhoben, a third-year, and I'll be your commentator for today's match! Let's get straight to the athletes! First up, on the right! The young second-year Student Council President all the way from distant Roke Island, home of Kizen—Simon Polentia! Give him a hand, folks~!]
Genuine welcoming applause and booing meant to break his spirit came out in equal measure.
The commentator wrapped up Simon's introduction with all the enthusiasm of an afterthought and swung his arm toward the other side of the arena.
[And now, the Red Corner on the left! Eyes on the Red Corner, ladies and gentlemen! Our hero! Our star! Our ace!]
Red lights flared to life on the opposite side of the stadium, right across from where Simon stood.
[Introducing—Zetz Chimerat!]
WAAAAAAAAGH—!
Alongside the colossal cheer, fireworks exploded across the sky.
A magic circle flashed, and a boy in Sierra's red uniform, a lizard-scale scarf draped around his neck, burst onto the platform. He spread wings of black magic and soared freely through the sky above.
Zetz! Zetz! Zetz! Zetz! Zetz!
Every time Zetz Chimerat blazed past the stands in high-speed flight, the students answered with a rolling wave of cheering arms.
Having stoked the arena's heat to a blazing pitch, Zetz flipped mid-air and returned to his platform.
"Simon Polentia! Your exploits have reached even this place, on the far side of the continent!"
There.
Zetz Chimerat thrust out a hand and pointed straight at Simon.
"But this is Sierra! Our nest! And here, we are invincible!"
WAAAAAAAAAGH!
Zetz! Zetz! Zetz! Zetz! Zetz!
"Invincible, hm."
Simon rested his hand on the hilt at his waist with a calm, easy smile. The hem of his black coat rippled in the wind.
"Let's test that claim right now."