Bahil's Remake
That afternoon, Simon and Lorraine found themselves sitting side by side in the campus cafe, sipping coffee for the first time in a while.
The purpose of the meeting was to talk about Tarados.
Lorraine had stayed behind in Tarados until the very last day of the Mission Assessment, working to manage the aftermath. Simon, for his part, wanted to keep a steady eye on the place he had helped liberate.
"Backing General Amin as the new Lord was quite the uphill battle."
Lorraine said.
Setting down her cup, she let out a tired sigh.
"The kingdom's ministers opposed it."
"The ministers?"
"Mm-hm. Something about how appointing a Lord without proper procedure is difficult, apparently. I suppose they didn't like the idea of a knife-wielding nobody suddenly springing up out of nowhere and standing shoulder to shoulder with them as nobility."
Simon rested his chin on his hand with a sour expression.
Not that they'd lift a finger themselves if you asked them to govern Tarados. The ministers were doing nothing but opposing without offering any alternative.
"So what happened in the end?"
"Kizen put pressure on them, holding them accountable for the Tarados incident and insisting that realistic efforts toward damage control were needed. Ah—and internally, Princess Molly threw a lot of her weight behind it."
Lorraine's eyes gleamed.
"As it turned out, you contacting Princess Molly personally instead of going through official kingdom channels was the single best move you could have made, Simon! The adults were probably just planning to bury the whole thing and smooth it over because it was too big for them, but the princess stormed in with her royal guard right away, ransacked Minister Perutz's estate in spectacular fashion, and shoved the evidence right in his face before having him arrested. Truly remarkable work."
Simon took a sip of his coffee with a smile.
"I'll have to thank her properly when I see her next. I wonder if she's keeping up with her studies."
"She seemed completely taken with life at Kizen. She was always someone who dreamed of the necromancer lifestyle, after all."
Simon nodded, set his coffee cup down, and looked around.
Then he let out a small wry chuckle.
"There are so many people."
The cafe was packed shoulder to shoulder with students, the lunch hour in full swing. Most of them were first-years, chattering loudly and shrieking at each other like rowdy wild animals.
It wasn't exactly the ideal environment for a quiet conversation, but Simon leaned back in his chair with his arms on the armrests and smiled as he watched the underclassmen.
"The start of first semester. Right in the prime of their youth."
Lorraine snorted.
"You sound like an old man."
Simon laughed along with her and turned his head, curious whether he recognized anyone nearby. A few seats away, a striking head of red hair caught his eye.
Special Admission No. 2 of the first years—the Mercenary King, Arthur.
He was waving his arm wildly and shouting something.
"Hey, Arthur! Who eats a soufflé like that? Have some dignity!"
"What even is a soufflé!"
He looked as much himself as ever.
"Oh, and this is a secret."
Lorraine steered back to their original topic.
"The difficulty rating of the Mission Assessment you just completed is going to be adjusted. From F to A+."
Color bloomed in Simon's face.
"Wait, really? I'd love that, if you can pull it off."
"Consider it done."
The commission had originally been graded F as mere manual labor, but Simon had uncovered that it was actually a distress signal and gone to Tarados. In the end, he'd saved both the client and the territory, and it seemed Kizen headquarters had taken that into account.
For Simon, who was dead set on claiming the overall #1 spot among the second-years, it was genuinely welcome news.
'Then again, I have a feeling Lorraine pulled some strings behind the scenes.'
Even with all her influence and authority stripped away, she could surely still make a simple request as an ordinary student. And headquarters wouldn't have been able to casually brush off a petition from a future power.
In any case, Lorraine's report continued.
"Kizen is putting effort into Tarados's reconstruction as well. They've sent necromancers to purge the chimeras swarming the wastelands. We're at about sixty percent, I'd say? Soon people will be able to move about the territory freely. Then the merchants will come, the economy will pick up—"
"Ex—excuse me!"
Someone abruptly cut into their conversation.
Two first-year girls with long, elaborately styled hair were twisting and squirming, their faces flushed.
"What is it?"
Simon turned to them and asked kindly.
The girl on the left, blushing furiously, jabbed her friend in the ribs, whispering, 'You said you'd ask!' The other girl fidgeted for a moment before speaking.
"A—are you Student Council President Simon, by any chance?"
"Yes, that's me."
"Kyaaaa!"
The two of them slapped their palms together and bounced up and down.
Thanks to the Student Council President's rescue of Kizen's new students on the day of the entrance ceremony, Simon had somehow become a legendary figure among the first-years.
"We almost didn't recognize you without your coat!"
"W—we really admire you, Senior! We're rooting for you! C—could we possibly ask for an autograph?"
It was the first time in his life anyone had asked for his autograph.
Simon hesitated, but since his conversation with Lorraine took priority, he quickly signed the front of their Summoning Department textbooks and sent them on their way.
The first-year girls, overjoyed, bowed deeply and returned to their seats.
"Quite popular, aren't you?"
Lorraine said teasingly.
"Sorry, I lost the thread. So what happened next?"
"Mm. Where was I?"
"You were saying the chimeras were getting cleared out, the merchants would move in, and the economy was showing signs of recovery."
"Ah, right. So a few merchant guilds have started showing interest—"
"WHOOOAA!"
This time, three first-year boys burst out of nowhere.
"That's him! I'm sure of it! Black hair, red eyes! Aren't you Senior Lorraine?!"
"..."
Lorraine sighed and merely nodded.
"Whoa, insane! It's really her!"
"It's true! Nephthys's daughter really does attend Kizen!"
"And that's Student Council President Simon next to her!"
Simon quickly raised a finger to his lips and hushed them, shushing until they quieted down. Thankfully, the surrounding clamor was loud enough that no attention gathered.
'Good grief, this year's first-years are something else.'
If Hector had overheard, he'd have driven them flat into the floor yelling that the first-years had no manners whatsoever, but Simon decided to be understanding about it.
They were first-years who hadn't been at the school for long, and having grown up groveling before third-years themselves, he had no desire to force such rigid etiquette onto his juniors.
"Sorry, but we have some things to talk about—"
"Wait, are you two... you know? A couple?"
"Haha! You two look so good togeth—"
WHAM!
Just then, a student lunged out and locked the two babbling first-years in a headlock.
"Hello there, Senior Simon! Hahaha!"
It was Arthur.
"K—khk!"
"A—Arthur! Cut it out, come on!"
The two boys in the headlock squirmed and begged to be released. Arthur shot Simon a quick wink.
"Long time no see, Arthur."
Simon waved back.
"Sorry about my classmates, sir! I'll drop by the Student Council Room later to pay my respects!"
"Yes, thank you."
After bowing deeply at the waist and greeting Simon and Lorraine each in turn, he marched off, his classmates still firmly subdued.
Simon folded his arms, looking impressed.
'He might actually have grown since the first time we met.'
"Do you know him?"
Lorraine asked.
"That's Arthur the Mercenary King. We've fought alongside each other before."
"Ah. The famous Special Admission No. 2. He's a polite one."
The two of them returned to their discussion of Tarados.
Thankfully, no one else interrupted, and the conversation was flowing along smoothly when several Kizen headquarters officials in crisp formal suits came walking over.
"Miss."
"Headmistress Nephthys requests your presence."
She rose from her seat as if she'd been expecting this.
"Sorry, Simon."
"No, no. We were just about finished anyway."
Lorraine bid Simon farewell and left with the officials. Left alone, Simon sipped at his half-finished coffee.
'I should probably head out and get ready for class too.'
The moment Simon moved to rise from his seat—
'Whoa!'
He was so startled he nearly spilled his coffee.
At some point, a man dressed in a spotless white suit had settled casually into the seat across from him, smiling.
"It's been a while, Simon."
The man tipped up his hat with a fingertip, playing it up theatrically. Simon's eyes went wide.
"Pr—Professor Bahil?"
"Shall we have that cup of coffee together, then?"
* * *
An unexpected turn of events—but after Lorraine came Bahil.
Simon entered Bahil's laboratory in the Curse Department building on the second-year campus. He sat on the sofa with a tense face, back ramrod straight.
"Haha, there's no need to be so stiff when it's just the two of us."
Bahil said, hanging his hat on the coat rack.
While Bahil busied himself brewing coffee with a soft clatter of utensils, Simon looked around the room.
"..."
Every inch of it meticulously organized, as always. The enormous chalkboard occupying an entire wall had clearly been brought over wholesale from the first-year laboratory. It was densely covered in curse equations.
"Thank you for your hard work leading the transfer students."
Bahil said, setting down two cups of coffee.
"Thank you, Professor."
Everyone he met these days brought up leading the transfer students.
Now well accustomed to it, Simon accepted the cup Bahil handed him as respectfully as he could manage and took a careful sip, following the etiquette he'd learned in his royal studies.
As expected, it was cloyingly sweet.
"And among them, one performance in particular left quite an impression on me."
Bahil's eyes flashed as he raised his coffee with a gentlemanly motion.
"The Aland match, wasn't it?"
Simon blinked.
Was he talking about the match against Benz? That was nothing special.
"Your plan composition was superb. You used Sleep to put the monsters under the opponent's taming control to rest, cast the delusion curse Delusion on the tamer to deceive his eyes, then flung him toward his own monsters and released the Sleep you'd placed on them."
BANG.
Bahil made the sound with his mouth while gesturing out a tamer being swarmed by his own monsters.
"Victory."
"Uh... huh?"
Simon's eyes went hazy with confusion.
The Kizen personnel at Aland had been Jane and Simon, and no one else.
"How do you know all that in such detail?"
"I have a junior colleague who teaches curses at Aland. He told me. But more importantly—what is the meaning of this?"
"I beg your pardon?"
Bahil shot up from his seat and thrust his face in close.
"I have never once taught you Sleep."
Goosebumps exploded across Simon's entire body.
"Who in the world did you learn it from?"
"Um, well, you see—!"
Since calming the man's fury came first, Simon told him the plain truth.
That former Student Council President Phantassus had personally passed the Sleep curse down to him.
"Phantassus."
At the murmured name, an expression of genuine interest finally surfaced on Bahil's face.
"Show me the magic circle. The Sleep you claim he taught you."
"Y—yes, sir."
Judging that playing it meek and cooperative was the wisest course, Simon spread out Phantassus's original Sleep magic circle.
In truth, he had nothing to hide.
Bahil stared at the magic circle for a long moment, then heaved a sigh that was half lament.
"The circle is already cluttered. You've clearly put it to heavy use in the field—learning another Sleep is out of the question now."
"Is—is something wrong with it?"
"Not wrong, precisely."
Bahil sat back down on the sofa.
"That famous Sleep of former President Phantassus. I'd say you've inherited an excellent curse. To hand over something this precious—our former President must have made a very weighty decision."
Simon let out a breath of relief, and Bahil tapped the armrest lightly with his fingertips.
'Although, it does leave me just a touch unsettled.'
He had wanted to raise that pristine blank page of a genius, Simon Polentia, packed tight and thick with nothing but the curses he himself taught him. The idea of some impurity mixed in left a sour taste.
"I'll let it slide, since this happened before course registration."
Bahil's eyes sharpened, and he raised a finger.
"But where curses are concerned, I am the one who takes charge of you. From now on, should you learn any new curse, I expect you to inform me of it as a matter of course."
"U—understood."
"And you say you've learned a new curse—as a Professor of Curse Magic, I can hardly just let that pass without feedback."
He said, letting his arms fall.
"Having used Sleep in the field, is there anything you felt could be improved?"
Simon quietly looked down at Phantassus's original Sleep spread across his palm.
It pierced through most curse resistances, couldn't be dispelled by Cancellation, proved useful even against priests, and its effect was swift and potent.
Its only flaw was that he had to spread the dark magic across his palm and make direct contact—but against power like that, it was hardly a flaw worth mentioning. Like its superior counterpart, Sleeping Deimos, it could even be adapted into a long-range curse.
No, what bothered him was something else.
"Range."
Simon spoke up.
"The fact that it applies only a single stack to a single target at a time is a bit of a shame. If it could induce sleep in more enemies at once—"
Bahil shot to his feet without even hearing him through. Then he swept the eraser across the chalkboard, wiping it clean of its dense scrawl, snatched up a piece of chalk, and began frantically scribbling out equations.
SCRITCH-SCRITCH-SCRITCH—
'Wow.'
Simon stared, dumbfounded, at the rapidly filling chalkboard.
Even Bahil was seeing Phantassus's Sleep for the first time.
Of course, since Bahil's own Jet-Black had already memorized his version of Sleep, merely knowing Phantassus's wouldn't let him use it flawlessly in the field. Phantassus's strength came precisely from honing the Sleep curse alone to its absolute limit.
And yet, as always, Bahil's theory was flawless.
"It's complete."
Tap.
In a mere thirty minutes.
Bahil drove a period into the corner of the chalkboard and, with a distant expression, let the chalk fall from his fingers to the floor.
"Phantassus's original, Bahil's remake, and the wielder Simon's—"
The corner of his mouth curled up.
"—Wide-Area Sleep. Accept it without reservation. It's a gift, made for you."
All Simon could do was laugh.
'This man is truly—'
An impossibly brilliant genius.