Reno's Golden Line
Next up was Professor Lyn & Run's Funerary Studies class.
The students stood in neat rows across the outdoor training grounds. Before them, the teaching assistants and the twin professors waited.
"Today, we're going to teach you the Funerary rites of the ghoul!"
"We covered this in the theory lecture, but some of you little darlings had your ears plugged—"
"So we'll explain it all over again. You'd better thank Lyn!"
"No, no! You should thank Run!"
After a brief bout of playful bickering, the twins pressed their palms together and raised their dark magic. A summoning circle unfurled in midair.
"This is the ghoul summoning circle you've all learned."
"Pretty amazing, right?"
Like a hologram, its size could be freely adjusted, so every student could see it clearly.
At a wave of Lyn's hand, explanations of each main rune and formula bloomed to life across the circle. Simon was following the lecture intently when—
Whoa-oh-!
Someone behind him was making an exceptional racket.
"I-it's really an Ancient Undead teaching the class! I thought the transfer students were just messing with us!"
Benz popped up at Simon's right shoulder.
"Whoa! The circle just blew up huge! How do they do that?"
He darted to the left this time.
"Does Kizen always assign this many teaching assistants? Our school only had two or three..."
"Student."
One of the assistants, unable to watch any longer, hardened her expression and pressed a finger to her lips.
Benz immediately clamped his mouth shut and went quiet, and Simon was able to focus on the twins' explanation once more.
"As you all know, Funerary rites are dark magic that temporarily strengthens undead."
"And there is only one 'Funerary rite' possible for a ghoul."
Run, the twin professor on the right, extended her finger and drew from top to bottom in a sweeping diagonal.
Swoosh—
A long line of jet-black sliced through the summoning circle itself.
"Wh-what are they doing?"
The students' eyes went wide. The twins had just slashed a line across the summoning circle they'd worked so hard to draw.
"A ghoul is a rather unusual undead, you see—despite being undead, its living physical abilities are its main strength!"
"And this is the only Funerary rite that can be applied to a ghoul's summoning circle!"
"It's called 'Reno's Golden Line,' after the necromancer—Reno—who first developed the technique."
The students were dumbfounded.
Slashing a line through the circle and ruining it... is a Funerary rite?
Just then, Lyn and Run glided forward on light footsteps and took their places on either side of the circle.
"Look closely and you'll notice—this line isn't a straight one."
"It starts here at 'OM,' grazes the border of the main runes, and exits at 'Lex.'"
"Rather than a straight line, would you call it a gently curved S-shape?"
At that moment, one student could no longer contain his curiosity and raised his hand.
"Coiter Pizn, sir—ma'am! Wouldn't doing that break the circle and render the ghoul unusable?"
"Correct. It does break."
The students grew even more confused.
"Listen until the end, you little darlings!"
Run on the right smiled and snapped her fingers once more, and the circle restored itself.
"We'll show you something fascinating. Starting from 'OM' and drawing a line of jet-black—"
Lyn on the left traced her finger through the air. With every movement of her finger, the circle on the screen followed.
"Ah!"
"The jet-black!"
All of the jet-black in the circle—which had been sustaining its ecosystem in perfect balance—began gathering and flowing into the line she'd drawn.
It wasn't just a line. It was a circuit.
"OM, Lir, Bold, Lex. Just as rivers that flow their separate ways all gather into the sea at the end, every drop of jet-black will pass through this line."
The twins kept drawing the line longer and longer.
The moment their line passed through the final point—'Lex'—and broke out past the circle's border—
Glug-glug-glug—!
A massive torrent of jet-black burst outward, flooding into the ghoul's entire body.
"This is the ghoul's forced rampage, using 'Reno's Golden Line.'"
"A ghoul under the effects of this Funerary rite can exert three to four times its usual strength—or more."
The pair demonstrated with a ghoul they'd brought out in advance.
It was the ghoul that had been hopping around energetically the whole time.
The instant they channeled jet-black into it and drew a line across the circle etched into its skull, the ghoul shrieked and tore across the field at such blistering speed it left afterimages in its wake.
Ohhh-!
When the ghoul swung its arm, an entire tree cracked apart and exploded into splinters. The rampaging ghoul turned the surroundings into a wasteland, while the teaching assistants—used to this by now—propped up trees and shielded the equipment.
The students erupted into excited chatter.
"Is that really how a ghoul moves?"
"That's insane."
When the two twin professors spread their palms and shouted, 'Stop!', the ghoul finally halted. But it seemed unable to contain its power—even standing still, its body twitched and spasmed in fits.
"Asseraz Mikel!"
Even Asseraz, ranked fifth, was apparently startled—she raised her hand and asked,
"But if you pour out jet-black like that to reinforce the whole body, the ghoul..."
"Right."
The students' eyes turned, belatedly, to the summoning circle hanging in midair.
With the jet-black that should have circulated flowing out in a one-way current, the circle wilted like a dying flower, its vitality gone. The formulas withered first, and finally the main runes themselves dried up and died—and the entire circle scattered and vanished into the air.
The ghoul the twins had been controlling froze in place, stiffening until it moved no more.
As an undead, it had been destroyed completely.
"As you can all see!"
"Reno's Golden Line is a berserk technique—a rampage that demands the ghoul's sacrifice."
Simon crossed his arms, his expression serious.
So it's something like the ghoul version of Corpse Explosion.
The ghoul was the undead tier directly above the zombie—practically the same lineage, in truth.
And while a zombie's Corpse Explosion overloads its summoning circle to turn the undead into a bomb and detonate it, the ghoul's Funerary rite instead dried out the circle in exchange for a massive, if temporary, boost in power.
"Since ghouls aren't undead you can find scattered about everywhere like zombies, necromancers really are divided on whether Reno's Golden Line is worth it."
Lyn said.
"But when you're facing a foe stronger than the ghoul, or the enemy's numbers are overwhelming, reducing that foe with a reinforced ghoul is far more rational than losing it pointlessly to their blades."
Run said.
It was such an utterly necromancer-like way of thinking that the students nodded as if convinced.
"Well then, right away!"
"Shall we move on to the practical?"
The twin professors' abrupt 'declaration of practice' drew cries of protest from every corner.
"Whoa, hold on! Isn't there any practice?"
"Can't we at least draw it on paper first or something?!"
"There's no such thing as practice at Kizen!"
The twin professors giggled like mischievous kids. Hee-hee-hee.
"Straight into the real—"
"—thing it is!"
Before their words had even finished, seven teaching assistants stepped forward in front of the students with grave faces. The students flinched and stumbled backward.
"Explain it, Chief!"
"Yes, Professors."
The Head Assistant bowed respectfully toward the twins, then fixed the students with a stern gaze.
"I will now explain the rules of the practical."
The seven assistants opened their sub-spaces and drew out one skeleton each.
These were no ordinary skeletons. Their bones gleamed faintly purple, they wore armor, and each clutched an axe in one hand.
"You will face Kizen's 'Modified Skeletons' using only the ghouls you secured in your previous classes."
Ghoul versus skeleton, then.
The students' focus sharpened instantly. They leaned forward, rose onto their tiptoes.
"The practical permits only a 1:1 engagement between your ghoul and a Modified Skeleton. If your ghoul destroys the Modified Skeleton, the practical ends. If your ghoul is destroyed first, you will draw out a new ghoul and fight again. This process repeats until the Modified Skeleton is destroyed."
The students began buzzing uneasily.
Until we destroy THAT thing?
Just then, the twin professors clasped hands and leapt forward.
"Pass or Fail! There is one condition to pass this class—destroy the Modified Skeleton with your ghoul!"
Lyn said.
"Pass or Fail! And there is one condition to fail it—when you have no more ghouls left to pull from your sub-space!"
Run said.
Only then, understanding the full set of rules, did the corners of Simon's mouth curl up.
...Ahh. It's all connected to the earlier classes.
The more ghouls you'd secured in Materials Studies, the more ammunition you had—which made passing this class that much easier.
Of course, only the ghouls secured during the earlier classes could be used. That was the whole reason a mana stamp had been pressed onto each ghoul's body—to distinguish them.
But Kizen had gone one step further.
"And with the ghouls remaining after you pass this class, you will take your final exam—your field performance evaluation."
"Ah...!"
In short: secure plenty of ghouls in Materials Studies, minimize your losses in Funerary Studies—and you'd have the advantage in the final exam.
"And one last piece of advice—"
The corners of the Head Assistant's mouth twisted.
"These Modified Skeletons are built to a specification that an ordinary ghoul cannot defeat. That is all."
A bead of sweat rolled down Simon's forehead.
Which meant—
Use the Funerary rite to win, or nothing.
And he'd have to master it on the spot, with no practice at all.
Benz, the transfer student, trembled all over as he muttered,
"K-Kizen... are all their classes always this brutal?"
"Everyone, stay in your seats!"
"From this moment, no dark magic or jet-black!"
Under the twin professors' orders, the students resignedly sat back down. With even dark magic forbidden, they began desperately running imagery drills, diligently tracing diagonals in the air.
It was a remarkable sight—dozens of students slashing their hands through empty space like so many blind men.
The compulsion to at least do something drove them, but in truth, no amount of this would build real intuition.
"Will the students we call please come forward."
The Head Assistant lifted the attendance roster and began calling names one by one.
"Not the first group. Not the first group. Not the first group."
Toto muttered, trembling. Simon and Loraine, meanwhile, were chatting about this and that regarding the practical.
"Simon Polentia."
An assistant called his name.
Simon was one of the first seven, it seemed. He rose from his seat without so much as a shrug.
"Uwaaah! Simon!"
Toto shivered.
"Take it easy and do well."
Loraine smiled.
Simon thanked them both and stepped out.
While everyone else's faces were rotting with tension and pressure, Serne yawned and waved at Simon with sleepy eyes. Ever her own woman, as always.
"Hector Moore."
The last name called was Hector's. Among the students crouched close to the ground, a great mountain of a figure rose.
Soon the seven students stood in a line before the teaching assistants. Perhaps because they were the first group, all the other students' eyes were glued to them.
Hm.
Unease rippled through Simon's gaze.
Of all the assistants, it had to be the Head Assistant—her intimidating presence—standing as Simon's opponent.
And there, before the Head Assistant, stood the Modified Skeleton.
It looked somewhat peculiar.
Spikes jutted bristling from all over its body—what kind of undead it had even been made from was anyone's guess. Its armored plating looked sturdy, and the axe in its hand was vicious.
"A specification no ordinary ghoul can defeat," was it?
Simon was mulling that over when Hector, two seats over, raised his hand.
Professors Lyn and Run looked his way.
"Yes, over there."
"You have a question?"
Hector lowered his arm.
"Hector Moore. I'm curious—must we win using the Funerary rite?"
The students on the starting line stared at him with puzzled expressions.
What did he mean, asking whether it was okay to win without the Funerary rite—against an undead that could only be beaten with it?
"Hmhm—"
But perhaps it was genuinely an interesting question, because Lyn and Run exchanged meaningful smiles.
"The pass condition is to destroy the Modified Skeleton with your ghoul."
"If you can destroy that thing, it counts as a pass. It would mean your undead control is so exceptional you didn't even need the Funerary rite."
"Understood. Thank you."
It was a light question from Hector, but among the students seated behind him, all hell broke loose.
"Hey, did you hear that? We don't have to use the Funerary rite!"
"Now there's some hope."
"Maybe we can afford to lose a ghoul or two and try it."
While the students swelled with hope, Simon let out a wry smile.
It's a trap.
The students' mindset had just shifted—from "the Funerary rite is the only way to win" to "maybe, just maybe, we can win without it."
Anyone could see that mastering Reno's Golden Line right here, mid-practical, looked difficult. It was a challenge you'd vaguely rather avoid.
Simon would have staked anything on it: despite the way he'd floated the question, Hector was absolutely going to go straight for the Funerary rite on his very first attempt.
Tsk.
And at the same moment, Hector, catching sight of Simon's utterly unmoved expression, clicked his tongue. Only the other students around them were still rolling their eyes in excitement.
"All students, please take out your ghouls."
The Head Assistant spoke.
The students all moved as one, opening their sub-spaces. Simon opened his as well and drew out a ghoul.
You're up first. Let's have a good one.
Sniff—
Simon's first ghoul padded forward and growled at the skeleton.
The Head Assistant moved her fingers.
A rectangular line etched itself into the ground around the ghoul and the Modified Skeleton, forming a small makeshift arena.
"Inside this arena line, you may do anything you like with your ghoul. However, the moment your ghoul steps outside the line, we will bind it with a curse and execute it."
Step out, and you're out.
Simon nodded and lowered his stance.
"Then, first team!"
"Ready?"
Lyn and Run shouted, lowering their clasped hands.
"Practical!"
"Begin!"
The students on the starting line roared in unison. Seven ghouls hurled themselves ferociously at the assistants' Modified Skeletons.