Bahil's Obsession
At that very moment, in Bahil's research office.
CRASH!
SMASH!
Eyes bloodshot, Bahil was hurling everything his hands could reach. Statuettes, trophies, research equipment — all of it shattered against the floor.
"Hah! Hahh...!"
In an instant, the room had become a disaster zone. Bahil braced a hand against the wall, gasping for breath, while his chief TA, Chehekl — clearly used to scenes like this — stood pressed flat against the wall with her eyes shut tight.
When the quiet finally settled, she opened them.
"Are you quite finished venting, Professor Bahil?"
"......"
Bahil strode across the room and slumped against the sofa. Then he reached out to the table, took up a long pipe, lit it with dark magic, and drew in a long mouthful of smoke.
"Whoooosh..."
The smoke drifted out in a long stream. Watching him, Chehekl scrunched up her face.
"Professor, there's no smoking indoors—"
"Just look the other way this once, Chehekl."
And yet no sooner had he been enjoying that pipe than Bahil flung it away as well. The moment it struck the wall, it burst lightly into pieces.
"Why?!"
Bahil roared.
"Why won't you understand how I feel, Simon Polentia!"
He raked a hand through his bangs and let out a long, ragged breath. But the anger wouldn't subside, and suddenly he shot to his feet.
"You are a genius! A genius among geniuses, the kind who appears once in several hundred years! Why are you letting that insane talent rot away in Summoning? I simply cannot understand it! Summoning is an old, musty, antiquated discipline! No matter how well you do with Summoning, why can't you see you'll only become the second coming of Professor Aaron!!"
Unable to bear the frustration, Bahil began scratching at himself all over, like a man whose whole body had broken out in an itch.
"Your ceiling is Aaron, senior to me! Think about what kind of treatment a man like him receives at Kizen right now — the Special Admission No. 1 student of his year, a man of legendary talent!"
Both his arms trembled as if seized by convulsions, and then he collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Bahil's gaze drifted once, all the way to a faded picture frame in the distance.
"......"
There, in the frame, stood a younger version of himself and Aaron, arms slung over each other's shoulders in their Kizen uniforms.
Not a trace of worry showed on either boy's face. They were simply smiling, bright and carefree.
Perhaps the most radiant days of their lives.
But Bahil knew better than anyone — that they had come too far to ever return to those days.
"Every last one of you is so pathetic I can hardly bear it."
"...Professor."
"To think such brilliant talents are shoving themselves down into the abyss of their own accord! I refuse to watch that happen a second time! I am the only one who can save Simon! Only I can carve that raw gem and shape it into the most brilliantly shining jewel in all the world!"
"...Why don't you just be honest with yourself, Professor."
"Honest? Now that suits me fine."
Bahil sprang to his feet.
"I want him."
A strange smile curled across his lips. Veins bulged from his clenched fists.
"I want him so badly it drives me mad! Simon Polentia! I will make him mine!"
Here we go again.
Chehekl put on a look of resigned despair.
"For his sake, I am prepared to carve away pieces of my own soul! By any means, by any method necessary! I will bring his supreme talent into full bloom and create the second Nephthys!"
Bahil spread his arms wide.
"My devotion! My effort! My care! My soul! With my very life staked on raising him up into the realm of the gods, there is only one thing I ask in return!"
He smiled with a twisted expression.
"That he serve me — me alone — as his master."
"...Good grief."
"When someone asks Simon how he ever reached the top, Simon will answer like this! 'It was all thanks to my teacher, Professor Bahil!' Aaah...! Just imagining it gives me shivers...!"
Watching Bahil tremble with madness, Chehekl shook her head back and forth, then turned to leave.
"I'm going."
"Chehekl."
Bahil approached her.
"I am a man who cannot rest until the things I want are held fast in my hands."
He gripped her arm and pulled her roughly toward him, then caught the chin of the woman who had tumbled into his embrace and lifted it.
"Just like you."
"......"
It was the gaze of a man admiring a beautiful work of art.
By contrast, Chehekl — staring at him as though he were the most pitiful creature alive — drove her heel into his shin with all her might. Bahil grimaced and stumbled back.
"That's workplace sexual harassment, Professor Bahil."
"You were just as charmless as a student, and you haven't changed a bit. Chehekl."
Bahil straightened his shirt collar as he spoke.
"It's a shame the talent meant to succeed me should be so rigid."
"I thought it was settled that Simon Polentia would be the one to succeed you?"
"Oh, succeed me — hardly."
The corners of Bahil's mouth lifted.
"Simon Polentia isn't merely the one to succeed me — he's the stuff that will one day surpass me! He'll stand shoulder to shoulder with Lady Nephthys herself! I am simply expressing a legitimate desire as an educator! No — it would be abnormal for a man who calls himself an educator to see such talent and not have his blood boil. And yet you keep insisting my desire to possess him is something vulgar?"
"If monopolizing the right to teach a single student isn't vulgar possessiveness, what is it?"
"My, my. You don't yield an inch, do you."
Bahil tilted his head back, hands thrust into his pockets.
"I've just had a wonderful idea."
"...What now."
"Right now, Simon Polentia is more or less content with his Summoning. In Professor Jane's Cyclops practical, he sailed to victory with Summoning, too. And that — that is precisely the problem!"
Bahil's eyes gleamed with madness once more.
"What Simon needs to experience now is a bitter defeat. Only then will he look back on himself, agonize all over again over what the problem is, where he went wrong — and what path he ought to choose!"
"...There's logic in that, I'll admit. So — how exactly do you plan to hand a genius like that a defeat?"
Bahil's mouth split into a grin like a demon's.
"Isn't that the easiest part of all?"
The classes grew more grueling by the day. The Duel Evaluation, of course, was the reason.
Even Professor Eric Aura of Jet-Black Mechanics — a thoroughgoing theorist who taught everything from the very origins of Rune Script — had shifted into combat practicums.
The other professors were no different.
Whether actively responding to student demand or unwilling to see their future major-students fall behind, most of the professors focused this week's lessons on combat dark magic.
Thanks to that, the students' dueling repertoires had grown enormously more varied. And of course, this applied to every single first-year at Kizen.
Today, having finished his morning classes and an early lunch, Simon was on his way to the next lesson with Rick.
Both the second and third periods are Hemomancy today, huh.
The Hemomancy classes that had been pushed back on the professors' account were scheduled all week long. Because the professors were all active necromancers with outside commitments, timetables often ended up this lopsided.
And at the same time—
"Not a single day of Summoning this week."
Simon let out a long sigh. Rick shrugged and picked up the thread.
"I heard Professor Aaron's away on a trip."
What a shame. With Duel Evaluation season upon them, Aaron would surely have taught offensive magic, and it would have been an enormous help to Simon.
Even setting that aside, he would have had the chance to ask how he could fight other students on even footing using Summoning alone.
"Huh?"
Rick, who was nibbling on a sandwich for dessert, stopped in his tracks.
"Simon! Look over there!"
"Hm?"
"The Duel Evaluation brackets are up!"
A large bulletin board stood in the direction Rick pointed, already swarming with students.
The two of them rushed over as well.
The first opponent I'll face since coming to Kizen.
With a pounding heart, Simon scanned the board for his own name.
As long as I dodge a few of the monsters, I should be fine.
Lorraine Archbold, Nephthys's daughter. Serne Aindark, heiress of the Ivory Tower. Chatel Maer, the half-giant.
Those three were the ones to avoid at all costs. Everyone else, he figured, he could manage to fight one way or another.
Ah, found it.
[Second Arena — Round 1, Match 12]
Class A — Simon Polentia VS Class G — Haren Coke
Who's Haren Coke?
The name drew a complete blank. Rick seemed no better acquainted with him, chuckling as he wiped his mouth.
"Rikang Chopra? Now that's an unusual name. From Shahed, you think?"
"Even you don't know him, Rick?"
Rick nodded, glancing at Simon's opponent on the bracket.
"Haren Coke, Class G... Want me to look into him for you? His specialty, his intended major, that sort of thing."
Simon scratched the side of his head.
"That'd be asking too much of you."
"Nah, Rikang's in Class G anyway, so I can kill two birds while I'm at it. And having intel on your opponent can't hurt, right?"
"Sure. If you're offering, I'd be a fool to say no."
Simon turned his gaze back to the board.
Haren Coke. What kind of dark magic would this student fight with? The Duel Evaluation wasn't merely about trading blows back and forth.
It was a stage where he and his opponent exchanged dark magic directly — the surest possible way to measure their respective growth against each other.
He'd be lying if he said he felt no pressure, but at the same time his heart was racing with excitement.
"I wish class would end already."
Rick blinked at Simon's mutter.
"Huh? Where'd that come from? You love classes."
"I've got some personal training to do tonight."
Rick snickered.
"Oh, look at this guy, planning to leech more knowledge off me again. What training this time? Honestly, how many people out there could even handle your Dark Flare and those killer kicks of yours?"
"...Don't call them killer kicks. And this time, Dark Flare isn't the main event."
"Then what is?"
"I want to try fighting with Summoning."
Rick's eyes went wide with surprise — then quickly split into a grin.
"Want me to do the Meilin version? Or the Cami version?"
"...What's that supposed to be."
"Pick one, either way."
"...Meilin?"
Rick put on a prissy expression, crossed his arms, and whipped his head away. Then, in an exaggerated woman's voice, he declared:
"I already told you, didn't I? Fight with Dark Flare."
"PFFT—!"
Simon laughed so hard he nearly drooled.
Rick stood there beaming proudly at his friend's satisfied reaction — until a flying satchel smacked him out of nowhere and knocked him flat.
"Just drop dead!"
Meilin stood there fuming, her face scarlet. Beside her, Camibarez was clutching her mouth, desperately trying to hold in her laughter.
"Ah, come on! Even you would've thought it was funn— AAGH!"
"DIE!"
The moment classes ended for the day, Simon made his way over to Rochest through Kevin's stable route.
It's been a while since I've seen Rochest at midnight.
Streets that throbbed with life on the weekends felt dark and hushed now — somehow unfamiliar. He'd thrown a robe over himself since it would do no good to be identified as a Kizen student, but one glance around showed plenty of other boys and girls draped in robes just like him.
First stop — the necromancer shop.
Simon headed for the shop he'd visited a few days ago.
"Welcome~"
Last time, Lowen had been manning the store; this time, a young man with a monocle sat behind the counter.
So this is the shopkeeper.
Rick had given him the rough outline. A man who had made it all the way to his second year at Kizen before being squeezed out of the competition, and who now ran this shop, settled in Rochest.
Simon bowed politely at the waist.
"Good evening, senior!"
The shopkeeper laughed, a touch sheepishly.
"Haha, 'senior,' he says. No need for that from a current Kizen student."
Simon lifted his head.
"Still — you made it to your second year..."
"Which makes me a castoff. A current Kizen first-year is worth far more than some washed-up old dropout."
He was smiling all the same, as if the words didn't actually sting. In truth, plenty of the people who had settled in Rochest and built businesses there were Kizen alumni like him.
Unable to forget their glory days as Kizen students, or held fast by some longing, some nostalgia — people who could no longer set foot inside Kizen but lingered on in its shadow. Many Kizen students, most of them high nobility, couldn't act recklessly in Rochest precisely because of people like these.
"So then — what can I help you find, student?"
At the shopkeeper's question, Simon's eyes gleamed, and he answered without a moment's hesitation.
"I want to build a Skeleton Archer."