One Man's Team Raid
Western Roke Island.
Woodville Stadium.
"Welcome, everyone! I'm Olendo Sray, your commentator for today's match! This is Woodville Stadium, bringing you live coverage of the second-year afternoon event!"
The crowd packing the stadium answered with a thunderous roar. The Dark Festival was burning hot.
"And now, for a super-special commentary team! None other than Kizen professors themselves have come to join—oh dear. Girls, girls. You can't come up here."
A pair of girls in overalls, looking even younger than the students competing on the field, were whining their way up onto the announcer's platform.
The commentator rushed over to stop them, but they stood their ground and declared loudly:
"The Lyn next to me is a Kizen professor!"
"That's right! And I'll add that the Rune next to me is also a Kizen professor!"
The commentator gave a helpless laugh.
"Haha! Enough joking around, run along home now. Is there a guardian here? Any guardians present?"
At those words, a man raised his hand.
He was a staff member from Kizen Headquarters. At the sudden appearance of his employer, the commentator bowed with flawless courtesy.
"How may I help you, sir?"
The staff member pointed at the girls with urgent gestures of hand and foot. The commentator, who had been waiting with a question mark on his face, slowly went pale.
"Ah... aaaaah! My most sincere apologies!"
He bowed and scraped in a frenzy of apology.
Little children, Kizen professors? He'd heard that once you set foot in Kizen, nothing beyond common sense ever happened, and he'd come prepared for the worst—but watching it unfold right before his eyes, he was utterly helpless against it.
Smug as could be, the twin professors settled into the seats on either side of the commentator.
"Ahem! We had a brief incident, but the broadcast continues! Please, professors, enlighten us! What kind of event is this one?"
"The event is Team Raid! Up to six students from each department form a single team!"
"And whichever department combines its strength to take down the powerful monster first wins!"
Woodville Stadium boasted the largest, most sprawling grounds of any venue at the Dark Festival.
And within it sat seven smaller makeshift arenas, each sealed behind a sturdy barrier.
"Now this is fascinating!"
The commentator's eyes gleamed. Having grown up watching the Dark Festival since childhood, he knew the necromancer world inside and out.
"Ordinarily, Kizen's 'Team Raid' mixes the majors of all seven departments into one team! But today is the Dark Festival, and this is a department showdown! Six students of the same department, all with overlapping positions, forced to form a single team—why, that's its own kind of entertainment!"
Somehow more excited than the students themselves, the commentator pressed the amplification crystal to his lips.
"Curse Studies can neutralize any monster in a single stroke, but they'll lack the finishing blow! Hematology only needs to wound the monster and draw blood to gain tremendous momentum, but the work leading up to that point will be grueling! Which species of monster appears will prove critical indeed!"
He turned his head toward the twin professors.
"And which department's victory do the professors foresee—!"
Before he could finish, Lyn and Rune climbed onto the table with alarming speed.
"Go, girls of Summoning! Place first, or Lyn will make you her friend!"
"Rune will make you her friend too!"
It was the classic joke of the necromancer world—place first or die—but the commentator, unacquainted with that particular nuance, simply chuckled and raised his crystal.
"And now, let's bring out the athletes! With the number of events each student may enter strictly limited, which students appear in which events is itself an important part of the spectacle! Let the games begin!"
Vwoooom!
Huum!
Department students began teleporting into the seven barriers one by one. The excited crowd roared as the matches approached.
"Counting on you again this year, Curse Studies!"
"Please win, please! I staked the deed to my house without telling my wife!"
"Go, Deadly Poison! It's about time you took a championship! You can do it!"
For a festival of this magnitude, watched by the entire Dark Alliance, the question of which department would take the crown this year was a matter of burning interest. Astronomical sums of money were riding on the bookmakers and gambling dens.
Among the favorites, the traditional powerhouses of Curse Studies and Dark Dynamics were locked in a dead heat—though for this year's Dark Festival, Curse Studies was rated the slightly likelier winner, owing to the fact that their second-year professor was none other than the famous Bahil Amagar.
With every student who appeared, the crowd's fever climbed higher. Whenever a nationally known name stepped onto the field, the roar swelled another notch.
And then—
"Ah, one department has yet to arrive."
The commentator said, flustered.
"Which one would that be? Ah—Summoning! It's Summoning. Could something have happened?"
A murmur rippled through the stands, and even the students already arrived turned to stare at the Summoning side.
Belatedly, a shaft of light flared, and the teleport began one step behind everyone else.
"Something's... the light looks small?"
"It does, doesn't it."
Under every eye in the stadium, a single boy was emerging from within the light.
"One! Just one athlete!"
The commentator cried out, his face flushed with excitement.
"Every other department has fielded six students—and Summoning has sent only one!"
The eyes of the other departments fixed on him as well.
"What are those guys playing at?"
"Looks like they're forfeiting this event."
Then the cluster of light faded, and the lone participant stood revealed.
A blue-haired boy, standing tall and proud, a brilliant black coat billowing around him.
"Oh—oh my goodness! That lone athlete is none other than—!"
The commentator leapt from his seat and bellowed:
"Kizen's Student Council President, Simon Polentia!!"
WHAAAAAAA—!
A torrent of ecstatic screaming poured down upon Simon, who had appeared last of all.
A solo entry in a Team Raid meant to be tackled by six people together. It was, by any measure, an outrageous roster.
"...Wait, seriously?"
"Made student council president and now he's become a show-off, huh."
The students of the other departments snickered.
"Do your best, little one!"
"Fight! Little one!"
The twin professors hollered from atop their table.
"This is remarkable. Haha."
The commentator was still dazed, smiling blankly in the wake of the shock, when the twin professors climbed back down and took their seats on either side of him.
"And what does Whiskers think?"
"Yes, tell us, Whiskers."
Whiskers..., thought the commentator, laughing bitterly as he lowered the amplification crystal in his hand.
"If I may venture a guess, no matter how accomplished the Student Council President may be, he is still only one exceptional student among many at Kizen. Beating six equally excellent Kizen students on his own will, I suspect, be quite difficult."
The other spectators thought the same. They had applauded Simon's resolve and courage in entering a six-person team event alone—but viewed practically, it bordered on recklessness.
But the twin professors simply spun round and round in their chairs, grinning.
"Is that so? Is that really so?"
"If Simon were just your average, everyday prodigy, then maybe!"
"?"
Soon, the students in all seven barriers had finished their preparations.
The committee conducted one final check for would-be cheaters, then withdrew from the barriers.
"Now, the powerful 'Raid Monster' will be teleported into all seven arenas!"
FLASH!
A burst of light erupted, incomparably brighter than when the students had appeared.
"Today's monster is—the Gyrodile!"
KUWOOONG!
It was a crocodilian monster standing firmly on two legs.
A hulking frame over three meters tall, and a body length beyond imagination. Its entire form was armored in hardened scales, and its tail bristled with jagged spikes.
The long teeth showing past its parted lower jaw caught the sunlight and flashed with a spine-chilling gleam. It truly lived up to its name—the 'Crocodile Giant'—an object of pure terror.
"Then! Let the match begin!"
The curse binding the monster unraveled, and eyes appeared in its empty sockets. The slitted pupils flicked left and right, and the beast bared its teeth at the students.
"Go!"
"Stick to the plan!"
The students inside the barriers scattered at once, readying their dark magic.
Each department had its own formations, its own strategies, its own spells prepared—and for the spectators, comparing them was half the pleasure.
And Simon, competing alone, moved last.
He pulled skeletons out of his subspace by the armful and spread them around the Gyrodile. Freed of its curse, the monster lunged at the weapon-bearing skeletons.
Skreek.
At Simon's signal, the skeletons maneuvered with dazzling coordination, drawing and holding the Gyrodile's gaze.
'This is what I love about Summoning.'
Even short-handed, summons could cover for you one way or another.
Having sent out enough skeletons, Simon now brought out his trump card.
THUD!
A massive undead dropped to one knee the instant it appeared, utterly motionless. Its whole body was clad in black plate armor that recalled a dark knight.
"What is that?"
"It's got no head."
All eyes converged on the summon the Student Council President had produced. The commentator, whose duty it was to resolve the crowd's confusion, looked to the twin professors.
"Professors! What summon is that?"
"It's a Dullahan!"
"A rather special Dullahan, at that!"
Now Simon could be seen stretching out his arm.
VUUUUM!
Violet light welled before his palm, sketching out a diagram. The two ends of a fence enclosing a small ecosystem met and overlapped, and within it, runes and symbols and a host of polyhedra were carved in one after another.
Numbers and symbols assembled into formulae, and violet light surged along the circuits. Interlocking magical elements, meshed like the workings of an exquisite machine, turned slowly and threw off sparks.
—...!
The Gyrodile, too, must have sensed a dangerous power, for it shook off the skeletons harrying it and started toward Simon.
Snick. Slide.
Simon moved the fingertips of his other hand, ever so gently. The skeletons transformed into Bone Armor, clamped onto the Gyrodile's legs, and hindered its footing, while zombies pulled from his subspace were sheathed in Bone Armor of their own.
WOOM! WOOM!
The Bone Armor rose into the air like transport vessels and dropped the zombies behind the Gyrodile's back. Simon clenched his fist in one flowing, chained motion.
'Corpse Explosion!'
KWAAAAAAANG!
KWAAAANG!
An explosion erupted without warning at the monster's back, and the Gyrodile's massive bulk staggered and toppled.
Whirling around in shock, the monster raged, swinging arms and tail to strike at the skeletons once more.
'Good—its attention's split.'
All the while, Simon's chaos magic was nearing completion.
WHAAAAAA!
Amid the roar of the crowd, Simon kept one eye on the other departments' progress.
'Faster than I expected.'
They were nearly through their finishing sequences.
Curse Studies had toppled their Gyrodile under a weakening hex; Dark Dynamics was raining down completed elemental magic in a single salvo. Hematology had managed to peel away scales and layer bleeding magic over the exposed flesh, and in Battle Arts, one student was driving a spearhead into their monster's neck.
He had to hurry. Simon set the finally-completed chaos magic circle in motion, affixing it behind the Dullahan's back.
And what he brought out next was—
VUUUUUUUUM—!
Manus's skull, seething with an ominous aura. He placed it atop the Dullahan and switched it on.
"Ah! The moment I speak, Student Council President Simon is on the move! He's placed something onto the Dullahan. What could that be? ...A skeleton's skull?"
A fierce gleam ignited in Manus's twin sockets. His Jet-Black met the magic circle prepared within the Dullahan's body, stirring chaos, and linked with the circle spread behind its back.
'I don't need much.'
The Dullahan's kneeling frame slowly rose.
Simon Polentia's Original — Chaos Dullahan
'All I need is to borrow a single stroke of the blade.'
Simon felt his mind connect with Manus's through the bridge of linked thoughts.
Ever since the field evaluation, Manus had not refused him the channel.
Shring.
Simon drew his sword.
In the same instant, Manus—who had stood towering above him like a guardian—drew his blade as well. The lowering of stance, the settling of the sword at the hip: every motion matched flawlessly.
'Revolving Heaven, Manus.'
VMMM—!
As if to say you'd better not falter either, the light in Manus's eyes flared and pulsed.
Simon grinned.
'Here we go!'
SHAAAAAAK—!
Every surrounding detail washed over with gray. The sounds reaching his ears stretched and smeared as if soaked in water, and his thoughts accelerated without end.
His heart pounded like a war drum.
The moment his focus peaked and the unification of minds became perfect—
Simon could understand Manus's movements, his form, his blade and his burden alike.
Simon's lips curled back until they nearly split.
'For one fleeting instant, I become a Swordmaster.'
Simon's and Manus's feet stepped forward at the same time.
A rotation born at the toes climbed through the hips and raced toward the ends of the arms. The torrential flow coursing through their limbs—not a single drop to be spilled—
was released.
CHWAAAAAAAAAK!
The sky splits in two.
The stadium splits in two.
Simon and Manus, having drawn forth a straight line that nothing in creation could defy, lowered their swords behind the colossal monster with their backs to it.
The spectators stared, mouths agape.
"Did something just happen?"
"Look over there! On the Summoning side—!"
Sreeeeng.
A pristine, clean-cut plane was tracing itself across the Gyrodile's neck.
"...!!"
A soundless shock washed over the entire stadium. Simon and the Dullahan moved in perfect unison, sheathing their blades.
Kaga-gaga-gak—
The sword began sliding home into its scabbard with a grating hiss, and the hearts of everyone watching burned with tension.
Click!
The instant the blade seated fully into the sheath—
KRAAAAASH!
The enormous head, baring its flawless cross-section, fell to the ground first of all seven battlefields.
Until the monster's head touched the ground—
KUWOOONG—!
Not a soul in the stands could open their mouth.
