Something in the Crowd
Simon had finally regained a measure of leisure.
Today's matches were over, and the Summoning Department's grip on first place held firm.
On the opening day of the Dark Festival, his nerves had been wound tight with worry, but from the second day onward his mind had eased. With time to spare, he decided to wander the island—half a stroll, half a patrol.
There really are so many people.
During the Dark Festival, all of Roke Island seethed with crowds. Not a single street stood empty. Stalls lined every road, and spectators chatted merrily about the matches, laughter bubbling up all around.
"Mom! They say Balack is competing at Woodville Stadium!"
"Shall we go watch?"
Simon felt his own ears prick up at that. He'd caught himself considering a detour to watch Balack—the strongest force in Kizen now that Eisel was gone—but the Student Council patrol came first.
"You're the Student Council President, aren't you?"
"Great match the other day!"
As he walked, he found that people recognized him even without the council coat.
Everywhere he went, cheers and encouragement came flying his way. And it wasn't just Simon—any student in a Kizen uniform seemed to draw a word of support from passersby. That, it seemed, was the culture of the Dark Festival. One stall owner even tried to hand him free food.
As a Student Council member, Simon politely declined several times before finally paying for a single ice cream.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Whoa.
Carriages rolled endlessly along the carriage road beside his walking path, kicking up clouds of dust, so Simon quickly turned his back to the road and shielded his ice cream.
"Hurry up, driver!"
"We'll be late for Chatel's match!"
He spotted a young couple urging their carriage driver along. Everyone was throwing themselves into the festival with abandon.
Feeling a quiet pride that he'd contributed, even a little, to all of this, Simon kept walking.
Eating his ice cream as he went, he soon found himself at the Stall Plaza at the heart of Roke Island—the densest stretch of vendor stalls in all of Kizen, and the place first-years stampeded to the moment classes ended. A list of the best eateries had already formed, shared feverishly among them.
"Crispy deep-fried shrimp! Come and get it!"
"Thank you, kind customer!"
Lunchtime had the place packed to bursting. Simon paused a moment, watching Kizen students and their families eating together at the tables.
Mom and Dad said they couldn't make it—too busy with the territory's affairs.
It stung a little, but even if they had come, the Student Council workload would have made a leisurely reunion impossible for either of them. Simon resumed his patrol.
And then—
"Hey! My best friend!"
He ran straight into Dick. Seated at a restaurant table, his friend waved an arm vigorously, and in front of him sat two freckled boys who looked strikingly like him.
"Hello, Simon!"
"Good to see you, Simon!"
The twins who came right after Dick in the family line—Bill Hayward and Al Hayward.
"Wow, it's been ages, you two. Been well?"
Since these were the little brothers of his closest friend, Simon decided to spare a few minutes to talk.
Bill and Al chattered excitedly about the morning's festival matches, while Dick puffed himself up as usual, preening shamelessly.
"All of this~? I did it! Huh? There isn't a single stall here my hand didn't touch. That's what I'm telling you."
Bill and Al scoffed, then turned to Simon as if to ask if it could possibly be true. Simon nodded with a smile.
"It's true. Without Dick, the Dark Festival wouldn't have even started."
"You hear that?"
Ooooh~
Bill and Al whistled at their third-eldest brother as if seeing him in a new light.
"Honestly, I didn't believe Dick was Student Council Treasurer until we got to Roke Island!"
"I was like, how does a guy ranked 400th get onto the Student Council?"
HAHAHAHA!
The twins roared with laughter. The corners of Dick's mouth trembled violently, but he forced a show of nonchalance and shrugged.
"Getting into Kizen is hard enough as it is, huh? One month of Kizen life and you two will be bawling your eyes out, begging to be sent home. I can see it coming a mile away. A mile."
Bill and Al breezed right past their brother's bluster and turned to Simon.
"Oh, right—Simon!"
"We opened our cores!"
Simon's eyes went wide.
"R-really?"
The twins held out their palms simultaneously and strained and grunted for a good while.
"Look, see!"
Beneath each of their hands, a tiny bead of black liquid had gathered.
It was truly Jet-Black.
Simon shot Dick an awkward smile.
"How did this happen? Your father actually gave permission for you to become necromancers?"
Dick shook his head.
"Ha! As if. Father's planning to keep Bill and Al stacked in the warehouse their whole lives and raise them as warehouse keepers. But they begged and begged about wanting to take the Kizen entrance exam next year, so I scraped together some investment money and covered the Core Opening costs."
Simon looked at Dick with something like admiration.
"You really played the older brother role properly."
Core Opening was famously expensive. Kizen life devoured money as it was, so willingly handing over such a sum for his little brothers couldn't have been an easy choice.
Simon lowered his voice slightly.
"But will it really be okay? Shouldn't you at least tell your father?"
"I made them a deal."
Dick said with a wry smile.
"They take the Kizen entrance exam next year—and if they fail, they inherit the family business, no complaints. If they get in, even Father won't be able to say no."
That was fair. Admission to Kizen was such momentous news that even mid-tier high nobles threw feasts over it. No father on the continent would tell a child accepted to Kizen to go keep working the family trade.
Dick added quietly,
"......They just love it so much. You only get one life. Giving up on your dream without ever even trying—that'd be too cruel."
Simon thumped Dick's shoulder with genuinely moved eyes.
"You're seriously cool, you know that?"
"Oh ho, only figuring that out now?"
Dick snickered, then glanced at his brothers, who were still straining to squeeze out Jet-Black.
"But listen, you two. If you fail the Kizen exam, that's it, caput? The Three Great Necromancer Schools below it—huh? Aland, Sierra, Moiran? This brother doesn't count those places as real schools."
"Wow~ such an elitist!"
Watching the Hayward brothers banter away, Simon was enjoying the pleasant moment when—
"S-student!"
A plump middle-aged woman came waddling toward him at a waddle-run.
"That armband! Could it be......!"
Simon rose from his seat.
"Student Council, ma'am. What's the matter?"
"My purse! Someone took my purse! That man over there!"
A pickpocket.
Simon's expression hardened.
"Bill, Al—I've got to go. Enjoy the festival."
Dick stood up as well.
"Hold on! I'll—"
"Stay with your brothers, Dick."
Simon flashed a grin and waved.
"It's family time, isn't it?"
Dick clicked his tongue, chewing on his frustration, and sat back down.
"Fine. Thanks."
"See you at the council room this evening."
Having parted from the Haywards, Simon ran alongside the middle-aged woman.
"What did the pickpocket look like?"
"Blue clothes! Blue clothes and a hood!"
At that, Simon drew Jet-Black up into his legs without hesitation, stepped lightly up the side of a stall building, and launched himself into the air with practiced ease.
There.
Looking down from above, he spotted him—a man in blue clothes and a hood, sprinting away in a panicked rush.
With a flick of Simon's fingers, a skeleton's bones flew through the air and fitted themselves around the man as Bone Armor.
"Wh-what is this?!"
The pickpocket wheeled around mid-flight, keeping his full fleeing speed, and doubled back toward Simon and the woman. Old-timers drinking beer at nearby tables burst into cheerful roars of "WAHAHA!"
"The purse will be returned."
Simon handed the purse back to the middle-aged woman and turned the pickpocket over to the guards stationed nearby. He even earned a small round of applause from the onlookers.
I should focus my patrols around here.
With crowds this thick, incidents of every kind were popping up—people arguing with stall vendors over complaints, students trading barbs over department rivalries, even a skeleton working as a server that had slipped out of its master's control.
Simon bustled about diligently cleaning up one accident after another.
And then—
"Hey, you're Simon, right?"
"President! Over here!"
This time it was his first-year Mutant Club juniors, eating nearby. Sasha and Princess Molly. And today, Arthur had tagged along too.
"Simon! When's your next match?"
"Sasha! How many times do I have to tell you? It's President, you little rascal!"
"Ahaha! Simon! It's been far too long, sir!"
The chattering first-years left his head spinning. Simon approached them with a smile.
"Hey, everyone. Having fun?"
"Yeeeesss—!"
The first-years answered with full energy. Simon scratched the side of his head.
"I feel a little guilty, actually. The rules don't let first-years compete."
The Dark Festival was an inter-departmental championship.
First-years, who hadn't yet chosen departments, naturally couldn't take part. While the whole of Roke Island burned with festive excitement, they still had to attend regular classes.
"Please, don't say that."
Princess Molly swept back her long hair and smiled.
"It only comes once every five years, after all—there are graduating classes who never even lay eyes on a Dark Festival. I'd say our class got lucky."
"That's right!"
"The matches are amazing, President! Thank you for making such a wonderful festival!"
Simon waved his hands in flustered denial.
"N-no! 'Making' it, nothing. I barely did anything."
"Weren't you the one behind all of this, President?"
In the eyes of his first-year juniors, Simon looked every bit that remarkable.
"And by the way, all of you."
Checking the clock hanging on the wall of a nearby stall, Simon spoke up.
"Aren't you cutting it awfully close for your next class?"
Every first-year flinched at once and averted their eyes.
Busted.
"I'll clear the dishes, so run—now, while you still can."
"S-sorry!"
"Pardon us!"
Belatedly gripped by a sense of crisis, the first-years scrambled off in a flurry of preparation.
As Simon gathered up his juniors' dishes, he suddenly called out, lifting the bag left on a chair.
"Arthur! You're forgetting your bag!"
Arthur, who had already blazed far ahead on his transcendent physical ability, came roaring back at impossible speed and planted himself in front of Simon.
"Thank you! Hahaha! That would've been a disaster!"
"Focus."
Simon smiled and gave him a light rap on the forehead.
"Tone down the scatterbrain act a little."
"Yes sir! Sorry, sir!"
"And don't go charging off on your own—look after your teammates. You're the only guy in your group here, aren't you?"
"Oh! You're absolutely right. I'll keep that in mind! Hahaha!"
Sasha, tucking her belongings into her subspace pocket, let out a snort of laughter.
"Teaching chivalry to the zero-awareness Fool King? Good luck with that."
"It's Mercenary King, not Fool King!"
Simon was watching the two of them bicker with a fond smile when—
"!"
A sudden chill crawled up his spine, ice-cold and crawling.
What...... was that?
Every drop of blood in his body ran cold. His heart pounded wildly, and sweat beaded down the back of his neck.
Sliiiiide—
Behind him.
Something terrible was passing by.
Don't turn around.
Don't turn around.
Don't turn around.
Every cell in his body was screaming the warning. Red lights flared, alarms howled—Simon's world bled crimson, red as fresh blood.
Somehow, he was certain: the moment he turned, it would swallow everything—himself, the first-years here, the Hayward brothers, and every other soul nearby.
......
His eyes went bloodshot, tendons standing out on the backs of his hands.
Simon calmly raised his Jet-Black and spread it through his entire body.
There's no avoiding it. I have to look.
Every preparation complete, Simon turned his creaking neck and finally looked behind him.
But—
Murmur-murmur-murmur!
Time that had slowed snapped back to its natural pace, and all he could see was the endless river of people streaming past.
Simon rushed forward, scanning every direction—but
'It' had already passed, lost among the crowd.
"Simon?"
Sasha tilted her head.
"Is something wrong?"
"N-no. It's nothing."
Simon said, wiping away cold sweat.
"I'm going to be late. You all should head back to your lecture halls too, right?"
"Right."
With that, Sasha left as the last of them.
Simon hurriedly pounded on Pier's shard.
Pier! Pier! Didn't you sense anything just now?
A moment later, Pier's voice rang out.
It was just—something strange, like—!
Perhaps because the shock had rattled him so badly, his thoughts kept tangling into knots. He forced them into order and asked Pier, but Pier said he had felt nothing amiss whatsoever.
What was that? What just passed me?
Simon walked quickly, following the flow of the crowd.
Did I imagine it?
How could 'that kind of thing' just stroll through a bustling marketplace like it was nothing?
What did I actually sense?
And then—
What exactly is happening at this Dark Festival right now?
Simon sharpened every sense in his body to a razor's edge and broke into a run.
I'm not too late.
He sprinted in the direction the thing had gone.
It wasn't quite a pursuit—closer to a gamble, a move made on pure instinct—but somehow he couldn't bring his feet to a stop.
He had to move.
"......"
There.
At last Simon halted his sprint and looked behind the row of vendor stalls. In this deserted pocket, cooking utensils and crates of ingredients lay scattered in disarray.
Simon strode straight into it.
Pop!
In that instant, his five senses stretched to their absolute limit, Simon detected a hand closing in from behind.
Reflexively, he shot out his own hand, caught the incoming wrist, wrenched it down, and lunged at the figure, fist driving forward.
⟨ Hong Peng Original — Chita ⟩
Thwack!
But something sharp rose to meet him, deflecting his fist off course and severing the Chita clean through.
!
Strong.
Simon scrambled to shift his stance and launch a kick, but the opponent crashed a leg into his, cutting the movement short and closing the distance in a flash.
"Calm down, Simon."
Clack!
Clack!
Both fists froze, stopped a hair's breadth from each other's faces. Panting hard, Simon finally registered who stood before him.
Faded grey hair, fierce eyes and a sharp jawline—and a long, ragged scar carved across the right eye.
"I've been looking for you."
Only then did Simon lower his fist, and deep relief washed over his face.
His roommate from first year—the one who vanished every single night. In truth, he was a spy and agent who had entered Kizen on direct orders from Nephthys herself.
"Kazhan!"
It was Kazhan Edwald, the man who had always, time and again, been Simon's greatest ally.
Scratching at the scar by his eye out of old habit, he spoke in a heavy voice.
"I hope you enjoyed the festival enough. Because we have an incident."