To the North
“Mm-hm, hm. Mm-hm, hm.”
It was a night lit by moonlight.
Nephthys looked to be in a wonderful mood, skipping briskly along the forest path with light, springy steps.
“Nephthys, ma'am.”
Simon, trailing behind her, scratched his head.
“Isn't this the Forbidden Forest?”
“It is!”
“Is the Headmistress really allowed to bring a student somewhere like this?”
“Oh, what's with the sudden formality! You come here all the time, Simon!”
Simon simply smoothed things over with a laugh, and she went back to skipping ahead, eyes on the path.
“So, how's school life been lately?”
“Every single day has been fun and happy.”
She snorted. “Puhuh!”
“Wow~ Liar! How can you say that with a straight face right in front of the Headmistress?”
“I mean it.”
It was the honest truth, straight from his heart, but Nephthys only arched her eyebrows as if she didn't believe a word of it.
“I see it must still be too livable for you! I'll tell Jane to pile on more assignments!”
“Yes, ma'am, Nephthys!”
When Simon flinched in mild alarm, Nephthys let out a childlike giggle and twirled around in place. He worried she might trip—and sure enough, she smacked her forehead squarely against a tree beside her and bounced off it.
Thud!
She sprang back up before she could even fall, beaming all over again.
“And how are you getting along with our Loraine?”
“Yes, of course! We're on the same team, and she's helped me so much.”
“She doesn't resent me for sealing her power?”
The breeze stirred Nephthys's bangs. Simon smiled gently.
“Loraine is a very deep thinker. She'll understand your intentions better than anyone.”
She nodded and went trotting on ahead again.
Simon talked with her about this and that—it had truly been a long time since they'd last met.
The affair with Ever Kire.
Meeting his future self in the Ivory Tower, and how the artifact Nephthys had given him had turned out to be useful.
And even the news that, having earned Aaron's approval, he was now formally beginning his study of the Bone Dragon.
“I won't let you down.”
Simon clenched his fist.
“The Chaos Dullahan was only the beginning! I'll complete a Bone Dragon before I finish second year—guaranteed!”
“Hehe, I can't wait!”
Once the idle chatter had run its course, Nephthys brought up the real topic.
“Things have been awfully noisy since the Legion Commander business, haven't they?”
The Legion Commander affair.
It was the biggest issue Simon currently faced.
“It can't be helped. They're all problems I have to bear.”
Nephthys stopped walking, and Simon stopped a step behind her.
At some point, the ruins of Pier had come into view ahead—the dwelling place of Simon's Ancient Undead.
“Why here...?”
“I want to talk openly with the people concerned about the direction of the 7th Legion.”
Nephthys pointed at the ruins.
“Shall we go in?”
Simon dispelled the barrier around the ruins, and he and Nephthys descended the stone steps together.
The place was so dark that it was hard to make out where each step lay, but Simon was used to it by now.
“Watch your step, Nephthys, ma'am.”
“Yes, yes~”
Then Nephthys, following behind him, suddenly stopped and ran a finger through the empty air. A thin line drew itself across her index finger, and blood welled up from it.
“My, my.”
She smiled.
“It seems your subordinates aren't inclined to let me in, Simon?”
Shhhk—
Sssssrrk—
Ancient blue light shimmered across the previously empty air, and spiderwebs that had been lying in perfect concealment revealed their forms, closing in around Nephthys like a net.
Erze's webs?
[You are an intruder without leave. Withdraw.]
Flap! Flap!
The sound of wings beating came from the darkness, and something jet-black burst out of it.
Screeeeeeech!
The cry of a monstrous bird rang through the ruins.
It was Akemus, captain of the Skullwing Unit.
“Hold on, Akemus!”
[Oh ho—]
Suddenly, the ceiling lit up in brilliant gold.
A woman was perched on the head of her staff with her rump planted on it, watching with evident interest. Her entire body was formed of sand.
[Is that little mite the famous Witch of Death?]
Herseba, captain of the Mummy Unit.
Rustle—
This time, one of the spiderwebs in the air trembled, and a woman with scarlet eyes could be seen treading lightly across it.
[To crawl all the way here with such brazen face, after exposing the Legion's existence before all the world—this maiden truly cannot fathom it.]
And Erzebet, captain of the Spider Unit, to boot.
“Everyone, please calm down!”
Simon stepped forward.
“Nephthys came because she wants to talk with us!”
[The Legion's affairs are for the Legion to decide!]
Whoosh!
Finally, out of the darkness, a towering skeleton swept down with his cloak flaring, landing with a crisp click of his heels.
Pier, the Manager of the 7th Legion.
[We cannot allow an outsider into the heart of the ruins. If you have words to say, say them here, woman!]
“Well then, no help for it~”
Nephthys shrugged her shoulders and went on.
“I understand why the 7th Legion looks on me poorly, but right now, we need to join hands for a single purpose.”
[Khekhek! Did I not say the Legion's affairs are for the Legion to decide? I refuse to be dragged into the business of your Dark Alliance!]
“It isn't about that.”
Nephthys sat down on the stone steps and spun a fingertip idly.
“It's for Simon's growth—and Simon's safety.”
Before Simon and the Legion's Ancient Undead, Nephthys laid out her plan. Every one of the undead quietly glowed with eyes in the darkness, listening to her in silence.
“I'm sorry for revealing your existence to the world without your leave—but thanks to that, public opinion has moved. We're at fifty-fifty now.”
She curled her two hands—small as a fern frond—into fists and knocked them together with a bonk.
“Half the public has moved past the old prejudice that the 7th Legion is a pack of wicked evil that ought to be snuffed out, and now believes it should be accepted as an asset. However.”
Nephthys looked at Simon.
“Simon isn't ready to reveal his identity as a Legion Commander. Above all, he lacks the strength to protect himself.”
“Nephthys, ma'am! I—!”
Simon believed he had grown plenty strong, but Nephthys only smiled brightly.
“A Legion Commander, freed from the limits of 'numbers' and commanding an infinite army, is an idol to necromancers—and a target, too. Every necromancer alive wants to be a Legion Commander. And if need be—”
She knocked her fists together once more.
“By force.”
“......”
“A Legion Commander only means something when he reigns as a being that no other necromancer, no matter who, would dare lay hands on—even with his identity displayed plain as day.”
Nowadays all six seats were held by such overwhelming powerhouses that the throne had stabilized—but mere decades ago, countless blade-duels had broken out over the Legion Commander's seat. At one point, commanders had been changing as often as once a month.
There had even been secret methods passed down by which one could secure the qualifications of a Legion Commander without ever being chosen by a Manager.
“That's why the existence of the 7th Legion is such a hot topic. A new Legion Commander's identity has been exposed—and you're a worthwhile opponent? Your life will be hunted countless times over. Simon, you still don't truly understand how far necromancers will go, how tenacious they can be, for the sake of their own strength and growth.”
Simon finally nodded.
“Then what should I do?”
“You've grown as one necromancer at this school. So now it's time to make progress as a Legion Commander, too.”
She smiled slyly.
“After all, wouldn't it be best to learn a Legion Commander's craft from a Legion Commander?”
“...!”
At that moment, Pier lowered his head.
[That is far too dangerous. Legion Commanders are poison to one another in the extreme. When they meet, nothing blows through but the wind of blood!]
Legion Commanders found it nearly impossible to be on good terms, for each coveted the other's Ancient Undead. The fact that their number had dwindled from several dozen to seven owed much to those civil wars between commanders.
[This maiden concurs. There is also the precedent of Magnus, who set his sights on our young lord.]
Akemus, who prized Simon's safety above all else, cast his vote against as well.
Then Nephthys wore a meaningful smile.
“What about the Grand Duke?”
At that single remark, the expressions of the two undead shifted strangely.
Erzebet spoke, reclining atop her web.
[Can her cooperation truly be won?]
“That depends on Simon. In the Grand Duke's northern territory, cut off as it is from the rest of the Continent, he could operate and train his legion freely even amid all this uproar. A perfect setting, wouldn't you say?”
Simon had no idea what was being discussed.
“Wait a moment! Who exactly is this Grand Duke?!”
On this Continent, to speak of 'the Grand Duke of the North' was to speak of one person and one person only.
Jean Arskalt.
At the very northern edge of the Kingdom of Kalos, bordering Frost Field—a realm where ancient beings beyond human reckoning lived and breathed—stood the hero who held that border shut.
The Grand Duke was a hero of the Kingdom of Kalos, and a hero to all of humanity. One of the seven Legion Commanders, she barred the gates of Frost Field with her vast undead legion.
That the southern lands of Kalos could live in fertile soil and temperate climate at all was thanks entirely to the Grand Duke holding the line.
And to that place—
...I'm going?
Simon sat in the Student Council Room, flipping idly through the pages of a book.
The Comprehensive Geography and History of the Continent.
It was a volume borrowed from the library, covering the geography of every corner of the Continent—and Simon was reading about the place he was to go.
Frost Field, and northern Kalos.
A place so isolated from the rest of the Continent it might as well have been severed from it, where news traveled slowly and the cultural gap with the south was said to span more than a century.
The brutal cold kept most communication crystals from functioning at all, and the culture there was said to be ferociously rough, harsh, and barbaric.
Simon skimmed through the book.
No matter how monster-infested and isolated it is, people still live there, don't they? Running a legion there seems like it'd risk being found out, though.
Why had Nephthys been so confident?
While Simon was buried in his book, the Student Council Room door burst open and Mayrin came sprinting in.
“Guys! A new official notice!”
Simon hastily shut the book. Camibarez and Dick, who had been working, looked up, and Malcolm—who had come by for tea again today—rose to his feet as well.
“A new notice? What is it?”
“They've chosen the students for the Special Training!”
This lined up perfectly with Simon going north to take a Legion Commander's lesson. One of the perks of being in the Student Council was getting information faster than the general student body.
“Man, what now? Special Training this early in the year.”
Dick muttered as he read over the document.
Special Training was a long-standing institution at Kizen: a course that broke away from the general, textbook-centered curriculum to give necromancer students intensive, in-the-field training focused on their individual specialties. The term: two weeks.
Ordinarily it was something third-years took—or even for second-years, a curriculum reserved for after the second semester, since second year was the time to push through lesson plans and absorb new knowledge.
In effect, Nephthys had forcibly dragged this whole affair into play just to get Simon his Legion Commander lessons.
“There are ten students total, and it says the destination is classified. Malcolm, your name's on here too.”
“Is that so.”
Malcolm was, in fact, the textbook example of a Special Training candidate.
He was a necromancer so thoroughly specialized in doppelganger magic that he resolved every single battle through his duplicates—but Kizen did not teach doppelganger magic as its own discipline.
Special Training, however, let a student master whatever unique technique he wished. Its whole purpose was rigorous, individualized instruction.
“Cami! You're on the list too!”
“Oh.”
Camibarez would grow strong enough simply by continuing her bloodstream studies at school, but it seemed she would be going to learn how to better control the blood of Urschel at this Special Training.
Beyond them, from the Top 10, the Queen Bee Merdiana and the sword-magic user Jules had also been selected. All of them students with strikingly distinctive traits.
“And Simon's name is on here too.”
Dick let out a whistle. Mayrin, reading alongside him, turned to Simon.
“That's surprising, though. Aren't you the poster child for getting strong through the regular Summoning curriculum? Why Special Training on top of that?”
When everyone's eyes gathered on him, Simon answered quickly.
“Apparently I'm going to learn special summon management methods.”
The Overlord, the Imperial Guard, the Chaos Reaper, and now the newly joined Chaos Dullahan.
The mainstay undead Simon actually used were, truthfully, a bit removed from the standard curriculum. His teammates seemed satisfied with that explanation and nodded.
...Sailed through that one safely.
Either way, the Special Training would proceed within the week.
He would have to keep out of the reporters' sight and prepare thoroughly.
A Legion Commander—and the lord of northern Kalos.
Simon looked out the window.
What kind of person could they be?
That evening.
The Forbidden Forest.
[So. You went out of your way to summon me alone, did you?]
Pier stood with his arms crossed, his ancient blue cloak billowing. Before him, Nephthys's silver hair streamed in the wind.
[Beyond what was said yesterday—is there more to be said?]
“Yes. And you know there is.”
She was smiling, easy and warm.
“You remember when I went to the North with Richard, don't you? Long ago?”
[...I do.]
The two fell silent for a moment. The wind blew harder still, whipping the cloak and hair about.
[It is early.]
Pier spoke first, into the stillness.
[The timing of revealing the 7th Legion's identity aside—and setting the Boy to train as a Legion Commander when he should be devoting himself to his necromancy studies—]
“......”
[What is your reason?]
She tilted her head.
“Because there isn't much time left.”
[Woman.]
A glint sharpened in Pier's eyes.
[I knew you had vanished from your place during the Ever Kire affair. So something happened in that interval.]
Nephthys giggled.
“Who's to say?”