The Oath and the First Lesson
The surroundings had fallen so quiet you could have heard a mouse drop.
…That was my name just now, right?
Simon felt his mind go completely blank.
"Simon Polentia? Is there a Simon Polentia here?"
Swallowing drily, Simon rose to his feet. The gazes of a thousand peers converged on him all at once.
"Who's that?"
"No idea."
"That guy's number one?"
It was the first time Simon had ever stood in a place this crowded, and the first time he'd ever been the focus of this much attention.
He swallowed hard, again and again, as he climbed onto the stage and took his place beside Serne.
"Whew."
As Simon slowly let out his breath, the master of ceremonies came over and clapped him on the shoulder.
"No need to be nervous. Just do exactly as it says up here."
"Yes, sir."
Serne was looking at him. She gave a small nod, and Simon answered with a nod of his own.
The two of them raised their right hands in unison.
"I hereby swear."
"I hereby swear."
And from behind them came the echo of 998 students swearing the same oath.
"We, the incoming students…"
"We, the incoming students…"
Simon's mouth was moving, but his head was spinning in circles. He couldn't tell if he was speaking properly, or even what the words meant. All he could do was follow the sound of Serne's voice, matching her word for word, doing his level best not to stumble over a single syllable.
And so, on the very first day of enrollment, Simon Polentia was engraved in everyone's memory.
"Are you KIDDING me! Whoa! You were Special Admission number one?!"
Simon had barely made it back to his seat when Lowen exploded with excitement. Simon tried to explain the whole story, but the packed class schedule had already begun, forcing him straight off to the lecture hall.
The opening ceremony didn't mean the first day of school was a free pass. The very first class was already starting.
Simon had been assigned to Class A. First-year first-semester students took classes without declared majors, and the year was run across fourteen separate classes.
Each class started with over sixty students, but the ranks would later be cut in half as students dropped out, and mergers and consolidations of entire classes were a routine occurrence.
When Simon stepped into Class A, there wasn't a single familiar face. No Lorraine, of course, and no Lowen either. The only acknowledgment he got was from Cindy Vivace, the girl he'd met at the bookstore, who threw him a cheerful "Hey! Special Admission number one!"
Still, everyone in the new class felt awkward around each other, which meant Simon could blend into the background just fine.
First class: Curse Magic.
Simon had taken a seat somewhere toward the back. When he pulled out his textbook and raised his head, he caught several students hastily turning away who had been looking back at him.
He gave a wry smile and pretended not to notice.
Screech!
The lecture hall door finally opened, and the professor walked in. Thunderous cheers erupted from the students who recognized him.
"It's Bahil Amagar!"
"No way, really?"
When some people hear the word "necromancer," they still picture something dark and gloomy — figures skulking in the shadows, fiddling with corpses.
But that image was ancient history now.
Necromancers of the modern mainstream were smart, practical, sophisticated, and trendy. If anything, it was the priests who carried the image of being hidebound and conservative.
And one of the figures who personified this new generation of necromancers was Bahil.
Dressed in a snow-white suit from head to toe, Bahil boasted proportions straight out of a modeling catalogue. With striking good looks to boot, he was a dazzlingly star-quality young necromancer who had made it into the Crow — the elite core fighting force of Kizen — while still in his late twenties.
To the students of Kizen, he was an object of absolute adoration.
Bahil smiled warmly and waved at the cheering students. Shrill squeals rose from several of the girls.
"Welcome, fresh students. I'm Bahil Amagar, and I'll be teaching first-year Curse Magic this year."
The cheers broke out all over again. Bahil raised both hands and skillfully quieted the crowd, then set his felt hat down on the lectern.
"Now then, shall we take attendance? Since you're all strangers to one another, when I call your name, give us a quick self-introduction."
Bahil began reading the roster.
"Jamie Victoria."
"Yes! Professor, it's truly an honor! I've admired your work for so long, and I—!"
Bahil held out a hand to cut her off, then gave her a playful wink.
"You're not introducing yourself to me, you're introducing yourself to the friends sitting here around you. Try again."
Ripples of laughter ran through the room. Red-faced, Jamie Victoria promised everyone she looked forward to a great semester together.
After Jamie's rocky start, the rest of the introductions unfolded in fairly standard "please take care of me" fashion.
Simon kept his own brief and clean — there was nothing to gain from standing out any further in this situation. Every so often someone would use the introduction to advertise themselves for future group projects, while others carried an air of "I'm one of the gifted, you figure out who I am."
"Plenty of colorful personalities in this bunch. Wonderful."
Setting down the roster, Bahil rolled up his sleeves and strode to the blackboard.
"Right then. Let's begin the lesson."
Tap. Tap-tap.
Chalk in hand, he scrawled three large characters across the board: Curse Magic. He put so much force into the final stroke that the chalk snapped and went flying. Bahil, entirely used to this, picked up a fresh piece.
"Let's start with the fundamental question. Why must we study Curse Magic?"
From his very first words, Bahil had a magnetism that pulled the entire room in. Every student leaned forward, straining not to miss a single syllable.
"Can anyone offer a definition of a curse?"
The bespectacled girl sitting directly in front of Simon shot her hand up.
"Claudia Menzies! A curse is a branch of dark magic that weakens the opponent while leaving one's own power completely intact!"
"Excellent, Claudia."
At the professor's praise, the girl's face lit up with a flush.
"However, for some of you, simply saying a curse 'weakens' the enemy may not quite land. Very well. Let's say there are two knights here, each with the strength of a hundred men."
Bahil moved his chalk and raised it like a sword.
"The two knights clash blades and begin to fight in earnest. They drain each other's stamina, each waiting for the other to slip, to leave an opening."
Bahil wrote Exhaust on the board.
"Twenty exchanges pass, but the opponent refuses to fall. Then the knight who has been holding the blade lock lets out a roar of pure malice and glares at his opponent as if to kill him where he stands. The opposing knight flinches in spite of himself, his face going stiff with fear."
Bahil wrote Pressure on the board.
"At last, the blade slices through the opponent's shoulder. Blood spills freely, and his movements begin to falter. Our knight is steadily seizing the advantage!"
Bahil wrote Bleeding on the board.
As the duel between the two swordsmen progressed, more and more words piled up on the blackboard — every one of them a category of necromancer's curse magic.
The students were sweating, hands clenched, as Bahil's voice climbed toward its climax.
"And finally! The knight severs his opponent's head from his shoulders!"
Bahil dropped his chalk-wielding arm, and a deathly silence settled over the lecture hall.
He swept his gaze across the silent students for a long moment — then broke into a wicked grin and wrote one final spell on the board: Doom.
Gasps of admiration burst out all around the room.
"Do you see it now? Even humanity's most primal, most savage form of combat — the crude bashing-together of weapons — is ultimately nothing more than a series of steps that weaken the opponent on the road to victory."
Bahil picked up a fresh piece of chalk.
"Now let's look at how a modern necromancer fights."
He sketched a crude figure of a person on the board.
"How does a necromancer defeat this opponent?"
Bahil circled every curse word he'd written so far, drew a long line dragging them all the way to the far end of the blackboard, and touched it to the figure of the man.
"Victory."
"Ahh…!"
"Among all the schools of dark magic, curses are light, simple in structure, and capable of lightning-fast deployment. With only minimal effort, they're efficient enough to shake an opponent to his very foundations."
Bahil winked at the boy seated in the very front row. Then, with a flick of his arm, he completed an Exhaust curse in a matter of seconds and sent it flying.
"Ugh!"
The boy slumped straight out of his seat, unable to move a muscle, nothing but his eyes rolling around in his head.
Bahil strolled over to him at his leisure.
"And this—"
He drew the mana blade from the boy's bag and swung it down in a mock execution strike at his neck.
"—is how a modern necromancer fights."
OHHHHH—!
The excited students sprang out of their seats, cheering wildly.
Bahil smiled graciously and bowed in acknowledgment, then released the curse he'd cast on the boy.
"I have no idea what major each of you will choose, but I'd venture to say that at least eight out of ten of you fresh students will be sitting in my classroom again next semester. Curse Magic is a wonderfully compatible discipline, you see. Play to your specialties, and whenever you find an opening, layer curse after curse into your opponent. That will be the single most efficient way to lock in your victory."
He walked briskly back to the lectern.
"Now then, let me tell you a little story you'll all find interesting."
And beneath the words "Curse Magic" already written on the board, he began scrawling a new phrase.
"I personally believe that Curse Magic is the heart of the modern necromancer. The reason being—"
He wrote the word Priest on the board.
"—it is the most efficient means we possess for facing our principal enemy."
He'd brought up a touchy subject in the very first class. Instantly, a fierce competitive gleam kindled in the students' eyes.
"So let me ask you all this. If the necromancer has the curse, the priest has the blessing. One is a magic of weakening; the other, a magic of strengthening. And right here—"
Bahil smiled slyly.
"—lies the question: what advantages does the curse hold over the blessing? Can anyone explain?"
The room went quiet. As the students glanced nervously at one another, one hand went up — Jamie Victoria, the very first name called during roll call.
Bahil nodded with a smile.
"Jamie Victoria. Curses hold the advantage over blessings in casting speed! Even against the same opponent, you can stack weakening effects that much faster!"
"An interesting opinion."
Bahil folded his arms.
"But it's wrong. On casting speed alone, the scholarly consensus is that a priest's blessing is marginally faster — because a curse must punch through the target's resistance in order to land."
Jamie bit her lip in disappointment and sank back into her seat.
"Anyone else?"
Then a hand shot up.
A thick-necked face, heavy brows. A tall, powerfully built male student.
"Hector Moore."
"Go ahead."
"Almost nobody trains themselves while weakened."
It was a riddle of an answer, but a deep smile spread across Bahil's lips.
"What was your name again, student?"
"Hector Moore."
"I'll remember it."
Ooooh—
A chorus of envious murmurs rippled through the hall. These were a thousand fresh students, after all. So long as catching a professor's eye was the surest path to survival, having your name memorized was an enormous advantage.
"Hector is right. Weakening magic cannot be defended against through conditioning."
Bahil surveyed the students.
"Everyone trains on the assumption that they'll be in perfect condition. Your measure of skill is how well you can perform when every variable falls within your control."
The students nodded along.
"But human beings are far more delicate creatures than they look. The tiniest change can cause them to break down. When an archer takes aim at me, cutting off his arm isn't the only correct answer. Conjunctivitis blurring his vision, motion sickness scrambling his depth perception, a distraction pulling his focus to some other object — any one of these can make even a shot that should have hit miss its mark."
The corner of Bahil's mouth curled upward.
"The necromancer possesses a vast arsenal of tools for degrading the enemy's condition. But think about it. When you're exhausted, or doubled over with cramps so bad your guts feel like they're tearing loose, how many people train specifically to guard against curses? Most people just take the day off."
A ripple of knowing laughter ran through the room.
"So remember this. Rather than searching for ways to strengthen ourselves, we must search for ways to weaken the enemy."
The students nodded and set their quills moving. It had the distinct feel of material guaranteed to appear on an exam, and they began taking notes in earnest.
"Now then — it's time for you all to learn an actual curse spell."
Simon, who'd been dutifully copying notes, snapped his head up.
Wait, what? We're learning actual dark magic in the very first class?