novelraw Chapter 595: Episode 595
Chapter 595: Episode 595
Blood dripped from the Butcher’s body, but he merely let out a quiet, stifled laugh. "A lot of questions, you say? I don’t think I have many answers for you."
"Your opinion is irrelevant," Simon declared, a dark blue light flickering in his eyes. "I’ll get them one way or another."
"How interesting, kid!"
In that instant, the veins on the Butcher’s hand bulged as he tightened his grip on the knife.
’He still has this much strength...!’
Simon stepped back as the Butcher charged. As he lunged, the six Royal Guard swords embedded in his back were ripped out with a gruesome tearing sound.
Simon reacted instantly. ’Gate Open!’
A subspace tore open, and blade-tipped tentacles reminiscent of metal snakes surged from all directions. However, the Butcher merely raised his two small kitchen knives and batted them aside as he advanced.
"I’ve never once received a proper education in black magic," he proclaimed, instantly closing the distance until he was face-to-face with Simon. The kitchen knife let out a rough, metallic screech as it shot toward Simon’s neck. "No school, not even a master. But I was always the one who won!"
Simon’s arm shot out. A Royal Guard’s sword flew into his hand, and he immediately used it to block the knife. With a deafening clang, both men were thrown back.
"All those bastards who droned on about affiliation, rank, or where they graduated from—every single one, without exception, was carved into a slab of meat by my hands!" He licked the blade of his knife, leaving a long gash across his tongue as blood dripped from the steel. "The one who wins is the one who’s strong, Simon Polentia."
"Hmm."
Simon shifted his wrist, reversing his grip on the Royal Guard’s sword. "I agree, assassin."
The two men advanced on each other simultaneously. The Butcher was alone, but Simon had twenty Royal Guards. Twenty streams of turquoise sword strikes rained down, leaving no openings.
There was no space to break through. In the end, the Butcher threw himself out of the encirclement to escape. The turquoise blades grazed him in succession, leaving a trail of wounds on his skin.
As the minor scratches on Simon’s body began to heal, a strange light entered the Butcher’s eyes.
"A summon with a life-draining effect. Like a Blood Golem."
Simon just grinned and intensified his assault.
The clash of steel rang out as dozens of turquoise sword flashes met two small kitchen knives. The house was demolished in an instant, and their battle spilled outside, raging across the streets and over the rooftops. They crossed blades while scaling the fortress walls.
The students paused their own fights, their mouths agape as they watched the duel.
"P-Professor Aaron! Should we join in...!" an assistant called out.
"Hold your positions," Aaron commanded, extending an arm to stop them. "Leave this to Simon."
As the sun slowly began to rise, it illuminated the two figures locked in an intense exchange of blades. Every eye in the fortress was fixed on them.
"You can do it," Lorraine whispered from a short distance away, her hand placed over her heart as she watched Simon.
"Well, as expected," Serne mused, casually crossing her legs on a chair with her chin resting on her hand. All around her, assassins who had turned into Mimics lay in pools of blood.
Hector clicked his tongue in annoyance as he received treatment for the wounds inflicted by the One-Eyed Gentleman.
The shriek of clashing steel shattered the dawn.
"Everything in this world is information! Every single one of your opponent’s movements, every habit in how they wield Jet-Black!" the Butcher roared, suddenly lunging forward and swinging his knife.
Simon threw the Chaos Spear in his left hand as a feint, then thrust with the Royal Guard’s sword in his right.
Their blades scraped together just inches from their faces, their eyes locking.
"For someone commanding so many skeletons, you’re awfully protective of them! Is it simply because you’re sentimental? I think not!" The Butcher used a trick to instantly flick a knife hidden in his clothes, striking a Royal Guard approaching from behind.
The Royal Guard shattered with a sharp crack, and Simon winced involuntarily.
"It’s a skill that shares damage with your summons, isn’t it?"
"If you had been properly educated, you would have been a much greater threat," Simon remarked, pushing away the Butcher’s knife with a sharp clack of his own sword.
"Haha! Did I hit a nerve?"
"Sorry, but the fact that I share damage with my Royal Guard is common knowledge. And..." Simon had one of his Royal Guards advance rapidly. The Butcher swung his knife as if to devour it, but the turquoise light faded from the undead knight, and it collapsed into a heap of bones.
In that opening, Simon was already pulling two crimson spears from his belt. "...exploiting that is my formula for victory."
With a sickening crunch, he drove the spears into both of the Butcher’s ankles. A pained groan escaped the assassin’s lips as Simon leaped into the air, using Jet-Black as a foothold.
"Hahahaha! You got me good with that one!"
From the sky, Simon extended his arm. All the Royal Guards crumbled like puppets with their strings cut, their energy flowing into him. The turquoise light faded, replaced by a pitch-black glow.
Following Blood Arrow and Blood Sword, this was a new technique inspired by what Serne had told him about the ’Future Simon’.
’Simon Remake – Blood Orb’
A low rumble filled the air as a black sphere materialized in his hand.
"Interesting!" The Butcher, his ankles pinned, licked his lips. He looked up at Simon, who held the orb against the dawn, and twirled his knives. "Not yet."
The skeletons, released from their Royal Guard state, rushed forward, picked up the Chaos Spears that had fallen during the fight, and hurled them into the sky. The crimson power of the spears converged on the orb, enveloping its black core in a violet hue.
"Here I come."
The black magic transformed once more.
’Simon Original – Chaos Orb’
Simon gently pushed the violet orb resting on his palm.
"A battle of firepower this time, is it!"
The moment it left Simon’s hand, the orb began to emit intense waves of power in all directions. The immobilized Butcher crossed his two knives in front of him.
’If I can reflect that back at him, I win!’
His leg muscles, planted firmly on the ground, bulged with tension, and goosebumps rose on his arms as he gripped the knives.
The orb made contact with the two knives, the impact deceptively light.
The Butcher knew instinctively. This was an unstoppable technique.
Effortlessly crushing the knives it touched, the orb pressed down on the Butcher’s lower abdomen.
His back slammed into the fortress floor, which crumbled beneath him.
The orb broke through the stone with a deafening crack, smashing his body downward.
With a continuous, grinding crash, the entire fortress wall distorted, beginning to bend into a U-shape. The onlookers’ jaws dropped, and the Gahal warriors screamed and fled from a phenomenon that resembled a natural disaster.
Finally.
With a final, groaning creak, the Chaos Orb stopped. Having completely caved in one side of the fortress wall, it dissipated upon hitting the ground. The Butcher lay motionless, the whites of his eyes showing.
’A technique that converts explosive force into physical force.’
Simon panted, a grin spreading across his face.
’This is how you do it, right? My future self.’
As if on cue, a massive roar of cheers erupted from all sides.
---
Three hours after the battle. Outside the fortress.
The war was over, and the area outside the fortress was littered with the corpses of Mimics. Countless arrows and the scorched remnants of Professor Grelion’s firepower were everywhere. Large craters pockmarked the ground.
"Ah, I thought this one was a Guardian."
"You think there’s anything left on these corpses? The others probably looted everything worth taking already."
"Then you can head back."
Kizen students, holding onto a final sliver of hope, were rummaging through the area. They were the ones who hadn’t managed to secure a ’Guardian’ in the battle.
The skeletons they controlled finished off any Mimics that were still twitching with a few dull thuds. The students chatted among themselves as they walked.
And right beneath those corpses.
With a sickening ’squelch’, a tiny piece of flesh slithered into hiding. Its body was gone; only the One-Eyed Gentleman’s eyeball floated in a pool of Jet-Black, moving along.
’Another failure.’
The One-Eyed Gentleman’s eye moved stealthily.
’It was a good opportunity. If only I had recovered Simon Polentia, I could have been reinstated to a key position in the Union.’
Not only had Aaron stopped him and Grelion drastically reduced the number of monsters, but there were also many formidable students. He had tried to quietly extract Simon amidst the chaos, but perhaps he had underestimated them. Bringing along the uncontrollable Butcher had also been a mistake.
’I’ll return, restore my body, and then, once more...’
[You’ve been caught.]
The eyeball, which had been fleeing toward a dense thicket, came to a halt.
The One-Eyed Gentleman’s eyeball was now entangled in a spiderweb. Webs stretched out in every direction, and in the center, a woman was perched on a thin strand.
’A Kizen student?’
It was a pink-haired girl in a Kizen uniform, though she wore it carelessly; the necktie was draped loosely around her neck, and the jacket was tied around her waist.
’Why didn’t I sense her presence? Wait, this Jet-Black, could it be...!’
That unique, murderous aura he had encountered in the Frigod village. Now he was certain. This woman was the same monstrous being that had taken on Simon’s form.
[I wondered what this was.]
Her web dipped into the pool of Jet-Black beneath the eyeball. It soon pulled out the mangled lump of flesh that had been pulverized by Aaron.
[You were an undead after all, weren’t you?]
[And an undead that thinks like a human, no less. But to call you an Ancient Undead like myself, your ’class’ is far too low.]
The One-Eyed Gentleman’s eye trembled violently. Why was an Ancient Undead here?
’Don’t tell me.’
He realized that yesterday in the village, she had been walking around transformed into Simon Polentia. None of this could be a coincidence. Could Simon be controlling her? To lure them in?
’Does that mean Simon Polentia is a Legion Commander!’
This was critical information. The fact that Simon was the ’seventh’—if he could just relay that to the Union, he could return. Thinking about it, everything fell into place. Nephthys herself had recently ordered a full investigation into the 7th Legion Commander within Kizen.
[If not an Ancient Undead, then what could this be?]
Erzebet descended from her web and slowly approached. She examined the eyeball caught in her web, and her lips curled into a smile.
[What a cute idea. An artificial spirit inserted into an undead body?]
The One-Eyed Gentleman froze, feeling as if he had been stripped bare. Erzebet flicked her tongue.
[In that case, I won’t be able to extract any information. My Legion Commander will not be pleased.]
’Ah! No! Stop...!’
With a wet ’splat’, she crushed the eyeball with her finger. Wiping her hand to flick off the blood, she then pulled the mangled corpse from the pool of Jet-Black.
[Heehee, but I did manage to get my hands on something quite valuable.]
---
After the battle, Simon had also come outside the fortress walls.
’Oh no, I’m in big trouble.’
Simon pressed a hand to his forehead. He had been so preoccupied with fighting the Union that he had failed to obtain the most important thing: a Guardian. He had promised Aaron he would create the best Dullahan among his peers, but without a Guardian, that was impossible.
"Hello!"
Simon turned his head at the sudden voice. A pink-haired girl was waving at him.
"E-Erzebet?"
Simon panicked and quickly looked around. Fortunately, the other students were focused on searching for Guardian corpses and paid her no mind. Simon hurried over.
"What are you doing! Why are you in your student form here all of a sudden?"
"I have something to report."
The two of them entered a thicket together.
"Whoa, this is incredible."
He saw spiderwebs everywhere and countless Mimic corpses. Erzebet’s Corpse Spiders swarmed around, tearing at the flesh of the Mimics.
"Did you bring your troops?"
"Yes. I thought the numbers might be a bit overwhelming. Was my interference unnecessary?"
"No, no, you saved me."
No wonder. He had thought that fewer monsters had reached the fortress than he had initially sensed, but it turned out Erzebet had been helping.
Next, Erzebet showed Simon the corpse of the One-Eyed Gentleman.
"Ugh, hmm."
Simon gave a bitter smile as he looked at the mangled heap of flesh. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"The insides are surprisingly intact. It could be an important resource for researching the Union’s new technology."
"Ah, that’s true. Thanks for thinking of that."
Simon carefully placed the corpse into his subspace.
"Speaking of corpses, have you seen any Guardian corpses?"
"A Guardian? Ah, if you mean those bothersome big ones, I’ve seen them. My spiders were dealing with them."
"I need one of those!"
Simon and Erzebet searched the forest together. And then...
"Wait! Stop! Don’t eat that!"
They found it. Corpse Spiders were on top of a dead Guardian, trying to eat it, but they couldn’t get through the armor-like plating covering its body. After shooing away the spiders, Simon let out a sigh of relief.
"Phew, got one. Thank goodness."
"However," Erzebet said, pointing a finger down. "It has no head."
It was a Guardian with only a torso. Simon and Erzebet joined forces to search for the head, but it seemed the Corpse Spiders had already devoured the unarmored part.
Feeling dejected, Simon leaned his back against a tree. "Haaah, if only it had a head, I could have made it."
After today, he didn’t know where else he could find a Guardian. Ordering Erzebet and her spider legion to scour the Frigod Autonomous Region would surely be noticed by the locals. The risk was too great.
Lost in thought for a moment, Simon’s eyes sharpened.
"Bring me an ’off-spec Dullahan’ that will surprise me."
This Dullahan performance evaluation was the most crucial step toward obtaining a Bone Dragon.
"Since it’s come to this."
Simon gave a slight smile and lifted the headless corpse. "Then I just have to make it truly off-spec, right?"