On the beach, pirates were piling up the plunder they had looted from the town. The wooden chests already formed a wall of stolen wealth.
"Good! Very good!" The pirate captain, Gale, laughed heartily as he lifted a handful of jewels from a chest. "As expected of a rich territory! Even the plunder is a cut above the rest!" His laughter boomed across the beach.
"C-Captain!"
Gale turned. A pirate with a nasty blue bruise around his eye was running toward them, gasping for breath. "We need reinforcements! There's a massive counterattack in the city—!"
"What?" Gale frowned. The navy's forces should have been neutralized. "Is it the remnants of the Blue Harbor navy?"
"N-No," the pirate stammered, sweating profusely. "They're just residents! A flower shop owner, a tourist, a cook..."
"Have you lost your mind?"
Just then, with a loud clang, the reporting pirate's eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed. Behind him stood a man in a cook's uniform, holding a frying pan with a smile.
"Wooahh!"
From behind the wall of stacked chests, more pirates could be seen flying through the air. Gale shot to his feet. "What's going on?!"
The wall of chests collapsed as the flying pirates crashed into them. Beyond the wreckage, the townspeople advanced with an unlikely air of command. They were, indeed, a florist, a cook, a tourist, and more.
'Hard to believe. Was that report actually true?' he wondered. A woman in a swimsuit held a pirate up by the collar and slapped him repeatedly. With each vicious smack, teeth scattered from the pirate's mouth like buckshot.
'I see,' Gale thought, his expression turning serious. All of them were clad in bone armor. This was the work of a necromancer. The only proper necromancer in Blue Harbor was supposed to be Finch, which meant...
"So it's you," Gale said, his eyes landing on the boy in the black uniform standing behind the ordinary residents, sweat dripping from his face. He clicked his tongue and fiddled with his long mustache. "They were supposed to take care of Kizen, and now I'm stuck with this mess. I never should have joined hands with that lot!"
"What you just said..." Simon began with a smirk. "Sounds like you had an insider."
"Hahaha! Assume whatever you want!" Gale boomed.
Before long, the residents had surrounded him. Empowered by Simon's Bone Armor, their confidence was at an all-time high. Despite this, Gale stood calmly, stroking his mustache.
"Let's all get him at once!" one of the citizens shouted.
The armored residents charged in unison. In that moment, Gale's eyes glinted, and his muscles swelled.
"Wait—!" Simon yelled in alarm.
A massive shockwave erupted, sending all ten of the charging townspeople flying. A few who took the blow head-on had their Bone Armor stripped away as they were knocked unconscious.
The cook deftly moved behind Gale and brought his frying pan down on the back of his head, but Gale blocked it with his arm without even looking back.
The frying pan shattered against his bare arm.
"M-Monster...!" the cook gasped.
"Move it, mister!" the woman in the swimsuit yelled. She closed in on Gale's flank and unleashed a slap with her open palm.
Gale's head snapped to the side. The impact sent a gust of wind across the sand. Her slaps had been powerful enough to knock a pirate's teeth out with a single blow, but this was different.
"How cute." With only a red handprint on his cheek, Gale grinned and leaned his face in close to hers. "Is this what they call a 'reward' these days?"
"Ah...!" she gasped, stumbling back in alarm.
Grabbing the hilt of the sword at his waist, Gale unleashed a torrent of mana as he drew the blade. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head with her arms.
The sheer force of the swing kicked up whirlwinds across the beach. Crouching on the ground, she trembled as she opened her eyes.
"Ah!"
In front of her stood Simon, his leg extended straight out. He had kicked Gale's sword arm upward, and his own leg was trembling from the effort.
"I was wondering why I didn't feel any Jet-Black," Simon said, sweat dripping down his face as he smiled. His gaze was fixed on the shimmering magic coating Gale's sword. "This is my first time seeing an aura user."
"Hahaha! You should have come out yourself from the start!" Gale laughed.
Retracting his leg, Simon backed away. "Everyone, fall back. He's a powerful enemy you can't face without a core."
"Wait! I can still fight—!" one of the citizens protested.
Simon swung his arm, dismantling all the Bone Armors he had placed on them. Startled, they finally retreated to a safe distance.
"You know," Gale said, rolling his neck as if stretching, "I really hate necromancers."
Simon remained silent.
"In fact, I was planning on killing him, too, after this was all over." He was clearly talking about the insider, and the likelihood that the traitor was also a necromancer had just skyrocketed. Simon could roughly guess what was happening, but he wanted more concrete information.
"It's unusual to see someone using aura in this day and age," he said, naturally continuing the conversation.
"Unusual?" Gale sneered, twirling his sword. "That's the problem with you necromancers. You divide things into mainstream and non-mainstream without any proof. Just because it's different, you look down on aura and pure magic as outdated."
"I never looked down on it," Simon replied calmly.
"Perhaps. But when you saw my aura, that look in your eyes, like you were seeing a strange monkey at a zoo... that was irritating." Gale adjusted his grip on his sword and brought it to his chest in a disciplined salute before stomping his right foot into the sand and charging.
'Gauntlet Mode!' Simon thought, pulling his right arm back. As bones clicked into place, encasing his arm, he threw a punch.
The sand erupted like a fountain around them.
Simon's Jet-Black-clad gauntlet scraped against the aura-infused sword, sending sparks flying as they locked in a contest of strength.
"Urgh! As expected...!" Simon grunted, struggling to push the sword away. "That salute! That's the sword form of the Baldwin Kingdom's knight order, isn't it?"
"Oho! You recognize it!" Gale exclaimed.
With a surge of strength, Gale knocked Simon's gauntlet away. But he didn't press the attack, a flicker of satisfaction crossing his face at Simon's sharp eye. "What's there to hide? My family has produced knights for generations!"
'A pirate?' Simon wondered.
In a world where necromancers held sway, knightly families like Gale's had fallen into endless decline. It was the tide of the times, but the young Gale had refused to give up. He polished the sword and aura techniques passed down through his family and finally passed the exam to enter the knight order of a great territory. However...
"Of the 200 members of the knight order, 198 of them were necromancers who had opened their cores," Gale said, a bitter smile on his lips. As a traditionalist, he was ostracized for being old-fashioned. He was never given a proper chance to display his skills and was even excluded from ceremonial inspections because he couldn't imbue his sword with black magic. He couldn't stand to watch punks with no chivalry, no physical prowess, and no discipline spout nonsense about practicality. Drowned in disillusionment, Gale eventually left the knight order and headed for the sea, becoming the captain of three large pirate ships.
'Unemployment-driven crime...' The thought left Simon with a complex mix of emotions.
"A student from Kizen, the pinnacle of necromancy," Gale mused, raising his sword above his head. A bluish mana shimmered like waves along the blade. "It'll be fun to hunt you down and kill you!"
He brought the sword down in a cleaving blow.
The slash bisected the sandy beach. Simon stepped back to dodge it as the people nearby screamed and retreated.
"Countless necromancers have come at me, claiming to suppress pirates! But every single one of them lost their heads to my sword!" Gale laughed boisterously. "You'll end up the same way, Kizen brat!"
He rushed in like a predator, swinging his aura-wreathed sword. Cascades of sand erupted with every pass of the blade. Dodging the third strike, Simon leaned back and threw a punch. With a sharp crack, Gale's face contorted, but he merely smiled through the pain and swung his sword again.
The blade grazed Simon's chest, and his Kizen uniform sizzled as its defensive magic activated.
"Again! More cheap tricks!" Gale grinned. "Only a purely trained body determines a warrior's strength! You can't win a fight with cheap tricks alone!"
Ducking low to avoid the swinging sword, Simon planted a hand on the ground and kicked up at his chin.
Gale's head snapped back, but his sword never stopped moving.
'Does he not even feel the impact?!'
Simon pushed off with Jet-Black, tumbling away to a safe distance. Gale wiped the blood from his lips and grinned. "An unbreakable body and an indomitable will! A warrior needs no other petty tricks!"
"Well, your story is a bit pitiful," Simon said, letting out a long breath and extending his right arm. "But that doesn't make the crimes you've committed disappear."
Behind the direction Simon had pointed, a pile of sand rose up, forming a giant monster. He had secretly planted a golem core in the beach and had been steadily feeding it Jet-Black to create a mud golem—or in this case, a sand golem.
A mound of sand that could hardly be called an arm lifted and slammed down on Gale. Once again, he didn't dodge, taking the attack head-on. However, the fine sand didn't clump together and simply scattered upon hitting his body, getting into his eyes, nose, and mouth.
"Ugh! Useless!" he spat.
In the moment Gale's vision was obscured, Simon rushed in like a flash, grabbed the back of his head with his Bone Armor gauntlet, and leaped into the air.
'Over there!'
He slammed Gale's head into an extremely sturdy safe among the stolen goods.
With a deafening roar, the safe buckled. A normal person would have been killed instantly, but Simon knew Gale was far more durable.
'Not yet!'
Simon opened his Subspace and backed away. Potions from his Venomology class poured out, drenching Gale's face and body. Simon then sent scattered bones flying toward him.
"Havoc!"
The bones moved, shattering the potion vials clinging to Gale's body. He was thoroughly soaked in paralysis and poison potions.
"A knight...!" Gale roared, his legs trembling as he forced himself to stand. "...never falls!"
"Yes, so it seems," Simon said dryly.
"You necromancer bastards! Using pathetic things like poison! Have you no shame!" Gale charged, bellowing with rage.
His sword swung straight ahead. Simon easily dodged it just by leaning back.
This time, a diagonal slash. Tilting his head to avoid it, Simon landed a counterpunch on Gale's face and backed away.
"Argh!"
Backing away from the following horizontal slash, Simon grabbed Gale's collar and smashed an elbow into his face. A few teeth flew from Gale's mouth along with a spray of blood.
"Ugh! Argh!" He stumbled, clutching his forehead. The poison was taking effect; his vision was spinning, and he couldn't stand properly. "You bastard! What did you do to me?!"
Dealing with the poisoned Gale was a piece of cake. Simon dodged the sword he swung with all his might and rotated his body. His waist twisted, his heel lifted.
A perfectly executed roundhouse kick exploded on Gale's face. The sound of a hard shell cracking echoed across the beach as streams of blood splattered in all directions.
"I agree with you," Simon said as Gale's body flew several meters and tumbled across the ground. He strode toward the fallen captain. "Chivalry, aura, swordsmanship... I don't think any of them are outdated relics. However..."
Looking down at the unmoving Gale, Simon dusted off his hands.
"You're the one who's outdated."

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