After the tumultuous Dark Festival, a refreshing sense of normalcy returned to Kizen. The professors, back from their vacations, immediately buried the students under a mountain of assignments and began tearing through the curriculum at a brutal pace. Students who had hoped for a breather found themselves desperately clinging to their sanity amidst an academic intensity that dwarfed the festival.
The passion of the returning Summoning Department professors was particularly formidable. While securing second place had certainly boosted their pride, it had also ignited a fire under them to push their students even harder. Grelion, the Summoning Materials Science professor, was no exception.
"Begin!" he roared.
A rumble echoed through Grelion’s cave, the same space Simon’s ’Ever Kyre Countermeasures Team’ had used as a hideout. Today, however, it was filled with Summoning Department students, who burst forth in their designated groups. They scrambled to secure materials like shoppers at a clearance sale. From Simon’s Group 10, Lorraine and Toto surged forward.
"Ready, Eshe?" Simon asked, pulling on a pair of work gloves.
"Leave it to me! President—I mean, Group Leader!" Eshe, his designated assistant, shot her arm up in a fighting pose. The small dolls around her mimicked the gesture, raising their tiny fists.
The performance evaluation for Summoning Materials Science was to create a Skeleton Chimera using bones that had undergone a special ’white peacock treatment’. This unique method involved soaking undead bones in the fluid of a white peacock monster, which turned them a pale sky blue. While this process weakened the bones’ durability, it allowed them to be fused with other skeleton types with minimal side effects, enabling them to move as a single entity. For instance, the wing bones of a flying monster could be attached to the frame of a land creature. Combinations that were normally impossible became achievable.
"Remember! You must fuse the bones of at least two different types of undead!" Grelion bellowed, striding among the students. He looked as though he’d spent his entire vacation lifting weights, having bulked up considerably. "Recall the formulas you have learned! Conceive a combination of skeletons that will create the most powerful synergy!"
"Yes, sir!" the students chorused.
The material shelves were lined with an assortment of white peacock-treated bones. They ranged from common monsters like orcs, ratmen, and gnolls to the skeletons of flying harpies and aquatic creatures. Students could pick and choose to their hearts’ content. After a lengthy discussion, Simon’s Group 10 had decided on their chimera.
"Simon! Catch!" Lorraine shouted as a large chunk of bone came flying through the air.
Simon caught it deftly and set it on the worktable. The first step was the most basic. He picked up a carving knife. The bones, having soaked in the solution for so long, were too heavy. The thick, caked-on layer of residue had to be removed.
The sound of scraping echoed from the surrounding tables as every team, including Simon and Eshe, began the laborious and time-consuming task.
"Eshe, shave the joint areas especially thin," Simon instructed. "So thin that the white of the bone is just barely visible."
"Okay!"
Simon entrusted the delicate carving to his assistant and moved on to assembly.
His hands moved in a dazzling display of speed and precision, fitting the bones together with a series of clicks and clacks. He built up the spinal column as if stacking a tower, then, apparently dissatisfied, scattered the pieces and started again from scratch.
Eshe watched, her eyes wide with amazement. ’Wow, his skill with skeleton assembly is insane.’
What’s more, Simon wasn’t even consulting a blueprint. He was working purely from the knowledge and instinct in his head, fitting the bones together with an artist’s freedom.
"Good." Having completed the upper body in a single, fluid motion, Simon turned. "Eshe, the Jet-Black conduits?"
"Right here!" Eshe, still busy with her task, sent her dolls instead. The tiny figures waddled over, working together to carry the dark, tube-like conduits.
Simon began threading the thick tubes through the bone structure. Like the wiring in a machine, these conduits would serve as channels, transporting Jet-Black to every part of the undead. After securing them firmly, he infused Jet-Black into the joints, meticulously linking each part. The upper body was nearly complete.
"Simon! Is this base okay?" Toto called out. He and Lorraine, having gathered the materials, were now preparing the magic circle.
Simon glanced at their work and was impressed. "You’re really good at this. Keep it up."
"Okay!" they replied in unison.
Toto, in particular, had a natural talent for chimeras. He seemed to prefer the creative freedom of modifying a design over the rigid, formulaic process of summoning other undead.
As the various parts of their project came together, disaster struck.
"S-sorry, guys!" Eshe cried out.
Her dolls, while carrying a treated bone, had collided with a rushing student and dropped their fragile cargo.
"The hind leg bone is cracked," Simon observed grimly. Before they were fully air-dried, the treated bones were extremely vulnerable to impact.
"Simon! I don’t think there are any more!" Toto shouted after a quick check of the material shelves.
’We have to make do with what we have.’ Simon stared at the damaged piece, his mind racing. "It’s a relief it was a hind leg that broke. We’ll change our approach."
"H-how?"
"We’ll increase the proportion of the scorpion."
Group 10’s original plan was to combine the bones of a scorpion and a monster called a bleto. A bleto was a four-legged predator that ambushed prey from beneath the earth. It was fast, but its teeth and claws were weak. A scorpion, on the other hand, could use its long tail to snatch prey but was sluggish. They had hoped to combine the two. The bleto also had a sharp barb on its tail, which it used to impale its victims, so they theorized it would be even more adept with the scorpion’s longer, more flexible tail.
But with the leg bone broken, they had to sacrifice speed. In that case...
"We’ll reinforce something else instead of mobility."
After all the work was completed, the evaluation began. The highest scores went to Aseraz’s Group 8, who had attached Jet-Black feathers to wing bones to enable high-speed flight, and to Fitzgerald’s Group 11. As Kizen’s premier second-year chimera maker, Fitzgerald had successfully fused four different types of undead.
Grelion nodded in satisfaction as he finished marking his clipboard. Simon and his team, who had finished a little later, waited anxiously for their turn.
"Ugh, this is so annoying!" a female student complained, picking a stalk of wheat off her thigh. "How is wheat growing in a cave?"
Simon winced. In the distance, teaching assistants were sighing as they hacked at the stubborn plants with scythes.
"No matter how much we cut, there’s no end to it."
"I’ve asked Professor Byulya for some chemicals. It should get better once we spray it."
He had tried to clean up, but the wheat was so resilient that some of it remained. Simon offered them a silent apology.
"Next group. Step forward."
Finally, it was Group 10’s turn. Simon and Lorraine stepped up, followed by Toto and Eshe.
"We will now begin our presentation," Simon announced. "We created a chimera by combining a scorpion and a bleto."
The other students craned their necks to see. A flat, four-legged monster stood before them. Two-thirds of its body was scorpion, with only the head and front legs belonging to a bleto. Its tail, constructed from the bones of two scorpions, was impressively long, but it was clear at a glance that the creature lacked any real mobility.
Grelion spoke first. "According to the proposal you submitted, you were going to attach a scorpion’s tail to a bleto’s body. Why the change?"
The textbook answer would have been to invent a plausible reason, to talk about the scorpion’s strengths and how they’d decided to pivot their strategy. But Simon chose a different path.
"We made a mistake during the process," he answered honestly. "The hind leg bones were damaged, so we had no choice but to abandon an approach focused on mobility. However," Simon extended his hand toward the undead, "thanks to that, I’m confident that we’ve created an even better product."
Grelion stroked his chin thoughtfully. The head teaching assistant spoke up. "Student Simon, it’s hard to call this a ’better product’ when its mobility is so severely lacking. I believe a summon made purely from a scorpion would perform better, without the need to mix in a bleto at all."
The other students murmured in agreement, but Simon just smiled.
"Instead of a long explanation, I’ll just show you."
The cave was already equipped with various testing environments, including a large water tank for aquatic undead. Simon moved their chimera to a sand-floored enclosure and issued a mental command.
"Hide."
With a furious spray of sand, the chimera’s forelimbs dug in, and in an instant, its entire body vanished beneath the surface.
"Please consider this the prey," Lorraine said, placing a target on the ground.
The moment she did, a long, barbed tail shot out from the sand with a sharp ’shwing’ and pierced the dead center of the bullseye.
A collective "Whoa!" went through the crowd.
Watching the long tail bone swaying beneath the sand, Grelion stroked his chin, a slow smile spreading across his face. "I see. So you’ve shifted the concept to an ambush-type summon."
Lorraine tossed a ball into the air, and the chimera’s tailbone struck the target with pinpoint accuracy. Its power and speed were exceptional. At that moment, Aseraz raised her hand and stepped forward.
"I have a question for Team 10."
At Kizen, open discussion and questions between students were permitted during evaluations.
"A scorpion’s tailbone is more than sufficient for that kind of movement," she challenged. "I fail to see the purpose of incorporating a Vleto. Was it merely for its ability to dig with its forelimbs? Or was it simply to satisfy the evaluation’s requirement of combining two undead types?"
It was a pointedly aggressive question, clearly intended to belittle their work. An indignant Eshe started to move forward, but Simon held her back and calmly addressed the challenger.
"To the one who asked the question."
"Yes."
"Your understanding of the materials is lacking."
A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd.
Onlookers whistled appreciatively, and Aseraz’s eyebrow twitched.
"Do you know how a scorpion hunts?" Simon asked.
"What does that have to do with creating an undead chimera—"
"A living scorpion’s tail is coated in a sturdy shell, allowing it to hunt its main prey—small desert monsters—simply by striking them. More importantly..." Simon conjured a bead of Jet-Black at his fingertip, mimicking a falling droplet. "Living scorpions have venom. Their hunting method consists of inflicting a small wound to inject that venom, or simply bludgeoning smaller monsters to stun them. But what happens when it becomes undead? It is nothing but bone. No venom, no brute strength. The hunting method it relied upon in life is rendered useless."
Aseraz had made the fatal error of assuming the hunting method would remain the same before and after death. Seizing the advantage, Simon took another step forward.
"That’s why we used a Vleto’s skull, and the lingering will is also from the Vleto. In life, a Vleto could only hunt by precisely ’piercing’ the nape of a monster’s neck with the stinger on its tail. That instinct remains. Now that we’ve given it a long tail, it pierces the target with a precision that comes as naturally as a fish to water."
The students’ gazes shifted to Professor Grelion, who nodded in confirmation.
"Simon is correct. An undead’s hunting method is strongly influenced by its life before death."
With Grelion’s official acknowledgment, Aseraz bit her lip in disappointment and retreated. A few more questions followed, but Team 10 dismantled each one with ease.
"Enough."
Grelion rose from his seat.
"That was an undead of remarkable practicality! But the quality that impressed me most was this..." He turned to face the students. "They frankly admitted their mistake."
The training hall fell silent.
"Necromancers are obsessed with avoiding mistakes. An error in a magic circle can lead to a catastrophic explosion, and misplacing a single bone in a summon results in a flawed creation. We professors are strict about errors. But!" His voice boomed. "Creating chimeras is different. Make mistakes. Make ’more’ mistakes! It’s a well-known tale that the world’s most famous dessert was born when a baker forgot to add powder to a cake, and that a more beautiful melody can emerge from a few wrong notes."
He swung a heavy arm through the air.
"It’s fine to make mistakes, but never give up! A mistake isn’t a failure—it’s a fork in the road to a new path! So laugh, and embrace it!"
"Yes, Professor!" the students roared back.
"Now, assemble!" he commanded. "I will announce the grades!"
The students scrambled into lines. Aseraz stood beside Simon, her eyes wary.
"You paid me back for that humiliation, I’ll grant you that. But let’s see what the results say."
Simon offered a gentle smile. "The harpy chimera you made was incredible."
"Don’t act so relaxed."
Just then, Grelion raised a file folder.
"Now, I will announce the teams with the highest scores!"
At that same moment, in Nephthys’s office.
"Ugh! The Grand Duke is ignoring my calls again today!" Nephthys fumed, kicking her short legs as she sat in her oversized chair. "So mean! So unfair!"
Vice-Chancellor Jane, long accustomed to her superior’s antics, placed a stack of documents on the desk with an air of indifference.
"By ’the Grand Duke,’ are you referring to the Second Legion Commander, ma’am?"
"Yeah!"
"Kalos North, the region she rules, is notorious for its year-round blizzards that interfere with crystal ball communications. I believe some understanding is warranted."
"No! No!" Nephthys threw a tantrum. "She’s definitely ignoring me on purpose! It’s so unfair! It’s not like I asked for anything that difficult!"
Hearing this, Jane sighed.
"Ah, there’s the reason. I don’t know what favor you asked for, but..."
"I adored her when she was just a little thing!"
"That’s an old story the Grand Duke herself probably doesn’t even remember."
Nephthys slumped onto the desk with a thump, puffing out her cheeks in a pout.
"Fine, so that’s how you want to play it? Well, I have a plan, too!"
Jane shook her head wearily.
"I would prefer if we avoided making an enemy of another Legion Commander, in addition to Magnus."
"An enemy? Don’t be ridiculous!"
Nephthys began to energetically dash off a letter with her quill.
"Since it has come to this, I’m going to make her an offer she can’t refuse!"

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