"M-Me?" Simon asked.
"Yes." Forcing away her embarrassment, Jin returned to a serious expression and crossed her arms. "First of all, Lady Nephthys still harbors suspicions about the 5th Legion Commander, Magnus, who has gone into hiding."
Magnus, who had personally infiltrated Roc Island and even attempted to steal Simon’s Ancient Undead, had completely vanished after losing his base to a raid by Kizen headquarters. Not just Magnus himself, but the entire 5th Legion had disappeared from the continent without a trace. Kizen was mobilizing its entire surveillance network, but they had yet to find a single clue.
"Thus, I was tasked with protecting you from Magnus, who is surely lurking somewhere," she explained. "After all, the only one who can stop a Legion Commander is another Legion Commander."
"Don’t worry too much." Simon confidently pointed to his chest. "Even if Magnus comes, my legion’s forces are now more than enough to..."
Jin’s pointer smacked the crown of Simon’s head. It stung enough to bring tears to his eyes, and he grabbed the spot with both hands.
"Grand Duke!" he protested.
"It seems catching the Northern God has completely inflated your ego. Magnus has been building his capabilities as a Legion Commander since long before you. If he truly sets his mind to attacking you, it will be difficult for you to face him as you are now."
Simon lowered his hands. "So, did you come here to protect me from Magnus?"
"There’s that." She rested her chin on her hand with a dissatisfied look. "I went through all that trouble teaching you the basics in your Legion Commander lessons, so it would be problematic if you picked up strange habits at school. I plan to continue your instruction in our spare time."
Simon’s face brightened. "I’d really appreciate that! I still haven’t fully discovered the ’Geheim’ of my Ancient Undead, and I wanted to learn more about troop management and building a legion."
Geheim was a trump card that allowed him to use the special powers of the Ancient Undead belonging to his legion. Erzebet, Prince, and Herseva had somewhat gotten the hang of it, but Akemus and Zairos still had a long way to go. While they were at it, the two discussed matters regarding the legion: its organization, troop management, and the control of each Ancient Undead. They even talked about Mur, whom Simon had met recently.
"You acquired Mur’s battleship?" Jin asked.
"Yes!" Simon spread his arms wide to describe its shape. "It’s round and huge like this, and it seems to be the kind of vessel piloted by undead."
She stroked her chin, her expression turning grave. "Don’t tell me..."
"What is it, Grand Duke?"
"No, it’s nothing. It’s still just a guess, so it would be premature to say it out loud." She lowered her hand and met Simon’s gaze. "Where is that battleship?"
"It’s being transported to the Frost Field. Zairos will personally guard it."
"Be careful. Nine times out of ten, Mur will not give up on that item. I will instruct my 2nd Legion in the North to assist you if anything happens."
"Thank you."
Having connections with a fellow Legion Commander had never felt so comfortable and reassuring. She was an ally and a business partner at the same time—though at the academy, they were strictly professor and student.
"Come to think of it," Jin said, lifting the teapot to pour a little more tea into her cup. "I heard you stepped down from your position as student council president."
"Ah, yes. I did."
Jin offered a faint smile. "School life doesn’t seem easy either. I can block Magnus for you, but I cannot interfere with the problems that occur within the academy. It would only invite criticism about a visiting professor meddling in internal affairs."
"Of course. That’s for me to handle." Simon stretched his arms overhead, speaking with a sense of relief. "I’ll be starting something interesting this semester, so please look forward to it."
"Alright, I will."
A sharp knock echoed from the door.
"Who is it?" Jin called out.
"It’s the teaching assistant! You need to process the transfer documents right away, so..."
"I’ll be right out," she replied.
Simon stood up. "You’re in the middle of a busy time, and I took up too much of it."
"Not at all." She cleared her throat, bringing a clenched fist to her mouth. Then, with a slightly flushed face, she turned her head away. "If it’s alright with you, drop by often."
"Pardon?"
"In this unfamiliar place, everyone is a stranger to me except for you and Kamibarez, so it feels lonely. Besides, this is my first time teaching a class, so I need a lot of feedback from a student’s perspective."
Simon grinned. "I will! I’ll come by often from now on."
The next morning.
Regular classes finally began.
The first was Professor Aaron’s Summoning. Scratching his shaggy hair, which had grown even longer than usual, Aaron wrote two large words on the chalkboard.
’Armor.’
At the somewhat abrupt appearance of the word, the students looked back and forth between the chalkboard and Aaron with questioning eyes.
"The first step of crafting a Death Knight begins right here, with armor," Aaron said, lowering his chalk. "Simply putting armor on an undead isn’t enough. You must be able to make the armor a part of the undead itself."
The students’ pupils wavered.
Armor being a part of the undead—it sounded incredibly difficult just hearing about it.
As if even explaining was too much of a bother, Aaron let out a yawn and spoke in a sluggish drawl. "Rather than explaining it multiple times, it’ll be better for you to create and handle an armor undead yourselves. Professor Grelion is making the preparations. Get ready to head out to the field."
"Excuse me?" someone blurted.
An off-campus schedule on the very first day of regular classes. True to the Death Knight crafting curriculum, it was a daunting start to the second semester. The students, who had come in with relaxed mindsets, began hurriedly packing their bags.
"This summon might be unfamiliar, but you’ve probably encountered similar things often in books or stories. We will handle material procurement, crafting, and the performance evaluation all within today."
The Summoning majors were ushered outside without knowing what was going on and loaded onto a teleportation magic circle.
And then.
Water gurgled around them. When they came to their senses, they were underwater. Dressed in a diving suit, Toto was cutting through the currents and heading toward the lakebed while using a breathing magic circle.
’That’s the one, right?’
A massive clam sat on the lakebed. To describe its size, it was about half as big as a bed. It was the clam monster, a ’Shelteric’.
’What on earth does this monster have to do with armor?’
But he had no time to harbor doubts. If he failed to secure the materials within the time limit, he would receive a zero on this performance evaluation. He had to hurry. Toto acted step by step according to the capture method Grelion had taught them.
First, he cast a curse on the sleeping clam shell from a distance, then approached it.
’Now I just need to hold out the bait that Shelterics like!’
The moment the Shelteric opened its mouth, he could catch it by thrusting a harpoon coated in paralyzing poison directly inside. As Toto brought the bait in his hand closer, the clam shell slid open, revealing two pupils. The inside of the clam was as pitch-black as the cosmos, and the pupils visible within looked exactly like human eyes. It even had eyelids and blood vessels.
Terrified, Toto flinched.
’D-Don’t be scared! Now, the harpoon...’
But his timing was too late. Pitch-black tentacles shot out from between the Shelteric’s shells and wrapped around Toto’s body.
Toto let out a choked cry. He thrashed about, trying to escape, but the Shelteric wouldn’t let him go. Bubbles spilled from his mouth as the duration of his breathing magic circle neared its end.
’A-Am I going to die like this?’
A panorama of wild delusions unfolded before his eyes.
’Kizen Second-Year Student Dies While Catching a Clam’
Such news headlines flashed through his head. He imagined the people he had met while working part-time in Langerstine murmuring as they read the paper.
Strength surged tightly around Toto’s eyes.
’Anything but thaaaat!’
Triggering an internal jet-black eruption, a low rumble vibrated through the water as Toto kicked his legs with all his might. With his eyes bloodshot, he headed straight for the surface. A geyser of water violently shot up. A student on a nearby boat got drenched and let out a groan of annoyance.
Toto gasped and coughed, exhaling roughly as he fought for air. The surface of the lake was so incredibly peaceful that the life-or-death situation he had just experienced seemed absurd.
Students had boats floating everywhere and were in the middle of hauling up the Shelterics they had collected.
"Well done, Toto Amori!" Grelion, who was directing the students from a boat, reached out and grabbed Toto’s hand. "You’ve caught a high-quality one!"
With a forceful pull, Toto’s body was effortlessly hoisted up. He was still wrapped in the black tentacles, and trailing at the end of them was the heavy Shelteric shell.
"Though it was a bit different from the method I taught you!" Grelion boomed. "To use yourself as bait—what excellent tenacity. Hahahaha!"
"Th-Thank you. Haha."
Thinking he was finally safe, Toto stared at the lake with a blank expression.
Just then, a massive explosion of water the size of a hill erupted from the middle of the lake.
"Whoa!"
"It’s Simon’s Deimos!"
The summon made of whale bones, Deimos, soared above the surface with Simon riding its back. Soon, over ten Shelterics bobbed up to the surface around it. All Simon had to do was pick up his freshly hunted catches and load them onto his boat. The students watched the sight with envious eyes.
"Having one well-made summon sure makes everything easy."
"Tell me about it."
Watching him, Grelion gave a thumbs-up. "Well done, Simon Polentia! After prepping them, return to Roc Island and attend Professor Aaron’s crafting class!"
"Yes, sir!"
Grelion looked around at the other students. "The rest of you, hurry up! We have to conduct the performance evaluation by this evening!"
"Yes, sir!"
On Kizen’s Roc Island, there was a famous spot known for ’tests of courage’.
It was an old, unused building—an ancient castle.
Up until two hundred years ago, it had been used as a dormitory for royalty and high-ranking nobles, but it fell out of use when newly built dormitories were introduced to the campus. Equity issues had also been raised, arguing that it was unfair for only high-status nobles to live in a castle in Kizen, where everyone was equal. As time passed, this abandoned castle became dark, filled with cobwebs, and thickly coated in dust.
Paintings and self-portraits that hadn’t been retrieved still hung on the walls, and rumors were rampant that their eyes moved at night.
And right here in this place, a man wearing armor was walking in heavy silence with a stiff expression. He held a sword in his hand. His obsessive glancing around made him look incredibly tense.
Turning around a pillar and entering the hallway, he saw a carpet so dusty its original color was unrecognizable, along with frayed curtains. Lined up along the left and right sides of the hallway were battered suits of armor. The man moved forward, scanning the armor with cautious eyes.
Just then, a low hum vibrated through the air as flashing red pupils appeared from within the helmet of one of the armors. The armor, which had been nothing more than a decoration, suddenly lunged forward and swung its sword at the man.
The man hastily turned around and raised his sword, metal clanging against metal. The blade swung by the empty armor and the man’s sword engaged in a tense, screeching tug-of-war. Its strength was immense, but the armor’s swings were too crude to be called swordsmanship.
The man, on the other hand, knew how to handle a blade. He tilted his sword at an angle, using the opponent’s force against it to break its balance, then instantly kicked the empty armor’s chest plate. The armor clattered to the ground with a heavy thud.
"Ah, damn it, that startled me," he muttered, panting as he looked at the fallen armor.
Suddenly, the air displaced with a heavy whoosh as a massive suit of full plate armor swung a halberd down from the ceiling. He hurriedly raised his sword to block the crashing blow, but since he had let his guard down and the strike carried immense force, the man was knocked to the floor.
"Stop." Another man’s voice echoed through the old castle.
At that, the armor holding the halberd stopped in its tracks. A glint of light flashed from within the helmet looking down at the fallen man.
"That was impressive control, Hector Moore. And teaching assistant, how did it feel being on the receiving end?"
The man on the floor threw off his helmet, laughing while dripping with sweat. "I didn’t notice a thing."
A mana screen was illuminating the teaching assistant as he spoke. This entire scene was being broadcasted in a monitor room on the top floor of the old castle. Aaron and the other teaching assistants were huddled together, filling out evaluation forms.
Aaron nodded and brought a crystal ball to his mouth. "Good work. Hector Moore gets an A+, Pierre Buckley gets an A."
Up on the top floor of the old castle, Hector slammed his fist down in triumph, roaring like a beast. His group member, Pierre Buckley, also let out a cheer, and other faction students swarmed in to share the joy.
"They’re absolutely loving it," the armor-clad teaching assistant noted, letting out a relieved laugh.
Just then, Aaron’s voice came through the broadcast. "Teaching assistant, move to the next floor."
"E-Excuse me? Can’t I take a little break?"
"The next group is waiting for their evaluation. Hurry up."
The teaching assistant groaned, trudging away with his shoulders slumped.
In truth, this entire process was the performance evaluation for the armor undead, ’Dead Armor’.
The process was as follows:
The students who caught Shelterics at the lake with Grelion returned to Roc Island. Afterward, they crafted their Dead Armors in the practice room. The principle wasn’t difficult. They just had to extract the pitch-black substance from inside the clam monster’s shell, turn it into an undead, place it inside a suit of armor, and link it with the runic language drawn on the armor beforehand.
Shelterics had a nature of hiding and operating within sturdy objects like shells. Putting them into armor to make them move was the foundation of the famous Dead Armor. The living, moving armor frequently featured in various novels and media was exactly this creation.
Afterward, the students who completed their Dead Armors moved to the performance evaluation site. They were evaluated by Aaron and the teaching assistants on the set. The evaluation criteria were the stealth to avoid being detected as an undead armor, smooth motor skills, and an effective surprise attack.
"Please hurry up!"
In the workshop, Simon and Group 10 were also preparing. Teaching assistants walked around, observing the students’ work. Simon had already made four Dead Armors in advance and was happily agonizing over which one to use for the evaluation. Since each used different weapons and armaments, he was debating which one would be best for tricking the teaching assistant.
"Simon, could you take a look at my Dead Armor too?" Lorraine asked as she approached.
Simon readily agreed and turned around.
However, seeing the Dead Armor standing next to her, Simon broke out in a cold sweat.
"Wait, hold on a second."
It seemed something had gone terribly wrong from the very start.

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