Chapter 445: Episode 445

The emitter split clean in half under Arthur’s blade.

“We did it! We did it, Simon!” Arthur shouted, his face alight with a triumphant grin, but Simon’s expression remained grim.

“Arthur.”

“Yes?”

“Something’s wrong with the emitter.”

’Crack! Crack!’

As the device split apart, the unstable red core at its center began to pulse violently, unleashing a malevolent crimson wave.

Simon felt the hairs on his skin stand on end. The wave was so potent that even a human, not just a Naga, could feel its oppressive energy.

Its life force seemingly spent, the emitter finally powered down, spewing clouds of acrid smoke. The red core, its light extinguished, shattered into a thousand pieces.

’What just happened?’ Simon wondered, his eyes darting around. With the wave-generating device destroyed, the Nagas should have lost their command structure and fallen into disarray.

Instead, they began to rampage with even greater ferocity. Nagas from the far distance now swarmed toward Simon and Arthur, their eyes burning with mindless aggression.

“Wh-what’s going on? We definitely destroyed the emitter!” Arthur yelled, cutting down another Naga.

“I don’t know either!” Simon shot back, kicking a lunging monster away.

Had there been some kind of failsafe? He didn’t know the exact cause, but one thing was certain: the moment the emitter was destroyed, it had released a wave of power so immense that even he could feel it.

“Simon! What do we do now—whoa!”

’Whoooosh!’

Arthur dove to the ground just as a massive scythe blade sliced through a few strands of his red hair. It was an attack from the Chaos Reaper Simon had summoned.

“’Ugh!’ What are you doing, Simon?!”

“Sorry! It’s not my fault!”

The Chaos reserves in the magic circle were nearly gone, and the now-berserk Reaper had started attacking its own allies.

“Just stay down!” Simon grunted, struggling to maintain control of the magic circle.

In a way, the timing was perfect. While dodging his own summon’s frenzied attacks, Simon manipulated the Chaos magic circle at his waist.

’Dispel!’

The Chaos Reaper’s summoning was canceled, and its form melted away, transforming into hundreds of chaotic tendrils that shot skyward. It was a wide-area bombardment spell that could only be used by sacrificing the Reaper itself.

’Simon Original – Chaos Rampage’

“Arthur! Let’s get out of here and figure this out later,” Simon said, grabbing the back of Arthur’s neck and breaking into a dead run.

“Wha—? Aaaah!”

A storm of violet slashes rained down, furiously bombarding the area. The Nagas were torn to shreds, and a startled Arthur yelped in alarm.

’Internal Jet-Black Eruption!’

Droplets of pure Jet-Black fell from Simon’s body, shielding them. With his back to the ravaged battlefield, Simon calmly made his escape.

—

At that same moment, in the Deimos Museum.

“Dammit, what now?” Malcolm muttered.

Having freed himself by dissolving his ropes with hemo-venom, he was staring out of the museum. He’d told Simon where the emitter was, so he had no doubt the kid had destroyed it. But now, an even stronger wave of energy was spreading past Parona and far out to sea.

“Don’t tell me…”

“Your suspicion is correct, Young Master.”

Malcolm spun around, startled. A man in a tailored black suit was bowing his head.

“…Did my father send you?”

“Yes.”

A cold sweat trickled down the back of Malcolm’s neck. ’How much did this bastard see?’

“My father entrusted this mission to me alone.”

“That is correct. I am not to interfere. I am merely an observer,” the man said, lifting his head to meet Malcolm’s gaze. “And this particular emitter was specially designed to sacrifice its core and release a wave of immense range the instant its barrier was damaged.”

“…What?”

“The Boss anticipated your soft-heartedness.”

It meant Margel had seen right through him—had known Malcolm would leak the information to a third party to have the emitter destroyed rather than retrieve it himself.

“This is the Boss’s final message to you, Young Master.” The man’s eyes glinted like steel. “If you want your mother to live, cease your foolish tricks, retrieve the item, and return.”

’Grit!’

Malcolm bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. His fist, veins bulging, trembled with suppressed rage.

“Now then, I trust you will complete your mission.”

With those parting words, the man vanished through the door.

’Dammit!’

His father could have just retrieved the item himself. The fact that he had left it to Malcolm meant only one thing: this was a test.

’Dammit!!’

He gritted his teeth and raised his head. His eyes fell upon the very thing Margel had ordered him to bring back: the skull of Deimos.

—

The Parona Peninsula’s response was swift. They had been prepared for an attack by the Randolph Gang, and their evacuation protocols were executed flawlessly. Residents and tourists were urgently moved inside the domain’s walled castle. The walls and gates were ancient, but the necromancers hired by the Lord of Parona had reinforced them with powerful barriers.

Still, it would be dangerous if the Nagas focused all their attention on the castle, so most of the necromancers ventured out to battle the monsters directly while conducting rescue operations. Given the scale of the disaster, it was nothing short of a miracle that casualties remained so low.

Inside the Parona Lord’s Castle.

“We sincerely thank you for your assistance, everyone from Kizen!” a necromancer from the Parona Peninsula exclaimed, bowing deeply. “If not for you, this would have been a terrible catastrophe.”

Meirin and Kamibarez, now in their fresh Kizen uniforms, accepted the gratitude with smiles. The necromancer’s gaze fell on the red badges pinned to the collars of their shirts.

“Would you perhaps like to take command? You could lead Parona’s necromancers directly…”

Meirin held up a hand. “No, no! There’s no need for that. Honestly, we haven’t even had our opening ceremony, so we aren’t officially second-years yet.”

Kamibarez clenched her small fists. “More importantly, please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help!”

“You would? Thank you so much! The necromancers are holding back the Nagas at the beach, but we’re severely short on manpower. Your help would be immense!”

Meirin turned to her friend. “Kami, you can still fight, right?”

“Yes!”

“Then let’s head out immediately. We have to show them what the Kizen Student Council is made of!”

Meirin felt a desperate need to resolve this crisis perfectly. In a way, their luck was abysmal. For a disaster of this magnitude to strike their vacation spot just as the new student council was about to launch was a cruel twist of fate. If the president and his officers, who were present at the scene, failed to contain this, public opinion at school would plummet.

In the worst-case scenario, the 330th student council, with Simon at its head, might be dissolved before it could even truly begin.

’I have to prevent that at all costs!’

The student council was a precious opportunity to stay with the members of Group 7. And besides, she desperately wanted to flaunt her new position as Kizen’s ‘Number Two’—right by Simon’s side—in Serne’s face. She could already imagine the look of shock and envy. The thought alone was thrilling.

’I will not lose the vice president position!’

“Meirin?” Kamibarez tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s nothing! Let’s go!”

The coast the necromancer had mentioned was less than ten minutes from the castle. As the two of them were walking, they spotted a pair of boys heading toward them.

“Meirin! Kami!”

It was Simon and Arthur.

“Simon—!” Kamibarez beamed, waving enthusiastically.

Meirin smiled, a wave of relief washing over her. “Hey! What took you so long?!”

“Sorry,” Simon said, panting as he came to a stop.

Kamibarez’s gaze shifted to the boy beside him. “Um, who is this?”

“My name is Arthur Bleman! I was hired by Parona to help fight!”

“He says he’s the Mercenary King,” Simon added.

The two girls’ eyes widened.

“What a load of crap,” Meirin scoffed, her eyes narrowing. “The current Mercenary King is Rhiotamus Bleman! Who are you to impersonate him? You’re suspicious.”

Arthur’s face fell. “H-He’s my grandfather! I’m the Mercenary King now! It’s true! Please believe me!” Tears welled in his eyes again, his pride clearly wounded by the accusation.

“I fought with him,” Simon interjected. “He doesn’t seem like a bad person. More importantly, let’s go over what happened.”

Simon explained everything, from his encounter with Malcolm to the destruction of the emitter. As she listened, Meirin ran a hand through her hair, her anger mounting.

“’Ugh!’ I’m so mad! So that doppelgänger bastard is the one who put my vice presidency in jeopardy?”

“Huh?”

“Ah, nothing! So, Malcolm is the cause of this whole mess?”

“Malcolm is just a pawn,” Simon clarified. “If you want to point fingers, the real culprits are the Randolph Gang and their boss.”

The sound of trampled grass came from behind them. Arthur instantly reached for his sword, but two arms shot up from the bushes as a playful voice called out.

“Friendly! Friendly!”

The group’s faces brightened. Seeing their reaction, Arthur relaxed his grip on his sword.

“I thought I heard Simon’s voice. So you were all here?”

It was Dick, his uniform caked in dirt from what must have been a fierce battle.

“Commoner! Where have you been?” Meirin demanded.

“Gathering intel, of course.”

Dick gave them a quick rundown of the current situation, and Simon, in turn, explained about the emitter.

“Alright, let me summarize,” Dick said, sitting down and unfurling a map of the Parona Peninsula. The other four gathered around him.

“This is the Parona Peninsula.” He pointed to the landmass jutting out from the continent, surrounded by sea on three sides and blocked by a high mountain range to the north. “The Lord’s Castle is right about here.”

It was situated at the peninsula’s southernmost tip, with nothing but the sea and, further south, Parona Island beyond it.

“Originally, the Nagas were attacking from all along the coast,” Dick explained. “But things changed when we destroyed the emitter.”

“How so?” Kamibarez asked.

“The Nagas from the south, the ones that lived on Parona Island and in its waters, started moving north.”

Parona Island was a monster-infested territory forbidden to civilians. The emitter’s destruction had unleashed a wave so powerful it had agitated the creatures there as well.

“So now, the Nagas’ invasion route is this.”

Dick drew an arrow on the map, starting from Parona Island and pointing toward the peninsula. It crossed the sea and ended at the very beach where the necromancers were now fighting.

“I’ll tell you now, there are a filthy number of them,” he said, his voice grim. “I sent up an observer to scout. The entire sea is black with Nagas.”

The faces of the others hardened. Arthur began frantically tearing at his hair.

“I-Is this all because I destroyed the emitter…?!”

Dick shook his head. “Sooner or later, the island Nagas would have attacked anyway, Mercenary King.”

“So what do we do now?” Kamibarez asked, her voice trembling slightly.

“The only silver lining is that their path is predictable,” Dick said, tapping the arrow with his quill. “There are so many of them, they’re causing a traffic jam. You’d think they’d try to go around, but it’s like they’ve all gone mad. They’re only pushing forward.”

Simon, who had been listening intently, finally spoke. “The powerful wave from the emitter must be the cause. A movement command was seared into their brains.”

“Oh.” Dick nodded immediately. “That’s it! The monsters have become as mindless as the undead.”

“Then there’s only one thing we can do!” Kamibarez declared, pointing a determined finger at the beach on the map. “We have to stop them here!”

“That’s right, Kami,” Meirin agreed. The Nagas were most vulnerable the moment they left the water, as they needed time to adapt to the land. The plan was to strike them then.

“But there are too many,” Meirin countered, placing her fists on her hips. “You said the sea is black with them. We can hold them off for a while, but our Jet-Black will run out in four or five hours, tops.”

“Hmm…” Dick conceded.

Indeed, a simple defensive stand wasn’t a viable solution. Parona was too remote for reinforcements to arrive quickly, and they lacked the firepower to wipe out the entire swarm at sea.

They debated their options, even considering an evacuation through the mountains, but it was too unrealistic.

Meanwhile, Simon, who had been silent with his eyes closed, was exploring a completely different path in his mind.

“Guys.”

His eyes snapped open.

“There’s one way.”

“Huh?”

“You all remember, right? Tomorrow, the adult Deimos is supposed to pass through here with its legion of sea creatures.”

“Uh, yeah, of course we thought of that,” Dick said, using his quill to trace the sea route between the peninsula and the island. “If Deimos passes through here, its army will fight the Nagas, which helps us. But it won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon. It’s not going to speed up just for us.”

Arthur nodded grimly. “By tomorrow afternoon, all the Nagas will be on Parona’s soil! Deimos passing by then will be meaningless!”

The others were pessimistic, but Simon’s eyes were shining with a brilliant, audacious light.

“But that Deimos isn’t the only Deimos around, is it?”

With those cryptic words, Simon shot to his feet.

“Leave this to me! You all focus on defending the coast.”

“Hey, Simon! Where are you going?” Meirin called out as he suddenly broke into a run, abandoning their strategy meeting. She started to get up, but Dick stopped her.

“Let him be,” he said with a shrug. “Simon must have a plan.”

“Could it be…?” Kamibarez murmured hesitantly. “Simon has that baby Deimos summon, right?”

“Yeah, that thing. What about it?”

“He’s not planning to use his undead Deimos to fight the adult one and steal its forces… is he?”

Come to think of it, the museum guide had said that when two Deimos met, they would fight to absorb the other’s army.

Meirin and Dick burst out laughing.

“Aww, Kami. That’s a bit of a stretch.”

“Hahaha! Right. That’s insane. How could an undead possibly—”

Their laughter died in their throats as their eyes shot forward in alarm.

“GET BACK HERE, YOU CRAZY BASTARD!!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep