Necromancer Academy and the Genius Summoner-Chapter 417: Episode

’Whoooooooosh—!’

Simon and Lethe pushed onward, climbing the snowy mountain against the brutal, unrelenting cold.

’Wow, this is insane.’

The chill bit through his clothes, and the mucus from his runny nose froze solid on his face. His entire world was an endless, sloping expanse of white. Every step sank deep into the snow, making progress a grueling struggle. And then there were the mountain monsters. His stamina was plummeting.

Even Simon, a native of the mountainous Leshill region, had never endured a climb this perilous.

“Lethe! Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine!” her cheerful voice called back from a short distance.

The snow around her was littered with the corpses of monsters. At this rate, she seemed less the Saintess of the Stars and more the Saintess of Blood. Everywhere she walked, the snow was stained crimson, yet her own white robe and hair remained immaculately pure.

“They just don’t give up, do they?” she said, her cheeks flushed. She cupped her hands and blew warm air into them.

“Lethe, the cold is too severe to keep climbing today.” Simon finally voiced the thought that had been nagging at him. “How about we retreat for now and try again tomorrow?”

“Later when?” Her response was frosty. “This cold will last for months. Going back will only give us more excuses to delay. We have to do this today. We have to find Eskyl today or freeze to death trying.”

“...Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am.”

Simon was impressed. He had extensive experience with mountain climbing, which lessened his fatigue, but Lethe had spent her life on flatlands. This had to be ten times harder for her, yet she hadn’t uttered a single complaint, silently cutting down monsters as she climbed.

’Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!’

The sound of her holy arrows shattering monster skulls echoed in the wind.

“At least the fighting keeps me warm,” she said, approaching him after turning her surroundings into another sea of blood. She blew into her hands again. “The blessing to raise body temperature. Do you need another?”

Simon shook his head.

“It’s okay. I can do it myself now.”

“...What?”

Warmth. A blessing-type white magic that repelled the cold and maintained body temperature. Simon had carefully studied the structure of the magic circle Lethe had cast on him at the start of their climb, practicing it whenever he had a spare moment. And finally...

’Warmth.’

’Paaat!’

He had succeeded in casting the blessing on his own.

Lethe scoffed.

“So that’s the nonsense you’ve been up to...”

A necromancer using white magic. Even seeing it with her own eyes, she found it hard to believe. Was this man really a necromancer?

’—Then how about thinking of it this way? What if Simon isn’t a necromancer, but just a separate existence?’

She recalled the words of ‘Ellen’, the Efnel imposter she’d met on the Holy Train. ’A separate existence.’ It made a strange kind of sense. This man was certainly too...

“What are you thinking so hard about?” Simon’s question startled her, and she jumped back.

“Y-You surprised me! Don’t do that!”

Lethe growled, glaring at him before turning away with a huff.

“Your very existence is blasphemy.”

“...Suddenly?”

“Hold still.” She stepped forward and pulled open the front of his clothes. Simon blushed and flinched, but she held him firm with a warning look. “You said you cast Warmth. Are you warm?”

“...Uh, now that you mention it.”

He was cold. The blessing had weakened to a double stack, so he had cast another to maintain a triple stack, but it hadn’t felt much warmer.

“Use your eyes,” Lethe said, pointing to the magic circle on his chest. It was only double-stacked. His blessing was gone, leaving only hers.

“Why? I’m sure I cast it properly.”

“What runic language did you use?”

“Kenserium, right?”

“And the formula? Did you construct it using the White Code and Flat Note?”

“What are those?”

She sighed softly. “To stack blessings, you must cast one that interlocks perfectly with the existing one. Your curses are deliberately convoluted to make them hard to dispel, but blessings are different.”

She cupped her palms and placed them on his chest. Her hands were warm, likely from her own blessing. Closing her eyes, she began to chant in a low voice.

’Ah.’

The existing double-stacked Warmth vanished, replaced by a new, triple-stacked one.

“It’s an application of that method,” she explained, pulling her hands away with a bright smile. “Warm, right?”

Just as Simon was about to thank her, she spun around.

“I’ll teach you properly when we reach the village. La Escream.”

The name snapped Simon to attention.

“...R-Really?”

“You’ll get your reward from Sir Israphel for completing this mission, I know, but you’re still working for the Holy Federation. I can bestow at least that much mercy.” As she spoke, her expression suddenly soured. “Ah! And to be blunt, the La Escream you used at dawn was pathetic! I was embarrassed just watching you! If you’re going to use my original technique, at least do it right.”

At her abrupt shift in mood, Simon backed away with a nervous laugh.

“I’ll do better next time.”

“And don’t you dare go around telling people I created that white magic! It’s humiliating!” Lethe whipped her head around and stalked off.

’She’s nice one minute, angry the next. So unpredictable.’

More than anything, Simon was surprised she was willing to teach him white magic at all. He’d expected her to be far more guarded, viewing Kizen’s Special Admission No. 1 as a rival to keep at arm’s length.

“Hurry up! I’m freezing to death!”

“Ah, yeah! Coming!”

---

’Whoooooosh!’

Three more hours passed, and the bitter cold raged on.

’‘Still not giving up? Still not turning back?’’ It was as if the blizzard itself were taunting him. Simon, marveling at his newfound talent for communicating with nature, briefly wondered if he should have been a druid instead of a necromancer.

’Wow, more importantly, I’m actually going to freeze to death.’

He kept casting warmth blessings, but he was reaching the limits of his physical and mental stamina. The blinding snow made it impossible to see, and he had no idea if they were even heading in the right direction. It felt like they were just walking in circles.

’Rustle.’

Simon unfolded the rough map Israphel had given him, but it was useless. The blizzard was too thick to make out any of the landmarks.

“Lethe. That thing you said about freezing to death if we can’t find Eskyl... you still stand by that?”

“...Kuh!” Her face flushed, and she bit her lip before finally shrieking, “O-Of course! We’re going to find it, no matter what!”

Fuming, she began to search the area again.

“Don’t push yourself,” Simon said gently, before resuming his own search.

’Huh?’

He sensed a presence nearby.

Quietly drawing his sword, Simon moved forward.

A figure came into view. As he drew closer, he saw someone sitting in the snow, digging through it.

“Huh? What the—?”

The person spotted him first: a man in his early thirties, dressed in heavy furs.

“What the hell! You people! How did you get here?”

’A person!’

Simon’s face broke into a wide grin.

“A-Are you, by any chance, a resident of Eskyl Village?”

"We were—!"

"Are you out of your minds?" the man suddenly bellowed. "Climbing a mountain in a blizzard this fierce? What if the Snow Woman had gotten you?"

"The Snow Woman?" Simon echoed. He recalled hearing the legend back in Kula.

"Snow Woman, saint, whatever. We’re not dead yet, are we?" Lethe retorted as she approached. "You heard us. We’re here to be teachers for Eskyl. We’d appreciate it if you could guide us to the village."

"Right, right. Follow me!" The man took the lead, striding forward.

Simon sighed inaudibly, relieved they were finally safe.

"Huh?"

But the man...

"E-Excuse me?!"

He was moving incredibly fast, even in the deep snow. He strode on alone, not waiting for them, and the distance between them grew with every second.

To make matters worse, his figure flickered in and out of view in the raging blizzard. Just as Simon, his anxiety mounting, was about to break into a run, Lethe grabbed his shoulder.

"Hold on."

"What is it? We’re going to lose him!"

"Something’s not right," she murmured, her eyes narrowing. "His body... it was blurry."

"Don’t you think you just mistook it for the blizzard?" The words had barely left Simon’s lips when the ground beneath his feet gave way.

The world dropped out from under him with a sharp crack.

A dizzying rush of wind filled his ears. When he came to his senses, he was staring into an abyss. It was so deep he couldn’t see the bottom, and loose pebbles were already skittering down into the void.

"Ugh!" Lethe grimaced, her hand locked around Simon’s wrist. "See? I told you!" she snarled through gritted teeth, her arm straining. "I told you something was wrong!"

With a great heave, Simon’s vision flipped. He was flung in a wide arc, landing with a soft thud in a deep snowdrift.

"Hah... hah..." He stared in disbelief, his vision swimming.

And then he saw her.

There, in the snowfield of the blizzard-swept mountain, a woman in a white dress stood barefoot, her pupils as crimson as blood, staring right at them. She licked her lips, a flicker of disappointment in her eyes.

Goosebumps erupted across his arms, and every hair on his body stood on end. Simon scrambled to his feet to get a better look, but the woman had vanished, melting away with the swirling snow.

"Are you okay?" Lethe asked, rushing to his side.

"Lethe! Did you see her?"

"See what?"

"The woman in the white dress with red eyes!"

Lethe’s expression hardened. "I didn’t see anything. Are you sure ’you’re’ not the one seeing things because of the blizzard?"

Simon pressed a hand to his forehead. His head swam as he tried to process everything that had just happened. But there was no time to sit there stunned.

"Let’s go. This way."

"Are you sure? What if you’re just bewitched by another strange sight?"

"Then you can just save me again," he shot back.

"Hah, you live a charmed life, don’t you? Fine. Lead the way."

Simon led Lethe straight in the direction where the Snow Woman had been. After trudging through the blizzard for about twenty minutes, he spotted something.

"Ah!"

Two stone pagodas came into view.

"Found it! This is the village entrance from the map!"

A smile finally broke across Lethe’s face, and she held up her palm. "Not bad!"

’Slap!’

They shared a quick high-five and stood before the stone structures.

"Alright, how does this work?" Simon wondered aloud. Each pagoda had a small recess in its side, just large enough for a hand. Inside, two stones were stacked one on top of the other. Below them, a phrase was carved into the stone.

<People melt into people>

Simon stroked his chin, lost in thought, while Lethe peered into the recess with a frown. "I hate these kinds of puzzles."

Simon, on the other hand, was already moving. He measured the pagoda’s size with his eyes, examined the shape of the stones, and then reached in to touch them himself.

’Smooth. A peculiar material.’

As he handled the stones, the top one suddenly tumbled off. He tried to place it back, but it just slipped and fell again. No matter how many times he tried, the result was the same.

’How did they get this to stay on top? ...Ah!!’

His gaze fell upon the inscription once more, and an idea flashed through his mind.

"I get it now!"

"You solved it?"

"Yeah. It’s simple." Simon picked up the two stones from inside the pagoda. Seeing his confidence, Lethe followed his lead. "Pack snow around the stones, like you’re making a snowball."

After making two snowballs, he pressed them together to form a tiny snowman and placed it back in the empty recess.

"What’s this supposed to do?" Lethe asked, mimicking his actions with a doubtful expression.

Before long, however, something began to happen.

"It’s melting!"

A magical device embedded in the stone must have activated, as the snowman began to melt at an unbelievable speed. In less than a minute, all the snow was gone, and the two stones—the head and the body—were fused perfectly together, just as they had first found them.

A low hum filled the air, swelling into a deep thrum. A large magic circle materialized in the space between the two pagodas, revealing the shimmering entrance to a barrier.

"See?" Simon said confidently.

"Hmph, well done," Lethe conceded. "I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes." She strode forward and stuck her hand into the barrier.

Simon flinched. "Aren’t you being a little careless?"

"What is there to be afraid of? I am a Saintess of the Stars." She swirled her hand inside the shimmering portal, then pulled it out. A moment later, she boldly stuck her face in and pulled it back out. "It’s safe. Let’s go."

Together, they plunged through the barrier.

And then...

They could only gape at the paradise that unfolded before their eyes.