Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Damned Regression (2)

“A curse......”

Wariness entered Lloyd’s eyes as he stood behind the skeletons.

Naturally. 

No matter how talented he was, this technique was enough to put him on edge.

It was almost laughable for me to say it myself, but most curse-type black magic was not very practical in direct combat situations like this, where both sides were facing each other head-on.

Broadly speaking, there were only two orthodox ways to place a curse on an opponent.

Either perform a curse ritual directed at them from a place such as an altar.

Or prepare a curse formula in advance and lure the target to that location.

To be honest, every method took far too much preparation.

But— ‘If you hit their body directly with an object imbued with a curse, that changes everything.’

And the ones who proved the combat practicality of curse-type black magic were House Bayonel.

I, too, was one of House Bayonel.

Which meant I had long since mastered the curse application methods developed by the Bayonel family.

A normal weapon could not contain a curse.

But a weapon made from the caster’s mana was a different matter.

Like the shadow daggers in my hands right now.

The violet aura saturating the daggers trembled violently.

Vrrrrrr......

‘Curse Enchant.’

A special mana-control technique that infused a shadow weapon with a curse.

I poured the curse into the blade of the shadow daggers.

Curse Enchant.

Durability Curse.

Holding the two daggers in both hands with precarious precision, I drew both arms behind my back.

Just like before, I aimed for the skeletons’ foreheads.

Ping!

The thrown dagger pierced straight through the forehead of the nearest skeleton.

The curse infused into the blade seeped into the skeleton’s skull, and from the embedded dagger, violet cracks spread through every joint of bone.

“Tch.”

At a gesture from Lloyd, the skeletons’ movements changed.

The skeletons, which had been charging at me in a straight line, abruptly scattered to both sides.

Those were nimble movements no ordinary skeleton could ever perform.

“What do you think, Aron? Even you cannot possibly curse every last one of them.”

Lloyd smiled smugly.

He was issuing precise orders to each of the twenty skeletons one by one.

I spread both hands again to summon more shadow daggers.

At present, only two skeletons had been cursed.

‘That leaves eighteen.’

Shadow Forging.

Shadow Daggers, Six Consecutive Forgings.

Shrrrk.

Left hand and right hand.

Three daggers appeared in each, each one carrying a curse.

If it were up to me, I would have thrown even more, but the strength in my arms was still unreliable.

For now, six at a time was the best I could do.

My arms crossed and traced smooth arcs through the air.

Thud-thud-thud!

The six daggers shot from my hands at the same time and punched straight through the foreheads of six skeletons.

“What?”

Lloyd’s eyes widened as if he had just witnessed something impossible. 

He clearly had not expected me to hit six daggers at once.

That was understandable.

Ten years ago, I had not been able to control shadow daggers this freely.

But ten years was a long time.

‘Twelve.’

Shadow Forging.

Shadow Daggers, Six Consecutive Forgings.

Ping-ping-ping!

Did he have any idea how many times I had thrown daggers infused with curses over the past ten years?

‘Six.’

Shadow Forging.

Shadow Daggers, Six Consecutive Forgings.

Even if my physical ability was pitiful enough to make me sigh, the sensation I had once possessed for handling shadow weapons had not disappeared.

The motions of throwing shadow daggers were so familiar they almost felt nostalgic.

Thud-thud-thud!

After landing precise hits on the final six skeletons, I glared at Lloyd.

Lloyd’s shoulders twitched.

“Since when did you learn weapon techniques like that......?”

“That is none of your concern.”

Shadow Forging.

Shadow Spear, Single Forging.

Gripping a long shadow spear over two meters in length with both hands, I lowered my stance.

Rumble!

Even with the daggers lodged in them, the skeletons’ advance did not stop.

But that was fine. 

The curse had already taken firm hold of them.

Durability Curse.

Durability Curse.

A curse-type black magic that lowered the defense of whatever it afflicted.

And the bones of skeletons were no exception.

Whoosh!

I thrust the spear forward toward the crowd of skeletons, then swept it sideways.

Then I caught the midpoint of the shaft with both hands and spun it.

Craaaash!

Even though I had not swung all that hard, the bones of the skeletons struck by the spear cracked and crumbled apart.

Every time I swung the spear, three or four skeletons were split in half and dropped to the ground.

Before long, all that remained at my feet were fragments of bone that had stopped moving.

“You said it yourself a moment ago, didn’t you? That even I could not possibly curse every one of them.”

Crunch!

I ground the bone fragments strewn across the ground beneath my foot.

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

“Ghk!”

Grinding his teeth, Lloyd clapped both palms together and prepared his next black magic.

A complex spell formula spread across the sparring arena from his hands, and the ground shook.

Boom!

A massive arm burst up from the earth in a storm of dust.

As the dust cleared, an enormous figure revealed itself before my eyes.

Grrrrrr.........

A giant with green skin, sharp teeth, and thickly packed muscle.

At the appearance of a monster easily taller than four grown men stacked together, the cadets around the sparring arena gasped along with the instructors.

“An orc?”

“He can already summon even a mid-rank undead?”

“Since when did he reach that level?”

My eyes narrowed as well.

‘Wow... I had my suspicions, but he is really bringing that out here?’

It was no ordinary orc.

The skin that should have been tough and solid was not merely dull—it was rotting, with bones exposed in places.

And on top of that, there was the sharp stench of a decaying corpse.

‘An Undead Orc.’

That was Lloyd’s hidden trump card.

But back when we were at Necropia, Lloyd had never once brought out that Undead Orc.

He had been strong enough to keep first place here without needing it.

‘So why is he bringing it out now?’

The skeletons were one thing, but that bastard was dangerous.

If that frail teenage body of mine took even one good hit from that orc, my bones would shatter on the spot.

Lloyd had to know that.

Yet here he was, summoning even that in the sparring arena at Necropia.

‘...This is strange.’

The fact that so many instructors and cadets had gathered here was suspicious in itself.

This match clearly was not an ordinary spar.

‘I did not want to use these yet.’

There were too many people watching, so I had hesitated, but if I wanted to deal with that orc zombie, I had no choice.

I opened one palm and raised my mana.

Back when I had been a cadet, I could use only curse-type black magic.

But now, after mastering every kind of black magic and regressing?

‘There is no need to even say it.’

With the mana I released, I wove a spell formula.

The very same black magic Lloyd had just used.

‘Come out.’

Leaving behind the faces of cadets, instructors, and Lloyd himself as they all held their breath— I bent one knee and pressed my left palm to the ground.

‘Skeletons.’

Rumble......!

Dust rose around me.

***

“What... is this......?”

Lloyd could not understand the scene unfolding before his eyes.

“What happened?”

Roughly twenty skeletons stood in front of Aron, blocking the Undead Orc.

It did not take him long to figure out who those skeletons belonged to.

Aron Bayonel.

He was the one who had summoned them.

“How can you use summoning-type black magic......?”

Not only the students watching their spar, but even the instructors had stopped merely murmuring and were now sucking in sharp breaths.

“Was Cadet Aron not only capable of using curse-type black magic?”

“Th-that is correct. But no matter how one looks at it, that is summoning-type black magic......”

“Then are you saying he has already reached Double Class at that age?”

The rough-looking man—the instructor overseeing Lloyd and Aron’s spar, and the person in charge of the graduation matches—swallowed a groan.

Double Class.

A term used for someone capable of wielding two branches out of the many into which magic was divided.

The concept itself was simple, but reaching that level was anything but easy.

Each branch used entirely different spell formulas.

‘At the very least, age twenty.’

That was the age at which a person of ordinary talent might finally come to understand and use the spell formulas of two different branches.

He had heard that the more prodigious one’s talent, the more that period could be shortened, but—‘Setting aside his ability with weapons, how did he come to wield summoning magic on top of curse magic?’

It was not the kind of thing one could master in a short period of time.

Could it be—‘Was he hiding his hand all this time for the sake of this graduation spar?’

This was no ordinary match.

It was the graduation spar of Necropia’s soon-to-graduate cadets, one that even active black mages watched with interest.

Had he really been preparing all this time for this very moment, when the eyes of everyone would be fixed on him?

‘The idea itself is arrogant, but his talent is certainly real.’

To think Necropia had such a monster among its ranks.

Even so, that alone was not enough for Cadet Aron to win.

At a motion from Aron’s hand, every skeleton charged toward the orc.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Undead Orc also thundered toward Aron under Lloyd’s command, its heavy footsteps shaking the ground.

The orc and the horde of skeletons collided at the center of the arena, scattering tremors in all directions.

‘No matter how many there are, skeletons are still only skeletons.’

In every physical respect—strength, size, and all the rest—they were inferior to an orc.

Crack!

Just look at it now.

Every time the orc swung one of its arms, the bones of more than three skeletons shattered apart and scattered through the air.

At this rate, the skeletons would fail to land any meaningful blow on the Undead Orc, and the orc would simply break through and deliver a fatal strike to Aron.

‘Still, it was a respectable showing.’

The rough-looking instructor turned his eyes to Aron.

Would he raise both hands and surrender? 

Or would he fight to the bitter end?

That was what the instructor wondered as he looked at Aron’s face.

But— ‘...What?’

The instructor could not help but raise his brows.

Aron’s eyes were far too calm.

He did not look like someone who had given up at all.

Shhk.

Aron drew the shadow spear back behind him.

Violet light shimmered at the spearhead.

‘Is he planning to curse the orc with that spear?’

What an idiotic idea.

No matter that it was an Undead Orc—it was still an orc.

A creature of that size would never fall from being struck once by a single spear, and even if a curse landed, it would take considerable time to fully spread through its body.

‘And yet there is no way a descendant of one of the four great families—especially House Bayonel, which specializes in curses—would not know that.’

The skeletons were being swept aside one after another by the orc, yet not the slightest agitation showed on Aron’s face.

At a glance, he even looked relaxed.

Almost as if he were intentionally taking it easy on him......

And just as that thought crossed the instructor’s mind— “...Hoo.”

A short breath escaped Aron, and a violet haze began to rise like steam from his right arm.

“......!”

The rough-looking instructor’s eyes flew wide open, and he sucked in a breath.

He was not the only one startled.

“No way.”

“Th-that is......!”

Several instructors who should have remained seated and focused on judging the match sprang to their feet.

This time, even the rough-looking instructor had no choice but to part his lips in shock.

The violet haze coiling around Aron’s right arm.

Among the black magic capable of creating that phenomenon, there was only one representative branch.

“Demonic Armament Type?”

Aron Bayonel.

A moment ago, he had cast two branches of black magic—curse and summoning.

And if that black magic truly was Demonic Armament Type— Then did that not mean he could wield three branches of black magic at his age?

“...Not Double Class, but Triple Class?”

Only then did the rough-looking instructor understand Aron’s behavior.

He had seemed as though he were taking it easy on Lloyd?

No. 

That was not what it was.

He had deliberately taken his time so that, before the eyes of all who were watching, he could carve the reality of his overwhelming talent into their minds.

“Heh heh heh......”

The rough-looking instructor laughed under his breath.

He had talent?

That could not be explained by talent alone.

A monster.

A monster had begun to bare its fangs.

Vrrrrrr......

The violet haze winding around Aron’s right arm grew darker still.