TL: Eevee
5. Welcome to the summoners’ school.
If you were to ask who was the greatest superpower on the continent, everyone would say it would be the Karuan Empire.
After the great war, all of Karuan’s associate nations, kingdoms, alliances all vanished, and having two duchies that each had the military might of a kingdom on their own, the Karuan Empire was the world’s undeniable sole superpower.
And near the capital of that empire, there are four academies steeped in history and tradition that were responsible for the Empire’s future.
The swordsmanship school Arucia, which was currently rated as the greatest.
When you took into account that among the empire’s knights, over half, meaning a majority of their members were products of this school, it meant that this school was a place where countless prodigies of famous martial families gathered.
Let alone the empire, in the entire continent, there was a saying among those who dreamed of the becoming the strongest sword, namely ‘Arucia or the Keshar family, pick one,’ showing just how much of a holy land for swordsmen this school was. In addition, both of the empire’s current archdukes were Arucia alumni, and so the academy boasted even greater fame.
And chasing closely behind after Arucia’s title of the greatest academy was the school of magic, Marcis.
It’s difference between the other academies was that even more than their officially hired teachers, there were even more teachers that had been dispatched from the Magic Towers.
Having long surpassed a simple student-teacher relationship, from students that had been taught by the same teachers since their days learning at the Magic Towers, and even some senior/junior relationships existed. It was a place where the empire and the Magic Towers engaged in all sorts of contests and guiles to secure the best sorcerers, magicians and sages after graduation.
The third was the gateway for commoners, Mercaria.
As a place that mass-produced the empire’s office workers, the cheaper tuition fees compared to the other schools, and the fact that a job was guaranteed one way or another as long as you graduated meant that countless commoners applied to enter every year. If they had a weakness, it was that they were always last in sports and culture festivals.
But as their graduates became giants of the empire and made their presence known, their current position was still a lot better than it was in the past.
And finally, Yugrasia.
At one point, it used to be a the summoners’ school that competed with Arucia and Marcis for the place of the greatest of the Four Great Academies, but was currently unable to stand up against even Mercaria, pushing it to the position of the worst of the Four Great Academies. It was a very strange school that had similarities to Arucia, and also to Marcis depending on the summon.
There was only one reason for that.
The sheer diversity of summons.
The diversity and range of summons are very wide indeed. Starting from spirits and divine beasts, to weapons and armour, angels and demons, and finally even the gods of other worlds!
But summoning is an art that forms a contract with beings from another dimension and hence putting restrictions on their power, and so often what you see is the summoned being used as a support.
Especially the weapon and armour-type summons, blanket-termed the equipment-types, their summoners could use weapons and armour suited for any given situation and hence were used frequently by the army, but on the contrary, that meant that they were summons that had no use aside from providing weapons and armour.
Meaning, these were summons where the user’s physical specs needed to be outstanding to be useful!
Summoners that contract these types of summons are better off enrolling into Arucia and honing their martial arts skills and learning the uses of weapons, since they had nothing to gain from enrolling in Yugrasia, the majority of equipment-type summoners went to Arucia.
And of course, similarly for summoners whose summons had high fighting power.
If the summon’s abilities are outstanding then it’s better to go to Marcis to learn magic to support the summon.
Because of that, the majority of those with strong abilities as summoners are, either strong knights that are summoners, or strong magicians with a summoned beast!
It’s not like that there are no strong people as summoners in their own right, but those are limited to those who could turn the tides of war personally, those who made contracts with either gods or mythology-class devils, and opportunities to make contracts with them were nothing short of a miracle.
Because of that, all the good talents are headed to other schools, and only the trash and leftovers are left in Yugrasia. Now, what would happen then?
I didn’t hear that this school was in danger of closing.
I’m sorry.
-Owner owner. Just what star were you born under? Closing as soon as you get here? To think that your workplace wuz shutting down the moment you got here!
-Shut it.
I felt guilty that the old man that looked at least 20 years older than me was bowing his head towards me.
Of course mentally I’m much older than he is, but that’s irrelevant in a fantasy world.
If you look older then done! You’re older!
You brought your frail body and came to our academy, we’re truly sorry that we had to bring you this news the moment you arrived.
-… Owner sick?
-It’s a concept.
-Hul(1) concept? Owner’s running a weak and sick character concept? If a middle aged man like owner uses the weak infirm character concept… it’s fresh?
Nicerwin Ain.
He was a legendary figure known as a renowned scholar and even an honorary professor title from the continent’s Summoner Association, but due to his inherent weak body he spent most of his time in the elven forests.
-And that’s owner?
-Exactly!
What’s there to hide, that is also another of my aliases!
To be honest before I joined an evil organization, if I’d lived with this I could have lived a pretty retirement, but the knowledge I had from when I was young was limited.
Who knew that the basic information on mythologies that anyone could look up on Wipedia in my previous world was actually top quality information!
In the art of summoning, it is important that the summoner knows about their summon.
For example, if you were to light a fire while trying to make a contract with Poseidon, or held the ritual in a pitch-black room while contracting a god of light, would the summon bother to appear?
But I know the majority of what summons like or dislike!
Amazingly enough, many of this world’s summons are monsters and heroes, gods and demons from my previous life’s mythologies!
Thanks to that, I just applied a bit of common sense and what I remembered reading in novels, and oh my.
I became a legendary summoner scholar!
And how much did I despair after getting the title of honorary professor!
If I’d been born as a child of a slightly well-off family with all this information, I’d currently be living it up in the Summoner’s Association!
-The organization’s dead. Then can’t you live like that now?
-A person that highly recognized by the association would definitely get called up by the imperial palace at least once.
-Isn’t it the same now?
-It’s a rule of thumb that lecturers always stay in the academy barring exceptional circumstances.
And that is the biggest reason why I decided on Plan ‘Darkest Under the Lantern.’
The princess is the highest priority protection target in the imperial family.
Thanks to that, the great war was the first and last time that she left the capital.
No, even before that, there were practically no occasions where she even left the imperial palace.
And the palace itself was bloody big too.
-Won’t they call for you in the holidays?
-In the holidays I can just claim I need to go back to the elves’ forest because of my illness.
-We really gonna to the elves’ forest? I sewiously wanna see some elves! I heard there were lotsa beauties there!
-There’s also a lot of crazy ones too!
-Hakhak owner’s crazy kids are always pretty! I wanna go even more!
No seriously, the only elves I know, would be the erofus(2) you might see on Himi(3) that you’d want to tell them to watch out for orcs, or for someone that’s supposedly the guardian of the woods, a crazy High Elf that when I asked if they had any leftover branches of the World Tree in storage, without any hesitation whatsoever she immediately cut off a fresh branch of the divine tree, the World Tree, and sent it by fast mail.
So this is the current state of the academy.
It is.
As the dean that looked like a thinner Dumedore wiped his eyes after he finished talking, he looked to me expectantly.
And because of that, even if we had to permit Professor Nicerwin’s conditions, we decided to change the academy.
It must have been a hard decision.
Well, although I wasn’t listening to it properly, I got the general gist of it.
Summoning was a process where the summoner and the summon communed with each other to bring each other to greater heights.
But, if you’re strong then everything’s OK!
If you’re like me who spent their entire life honing their swordplay, and struggled to deal with a single person with sword ki and crap skills, or even if you studied your ass off about summoning while your own summoning skills were substandard due to poor talent, if the summoner him or herself could just beat the crap out of the enemy summon and the summoner, that renders a pure summoner useless.
Meaning, using yourself as the main force, while using the summon as a support.
And if using your own strength rather than a summon was the faster way to get stronger, of course young kids these days would train yourself rather than a summon.
And the results naturally showed themselves in the empire’s festival.
Our equipment summoners were beaten by Arucia in close combat. The summoners who used elementals or spirits were beaten by Marcis’ students. And since many high-ranking nobles have a significant number of summoned spirits…
The dean tailed off, unable to say any more.
Well, I get the gist of it. Yugrasia is a summoner’s school.
And because of that, you learn about summons, and you learn about the use and emotions of the summon.
And for this to show an effect, unless you’re a genius like the imperial princess or a few of my disciples, this takes a very long time.
To begin with, considering the majority of summons are at least a few hundred, average a few thousand years old, there’s no way that communication between them and a bunch of brats who haven’t even lived half their lives would ever be simple.
And because of that in situations like the empire’s festival which focuses on live combat, it makes sense that kids that have been learning about summoning would have no chance against kids who learn magic and swordsmanship on a daily basis
And on top of that, if the enemy also uses a summon as well?
Even if they have nothing to do with summoning at all, if you bring out a summon and beat the crap out of the opponent with a sword, then the winner looks like the better summoner.
And the parents that watched the empire’s festival would obviously send their children to a place other than Yugrasia even if their child is competent at summoning.
Even I wouldn’t send my kids to Yugrasia.
These morons with no sense of business morals.
Is there no way to prevent this?
It can’t be helped. If you’re talking about high-ranking nobles, then no matter how low-tier the summon is, they see making a contract with a summon almost as a tradition, and it’s not like we do not teach magic or swordsmanship either.
Normally, summons protect their contracted master until their death.
Because of that, there are many cases where children make contracts with low-ranking spirits for self-defense.
On top of that, although our main fighting force is summoning, it’s impossible to win without using magic or swordsmanship.
-Then wat nao? I don’t wanna get screwed the moment we’re free!
I too, have no wish to have to wonder where to go because my destination shut down the moment I arrived.
Is there no support from the Summoner’s Association?
Since the relationship between the Summoner’s Association and the Magic Tower is a long one, they are more closely aligned with Marcis than us.
So there’s nothing.
I’m sorry.
-Owner, he’s still an old man! Don’t make him bow down so much! If I knew my owner was a bad boy… Huh? Bad boy? Mm? something bout that sounds pretty good.
-Could you please shut up for a minute? You talk an awful amount. Does that mouth of yours ever get tired?
While reciting the lyrics from one of the songs I heard a lot word for word, I summed up the current situation.
If the school cannot produce results at the next empire festival, it could close down and be replaced by another school.
Including last year, for the last ten years they were always third in the empire festival, fourth in the cultural festival.
While the current student council around the current student council president were splendid talents, there were no successors for them.
And at this rate, prodigies and talents will never come to Yugrasia, and then to not fall into ruin this situation needs to be changed.
-Is there a way?
-Yes, there is.
-Wiin? Whazzit? What do you have to do to revive this school that’s got flies buzzing around it?
-We need to bring in hell.
-Hell? Are you summoning another devil?
Devil? Well, even though devils are strong, what Yugrasia needs right now are summoners.
More accurately, the students’ desparation. And even among hells, there is a hell that drives people to the brink.
-I will bring to this place, the entrance exam hell.
This world’s brats spend more time playing even though they’re students.
Of course they would have been brought up with strict household tuition from an early age.
But, even still!
Their school life is way too easy!
And to these brats who have had a comfortable, easy school life all this time, it is time to show them the majesty of Hell Joseon.(4)
