Chapter Chapter 31: RATH 31 TL: Eevee (1/2)

RATH 31

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 Wi**pedia 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.