Chapter 2: The Uncultured are Scary
The Babylon Academy of Magic and Force owned the most land in Lancelot Empire, and held the highest reputation within the empire. It was also one of the most important training institutions for the empire’s mages and knights.
The academy was further divided into several departments, which consisted of light, dark, fire, water, wind, earth, thunder, summoning, and space. Each department had its own independent classroom building, library, laboratory, training field, and living district as if they were small cities.
Bryan was an errand slave for the necromancy major, which was a subcategory of the department of dark magic. Because necromancy majors had to work with skeletons, zombies, and the like, as well as the fact that this major had fallen off the radar for many years, it was not only the most unpopular major, but also the weakest. Even other department of dark magic students scoffed at the necromancy majors and didn’t deign to form teams with necromancy students.
Bryan had belonged to the weakest and most despised major in his six years of running errands for the academy. Adding onto that, his special tasks of transporting corpses and skeletons… he had been subjected to no end of eye rolls and cold shoulders. Every day was a living hell for him.
Han Shuo followed Bryan’s memories and arrived at a small path in the mountains located at the back of the academy. He entered through a small gate reserved especially for errand slaves returning in the dead of night.
Other students had long since gone to sleep, because it was midnight. Since Han Shuo was taking a secluded path, he didn’t meet anyone on his way back. He observed his surroundings along the way and noted that the architectural style of Babylon Academy was similar to some of the western European countries back on Earth.
He finally made his way back to the necromancy major’s designated area with some effort. Bryan lived in a warehouse, a place befitting his position.
The warehouse was filled with random items, with the majority being discarded crap or ingredients left over from experiments.
Most of these items awaited Bryan’s organization and disposal. Necromancy students would often toss their unwanteds in through the warehouse window for Bryan to take care of.
The warehouse was not very big to begin with. Excluding all the random crap, the only other thing present was a small wooden bed. Even this bed would sometimes covered by a mountain of trash, as the students never paid attention to where they chucked their unwanted items.
The first thing Bryan did whenever he finished his work late at the night was to clean up the trash that was on his bed. He would have to dispose of them before anyone woke up the next morning and then turned his attention to the others.
When Han Shuo took in his quarters, which resembled more of a garbage dump than anything, his eyes misted up and he felt deep pangs of sympathy for the unfortunate youth. How could he have survived those six years!
The air in the warehouse was foul beyond belief, even opening the windows had very little effect, as the smell was exuded by the mountain of trash. There were more items piled up on the small bed. It seemed that some had continued the habit of dumping trash here even after Bryan’s death.
As Han Shuo shuffled his feet, he felt that even taking a few steps was arduous task (the ground was covered with abandoned litter). He finally reached the bed and was about to clean it off, just like Bryan always did.
But, Han Shuo was not Bryan. When he was halfway through, Han Shuo felt a burst of rage. At first, this anger was only halfhearted, but the magical yuan within his body reacted to the anger and started moving rapidly, feeding his rage.
Finally, Han Shuo abruptly stopped his movements and fiercely denounced, “I’m not Bryan! I will not stand for this! Bryan oh Bryan, since I’ve occupied your body, let me help you punish that Lisa!”
Han Shuo was unaware that according to his original personality, he would never have impulsively acted on his thoughts, even if he’d wanted to. The him of yesteryear only had the will to think evil thoughts, but lacked the courage to take action.
He strode out from the warehouse and turned towards the female living quarters. In the silence of the night, he stealthily made his way towards the living district. Bryan had often cleaned here and was thus quite familiar with the area. Of course, he also knew where Lisa lived.
The necromancy major had much fewer students than the other majors, and thus every female student had her own room. Each room was spacious inside and had all the necessities they needed. This was heaven compared to Bryan’s house of trash.
Lisa lived on the second floor, and Han Shuo could not gain admittance at night. Good thing there was a large tree next to her window. He flattened his body and scampered up the trunk like a skinny monkey. He could peer into her window if he stood on his tiptoes.
Han Shuo was secretly delighted when he saw that the window was open. He propped himself up and peeked in. The little witch Lisa had decorated her room in pink and it actually looked quite cute, especially with the furry toys hanging on the wall above the table.
A faint perfumed scent wafted into Han Shuo’s nose, causing it to wrinkle. He had not anticipated that the cold hearted Lisa could decorate her room so cutely.
He couldn’t hope to best her in a fight, and he knew that. He took a closer look and noticed pink gauze bed curtains in one corner of the room – that should be Lisa’s bed.
He withdrew a small bottle from his bag and smeared some blood (typically used in experiments) around the edges of his eyes and mouth. He mussed up his brown hair after checking his face in a broken mirror (that Bryan had picked up). When he looked into the mirror again, a terrifying face covered with bloodstains looked back out.
“Heh heh, if I can’t beat you, then I’m going to scare the crap out of you!”
Han Shuo was quite satisfied with his current makeup and nodded with a low cackle. When everything was ready, he stepped on a branch and swung himself close to Lisa’s window, swaying back and forth with the branch. He reached out his bone thin hand and knocked on Lisa’s window.
Don… Don…
Lisa was fast asleep when she was woken up by the “don don” sounds coming from the window. She groggily opened the pink gauze curtains and walked out barefoot.
Little feet as white as jade padded over a carpet that was also pink. Under the peaceful rays of the moon, the five pink toes on each foot were actually quite adorable.
Lisa was a bit younger than Bryan, and was the young lady of a noble household. Disregarding what she had done to Bryan, Lisa was quite a beauty with a head full of long, soft, blond hair, a height of 162 cm that made her just a tad taller than Bryan, delicately arched eyebrows, an elegantly long nose, and endearing red lips.
Dressed in pink pajamas, Lisa didn’t seem fully awake. After she walked out from the pink bed, she instinctively looked over at the source of the sound.
A familiar face covered in blood, petrifying traces of blood dripping from the eyes and nose, and a thin body swaying back and forth at the window, stared emptily back at her with no sign of life.
“Wahhhhh….”
A horrorstruck scream filled the hallways of the female living district.
Han Shuo inwardly grinned evilly and thought, I’m going to scare you unconscious this time, if not scare you to death. His expression grew more and more chilling as his thoughts grew. After a while of staring emptily ahead, he rolled his eyes backwards and swayed even more strongly.
He could no longer see Lisa because he’d rolled his eyes back. There was a sudden lack of sound from Lisa after that initial horrorstruck scream and continued through Han Shuo’s gradual facial progression.
She probably fainted. Han Shuo thought as sounds of the other necromancy major girls’ cussing floated within hearing. Better to leave while he could, otherwise he’d be in for a world of hurt if he was caught.
An incredible pain spread from the bridge of his nose just as he was about to reverse his eye roll. Another intense pain appeared from the top of his head, which caused him to fall off the tree. The fall awoke all his aches and pains and made him see stars.
Attacks fell on him like rain shortly thereafter, with a voice yelling as the hits landed, “Bryan, looks like you finally grew a backbone! You escaped death last time, but your brain rotted instead! I major in necromancy and spend my days with skeletons and corpses. You idiot tried to scare me by pretending to be a corpse; I have to really give it to you. Would the future great mage Lisa be unable to determine if a body even has a soul?!”
Although his body hurt, his heart was in even greater pain. That dumb Bryan spent six years as an errand slave for the necromancy major, but hadn’t even picked up this bit of common sense. This was hardly the outcome he expected for the first time he’d gathered up his courage to do something bad.
Necromancy? This wondrous necromancy could determine even this? There was definitely some value in it. It looks like I have a lot to learn if I’m to survive in this world, otherwise the unfortunate events from today will most likely happen again.
As the agony on his body increased, Han Shuo continued to think rapidly while howling in pain. The magic of Chu Cang Lan’s dark path encompassed the word “demon”, whereas necromancy didn’t sound like a great path either. What if he were to train in both of these, would there be conflict between the two or would they – become stronger together?