Chapter 275: The School of Necromancy, Despised by All

Morin looked at the last two grayed-out spell names on the system interface—spells that could be activated at any moment—and opened his mouth slightly.

Then, he put his hands behind his head and laughed with relief.

“Hahaha…”

Necromancy spells? What kind of decent person would do this in their own capital?!

During his time in Saxony, besides establishing the Instruction Assault Battalion and attending classes, Morin hadn’t been idle regarding magic.

Through the system and some grimoires ‘lent in friendship’ by Patricia, he had crammed a massive amount of knowledge about magic in this world.

In this process, he discovered that the School of Necromancy was absolutely the fringe of the fringe in this world.

Not only were its practitioners pitifully few, but they were treated the same everywhere —subject to various strict restrictions and surveillance.

He had even stayed in the Saxon Empire for so long without seeing anything related to the School of Necromancy, be it people or magical items.

So all along, Morin never thought he would encounter the current situation.

However, in Morin’s view, the School of Necromancy and doctors had something in common to some extent—they both dealt with birth, aging, sickness, death, and corpses.

It was just that one studied how to save people, while the other studied how to ‘reuse’ corpses and souls.

The current social status of the two could be said to be worlds apart.

Although the general attitude of various countries toward human experimentation and dissection had undergone a fundamental shift—from previous strong rejection and stigmatization to general acceptance within legal, magical, scientific, and medical frameworks.

At the same time, with the popularization of surgery, systematic anatomical training had become a compulsory course for all medical students.

However, this acceptance was not without reservation— there remained some residual resistance based on religion, ethics, and emotion.

Mages and scholars, professionals in these fields, had a ‘fully embracing’ attitude toward this.

But while the public accepted it rationally, the thought of a loved one’s body being dissected was still emotionally painful and uncomfortable for many.

Therefore, the public did indeed support dissection, but usually hoped it wouldn’t happen to themselves or their relatives.

Even basic human dissection faced such a complex situation, let alone the School of Necromancy…

Mages of this school fit the stereotype perfectly, spending most of their day dealing with corpses.

Digging a corpse out of the ground or summoning a few undead creatures at the drop of a hat.

In the eyes of ordinary people and the Papal States, this was simply synonymous with evil and blasphemy.

Previously in history, due to a severe shortage of corpses, there had been ‘strange tales’ of low-circle Necromancy mages stealing bodies, being besieged by villagers, and finally being shot dead with hunting rifles.

These complex circumstances combined to make the reputation of the School of Necromancy consistently terrible.

As for the two spells Morin just saw—[Animate Dead] and [Create Undead]—under normal circumstances, a Mage being able to raise a dozen undead creatures would be the limit.

But was the current situation normal?

Obviously not!

The Eiffel Tower, this massive Mage Tower, could amplify ordinary [Lightning Bolt] and [Chain Lightning] spells to such devastating, outrageous levels.

Morin dared not imagine what the scene would be like if those two Necromancy spells were activated, given the more than six million skeletons beneath Paris.

Just after seeing these spells, he had confirmed through the system map that the Paris of this world also had the ‘famous attraction,’ the Paris Catacombs, underground.

This thing was a public cemetery converted from limestone quarries to solve the problem of excessive corpses after a plague outbreak in Paris in 1786.

And it was used from the 18th century until the mid-19th century, burying about six million human remains…

Morin thought carefully; one could say that there was no other ‘decisive battlefield’ in the world like Paris that had such a complete set of elements.

A massive Mage Tower, and then a ready-made mass grave underground…

This was practically a venue tailor-made for a Necromancy decisive battle.

“There was no intelligence before indicating that the Gauls put so much effort into the School of Necromancy, was there?”

The thought flashed through Morin’s mind.

He felt that no matter how outrageous the Gauls were, they wouldn’t bury such a big landmine under their own capital, right?

Of course, this time he had indeed wronged the Gauls.

Neither the Mage Corps nor Master Eiffel had ever thought of playing any ‘Undead Scourge’ when building the iron tower…

But right now, Morin couldn’t directly tell Colonel Lucas that he had discovered signs that the Gauls were preparing to launch an ‘Undead Scourge.’

After all, in the eyes of outsiders, where would he, a newly minted Mage who had been a spellcaster for less than a year, get the experience and ability to make an accurate judgment?

Even if he could bluff his way through now, there was no guarantee that other Mages wouldn’t target him in the future…

So Morin could only beat around the bush, urging Colonel Lucas to use the ‘Gungnir’ first.

Finding a way to dismantle this tower should be fine, right?

Colonel Lucas, who had just recovered from shock and anger, heard Morin’s words and nodded heavily.

“You’re right!” He turned and ran downstairs. “We can’t waste any more time! Go!”

The two ran all the way down the clock tower, and Colonel Lucas immediately rushed toward the ‘Odin’ parked in the maintenance workshop.

“Attention all!” He ran to the platform and shouted to the entire maintenance area. “‘Odin’ prepare for combat! Engineers clear the track area immediately!”

He then immediately said to the two artillery observation team members on the train: “There’s no time and it’s inconvenient to launch the balloon now. You two immediately strap on the telephone wire reels and establish an observation point on the roof of the building next to the maintenance area!”

“Yes, Colonel!”

With his command, the train crew and engineers who had been resting immediately sprang into tense action.

The massive ‘Odin’ started up again, slowly backing out of the spacious maintenance workshop and stopping on the main track outside.

“Clank—clank—”

The tooth-aching sound of metal friction rang out again as the huge hydraulic support arms on both sides of the carriages deployed, sinking deep into the roadbed on both sides of the tracks.

Meanwhile, the soldiers of the artillery observation team, carrying heavy wired telephone reels on their backs, sprinted into a six-story building next to the station, preparing to guide and observe from the high point.

“Colonel, should we try to contact the airships in the sky again?”

A communications soldier in the command train asked:

“Or contact the Army Group Headquarters outside the city?”

“Contact! Contact them all!” Lucas waved his hand. “Tell them we are preparing to attack with the ‘Gungnir’ and to be ready to coordinate!”

However, a few minutes later, the communications soldier looked at Lucas, sweating profusely.

“Colonel! Can’t connect! The radio interference is too strong! Neither the airships nor the Army Group Headquarters can be reached!”

Hearing this result, Morin’s heart sank again.

He guessed right. The Eiffel Tower, discharging electricity madly, had turned the entire Paris into a massive complex electromagnetic environment.

“Damn it!” Lucas slammed his fist on the carriage’s armor plate. “Forget international appearances! We can’t wait!”

He turned to the Magitech Engineers who were already ready.

“‘Gungnir’, switch to Siege Barrage Mode! Target: Eiffel Tower! Blast it for me!”

“Yes!”

With Lucas’s order, the heavy armor plates of the mysterious carriage carrying the ‘Gungnir’ slowly opened again.

The massive gun body slowly raised under the drive of the hydraulic device.

The muzzle pointed into the air at a high angle, then adjusted its bearing under the guidance of the artillery observer, finally aiming in the direction of the giant glowing iron tower on the west side of the city.

Inside the barrel, the twelve acceleration rune coils lit up in sequence, emitting a low, strange “buzzing” sound.

The surrounding magical energy became violent again.

“‘Gungnir’, charging complete!”

“Fire!”

“Buzz—BOOM!!!”

Accompanied by an ear-splitting roar, a dazzling blue light sprayed from the muzzle once again!

In the eastern suburbs of Paris, the First Army Group’s temporary headquarters was established on a high ground with a wide field of view.

Although it couldn’t take in the entire urban area of Paris, at least the towering Eiffel Tower was clearly visible.

Therefore, when the tower started discharging electricity, Mackensen and Seeckt had already realized something was wrong.

Immediately after, they saw the two Armored Airships hovering in the air initiate shelling on the tower, and the bizarre scene of the shells being deflected.

Including the two of them, all the senior staff officers of the First Army Group fell silent.

“It seems the General Staff’s intelligence was reliable for once.”

Lieutenant General Seeckt looked at the distant giant tower shrouded in electric light, a trace of self-mockery in his voice.

Previously, they had thought the intelligence provided by the General Staff about the ‘Gaulish Mage Tower being a powerful Wonder’ was somewhat exaggerated—after all, the reputation of the intelligence department in the army was indeed not very good.

But looking at it now, they had been conservative.

“The Gauls’ Mage Tower has indeed exceeded the category of conventional weapons.” General Mackensen’s face was also incredibly grave.

“In that case, it seems there were some errors in the intelligence brought back by those spies.” Seeckt sighed.

General Mackensen shook his head and said: “Don’t blame them. Intelligence personnel can only report what they see and hear. The situation before us has exceeded the scope of conventional warfare…”

“But no matter what the situation is, the question now is, how do we deal with it…”

General Mackensen’s gaze shifted from the distant tower back to the map set up in the tent.

“Fortunately, we still have the ‘Gungnir’…” he said in a deep voice.

As the two were speaking, they saw a ball of incredibly dazzling light suddenly explode in the sky to the east of the Eiffel Tower!

[Translator’s Note]

Check my another translation project:

Title: Bloodstained Soldier. On Yuanling Planet, due to a food and oil crisis, the various nations that had not experienced large-scale war for a hundred years suddenly erupted into conflict. Tens of billions of civilians were swept into the war. As an Earthling, Hu Hao transmigrated for the second time. He originally intended to travel the world, but war broke out instead.