Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 56

Rain poured down, making the mud golem in front of them even darker and scarier. Rowena didn’t have time to think about how it got here. She had to figure out how to get past it.

“It attacks if we cross the line!” Asan shouted, pointing to a faint mark on the muddy ground.

“No way!” cried another student. “Are we stuck here?!”

“Hold on,” Rowena said, trying to stay calm. “Maybe we can attack it!”

“Wait, wait!” Gainando yelled, waving his hands. “Don’t be stupid! We don’t know what it can do!”

The students started talking all at once, their voices rising in panic. Everyone was scared and confused, and no one was listening to anyone else.

Just as they were about to start another pointless argument, Nilia rushed to Yihan.

Yihan’s help was needed to control these friends who wouldn’t listen.

“Yihan. Yihan.”

Yihan frowned, deep in thought. Nilia grabbed his arm, shaking it as she called again.

“Yihan!”

“Ah. Sorry. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong with you? Those… no, *our friends* are going to argue again! You need to step in.”

Yihan nodded. Nilia, suddenly curious, asked,

“So, what were you thinking about so hard?”

“Ah. I was carefully considering the situation.”

“!”

Nilia perked up her long ears.

She realized that Yihan had a different way of seeing things.

The way he valued the hunters and rangers of the Shadow Patrol, the way he appreciated the wisdom of the hunters, and the way he was friendly with Nilia herself.

Could he have found a way to solve the current situation with his unique insight?

“What is it? What did you figure out?”

Not only Nilia but also the other students looked at Yihan with slightly expectant eyes.

Yihan slowly opened his mouth.

“I think this is a trap set by the professors.”

“……”

“……”

Everyone was speechless at the unexpected opinion.

“Please release me.”

“Calm yourself, Professor Inguldel.”

The Headmaster said soothingly, releasing the magical chains that bound Professor Inguldel’s wrists and ankles.

Professor Inguldel stared at the Headmaster and Professor Uregeoreum in disbelief.

Suddenly, his vision had gone dark, and he’d been whisked away to another place. He was wondering what was going on, only to find that the Headmaster had kidnapped him.

‘Good heavens, these mad wizards!’

“I have a good reason for bringing Professor Inguldel here. You’ll understand when you hear it.”

“What is the reason?”

“Well, with a reliable swordsman like you by their side, the students don’t get a chance to grow on their own when there’s a problem.”

“……”

Professor Inguldel was quiet. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was so silly, but maybe he should have known this would happen.

Seeing his reaction, the Headmaster and Professor Uregeoreum nodded, thinking he had understood.

“Professor Inguldel seems to understand.”

“I don’t understand! If you want to help the students grow, there are many other ways! Regular training, duels, a good teacher, and proper lessons…”

The Headmaster shook his head at Professor Inguldel’s words.

He seemed to be saying, ‘That’s just how swordsmen are.’

“That’s not how you make a wizard.”

“That’s right, Professor Inguldel. You can’t make a wizard that way. If they already know what’s coming, it won’t help them be creative.”

“……”

Professor Inguldel resisted the urge to draw his sword. This was a magic school, not a knight school.

‘I almost wish I could go back to the knight school.’

Professor Inguldel was confused now, but the Headmaster thought, ‘One day, he will understand *why I did this*.’

“…Alright, fine. I get that you want to give the students a ‘crisis,’ making them walk for hours into those deep mountains, facing bad weather, and giving them a surprise in an unprepared situation.”

Professor Uregeoreum was embarrassed by Professor Inguldel’s words.

“You don’t have to praise me so much…”

“It’s not praise. Anyway, there are many other dangerous monsters in the mountains. And it’s so rough that you can easily get lost if you’re not careful. What if other monsters appear?”

At Professor Inguldel’s question, the Headmaster and Professor Uregeoreum tilted their heads and answered at the same time.

“The students have to figure it out themselves, right?”

“The students have to figure it out themselves, don’t you think?”

“……”

Professor Inguldel’s shoulders slumped in dismay.

‘I was foolish to try to talk to wizards…’

The better a wizard was, the weirder they seemed to be.

A wizard who was good enough to be a professor at this school had to be a little crazy.

Professor Inguldel gave up on the conversation.

“Alright… if there are problems later, or if people go missing and you need a rescue team, please call me.”

“Yes, yes. It seems like you’ve changed your mind a bit.”

“I haven’t.”

As if to calm Professor Inguldel, Professor Uregeoreum handed him a warm cup of tea.

Then, as if to comfort him, he said,

“There’s no need to worry so much, Professor Inguldel. What I’ve prepared isn’t that dangerous. It’s just bulls with stronger potions.”

Professor Uregeoreum had carefully prepared for this alchemy assignment.

He had carefully prepared the monsters in the place where the ingredients needed for the potions were, just like last time.

The students might be cursing him now, calling him names, but later, when they became great alchemists, they would thank him.

“Bulls should be something the students can handle.”

Professor Inguldel felt a little better after hearing that.

Even if they were enhanced with potions, there were some good students who should be able to handle them.

“Does it breathe fire?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Teleportation?”

“It doesn’t do that either.”

“Any other elemental attacks? Is it invulnerable to swords? Does it have a scary presence? A roar?”

“Are you going to spend a fortune on one bull?”

Professor Uregeoreum asked, surprised.

It was enough that its strength and speed were increased. To give it all the abilities the Headmaster had mentioned would cost way too much money.

The Headmaster grumbled, disappointed.

“How boring. I wish another monster would appear.”

“Do you think a monster will appear just because you say that?”

Yihan’s idea seemed strange at first.

But as time passed, the friends began to think that Yihan’s idea made sense.

First of all, Yihan was trustworthy.

If Gainando had said the same thing, they would have thought he was talking nonsense, but when Yihan said it, they thought he must have a reason.

And Professor Uregeoreum had done things like this before.

The students still remembered their first alchemy lesson.

Professor Uregeoreum was so mean when he sent that crazy boar to attack them!

It wouldn’t be strange for him to have a mud golem waiting.

“Then where did Professor Inguldel go?”

“He must have planned it with Professor Uregeoreum.”

“That’s too much…!”

“Professors are all the same! You can’t trust any of them!”

The students were angry at Yihan’s idea.

Even Professor Inguldel, whom they had trusted, was working with Professor Uregeoreum.

Yihan calmly looked at the situation again.

‘It’s too much of a coincidence.’

When they arrived at the place where the herbs were growing, Professor Inguldel suddenly disappeared, it started raining, and a mud golem appeared…

It was too perfect to be a coincidence. They had to be suspicious.

“Yihan. If this is Professor Uregeoreum’s trap, what should we do?”

“Nothing much changes. We need to figure out how to get rid of that mud golem.”

Yihan answered calmly to Asan’s question.

When the students looked worried, Yihan said to cheer them up,

“Everyone, cheer up. Since it’s a trap prepared by Professor Uregeoreum, there must be a way to solve it.”

“That’s right!”

That was true.

If that mud golem was a monster prepared by Professor Uregeoreum, there must be a way to deal with it.

The students, who had been scared by its size, cheered up and began to think about how to deal with the mud golem.

“What if we throw fire or acid potions at it?”

“That’s how we deal with trolls. It seems to attack if we cross the line, so should we erase the line?”

“Would that work? Let’s block the golem’s vision. If it can’t see, it might not know we’re escaping.”

“Let’s shoot it with arrows first!”

Listening to the students’ conversation, Asan thought that Yihan needed to take charge.

Otherwise, they would come up with all sorts of crazy ideas.

Rowena approached and said,

“I think we should use a spirit to distract the golem… wait. Where did Yihan go?”

“Huh?”

Asan looked around, confused. Yihan was nowhere to be seen.

“Has anyone seen where Yihan went?”

“Could he have been kidnapped?”

“I’ll break through the golem and find him.”

Everyone was even more panicked than when the mud golem had appeared.

But Yihan hadn’t disappeared.

Yoner was surprised to see Yihan suddenly appear behind the mud golem.

“!!”

“Yihan?!”

The students also couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw Yihan pass the line and appear behind the mud golem.

The mud golem didn’t catch Yihan, who had already crossed the line, and just stood there.

“How?!”

“With magic. I used an invisibility spell.”

While his friends were talking, Yihan did a simple test.

He tested whether the mud golem would notice when he used the invisibility magic on his belt.

Luckily, the mud golem didn’t notice Yihan passing by.

Also, there was another good thing.

Once he had stepped out of the line, it didn’t seem to matter if he turned off the invisibility!

This was very important.

“Using invisibility magic already…!”

“No. I used an artifact.”

“Making artifacts already…!”

“…Not making.”

The students from the Black Tortoise Tower looked at Yihan, confused.

Huh?

Did they sell something like that?

“There was an artifact like that?”

“This isn’t something made at school, but a gift I got from the Preesinga Order.”

“Wow. What order gives a gift like that?”

“The Preesinga Order.”

“……”

“……”

Both tower students didn’t like the Preesinga Order. Yihan felt a little sad.

Yihan had managed to get out, but the situation hadn’t changed much.

All the other students were still trapped in front of the mud golem.

“Yihan. Go down and call the professor!”

“Don’t send him alone! What if Yihan leaves us…”

“Do you think Yihan is Gainando? Don’t say stupid things!”

“S-Sorry. I didn’t mean it…”

Yihan ignored his friends’ words.

Since this was a trap set by Professor Uregeoreum, he probably wouldn’t come even if they called him.

‘Solve it ourselves.’

Since Professor Uregeoreum had prepared it, it had to be something that the freshmen could solve.

“Move!”

Yihan threw an iron bead and waved his staff. The iron bead began to spin in the air.

‘Find the core that makes up the golem.’

Yihan was thinking of hitting the mud golem to find the core.

Yoner shouted with a worried voice,

“Will it be okay? It’s a golem…”

Even though it was mud, a golem was a golem. It was very thick.

She was worried that the magic a freshman used wouldn’t be strong enough.

But Yihan nodded as if it was okay.

If this was a wild golem, Yihan would have thought of another way, but this was an assignment that Professor Uregeoreum had prepared.

‘Then it won’t be that strong!’

The staff was swung, and the iron bead hit the golem.