Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 598

Jidurf blinked, catching a faint sound.

Suddenly, he remembered a pointless old story he’d once shared with a knight under the Duke.

“But what happens if someone is hit with a petrification curse and left unattended for a long time?”

“Nonsense. What are the odds of that happening?”

“Still, you never know, Sir Jidurf.”

“If someone were hit with such a curse and left unattended, they’d be discovered and killed long before anything else. Hence, nonsense.”

“I don’t think they’d starve to death, seeing as their entire body is transformed. Instead, wouldn’t their body just stiffen? Prisoners locked in cramped dungeons for long periods end up with twisted bodies, after all.”

Jidurf now knew what happened when someone was cursed for a long time.

He felt like a statue waking up. His body was heavy and strange. Even lifting an arm felt like a huge effort. *This is awful*, he thought, his mind racing. It was so awkward, he couldn’t find any strength.

“Ugh… ugh… uh…”

Even trying to speak, his stiff tongue and lips couldn’t make a sound.

The Death Knights, guards of the Archmage, rushed over in alarm when they saw this.

“Good heavens! What madman did this!”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Nor I!”

The Death Knights thought someone had turned a guest into a statue by mistake. They thought someone had then left him there. So, they tried to help Jidurf.

“Guest, please don’t move!”

“Hey, guest, easy there! Don’t move too much! You’ve been a statue, right? Gotta get you warmed up. Hot water first, then you’ll feel better.”

“Fetch that liquor. We need to get his senses back.”

The Death Knights immediately laid Jidurf down and poured several mouthfuls of amber-colored spirit into his mouth. The spirit burned Jidurf’s throat.

“Ugh… ugh.”

Jidurf’s face looked less pale than before. The Death Knights nodded, pleased.

“Indeed, there’s no liquor as effective as this ‘Lava of Einrogard.’”

“Lay him down. Massage his limbs, then we must call Professor Lagrinde.”

Jidurf, regaining his senses in the grey world, slowly began to clear his head.

He felt as though he had completely lost consciousness at some point and become a statue forever, but he had somehow managed to break free.

‘…Was I not discovered?’

Jidurf blinked his stiff eyelid muscles, he looked around and it didn’t seem like he had been.

Jidurf’s eyes widened. *What is this place?* He saw mountains of murky red slime corpses piled up, and wizards who appeared to be students were healing giants in a separate area. It was like a nightmare come to life. The slime smelled awful.

‘Pull yourself together. You need to understand what’s happening.’

For now, the Death Knights, minions of the Archmage, weren’t showing any particular hostility.

They clearly hadn’t recognized Jidurf’s identity.

“Professor Lagrinde, we have a guest here who has been a statue for quite some time…”

“Enough of that. You crazy thugs. Did you turn another guest into a statue because you didn’t like them and then dump them here?” said Professor Alkasis with angry words.

“W-What! When have we ever done that!”

“Sir Wodanaz will misunderstand!”

The Death Knights frantically denied Professor Alkasis’s rebuke. Sir Wodanaz is their boss.

Some shouted to Ihan not to be fooled by the professor’s lies, but it didn’t have much effect.

‘They must turn people into statues often.’

Still, the professor clicked his tongue once, then tossed a potion for restoring energy and left.

The Death Knight poured the potion into Jidurf’s mouth.

“Ugh… uh… ah.”

“So, you can speak now. Are you alright? What’s your name?”

“I, I don’t remember.”

Jidurf cleverly pretended to not remember anything.

In the current situation, it was better to say he remembered nothing than to clumsily lie. He is an intruder, but what are his goals?

Since the Death Knights were mistaken, he could easily escape this place by playing into their misunderstanding.

“I swear, we’re in big trouble,” one of the Death Knights said.

“Shhh. It’s not over yet. We just need to restore his memory,” another Death Knight replied.

The Death Knights encouraged each other, making themselves feel braver and steeling their resolve.

“Sir Wodanaz, is there a way to restore the memory of someone who can’t remember?”

“I’m a first-year.” Ihan said, meaning he’s just a student, I don’t know about memory spells.

“We know that much, but?”

“…I meant I don’t know.”

“Blast!”

“Let’s ask Professor Lagrinde again.”

“Professor Lagrinde is going to be angry…”

“If you just, just send me outside, I won’t tell anyone,” Jidurf said.

Jidurf pretended to tremble, acting like a frightened common Imperial citizen.

The Death Knights felt even more apologetic.

“No, no!”

“We will definitely help you recover your memory.”

‘Why does he look strangely familiar?’ Ihan thought.

For some reason, Jidurf’s appearance was familiar.

Where had he seen a statue that looked like that?

“What are you all doing?”

The skeletal headmaster floated over from behind. Professor Voladi was beside him. The headmaster is skeletal, which is interesting – we can show this in his actions and words too. Why is the headmaster checking on Professor Voladi? Is Professor Voladi known for being unprepared? A little detail can make them more memorable.

“Ah, it’s nothing, Master. We just found a guest who had accidentally been turned into a statue and were talking to him,” one of the Death Knights said.

“Did you turn him into a statue again and stick him somewhere? I told you to just talk if you have a complaint… No! That’s the intruder! What are you doing!” The skeletal headmaster shouted, shocked.

Hearing the headmaster’s shout, Jidurf lunged forward, pushing past the surprised Death Knights. But a wand flashed in front of him – Ihan.

Wham!

“Oops, maybe a bit too hard there. But he’s stopped, right?” Ihan said.

During the final exam week, the skeletal headmaster would check in with several professors of particular concern.

“Are you preparing well?”

“I am preparing well.”

“Yes. Are you really preparing well?”

“I said I am preparing well, didn’t I? What’s wrong?”

“Haha. Actually, I wasn’t asking. Open your storage right now. If you’re not prepared, beaver stew will be cooking in that pot today.”

Among them, professors of special concern were checked on even before the final exam week, but fortunately, Professor Voladi wasn’t one of them.

“…I’m planning to have the giants take the exam in this way.”

“…Oh…”

Headmaster Skull frowned, thinking about Professor Volardi’s upcoming final exam. ‘Should I have checked on him again last week?’ he wondered.

Having heard about the exam, Headmaster Skull wondered if he should watch Professor Volardi even more closely.

Maybe Professor Volardi’s strange ideas seemed normal because he had never taught students before. Now, with the exam coming, Headmaster Skull was starting to see how unusual he was.

Headmaster Skull usually told professors to make exams harder, but this time, Professor Volardi’s exam was truly too extreme.

“Eh! It seems fine as it is!”

“Thank you.”

Slightly uneasy, Headmaster Skull nevertheless approved Professor Volardi’s exam.

He had his pride as a headmaster; he couldn’t very well object just because an exam was difficult.

Still, he couldn’t help but worry, so Headmaster Skull found himself calling Professor Volardi in a bit more often.

“Is it going well?”

“Yes.”

“Is it really going well?”

“Of course.”

Professor Volardi offered a faint smile.

He assumed that Headmaster Skull kept asking because he was so impressed with Professor Volardi’s exam.

Seeing that smile, filled with self-satisfaction, Headmaster Skull was dumbfounded.

‘He’s my employee, but does he have no conscience at all?’

Headmaster Skull also enjoyed giving his students trials, but he didn’t feel self-satisfied about it, for conscience’s sake.

But this professor was genuinely pleased, making him even more wicked than Headmaster Skull.

‘No wonder he has no students.’

Thinking very impolitely, Headmaster Skull nodded.

“I see. I’d like to watch when the exam starts.”

Regardless of Professor Volardi’s lack of conscience, this exam was honestly worth watching.

Seeing it once would be something to talk about for years.

Besides, the true specialness of this exam wasn’t just that it mobilized giants.

The exam was full of traps and challenges, one right after another, without any break!

An exam that only a combat mage with deep practical experience like Professor Volardi could devise!

Just how far would Wodanaz be able to get in this exam?

‘I am curious.’

“Master! A monster has appeared!”

“Yes, yes. Just handle it,”

Headmaster Skull waved his hand dismissively at the Death Knight’s report.

If you think about it, five or six monsters probably appeared in Einrogaard, the school grounds, every day, so why did he have to report each one individually?

“Master! The monster is rampaging around the main gate!”

“You bunch of morons! Why are you telling me now? I won’t forgive you if the area around the main gate is destroyed!”

“……”

The Death Knight had nothing to say, even if he had ten mouths.

Monsters could roam around by the dozens in places not visible from the outside, but the area around the main gate, where outsiders came and went, had to be kept perfectly clean.

The school needed donations to run. If important visitors saw monsters, they might stop giving money. Headmaster Skull knew a monster at the gate could cost them a lot.

“I should go take a look. Professor Volardi.”

“I will assist you.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to prepare for the exam?”

“It is already perfect.”

Professor Volardi gave another faint smile.

That self-satisfied smile was annoyingly irritating, and Headmaster Skull felt annoyed.

‘I hope the exam is ruined… Oops. What am I thinking?’

For a moment, Headmaster Skull almost sided with Wodanaz because Professor Volardi was so irritating.

“I understand. Let’s go, then!”

Headmaster Skull sighed and with a wave of his hand, he and Professor Volardi shot into the sky. The wind rushed past their faces as they flew towards the main gate, leaving the quiet of the Headmaster’s office far behind.

First-year students were already lying on the ground, and giants were being treated by high-ranking students from the healing magic school, indicating that they had already been fighting fiercely…?

Headmaster Skull wondered why the giants were here, but he ignored it for now and checked the main gate first.

The damage wasn’t too great.

The sculpture park was destroyed, and the road was damaged, but the main gate was intact, and more importantly, no outsiders were caught up in it.

‘Thank goodness!’

A group of Death Knights came into Headmaster Skull’s sight as he let out a sigh of relief.

Headmaster Skull cast an angry gaze.

What were those guys doing that they couldn’t even stop it until the situation got like this?

“What are you doing? Don’t tell me you turned them into sculptures again…”

Lee Han, who had defeated Jidurf, asked, feeling rather embarrassed himself.

“Is he really an intruder?”

“Would I insist that an innocent guest is an intruder?”

“……”

“……”

An awkward silence hung in the air. Lee Han quickly replied.

“That can’t be!”

He answered a little too slowly… Anyway, so the intruder was hiding here among the main gate sculptures. I thought he was lost somewhere in the depths of the main building…

The Death Knights, realizing their mistake, quickly flattered him.

“That’s right. He managed to get all the way here.”

“But he couldn’t deceive Master’s eyes!”

“It looks like you guys were taking care of the intruder?”

“That’s a misunderstanding! We were just trying to soothe him so he wouldn’t be shocked if the intruder died.”

The Death Knights made bad excuses. Headmaster Skull shook his head.

‘These guys are my subordinates!’

“Why are you doing that?”

“…Ah! I was cursing the intruder for being so despicable as to come all the way to the main gate!”

Lee Han shouted quickly.

Come to think of it, the reason that guy was able to come all the way to the main gate was because Lee Han had thrown him there while cleaning out the warehouse.

It was a fact that was better left unsaid.

“Sorry. Wizard. We’re tired from fighting.”

“We got hit a lot and need to rest a bit. Ugh. My head is ringing.”

“……”

The giants and Professor Volardi could be seen talking in the back. Professor Volardi still had a cold expression, but Professor Volardi’s fingers were trembling slightly from the shock.

Headmaster Skull, realizing the situation, clicked his tongue with pity.

“Oh dear… That’s unfortunate. Professor Volardi prepared so diligently.”

“I am truly sorry as well.”

“Didn’t you just smile?”

“It’s your imagination.”