Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 782

Lee Han was surprised, but Asan was in complete shock. Asan fell back, stumbling.

“Are you alright?” Lee Han asked quickly. Asan stammered, “H-hyung? You mean… that’s your older brother?” Asan was amazed. He had only heard stories about the Wodanaz family. Now, seeing a real member, he felt excited and a little scared. What kind of person would he be?

“He… he looks normal,” Asan said, surprised. “I thought someone from the Wodanaz family would be… different.”

“Didn’t the others tell you about him? You know, the ones you met during vacation?” Lee Han asked. Asan’s eyes widened. “Ah! Wait… yes. Arsil? Was that his name?”

Asan started to calm down and remember. He recalled that Gainan and some other friends had visited the Wodanaz family’s house during the last vacation.

“Yes. That’s him.”

“I heard so many stories,” Asan said, “but they were all so crazy… like there’s a demon wandering around, or a golem destroying everything…”

“Gainan likes to make things sound bigger than they are,” Lee Han said, quickly changing the topic. He didn’t want to argue if Asan really believed those stories.

“Arsil is… connected to spirits, right?” Asan asked.

“Yes,” Lee Han said, teasingly. “He has the power to control spirits however he wants!” Asan frowned. “No, I heard he loves and cares for the spirits. And they love him back.”

“Well, it’s kind of similar. Hyung!”

While Asan was looking at Lee Han as if he was dumbfounded, Lee Han called out to Arsil.

Arsil, who was writing a book with the spirits at the summit, turned his gaze and greeted him happily. Then, he shouted something.

Asan, unable to understand the spirit language, tilted his head.

“What is he saying?”

“He says… wait a moment! A crazy spirit made a whirlwind up there. If you come now, you might get blown apart!”

Arsil asked the other spirits to clear the whirlwind from the summit and welcomed his younger brother and friend.

Lee Han felt a little embarrassed as Arsil clapped and talked excitedly.

“No. It’s nothing to make such a fuss about… It’s not a big deal, Hyung.”

“Is he praising you for just walking up here?” Asan thought that was probably it. He couldn’t think of anything else Arsil would praise Lee Han for.

“He says he was worried you wouldn’t make friends,” Lee Han translated. “But he’s happy you brought a friend, just like during vacation.”

Asan quietly shut his mouth. Lee Han pointed to his friend and explained the situation.

“This is Asan from the Dalcard family, and he’s here for today’s lecture… Yes. It’s about map making. No. What nonsense are you talking about? How is this an easy lecture?!”

Asan was flustered when his friend, who had been talking, became enraged.

“Why, what’s wrong, Wodanaz?”

“He says you got an easy topic!” Lee Han exclaimed, surprised. “Was the lecture supposed to be something else?”

Arsil soothed his younger brother and kindly explained.

The lecture topic for the Summoning Magic School was definitely…

Lee Han’s face turned slightly pale. Asan felt a strange chill when his friend became quiet.

“…Well, I guess ‘easy’ is different for everyone. I understand,” Lee Han said, his face pale. *What was the original topic?!* Asan wondered, feeling a sudden chill.

While they were talking, other students began to arrive one by one from below.

“Oh, oh?! Hello!”

Gainan was startled when he discovered Arsil.

“Who’s this?” Gainan asked, surprised. “Wait, is it safe to have someone we don’t know here? Remember that wizard who kidnapped Wodanaz before?”

“No! He’s Lee Han’s elder brother.”

“…Is it still dangerous?” some friends whispered, looking worried.

They knew Lee Han was strong for his age, being from the Wodanaz family. How powerful must his older brother be?

Gainan bristled at his friends’ whispers.

“He’s really nice!” Gainan said quickly. “He even gave me a gift!” Gainan remembered the leather case Arsil had given him, a treasure he loved.

“Hello!”

“He says hello back,” Lee Han translated. “And he’s asking if you’ve won many wizard card games lately.” Gainan mumbled, “M-my luck… hasn’t been great.” Lee Han relayed Arsil’s words: “He says everyone has the same luck. How can yours be so bad?”

“S-sometimes,” Gainan stammered, “bad luck just… piles up.” Lee Han grinned. “Arsil suggests you quit wizard cards and study instead.” Gainan’s eyes widened. “B-but wizard cards… Did Arsil really say that?” Lee Han laughed. “No, no. That last part was me.”

Gainan gave Lee Han a playful glare.

Arsil smiled kindly and said, “Brother, saying luck will come back is nice, but not very helpful. Maybe it’s better to stop playing wizard cards for now?”

“I can hear you both!” Gainan complained. “Anyway, Arsil, my undead summon was reverse summoned. Can you help me fix it? I’m so frustrated!”

“That’s asking too much, even for Arsil, Gainan,” Lee Han said. “Just summon it again later, when it’s recovered. *I* can help you scare it into behaving this time.”

“…Wait, it’s possible?” Lee Han muttered, surprised. “How? Can a spirit really do that? It’s undead… Even if you use a dark spirit, could you really… negotiate with undead? No, that shouldn’t be possible. Even if dark spirits are closest to undead, those kinds of negotiations…”

“Lee Han. Didn’t he just say it’s possible?”

“No. Hyung must be misunderstanding something. Wait.”

“He said it’s possible! He said it’s possible!!”

After whining continuously, Gainan finally got permission.

Arsil summoned a close dark spirit, checked the contract mark engraved on Gainan’s hand, and sent a message to that dimension.

Lee Han watched Arsil talking to the spirit with an uneasy and anxious expression.

‘It doesn’t make sense. To be able to do something like that with a spirit’s friendship.’

In theory, dark spirits were relatively close to the undead, as they belonged to the energy of yin, unlike ordinary spirits.

But even so, to have that spirit relieve the undead’s anger and reconcile them.

If that was possible, Lee Han’s world might collapse.

“Lee Han,” Gainan said, narrowing his eyes. “You’re not hoping it *doesn’t* work, are you?”

“What?!” Lee Han exclaimed, startled. *Gainan’s good at noticing things,* Lee Han thought, annoyed.

*Snap!* Gainan’s contract mark on his hand glowed bright red. It meant the broken connection was fixed, and the power was back.

Gainan felt it instantly. His face lit up. He yelled, sounding incredibly happy, “Thank you!!!” Lee Han just stared. “Lee Han? What’s he saying?” Asan asked. “He says it worked,” Lee Han mumbled.

“No! He said much more than that!” Gainan insisted. “Okay, okay,” Lee Han sighed. “He says he asked the dark spirit to fix the Revenant’s body, give it materials, fix the broken contract, and even make it forget why it was angry. Damn it. How can a spirit do all that?”

Gainan pretended not to hear the last part. The gift he had received from Arsil was too great to share in his friend’s anger.

‘Sorry, Lee Han.’

“Sorry, Lee Han,” Gainan said, still beaming. Salco spoke up cautiously, watching Lee Han. “Wodanaz, can you ask Arsil something else?”

It was unusual for Gainan to actively talk to Arsil, and the other students were keeping their distance, feeling awkward.

The students felt awkward and kept their distance. That’s how much the name ‘Wodanaz’ made them nervous.

“What are you curious about?”

“…First of all, why are you here…”

“Ah. That’s right.”

Lee Han nodded at Salco’s words.

Come to think of it, he was so surprised to meet Arsil here that he was missing something important.

“What brings you here, Hyung? This doesn’t seem like such an important dimension.”

If Professor Milley was giving it as an assignment to the second-year students, it wasn’t actually that dangerous of a dimension.

Of course, the second-year students might say, ‘If it’s not dangerous, what was that we met earlier?’ but, as I said, the difficulty is relative.

It might be dangerous for the second-year students, but it might not be dangerous for the direct descendant of the Wodanaz family.

Arsil opened the book he had written and explained. The book contained a map of the current dimension along with some analysis.

-No frost giant artifacts. Confirmed.

-Needs more confirmation, but unlikely.

-No frost giant artifacts. Confirmed.

-…

It turned out Arsil was searching for something in this dimension: artifacts. And not just any artifacts, but ones that came from the frost giant dimension.

“Are there frost giant artifacts here? Ah. You’re saying it’s not certain yet? You’re going to look around other dimensions too?”

The second child of the Wodanaz family nodded and pointed to a small spirit sitting on his left shoulder.

The butterfly-shaped spirit was so docile and gentle that it wasn’t emitting any energy, but Lee Han was startled when he faced the spirit.

‘…Strong!’

A strong presence swept past him for a moment, making goosebumps rise all over his body. It was a spirit that was almost perfectly hiding its power.

‘And it’s not running away at all, even after seeing me.’

He thought it was at least a Perchuntra-level spirit.

Arsil tapped the butterfly spirit and said that he would visit other dimensions with the help of this spirit.

“Indeed…”

“Wodanaz. Can I ask Hyung one more thing?”

Salco raised his hand with a timid face. Arsil gestured for him to speak comfortably, but Salco never relaxed.

“He says you can ask.”

“Um, you seem to be looking for frost giant artifacts… right? I guess so? As I recall, frost giants appeared here.”

“That’s right. I met them.”

“Then isn’t that artifact the one the frost giants are looking for?”

Arsil smiled as if he understood and explained. Lee Han conveyed it as it was.

“He says the frost giants stole the artifact first, so it’s okay if Arsil takes it from them,” Lee Han translated, a little dryly.

The students became quiet.

Some of the friends showed a slight admiration, saying, ‘That’s logical?’

Arsil closed the book, copied the map inside, and made it into a scroll. Then, he gifted it to Lee Han.

“…Hyung!”

Lee Han was genuinely touched. This gift felt much more meaningful than any strange or dangerous thing he’d brought back before.

“Thank you. Thanks to you, I can get away from the professor’s harassment this semester and live comfortably…”

Arsil unfolded the scroll and pointed to several places on the dimension map. It was written there, ‘Needs more confirmation, but unlikely.’

It was a place where Arsil had not directly confirmed whether there were any artifacts or not.

“…Oh, you want me to go and check? And if there’s anything, I can use it well? Ah, no. Hyung should check? It’s the treasure Hyung was looking for. …Hyung, you can look for other artifacts? I think it’s better to secure this one…”

“This feels… wrong,” Lee Han muttered.

*100% agree,* Salco and Asan thought, exchanging worried looks. As students of Einrogard, they had a bad feeling about this.