Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 866

The lecture hall was quiet when a student suddenly jumped up, wand in hand. “Stop!” he yelled. “This person is royalty! No one touches them without my say-so!”

Yukbeltire blinked, confused. He looked around the room, wondering who the junior was talking to.

“Who are you shouting at?” Yukbeltire asked, frowning. “There’s no one here.”

The junior looked surprised. “…Senior? I’m talking to you.”

“Me? Why?” Yukbeltire raised an eyebrow.

“Because… because you brought Prince Jaurin here!” the junior stammered. “I thought… well, you know, dragons are royalty!”

Yukbeltire sighed. “Dragons are very smart, especially with numbers and shapes. I thought it would be good for the second years to learn from someone truly intelligent for once.”

Lee Han nodded, pretending to understand Yukbeltire’s strange reason. He remembered a friend saying Yukbeltire’s lectures were ‘surprisingly normal.’ Lee Han had wondered what that meant, but now, seeing a dragon in the classroom, he thought maybe ‘normal’ was relative for Yukbeltire.

“Indeed. Then please forget what I just shouted,” Lee Han said, sitting down.

Of course, Yukbeltire wasn’t fooled.

“Wait a moment,” Yukbeltire narrowed his eyes. “Junior from the Wodanaise family,” he said, his gaze fixed on something in Lee Han’s hand. “What is that wand?”

Lee Han launched into a complicated story about Professor Verdus, how he’d *insisted* Lee Han take this wand, how he’d said it was ‘essential for his magical development,’ even though Lee Han had protested! Dirette, popping out from behind Lee Han, chimed in, “Professor Verdus practically *shoved* it at us!”

(Professor Verdus, everyone knew, was the strictest, grumpiest professor in the school. Blaming him for anything was always a safe bet.)

After blaming Professor Verdus repeatedly, Dirette cautiously glanced at his friend. It was hard to read his true feelings because his face was so expressionless and cold.

“…You’re not angry, are you, Yukbeltire?”

“Dirette, you have a bad habit of making unfounded accusations against me. Such emotional disturbances have nothing to do with me. Understand?” Yukbeltire said in a very formal and distant way.

Dirette grumbled inwardly. Yukbeltire was being difficult, just like when Dirette had refused to help with his research and Yukbeltire had… well, Dirette didn’t want to think about *that* again.

“Of course,” Yukbeltire said, his voice very controlled, “I designed that wand myself. Every detail, the shape, the materials… It’s exactly as I planned. Professor Verdus finishing it… it makes no difference to me. Understand?”

“…Yes…” Lee Han felt a little sorry, he had definitely been indebted to him regarding this wand.

“Lee Han. I think senior is angry,” one of his friends said.

“You think so too?”

His friends all seemed to agree. Even his younger brother, Adenarte, agreed.

“I believe he is indeed angry…”

His sister said, “Angry? Of course he’s angry! Look at his face! It’s like a thundercloud!”

Adenarte flinched at his sister’s sudden anger.

“…Look,” Lee Han said, lowering his voice. “About that wand… Maybe… maybe I could help you with your research? You know, the really complicated stuff? The one about… bending space and time?”

Yukbeltire’s eyes flickered. “My… research?”

“Yeah! I’ve been thinking about it, and it sounds… fascinating. Much more interesting than, say, building silly airships that go nowhere.”

Yukbeltire’s clenched fist loosened slightly. “Airships *are* rather inefficient…”

But Yukbeltire couldn’t bring himself to punish Lee Han too harshly. The junior, despite his cheekiness, was clearly magically gifted. And… well, research assistants weren’t easy to find.

“Then, let’s start the lecture. Adenarte, you can see the positions of the two dark planets drawn on the coordinate plane, right? Express the distance between them as coordinates and prove the equation.”

Adenarte was flustered by the immediate retaliation.

“I… I don’t know.”

“I see. Next, Gainando. Now, on the coordinate plane…”

“I don’t know!”

“Listen to the whole question before answering. Now, on the coordinate plane…”

Yukbeltire bombarded the juniors who had said he was angry with questions. The students rolled their eyes, looking at each other in disbelief.

Dirette covered his face with his wings out of embarrassment. He felt like he wouldn’t be able to reveal that they were friends anywhere anymore.

‘Amazing!’

Lee Han was impressed. The most surprising thing was that Yukbeltire himself had no idea that he was sulking and retaliating. He just happened to pick the juniors who had said he was angry!

‘I’m sorry. Even I’m a little scared of this.’

Lee Han had been boldly standing up to Yukbeltire until now, but this time was a little different. Even if they were the same senior, the senior standing behind the lectern had a different kind of authority. He had no choice but to endure it, as he didn’t know what would happen if he provoked him.

Jaurin! Jaurin will answer! First, I need to bring an absolute inequality!

Jaurin, who had been itching to answer, finally raised his front paw and shouted. He knew the answer, so it was hard to hold back.

Fortunately, Yukbeltire didn’t stop Jaurin and gave him a chance to answer.

“Please explain, Your Highness.”

Jaurin excitedly wagged his wings and tail as he explained.

Of course, just because Jaurin was excited to explain didn’t mean the students’ intelligence increased. Most of the students were either dozing off or staring blankly.

“Hein. Hein! You understood Jaurin’s explanation, right?”

“…Oh. He means me.” Gainando belatedly understood who he was calling.

He could hear some students whispering behind him.

“-Hein, he said?”
-That prince…”

Gainando’s face turned red. What humiliation because of his wicked half-sister!

“-I envy him. That guy is doing that alone.”
-It’s probably because of his bloodline. Hmph! I’m not jealous at all.”

“No. Why are they jealous of Hein?” Gainando was dumbfounded. They were jealous of everything, as expected of those ill-tempered and strange guys.

“Gainando, Gainando!” his friends poked him.

“Oh, why?”

“Say you understood!”

“What? How can I when I didn’t understand?”

“Ask Wodanaise to tell you the answer!” Gainando’s friends were worried they would all look like idiots in front of a *dragon prince* if they couldn’t understand the lecture.

“I understood! …Lee Han! Lee Han!”

Oh, wait!

Jaurin crawled over and scooped Lee Han up with his front paw, hugging him and bringing him back to the front of the lectern. The feeling of being scooped up by a dragon’s paw was strange and a little scratchy.

Then he asked Gainando again. “Good! Tell me what Jaurin just explained!”

Lee Han was surprised. Certainly, considering the lecture content, they seemed to be born with intelligence as a species. Of course, Lee Han’s surprise was nothing compared to Gainando’s. Gainando trembled, his face red with anger.

‘That… that wicked dragon is really…!’ Once he returned, he would sabotage him so that he could never come to Einroguard again!

“But, senior,” Lee Han, who was bound by Jaurin, called out to Yukbeltire, who was standing next to him.

“What happened to Professor Knighton?”

The Einroguard professors were either diligent or Professor Verdus, the strictest, grumpiest professor in the school. Professor Alpen, as a former high-ranking official of the Empire, naturally belonged to the diligent side. For such a person not to come to class, Lee Han couldn’t help but worry about a natural disaster.

“The Headmaster summoned him.”

“…The Headmaster? Why?”

Yukbeltire shrugged slightly and shook his head. It meant he didn’t know that far. In fact, he wouldn’t have known this if Professor Alpen hadn’t told him. Yukbeltire was as uninterested in others as Professor Verdus.

Hmm! Gonadaltez is busy working in the capital now. Professor Knighton is probably helping him!

Jaurin excitedly explained to Lee Han when his own story came up. Of course, Lee Han wasn’t excited at all. First of all, the fact that the Skeleton Headmaster wasn’t at school felt ominous and dangerous.

“…What kind of work is he doing?”

Jaurin hesitated. He didn’t know the details.

“Um… lots of papers… smelling like old magic… Headmaster grumpy smell…”

…Jaurin is sorry…

“No. That was helpful enough. Thank you, Your Highness.” Lee Han soothed Jaurin and wondered inwardly. What is he getting permission for? Is he expanding the school?

The only person the Skeleton Headmaster would need to get permission from was the Emperor, and it certainly wouldn’t be a trivial matter. Even Professor Alpen had been called to the capital. He couldn’t even guess what that matter could be. Expanding the Einroguard building and getting more budget, increasing the territory and getting more budget…

“Senior. What do you think the headmaster is trying to get permission for?”

“Expanding research support for the fifth year?”

‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

Lee Han regretted asking Yukbeltire. Meanwhile, Yukbeltire called out to Dirette.

“I need to escort Prince Jaurin, and I think I’ll need help. I’ll help too.”

“Ah. Uh. That. Yeah. Um.”

When Dirette couldn’t speak because of friendship, Lee Han stepped forward. The junior should always do these kinds of chores.

“Senior, Prince Jaurin is carrying around some incredibly powerful magical items, isn’t he? You’re not tempted to… you know… borrow any for your research?”

“Only an idiot would want dragon parts just because they are powerful magical items. I don’t know what you’re talking about, junior from the Wodanaise family.” Although he is misunderstood as strict and grumpy, Yukbeltire basically has much higher social intelligence than Professor Verdus.

Even if he was tempted right now, he would eventually face a terrible retaliation. It was impossible for a mere wizard to stop a dragon’s retaliation.

“That’s right! I don’t understand why people don’t know that!”

“Yes. A dragon will never give away a part of itself to others. Keep that in mind.”

Oops.

Jaurin, who was listening from the side, was flustered. Was that so?