Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 923

Lee Han looked up from the papers on his desk, a little surprised. “Huh? Wodanaz,” he asked, tilting his head. “What are you doing?”

While Lee Han had been playfully teasing his junior about the exam, his friends, who had also finished, started to come into the lounge. They drifted in slowly, some looking tired, others relieved to be done.

Even to his friends, Aean Durde looked terrible. His face was pale and droopy, and he kept making small groaning noises. Whatever mistake he had made on the exam, they thought, it was probably best to just forget about it.

“I was just explaining his exam mistake.”

“Aha!”

The friends quickly threw their bags on the floor and hurried to the private rooms upstairs.

They realized that if they stayed too long, Lee Han might get angry at them too.

Aean Durde glared at the cowardly seniors hurrying away with contempt.

Sneaky runaways!

“Hick.”

“Why?”

Lee Han turned his head, puzzled by the junior’s sudden, short scream.

Yoner and his friends were entering from behind.

The junior groaned urgently, his eyes wide.

“Understood.”

Lee Han understood the meaning behind the junior’s urgent eyes and groans.

With a flick of his wrist, Lee Han used his magic to hide the exam papers under the floor.

Aean Durde looked at his senior with eyes full of admiration and respect.

As expected, the magic of Einroguard seniors was extraordinary.

“Oh. Aean Durde, you’re here?”

“Yes, yep.”

“How was the exam?”

Even though he had hidden the exam papers, Aean Durde’s face darkened again at Yoner’s question about the exam.

“Well… um… er…”

“He did his best. He didn’t fail.”

Lee Han made excuses for his junior without realizing it. Gainan Do was impressed.

“He didn’t fail. That’s amazing?”

“…Hey. Go away.”

“That’s right. You go away.”

“Ah, no, why…”

The friends, worried that the junior would be negatively influenced, scolded him, and Gainan Do looked disappointed and stepped back.

He thought to himself, ‘Doesn’t anyone notice when *I* do well?’

“Can I see your exam paper?”

“Yes, yes, yep.”

“Why is the exam paper in here?”

Yoner was puzzled as he looked at the exam paper popping out from the hidden space under the lounge floor.

Lee Han shrugged and made an excuse.

“I guess he was worried it would blow away in the wind.”

“Really…?”

Yoner was still a little confused, but he decided to check the grades instead of asking more questions.

“Wow. You did well?”

Aean Durde’s face brightened.

“But this alchemy exam is a bit disappointing.”

Aean Durde’s face darkened.

“Of course, the decision to use Seorak Herb was very good.”

Aean Durde’s face brightened again.

“But if you had used Binghan Mountain together here, it would have been even more effective.”

“Yoner.”

“Huh?”

“Actually, I already said that earlier.”

“Oh. Really?”

The friends watched the scene from behind and thought to themselves.

‘This is why first-year students are protected separately.’

They used to complain about why they were separated from the seniors when they were freshmen, but now they seemed to understand the reason.

If they did that every exam…!

“Okay. Aean Durde.”

After the painful review was over, Lee Han gave his junior a much larger basket of groceries than usual.

Gainan Do, who was seeing him off together, noticed it and asked a question.

“Huh? Isn’t there more than usual?”

“He might not come for a while.”

Students who were scolded for exams usually avoided approaching for a while.

He could tell just by looking at Gainan Do.

“I was fine, but Yoner was strict, you see.”

Gainan Do was shocked by his friend’s brazen words and gaped.

In Gainan Do’s view, both of them were equally strict in teasing their junior.

‘How can he say such ridiculous things so confidently without changing his expression…!’

“What’s wrong?”

“I, I’m impressed! Taking care of your junior like this! Lee Han, you’re the best!”

“Hehe. It’s nothing.”

Lee Han turned away, pleased with his friend’s praise. Gainan Do felt a deep sense of guilt.

To tell such ridiculous lies to his friend because of snacks!

As the weekend of the midterm exam week arrived, all the second-year students turned into lazybones and stuck to the lounge.

“c4…”

“Then dxc4… pawn…”

“Then I… transform the knight into a giant…”

“Did you eat hallucinogenic mushrooms or something… okay, I’ll summon the headmaster…”

The students, who usually tried their best to play whenever they had a little time, became lethargic and only talked.

Everyone was half-exhausted because of the midterm exams, which were much harder than last year.

Teapots floated in the air. Lee Han lightly moved his fingertips to fill his friends’ cups with hot cocoa and coffee.

In fact, this was when he felt the strongest sense of improvement as a wizard: when lazing around with magic.

Lee Han’s teachers would clutch the back of their necks if they heard that…

Looking to the side, Gainan Do was also lying on the floor with a blank expression, just looking at wizard cards.

“Come to think of it, Wodanaz.”

” ?”

“I heard that the clubs will be doing external activities in earnest after the exam, have you heard anything?”

Einroguard students were basically busy and unhappy, regardless of their grade.

Even the clubs, which were formed for social purposes, couldn’t escape it.

Club schedules were postponed when they were busy with exams or research, and they were done all at once when they were free.

‘That’s right.’

Lee Han recalled the memories he had heard from some of his seniors.

Surely after the exam…

-Phew. Wodanaz. Just bear with it! When the exam is over, we can go out and give food to the poor!

-…It’s definitely a good thing, but is it something to be so excited about?

-Ah. Of course! When we go out to do activities, we get lots and lots of food ingredients as gifts!

‘Hmm. What about other clubs…’

-Ah. Junior. As soon as the exam is over, it’s time for the Gyeokgu (Korean polo) season to begin in earnest.

-Yes. I see.

-But I wonder if we can get His Highness Jo Ulin to play? I guess it’s a bit much?

Lee Han shook his head.

For some reason, only strange clubs kept popping up in his memory.

“I’ve heard of the Kitchen Club and the Gyeokgu Club.”

“Oh. Then what about the Hunter’s Club?”

“No. I don’t know much about it.”

“What about the Adventurer’s Club? The Wizard Card Club?”

“The Outing Club? The Sculpture Making Club?”

As the questions poured in, Lee Han straightened up from his reclining position and sat up straight.

“Wait. Why are you asking me this? I’m not even a member of any of these clubs?”

“Oh? You didn’t join?!”

Lee Han glared at his friends as if he was dumbfounded. The friends cleared their throats and avoided his gaze.

“Ah, no. I thought you had joined all of them…”

“Come to think of it, I didn’t join all the unofficial clubs. Ahem.”

The Blue Dragon Tower students, who had naturally assumed that a friend of the Wodanaz family would have joined a club, were very embarrassed.

“How did you even get the idea that I joined when I didn’t even go there in the first place?”

“Well, I thought you were just busy and not showing up…”

Lee Han couldn’t argue.

He actually showed up quite intermittently even to the clubs he had joined because he was busy.

Yoner, who was next to him, said.

“Our club is going out to watch a play, I heard.”

Yoner was someone who had been invited by as many clubs as Nilia.

He showed up at the Kitchen Club and several other clubs, but in the end, he joined the unofficial Einroguard Theater Club with Nilia (Lee Han was sure that Nilia grabbed his ankle and begged him because she didn’t want to go alone).

The Einroguard Theater Club was an unofficial club, but as the name suggests, it was simply a club that enjoyed various cultured activities.

From Lee Han’s perspective, it didn’t make any money, so he didn’t even remember the name, but thanks to that, the atmosphere inside the club was calm and friendly.

“No. It’s normal?!”

“Then it’s normal…”

Yoner was dumbfounded by Lee Han’s surprise.

Is it so surprising that external activities are normal?

“Sorry. I just thought that club activities should be accompanied by noticeable achievements and plenty of gold coins.”

‘He’s my friend, but sometimes he seems crazy.’

“That’s true too. In the first place, it’s hard for unofficial clubs to go out.”

Hearing Yoner’s words, Lee Han recalled a rule he had forgotten.

Come to think of it, only official clubs had the authority to go out.

How could the unofficial Theater Club do that so easily?

“I see. You persuaded the professors with a plan to reproduce the miserable reality of Einroguard in a play and earn gold coins.”

“…Ah, no. We were just invited.”

The students sometimes forgot, but Einroguard was the top magic school in the empire.

There were plenty of celebrities in the empire who wanted to invite students from such a place and show them their art.

No matter how grumpy the headmaster, nicknamed ‘Skull Headmaster’ for his stern face, was, he couldn’t refuse all these invitations.

Lee Han was shocked.

He hadn’t paid attention to clubs related to culture and art, but there was such a loophole?

“Then…! I have to join right now and smuggle!”

“…Calm down! It’s not that big of a deal.”

Yoner calmed his friend down.

The Skull Headmaster would never be kind to such idle activities. When the Theater Club went out, it was followed by unprecedented surveillance.

Surveillance that was on a different level from the usual ‘try to break through if you have the ability’ level.

“What level is it?”

Still, Lee Han couldn’t let go of his lingering feelings and asked.

“Under the pretext of protecting the Einroguard wizards, they block the city’s main streets and alleys, clear people out, and empty all the shops and stores. Death knights surround and escort them.”

“…I should cancel my membership.”

Lee Han quickly gave up.

It was clear that the Skull Headmaster especially hated the Theater Club among the Einroguard clubs.

Well, how could he not hate it when all the students in the club were happy and enjoying themselves?

“Hmph. Still, the Theater Club is lucky.”

Gainan Do muttered in a gloomy voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“The club I’m in is having a hard time going out, so we’re thinking about it.”

The Wizard Card Club, no, the Wizard Card Collection Club (the two were clearly different clubs) was an unofficial club.

As long as the plan to go outside was uncertain, he couldn’t help but envy the Theater Club, which received external invitations even if they stayed still.

“It’s better to be an official club…”

‘There’s no such thing as a perfect club.’

Lee Han realized it again.

Official clubs were easy to go out to, but the things they had to do were harsh, and unofficial clubs were free to do things, but it wasn’t easy to go out.

…There were also mutants like the Theater Club, but those were a bit of an exception…

‘Wait. Then.’

Lee Han calculated it simply.

It seemed like the official clubs among the clubs he had joined would each go out, but what about the unofficial clubs?

First of all, the Einroguard Social Club was a ghost club created by Yukbertire, who was the furthest thing from social, so it wouldn’t be active.

And the Location Movement Club is…

‘…Impossible, right?’

No matter how plausible the plan was, it seemed difficult for the unofficial club among the unofficial clubs to go out.

What crazy professor would allow such a club to go out?

Lee Han decided he would need to keep a closer eye on the secret warehouse outside the school.

“No. We’re going out too.”

Lee Han was startled by the words of Senior Sebius, a fourth-year hamster beastman.

“…Excuse me?! Are you talking about the Library Club?!”

“…No. I’m talking about the Location Movement Club.”

“Ah. You’re talking about escaping.”

Lee Han nodded as if he understood.

Of course, Lee Han also used the expression ‘outing’ when he escaped. Who would say that verbatim?

“We’re really going out. We submitted a plan and got special permission.”

“…Wh, what kind of plan did you submit?”

“Recovering magical items that the professors want.”

At this point, isn’t it just an official club?