Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 1058

Professor Volardi thought, “That’s strange.” Gainando, his student, loved fighting strong enemies. But Gainando was now chasing the 악신 (Akshin) cult. He seemed to have no reason to do this, and it felt unlike him.

“Professor! All done!” Gainando shouted. “Hurry! Let’s go tell them what you think!”

Professor Volardi was thinking deeply. Gainando’s shout made him look up, surprised.

Gainando had already made a passage going down to the underground fortress.

Next to him was his favorite creature, the Thorn Revenant. It was using its arm, which had changed into a bone shovel, to dig away the dirt.

The Thorn Revenant was not born with a shovel arm. Gainando must have changed its shape just now.

“You managed to break through.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Gainando tilted his head, not understanding Professor Volardi’s words.

“This passage, I mean.”

This underground fortress was strong. The thieves spent a lot of money to build it. The passages and hiding places were very strong and thick. But Gainando broke through them quickly.

Professor Volardi thought, ‘Just changing the undead’s arm wouldn’t be enough…’

“Oh, I used strong poison. I use it to get rid of trash… Oops! Please don’t tell Leehan!”

Gainando realized what he said and quickly tried to take it back.

He was supposed to take trash far away from the tower and get rid of it the right way. But if he was lazy and just melted it with poison, Leehan would hit him hard on the head.

“I usually do it the right way, really! Professor? Professor?”

Gainando tried to explain, but Professor Volardi had already gone into the passage.

“Calling a very strong spirit in this underground fortress might be bad,” Leehan said as he walked through the passage. It was suddenly very quiet.

Actually, calling the passage ‘quiet’ was not right. It was much worse than quiet. The passage was completely destroyed.

Perkuntra, who had not been called for a real reason in a long time, was now free to use his power. He happily destroyed everything around him.

He smashed machines in the passage, ate traps, and tore down walls. He pushed the running thieves into rooms and closed them off.

Perkuntra, made of lightning, destroyed the underground fortress completely. The thieves had spent a long time building it, but they could do nothing to stop him.

They couldn’t even get their scrolls, potions, or magic items ready to fight the mages. They had stored these things for battles. But Perkuntra was too fast. He destroyed the passage before they could do anything.

The thieves couldn’t run to their planned places to slow them down or fight back in hiding. Perkuntra could feel where they were hiding. He trapped them before they could even come out.

“……”

Jisel did not answer. She was concentrating very hard. She knew if she spoke to Wodanaz, she would lose focus right away.

‘Stay alert. Stay alert. Stay alert…’ Jisel thought. She saw the damage from the spirit king’s lightning. A thought came to her mind: ‘Is it all finished now?’ But Jisel ignored it.

“Those… crazy mages. What do they want?”

“!”

Just then, Jisel’s focus paid off. A thief came out from the end of the passage.

He looked confused, like he had been swimming through a tunnel. His hair was messy, and his expensive clothes were now muddy and full of holes. Only his eyes were bright with shock, fear, and anger.

“Look! Wodanaz! A thief is still here!”

“…Moradi. I don’t think we should be happy about that…”

Leehan was a little surprised.

Shouldn’t he be surprised that any thief survived after Perkuntra destroyed everything? Jisel had been excited, but now she spoke more quietly and cleared her throat.

“I was just pointing out that you might have been careless.”

‘I don’t think so.’

“Still, it looks like I don’t have to let you do everything.”

Jisel banged her swords together. A cold mist appeared around her.

She had worked hard to get inside. Her pride told her she couldn’t let the spirit king do all the work. Even though she was helping Wodanaz, she couldn’t just stand and watch like a useless prince.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Ibinta.”

“Ibinta? …Ibinta? Ibinta the Iron Mantle?!”

Jisel was very surprised.

“Who is he?”

“About ten years ago… he was a very famous criminal that everyone wanted to catch. I thought he was dead.”

“I was hiding really well. No one could find me,” Ibinta said, his teeth clenched. He still felt like this was all a bad dream.

The ground above was falling apart. *Alarm! Intruders!* ‘Are they those guys from before?’ someone shouted. ‘Get rid of them!’ The alarm went off. Ibinta was calm and gave orders.

The ground above was falling apart, 5 seconds. ‘The intruders seem stronger than expected! They appear to be combat mages!’ ‘Block the passages and activate the traps.’

Ibinta didn’t pay much attention to the subsequent report either. It wasn’t a place that could be breached by one or two combat mages.

The ground above was falling apart, 10 seconds. ‘All the paths are closed, and the walls are open! We’ll put the new guys in to wear them down!’ ‘Good. Let’s see what the new guys are capable of.’

Ibinta chuckled at the report that the passage he had commissioned from the dwarves at great expense was proving its worth. The trapped combat mages would have to face the thieves swarming from all directions.

…The floor of the ruined village collapses, 15 seconds. ‘The fortress is collapsing!!!’ ‘What? What? What???’

Rumble!

Ibinta was drinking wine in his fancy room deep in the fortress. He called for his helper, but no one answered.

Instead, the sound that returned was the wailing of the entire fortress shaking and tearing apart.

Still not giving up, he shouted and issued orders through the speaking tubes connected throughout the fortress, but only a chilling silence returned.

Ibinta felt the wine wearing off. He quickly decided what to do. He left everything behind, used the magic in his cloak, and dug into the ground to escape.

“Was it that cloak that saved him? Moradi, that looks like a very old magic item. The magic is very special,” Leehan whispered.

Leehan had wondered how Ibinta got here without Perkuntra catching him. Now he understood. Ibinta had used the cloak’s power to travel through the ground.

Also, the magic in the cloak was a kind he hadn’t seen in the Empire recently. He wanted to study it if he could.

“What are you whispering about! You can’t attack me secretly!” Ibinta said angrily. He thought the two mages were planning to surprise him.

He thought his cloak would protect him from secret attacks. Ibinta stared angrily at the mages. ‘…I shouldn’t say that Wodanaz is studying the magic right now,’ Jisel thought. She thought about making Ibinta angrier, but decided not to.

Making him too angry might be bad for them. Besides, he was already very angry. His bandit group’s fortress had been destroyed in less than a minute!

“Is it because of that guy? Kitarenanum? I shouldn’t have let him join us…”

“What!? Kitarenanum was here?!”

This time, Leehan was very surprised.

Leehan thought Kitarenanum, the magic criminal, had died in the Void Monster attack. He was still alive! ‘How did he survive?’ Leehan wondered.

“…You didn’t come here for Kitarenanum?”

Ibinta was even more confused. He just thought Kitarenanum had caused all this trouble.

“I thought there was strong magic outside, but it was Kitarenanum’s magic.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“I came to see if there were any 악신 (Akshin) worshippers here.”

“…?”

Ibinta couldn’t believe what he heard. Many criminals had run to this underground fortress, but none of them worshipped 악신 (Akshin).

“There’s no one like that here? Who are you talking about? No, which cult?”

“I see. There isn’t. That’s a relief then.”

“……”

Ibinta suddenly understood something. It felt like cold ice was going down his back when he heard the mage’s answer.

So…

…they stirred up all this trouble just to check if there was one, even though they didn’t even know if there was one or not???

Ibinta’s face turned many different colors. He would have understood if they came because he was a famous criminal or to defeat his bandit group.

“How dare you say that to my face!”

“I didn’t know you were such a big bandit group. It’s not my fault you attacked us,” Leehan said. He didn’t seem sorry at all.

Leehan only wanted to check for 악신 (Akshin) worshippers while Professor Volardi was busy. But the bandits here made things worse by attacking them.

Blood flowed from Ibinta’s mouth. Jisel wondered if he was going to collapse.

“…Then answer this as well. Why would I be talking to you here instead of running away?”

Ibinta’s voice sounded clever. Jisel was a little worried. ‘No… it can’t be…? It will be okay.’ Jisel thought Wodanaz was smarter than anyone.

Jisel was right. Leehan answered without much surprise.

“Because you are waiting for your cloak to get its power back.”

Leehan knew what kind of magic the cloak had from far away. So, of course, he knew it was getting power back.

Ibinta was very upset by that answer.

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

“…So you think you can beat me even when my cloak is strong again? You arrogant fool! You will pay for being so arrogant…”

“No. Not really.”

Right after he said that, Perkuntra jumped out of the ground from under Ibinta.

Bzzzzzt! The lightning spirit went right through him. Ibinta fell to the ground. Leehan’s voice was quiet, but Ibinta could still hear it. “I was calling the spirit again too, you see.”

Sorry. I got too excited and went too far.”

“But… how could you be so far away?”

‘The spirit… was still… here…?’ Ibinta looked at the mage. His sight was getting blurry.

He hadn’t noticed before because he was shocked about the fortress. But now, the man’s face looked familiar. Why did he think he knew him?

-The problems are: not enough food because of sickness and hunger. Rebels and bandits are joining together and are dangerous. Many monsters are coming down from the mountains because of magic power. I can only stay here for two days, so I need to fix these things quickly. First, send letters to families to get food. Then, I will deal with the rebels, bandits, and monsters.

-?!!

‘I remember…!’

The incident that led Ibinta to leave [칸글라의 조영 (Khangla’s Shadow)>.

At that time, Ibinta had infiltrated the Empire’s camp as a spy on behalf of the rebels, taking advantage of the chaos of the southern 분화 (Bunhwa) eruption.

And that was when he witnessed a grand mage for the first time in his life.

He was amazed at how he had managed to win over the southern families, who had been so disobedient, and turn them into docile sheep, but what was most surprising was…

…the fact that he had wiped out the allied forces of rebels and bandits and even subjugated the monster horde in just half a day.

-Give the remaining loot to the families, as written in the book. The Marcio and Bicale families will probably be unhappy, so give them half at first. If they complain, give them the rest. The Laren family wants Duke Gonadaltes to notice them, so give them a letter from the Duke praising them. It’s not real, but they won’t know…

Ibinta decided right then, seeing him come back so calmly and telling the Empire’s people to take care of everything.

He would not stay in any group that might fight with someone as strong as that mage!

The adventurers in [칸글라의 조영 (Khangla’s Shadow)> talked and said, ‘What’s so special about a grand mage?’ But Ibinta had lost all his courage.

As he remembered running away back then, he also remembered who the mage was. He was the oldest son and the one who would inherit a very important noble family…

‘The Wodanaz family…!!’

Ibinta fainted, remembering that.

Then he whispered, “If you are from the Wodanaz family… you should have told me earlier!”

“??!”

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