Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 1072

Puyo really liked the magic the two students from Einrogard made. He said, “It’s amazing that students could do this! Professor Verdus is very lucky!”

Professor Verdus was under the table and looked confused. *Why* would Puyo say he was lucky? Verdus was on his hands and knees because of his students who tricked him!

Avalkaigen looked very closely at the magic on the plate and was very surprised. “Wow!” he said. “It’s already amazing you put a dimension rod and refraction together on one plate! But…,” he looked even closer, “I see old, lost magic here too! Magic I’ve never seen before!”

“Did Lord Gonadaltes help you learn this?” Avalkaigen asked.

“No,” said Ihan. “He’s too cheap to teach anyone.”

Avalkaigen thought, ‘The magic school at Einrogard is unlucky! Even if these students are good, they have to work for a crazy teacher.’ Avalkaigen looked at Ihan and Yukbertire with eyes that showed he felt sorry for them.

Yukbertire thought Avalkaigen wanted their magic and whispered to Ihan, “Be careful.”

“Why?” Ihan whispered back.

“Look at him. He wants our magic.”

“…No, Senior,” Ihan said. “He feels sorry for us.”

“Sorry for us? Why?” Yukbertire asked.

“Because we are Professor Verdus’s students,” Ihan said.

“Um… we found it… in Einrogard,” Ihan said.

“Oh, I see,” Avalkaigen said. “Thank you for telling me.”

Avalkaigen looked at the magic again and sighed. He couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It was almost perfect magic. It looked like a very old and great wizard made it. “I give up,” Avalkaigen said to Professor Verdus. “You are a better teacher than me.”

Avalkarn, Avalkaigen’s student, felt bad and shouted without thinking, “No, Master! That’s not true!” He thought, ‘Maybe *I* am not good enough, but my teacher is perfect!’ Suddenly, loud shouts came from the side.

“Hey!” Ihan and the Einrogard students were yelling angrily. “Don’t say Professor Avalkaigen is bad! Don’t think that!”

Ihan shouted. “Yukbertire and I made this magic! It’s not thanks to Professor Verdus! Be careful what you say!”

Ihan looked so angry, like Avalkaigen was his worst enemy!

“I, I think I made a mistake. I apologize.”

“…No. I’m sorry too, I think I got too excited. And I’m affiliated with all the schools of Einrogard, so I have many teachers. It’s absolutely not thanks to Professor Verdus.”

Avalkaigen seemed to know one thing for sure. The students of the Einrogard Enchantment Magic School, whether they were upperclassmen or underclassmen, all really hated Professor Verdus.

The boring introductions finally ended. Professor Verdus quickly started talking about what he thought was most interesting: his magic research. He put a tiny sailboat, small enough to fit in his hand, on the table. The wizards were amazed.

Even Ihan was surprised inside.

“Is this… perhaps a real ship shrunk down with magic?”

“You see things well,” Avalkaigen said. “Maybe you know Professor Verdus and heard about this already? Oh, sorry.” The room became a little quiet and uncomfortable. Ihan felt bad.

‘I was rude to someone I just met.’ He didn’t mean to be rude, but when Avalkaigen mentioned Professor Verdus, Ihan suddenly felt very angry inside…

“In any case, it’s truly amazing. I didn’t know you could do such shrinking magic to this extent.”

“Professor Verdus’s skill is undeniable.”

Changing things with magic is not easy. Making real things smaller, like this sailboat, is very hard. It gets much harder if you want to make it very small or keep it small for a long time. The wizards understood how amazing and strong the magic was to shrink this sailboat.

Puyo looked closely. He was good at seeing small differences. “Wait,” Puyo said. “This sailboat looks different! It’s not the same one Professor Verdus showed us in his letters.”

“You’re right!” another wizard said. “Why is it different? Did you make a new one?”

“Lagesa stole it!” Professor Verdus said, sounding very angry.

“Lagesa? Admiral Lagesa? From the ships in the south?” someone asked.

“Yes, maybe,” Professor Verdus said. “He gives me money to help with my research.”

“Oh, so he’s your… helper?” Avalkaigen asked, confused. “Then it’s not stealing, right? If he paid for it?”

“Yes, it IS stealing!” Professor Verdus shouted, getting red in the face. “He took it without asking!”

How much time and money did it take to make a new one from scratch because the small sailboat he had made before had disappeared? Lagesa had sent him more gold afterward, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Did he take something other than what Lagesa invested in?”

“No? He took what he invested in?”

While the people in the room suppressed their anger, Professor Verdus grumbled again.

“Wodanaz took money and gave it to him,” Professor Verdus grumbled.

“Wait, everyone, please don’t think I took money!” Ihan said quickly. “I just thought Lord Lagesa would be very angry if he didn’t get the ship…”

“Don’t worry, no one here thinks that,” Puyo said. The knights nodded.

None of the people here had any intention of misunderstanding Professor Verdus’s words. Even if Professor Verdus said, ‘My disciple Wodanaz set fire to the workshop, stabbed me, and then looted all the valuable treasures!’, the people here would side with Ihan.

“Wait. The shape of the hull has changed?”

“That’s right. The front mast has also been changed…” The two wizards who had come at Professor Verdus’s invitation were embarrassed by the fact that the newly made sailboat was quite different from the original sailboat.

This was a more important issue than they had thought. From the start, the things the two had prepared after receiving the invitation were all magic tailored to the old sailboat. From ancient artifacts that were combined with the hull to control the climate in the air, to magic that modified the mast to be similar to a magic wand so that the ship itself could use magic. Both were delicate magics, so if the shape of the sailboat changed, they would have to readjust it.

“I changed the design a bit when I made the new one. I didn’t like the old design,” Professor Verdus said.

“You changed it?!” Avalkaigen shouted loudly. “You should have told us! What is wrong with this crazy wizard?!” he thought.

“You can fix it here, right?”

“How much time are you going to waste? I came all the way here after being invited!”

Avalkaigen was angry that his time was being wasted. He jumped up and walked quickly out the door. He wished he hadn’t come. He sighed outside, feeling hopeless. The knights followed him. Avalkaigen said sorry to them.

“I’m sorry. You came here to protect me, and I’m acting like this.”

-No, that’s okay. But Wizard, you said you made magic just for the *old* sailboat?

“Yes… but… why?” Avalkaigen was confused. Why were the knights asking about this?

-If we get the old sailboat, can you do your magic on *that* one?

“Wasn’t it taken by Lord Lagesa?”

-After that, Lord Lagesa gave it as a gift to someone else. It’s a bit of a long story. Anyway, I understand that it’s possible.

The knights were about to go back inside without even hearing an answer. This time, it was to bring Puyo out. However, Puyo walked out first. Avalkaigen bowed his head and apologized.

“I’m sorry, Teacher. Because of me…”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Puyo said. “Professor Verdus keeps asking me to cut off parts of my body. It’s annoying, so I left.” (Puyo was part tree and part spirit. Professor Verdus thought Puyo’s body parts would be good for magic, so he always asked for some.)

“But why are the knights gathered here?”

The knights asked the same question they had asked Avalkaigen earlier. Puyo reacted the same way.

“Wasn’t it taken by Lord Lagesa??”

-It’s a long story. Anyway, I understand!

The knights went back inside and came out with Ihan. Ihan looked confused.

“Are you going to attack Professor Verdus?” he asked.

-No, said a knight. (The knights thought about it, but decided not to attack Verdus *yet*. They would remember this idea for later.)

-Heir, the knight whispered to Ihan.

“Shhh!” Ihan said quietly. “People are listening!” ‘Heir?’ the two wizards thought, wondering who they meant. But they didn’t ask.

-Okay, Lord Wodanaz. You know that sailboat you received last time.

“Yes.”

-How about entrusting it to those people?

The two wizards couldn’t stand it and joined the conversation.

“No. Wasn’t it taken by Lord Lagesa?”

“Lord Lagesa gave it back to me.”

“Why?”

Avalkaigen was flustered. That small sailboat that roamed the skies was not a cheap item. Lagesa must have invested a tremendous amount in Professor Verdus for it. But to give it back to the disciple of the wizard he hated so much.

“I don’t know the exact reason, but if I had to guess…” The two wizards listened intently. What kind of potential did Lagesa discover in this genius?

“Maybe… maybe he felt sorry for me because I have to learn from Professor Verdus?” Ihan guessed.

“…” Avalkaigen almost believed it for a second, then shook his head. ‘Oh, come on!’ he thought.