Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 1177

“Ah…”

Lee Han, surprised, tried to stop her, but the old woman had already turned her back.

“Keep it down, you young kid!” she snapped.

“Grrr! Have you no manners? We’re having a magical discussion!” growled another dark wizard.

“……”

Lee Han watched the dark wizards take over the desks like they owned the place. He wondered why he even tried to say anything.

I’ll tell them off later, he thought, when this is all done.

Lee Han was planning his tricks, but the dark wizards were just as bad. While Lee Han was secretly plotting, they were doing the same.

“Good. Then I shall remove and replace it with .”

“Grrrr! (That’s a complete alteration!)”

“One can make alterations when performing magic. Do you complete every spell exactly as you first envisioned it, you old codger?”

“It’s unfair to change a spell that’s already finished just to make it harder.”

“Foul play, you say? Do it yourself if you’re so upset! I bet that young pup will never master !”

“Grrr! (Already crawling on all fours, yet still putting on airs.)”

Wait a moment. Wasn’t the original goal to explain magic simply?

The wizard from the Obsidian Tower suddenly felt a pang of doubt.

Surely, the reason for this instruction was to teach Wodanaz so they could carry out this commission with their own work… Since when did it become a competition of who could pull out the most difficult magic?

“Young pup, why are you so quiet? Aha, I see. You have no intention of changing it! Look, the young pup agrees!”

“Grrrr! (Is that really so?!)”

Before he could think, the sparks flew. The wizard from the Obsidian Tower shouted without a moment’s hesitation.

“We will change our approach as well. Don’t speak such nonsense.”

“Hmph. Very well, then. Let’s see who comes out on top!”

Catton, who had been listening to the wizards’ conversation with interest, noticed his junior colleague slipping out the window and waved him off.

Living as an exceptional wizard must be quite the undertaking!

“Hey. If the dark wizards come looking for me, tell them I’m not here.”

Lee Han, having sought refuge in the White Tiger Tower students’ dormitory, commandeered an unused desk.

Angor quickly tossed a magazine with the lurid title, , out the window.

Lee Han used a teleportation spell to retrieve the magazine from outside, then tossed it back to Angor.

“I can see everything. You should have hidden it before I arrived.”

“…Don’t use difficult magic for such small things!”

Dergyu, ever the loyal friend, changed the subject.

“Lee Han, why should we say you’re not here if the dark wizards ask?”

“They keep trying to teach me magic that’s too difficult to learn, and it’s bothersome.”

“?”

“?”

Angor and Dergyu exchanged glances.

Dergyu’s eyes pleaded, ‘Don’t do it,’ but Angor couldn’t resist opening his mouth.

“But isn’t that what you wanted, Wodanaz?”

“…Angor. Are you angry with me or something?”

“Ah, no! I was being sincere!”

Angor was horrified as Lee Han rose from his seat.

He had only asked out of genuine curiosity!

“You White Tiger Tower fellows often misunderstand me. It’s not as if I deliberately enjoy learning difficult magic.”

And the Blue Dragon Tower fellows said the same thing…

Angor felt wronged.

Clearly, Student A and Student B, as well as a student of royal descent, had given similar testimonies.

“It just happened that way. Isn’t that right, Dergyu?”

“Huh? Uh-huh. Of cour-of course, that’s what I think. Haha.”

The muscular orc friend felt a twinge of conscience and quickly spoke up. Sometimes, friendship was more important than conscience.

“See? Dergyu doesn’t misunderstand. I don’t know why White Tiger Tower students believe silly stories.”

“……”

“…Is the commission finished?!”

Dergyu changed the subject once more.

Judging by Angor’s expression, he felt there was a high chance he would be dragged into it.

“The commission? Ah. It’s done for now, but the dark wizards keep saying it’s no good, insisting on making it difficult… Do you want to take a look?”

At Lee Han’s words, the two nodded in agreement.

The magic circles and spells looked very, very difficult.

“The dark wizards are going too far. If there’s an easy way, you should take it. Why insist on such a difficult path? They need to consider the people who are building it.”

“It’s too difficult. Lee Han, I understand why you can’t accept it.”

“…That wasn’t written by the dark wizards, I wrote it. Is it really that difficult?”

Lee Han’s face darkened slightly.

He thought he had made it intuitive and efficient, but he hadn’t expected this reaction.

“Ah, no! It’s not that bad!”

“Angor is right, Lee Han! It’s good enough!”

His friends quickly tried to calm him down, but it was already too late. Lee Han muttered with a gloomy expression.

“I might need to simplify it further. Honestly, it’s not easy to make it any simpler than this… It might be faster to just start over.”

Angor looked at Dergyu with pleading eyes, but of course, there was nothing Dergyu could do in the current situation.

“Do something, Choi! Wodanaz is going to start over!”

“C-can he even make it better from there?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t understand even 30% of it! I only understood that the knights would be trapped in a spatial maze if they tried to escape!”

Angor and Dergyu whispered anxiously.

They might not have understood most of the blueprint they had just received, but they could guess that it had taken a considerable amount of effort.

And now he was going to refine it again.

Even simpler?

“Hey. Everyone, stop doing nothing and come out…”

Giselle, who had come to call out her friends who were probably doing nothing, paused.

One friend, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, was looking over the blueprint with a gloomy expression.

“…I see you weren’t doing nothing. Very well. Keep up the good work.”

Giselle tried to back away, but the two wouldn’t let her go.

“Moradi! Do something! Wodanaz is going to start over!”

“Do what? Teach you lot?”

“The commission! The commission!”

“Start over? Did he even finish it in the meantime? Surely not…”

“He did, and now he’s going to redo it.”

At Lee Han’s words, Giselle’s head snapped around.

He’d already finished it?!

She knew this Blue Dragon Tower friend was a genius, but she hadn’t expected him to finish it so quickly.

“Wait. Why are you redoing it?”

“The dark wizards…”

“The dark wizards helped? Ah, so that’s why it was done faster than expected?”

If that were the case, it made sense.

The dark wizards might not be good at this (or rather, the wizard from Einrogard was too good), but their magic was still very strong.

If those dark wizards had helped, it was understandable that the blueprint was completed quickly…

“No. The other dark wizards kept suggesting making it difficult, so we thought it was a suggestion from the dark wizards, but it was actually Wodanaz’s suggestion…”

“????”

Giselle was thrown into confusion. She couldn’t understand Angor’s words at all.

Eventually, Dergyu had to step in and explain.

“…Wait. Let me read it too.”

Giselle snatched the blueprint and began to read it with a frown.

Then, she said firmly.

“This is good enough.”

“…Don’t lie! How could you understand it so quickly! I can’t allow that to happen in the name of the White Tiger Tower!”

Angor flared up before Lee Han could.

Even if they were friends, there were some things that couldn’t be overlooked. Magic, in particular.

He couldn’t understand it, but Moradi, from the same tower, had already finished understanding it?!

“You don’t need to understand the magic parts, just look at the result. Why are you trying to understand everything?”

Giselle looked at Angor as if he were being ridiculous.

When creating magical structures according to such blueprints, there was no need to understand everything in the blueprint.

You just needed to arrange the materials and cast the spells as written.

If you could understand everything, why would you ask someone else to make it? You’d just make it yourself.

“……”

“……”

Come to think of it?

Angor and Dergyu were confused. Maybe Wodanaz had made them think they needed to understand everything, even when they didn’t.

“But Moradi, what if I make a mistake and there’s a problem during the construction?”

“Did the dark wizards say there were any mistakes?”

“There weren’t any, but…”

“Then there won’t be.”

“…I might need to do maintenance work later when I’m not around.”

“You’ll leave the blueprint behind and compare it to repair it. Just do the same work as before.”

Lee Han, defeated, looked at Angor and Dergyu. The two smiled awkwardly, feeling uneasy.

Please don’t start over!

“W-we think Moradi is right too.”

“That’s right, Lee Han. Think carefully. Redoing it is…”

“…Okay. I think you’re right.”

Phew!

Finally, when Lee Han conceded, his friends breathed a sigh of relief.

However, his next words completely surprised his friends.

“But I thought of a way to fix it while we were talking, so I’ll just fix that.”

“Hey!”

Dirette borrowed the Rimpaksi, the fastest mount in the dark magic school and Professor Mortum’s prized possession, and sped through the Empire’s skies.

As she approached the area where the Moradi family’s northern fortress was visible, someone called out from below.

“Ahem, Dirette! There seems to have been a misunderstanding. You may return!”

Dirette ignored the person disguised as Professor Mortum and passed by. Stopping to identify the person would be falling for their trick.

“From Einrogard!”

The knights managing the stables for flying mounts, located on the cliff, recognized the flag and stepped aside.

Dirette jumped off the Rimpaksi immediately. The Rimpaksi shook its jet-black mane and made a disgruntled noise.

“Sorry! Evil enemies are trying to kidnap my junior colleague!”

After promising to give it snacks later, Dirette moved using flight magic.

“Stop there! Flying is prohibited within the territory!”

A knight shouted, but Dirette ignored him as if she hadn’t heard. When you couldn’t tell if the other person was a disguised dark wizard or a real knight, pretending not to hear was the right answer.

Is it this way!

Dirette, having heard the location of Wodanaz and Catton’s lodging, kicked down the door and entered.

“Junior! Did those lunatics give you a hard time?!”

“?”

“……”

The descendants of Ahrak, the legion of Oondorgu, and the dark wizards from the Obsidian Tower were crowded into the small lodging, chattering noisily, and turned their heads.

Catton, who had been sitting calmly, waved cheerfully.

“Who are you calling lunatics?”

The dark wizards gathered in the room asked with curiosity.