Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 341

‘That’s odd.’

The Skull Headmaster might have a nasty temper, but he wasn’t stupid.

He surely knew the banquet hall was in the middle of Granden City. Why would he hurt students here and not think about enemies attacking?

‘Could this attack be for the Duke, not for me?’

Leihan glanced at Duke Icardoren.

The Duke stood with his arms crossed, his expression unchanging. His posture showed an arrogance that suggested he didn’t care about what came from the alley.

If it were an enemy attacking the students, he should have been more surprised or shown some reaction.

‘It’s the Duke they’re after, isn’t it!’

Leihan wished he hadn’t gotten involved.

He should have let the Duke’s guards handle it. It would have been finished quickly. Why did he have to get involved?

‘Honestly, the Skull Headmaster is no help at all.’

Leihan was about to ask the guards to work together, even now.

However, the attack in the alley was more important now. The energy grew stronger and sharper, like a deadly blade, ready to attack.

As Leihan suspected, Duke Icardoren wasn’t surprised.

Of course, it wasn’t because he knew exactly who the attacker was. Duke Icardoren was simply tired of such attacks.

A Duke of the Empire was bound to have enemies, and Icardoren, being the most aggressively active of them, had many adversaries, from great noble families to criminal guilds.

Most of these enemies wouldn’t dare to make a move, but with so many of them, he experienced such attacks like clockwork, two or three times a year.

Naturally, Duke Icardoren, with his arrogant nature, wasn’t frightened and didn’t act cautiously.

Instead, he heightened his defenses to the maximum.

The defensive artifacts Duke Icardoren wore were worth more than a dozen fortresses, and the guards around him possessed the combat power to wipe out an entire guild.

He was practically a walking fortress, so there was no reason to fear the attacks of insignificant assassins. It was the assassins who should be afraid.

Therefore, Duke Icardoren was genuinely not surprised by the attack.

‘Truly astonishing!’

Duke Icardoren tried to guess the meaning behind Leihan’s actions.

Why step forward in this situation?

It could be to raise his value in front of Princess Adenarte, or perhaps to raise his value in front of Duke Icardoren himself.

‘Or perhaps both.’

The Duke thought the latter was more likely.

The actions of that Wodanaz boy were remarkably energetic for a freshman. Many geniuses entered Einroguard, but it was rare for a genius to establish himself and build a reputation like that from their first year.

‘I respect your ambition, boy of the Wodanaz family. But you’re missing one thing.’

Having understood the situation, Duke Icardoren recognized the gap in Leihan’s plan.

‘That is, you have to handle the attack alone.’

Since he had stepped forward to stop it himself, he couldn’t receive help from the Duke’s guards.

And those who tried to attack Duke Icardoren were mostly powerful individuals who had thoroughly prepared to attack the Duke.

‘He wouldn’t know how strong the ones attacking me are. A freshman, no matter how much of a genius, will he be able to handle the attackers?’

It was easy to be mistaken because the power of a wizard’s magic was so earth-shattering, but wizards’ combat abilities were often lacking.

Magic was powerful once completed, but it was nothing before it was completed.

Those who knew that well could easily play with wizards. There were many ways to interfere with magic, from disrupting spells to breaking concentration.

Duke Icardoren thought that it wouldn’t be easy for Leihan to win against the attackers.

If he asked for help after saying that, the ambitious boy’s pride would be greatly damaged, but the Duke intended to step in immediately if Leihan seemed to be losing.

If Leihan was seriously injured, he would also be in trouble.

‘Don’t resent me for helping, even if I do. It’s your own choice.’

“Master, be careful! It’s poison!”

“Stop whining. If you’re saying that sincerely, then either your eyes or your brain must be broken.”

The Duke said to his guard in a nonchalant voice. The guard’s face turned red.

With the detoxification capabilities of the artifacts the Duke possessed, even if the surrounding area was melted down by poison, the Duke wouldn’t be harmed in the slightest.

In fact, despite the guard’s exclamation, the Duke hadn’t moved a single step.

“What kind of monster is that? It doesn’t look like a slime. It seems like they mixed a spirit or a dimensional beast and summoned it.”

The Duke and his guard roughly guessed the attacker’s identity as soon as it crawled out of the alley.

Having been attacked so many times, they could now estimate the situation just by looking at the appearance.

Seeing it wriggling and moving in an amorphous shape with venom, it was either a slime, a spirit, or a dimensional beast, but it moved too fast to be a slime…

It was highly likely that they had summoned it by contaminating or fusing a spirit or dimensional beast with potent poison.

The attacker probably obtained information that the Duke would pass through this area and summoned the potent poison contaminant in time.

The culprit could be traced later by having the wizards investigate the traces after the situation was resolved, but for now…

‘It’s impossible.’

Duke Icardoren concluded.

The opponent was too bad.

An assassin who used complex magic or techniques was one thing, but an enemy who pushed forward roughly like that couldn’t be dealt with through clever tactics.

It had to be suppressed with brute force, but the poison emitted by that potent poison contaminant could easily melt the surrounding walls, even if it couldn’t kill the Duke. It was too strong a poison for a freshman to detoxify.

Moreover, it wasn’t slow or weak either, so the outcome of the fight would be decided with a single clash.

“If you fall, I’ll immediately he…”

Thud!

“?!”

Duke Icardoren’s eyes fluttered for the first time in a while.

Surprisingly, the boy from the Wodanaz family had charged in first!

‘He’s insane!!’

Even if he was arrogant with youthful exuberance, that was a crazy thing to do.

The only reason the potent poison contaminant hadn’t immediately charged was because there were other people besides Leihan in this place, but he had narrowed the target to himself by charging in first.

It was like digging his own grave, no, building a coffin and climbing into it.

‘Thank goodness!’

Leihan breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.

It seemed he could avoid the embarrassing situation of having to ask for help from the Duke’s guards.

Fortunately, the opponent’s compatibility was very good.

Whooooosh-

Enraged by Leihan’s sudden attack, the potent poison contaminant spewed out a thick poisonous fog.

Other wizards would have used magic to seize control of the poison, but Leihan simply let it be.

As expected, the poison didn’t have much effect on Leihan. Even when he breathed, his immense magical power diluted the poison like a vast ocean.

“Parkmu, spread.”

Leihan used the precious time he gained thanks to his poison resistance to cast the newly learned Ogoni’s Parkmu.

Leihan’s form lost focus, wavering and shaking. The potent poison contaminant was greatly bewildered by the series of incomprehensible events.

Unless the opponent was a cold and seasoned enemy, such summonings were weak against such sudden situations, even if their physical abilities were outstanding. Leihan immediately cast the next spell.

“Bones, seize the enemy.”

It wasn’t a powerful force, but it was enough to hinder the potent poison contaminant’s movements.

Bone restraints emerged from the potent poison contaminant’s ankles at a speed several times faster than that of other ordinary wizards.

“Be shot!”

Sharp bone fragments lodged into the potent poison contaminant’s body like bullets.

It wasn’t a fatal wound because it didn’t have a typical body structure, but the pain was still there. The potent poison contaminant howled and fired venom around.

Sssssss!

‘Ugh.’

Leihan clicked his tongue as he looked at his melting cloak and clothes. Fortunately, they weren’t clothes he bought with his own money but with the family’s money.

‘I need to be careful.’

Duke Icardoren would have been shocked if he had heard Leihan’s thoughts.

He was worrying about his clothes instead of his life in the middle of such a brutal fight.

‘It’s not like the Ghoul King with exceptional defense or evasion. It still has a body, so I just need to deal damage.’

Having finished his calculations, Leihan immediately took action.

Summoning illusionary clones, casting invisibility magic, flanking to the rear, and firing after casting fivefold enhancement magic on iron balls in succession!

Thwack!

The Duke’s guards were a beat late in reacting because his movements were so quick and decisive.

The guards were shocked by Leihan’s ability to cast spells so quickly and in succession in the midst of a fierce battle.

A freshman casting spells at that speed, and in succession, in a heated battle situation.

It was a humiliating experience for the guards, who were supposed to anticipate and prepare for any situation without being surprised.

“I’ve defeated it. Please finish it off!”

He wanted to set it on fire himself, but Leihan called the guards, worried that a fire might spread or that something unexpected might happen if it reacted with the surroundings.

The guards drew their swords and swung them as if they had been waiting for it.

As the burning swords exploded, the potent poison contaminant, already unable to move due to a fatal blow to its chest, was engulfed in blue flames.

The magical flames instantly burned away the poison, engulfing even the contaminant. Leihan cursed inwardly as he looked at the swords the guards possessed.

‘They were just watching with those artifacts?’

Of course, Leihan had stepped up to fight, but they could have helped a little.

It’s not like Leihan was so petty that he would make a fuss about it!

“Hmm… excellent.”

Duke Icardoren said, belatedly composing his expression in response to the unexpected situation.

Rowena felt a sense of pleasure at the sight. It was the first time she had seen the Duke, who always acted arrogantly without any change in expression, react like that.

“I didn’t expect you to yield the credit to my guards.”

‘Ah.’

Leihan belatedly realized what the Duke meant.

Originally, there was a big difference between ‘Leihan caught it alone’ and ‘Leihan and the Duke’s guards caught it’ in terms of achievement. And everyone liked to monopolize credit.

But Leihan didn’t care.

‘It’s not like there’s a bounty on it. It doesn’t matter.’

It wasn’t like he was sharing a bounty, so it wouldn’t make a difference if he shared some credit.

The Duke would be the one giving the reward anyway. If he reduced the reward because he yielded to his guards, then he was a street thug, not a Duke.

“I just wanted to stop it quickly and make sure everyone was safe. Credit doesn’t matter.”

His friends applauded with admiration, but Duke Icardoren wasn’t fooled.

There was no way such an ambitious guy would yield for that reason.

That was a signal to the Duke.

-I am as ambitious as you are. We fellow ambitious people can make a deal.

Duke Icardoren felt like he could hear Leihan saying those words.

There was no other reason to be generous.

Ambitious people recognized each other.

Age didn’t matter.

Duke Icardoren elevated his assessment of the other party from a merely talented freshman to a young ambitious person worthy of sitting as an equal across the table.

“…Understood. I will consider the proposal positively.”

It wasn’t bad.

Duke Icardoren also needed to obtain information from within the magic school.

He didn’t know what ambitions the boy from the Wodanaz family had, but a mutually beneficial deal was certainly possible.

“…No. Your Grace! Your Gra… what kind of guy is that??”

Leihan muttered at the Duke’s receding figure, but Rowena pretended not to hear Leihan insulting the Duke.