Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 363

Ethan doubted the Headmaster, with his cold, stony face, would let teachers miss classes and leave whenever they wanted.

‘What’s going on?’ Ethan wondered. ‘They’re not taking students with them, are they?’

Thinking about it, a strange, uneasy feeling came over Ethan. He couldn’t say why, but something felt wrong.

A voice called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Ethan jumped.

He and his friends rushed to the window on the second floor and looked down at the main gate.

They saw Rowena. She followed the Princess.

“That’s Rowena,” Gainando said, his eyes narrowed. “Do you think teachers could be hiding behind her?”

“Surely not,” Ratford replied, but he sounded unsure. “Could they be?”

“Tell her to come in slowly, hands in the air,” Gainando ordered. “We need to be ready to slam the door if needed.”

Ethan felt a pang of sadness. His friends were talking like soldiers, not students. *This school is changing them,* he thought sadly.

“Hands up! Come in slowly!” Gainando shouted from the window.

Ethan sighed and nodded to his friends. *Maybe they were right to be careful,* he thought.

Rowena looked confused as she walked towards the gate, hands raised. “What? Wodanaz, sir? Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t try anything!” Gainando yelled, pointing his wand down at her. His face was tight with suspicion, like he was ready to attack.

Rowena stopped, completely lost. “What have I done wrong?” she whispered, her voice trembling slightly.

Ratford hurried down the stairs and peeked his head cautiously out of the gate.

“All clear! No teachers here!” he called back up.

Ethan and Gainando looked at each other, confused.

“Oh,” Ratford said, looking a bit embarrassed. “Sorry. We thought teachers might be hiding behind her… you know, to trick us.”

Rowena stared at Ratford, trying to understand if he was joking. “Are you kidding me?” she asked, a little annoyed.

“No, really! We were serious,” Ratford said earnestly.

Rowena just blinked at him, speechless.

Rowena explained she was there to invite Ethan to Duke Icardoren’s mansion. “And you too, of course,” she added.

“Me?” Ethan asked, surprised. “Why me?”

He remembered the Princess getting a riddle from Duke Icardoren – it was like a fancy bribe. They had worked together in the wand workshop to solve it, hadn’t they? And they had done well. So why invite him now?

“Yes,” Rowena said. “You helped solve the Duke’s riddle, didn’t you? The Princess thinks you should share the honor.”

“Honor?” Ethan said, raising an eyebrow. “I’d rather just have my share of the reward.”

Rowena blinked, unsure how to react to his joke. “Oh… I’m not very good with jokes,” she admitted, looking a little embarrassed.

“I’m serious,” Ethan said. “But if the Duke is angry about the riddle, I don’t want to get blamed. You won’t say it was all my fault if it goes wrong, will you?”

*It’s always the person who helps the most who gets the blame if things go wrong,* he thought.

“Of course not!” Rowena said quickly, looking surprised and a little hurt. “The Princess would never do that!”

“Ethan,” Gainando said, his voice low, “doesn’t her quick denial seem even more suspicious?”

“I swear on my knight’s honor!” Rowena insisted.

“Swearing on your honor just makes it sound worse,” Gainando said, not backing down. He was good at finding problems, even when there weren’t any.

Rowena glared at Gainando, feeling angry and unfairly accused. *Why is he always like this?* she wondered, frustrated. *He’s making things difficult for no reason.*

*I really don’t like him,* she thought, clenching her fists.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Ethan said to Gainando, then turned to Rowena. “Going to the Duke’s mansion isn’t a big deal.”

*It’s just going there, eating some snacks, saying ‘Nice house, Duke,’ and being polite,* he thought.

Rowena’s face lit up, relieved that Ethan seemed to be agreeing.

“Actually,” Ethan added, “it’s not my first time visiting.”

“Really?” Rowena asked, tilting her head in confusion. “You’ve been to the Duke’s mansion before?”

*But Ethan Wodanaz is always so busy during holidays,* she thought. *Visiting the Duke? I didn’t think they were friends.*

“Not *this* mansion,” Ethan corrected quickly, changing the topic slightly.

He didn’t want to mention his visit with Professor Voladi when he had run away from school. The Headmaster would be furious if he found out. *That could cause real trouble,* Ethan thought.

“So, we don’t need to get dressed up or anything? Just go?” Ethan asked.

“Yes! The Duke is preparing special gifts and is excited to meet you!” Rowena said brightly.

“Gifts?” Ethan’s eyes widened. “What kind of gifts?”

“Well,” Rowena said, “the Duke always gives little presents to students who visit. He says we are the future leaders of the Empire…”

“But what *are* the gifts?” Ethan pressed, his voice eager.

Rowena blinked, taken aback by Ethan’s sudden interest. “Um… last time, he gave us things like… like these medals. Is something wrong?”

She pulled out a small, shiny gold medal. Ethan’s eyes lit up.

*Gold medals?* he thought, impressed. The Princess had so many followers. Giving out gold medals to everyone who visited…

*Wow!*

The Duke must be incredibly rich. And yet, Ethan remembered, when they had saved the Duke from that terrible poison last time, he hadn’t offered them anything!

*That’s not fair,* Ethan thought, feeling a familiar anger rise. *He only cares about rich and powerful people. He’s just trying to impress the Princess.*

“He sounds very generous,” Ethan said, his voice a little tight.

But even if he didn’t like the Duke, Ethan knew he couldn’t refuse a gift like that.

“Can I bring my friends too?” Ethan asked, pointing to Gainando and Ratford.

Rowena nodded quickly, a wide smile spreading across her face. “Yes! The Duke said he’d be happy to welcome anyone you want to bring!”

*He really wants to impress everyone,* Rowena thought. The Duke had said he welcomed any student from Einroguard, not just important families.

In fact, when he invited the Princess, he had told her to bring as many friends as possible.

“So, really, anyone can come?” Ethan asked, just to be sure. “There’s no limit?”

“Yes,” Lee Han said. “The Duke said he would be happy if I brought more students.”

“I see,” the other person replied.

Lee Han nodded and began to write a letter with his quill.

“Dear Salco, I know you don’t like working with nobles. But this is a really good job, even for you. You can earn good money, maybe two gold coins, just by eating…”

The first-year students from Einroguard stood in a dusty, empty area of the city. Weeds grew through cracks in the ground, and broken carts lay scattered around. They looked around, confused.

“Wait… isn’t today the opening day?” one student whispered.

“For a second, I thought we were still at Einroguard!” another replied, looking at the bare space.

Students from different towers exchanged puzzled glances. Even the priest students from the Phoenix Tower were there, looking just as unsure.

Lee Han smiled at them. “I hope everyone is ready for a good meal at the Duke’s mansion!”

A priest student frowned. “…Hold on, Mr. Wodanaz. You’re not just inviting us for food, are you?”

“Of course not,” Lee Han said quickly, a hint of mystery in his voice.

The priests seemed to relax a little at his words.

Lee Han had sent a letter saying, ‘Come to a special event as Einroguard students.’ So, they were surprised when he talked about a meal.

Surely, he wouldn’t bring the priests to the Duke’s mansion just to get a meal.

‘There must be another reason, of course.’

There was definitely a reason for the priests to be in the mansion’s banquet hall. The boy from the Wodanaz family didn’t do pointless things.

“But why aren’t the White Tiger Tower guys here?”

“I sent invitations, but they said they were all too busy with their schedules. Adventurer requests are good, but I think they’re too focused on them.”

“…?”

“???”

Nilia and Raetford stared at Lee Han as if he were a thief.

What was the person most enthusiastic about adventurer requests saying?

“I, I never imagined you’d gather so many people.”

Rowena blinked in surprise.

She felt Lee Han’s wide network of connections anew.

Ardenarte had followers, but there were limits.

When they received the invitation, ‘Please bring the Princess’s friend,’ the followers reacted with things like, ‘Can we dare call ourselves friends?’

Ardenarte’s followers thought hard about the invitation. Finally, they told her, ‘It’s better if you invite your friend alone.’ But Ardenarte didn’t want to upset her followers. So, she decided to bring Rowena as *her* friend, not invite her own friend.

Everyone was moved, but Rowena was worried that Ardenarte didn’t have any friends.

As it was loyalty to forcibly make friends for someone she served as a knight, Rowena had been thinking a lot about this lately.

“Mr. Wodanaz. How do you make friends?”

“Frie… friends?”

Lee Han paused.

Of course, he was close to some students, but all the other students from other towers were a bit…

‘Can I call them friends?’

“I’m not sure if I can say they’re friends.”

‘Even humble.’

Rowena was impressed by Lee Han’s generous demeanor. He was indeed a person with a wide network.

If he were a nasty prince, he would have bragged, ‘It’s because I’m so great.’

“Then I’ll change the question. How can you call people like that?”

“Uh… um… I think it’s… sincerity.”

“Sincerity…!”

Rowena shuddered at the textbook yet difficult answer.

“If I sincerely cross swords and then sincerely propose to enlist them as friends of Her Highness, will it work?”

“I’m not an expert on friends, but I don’t think that’ll work.”

Duke Icaldoren regretted his decision to invite Einroguard students without thinking.

‘It was a mistake to invite those dirty, rude, and stupid knight fools.’

The Duke didn’t like knights in the first place.

Even though they were nobles of the same empire, the rough appearance of the knight families felt more like barbarians than nobles.

He had invited them thinking that students who were admitted to Einroguard would be a bit better, but they were just the same.

“Drink! Drink! Drink!”

“This glass is for His Excellency the Duke, who hosted the banquet today!”

“This glass is for the monster we hunted!”

“This glass is… I don’t know! I’m just going to drink!”

Clang!

The White Tiger Tower students were drunk and wild. They smashed their glasses on the floor, threw plates, ran into the hallway, grabbed a barrel of alcohol from the kitchen, and drank straight from it.

The White Tiger Tower students living in the knight’s dormitory had to eat rough and hard food instead of greasy and plentiful meals.

Remembering the bland food they usually ate, the White Tiger students went wild. Of course, it was edible compared to Einroguard, but compared to the luxurious feast in this banquet hall, the food in the dormitory was trash.

Plop!

“What the heck?!”

“Who threw a pie?!”

“I’ll throw it too!! Me too!!”

Duke Icaldoren, who was sitting at the head table, maintained a calm expression. Of course, he was cursing inwardly.

‘There’s no way I can get any information out of these morons.’

“Long live the Duke! Long live the Duke!”

“Your Excellency the Duke! Thank you for inviting us!”

“Haha. I’m so happy that everyone is eating and drinking happily…”

A cake that someone threw wrong flew towards Duke Icaldoren’s face.

The guard immediately knocked it away, but the Duke’s eyebrows couldn’t help but twitch.

‘…I’m going crazy.’

When everyone is crazy, only normal people suffer.

Students like Giselle of the Moradi family and Deulgyu of the Choi family put down their forks and were watching the Duke’s mood.

No matter how smiling he was, they couldn’t help but notice the chaos going on in the banquet hall right now.

“Mo… Moradi. Are you okay?”

“Will I be okay? What are you using your eyes for? Why don’t you sell them along with your head?”

“Don’t do that to me! We have to stop them!”

Even though the cake flew at the Duke, these crazy students were drunk and couldn’t come to their senses, causing a mess.

But if the two of them got up and became serious, the atmosphere would turn cold.

It was like spitting on the face of the White Tiger Tower.

Creak-

In the meantime, the banquet hall door opened.

A White Tiger Tower student, who hadn’t noticed the door opening because he was so engrossed, accidentally threw a sauce-covered roasted turkey towards the door.

“?”

Lee Han tilted his head and dodged. Gainando, who was behind him, screamed and fell over.

“Are they crazy?”

“W, what is this…”

While the students outside the door were shocked and whispering, Lee Han strode forward.

And he struck the nearest White Tiger Tower student in the solar plexus with his staff. Silence fell in the hall.