Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 44

For a while, silence filled the room next door.

Lee Han hesitated. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked quietly.

A voice chuckled from the other side of the wall. “No, no. Just surprised. A first-year catching those guys… you’re pretty good.”

“We managed,” Lee Han said.

“So,” Lee Han continued, trying to sound casual, “what were *you* doing before you got here?”

“Senior?” The voice laughed again. “Forget the ‘senior’ stuff. Call me whatever you want. We’ll all be wizards soon enough anyway.”

“Okay,” Lee Han said. “So… what happened?”

Silence. Then, “Let’s just say… an experiment went wrong. Very wrong.”

“Wrong enough for the punishment room?” Lee Han asked, surprised. “Just for a failed experiment?”

Lee Han was shocked. Was that really enough to be sent here?

But the student on the other side of the wall remained calm. “Don’t be surprised. You’ll find out later.”

The fourth-year student began to explain. He needed special ingredients for his magic experiment, but he didn’t get them in time. So, he tried to steal them from the headmaster’s secret vault. But he got caught by the headmaster’s traps and ended up here.

Lee Han paused, listening. ‘He didn’t end up here because he failed an experiment, did he?’ That was just getting caught stealing, wasn’t it?

But Lee Han didn’t say anything. After spending a long time in graduate school, common sense tends to disappear.

Even if a magic school senior’s common sense had disappeared, it wasn’t the senior’s fault. It was the magic school’s fault.

“From what I see, professors will be fighting over someone with your skills, so you should be careful. Be careful not to fail when you’re experimenting.”

“Okay, I will. But I don’t really plan on staying at the school for long.”

“How modest.”

“No, really, I don’t plan on staying long…”

“Yes, yes. I suppose so. You seem like a model student. Are you from the Blue Tower, maybe? No, you can’t be.”

Lee Han gave up, as the other student didn’t seem to listen to anything he said. But he couldn’t shake off a sense of worry.

“Senior, can I ask you something else?”

“Go ahead.”

“It seems like it’ll be hard to break through the underground passage again. Is there another way out, maybe?”

Lee Han’s question was met with a snort from the other side. “Of course, there is. But, junior, aren’t you asking for too much? Why should I tell you that?”

Instead of answering, Lee Han turned away from the wall and shouted at the door, “Warden!”

The student next door was horrified and straightened up. What is this guy doing?! Was he trying to get them both killed?!

“-What is it?”

“Could you maybe deliver this to the next room?”

“-Understood.”

Lee Han had asked just in case, but the undead summon was surprisingly willing to grant his request. He had tested it before when the professor’s gift was allowed in, and it had worked.

A basket containing cookies, warm black tea, and sugar was sent to the next room.

The student next door jumped. “How did you get this in here?”

“I received a gift.”

By this point, the student on the other side of the wall wanted to know who Lee Han really was. Within a week of entering the school, he had found a way to get outside and had actually succeeded (if not for the unfortunate event), had managed to get other students in the tower to send him gifts while stuck in the punishment room, and, above all, was resourceful enough to get such supplies…

He started to think, ‘Is this guy from a criminal guild??’

Students who had committed crimes sometimes entered the Black Tortoise Tower, and he suspected that Lee Han was one of them. And a big shot at that! That was the only explanation for his skills.

“Anyway, senior. Will this be okay?”

“…Yes. It’s fine. Now that I’ve received this, I can tell you.”

The student on the other side of the wall cleared his throat. He had received an unexpected gift, and if the other student was really from a criminal guild, it wouldn’t be good to make him angry. What if he found him later and got revenge…

“But before I tell you, let’s be clear. Not even all of us fourth-year students know all the ways to get out of the school. Many have never succeeded even once.”

Outings were gradually allowed after the first year, but many upperclassmen had never succeeded in escaping even once. In fact, most people hadn’t. That was how hard it was to sneak out of the school.

‘…And yet a first-year managed to succeed.’

“The method I know is one I heard from someone else, and I’ve never tried it myself. I don’t know if it’ll work or not.”

According to the student on the other side of the wall, there was a special stable in one of the turrets at the top of the main building. A stable for flying beasts!

It was a place where the beasts ridden by professors and the eagles of officials delivering orders rested. The beasts there were under a special blessing, allowing them to fly over the school’s walls.

“The problem is that they wouldn’t just let anyone ride those beasts.”

That was certainly true. Just as there was a warehouse keeper in the warehouse, there would be someone in the stable as well.

‘But it’s not bad.’

Just the fact that there was a method was hopeful. Besides, someone had succeeded with that method before, right?

Then Lee Han had a good chance of succeeding as well.

“Thank you, senior.”

‘…Th-this guy… he heard just that and came up with a method?! How?!’

The student’s misunderstanding deepened even further.

-Release. Lee Han of the Wodanaz family.

A day later, the undead summon opened the door.

Before walking out of the hallway, Lee Han put a few more chocolates in the next room. He had been able to hear various stories thanks to the senior he didn’t know.

Strangely, the other student had become less talkative and hesitant as time went on, but Lee Han thought it was probably because he was annoyed. Wouldn’t anyone be annoyed if someone they didn’t know kept talking to them?

Nevertheless, he was grateful for the answers he had received.

‘I should thank him when I meet him later.’

Lee Han went through the complicated process he had gone through when he came in and came out. Outside the main building, the darkness was fading, and the sun was slowly rising.

‘Hmm. It’s like a kitchen.’

Lee Han entered the Blue Dragon Tower and headed to his private room, surprised by how it looked. It looked less like a bedroom and more like a well-organized kitchen or a grocery store.

It was even more so because he had stacked all the groceries he had received from various places. Shelves held seasonings and condiments such as salt, sugar, and tea leaves, as well as canned fruits such as apricots, peaches, and pineapples. There were also more filling canned beans, canned salmon, and canned corned beef.

If Lee Han ate alone, he could easily eat for several weeks.

‘I could seriously start a business.’

Lee Han decided to think about how to do business later, and opened the door and went out. He had woken up early, so he was thinking of going to the stable and trying out the assignment given by Professor Lightningfoot.

“Lee Han?”

As he was preparing to leave the lounge, a red-haired girl yawned and came down, surprised. “Where have you been for a day?!”

“Punishment room. Didn’t the professors tell you?”

“Yeah. Professor Garcia said you were resting because you were hurt while making a great contribution.”

Lee Han thought he knew why Professor Garcia had lied. Honor was more important than he thought to the young boys and girls from great families.

As Lee Han was also from the Wodanaz family, wouldn’t he be ashamed if it was known that he had committed a crime and gone to the punishment room? Besides, he hadn’t committed a crime, but had done so while helping Professor Garcia.

“No. I got caught sneaking out of school and went to the punishment room.”

Of course, Lee Han didn’t care about that at all. Fortunately, Yoner didn’t care about that either.

“Why did you go alone?”

“The information wasn’t certain, so I wanted to check it out first.”

“Let’s go together next time. Two is better than one.”

“Shall we take Nilia with us then?”

“Yeah. Good idea. Let’s take Nilia with us.”

Nilia, who was not there, was forced to attend, but the two didn’t care about that.

Yoner tilted her head and asked, “So, what exactly happened?”

While walking to the stable, Lee Han slowly began to explain what had happened: the speculation about the underground passage and how to get through it, and the warehouse and the warehouse keeper who was guarding it.

Yoner listened quietly with wide, surprised eyes.

“So I came out and there were people waiting for me.”

“The headmaster?”

“No. The Empire’s anti-magic faction.”

Yoner was shocked. What Professor Garcia had said was not a joke, but the truth. Anti-magic activists were hiding around the school.

“Then you did make a contribution, didn’t you?!”

“And I went to the punishment room.”

“…Why??”

Yoner couldn’t understand. Why on earth?

There were already a few students at the stable. They were all students from the Black Tortoise Tower.

The students from the Black Tortoise Tower flinched when they saw Lee Han and Yoner, and then slowly backed away.

Yoner didn’t seem to care much, but Lee Han felt a pang of sadness. He wished people wouldn’t judge him so quickly.

Of course, the students from the Black Tortoise Tower were afraid because of Lee Han’s reputation as well as his family, but Lee Han didn’t know that.

“Um…”

Lee Han’s face brightened when someone from the Black Tortoise Tower spoke to him. Was it Nilia?

But it wasn’t Nilia. It was a rat beastman, Ratford, who spoke to him.

“Good morning, Mr. Wodanaz.”

Lee Han was embarrassed by his respectful attitude. Anyone who saw it would think he was being threatened and forced to do it!

“Hey. Relax.”

“I’m comfortable like this.”

It was hard for Ratford, who had lived in the Thieves’ Guild with the idea that the strong bully the weak, to speak informally to his superiors. Thorough hierarchy and obedience was true comfort to him.

Lee Han shook his head as he saw the eyes of the Black Tortoise Tower students fill with even more fear. ‘I’m screwed.’

“Okay. I understand.”

Lee Han gave up and looked at Ratford. He was curious about what had happened after the fight.

Lee Han had passed out as soon as it was over…

“What happened after that?”

“Yes. I was hiding as you told me to during the fight. When it was over, the headmaster arrived with the other professors.”

“Good job. It’s better than stepping up and getting hurt for nothing.”

“The workers were distracted, and I thought it was a good chance, so I rummaged through the boxes in the carriage, picked the locks, and took anything that looked useful. I had to hide it on my body, so I had to choose only small items, but I brought them with me to give them to you.”

Ratford held out a small box. There were vials clanging inside.

Lee Han was speechless and impressed. ‘A real professional thief is different!’