Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 468

After a long day exploring the flooded lands, the students gathered for a talent show.

The Princess drew the most attention. Even though the spirits were agitated by the flood, she calmed them and showed a magical connection, making Ihan feel annoyed.

“Why do spirits always listen to her, but act crazy when they see me?” Ihan wondered.

The Skeleton Headmaster boomed, “Everyone enjoyed the field trip. Now, return and study harder!”

“……”

“……”

Ihan waited for a response. Silence. *Should I suggest we stay longer?* he thought.

“Thank you for your grace!”

“We will study hard!!”

Ihan was a little impressed as he watched the students’ eyes burn with determination.

No matter how much Ihan said, ‘Please study a little; you need to avoid failing,’ a single word from the Skeleton Headmaster was far more effective.

‘Could he have planned this field trip with this in mind?’

Kha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

The Skeleton Headmaster laughed, seeming relieved by the students’ enthusiasm.

Seeing that, Ihan changed his mind.

‘He must have just been bored.’

The Advanced Basic Imperial Geometry and Arithmetic exam took place in a dry lecture hall.

The students were happy just to sit at desks and write with quills and ink.

“This is what an exam should be…!”

“I could take several more exams like this!”

Of course, the excitement only lasted until they saw the questions. The students’ faces twisted in confusion and worry as they read them.

The first exam question was about Imperial Mage Tadinggo. He wanted to know the area of a tower to get money for his research.

“Damn Tadinggo. Why can’t he earn his own keep?”

“Damn Empire. Showing off with research funds. Why do we need to calculate the area?”

“Everyone, be quiet,” Professor Alphen warned the muttering students.

The students groaned and focused on the problems.

What are the areas of the following shapes?

What is the area of the circles in the following diagram?

While his friends struggled, Ihan was bewildered.

‘Isn’t this harder than I thought?’

Unlike other lectures, these arithmetic-related classes were one of Ihan’s strengths.

Naturally, while his friends were studying frantically, he thought, ‘Tsk tsk, you should have studied earlier,’ but…

Tadinggo’s magic fireball is moving at 20 meters per second, and he needs to adjust his aim, how much magic power does he need to change the fireball’s direction?

“???”

No matter how much he thought about it, the question was too hard.

He doubted whether his friends could solve this.

‘Did the Skeleton Headmaster perhaps instigate this?’

If the enraged Skeleton Headmaster threatened him from behind with a knife, even Professor Alphen might not have been able to resist.

Ihan decided to stop worrying for now and focus on solving the problems. Time was limited, and even Ihan could make mistakes when solving difficult problems after a long time.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve tackled such difficult problems…’

Still, what he had built up hadn’t gone anywhere; as he scribbled with the quill and started calculating, he managed to find a clue.

“Ugh…”

“Crazy Tadinggo… just live quietly…”

“How are we supposed to solve this…”

Even with Professor Alphen’s warnings, groans periodically erupted from the students.

Ihan understood.

If it was this difficult for Ihan, how much harder would it be for his friends?

‘The problems are too difficult. The results of this exam will be lower than average.’

Even experienced professors find it difficult to adjust the difficulty of exams.

Ihan predicted that after this exam, Professor Alphen would think about it and lower the difficulty of the final exam.

“I will submit.”

“Hmm… excellent. I was worried, but you did well,” Professor Alphen said, glancing over Ihan’s answer sheet, which was the first to be submitted, and nodding with a satisfied smile.

If it were the usual Ihan, he would have noticed the sense of incongruity in ‘I was worried,’ but Ihan, who had exhausted his mental strength from the tiring field trip and difficult exam problems, did not notice the incongruity.

“That’s enough. Everyone, submit your papers.”

The exam ended while he was sitting and waiting, and the students submitted their answer sheets with gloomy expressions.

The friends who submitted their answer sheets rushed towards Ihan.

“Wodanaz. What was the answer to question 1???”

“Hey. Question 1 was easy. How can you ask that? Three, right? Wodanaz?”

“It was three!? Damn it. I was debating whether to put two or three… Why is Tadinggo so greedy? He should just eat what he’s given!”

“???”

Ihan, who was listening to his friends’ noisy questions, felt something was wrong.

Huh?

“Two, three… what are you talking about? What was the question?”

“The maximum number of high-quality white breads that the poor mage Tadinggo can buy by saving as much research money as possible?”

“When the distance between the Pegasus and the ground stable specified in the diagram is changing at a rate of 400km/h of the differential coefficient, the altitude of the Pegasus is… wait. Number of breads?”

Ihan definitely felt something was wrong.

The exam his friends took was too different from the one he took.

He wondered if the order of the questions was different, but that wasn’t it either. It seemed that none of his friends had solved the problems Ihan received.

“What kind of magic is this?”

“What is it?”

“…Professor. Professor??”

Ihan quickly caught up with Professor Alphen, who was about to leave, and asked.

“There seems to be something wrong with the exam.”

“That’s strange. Mr. Wodanaz, you should have gotten a perfect score? What was the problem?” Professor Alphen took out the answer sheet, puzzled.

Ihan said calmly.

“It’s not that the exam questions are strange, but I think I took a different exam from my friends.”

“Ah. Is that what you meant? Yes. Mr. Wodanaz, you received different questions,” Professor Alphen said it as naturally as if he were saying, ‘It rained this morning.’

Of course, Ihan couldn’t accept it naturally. Confused by the professor’s words that shattered common sense, he asked back.

“It’s not a mistake?”

“Why do you think it’s a mistake? Let me be clear, it was definitely not a mistake.”

“…Um, Professor. Isn’t it… that if you take the same class, you take the same exam?” Ihan asked, trying not to sound like a fool for saying something so obvious.

“That’s usually the case. But there are exceptions. What challenge is there in receiving problems that are so easy you can solve them with your eyes closed?”

“……”

‘Is he crazy?’

Ihan was very embarrassed to face the subtle madness of Professor Alphen Knighton, whom he had thought was somewhat sane because he came from the Imperial bureaucracy.

‘I underestimated Einroguard again!’

He blamed his complacency for being caught off guard even though he had vowed not to underestimate it again.

“I see… So, because I solved the problems well in class, the difficulty of the exam went up…”

“Rather, I decided after seeing you teach the other students well. It seemed meaningless at that level.”

Ihan looked at his friends as they left the lecture hall. For a moment, they seemed different, not like friends anymore.

“But Professor. That… learning and challenge and… anyway, all that is good, but the evaluation includes grades.”

Professor Alphen nodded.

“There might be a fairness issue since I’ll be compared to other students?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Ah. So you had a way.”

Ihan was slightly relieved.

Professor Alphen wasn’t the Skeleton Headmaster, so he wouldn’t have given Ihan difficult problems without any thought…

“Since Mr. Wodanaz got a perfect score anyway, he’ll be the top student.”

“……”

‘Is he really crazy?’

Ihan had to try to suppress the rebuttal crawling out of his throat.

No, I solved it diligently and was lucky to get a perfect score, but if I had made one mistake, I would have been deducted points immediately, so what would have happened then…

“For the final exam…”

“You’ll get a perfect score then too. Do you understand that you don’t have to worry now?” Professor Alphen interrupted Ihan and continued his own words. There was no stopping him.

“No, that doesn’t make sense logically…”

“I thought Mr. Wodanaz wouldn’t care about grades…”

“Excuse me?”

It was the most insulting misunderstanding he had received since entering the school.

“Well, it’s natural to ask since you care so much about your friends. You’re asking in case you received special treatment, right?” The stubborn old professor looked at Ihan with a pleased gaze, as if looking at a future Archmage.

Usually, even a mage with a small talent easily fell into arrogance and dogmatism because of that talent, but this boy from the Wodanaz family had not lost his altruism despite having a talent like the Great Sea.

How much more comfortable would the Imperial officials be if all mages were like this?

“There was no such special treatment, so you don’t have to worry. Solving more difficult problems than others isn’t special treatment. Ah, of course, a diligent and fair boy might think it is.”

“…Yes. Well, anyway, I’m a bit uncomfortable with special treatment…”

“But no one except Mr. Wodanaz will think it’s special treatment. Above all, it would be more of a loss for Mr. Wodanaz, who has to take many more classes in the second year, to waste time. For all the people of the Empire, too.”

Ihan was speechless.

It wasn’t because it was logical and reasonable, but because Ihan was appalled by the professor’s eloquence in attaching the people of the Empire to Ihan solving more difficult problems.

‘Is he really, really crazy?!’

Professor Alphen finished talking with a kind smile.

“The reward for teaching students at Einroguard, putting down paperweights and stacks of paper, must be something like this… Oops. I’ve said too much. I’ll be going now. Oh, Mr. Wodanaz?”

“Yes?” Ihan, whose mental strength was exhausted, answered.

“I’ll make sure that the remaining lectures this semester become a solid foundation for Mr. Wodanaz’s research.”

“……”

In Ihan’s eyes, the face of the kind old professor looked like the Skeleton Headmaster.

Richmond from the Shiles family was relaxing in his room.

At first, he was happy to be able to rest on a soft, dry bed while his friends were suffering, but as time passed, he became worried about his friends.

“Professor. Haven’t my friends arrived yet?”

“It will take a while.”

“I see.”

10 minutes later, Richmond closed the book he was reading and asked again outside the door.

“Professor. When will my friends arrive?”

Professor Passelt’s other personality suddenly spoke, scolding him loudly. “Ah, can’t you just stop talking!”

Richmond was startled and bowed his head.

“I, I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m sorry. Bad-tempered…”

“…What’s so bad about it!! If you abandon your friends and come in, just enjoy it!” Before he finished speaking, the professor’s voice changed completely.

Then Richmond’s guilt increased several times.

‘Damn it. Shouldn’t I have accepted the professor’s offer?’

At first, when Professor Passelt came and offered ‘comfortable rest, cozy warmth, and a soft bed,’ he thought it was luck and accepted it right away…

As time passed, he missed his friends.

And above all, he was terrified of Professor Passelt, who went back and forth alone as if several people were talking.

‘If I throw a clue out the window somehow… huh?’

Richmond was startled to find a familiar friend’s face below the high window.

Surprisingly, Wodanaz had come right to the bottom of the tower and was pacing around.

‘It’s here! Wodanaz! It’s here!’

Richmond wanted to shout, but there was no way to convey the sound.

What if Wodanaz leaves…

‘Right. Let’s make a rope using blankets and sheets. With transformation magic…’

Bang!

The window flew away with a fierce sound. Richmond, who was making a rope, was shocked and only blinked.

Wodanaz was flying in the sky, riding a Griffin.