Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 581

Whooooosh-

The wind grew stronger, and as the blizzard swirled, it became harder to see.

“Sharkan, I’m counting on you.”

Lee Han called the Green Jade Leopard to scout the way.

He had to be extra careful because familiar landmarks were disappearing.

Luckily, Lee Han and his friends had good cold-weather clothes already.

“Thanks to Professor Garcia.”

“Didn’t we make these during Professor Verdus’s class?”

Lee Han didn’t answer Derkye and looked away.

Just then, Sharkan returned. The leopard nodded, showing that it was safe to move forward.

“Wait. We have quite a walk ahead, and I doubt we can carry them all the way.”

“Wodanaz, as annoying as it is, we can’t just throw them off the cliff.”

Giselle rarely teased Wodanaz, but this time she wanted to.

However, Lee Han and Derkye reacted differently than Giselle expected.

“No…”

“That’s a bit…”

“…it was a joke.”

“Oh, right.”

“A j-joke. I thought so too.”

“Hey. Just shut up, both of you.”

Giselle promised herself never to joke with these blokes again.

“So, Lee Han? Got any bright ideas?”

“Arise, warriors of bone.”

Lee Han waved his staff and chanted. Three skeleton warriors slowly lifted the apprentice knights onto their backs.

“Will this do?”

“Yeah. But, Lee Han.”

“What is it?”

“What if these knights wake up?”

“…Could you pass me some blindfolds?”

Lee Han not only tied up the apprentice knights but also blindfolded them.

Only then did he look relieved.

“Is that better now?”

“……”

“……”

Giselle and Derkye exchanged uneasy glances.

The sight of the knights, soundly asleep, tied up, and carried by skeletons, was…

‘Truly creepy.’

‘Like a dark wizard from old tales.’

“Why are you staring like that?”

“W-we were just admiring your… skeleton trick.”

“It’s nothing, really.”

Lee Han was slightly embarrassed by Derkye’s praise.

“Ugh.”

Ravda groaned as he woke up.

He couldn’t quite remember what had happened.

He was sure he’d been sitting in the carriage, and then a sharp pain in his stomach…

“Gasp!”

Ravda and the apprentice knights opened their eyes.

They were inside a cabin they had never seen before.

The fierce wind howled outside, but a fireplace made of rough stones blazed, chasing away the cold…

On the cupboard side, there were canned mutton and a few eggs. Peas, marmalade, sugar, salt, tea leaves, coffee grounds, and so on were neatly stocked.

‘Where am I?’

“You’re awake!”

Lee Han, who had been checking the pot with a ladle, rushed over when he saw the apprentice knights awake.

“I was worried! You all just collapsed!”

“W-what happened? Wodanaz? Where is this place?”

Lee Han paused, exchanging a look with Giselle.

“Don’t you remember? The carriage was attacked! Monsters attacked the carriage!”

“Th-they did?”

“Yes. I barely managed to escape with you all.”

Lee Han and Giselle eagerly described how wild and strange monsters living in the mountains had attacked the carriage and tried to eat the apprentice knights.

Derkye, his face screwed up in concentration, continued to chop onions. He couldn’t bring himself to join in Lee Han and Giselle’s ridiculous story. Lies like that stuck in his throat.

“Th-thank you. I’m ashamed. All we do is receive help. We should have been the ones to stop them.”

“It was an unexpected ambush. The mountains are a dangerous place.”

“Were there giants too? I heard there are giants here.”

“…Well, there might have been giants…”

Lee Han made the monsters sound even bigger and scarier to please the apprentice knights.

If that made them feel better!

“Then, where is this place?”

“Probably a hunter’s cabin.”

“There are hunters here?!”

‘Seems like I’ve convinced them.’

Lee Han exchanged meaningful glances with his friends.

Fortunately, they had overcome the biggest obstacle.

We had no choice but to stumble upon this mountain cabin!

‘Just one day to go.’

The apprentice knights talked among themselves.

“Hmm. Is it okay to use a place like this?”

“It can’t be helped. Now that it’s come to this, let’s prepare to face the monsters. The professor said he would come looking for us.”

“What did the professor say?” Lee Han asked.

“Hmm? He told us to be well-prepared to face the monsters in the mountains.”

“Didn’t you just say he was coming to find us?”

“Ah, he did. That monsters would come. But isn’t that obvious when you enter a dangerous area?”

“……”

Of course, Ravda’s words weren’t wrong.

In a dangerous area, it’s true to say that monsters would come.

However, something in Ravda’s words made Lee Han’s trained senses prickle with alarm. It wasn’t just a simple warning; there was something else hidden beneath the surface.

‘Something’s not right?’

Thud! Thud!

At that moment, someone knocked on the cabin door. Derkye lifted the added wooden plank and peered out the window.

“!”

Surprisingly, it was other White Tiger Tower students.

Half-buried in the snow and shivering, the White Tiger Tower students knocked on the cabin door and cried out.

“H-help us!”

“O-open the door! We’re freezing to death!”

“Bartrek, Kltan?! You… How did you get here…?!”

“W-we were attacked! C-cold. Open the door!”

Dergyu quickly pulled open the cabin door. A group of students from White Tiger Tower stood outside, pushing to get in.

“Paralyze!” Lee Han shouted, raising his wand. A flash of blue light shot out and hit the students.

They cried out, “Ugh! Kuh!” and froze in place, their eyes wide with surprise.

Dergyu stared at Lee Han, confused. Why had he attacked them?

Sluuurp—

The students’ bodies collapsed like slime, twisting and melting into horrible, slimy shapes. Their faces stretched and changed, eyes bulging out in the wrong places.

“Shape Shifters!” Giselle exclaimed, her voice filled with horror.

Shape Shifter-type monsters can freely change how they look.

The most famous one is the Doppelganger, but there are others.

The Shifting Slime in front of them was another well-known Shape Shifter monster.

And a pretty strong one!

“Watch out! Don’t let them get inside! If one of those slimes changes into someone we know, we’ll be in trouble!” Giselle drew her twin swords, creating some space between them. If the slime got inside and changed into one of them, it would be very hard to know who to trust.

The slime seemed confused, its shape changing quickly. It looked like the White Tiger Tower students for a moment, then it saw Lee Han and turned into him.

“Don’t attack! I’m your friend!”

“Definitely!” Giselle cheerfully plunged her sword into the face of the slime that looked like Lee Han. It was the best and most accurate strike she had ever made.

Thwack!

The slime was badly hurt by the paralysis curse and the magically enhanced sword. It quickly went back out the cabin door and threw itself into the snow.

‘If we lose it, things will get complicated!’

“Sharkan, go!” The panther growled and jumped out. Sharkan could smell the slime, which gave him an advantage.

Lee Han also summoned skeleton warriors and put them at the door, ready for anything that might come in.

Crunch!

Sharkan bit the Shifting Slime’s ankle as it tried to dig into the snow.

The slime let go of its ankle and tried to change again. With so much snow, it was hard to catch.

“Snow, turn into sand!” Lee Han quickly said the spell.

He had practiced turning sand into rock and rock into sand a lot, but he had never tried turning snow into sand.

Lee Han quickly remembered what snow and sand were like and finished the spell.

The snow scattered and turned into sand.

‘Got it!’

“Lightning Javelin!” Lee Han made lightning appear on his wand and made it solid. Because of Professor Voladi’s training, he didn’t need to say a long spell anymore.

Bzzzzzt!

The lightning javelin hit the slime, and it melted away because it couldn’t keep its shape.

Slimes are simple monsters. If they take too much damage, they just fall apart.

Normally, there would be no need to worry.

But this wasn’t normal!

“…This is just like something Professor Einroguard would do!” Lee Han sighed.

Who else could have gotten this Shifting Slime, and where did it come from?

Professor Inguldel must have asked other professors to get it. They needed help to make such a rare slime.

‘I’d rather fight a magically enchanted bull.’

Lee Han thought he understood Professor Inguldel’s evil plan for the final exam.

He would scatter the students across the mountain and then send trained Shifting Slimes to attack them.

The students would think the cold winter was just part of the test and wouldn’t expect slimes disguised as friends. They would suffer a lot.

“N-no way.” Dergyu still looked confused.

“It sounded just like Bartrec! How could it copy him so well?”

“The professors probably trained it in secret. They must have been watching us when we weren’t looking.”

Lee Han knew about Shifting Slimes because Professor Lightning Foot had told him about them.

Slimes are like a simple group with no ability to think deeply. They don’t think, they just copy what they see.

Dergyu was shocked.

“Really?! That’s crazy!”

“I was surprised too, but if it’s a professor from Einroguard, it’s possible.”

Lee Han cleared away the slime remains.

The remains felt like the last bit of trust he had in Professor Inguldel.

‘From now on, I have to believe Professor Inguldel is definitely a professor from Einroguard.’

While he was thinking this, Ravda was really impressed.

“Wow, you guys are incredible! We came to help, but it looks like you had it all under control!”

“Haha, it’s okay. We could use the help though, there might be more coming.” Lee Han said. He was glad the mood was good.

He would have been annoyed if Ravda had asked why his head hurt, but he didn’t have to explain because of the slime.

“Wodanaas, it’s amazing you knew it was a slime so quickly!”

“Yeah, it was hard to tell! How did you know?”

“Because we’re friends, I just knew something wasn’t right.”

Dergyu was touched by Lee Han’s words.

‘And I didn’t even notice!’

Dergyu decided to pay more attention to his friends in the future.

‘It was a Shifting Slime?’

Lee Han was also surprised.

He had just thought other White Tiger Tower students were coming to cause trouble and tried to stop them, but it was a monster.

Einroguard was a place where you always had to be careful.

‘I need to attack first more often.’

“East slope.” Giselle had been watching outside and spoke seriously.

“Coming this way. More than ten of them.”

“…!”

Lee Han opened the cabin door and looked down.

More than ten students and apprentice knights were coming towards them.

“We need to stop them from getting closer.”

“Right, let’s go!”

They agreed. They couldn’t fit everyone in the cabin, and it would be hard to deal with the situation if they came closer.

Especially if there was a Shifting Slime among them…

However, as the group got closer, Lee Han and Giselle’s faces became serious.

There were Lee Han, Giselle, and Dergyu in that group too.

The fake Lee Han pointed at the real Lee Han and shouted.

“They’re the imposters!”

“No, this is insane…!” Lee Han was shocked.

Lee Han thought the slime was only copying what it saw. How could it be smart enough to trick the other students and turn them against us?