Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 757

Fortunately, Dirette wasn’t cruel enough to scold a junior who had rushed in out of goodwill, without knowing the situation.

“You’re just going to die!”

“Whyyyy??”

However, he was definitely the type to scold a senior who would take advantage of that junior.

Dirette moved quickly, grabbing Yukbeltire before he could react. Yukbeltire, already tired and pale from hours of intense magical research, was easily overpowered.

Dirette tied him up with magical ropes, leaving Yukbeltire sputtering with indignation.

“Dirette!” Yukbeltire yelled, struggling against the ropes. “This is a shameful sneak attack! And after all this time, after I considered you a friend! Especially after you were so ‘kind’ as to leave me out of the workshop’s protection spells!” Yukbeltire’s voice dripped with sarcasm at the word “kind.”

Dirette gagged his friend to shut him up. There was no end to the things he would say.

“So, what were you doing?”

“I was improving the magic circle here.”

Dirette discovered the newly drawn magic circle and diagrams among the stacks of hundreds of papers, and he read through them, muttering small exclamations of awe. He definitely got a sense of how his friend was trying to improve it.

“Clever.”

Yukbeltire nodded as if it were obvious.

“But still, this isn’t something you should ask a junior to help with. It’s too difficult, too vast. This is something you should be doing alone. Why would you ask a junior for help with this?”

“Mmmph.”

“…I’ll release you, so don’t say anything unnecessary. No dishonor, no insults, no White Tiger Tower, no wasting time, got it?”

Once the magical gag disappeared, Yukbeltire could speak again.

“I seek the assistance of a junior, and the junior learns magic. What’s the problem?”

“Learns magic? What’s there to learn? Do you think a second-year junior can learn anything by helping you with your magic? At least there needs to be some level of compatibility to learn.”

“Professor Bibles said that the junior from the Wodanaz family is at that level.”

Dirette, caught off guard, was speechless.

Lee Han gave his senior a look of encouragement, telling him not to back down. -Do your best. Senior. You can do it.

Dirette internally cursed Professor Verdus for answering without a clue, cursed Yukbeltire, and finally cursed the junior. You should be a moderately good student, but you’re helping with even the professor’s magic, causing this situation to arise!

“Professor Bibles is talking nonsense.”

“Professor Bibles is usually accurate when it comes to magic, Dirette.”

“Be quiet. In any case, I can’t let a junior participate in your difficult research based on Professor Bibles’ opinion alone. He’s just a second-year.”

“The Headmaster also said he’s at that level.”

Dirette was shocked by his friend’s answer. What the…?

“D-don’t lie. You wouldn’t go and ask them, not with your personality.”

Yukbeltire shrugged and answered coolly.

“Professor Bibles was inspecting my research when the Headmaster came.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know the reason. He attacked the professor right away. After the attack, I had the opportunity to talk about my research and asked them both. They both agreed it was a good opportunity.”

‘…Should I have really sent that complaint?’ Dirette gritted his teeth at the two who were of no help at all. Instead of stopping him, they gave answers like that.

Of course, from a purely magical perspective, that answer might be correct. Objectively, the junior had the skill to help and the potential to learn while helping.

But if you had a conscience, shouldn’t you recognize the junior’s current situation and anticipate how things would turn out if you gave Yukbeltire a positive answer?

“Alright. I’ll help, so forget about the junior. Got it?”

“Your help and the junior’s help are completely separate areas…”

Dirette ignored his friend’s words and gestured to Lee Han. It meant to go back quickly.

“Junior. Never come to this workshop again. Got it?”

“It seems like you’re interfering and directing the junior too much…”

The magical gag was placed back on Yukbeltire’s mouth. Dirette gestured to the junior once more. Get out quickly!

‘…I feel uneasy.’ Even though he was released, a corner of Lee Han’s heart felt slightly uneasy. He felt like his senior had been caught because of him.

Of course, Dirette himself had said, ‘I’m just helping because we’re friends, so don’t think anything strange,’ but…

“Professor Verdus. Are you there?” Lee Han knocked on Professor Verdus’s workshop door.

When no answer came, Lee Han belatedly realized. ‘Ah. He must have gone to the punishment room.’

Come to think of it, Professor Voladi had borrowed an artifact from the Headmaster’s room. Professor Voladi was a smart person, so he must have sent Professor Verdus to the punishment room instead of himself.

‘I should come back next time.’ He had planned to ask each professor about the lecture content he had missed during the weekend break and study on his own, but it seemed he would have to ask about Professor Verdus’s lecture next time.

And the more he thought about it, there was nothing to ask about Professor Verdus’s lecture. It was self-study from the start…

“What’s the matter?”

Lee Han was startled when Professor Verdus opened the workshop door and came out.

“P-Professor!”

“Why are you calling me?”

“Didn’t you go to the punishment room?”

“Didn’t go?”

“…Perhaps Professor Garcia or Professor Begreck went to the punishment room??”

“Didn’t go?”

Lee Han was even more surprised. None of the three went. ‘Didn’t get caught?!’

It was something that the Location Transfer Club members would admire as a miracle. (The Location Transfer Club is a group that admires miraculous escapes.)

Vowing to ask Professor Voladi how he managed to reverse it when he met him later, Lee Han asked the question he had originally intended to ask.

“Professor. I came to ask about the lecture content I missed last time.”

“How about helping me with my work instead?”

“No, thank you.”

Professor Verdus grumbled at his student’s refusal. Helping with his work would be a much better learning opportunity than asking about the lecture content!

“I’m curious if the seniors have come up with any ideas related to wands.”

Professor Verdus’s lecture, >Wand Materials and Magic Amplification>, was an attractive lecture attended by talented and outstanding students. There was a minor problem that it was usually taken by third-year students, but that wasn’t much of a problem for Lee Han.

The bigger problem was that Lee Han’s wand, or rather, the spirit residing in the wand, was slightly sulking at Lee Han. Lee Han thought he had been using the wand diligently, but that wasn’t the case for the spirit.

To satisfy the spirit so that it would think, ‘I’m playing an active role,’ he needed to add more magic to the wand. But to add more magic, he had to replace and upgrade the wand’s material and structure itself…

‘Come to think of it, isn’t the hurdle too high for the first wand-making lecture?’ Since he had several times more to go than others, Lee Han wanted to see the wands of the seniors. He would have much to learn from those who had started earlier and thought about it more.

“I don’t remember.”

Lee Han glared, but Professor Verdus was serious.

“Professor. I’ll send a complaint to the Headmaster about neglecting the lecture.”

“That’s ridiculous! They were really trash-like opinions!” Professor Verdus shouted with injustice.

If there had really been a valuable opinion, Professor Verdus would have remembered it. But the opinions that the students had given during the last lecture were mostly trash.

It was the beginning of the semester anyway. It was a time when students only threw out particularly bad ideas.

-What if we construct the body with silver and put a piece of Behemoth’s bone inside?

-How are you going to get both?

-I have to think about that from now on.

-I’m taming a steel wand right now, but no matter what I do, the spirit says it smells bad and won’t go in. Does anyone know of a being that likes to enter steel wands?

-Hmm. Adding too much black magnetite to the wand makes it explode…!

Thinking about it again, there were only trash-like opinions. Professor Verdus shook his head to erase the dregs that vaguely passed through his memory.

“Ask me again now instead! What are you curious about?”

“I have to choose the body material for a wand that a dissatisfied spirit and a gem given by a being from another dimension will cross over to, and I’m very worried. Wood is stable, but it has limitations, metal is very divisive, and if I go with gems or rare metals, I don’t know when I’ll be able to collect them…”

Professor Verdus yawned at the boring topic. It might be a fresh and worrying topic for a second-year student, but it was a topic that Professor Verdus had dealt with thousands and tens of thousands of times, so it wasn’t fun at all.

Lee Han glared again.

“Professor. I’m serious.”

“Oh? Yeah. I know. How about this? I’ll attach another student, so you can ask them.”

Lee Han was tempted by that. Lee Han honestly thought it would be better to learn from a senior than to learn from Professor Verdus.

“It would be good if it’s someone who knows a lot about wands. Which senior is it?”

“Oh? Yukbeltire.”

“…Professor. Just recommend a book, and I’ll study on my own.”

Lee Han moved to the precognitive magic professor, Professor Passelt’s, illusory hall with a heavier backpack than before.

The Death Knights saw Lee Han, raised their helmet visors, and greeted him.

-Greetings, Wodanaz!

“Hello. By the way, where is the Headmaster right now?” Lee Han had met the Death Knights and was planning to go find the Skeleton Headmaster to question him about what had happened.

Look! The Skeleton Headmaster had guaranteed that it would be okay, but Lee Han had been kidnapped and almost stayed in Einrogard for the rest of his life. Thinking about it again, it was a truly terrible thing.

And Lee Han was also slightly suspicious of the fact that the Skeleton Headmaster had not stepped in and had remained still. ‘Did he perhaps leave me alone to force me to learn magic?’

It was a wicked scheme that the Skeleton Headmaster’s personality was capable of. Lee Han was planning to confront the Skeleton Headmaster directly and condemn this scheme.

-Our master seems to be quite busy. We haven’t seen him either.

Lee Han gave them a suspicious look. He thought that these knights might have colluded for their master.

“Is that so?”

-Yes. Our master has sometimes disappeared like this before.

“When he’s plotting an evil plan?”

-Hahaha… Wouldn’t it be a bigger plan than that?

“When he’s plotting a bigger and more evil plan?” The Death Knights pretended not to hear the disciple’s irreverent question.

They had all heard that he had escaped from the master’s crazy doppelganger not long ago.

“Anyway, if you see the Headmaster, please tell him to talk to me.”

-Understood!

Since there was no point in holding on any longer, Lee Han said goodbye to the Death Knights. But the suspicion in his heart had become even more solid.

‘It’s even more suspicious.’ Right now, in Lee Han’s heart, a conspiracy theory was unfolding that was almost at the level of ‘The Skeleton Headmaster and the crazy doppelganger’s collusion! In fact, the crazy doppelganger was the Skeleton Headmaster’s henchman?!’

Thud thud thud-

“Professor, are you there?”

A senior he had never seen before opened the door of the illusory hall and gestured for Lee Han to come in.

“Is it because of the precognitive dreams?” Dreams filled with uncertainty and madness were always a good buffer, resiliently blocking the shock from precognitive magic.

“No. She just went to bed late after playing card games with another professor. You’re him, right? The former all-faculty student from the Wodanaz family?”

“…Yes.”

“The professor told me to read this… Found it. The student can follow the progress sufficiently without having to ask about what he missed.”

“But I haven’t listened to the lecture, so I can’t be so overconfident…”

The senior gestured to be quiet and flipped the card over to read the contents on the back.

“That’s not overconfidence, it’s called self-objectification…”

Lee Han grumbled inwardly that precognitive mages were truly eccentric people.