Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 767

Actually, there was nothing to steal on the second floor of the tea house. But his friends thought something different.

His friends thought Lee Han could steal anything, even from an empty room.

“Hey, I didn’t steal anything from upstairs! I traded for it,” Lee Han said, surprised by his friends looking at him.

He had gotten magical items by trading with a senior.

“Magic space?” Siana asked, her eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Lee Han nodded. “From Siana, the Priestess.”

Siana frowned slightly. “If it’s *that* kind of space… you didn’t accidentally bring out someone else’s stuff, did you?” She looked at the huge pile of materials Lee Han had brought. It was a lot.

Lee Han blinked, surprised. “What are you talking about? Of course not! I wouldn’t do that… Hold on a second.”

He paused, just to be sure, and quickly checked his bag again. He really didn’t want to get in trouble with the Einroguard Watchers Club.

“Nope! All mine! Siana, Priestess, I promise!” Lee Han said, holding up his hands.

“O-Okay, sorry,” Siana mumbled, looking a little embarrassed.

Yoner watched them, a small thought in his mind. *Maybe Lee Han did take too much by mistake,* he wondered, but he kept quiet.

“I paid a good price to get this much. Don’t get the wrong idea, everyone,” Lee Han said.

“What did you pay?”

Lee Han glanced at the dark wizard from the other school, who was sitting there looking like an innocent skeleton. Then, he changed the subject.

“That’s a secret.”

His friends started whispering to each other.

“If Lee Han says it’s a secret, it must have been a really dangerous trade, right?”

“Maybe he found and sold something like the Headmaster’s heart…”

“I think Wodanaz might have sold some of his own blood or flesh.”

With a flick of his wand, Lee Han sent his friends’ words flying away like leaves in the wind. He used magic to gently push their heads apart, making space to stack the materials.

“Magical Dice Throwing? Who won?” Lee Han asked.

“It’s still going on, so we don’t know yet…”

“Gainando lost.”

“The Prince is in last place.”

Gainando, with a sneaky grin, shoved the game board aside. “Enough games! Let’s see what treasures Lee Han brought!”

“I’ll help too. By the way, what kind of trade did you make to get this much?” Agdung asked, not knowing what Lee Han had done while talking in the tea house.

“I was lucky, Agdung Senior. Oh, right. I’ll share some with you, Senior,” Lee Han said.

“What? No, I can’t take that. I’m your senior, remember?” Agdung replied.

“No, it’s fine! You’ve even been to Einroguard; this is a gift to show the Dark Magic School’s goodwill,” Lee Han insisted.

“Still, I have my pride…” Agdung mumbled.

Crack!

While they were talking, the others started working. They were using small hand axes to open the tightly sealed wooden boxes and containers, checking what was inside.

“Everyone, check the amounts and write them down,” Siana said.

“One box of mid-grade Black Tree Leaves.”

“One box of Flame Wood Roots.”

“Lee Han, this wooden container seems to be Gravel Tree sap,” Yoner added.

“Is there anything to eat? Here’s a box of prepared Hwajak Wood,” Gainando asked.

“Don’t be silly, Gainando. One box of Mana Stones, Earth attribute…” Siana said.

*Did they get these materials in secret, like I did?* Lee Han wondered, amazed as he organized the materials he had gotten from the other person.

It wasn’t just the variety, but there was a lot more than he expected. The other person was also an Einroguard student, but they had this much stuff.

What is this?

“Heh. Did they raid a forest or something?” Agdung muttered.

Lee Han realized something at Agdung’s muttering beside him. Most of the reagents were things that could be found in the forest.

‘Indeed. But…’

Although there were many mountains and forests in the Einroguard territory, it wasn’t easy to find useful resources there. Especially these reagents, which needed careful growing and looking after to be any good.

The other person clearly had several hidden secret forests.

‘Enviable. Truly seniors,’ Lee Han thought.

Lee Han was a little impressed by the wealth of the Beaver-Penguin-Fox he didn’t know. To have so much wealth within the Einroguard territory…

“Hah, hah. I’ve finished organizing everything, Lee Han,” Siana said.

“Good work, everyone,” Lee Han replied.

Gainando complained that there was nothing to eat and that Lee Han had tricked them, but the friends were quite happy. They could still manage with the food they had brought in at the start of the semester, and these reagents were much more useful.

Agdung, curious about what the disciple of the Maryeonggwan would do with so many reagents, asked, “What kind of research are you going to do with this?”

“Together with the Dark Magic School students, I’m going to…” Lee Han was planning to use the Dark Magic School’s workshops and facilities to create something with the remaining reagents, except for those needed for lectures and research.

If he got help from other seniors in the school, he might be able to create something worth selling, and then the Dark Magic School’s vault would get a bit richer, wouldn’t it?

But he couldn’t tell this to outsiders.

Making dark magic items that could be turned into gold seemed a bit wrong.

“Gold?” Agdung asked.

“A little forbidden research,” Lee Han replied.

“!?”

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Did you take the items?

Gonadaltes: Yes. They don’t seem to be very poor.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Don’t show off. There probably isn’t anyone in Einroguard with that many reagents.

Gonadaltes: Heh heh. Is that really so?

Lee Han was worried about what he should pay as a reward when he asked for a request within the Watchers Club later, even while showing off.

Should I really pay with food?

‘But I don’t think the seniors are so obsessed with food.’

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: I’ll give you the remaining items when you activate the artifact. Hurry. The forest is crying.

“Agdung Senior,” Lee Han said.

“Why?” Agdung asked.

“Let’s go activate that artifact Professor told us about,” Lee Han replied.

Agdung raised an eyebrow, a small smile playing on his lips. His eyes seemed to say, “Aha! I was right!” Ihan shifted his weight, suddenly finding the ground very interesting.

“It’s not like I *planned* to deal with the pollutants from the start,” he began, his voice a little too loud, “but when I saw how bad things were getting…”

Ihan said quickly, “It’s not like I wanted to *control* the pollutants from the beginning, but when I saw what was happening, it looked really *dangerous*…”

Agdung chuckled. “Yes, yes, of course. That *must* be it,” he repeated, still smiling slightly. “So, a plan then? Excellent.”

Usually, Agdung would have thought about it for a long time and maybe even told them not to do it. But because of something Professor Taswhan left behind, Agdung didn’t stop his younger friends.

The idea was easy: Agdung would use magic to protect them from the pollutants. Then, they would quickly and quietly go through the mushroom field – the area that was still safe – to where the artifact was.

Once they got there, they could use the artifact, and hopefully, that would solve the problem.

Imirg, who was listening from the side, muttered, “H-how are you going to cast a protection spell that lasts while moving…?”

*Ihan thought Imirg had a point.* A protection spell that moved with them? That sounded very difficult. He frowned slightly, wondering if Agdung really knew what he was doing.

Unlike protection spells cast on fixed areas, protection spells that lasted while moving were on a different level of difficulty.

To cast individual protection spells on everyone here would require an enormous amount of magical power as well as mental concentration.

“Agdung, what kind of magic are you going to use? I want to help too.”

Agdung said with a smile, “Oh! No need to worry this time, Ihan.”

Agdung smiled and waved his staff. With a swirl of light, several cloaks appeared in the air, hanging as if on invisible hangers. Even before they got closer, a terrible smell hit Ihan’s nose – like rotten eggs mixed with old garbage and something else he couldn’t quite place, but that made his stomach turn. The cloaks themselves looked awful. They were a sickly grey-green color, and the material looked thick and lumpy, like it was made of dirt and slime pressed together.

The Einroguard students’ faces hardened as they saw the worst cloaks they had ever seen.

Even when their cloaks were torn when they entered the school and they had to patch them up with leaves, it would have been better than this.

“Do we have to wear these?”

Agdung said, beaming, “Yes! These are Pollutant Cloaks! We made them after a lot of research at Kalarogard. Pretty amazing, right?”

At Kalarogard, we have to deal with pollutants a lot. So, we thought hard about how to fight them without always using spells that take a long time and a lot of energy.

The result of that was this Pollutant Cloak.

Instead of magic that pushes pollutants away or destroys them, this cloak works by tricking the pollutants. It makes them think you are one of them.

Pollutants, tricked into thinking they were the same, did not attack the wizards wearing these cloaks.

“That…”

“Uh…”

“Um…” The friends hesitated, unable to say anything properly.

In their hearts, they wanted someone to step forward and shout, ‘I can’t wear this!’ but no one did.

Agdung’s smile wavered. “Wait… you don’t… you don’t like them?” he asked, his voice suddenly unsure. He looked around at their faces, his eyes widening slightly. “They *are* good, right?”

Then, Ihan suddenly clapped his hands together loudly. “Amazing!” he shouted, a little too loudly. “These are *amazing*, Agdung! Really! What a brilliant idea!” Gainando and Imirg quickly joined in, their voices sounding forced. “Yes! So clever!” “We could… we could sell these! Make them famous!”

Ihan winked quickly at Gainando and Imirg, who were still looking horrified. They seemed to understand. Gainando cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Very… uh… practical! Yes, very practical for… for smelly places!”

“I’m glad you like them! For a second, I thought you weren’t very happy with them.”

“Isn’t it mean to make it in the name of Kalarogard?” Gainando grumbled softly from behind.

If it had been made in the name of Baldroguard, he would have said he wouldn’t wear it without hesitation!

Ihan thought as he put on the cloak, ‘I think I know why the dark magic school is poor.’

The effect of this cloak was excellent.

It could deceive pollutants without the need to cast spells separately or recharge magic, so it would be very useful in dangerous areas.

But there was one problem with the cloak, a problem so big it almost made all the good things about it disappear. Simply put: no one in their right mind would actually *wear* these things. They were just too disgusting.

They would rather buy a cloak that was several times more expensive…

Ihan thought, ‘No matter how good the performance is, you shouldn’t make it like this. I learned another thing.’

Ihan and his friends, wearing the cloaks and looking as miserable as could be, quickly moved through the mushroom field.

Pollutants kept appearing around them, but they completely ignored Ihan and his group, as if they were just rocks on the ground.

The cloaks really worked – the pollutants didn’t bother them at all. But instead of being happy about it, the students were more worried about the smell. They kept touching their noses, checking if the spell to stop us smelling was still working.

One of them whispered, “I think the spell that’s stopping us from smelling is wearing off. Will we be okay?”

Ihan hissed back, “Shhh. If you make noise, the pollutants might notice us. Just hold on a little longer.”

As they walked, Ihan and Agdung looked ahead, searching for the artifact.

Suddenly, Agdung stopped and pointed. “There!” he mouthed, pointing towards a pond of dark, bubbling water. Stuck in the mud near the edge was the peach wood staff.

Agdung whispered excitedly, “I see it! Over there, by the pond!”

Ihan asked, already moving forward, “Should I go get it?”

Agdung hissed. “Wait! There might be magic protecting it. Let me… let me try to turn it off first.”

But before Agdung could do anything, Ihan quickly used his magic to pull the staff towards him. *Whoosh!* The staff flew out of the mud and into Ihan’s hand.

Agdung blinked, a little surprised. But then he nodded quickly, trying to look like he wasn’t impressed at all. *Seniors have to keep their cool,* he thought.

“Huuuh. Gwayuh. Yuhduryuh mabuhyiya.”

“Agdung, your jaw is dislocated.”

Ilendil was in his mind complaining about all the headmasters, professors, and students of Einroguard. He was also waiting, his heart pounding with worry.

“Calm down, everyone… just bear with it a little longer. Okay?”

The spirits who had come to hide nearby looked like they were about to choke because of the pollutants running wild.

If the pollutants continued to roam around the forest like this, the spirits would not be able to hold out for long and would have to return to their own dimension.

“I hired a wizard… soon… it will have an effect…”

Ilendil usually spoke in a slow voice, but today his voice was twice as fast as usual.

That’s how important the work in the 7th floor forest was.

Bakwantallana: I think it’s a lie. I’m not sure. I recommend not making too big of a deal.

Iaktus: Oh! You should definitely do it. I’ve trusted that Gonadaltes guy from the start, you know?

Ihan thought Bakwantallana was taking his side, but in fact, the other members of the Watchman Club advised Ilendil not to trust him.

No matter how he thought about it, it was difficult to absorb all the pollutants in that short amount of time.

In the case of Iaktus, his true feelings were obvious…

But Ilendil eventually accepted the suspicious proposal. That’s how desperate he was.

Ilendil tried to stop himself from thinking about who he would pay to make that wizard suffer. *But what if it’s all a lie?*

Suddenly, a loud rumbling sound shook the 7th floor forest. *Rumble!*

The ground beneath their feet started to shake violently. Trees swayed, and water seemed to rise up from the ground in swirling columns. It looked like the forest itself was turning inside out, and as it did, dark clouds of pollutants were sucked towards the center of the chaos. The Watchman Club members screamed in surprise and fear.

Iaktus: No way! How!

Gonadaltes: What do you mean “no way”?

Iaktus: …I mean, the magic on the 7th floor right now is unbelievable!

Gonadaltes: Is *that* what you meant?