Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 784

Lee Han sent the message, hoping to cause trouble.

Giselle sat in the Sword-Wielding Wizard café, on the 7th floor of the school. It was a favorite place for students from White Tiger Tower to relax. The café was noisy with chatter and smelled of sweet coffee and something cooking. Giselle took a sip of her acorn coffee, its bitter taste familiar. Then, her message arrived. She read it and frowned, confused. *Wodanaz? And Senior Jihan? What was going on?*

“Wodanaz actually convinced Senior Jihan?” one of her friends asked, leaning closer.

“Yeah! Moradi, congrats!” another friend said, clapping him on the shoulder.

A third friend narrowed his eyes. “You little sneak,” he said, pointing a finger. “You’ve been bribed, haven’t you?”

The friends looked at him with suspicion, their smiles gone.

They couldn’t understand why Wodanaz would be so kind without wanting something in return.

“What… what?! Bribed?! Bribed, you say!? How dare you…! Draw your sword! It’s a duel!”

The White Tiger Tower student was very angry because his friends insulted him.

His friends realized he was serious and were a little scared.

“Hmm. Maybe not? Perhaps I was mistaken.”

“I take back what I said… wait a moment. Why do I smell meat on you? It’s not nearly time for the Wodanaz rations yet, is it?”

Wodanaz had found a way to get extra food for the students at the start of the semester, but the school had strict rules. They called it ‘Wodanaz rations.’

Because of this, the students didn’t starve, but they couldn’t eat as much as they wanted. They also needed to save food in case of emergencies.

But where did the meat smell come from?

“Traces, show yourself… You, you little sneak! What is this! It looks like… meat juice??”

“W-Wodanaz works in the kitchen club, so he secretly gave me a choripan (a type of sausage sandwich).”

“…He’s been bribed!! 100% bribed!!”

“I’m telling you, he hasn’t! Choi was invited too!”

The White Tiger Tower students stopped, surprised.

If Dergyu was also invited, it changed things.

“If it’s Choi, then…”

“Come to think of it, didn’t Wodanaz visit Moradi’s family estate during the winter break?”

“Shhh. Keep it down. Moradi will try to kill you if you talk about that.”

“Why though?”

“If people start talking about a political connection between the Moradi family and the Wodanaz family, it could make their enemies in the government angry.”

“Indeed. The Western noble families would be especially upset. They’re already angry that the Knights were sent to the North first.”

“That’s right. We may come from knightly families, but we also need to act honorably as students.”

Giselle almost pulled out her sword, but stopped.

Her friends had become smarter since starting at the magic school, but they used their intelligence for everything except magic.

“If Choi was invited too, it’s probably not a trap. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Surely he wouldn’t be so childish as to suggest we take a difficult class together…”

“Haha! Moradi, even if you don’t like Wodanaz, you don’t think he would do something so childish, right?!”

The White Tiger Tower students laughed, and Giselle blushed.

Even she thought it was a silly idea.

“I was just saying.”

“Hahaha!”

“What do you guys think?”

“Hahaha!”

“What do you think?”

“W-Well, maybe Choi was invited, and the Senior just wants to teach you as well, Moradi?”

Giselle frowned and nodded.

She would find out when she went.

“Hehe. How is everyone?”

“It’s… difficult, but rewarding. Thank you, Lee Han.”

“…It’s an honor to learn like this in our spare time, Wodanaz.”

Lee Han was surprised to see his two friends on the floor, panting.

Huh?

“Isn’t it hard to come and learn like this in your spare time? You won’t have any rest.”

“Well, I’m free next period, so it’s fine.”

“I’m also free next period, so I don’t mind.”

Lee Han felt uneasy because his friends weren’t reacting the way he expected.

He thought they would say, ‘This teaching… Kraah! I’ve been tricked!’

His friends were accepting it better than he thought.

“Are you perhaps angry or upset that I asked you to do this kind of teaching?”

“It’s hard, but isn’t one lecture okay?”

“I agree with Choi.”

-Aren’t other people only taking lectures like this, Master?

The baby basilisk tilted its head and asked.

Listening from inside his sleeve, the lecture schedules of the other students felt quite different from his master’s.

He thought it was supposed to be much harder…?

“…Indeed. One is bearable.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m going to my next lecture now. Would you like to watch it with me?”

“No?”

Giselle answered quickly.

Giselle wasn’t taking classes in every school like Lee Han, and she wasn’t going to waste time on subjects she didn’t need to study.

It was enough to focus on her own lectures.

“It might be a good experience to watch?”

“…Wodanaz. Are you doing this because I’m not struggling enough?”

Giselle wondered if that was the reason.

Unlike Wodanaz, they had plenty of free time, so she wondered if that was why they were accepting Senior Jihan’s teachings so easily.

“Moradi. That’s rude. Why are you saying such things about Lee Han? Lee Han convinced the Senior for our sake.”

Dergyu scolded her.

Convincing Senior Jihan to teach their friends was not easy.

Giselle seemed to agree, and she apologized.

“That’s… true. I apologize, Wodanaz. I was rude after you were kind to me.”

“It’s nothing. Haha… Is anyone perhaps interested in magical combat?”

Lee Han went to the lecture hall feeling upset.

‘It’s not fair. Why do my friends have fewer difficult lectures?’

He couldn’t accept it.

Lee Han looked at the lecture title.

From Caterpillars to Dragons

The sign on the door was simple: ‘Transfiguration Classroom.’ *Good,* Yihan thought, *at least that’s easy to understand.*

The question was, which year’s class was it?

“Hopefully it’s for second years, but probably not,” Yihan muttered to himself. A knot of worry tightened in his stomach.

None of his friends were taking ‘From Caterpillars to Dragons.’ He might have missed something, but he had to assume it wasn’t a second-year class.

Most likely third year. Fourth year was about as likely as a meteorite falling from a clear sky…

Even Yihan doubted his magical schedule book, the Calendarium, would recommend a fourth-year class, but in Einroguard, one could never let their guard down.

*Tap tap tap!*

” ?”

Yihan paused, spotting a familiar senior student running towards him.

“Hormashi-sunbae?” Yihan asked, using the term for senior student.

“Hey! You going this way too, junior?” Hormashi, a third-year Quidditch Club member, came to a halt, her robes billowing behind her as she sprinted, her face flushed.

“I’m on my way to class,” Yihan replied.

“Wait a minute… there’s only one classroom down here, right? Don’t tell me you’re going to ‘Caterpillars to Dragons’?”

“That’s exactly where I’m going.”

“What? That’s a third-year class…” Karnella looked Yihan up and down quickly, her eyes widening. “Ah!”

“Wait… you’re *that* Yihan, right? I’ve heard about you!”

“……”

Karnella grinned, twirling the riding crop faster. “Alright, welcome to ‘Caterpillars to Dragons,’ junior! No harm in learning a bit of Transfiguration, right?”

There was no downside to having a talented junior in the same school.

Of course, everyone knew Yihan. He seemed to be involved in everything.

-Master, I’m scared of that person!

” ?”

“Wait!” Before Yihan could answer, Karnella held out her hand and shushed him.

“What is it?”

“Didn’t you hear a Basilisk cry just now?”

-……

The baby Basilisk shuddered and wrapped itself even tighter around Yihan’s arm.

It felt like it would be captured by that tall, imposing senior the moment it was dragged out of the sleeve.

“Are you sure? Maybe it was just another snake? There are loads of them around here.”

“No way! Don’t be silly, junior. A Basilisk cry is totally different! You *do* know that, right? Especially if you’re raising one!” Karnella scolded her junior for talking nonsense. The baby Basilisk trembled even more at Karnella’s sharp words. Yihan could understand why.

“Could it have been your Basilisk talking?”

“My Basilisk is asleep right now, though.”

“Hmm… If it woke up to talk, I would love to chat! Basilisks are *amazing*!” Karnella stared intently at Yihan’s sleeve. Yihan could feel the baby Basilisk’s tail trembling pitifully.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Oh, nothing much.” The towering senior shrugged, arms crossed.

“Just what it likes to eat, when it sleeps and wakes up…”

‘Relatively harmless, I suppose.’

“When and how it goes to the toilet, when it has babies…”

‘This person is insane.’ Yihan realized the baby Basilisk’s instincts were correct.

“Just trivial small talk? I’m also like to use some of the Basilisk language I’ve studied.”

“You know Basilisk language?!”

“I’m not very good at it yet. I just learned it. More importantly, junior, if you’re taking ‘From Caterpillars to Dragons,’ you’ll have to help this Hormashi out. I was on my way to catch a senior right now.”

“A senior?”

“Yeah. The professor and a senior teach the class together, sometimes one, sometimes the other. But the senior keeps running away.”

“……” To Yihan, who only knew professors running away, a senior running away was rather novel.

“Is that allowed?”

“Usually not. They go to the punishment room.”

In fact, going to the punishment room was the problem; if you were prepared to go, there were surprisingly many things you could do in Einroguard.

Abandoning class duties, raiding the headmaster’s office, escaping the school, and so on.

Yihan sensed that this senior, whom he hadn’t even met yet, was going to be quite mad.

“Oh, right. I heard you’re quite sociable, junior?”

“Me?”

“I heard you were the one who dealt with the guests when the Transfiguration wizards gathered last year?”

“…Ah. That happened.” Yihan’s face hardened. He remembered the endless polite smiles and forced conversations with those cheerful wizards. It had been exhausting.

The Transfiguration wizards from outside were all cheerful and sociable people who enjoyed conversation.

In comparison, the Transfiguration wizards of Einroguard were not very outgoing, so they wanted a junior to handle the troublesome tasks.

And the only junior there was Yihan.

‘It’s still ridiculous to think about it now.’

“I’m so glad a sociable junior has joined us. Our school doesn’t have sociable people.”

“But isn’t Hormashi-sunbae quite sociable?”

“Oh… well.” Karnella scratched her cheek awkwardly, avoiding Yihan’s eyes. “Well…”

The junior’s words were only partially true; the rest was wrong.

“I usually… only know how to talk to people who like Quidditch or animals. Everyone else runs away when I talk about my other hobbies?”

“……”

Yihan then realized that ‘talkative’ was not the same as ‘sociable.’

Sociable meant making people *comfortable* and *happy* to talk to you. Talkative just meant talking a lot, whether people liked it or not.

‘Come to think of it, Professor Verdus was also talkative…’

“What about the senior you’re going to find now?”

“Ah. This senior is the most…”

“The most?” Yihan hoped the word ‘sociable’ would follow.

“…unsociable and very strange person.”

“Yes…” Yihan’s shoulders slumped. He sighed, feeling all his hope drain away.

Why couldn’t he find a normal, decent senior in Einroguard?

Karnella patted Yihan’s back hard, encouraging him.

“But this senior has an advantage!”

“What kind of advantage…? Like the advantage of running away from lectures?”

Karnella grinned, leaning closer and lowering her voice. “But… this senior is the *best* at making money in Einroguard.”

At those words, Yihan’s heart, which had felt like a cold stone, suddenly leaped in his chest. He looked up at Karnella, hope flickering in his eyes.