Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 789

Nilia ran as fast as she could, her feet pounding on the stone floor of the hallway. She was in such a rush that she fumbled inside her robes and pulled out a small bottle. She uncorked it with her teeth and gulped down the potion in one go.

‘No way am I letting that rumor-spreading wizard get away with this!’ she thought fiercely.

“Wodanaz! Come on, hurry up!” Nilia shouted over her shoulder.

“Okay, okay!” Lee Han called back, a little out of breath.

‘Maybe if I just stopped running, no one would even notice me,’ Lee Han thought to himself. He sighed inwardly, then focused his magic, feeling a warm tingle spread through his legs, making him faster. He sped up to catch up with Nilia.

He could have used a few more enhancement spells here, but it didn’t seem necessary, so he refrained.

Honestly, if he just stayed still, the Einroguard students would probably just think, ‘Who’s that young hunter?’ and move on…

“Antangdal got beat by a kid!”

“Hey, stop right there!”

Nilia gritted her teeth and pursued the bat.

Turning the corner, they saw third-year students playing magic stone-tossing at the end of the hallway.

“Should I throw it here, or over there…”

“Can’t you hurry up?”

“Ahem. Be quiet. When to throw is my right that even the Skull Headmaster can’t touch…”

“Antangdal got beat by a kid!”

“Sorry!”

“We’re just passing through!”

“???”

The upperclassmen, who were about to throw stones at the magic circle, looked up in bewilderment.

“What was that just now?”

“Wait. Didn’t they just say Antangdal? That magical criminal?”

The upperclassmen watched the two juniors running off and were impressed.

‘The underclassmen these days are something else!’

Meanwhile, the bat turned another corner.

This time, they saw upperclassmen playing wizard hopscotch. Nilia shouted with a voice full of injustice.

“Why are there so many upperclassmen in the hallway today?!”

“A toxic swamp burst on the sixth floor, so probably the upperclassmen who were there…”

“Antangdal got beat by a kid!”

“?!”

An upperclassman was dizzy from a spell after landing on square number 4 of the hopscotch game, was startled.

“Did they say Antangdal? What’s going on?”

“In my opinion, judging by that ugly bat form, he sent a doppelganger that got destroyed.”

“Even if it’s a doppelganger, these underclassmen are really something!”

“……”

“……”

The two were silent, listening to the upperclassmen’s exclamations.

Lee Han thought to himself.

‘Should I drop out now?’

Come to think of it, Antangdal was only talking about Nilia.

If Lee Han just quietly stopped…

“Wodanaz…!”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“What are you talking about? You stopped!”

“!”

As Nilia pointed ahead, the exhausted bat fell straight down and disintegrated.

Breathing heavily, Nilia said with a relieved voice.

“At least strange rumors won’t spread, right?”

“Huh? Yeah… well. Right.”

Lee Han didn’t tell the truth because he didn’t want to make Nilia sad.

“…So, that’s the situation.”

“Isn’t that too dangerous?!”

“Well, yeah. Gotta be careful.”

“……”

Nilia was aghast at her friend, who was talking as if he were saying, ‘It might rain tomorrow, so I should bring an umbrella.’

‘Has he stopped noticing danger!?’

Maybe his sense of danger had become paralyzed from experiencing so many particularly difficult things at Einroguard.

‘No, even when other friends go through hard times, it’s not to this extent. Maybe Wodanaz was always like this…’

Nilia started to think something not very nice about Wodanaz.

“By the way, Nilia. Do you happen to be taking the >Magician’s Life with Plants> lecture?”

“Yeah, I am. Why?”

Lee Han cheered inwardly.

‘It’s a second-year lecture!’

Just looking at the lecture name, it seemed like a botany lecture, but he was worried because he couldn’t tell if it was a second-year or third-year lecture.

He couldn’t be happier that it was a second-year lecture.

“That’s such a relief. It’s a second-year lecture.”

“……”

Nilia stared intently at her friend with a look mixed with pity, sadness, shock, and fear.

“What was the content of the last lecture?”

“We didn’t do much. Since it was the first lecture, they explained what kind of lecture it was, and showed us rare and interesting plants. Oh, and the professor was a Willow Sprite.”

“I see.”

“Right. Wodanaz, you’re taking Professor Verdus’s lecture, right? How was the lecture?”

Nilia asked curiously.

They were in the same Enchantment Magic school, but Lee Han was taking a third-year lecture, so she was curious about the differences.

“Oh… right. >Wand Materials and Magic Amplification>. Nilia, was yours >Introduction to Enchantment Magic>?”

“That’s right. Senior Yukbertire teaches it.”

“How is it? Is he as eccentric as Professor Verdus?”

“No? He teaches well, though?”

“…?”

Lee Han doubted his ears.

He teaches well?

Had the meaning of ‘teaches well’ changed in Einroguard?

“He teaches well?”

“Yeah. He teaches well.”

Nilia briefly explained Yukbertire’s lecture.

He wasn’t particularly interested in the underclassmen, but Yukbertire wasn’t the type to abandon his work and only do his own thing like Professor Verdus.

He accurately and systematically organized the content to be taught in each lecture and distributed it to the underclassmen, so the second-year students in the Enchantment Magic school didn’t have many complaints.

It was definitely better than Professor Verdus’s class last year!

“……”

Lee Han felt unfairly treated after hearing the explanation.

Of course, he didn’t want Senior Yukbertire to torment the second-year friends, but this was a bit much…

‘Why do crazy people become normal when I’m not looking?’

“What about you, Wodanaz?”

“We’re… studying by stealing the professor’s work.”

“Hey. Don’t joke around.”

“……”

“…You’re not joking?”

Nilia suddenly felt very sorry.

“S-sorry. I didn’t know it was real.”

“It’s kind of fun to study by stealing the professor’s work. It’s also informative.”

“Really?”

“No. I just lied.”

“……”

“……”

An awkward silence hung between them.

Nilia suggested to change the atmosphere.

“Then, let’s go to the >Magician’s Life with Plants> lecture hall first! I’ll show you around before the lecture starts today!”

The lecture hall where this botany lecture was held was a greenhouse filled with all sorts of plants.

Just taking care of them and looking around was quite fun, so many students came to the lecture hall to study even when it wasn’t lecture time.

Of course, she knew that Lee Han was taking so many lectures that he hardly had any free time, but it was almost mealtime now, so…

“I promised to help out at the kitchen club.”

“Then let’s go together after that’s done. I’ll help too.”

“After that, I have to go to the Quidditch club to take care of the animals for a bit.”

“…Then let’s do that together too.”

“After that, I have to go to the stonemason club…”

“Hey, cut it out!”

Nilia couldn’t stand it and ended up getting angry at her friend.

Lee Han, hearing his friend’s sincere anger, reflected and canceled his club schedules.

And he left only one.

“It’s a bit difficult to cancel this week’s kitchen club work. I heard the upperclassmen are on the verge of rioting.”

“…The food isn’t very good, though.”

Nilia had to admit it.

The meals from the kitchen club, which were responsible for the hungry stomachs of countless Einroguard students, were always precarious.

The taste was relatively lacking as they had to somehow make the quantity with limited ingredients.

However, that situation couldn’t convince the Einroguard students who were paying a gold coin for each meal.

-Hey, you crazy bastards! Stop giving us bread made from ground beans! You have to mix at least half of it with flour!

-Don’t take away the corn porridge!

-If you’re going to keep giving us this salted meat, just give us stones instead. Stones would be easier to break!

“I’m curious, where do they even get that salted meat?”

Nilia wondered.

Wizards who were at least in their second year could use various spells, so it wasn’t difficult to preserve meat.

But why was the kitchen club consistently serving salted meat that was harder than a stone, preserved in salt?

“I was curious too, so I asked, and they said the Headmaster usually buys it in bulk from outside.”

“……”

Nilia was shocked at Lee Han’s explanation.

What the…?

“Now, when you walk around the school, there are relatively easy-to-enter kitchens, but many of those kitchens are fake. The Headmaster deliberately buys and fills them with bad food.”

‘He’s really focused on useless things!’

Nilia was surprised again by how strange the Skull Headmaster was.

He could just not put the food there, but he deliberately does that to see the students suffer…

“But it’s better than nothing. You can eat it if you cook it well.”

Even if the meat is hardened, if you pound it, tear it, chop it into small pieces, throw it in water, and boil it with bread, it becomes a salty meal.

Of course, it was unknown whether the students who ate it would be satisfied…

“Hello, Seniors, I’m here.”

“Wodanaz! Great, you’re here! We’ve been waiting!”

In fact, to be precise, they welcomed the food that Lee Han would bring. To the members who were always suffering from limited ingredients, this junior was a miracle worker.

“What about the flour?”

“We used it all yesterday. I was going to secure some wheat, but unfortunately, poison broke out on the sixth floor…”

“What about rice?”

“We have a little left.”

“Meat…”

Lee Han took out the ingredients he had brought and carefully discussed them with the seniors.

Seeing that, Nilia was ashamed that she had complained about the kitchen club’s meals.

-Is this one gold coin? Wodanaz would be so shocked that he’d collapse if he saw this, hmph!

‘I was criticizing without considering other people’s circumstances.’

“Let’s make oatmeal porridge first.”

“Oatmeal porridge doesn’t get a good reaction. Students might throw their bowls if they don’t like it.”

“Let’s add other ingredients to make it look more appealing! Onions, carrots… Ah, let’s use cheese too.”

“Even cheese!? Isn’t that too luxurious?”

“Let’s cut it thinly. Let’s cut the salted meat and put it in the porridge, and how about cutting the ham I brought and putting it on the outside?”

“That sounds good. We can trick them into thinking it’s better!”

“……”

Nilia glared at the seniors, forgetting that she had been ashamed just now.

As expected, the kitchen club members were half scammers.

To lead her honest friend down the path of deception like that…

“Nilia. Thanks for helping.”

“This isn’t the kind of help I had in mind.”

Nilia muttered and moved her feet.

She had thought about skinning animal hides and trimming the meat, but she hadn’t thought about pounding the meat to make it look like there was more.

“Three, two, one… here it is. Yggdrasil Greenhouse. Right?”

“Right. You can open the door and go in.”

Nilia hurriedly opened the door to show her friend the lecture hall before the lecture started.

It had taken longer than she thought to help with the kitchen club work (the students who gathered for the meal were contemplating whether to throw the plates or not, but eventually put them down).

Hoo-

The humid and hot air unique to the greenhouse rushed out. The Willow Professor inside looked at them with a puzzled expression.

“It’s not lecture time yet?”

“Hello, Professor. I wanted to introduce the lecture hall, so we came early.”

“Indeed… excellent wizards. Feel free to look around.”

The Willow Professor, who was pruning branches, smiled kindly.

Then he paused, looking at Lee Han.

“Long time no see, Professor.”

“Wodanaz. …It’s been a long time since we met last year! I’ve heard a lot of rumors… but why aren’t you using your wand? You look full of complaints.”

“……”

Lee Han glared at his wand with a resentful heart.