Surviving As A Mage In A Magic Academy [EN]: Chapter 905

The hamster was furious when his attempt to corrupt his opponent was met with ridicule.

He used to think more broadly when he was a magical criminal, but becoming a hamster had narrowed his mind. Even Antagondalus wasn’t immune to this.

Ihan leaned closer to the cage. “I need to ask you something.”

The hamster glared at him. “-Speak sense, brat! You came all the way here to ask that scary tyrant about *spelling*? Is that all you care about with him around?”

“Yes,” Ihan said, his face serious.

The hamster blinked, surprised that Ihan wasn’t joking. He went quiet for a moment, then snatched a juicy grape from a small dish in his cage. He popped it into his mouth and munched loudly, sweet juice dribbling down his whiskers.

The grape was bursting with flavor.

“Now that you’ve had a grape, please tell me what it means,” Ihan said.

“-Just ask the tyrant!” the hamster snapped. “He’ll yell at you no matter what I say. And why would you even trust *me*?”

“It’s fine, I’ll double-check it,” Ihan replied.

The hamster *squeaked*, its tiny nose twitching with annoyance. A flash of resentment glinted in its beady eyes. He found the young wizard, who didn’t give an inch, extremely irritating.

But there was only one thing the hamster could do now.

“…No. You can’t ask me to do this after eating a grape!”

Ihan’s patience started to wear thin as the hamster retreated into the shadows of its wire cage.

Of course, he could ask the mad doppelganger as the hamster suggested, but Ihan always prepared for the worst.

Thinking about it coldly, there was a chance the mad doppelganger wouldn’t tell him the spelling.

‘Seeing as he cut off contact, there’s a good chance of that,’ Ihan thought.

In that case, it was even more important to get the information from this hamster.

Ihan took out a grape and threw it at the hamster in the cage. A furious squeak erupted.

“-I’ll *gnaw* your fingers off!”

“You threatened me with that last time,” Ihan said. “You’ve had a grape, so please give me an interpretation. I’m busy.”

“-How on earth does the Wodanaz family make their children?” the hamster grumbled. “Did they melt down the soul of a demon king and pour it in?”

The hamster lamented.

He had made many mistakes in his life, but the most recent mistake he regretted was entering Einrogaard to obtain the magical secrets. The next most regretted mistake was underestimating this young wizard.

If he hadn’t underestimated the youngster when he was captured, he wouldn’t be in this state.

Even if he admitted that Ihan’s magical skills were those of a genius, what kind of nerve was that…?

“-Fine,” the hamster relented with a sigh. “I’ll interpret it for you. But you, little brat, promise me one thing.”

“Pardon? You’ve had a grape, haven’t you?”

The hamster squeezed its eyes shut at the Wodanaz family brat’s fuss, making such a big deal out of a single grape.

“Please interpret it first. I’ll listen to your request later,” Ihan said.

“-…Fine. I understand,” the hamster said.

The hamster gave up surprisingly readily. He hesitated for a moment, looking annoyed. But then, with a sigh, he gave in.

He was in a disadvantageous position, and interpreting a simple fairy tale wasn’t that difficult.

If the hamster refused, Ihan would probably figure it out himself.

In that case, it was better to do him a favor and create a debt of gratitude.

“-Once upon a time, there was a good student at a magic school… Damn it.”

“Is ‘Damn it’ included?” Ihan asked.

“-Would it be?”

“Please do it properly.”

“-…The good student had his wand taken away…”

As it was a fairy tale, the content was neither long nor difficult. Ihan quickly scribbled it down with his quill.

“Thank you. Then…”

As Ihan tried to leave quickly, a squeak of hatred erupted. Regretting his attempt to slip away, Ihan sat back down.

“I’m just sitting up straight again,” he said.

“-My request is simple. Help me escape.”

“Are you spouting crazy nonsense again??”

Ihan abandoned his polite attitude and immediately turned serious. Small signs of Ihan’s impatience earlier. Maybe he taps his foot or sighs while being polite. This makes the shift to “serious” feel more natural.

“-At least hear me out.”

“No. I refuse. I respect you, Wizard, but this is not it,” Ihan said.

Ihan actually respected Antagondalus, in a strange way. Not because he liked him, but because he knew Antagondalus was powerful and could be dangerous in the future.

His master had already accumulated resentment, so there was no need to accumulate more, was there?

But that didn’t mean Ihan had any intention of risking his life to release him.

The mad doppelganger was a hundred times scarier than Antagondalus.

“Are you suggesting we die together? Are you going to make a fellow hamster?” Ihan asked.

“-You won’t become a hamster,” Antagondalus said.

Unlike Antagondalus, who was treated as less than a slave by the mad doppelganger, Ihan was treated as a formal disciple.

Perhaps even if he burned down the workshop and went down to the village and killed a few people, he wouldn’t be turned into a hamster.

“-And it’s not even a difficult task. You don’t have to do anything. Just open our door while that tyrant is temporarily gone.”

“?”

Not just away, but gone?

Ihan paused at the strange choice of words.

“What do you mean by gone?”

“-Just what it sounds like,” the hamster said, revealing the aura of a great wizard. “Did you think I’d be trapped here forever?”

He looked like a brilliant chess player with a hidden move.

Ihan tensed at that confidence.

Was this hamster, no, this magical criminal, plotting something behind Ihan’s back?

“Tell me,” Ihan demanded.

“-I have subordinates outside,” Antagondalus explained. “If something happens and I lose contact, they are supposed to come in.”

Ihan, recalling the invaders who were almost completely annihilated, was about to mention it but decided to wait.

He wanted to hear more about what the hamster was going to say.

“Even if those subordinates are skilled, they won’t be able to defeat my master, will they?”

“-Probably not,” the hamster admitted unexpectedly readily.

In the first place, that tyrant was a different class of existence even among great wizards. There were few great wizards who held so many forgotten ancient secrets.

Even the most seasoned adventurers would be annihilated the moment their eyes met.

“-But even tyrants have weaknesses,” the hamster explained calmly.

The tyrant was arrogant because he had no equal, but there was no such thing as an existence without weaknesses.

The tyrant’s greatest weakness was that he was a magical thought-form rejected by the world, not an existence belonging to the world.

The world likes things that belong to it, like plants and animals. It pushes away things that don’t belong, like magical thought-forms. The doppelgangers are like these thought-forms, not really part of our world, but they are strong enough to come here sometimes.

“Isn’t that like a natural disaster? I heard about it before,” Ihan said.

Ihan wasn’t particularly surprised, as he already knew. Just as a highly toxic substance does not easily disappear and continues to affect the environment, the great awakening of a great wizard also continuously affected the world.

The appearance of the Skull Headmaster’s doppelganger was a similar phenomenon.

The hamster was briefly speechless at the sight of the wizard’s supreme state being compared to a toxic substance, but quickly regained his composure and continued.

“-I’ve hidden magic inside the souls of my subordinates,” he said.

“What kind of magic…?” Ihan asked.

“-Magic that banishes thought-forms!”

It amplifies the connection with the world, banishing magical thought-forms, which are no different from foreign substances, for a certain period.

The principle was simple, but its implementation was an extremely difficult high-level magic. Ihan shuddered at the intuition of the principle and difficulty.

To think that he had hidden such magic in the souls of his subordinates in preparation for the worst.

From the way he spoke, it seemed that the subordinates themselves were unaware. He was chilled by the thorough plan of the magical criminal.

If the mad doppelganger carelessly turned the invaders into hamsters, wouldn’t the hidden, poison-coated dagger pop out and stab his carelessness?

‘I should contact him right away,’ Ihan thought.

Ihan betrayed his promise with Antagondalus in a second and prepared to contact the mad doppelganger.

The magical criminal might be disappointed, but the Einrogaard school of thought was generally free in areas such as oath-breaking and lying.

Most of the invaders had been caught, but the remaining ones could be dangerous, so he had to tell the giants or other wizards to take care of them…

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Caught! We caught them! I caught the last one!

Klzenberg: Congratulations!

Iaktus: Keuh! I’m jealous. Congratulations. Did you find the Headmaster’s treasure?

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: What? They say it’s not there? They didn’t steal anything like that.

Iaktus: What? Don’t you know how to interrogate them?

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Who do you think I am, a freshman? Of course, I know how to interrogate them. But they say they didn’t steal anything.

Iaktus: Aha.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Why? Do you have any idea?

Iaktus: Are they trying to hide that they got the treasure now?

Bakwantalana: Indeed.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Indeed, my foot. I was stupid to give news to these rotten trees. Just die.

‘Oops,’ Ihan thought.

Ihan was flustered when the >Einrogaard Watchmen< club members delivered the news before he could even relay it. What would happen if all the invaders were caught before he even met the mad doppelganger? "Oh, I have something to ask," Ihan said. "-Wise," the hamster said with a relaxed attitude. "I knew you'd realize." The reason he told Ihan this fact, even though Ihan could betray him immediately, was simple. If Ihan told the tyrant, the tyrant would move to catch the invaders himself because of his pride! The wizards of the current empire were also proud and strong-willed, but the wizards of the old ancient kingdom were on a completely different level. If he was worried by his disciple, he would feel it as a disgrace. "-If the tyrant is banished, the magic that imprisoned me will soon be released," the hamster continued. "It's more than enough time to escape before he returns. However, I don't want to come back in this narrow cage, so just open the door. You don't want to clean up the burst flesh and blood clots, do you? Then I swear I'll cleanly forget the grudge between us." The hamster showed a rare generosity. Originally, it was a grudge he would never forget, but considering his Wodanaz family background and his friendship with the Lord of Einrogaard, there was no point in the hamster making an enemy of him. Once he got out of here, they could go their separate ways without ever encountering each other again. "That's not what I was going to ask," Ihan said, slightly embarrassed. Thinking about it, the hamster was right. Considering the mad doppelganger's pride, contacting him rashly could be more dangerous. 'I should have said it differently. That was almost dangerous,' Ihan thought. "-Sniff sniff. Master. One of the Einrogaard students insulted me, saying, 'Your master doesn't even have minions, so he goes around catching invaders himself!'" "-Dare?! From now on, you will do all the chores." Something like this would be better. 'No. That's not very good,' Ihan thought. Thinking about it, it was a contact that only had disadvantages for Ihan. "-What? Then what were you going to ask?" the hamster asked. "What happens if the invaders are all caught by other people? For example, students, knights, or giants," Ihan asked. "-…That's unlikely," the hamster said. "At least one of them will be caught by the tyrant. And why are the giants going in there?" Ihan hesitated, unable to speak. The hamster sensed an ominous sign from that appearance. Even if his body had become a hamster, the senses of his trained divination magic did not easily disappear. "-Could it be?" "Well… um… they've all been caught," Ihan admitted. "-Don't say such nonsense, you little brat!" the hamster exclaimed. "That can't be! Did all the Einrogaard wizards come out to chase them down?" "That's what I'm saying. I don't know what's going on either," Ihan replied.