Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 1054
Naturally, Gainando did not notice. He was too busy whining.
“Sob, sob, sob.”
“Stop whining, Prince. You came because you wanted to, so why are you acting like this now?”
Giselle scolded the Blue Dragon Tower friend from behind.
For someone who had supposedly come of his own will, the prince was far too cowardly.
“…Who said I wanted to come…! Sniff. Fine, I did want to come.”
Gainando, who had been about to make excuses, shut his mouth again when Lee Han gave him a look telling him to be quiet.
“So stop whining already.”
“…”
Gainando thought to himself.
Was laughing along with the Skull Principal really a sin that deserved this much punishment?
…No. It really was a sin…
Come to think of it, it truly had been a very unpleasant sin. Gainando reflected on it all over again.
Still, if there was one unfair thing about it, it was that the Skull Principal himself had not been punished.
“The principal should have come along too.”
Is he insane?
Giselle looked at the muttering Gainando with horrified eyes.
What on earth was he thinking, saying something like that?
“So who exactly are you trying to catch?”
Lee Han asked Professor Voladi.
Since he was following along, it was only natural to wonder who the target was.
And…
I need to check whether they’re related to the evil deity cult too.
The professor did not seem to have noticed yet, but there was no such thing as absolute certainty in worldly matters.
He needed to continue his surveillance quietly and cleverly.
“A mage.”
“!”
Lee Han and Giselle exchanged surprised looks.
Then they spoke at the same time.
“An Einroguard graduate, then.”
“No.”
“…”
“…”
Lee Han and Giselle exchanged looks that said, You made me look foolish! Gainando, who still had not grasped the situation, asked in confusion.
“You only said mage, so why did you assume it was an Einroguard graduate?”
“…Good question.”
“Don’t ask, Prince.”
“???”
While Gainando blinked in confusion, Professor Voladi explained the wanted criminal with a bounty on his head.
Toman, the dwarven mage, had followed the typical path of a mage from outside the Empire’s magic schools.
He lived as an adventurer, happened to obtain magic from a relic he found, became intoxicated with that magical power and tried all kinds of things, and gradually grew more and more corrupt…
Hmm. That doesn’t seem very different from Einroguard graduates.
Lee Han secretly thought so to himself.
Mages from the Empire’s magic schools often said that self-taught mages without proper education were dangerous, but honestly, being educated did not seem to make them any less dangerous.
If anything, thanks to that education, they seemed to cause trouble more systematically and more dangerously.
In fact, Toman was not even called a magical criminal. Mages of that level were simply treated as ordinary criminals in the Empire.
“But is there a particular reason you chose this mage out of all the wanted criminals?”
Lee Han asked casually.
As he did, he glanced at the wanted poster. He wondered whether there might be some record of evil deity worship.
For someone Professor Voladi chose, this is surprisingly ordinary.
The bounty was less than a few dozen gold coins, and the target was not especially dangerous either. His only crimes were stealing corpses from family graveyards and stealing fourteen horses from western ranches. Yet Professor Voladi had chosen him.
Was there some inside story Lee Han had not noticed?
“He is currently in the capital.”
“?!”
Not only Lee Han, but Giselle as well was surprised.
No matter how skilled a mage Professor Voladi was, who would have thought the professor would know the exact location of a wanted criminal?
“What? Do bounty hunters have methods like that too?”
“Ah, no. I’ve never heard of anything like that. Maybe Professor Voladi exchanges information with other bounty hunters?”
Giselle speculated after Lee Han’s question.
All sorts of bounty hunters came and went in the north, but there was no one who could pinpoint a target’s location without even looking.
“No, Moradi. That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Professor Voladi couldn’t possibly have such extensive social connections.”
“…”
Giselle looked at Lee Han, wondering if he was joking.
However, the boy from House Wardanaz was completely serious. There was not the slightest hint of a joke in his expression.
“I think it’s divination magic.”
“That’s nonsense. Using divination magic to find someone would be…”
Divination magic was not omnipotent.
If someone wanted to find a person, appropriate clues and leads were necessary. Without them, the difficulty would skyrocket insanely.
And if enough necessary clues and leads had already been gathered?
Then it would be easier to simply chase the target with those. There would be no need to rely on high-difficulty magic like divination.
Even Einroguard used territory-level grand magic to divine suitable students.
The saying that the more skilled a divination mage was, the less that mage relied on magic, had not come from nowhere.
“The professor must have found a way to bypass those constraints. Isn’t that right, Professor? You found him with divination magic, didn’t you?”
At the disciple’s question, filled with trust, Professor Voladi answered briefly.
“No. I got information from other hunters.”
“…”
“Hey.”
***
Toman, the dwarven mage and wanted criminal with a bounty on his head, was staying at a shabby inn near the capital’s southern gate.
The southern gate was a place where wandering adventurers and mercenaries frequently bustled about, so wanted criminals could hide ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) there without standing out much.
Knock, knock, knock—
“Who is it?”
“I brought your meal.”
“Leave it at the door and get lost!”
Toman shouted in a prickly voice.
In some ways, it was a reaction that might have seemed suspicious, but the employee did not particularly care.
At this inn, customers who reacted like that were not rare.
As long as guests paid their room and meal fees in advance, the inn did not care whether they died curled up in a corner or not.
“Damn it. Petty, stingy bastards. Sending a pursuit team just because I stole a few corpses…”
Toman muttered the exact same words countless senior dark mage criminals had once said before him.
Practicing undead-type dark magic required corpses. More precisely, it required high-quality corpses.
The strength a corpse had possessed in life affected the undead as well.
But such corpses were naturally expensive, and most of them were hard to obtain even with money. What mad knight family would sell their family’s corpses for gold coins?
For the advancement of dark magic, Toman had no choice but to make the unavoidable choice.
…Breaking into a knight family’s cemetery in the dead of night and stealing corpses.
Sadly, the knight family did not understand Toman. Not only had they reported him, they had even organized their own pursuit team and sent it after him.
If he was caught by the Empire’s soldiers, that would be fortunate. If he was caught by the pursuit team, his head would likely be cleanly severed and his corpse dumped somewhere in the wilderness. Toman grumbled as he pulled open the wooden window and looked down at the street below.
There shouldn’t be anyone who looks like a knight, right?
Knock, knock, knock—
“…Who is it?!”
Even though an employee had just brought his meal, someone was knocking on the door again, making Toman extremely nervous.
Toman held his staff in one hand and a crossbow in the other as he prepared to cast a spell.
If a fight broke out, Toman planned to cast the most wicked and powerful dark magic he could currently use: <Bone Arrow Shot>.
Since he had put his independently developed poison reagent into those bones, their power was even more vicious.
Just try coming in, whoever you are.
“It’s the person staying in the room next door.”
“…What? So what?”
“Open the door for a moment and let’s talk. Toman. If I report you to the Empire, you’ll be in trouble too, won’t you?”
“!!!”
The dwarven mage’s eyes filled with shock.
He had done nothing particularly conspicuous since entering this inn, yet this person knew his name exactly?
This bastard…!
Having seized the initiative, the other person continued in a soothing tone.
“Toman. I’m not trying to report you. As a fellow fugitive of the Empire, I have a proposal for you.”
“A proposal?”
“That’s right. Open the door. Put down your weapons. If you fire even by accident, I can’t guarantee your life either.”
“…”
After thinking it over, Toman carefully opened the door.
Surprisingly, standing in front of him was the aged employee who managed the inn’s stables.
The man usually struggled to manage the guests’ mounts, and his face had been barely memorable. Yet he was capable of making threats like this.
Toman asked in confusion.
“You… you. I saw you when I entered this inn. What was your name? Weren’t you an employee?”
“Names are not important. Occupations are not important either. The only thing that matters is true faith.”
Evil deity worshipper!
A single phrase flashed through Toman’s mind.
In the Empire, only evil deity worshippers went around saying such strange things.
“…What? Which order do you belong to?”
“I cannot tell you that. Toman. You do not have the qualifications yet.”
The old employee spoke with gleaming eyes.
“What’s this about qualifications? Who said I wanted to join?”
“Is that really so? Be honest, Toman. Aren’t you tired of being chased? Isn’t it exhausting to search for reagents alone without any guild, workshop, or tower to protect you?”
“…”
Toman wavered slightly.
It was certainly true. A mage living as a fugitive in the Empire had no leisure to focus on magic.
Evil deity worshippers were repulsive, but if he thought about it differently, they were not unusable.
Couldn’t he simply receive their help and then escape at the right moment?
“What are you trying to say?”
“Here, Toman. Take this.”
The old employee tossed him a small wooden statue carved in a bizarre shape. It looked hideous and disgusting, more like a monster than a deity.
“Offer sacrifices to this and pray. Then you will be able to obtain what you desire.”
“Ha. What nonsense are you spouting…”
Toman snorted.
Among the people of the Empire, few had never gone to a temple to pray at least once in childhood.
And among those prayers, even fewer people had ever seen any effect.
When every coin was precious while he was on the run, what evil deity would he waste sacrifices on?
“I don’t have time to waste on things like prayer. If that’s what you came to say, get lost!”
“Toman. The deity I serve is called this: the Fair Regent. Do you know what that means? It means he absolutely never ignores sacrifices. Try it once. You won’t regret it. And if you change your mind, come find me.”
The employee said nothing more and quietly closed the door.
Normally, Toman would have ignored it. But that clean attitude, conversely, shook his heart.
Such an attitude would be difficult to show without real confidence.
“…”
Toman rummaged through his reagent pouch and pulled out a large monster liver. Then he held the wooden statue and prayed earnestly.
“!!!”
In an instant, Toman felt mana surging through him and was startled. When he opened his eyes, the wooden statue seemed to be smiling ominously.
Toman stared at the wooden statue as if entranced. The statue seemed to whisper, Bring more.
More.
And bloodier—
Knock, knock, knock—
“What now?!”
At the third knock of the day, Toman’s nerves finally exploded.
Why did they keep knocking?
“Customer! There’s a fire in the kitchen hearth downstairs!”
Normally, if Toman had heard such words, he would have become suspicious and escaped through the window first.
However, his judgment was currently dulled because of his first transaction with the evil deity.
Toman carelessly opened the door.
“What were you cooking that caused a fire… Gasp!”
“!”
Just as Toman was surprised, Lee Han and his friends were surprised as well.
Professor Voladi had predicted that the opponent would escape through the window.
No way?
Thwack!
Attacks struck Toman’s head and solar plexus. Lee Han attacked with his staff, and Giselle attacked with a sheathed sword.
The frail dwarven mage, caught in a surprise attack, collapsed forward without even letting out a scream.
“I-I was startled…!”
Only after the opponent had fallen did Lee Han cry out in a startled voice. Gainando thought to himself.
For someone who was startled, he beat him up way too calmly.
If this was how Lee Han acted when startled, Gainando was curious how he would beat someone up when he was not surprised.
“Wait… wait. Let’s, let’s negotiate.”
“If you have any hidden reagents, speak up now. If you try to cast magic later, a mage scarier and more powerful than us will beat you up painfully.”
Lee Han ignored him and tied up Toman. When subduing a mage, the standard procedure was to first take away the staff and reagents, then gag the mouth.
“There’s an evil deity worshipper! Isn’t an evil deity worshipper more tempting prey?”
“Don’t be fooled, Wardanaz. He’s just scheming to get out of this situation.”
Giselle did not believe him.
Fugitives usually threw out all kinds of lies when cornered.
“I know. Don’t worry.”
“It’s true! Look at this wooden statue! It’s an evil deity called the Fair Regent…!”
“…This bastard! What kind of pathetic scheme is this!”
Lee Han was horrified and hurriedly restrained the opponent more tightly.
In the process, his mana exploded outward with overwhelming pressure. Not only the terrified dwarven mage, but even Giselle and Gainando were startled.
“Wh-why are you like this, Lee Han? Are you angry?”
“This shameless criminal who broke the Empire’s laws is mocking people!”
“That’s… not really something to get that angry about…? No, it’s nothing!”
Gainando quickly shut his mouth, afraid he might get caught in the crossfire.
