Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 693

When the upperclassman kept his eyes closed and kept trying to escape illusion magic even after everything he’d said, Lee Han slapped the upperclassman’s cheek.

SMACK!

“Gah!”

“Upperclassman! Pull yourself together! This is reality!”

In a situation where you couldn’t use much magic, the best way to break illusion magic was to apply stimulation.

Strong concentration or stimulation would slightly twist the flow of mana and wake you from the illusion.

Lee Han slapped him once more. This time it was the other side.

SMACK!

“Wait, wait! It really does seem like reality!”

“That’s a relief.”

Alde rubbed both cheeks. The stinging sensation was, no matter how you looked at it, reality.

This bastard is terrifying…

Of course, if someone had fallen into confusion related to illusion magic, it was right to help as quickly as possible.

It looked ridiculous, but it was a fairly serious problem.

Even if you weren’t actually under illusion magic, if you fell into the delusion that you were under illusion magic, the boundary between reality and illusion could collapse and you could go insane.

But even so, there weren’t many people who could instantly swing full power into both of an upperclassman’s cheeks.

As expected of someone who gathered first-years from four towers and tried to run a smuggling operation.

Alde grew curious about the junior in front of him all over again.

He was going to enter second year now, and there was no way a guy like this wouldn’t become famous…

“Hey. Which house did you say you were from?”

“Upperclassman. I’ll explain the plan in more detail.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

Lee Han began explaining the plan he’d prepared.

The passage Lee Han was targeting right now was the underground passage he’d gone out through with Professor Garcia during the first semester.

Among Einroguard’s countless underground passages, some were used as routes for external merchant-company laborers to come and go.

Among those, Lee Han knew the location of the passage connected to the hidden secret brick door of the underground storehouse.

“I get it.”

Alde nodded.

“What exactly did you get?”

“You found that book. <Einroguard’s Secret Paths>. That’s a trap the Skull Principal made. If you stick your head in there, it’s the punishment ward.”

“……”

Wondering exactly how many copies the Skull Principal had made and scattered around, Lee Han answered.

“It’s a passage I personally went into and verified.”

Alde’s mouth fell open.

Right now, Alde was personally experiencing that if a person got startled too many times in one day, words stopped coming out properly.

“There are three merchant wagons, and the scheduled arrival time is dawn on the first day of March.”

“W-wait.”

“?”

“Sorry for interrupting again, but how do you know the number of wagons or the scheduled arrival time?”

“I went and asked.”

“They wouldn’t just tell you!”

“I forged the Skull Principal’s and the professor’s signatures and pretended I was an extra errand.”

“……”

Lee Han had visited the merchant company holding the Skull Principal’s fake signature and Professor Verdus’s fake signature.

A merchant company that would normally have done verification procedures had been fooled by Lee Han, who already knew the underground passage’s position and process far too well, and spilled the schedule.

“Wait. If the wagons arrive at dawn on the first day of March…”

“That’s right.”

The first day of March was a day like a nightmare for Einroguard students.

It was the day the new semester began at Einroguard.

In the morning everyone had to pass through the main gate—but if dawn was the wagons’ scheduled arrival time?

“We have to pass through the underground at dawn, store the wagons’ goods safely, then get back out and reach the main gate.”

“That’ll be hard…!”

Heat rose through Alde’s body and he fanned his collar.

He said it like that, but he was excited because he was thinking this might actually work.

“That’s why we need you, upperclassman. I know the underground passage route, but I’ve never experienced the second-year inspection situation. While we’re working, if it feels like we’re running out of time, we have to delay the start of the inspection.”

“How?”

“I don’t know either. We’ll have to stop at nothing. Summon a devil, maybe…”

“Devils won’t work. Einroguard’s defenses against devil bastards are too solid. The inspection side won’t even look at it.”

Each time summoning accidents caused by students increased, Einroguard’s magical defenses inevitably increased too.

Lee Han said bitterly.

“We’ll have to hope we don’t have to improvise.”

“One last thing.”

Alde was now completely being drawn into Lee Han’s plan like he’d been bewitched.

The attitude of looking down on him as a junior had vanished completely. All that remained was the thought of joining this plan and making it succeed.

Among the student smugglers in Granden City right now, this method looked like the plan with the highest chances.

“Ask.”

“How do you know the storehouse keeper won’t be underground?”

Alde knew the storehouse keeper well too.

In fact, it was rare for an Einroguard student not to know the storehouse keeper.

After enrolling, you clutched your starving belly and wandered around looking for the underground kitchen and storehouse, and then you’d hear terrifying footsteps from far away.

The Skull Principal’s tracker with mana-detection ability—the storehouse keeper!

More than one or two guys had gotten caught while stuffing bread and cheese into their mouths.

“I confirmed it with a Death Knight. They said this time it would participate in the inspection.”

“The inspection side is screwed! …Hey. Wait. You confirmed it with who?”

*****

During the remaining period, Lee Han and his friends checked supplies and prepared the plan.

And finally, that day arrived.

The last evening of February.

Even the moon was hidden by clouds, so it was unusually dark.

“Everyone, I wish you luck.”

“May the skull shatter!”

Alde offered the blessing confidently.

Right up until the juniors panicked and looked at Alde.

“…Isn’t that a little too harsh to say?”

“Uh… d-don’t you all say that? We used to say that before doing stuff…”

Alde shrank as he felt the generational gap.

Isn’t it cool…

“Everyone, drink.”

GULP!

After drinking the disguise potion Yonair and Siana made, the students’ appearances changed.

It wasn’t a high-difficulty potion that changed even your race, but it was enough for a smuggling job.

Lee Han nodded at his own appearance—his beard had grown thick, and his body had become lumpy and thick.

“Let’s go. We’ll meet at the main gate tomorrow!”

Lee Han’s group split into two.

One group would directly pass through Einroguard’s underground passage and enter the storehouse.

Lee Han and Alde joined that group.

The other would stay behind in the rear, in case of unforeseen circumstances.

Dergeu and Nillia led that group.

CLATTER-CLATTER—

“Three wagons’ worth of contraband. If we succeed, Einroguard’s black market will be overflowing this year.”

Beside Lee Han, Alde—disguised in the role of a driver—muttered.

In first year, as first-years only interacted among themselves, Einroguard’s market economy didn’t really run properly, but from second year onward, the story changed.

The black market’s scale grew immediately, and even eateries appeared.

But even that market economy couldn’t help being affected by circumstances.

If a few students with outstanding talent for securing supplies—like the Kitchen Club—ended up in the punishment ward, prices rose immediately.

Sometimes, even if you had silver coins, you still couldn’t buy what you needed at Einroguard.

But three wagons’ worth of contraband!

Even if the students participating divided plenty among themselves and only released what was left over, a warm wind would blow through Einroguard for a while.

“Junior. Have you thought about what you’ll do if we succeed?”

“You mean me?”

“Yeah. All that material. You’ll stockpile enough to eat and use for one semester, and what are you planning to do with the rest?”

“I was planning to cook it and sell it to friends.”

“That’s good too.”

As expected, Alde nodded.

There was no way a seasoned guy like that hadn’t thought about selling surplus goods.

“How much are you going to sell it for?”

“About one silver coin per meal?”

“…What?”

At the unbelievable price, Alde doubted his own ears.

“Ah—too expensive?”

“No. It’s too cheap. Are you kidding?”

“I’m not kidding.”

Alde thought the junior must be misunderstanding something.

Shorting portions, or using cheap ingredients—though honestly, even then, one silver coin was still too cheap.

But no.

Listening to it, this junior was just going to feed people until they were full and then take one silver coin.

“Are you insane?! Why are you selling it like that?! If the Kitchen Club bastards hear, they’ll have a heart attack!”

“Even this is on the expensive side compared to cost…”

“Cost, my ass. There’s no cost at Einroguard! There is original sin, though. Enrolling is the original sin. And if you’ve sinned, you’re supposed to buy one rye bread for five silver coins and eat it.”

That bad?

Lee Han felt flustered at the upperclassman’s words.

He’d thought he was making an obscene profit, but he wasn’t?

“Wait. Have your friends ever paid one silver coin and eaten until they were full?”

“When I made the food, it was like that.”

“What kinds of food was it, mostly?”

Grain dishes using rice, wheat, and rye.

Onions, ginger, corn, mushrooms, peas brought from the garden or cabins, along with mountain goat milk or milk, eggs. Grapes, peaches, pumpkins, figs.

For sauces and spices: from maple syrup to honey, marmalade, chili peppers, nutmeg, olive oil, whole peppercorns, tomato sauce.

Various dried fish or pickled sardines, mackerel, herring. For meat: a big chunk of raw ham and beef, pork, lamb. Sausages and bacon, and so on…

“…Those were what I used most. I’m not a chef, so the menu was simple.”

“……”

Alde felt an intense desire not to believe what the junior had just said, a crazed impulse to chase every junior who’d eaten like that and lived full straight into Valdrogard, and finally a violent hatred for himself—for having entered one year early.

“I shouldn’t have asked…”

“This way.”

Lee Han moved the wagon along the path he’d taken last year.

Just in case, it was a path he’d even done several preliminary recon trips on. When the wagon passed between two completely ordinary trees, a sudden change in mana occurred.

“!”

Only then did Alde feel the magic and recoil in shock.

There really was a road here.

RUMMMMMBLE—

All at once, the path ahead bent downward and began connecting underground. Thinking it had started, Alde swallowed.

This wasn’t his first time stealing at Einroguard, but there had never once been a time he hadn’t been tense.

Especially not for theft on this scale…

-You’ve come earlier than expected.

At the familiar voices of the Death Knights, Alde felt a shock so /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ strong it was like his heart stopped.

What will you do?

Stay still.

Lee Han said nothing and stayed still. Seeing the junior disguised as the person in charge staying still, Alde grew anxious.

Should he do something?

-Don’t speak to the laborers. They’re frightened.

“!”

Lee Han already knew from experience that the laborers who came here kept their mouths shut and worked in silence.

If they stayed still as if intimidated by the Death Knights, those things would interpret it on their own.

-I merely said you arrived earlier than expected.

-Couldn’t they arrive early? We’re already putting a lot of hands into this year’s inspection. If it ends early, that’s good.

-It’s probably because of that boy?

-Probably.

-Master seems to be tormenting the boy of House Wardanaz too much. If that drives him mad like the other disciples—

-Hey. Don’t say something blasphemous.

The Death Knights roughly let the wagons pass.

At the sound of the wheels slowly rolling again, Alde finally breathed out.

They’d successfully crossed the most dangerous crisis!

Now the plan was practically half successful.

Alde whispered in an excited voice.

“You crazy bastard. You did it. You really did it!”

But Lee Han’s face wasn’t filled with happiness. It was twisted with pain and hatred.

“W-why are you like that? What happened?”

“It’s nothing. Let’s keep going.”