Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 741

For a moment, Professor Jorzik was taken aback, but as one of the few professors at Einroguard who actually took an interest in students, the reason quickly became obvious.

“It’s because you have too much mana.”

“Yes!”

Lee Han’s face brightened.

The professor might have had a strange fixation on strange positions, but the skill the man possessed was unquestionably real.

“What about a mana-absorption artifact? The idea of a mage wearing a mana-absorption artifact may feel unfamiliar, but…”

“I already tried wearing them up to the limit, and they didn’t do much.”

“Then what about a fire-absorption artifact?”

“The moment I raise the output even a little, the artifact itself breaks, so it isn’t a fundamental solution…”

“……”

Professor Jorzik was flustered for the first time in a long while.

He had heard the rumors, but to think it was this bad.

If anything, the rumors were an understatement!

“Is there no solution?”

When the student asked with a slightly darkened expression, Professor Jorzik shook his head firmly.

For a mage destined to become Einroguard’s future principal, that sort of question was an affront in itself.

“Of course there is! A mage’s wisdom is infinite, and so too are the methods.”

“Ohhh.”

Lee Han looked at the professor with eyes full of expectation, encouraged by that confidence.

As expected of an expert in elemental magic, Professor Jorzik seemed different.

And then, thirty minutes later.

Professor Jorzik stood there stroking his mustache, looking down at the shattered artifacts scattered around them with a deeply troubled expression.

“Um. I’m sorry.”

“There is absolutely nothing for you to be sorry about. Student Wardanaz. Why should it be regrettable for a disciple to be exceptional? I am grateful that a student like you exists!”

“Professor…!”

For one fleeting moment, Lee Han genuinely thought he ought to join the <Jorzik of House Benmalpa for Principal of Einroguard> association.

Wouldn’t replacing Einroguard’s principal as quickly as possible be the best thing for the students?

“There is one method left… hmm. But it is a rather difficult one.”

“That’s fine, Professor. I trust you.”

“Thank you, Student Wardanaz. Yes. A talent like you should be more than capable!”

After thinking it over, Professor Jorzik nodded as if he had reached a decision.

*****

“…So that’s how you ended up like this?”

The Blue Dragon Tower students whispered among themselves as they stared at Lee Han.

When they had first seen him, they had thought some cursed fire wraith had attached itself to him.

FWOOSH!

Every few seconds, flames burst up periodically from Lee Han’s body.

“Don’t worry, everyone. I’m fine. So far.”

“So far?”

His words only made his friends whisper even more anxiously.

No matter how they looked at it, he did not seem fine. Gainando had already been on the verge of going to fetch Professor Garcia.

“Lee Han’s going to burn to death!”

“I said I’m not going to die.”

After grabbing Gainando by the scruff of the neck, Lee Han explained it ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) to his friends.

Once the various fire-element training artifacts he had been using were all shattered, Professor Jorzik, after much thought, had finally produced a somewhat difficult method.

“Starting with those <Vagni’s Five Forms> I mentioned earlier, the reason people use artifacts like these is, in the end, to internalize the sensation of controlling that element.”

“I see…”

“So even if one does not use this kind of training or these kinds of tools, if the sensation itself can be internalized, then the goal is achieved.”

“But it’s hard enough even with training and tools. How could that possibly work?”

“Do you know the method of steadily remaining in contact with an element in order to increase elemental affinity?”

“Yes. Ah. Then could I do the same thing with the fire element?”

“No. Student Wardanaz has too much mana to become accustomed to it that way. A stronger method is necessary.”

“Like tending a fireplace every day?”

“No. Stronger than that!”

“…?”

Trusting a professor was my mistake.

With a bitter look, Lee Han glanced down at himself.

The spell Professor Jorzik had placed on him was <Vagni’s Flame Bull>.

From the name alone, there was no easy way to guess what kind of spell it was, but in reality it was a highly lethal fire spell that trapped its target inside a bull-shaped mass of flame.

Unlike lower-rank spells that summoned the fire element, transformed its shape, and launched it outward, this spell was cast directly on the target. Because of that, it required additional advanced properties, making it much harder to use.

Of course, Professor Jorzik had not cast the spell in order to attack Lee Han.

Professor Jorzik had modified it in two directions.

One modification was an illusion-magic adaptation that removed the actual fire damage and left only mental pain.

The other was a modification that handed control of the spell over to Lee Han.

So that Lee Han could personally control the Flame Bull spell and force the flames back.

Which meant…

Lee Han had to spend the entire weekend forcing back the flame spell wrapped around his body so it could not burn him.

The moment his control loosened even slightly, the Flame Bull spell immediately damaged him.

“I-I never thought Professor Benmalpa would be this insane.”

“I swear an upperclassman said he was decent, all things considered!”

“That’s what I thought at first too. But in the end, all I learned is that no Einroguard professor can ever be trusted.”

Lee Han spoke bitterly.

Of course, from Professor Jorzik’s perspective, there had simply been no other method, which was why the man had chosen something so extreme. But from Lee Han’s perspective, it did not feel all that different from Professor Voladi’s methods.

Could it be that Professor Bagreg’s style is considered normal in the Empire?

Lee Han shook his head.

No matter how he thought about it, that made no sense.

“Still, Wardanaz. It’s the weekend.”

“That’s right. The weekend, finally!”

His friends shouted in an attempt to comfort him.

At the same time, they carefully watched his expression.

They were worried that maybe he was still taking weekend lectures.

“I rest on weekends too, so you don’t need to worry that much.”

“Phew…!”

“Hey, what did I tell you? No matter how much of a Wardanaz he is, even he rests on weekends. Hand over the silver!”

A few of the Blue Dragon Tower students had apparently even made a bet, because they started snatching silver coins from their friends.

“……”

After giving them a dubious look, Lee Han suddenly remembered something and called them over.

“Oh, right. I’ve got something to tell all of you.”

“!”

“D-don’t tell me you’re escaping in the first week?”

“Or raiding a storehouse?”

His friends gathered around with expressions full of hope, even while seeming to know better.

Of course, that was not why Lee Han had called them over.

“I didn’t call you because of an escape or a raid. I called you because a dangerous person has entered the school.”

“The principal?”

“No. Not the principal… or maybe? Is it? Anyway, I should tell the upperclassmen too.”

Lee Han moved with his friends to the shared lounge inside the tower.

Fortunately, there were familiar faces there, including Perse.

“Upperclassman. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it? Something related to jousting? Did Hormasi give you trouble?”

Since Perse was in the same Jousting Club, Perse looked genuinely concerned for Lee Han.

Of course, the fear had not entirely faded, given that Lee Han was still the disciple personally taught by the principal, but still—he was a junior from the same tower and the same club.

If a lunatic like Hormasi was trying to make trouble for him, it was only right to stop it.

“No. Senior Hormasi merely asked me to enter an unlimited match together as a fellow striker.”

Isn’t that harassment?

Trying to lure a second-year junior into an unrestricted jousting match was a bit much no matter how you looked at it.

“Then what is it?”

“A dangerous person has entered the school.”

“You mean the principal?”

“…Not that.”

Lee Han called over his friends and the upperclassmen in the shared lounge and explained what he had experienced.

The matter of the Skull Principal’s insane duplicate and the evil magical criminal getting into the school did not feel like something Lee Han should keep to himself.

Shouldn’t the others know too, just in case?

Once they heard the whole story, Perse cried out in shock.

“What? That really is serious. Did they get inside the main building?”

“No. I heard they’re hiding out in the outskirts of the territory.”

“Ah. Then that’s a relief.”

“?”

Not just Perse, but the other upperclassmen all let out sighs of relief as well.

“For a second there, I thought they’d settled on the seventh floor.”

“Well, if they’d taken up residence on the seventh floor, we’d have known.”

“…Um, isn’t it still dangerous even if they’re in the outskirts?”

Gainando asked, unable to understand.

The very existence of a mad duplicate of the principal was terrifying enough to give him nightmares.

“If it’s only the outskirts of the territory, then…”

“It’s not as if Einroguard only has one or two monsters.”

But the upperclassmen’s reaction was calmer than expected.

If they reacted one by one to every dangerous monster in Einroguard, they would never graduate.

Even if there were an ancient monster sealed beneath the school, the Skull Principal still would not wait for anyone’s graduation thesis.

“N-no.”

“It’s the principal’s duplicate!”

Naturally, the juniors found it hard to accept.

They knew perfectly well that Einroguard had plenty of monsters.

Giants and mountain-range-destroying sheep wandered the mountain ranges around the territory, forgotten monsters occasionally crawled up from underground…

And when the place got bored, it connected to other dimensions and let monsters from there spill out too.

But unlike those disaster-like monsters, the principal’s insane duplicate and a magical criminal were threats with very deliberate intentions.

“Juniors. Personally, I think the principal’s duplicate will be less threatening than the principal.”

“……”

“……”

“That was a joke. But the principal knows about it already anyway, right? If it were truly dangerous, the principal would move on his own. In matters like that, the principal is thorough.”

“Sorry, and thanks for telling us. But if you want to survive in Einroguard, it’s easier to deal only with the monsters right in front of you. If we go hunting every monster out in the outskirts, when are we supposed to graduate?”

The upperclassmen spoke apologetically, but their attitude remained firm.

They were simply too busy to go hunting monsters every time one appeared.

“I wasn’t bringing it up because I wanted us to hunt them. I just wanted you to be careful.”

“Thanks. But most of us stay around the seventh floor anyway, so we’ll be fine. The first-years might be a little more at risk.”

“Oh, come on. What business would first-years have in the outskirts of the territory?”

“……”

Lee Han, who had in fact gone out into the outskirts when he was a first-year, kept his mouth shut.

Well, that’s true too.

Hearing the upperclassmen say it, he did feel a little less anxious.

Surely there were far more monsters in Einroguard that students never directly encountered or suffered from than monsters they actually did.

This duplicate, too, might end up being naturally resolved with time, just as the Skull Principal had said.

I should be calmer too.

“Hey! The seventh floor’s on fire!!!!”

An upperclassman came sprinting into the lounge, tearing off a cloak that was blazing brightly.

The upperclassmen who had been answering Lee Han’s questions with such calm composure just moments earlier all screamed and ran for the seventh floor.

“……”

“……”

*****

Fortunately, the fire on the seventh floor was not all that severe.

An escaped salamander had only destroyed some seventeen or eighteen buildings, and thanks to the cooperation of the nearby students, it was brought under control immediately.

“Doesn’t that count as severe?”

“Come on. This counts as containing it well.”

The second-year students looked at the upperclassmen with appalled expressions.

Even after the firefighting work was completely finished, students kept appearing from the distance in a great crowd, which made Lee Han tilt his head in confusion.

“Wasn’t the work already finished?”

“Ah. Those are the Stonemason Club students. Since some buildings burned down, they’re here to repair them under contract.”

“That’s a good thing you’re doing.”

Having experienced Einroguard’s strange clubs several times by now, Lee Han found even the simple fact that they had come to do repairs according to contract rather favorable.

The approaching Stonemason Club students stopped in front of a different building that was still perfectly intact. It was a two-story magic workshop.

Then they started arguing with the students who came out of it, raised their wands, and—

KRA-KOOOOM!

“……”

The second-years stared in horror as the workshop collapsed before their eyes.

“W-why are they destroying it?!”

“Looks like the payment was overdue. Tsk, tsk. That’s why I always say you must never delay payment to the Stonemason Club.”

“……”