Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 767

There was, in fact, absolutely nothing worth looting on the teahouse’s second floor.

But Lee Han’s friends held a strange belief.

If it was Lee Han, wouldn’t he be able to loot something even out of a space filled with pure nothingness?

“…I didn’t loot the second floor. I made a deal.”

Staring at their looks of disbelief, Lee Han gave them a brief explanation.

He had received magical supplies through a deal with an upperclassman.

“Through a magical space?”

“Yeah. Priestess Siana.”

“…If it was a space like that… you didn’t accidentally bring out other people’s things too, did you?”

The amount of goods he had brought back was so excessive that Siana’s suspicion was entirely reasonable.

Lee Han looked dumbfounded.

“What kind of ridiculous thing is that? Why would I ever— wait.”

Mid-sentence, Lee Han checked again just in case.

He had no desire to wind up on the blacklist of the <Einroguard’s Watchers>.

“I didn’t! Priestess Siana!”

“S-sorry…”

…Good thing I didn’t say it out loud.

Standing beside him, Yonair thought that to themself.

The truth was, Yonair had also been thinking, What if he got mixed up and brought back extra stuff by accident?

“I paid enough to get this much in return. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

“What did you pay?”

Lee Han glanced once at the innocent-looking skeleton dark mage from the other school, then changed the subject.

“That’s a secret.”

“……”

His friends immediately started whispering.

“If Lee Han’s calling it a secret, doesn’t that mean it was a really dangerous deal?”

“He might’ve found something like the Skull Principal’s heart and sold it…”

“I think the Wardanaz bastard might’ve sold a bit of his own blood or flesh.”

With a flick of his wand, Lee Han telekinetically shoved their conversation aside and began stacking the supplies he had brought back.

“Mage yut? Who won?”

“It’s still in progress, so we don’t know who w—”

“Gainando lost.”

“That prince bastard came in dead last.”

When his friends shamelessly announced the result, Gainando quietly shoved the game board aside and shouted,

“Let’s check the supplies! The supplies!”

“I’ll help too. By the way, what kind of deal did you make to get this much?”

Agdung asked, having no idea what Lee Han had been up to during that conversation in the teahouse.

“I got lucky, Agdung. Ah, I should share some with you too, senior.”

“What? No. I can’t accept that. I’m the senior here.”

“Not at all! You came all the way to Einroguard. Consider this a gift symbolizing the goodwill of the dark magic school.”

“Even so, I have my pride…”

CRACK!

While the two were talking, the others got to work.

Using small hatchets, they split open tightly sealed wooden crates and barrels and checked what was inside.

“Count everything and write it down.”

“One crate of mid-grade black-tree leaves.”

“One crate of flamewood roots.”

“Lee Han, this barrel looks like gravel-oak sap.”

“Any food in here? There’s one crate of processed fire-birch wood.”

“Don’t say stupid things, Gainando. One crate of magic stones, earth-aspect…”

Did they smuggle this too?

As Lee Han sorted through the supplies he’d received, he couldn’t hide his surprise.

The types alone were impressive, but the sheer quantity was even more astonishing than he had expected.

The other side was probably an Einroguard student too, and yet they had this much stockpiled?

What was this?

“Huh. Did they loot a forest or something?”

“!”

At Agdung’s muttered remark, Lee Han realized something.

Most of the reagents were things that could all be obtained in a forest.

I see. But still…

Einroguard territory was nothing but mountains and forests, but that didn’t mean useful resources ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) were easy to find inside them.

Especially with reagents like these, you usually had to put in specialized effort to cultivate and raise them before they became worth using.

That meant the other side almost certainly had several hidden secret forests stashed away somewhere.

Lucky bastards. They really are upperclassmen.

Lee Han was quietly impressed by the unknown wealth of Beaver-Penguin-Fox.

If the two ever met face-to-face in the Watchers Club later, he felt like he would probably act a little more politely.

To be hiding that kind of property somewhere inside Einroguard territory…

“Huff, huff. We finished sorting it, Lee Han.”

“Good work, everyone.”

Gainando grumbled that Lee Han might’ve gotten scammed because there wasn’t any food, but the others looked quite satisfied.

They had smuggled in a large amount of provisions at the beginning of the semester, so they could still hold out for a while on food. Reagents like these were much more useful.

Curious what the Imperial Mage Marshal’s disciple intended to do with this much material, Agdung asked,

“What kind of research are you going to do with all this?”

“With the dark magic school students, I’m going to make gol—”

Excluding the reagents needed for lectures and research, Lee Han was planning to use the dark magic school’s workshops and facilities to make something out of the rest.

If he got help from the other upperclassmen in the school, surely they could manage to produce something sellable, and that would let the dark magic school build up its coffers at least a little.

But that was not something he could say to an outsider.

Admitting he was planning to make dark magic items that could be sold for gold felt embarrassingly shabby.

“Gold?”

“A little forbidden research.”

“!?”

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: You got the goods, right?

Gonadaltes: I did. You don’t seem to be all that poor.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Don’t show off. No one in Einroguard has that many reagents sitting around.

Gonadaltes: Heh. Is that really so?

Even as he bluffed, Lee Han found himself wondering what kind of payment he ought to offer next time he took on a request inside the Watchers Club.

Did he really need to pay in actual food?

But I doubt upperclassmen would be that obsessed with food.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: If you activate the artifact, I’ll hand over the rest. Hurry. The forest is crying.

“Agdung.”

“Why?”

“I’d like to go activate the artifact the professor set up.”

Agdung looked at Lee Han with an expression that clearly said, I knew it.

Lee Han hurried to explain.

“It’s not that I was trying to hunt tainted ones from the beginning. It’s just… after watching the situation, it’s gotten a little too serious…”

“Right. Right. Of course it did. Shall we make a plan?”

*****

In any other situation, Agdung might have thought it over and tried to stop the younger students.

But because of the artifact Professor Taswan had left behind, Agdung did not.

The plan was simple and straightforward.

“I’ll put a protective spell on us, and then we move as quietly and covertly as possible.”

Agdung would cast a spell to shield the group from the tainted ones, and then they would move through the safe mushroom field as quickly as possible toward the artifact’s location.

Once they reached it, all they had to do was activate it.

That was the end of it.

Listening from the side, Imirg muttered,

“H-how are you planning to keep protective magic active while moving…?”

Good point.

At Imirg’s observation, Lee Han found himself puzzled as well.

Protective spells maintained over a fixed area were one thing, but protective spells that stayed active while moving were far more difficult by nature.

To cast and maintain them individually on everyone here would consume an enormous amount of mana—not to mention concentration.

“Agdung. What spell are you going to use? I’d like to help too.”

“Ah, Wardanaz! You really don’t need to this time.”

Agdung smiled and swung the wand.

At once, summoning magic was cast, and cloaks exuding an utterly revolting stench appeared out of thin air.

They looked like garments woven out of tainted ones that had been compressed and then turned into warp and weft.

The Einroguard students’ faces stiffened as they saw the worst cloaks they had ever laid eyes on.

Even back when their cloaks had been torn during admission and they had stitched leaves onto them, those had probably looked better than this.

“…Do we have to wear those?”

“Yep. Kalarogard developed them after extensive research. The <Tainted-One Cloak>. What do you think?”

Agdung spoke with obvious pride.

Because Kalarogard dealt with tainted ones so often, that school had thought long and hard about a more efficient method than repeatedly casting expensive extermination magic one spell at a time.

The result of that research was this very <Tainted-One Cloak>.

Instead of generating a wave that repelled or exterminated tainted ones, it made the wearer register as the same kind of being.

Tainted ones deceived into thinking the cloaked mages were one of their own would not attack.

“Well…”

“Uh…”

“Mm…”

No one could bring themself to say anything properly.

In their hearts, they all wanted one brave soul to step up and shout, I absolutely cannot wear that!

But nobody did.

“Is… is it not very good?”

Agdung looked flustered at the unexpectedly lukewarm reaction, and the students hurriedly cried out,

“It’s amazing!”

“What an incredible idea!”

“If this got printed in the Imperial newspaper, investors would be lining up to commercialize it!”

As he shouted along, Lee Han flicked his eyes meaningfully toward the friends who were still frozen in place. Seeing that, the others forcibly scraped together praise of their own.

“That’s a relief. For a second there, I thought you all weren’t impressed.”

“……”

“Isn’t it unfair that it was made under Kalarogard’s name?”

Gainando grumbled quietly from the back.

If it had been made under Valdrogard’s name, he would have refused to wear it without hesitation.

I think I understand why the dark magic school is poor.

Wrapping the cloak around himself, Lee Han thought grimly.

The cloak’s effect was excellent.

It could fool tainted ones without needing any additional spellwork or mana recharging, which made it extraordinarily useful in dangerous areas.

But it had one fatal flaw that devoured all the rest of its strengths whole.

No normal person would willingly wear a cloak this grotesque and revolting.

Most people would rather buy a cloak that cost several times more…

No matter how good the performance is, you can’t make it like this. I learned something new again.

Wearing their cloaks with expressions as gloomy as monsoon skies, Lee Han and the others quickly crossed the mushroom field.

Tainted ones appeared at regular intervals, but they showed no more interest in the group than they would in a pile of stones.

It was truly excellent performance, but instead of admiring it, the students checked the spell laid over their noses.

“I think the smell-numbing curse is about to wear off. Is that okay?”

“Shh. If you make noise, the tainted ones will think something’s strange. Just endure a little longer.”

As they spoke, Lee Han and Agdung searched at the very front for the wand.

Near a pond bubbling with murky black liquid, they found the peach-wood wand artifact stuck in the ground, and Agdung gestured.

“Found it. There!”

“Should I bring it over?”

“Wait. We need to dispel the defensive sp—”

BOOM!

Lee Han blasted them away with telekinesis and dragged the artifact over.

Agdung, deciding it was about time to preserve a senior’s dignity, made sure not to show any surprise and simply nodded.

“Hrrgh. J-just what you’d expec… from the Mage Marsha…”

“Agdung. Your jawbone fell out.”

*****

Ilendil stood there anxiously, cursing the Skull Principal, the professors, and the students of Einroguard alike while waiting.

“Calm down, everyone… just hold on a little longer. All right?”

The spirits evacuated nearby all looked like they were about to suffocate from the rampage of the tainted ones.

If the tainted ones kept roaming through the forest like this, the spirits would not be able to hold out much longer and would have no choice but to return to their own dimension.

“I hired a mage… so soon… it should… start working…”

Ilendil usually spoke in a slow, dragging voice, but today that voice was at least twice as fast as normal.

That alone showed just how important the seventh-floor forest was.

Baquantalana: Sounds like a lie to me. Hard to say. I recommend not making too large a trade.

Iactus: Oh! You should definitely do it. I knew Gonadaltes was trustworthy from the start.

Lee Han thought Baquantalana had spoken up in his defense, but in reality the other members of the Watchers Club had all advised Ilendil not to trust him.

No matter how they looked at it, sucking up the entire contamination source in such a short span of time seemed impossible.

In Iactus’s case, the ulterior motive wasn’t even remotely hidden…

But Ilendil accepted the suspicious proposal in the end.

That was how desperate things were.

But what if this is a lie?

Ilendil struggled to suppress the thought creeping up from below—which assassin would make the other side suffer the most?

At that moment, the forest on the seventh floor began to churn with a thunderous roar.

KWA-RUMBLE!

As earth and water traded places and ripped the contamination sources up into the open, the members of the Watchers Club cried out.

Iactus: That’s impossible! How?!

Gonadaltes: What exactly is impossible?

Iactus: …The level of magic happening on the seventh floor right now is what’s impossible!

Gonadaltes: That didn’t sound like the tone you used.