Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 788
Antagondals was momentarily speechless at Lee Han’s shameless attitude.
Indeed, he’s cunning and wicked beyond measure, exactly the sort of person that monster would want as a disciple!
He was so wicked that Antagondals felt ashamed for once having wondered, Why did that monster bring someone like him?
His potential had been obvious from the moment he escaped by threatening and exploiting that wicked magical criminal.
Even so, Antagondals did not explode in anger or lose reason. Like a seasoned magical criminal, Antagondals spoke calmly.
“You seem to have forgotten… Hehe… When you escaped from that ancient insane duplicate… didn’t I help you…?”
“Excuse me?”
“When you… needed to get out… you earnestly asked me to draw attention…!”
“Excuse me?”
“You damn little brat… Are you going to keep pretending not to know?!”
The centuries-old magical criminal truly exploded.
Lee Han attacked as though he had been waiting for that exact moment. <Wardanaz’s Telekinetic Force> was cast, slamming Antagondals’s chimera-form body straight into the wall.
BANG!!!
“Nillia, attack!”
“Ah… Got it!”
Nillia did not really know who the opponent was, but she decided to follow her friend’s words for now.
Whether this was really a monster pretending to know Wardanaz or a monster Wardanaz had deceived, people naturally sided with their friends.
SWISH!
As a sharp arrow flew in, Antagondals let out a groan.
This wicked bastard. He was trying to shake me up so he could launch a surprise attack…!
With that reaction speed, Lee Han must have been planning a surprise attack from the moment he saw Antagondals.
Not only that, Lee Han had pretended not to know Antagondals in order to ambush the opponent.
He truly was a vicious bastard, just like the insane duplicate’s disciple.
SIZZLE—
Ugh!
Attacks that Antagondals could have blocked with a single glance in the original body now dealt heavy blows to the flesh one by one.
It was because of the punishment the insane duplicate had inflicted on Antagondals.
Antagondals felt a deep gloom.
It was not because of the surging pain. An archmage would not despair over pain.
What made Antagondals feel gloomy was Lee Han.
To think he noticed that I’ve become weak!
“Did you use too strong a poison?!”
“Nillia. Where did the cruel hunter of the north go? Return to who you were back then!”
“I was never like that! I was just an ordinary hunter!”
Even while protesting Lee Han’s reproach, Nillia immediately prepared her next attack.
Nillia, who majored in enchantment magic and alchemy, knew how to make proper use of her specialty.
The magic arrow she had made during lecture glowed as it passed over the body of the bow, writhing like a snake seeking the enemy’s flesh.
At the same time, the black potion thickly applied to the arrowhead dissolved mana and spread dark curses into the bones.
Antagondals cursed for the first time in a while and barely pulled the arrow free with one hand.
“Melt… into the wall!”
Antagondals melted into the wall at the side, barely buying enough time to speak.
“You bastard. Not only do you not know gratitude, you’re stupid too… What will you do if I take you to Master right now…?”
“Is that so? From what I can see, if you had that ability, you would have done it already.”
At Lee Han’s words, Antagondals’s heart sank.
This boy from House Wardanaz was clearly already guessing Antagondals’s situation.
“What… do you mean by that…?”
“When you first appeared, I thought you had come to kidnap me at the insane duplicate’s request. But the way you talked seemed a little strange.”
Lee Han spoke with confidence.
Einroguard’s main building was not a place outsiders could simply enter at will. That was even more true for powerful individuals.
Moreover, this semester, the Skull Principal knew of both the insane duplicate’s existence and Antagondals’s existence.
Yet Antagondals had entered this freely?
That means it’s a duplicate weak enough not to be caught by the barriers.
From entering freely, to being unable to respond properly to Lee Han’s surprise attack and Nillia’s attacks before getting beaten up.
Lee Han was convinced his judgment was correct.
“You came as a very weak duplicate right now, didn’t you?”
“…Your perception is damn sharp!”
Antagondals hid the dismay and admitted it honestly.
Since the truth had been exposed, there was nothing to do.
“This is… a duplicate body as weak and flimsy as a pile of mud… So weak I can’t even kidnap you outright… And the reason is because of you…!”
Antagondals revealed what had happened after Lee Han escaped, speaking in a resentful voice.
The insane duplicate had been generous enough to send Lee Han back, and had even returned that foolish imperial boy to the Einroguard students, but not Antagondals.
“You helped him. Isn’t that right?”
“There seems to be a misunderstanding. Master…”
“Do not call me Master. That title has been revoked because of your betrayal. How dare a lowly slave interfere with the master’s work?”
“Master, if you grant me death, I will accept…”
Sensing danger of a quality entirely different from usual, Antagondals tried to destroy the body and temporarily die.
Before going to the insane duplicate, Antagondals had naturally prepared contingencies. No magical criminal was stupid enough to approach an ancient insane being to learn magic without any preparation.
Antagondals’s contingency was an additional body.
If the current body was destroyed, the additional body created with Three Kingdoms-era ancient magic would receive the soul and revive the mage.
It was a powerful and complex secret technique that ordinary mages would not even dare attempt. Naturally, Antagondals had trusted this magic.
Otherwise, would Antagondals have dared approach the insane duplicate?
“Trying to steal away your soul? What a shallow trick. You trash who doesn’t even know who created that secret technique. Did you think you could deceive the master with the master’s own teachings?”
“!!!”
Shocked at being discovered, Antagondals immediately destroyed the body and tried to let the soul escape.
However, before the soul could flee, the insane duplicate sealed the magical criminal’s soul with a gesture. Then the duplicate stuffed the soul back into the destroyed body.
“Trash. The prison you will be confined in is your own body, and your sentence lasts until your soul wears away to nothing. If you want even a trace of mercy, make amends. Even one ten-thousandth of what you ruined!”
“Guh… Graaaah!”
Not satisfied with stuffing the soul back in, the insane duplicate cast a curse to bind it so it could not escape.
The curse was so vicious that even a fairly sturdy body transformed into a hideous chimera.
Antagondals had no choice but to admit that the ancient archmage had been underestimated far too much.
No matter how far into madness the insane duplicate had fallen, no matter how much the duplicate had become something like a law, the power to easily destroy someone like Antagondals still remained.
“Thanks to that… I’m in this state… I can’t {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} even use proper magic… This duplicate body too… took several days to barely create… just to make contact!”
Antagondals pointed to the body hidden in the wall while speaking.
How much suffering had it taken to create this weak, worthless duplicate body?
It was a pathetic duplicate body that could have been made in seconds if Antagondals could use magic normally.
“Indeed. You’ve truly suffered a lot.”
Lee Han spoke as if he felt sorry. Antagondals noticed the pretense in that voice and glared at him.
“Master wants to see you again.”
“Yes. I understand. I’ll visit him once next time.”
“Right now!”
“I have my own schedule too. Why are you being like this?”
“…”
After glaring at Lee Han for a while, Antagondals gritted the body’s teeth and accepted that this was not a situation where force could be used as a threat.
With this duplicate body, kidnapping was out of the question. One more hit, and it would be destroyed.
“What’s your complaint…? Master loves and cherishes you… Master is waiting to teach you secret techniques!”
Does he think I’m some kind of Gainando?
Lee Han was shocked by the level of the magical criminal’s lies.
Who in the world would fall for such lies?
“You were going to kill me if I couldn’t learn the magic, weren’t you?”
“And then Master would have revived you afterward… Being able to learn under such conditions is a blessing…! Why don’t you understand your good fortune…?”
“Ah. Yes.”
Lee Han answered indifferently.
“I understand. Please tell him that when I have time later, we should have a meal together. I’ll definitely come.”
“When you return… Master will treat you more gently too…”
“Instead of killing me painfully, he’ll kill me painlessly?”
It’s no use.
Antagondals gave up on persuading Lee Han.
That boy from House Wardanaz was as cunning and vicious as Antagondals, so there was absolutely no way to deceive him.
Instead, Antagondals looked at Nillia. The innocent-looking hunter girl might be swayed.
“There… young mage… listen to me… I… risked my life… to save your friend when he was kidnapped over there… That is how I ended up like this… Don’t you feel sorry for me?”
“By the way, that person is the magical criminal Antagondals.”
Lee Han whispered. Antagondals did not give up.
“Of course… I… committed some magical crimes… and I won’t deny that I am an enemy of the Empire…! But… looking at it purely in terms of debt… I showed kindness to that friend… As a mage, shouldn’t he not forget that kindness…?”
“…Is that so?”
“That’s right!”
“Alright. Then come out and face me to make an oath. That you won’t harm us in exchange for Wardanaz helping you.”
“Of course…!”
Antagondals excitedly emerged from behind the wall.
That kind of oath could be made countless times.
SWISH!
The arrow Nillia released, <Blade Stolen from Professor Verdus>, flew swiftly and pierced the forehead of Antagondals’s duplicate body as it emerged from behind the wall.
Antagondals’s duplicate body, which had never expected an ambush in that situation, melted away helplessly.
“Hey! Where does a magical criminal get off trying tricks like that?!”
“…”
Lee Han looked at his friend with shocked eyes. Nillia belatedly noticed his gaze and panicked.
“Why?? That magical criminal was trying to kidnap you, Wardanaz!”
“Ah, no. You’re right. I just didn’t think you would deceive Antagondals like that.”
“…This level of deception is ordinary, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“It’s ordinary!”
Nillia got angry.
Then, after a moment, she spoke in a low voice.
“…Keep it secret that I used this kind of deception. Got it?”
“Of course. Don’t worry.”
Lee Han nodded as if telling her to trust only him.
What would be so difficult about keeping a secret for a friend who had helped him?
At that moment, a bat popped out from the melted duplicate body and cried out in a mournful voice.
“For this Antagondals to be defeated by a mere young hunter…!”
“Huh?!”
Nillia was startled and tried to shoot down the bat, but it flew far away.
It was rushing back to Antagondals, who was far away in the mountain range outside the main building.
“For this Antagondals to be defeated by a mere young hunter…!”
“Wh-why is that thing acting like that?”
The bat kept writhing and changing shape. It spat out the same words over and over, as if it had lost reason.
“It hasn’t properly recovered yet from the shock of the duplicate body being destroyed.”
Even though Antagondals had tried to extract only the core of the duplicate body and make it return, it had failed to withstand the shock of destruction and was becoming uncontrollable.
“Let’s chase it quickly!”
“It’ll destroy itself soon, won’t it? At that level, it’ll collapse after flying for a few minutes.”
“Is that so?”
Nillia was tempted. Then she heard the bat’s voice again from far away.
“For this Antagondals to be defeated by a mere young hunter…!”
“…No, we need to catch it now! Before it spreads that even louder!”
