Chapter 1278

The students of the enchantment magic school were freed, and Lee Han also returned to the punishment area, but Einroguard was still chaotic.

It was only natural, considering it was the final exam period at the end of the semester and even the Inspector who had been keeping everyone on a tight leash had disappeared.

"Wardanaz! Those Black Tortoise Tower bastards stole all the tableware we had stored in our dormitory! Because of those bastards, we had to eat breakfast with our hands today!"

"Lee Han. A third-year senior was selling strawberries cheaply in the clearing on the seventh floor today, so I bought some, but it turned out they were stolen goods from Professor Thunderwalk's greenhouse! No wonder they were cheap! If I'd known they were stolen, I would've bought them even cheaper!"

"Wardanaz. There's still some time left before the exam period ends, but we've run out of fuel for heating. Should we steal from the White Tiger Tower bastards, or from the Black Tortoise Tower bastards?"

"......"

Faced with friends who came by whenever they were bored to ask for advice, Lee Han maintained his patience and said,

"Isn't it about time you handled things like this yourselves? And even if you're going to ask me, say it quietly!"

"Why?"

Lee Han looked to the side and saw Paridim, the student from Oculoguard, diligently taking notes.

Feeling self-conscious, Lee Han made an unnecessary excuse.

"Paridim. My friends are joking. Haha."

He felt like he understood why Professor Garcia worked so hard to make excuses for Einroguard's image whenever they went outside.

In the past, Lee Han had thought, 'Einroguard's image is already ruined, so does saying anything even make a difference?' but that was not how the human heart worked.

You made excuses first!

"Ah. What? I didn't hear because I was taking notes."

"...Never mind..."

Lee Han worried that Einroguard's notoriety might rise another level in Oculoguard.

Stealing each other's tableware and fuel in winter and selling stolen goods...

'Can't be helped. It's already too late.'

After sending some of the strawberries Gainando had brought to the next room as well, Lee Han sat back down.

The exams were already over for him, but there was no end to magic. He planned to study the magic that had appeared in Senior Diret's and Professor Garcia's lectures in greater depth.

Although Lee Han had defeated an evil god and was already receiving offers from several mage towers, if he became intoxicated by such trivial achievements and grew lazy, he might lose the top rank next semester.

It was an insane thought that would have made his friends look at him in disgust if they had heard it.

"Gainando. Why are you still here instead of leaving?"

Lee Han realized that only Gainando remained and looked puzzled.

Did he have something else to ask?

"Heh heh. I'm still here because I have something to tell you."

Gainando smiled with confidence gleaming in his eyes. At the sight, Lee Han felt his heart sink.

'This bastard. He didn't cause another accident, did he?'

As far as Lee Han could remember, almost nothing good had ever happened when Gainando smiled like that.

'Please let it be something I can clean up. Please let it be something I can clean up.'

Lee Han prayed that whatever Gainando had done would be something like theft, embezzlement, or forgery.

Once it got to arson or explosions, repairs became genuinely difficult...

"They say a Portrait of Wisdom appeared somewhere in the school!"

"...What?"

Lee Han paused at the completely unexpected words.

"You weren't caught stealing something? You didn't half-destroy a floor of Black Dark Hall?"

"Why would I do something like that?"

Gainando answered sulkily.

He was not one of those barbaric White Tiger Tower bastards. There was no way a dignified member of the Imperial Family would do such a thing.

"R-right... I trusted you. Of course. So, a Portrait of Wisdom?"

"Yeah!"

The vast and deep Einroguard was always overflowing with countless rumors.

That some lunatic student was not only taking lectures from every school but still maintaining first place, that there was a Bulgassari somewhere underground, that there was a stone tablet in some basement containing the answers to every exam currently in existence...

And most of those rumors were always nonsense. Maybe lower-year students would believe them, but by the time students reached the upper years, their first reaction to such rumors was suspicion.

-Isn't it a trap set by the principal?

-I think the White Tiger Tower bastards started the rumor. To interfere with us.

Lee Han was only a second-year, but the hardships he had experienced surpassed those of most upper-year students. Naturally, he was skeptical of such rumors.

"Gainando. You're making up another strange rumor because you don't want to study..."

"I'm not?! Besides, I already took my exams early too!"

At the absurd suspicion, Gainando looked as though he had been wronged beyond belief.

He had gone through all that trouble to take the exams early so they could go out together, and this was the suspicion he got?!

"Ah. Right. Wait. But then why are you interested in the portrait?"

"Because if we secure it in advance, I won't have to study next semester..."

"......"

Lee Han gave him a contemptuous look, as though he could not believe how pathetic he was.

Wouldn't it be better to put all that effort into studying rather than wandering around searching for the source of an unverified rumor?

Apparently noticing his friend's gaze, Gainando quickly made an excuse.

"A-and if something like that exists, it'll help with studying too. I can ask it whenever I get stuck."

"That's completely different from what you just said. And even now, whenever you get stuck, you ask me, so what are you..."

Lee Han was unimpressed.

He had excavated a similar helmet before, and after being harshly trained in the enchantment magic school, he had a rough understanding of how magic like that worked.

Things like that were merely the result of spirits from another dimension or highly advanced magical computation.

They might be able to answer questions to some extent, but once the level of the questions rose beyond a certain point, their accuracy would drop considerably, and there would be many restrictions as well.

In that case, it was better to simply ask a professor or search the library.

"But this one is really different. Lee Han. It's a portrait dressed like a prince, and they say it answered every question people asked it right away! According to the rumor, it even correctly predicted the date the Inspector would leave this time!"

"...?!"

Lee Han, who had been about to ignore him and turn the page, froze.

It was not the fact that the portrait had correctly predicted the date the Inspector would leave that surprised him. Foresight was so difficult that sometimes people accidentally got one or two predictions right. If a foresight mage was fooled by results like that, they had no right to call themselves a foresight mage.

What surprised Lee Han was the clothing.

Dressed like a prince.

"Did you hear anything about what the portrait looked like? Its features, maybe? Like whether it was incredibly handsome, or looked like it would feel extremely evil and annoying if only a skull remained later..."

"I-I didn't hear any rumors like that?"

Gainando was flustered by the excessively specific question.

Could rumors like that even exist?

'Hmm.'

Lee Han sank into thought, leaving the quill he was holding deeply submerged in the ink bottle.

Normally, he would have dismissed a common rumor about a portrait, but the fact that it was specifically a prince bothered him.

Could the Skull Principal really have appeared again?

Unlike the fake Skull Principal currently ruling Einroguard, the kind and gentle true Skull Principal could only be encountered under extremely limited circumstances. Since he existed in a dimension located in a different flow of time, there was no helping it.

Ordinarily, the probability was low enough to be considered effectively impossible, but Lee Han could not give up.

He had personally witnessed it succeeding once by sheer chance, summoning the prince through a painting.

If the portrait had naturally appeared somewhere deep underground in Einroguard...

...it felt like an absurdly impossible probability, but Lee Han could not simply ignore it. He said to Gainando,

"All right. Gainando. I have a favor to ask you."

"Leave anything to me! ...Wait, it's a favor related to the portrait, right?"

Gainando shouted excitedly, then flinched.

He was worried that this bloodless, tearless friend might say something like, 'Go study,' after talking like that.

"Yeah. Find out a little more about the portrait."

"Don't worry, Lee Han. I took my exams early, so I've got tons of free time!"

"......"

"D-don't glare at me like that..."

"More importantly, His Highness returned to the capital. What's the atmosphere like?"

Lee Han suddenly became curious and asked.

Come to think of it, since he had remained here in the punishment area the whole time, he had not properly kept track of the situation outside.

"Some people are disappointed because the meals we used to get are gone, even though they tasted bad... and some people are happy because the school rules got looser. Right. The tableware theft incident too! They took advantage of us letting our guard down!"

For better or worse, Uman had managed the school in a different style from the Skull Principal.

He had been much stricter, but he had still looked after the students in his own way.

Once that Inspector disappeared, quite a few students were disappointed.

'He'd probably be happy if I told him later.'

Lee Han thought he should send a letter.

After being summoned back to the capital because of the Skull Principal's vile tattling, how resentful must Uman feel?

Of course, Lee Han intended to hide the fact that some students were thrilled. There was nothing surprising about that, since many Einroguard students were beast-like mages.

"The Black Tortoise Tower students just exploited the opening well. You let your guard down. If it were me, I would've stolen first. Why did you store them so carelessly?"

"Ugh. Actually, we were planning to steal theirs the next day too... We just didn't expect Black Tortoise Tower to move that fast..."

Paridim's hand, which had been moving while listening intently from the side, stopped.

What kind of conversation was this supposed to be?

"Looks like there were a lot of people who'd been holding back. Be careful for a while. Gainando. When you're carrying food around, don't leave it outside your backpack."

"I already got hit on the way here."

"Why would you do something that stupid?"

"I didn't think they'd steal even the lollipop I was eating! Damn it!"

Gainando grumbled.

The Einroguard students, who had stayed relatively quiet for a while because of the strict school rules, all sprang into action the moment supervision loosened.

In a situation like this, even a lollipop someone was eating while walking down the road could be snatched away.

They would take it first and think later.

"Then I'll ask around a little more about the portrait rumor and come back."

"All right. I'll wait."

Lee Han was slightly worried, but this time he decided to trust Gainando.

He had spent almost two years in Einroguard now. Surely he would not fall for some ridiculous scam?

***

"You want to find the Portrait of Wisdom?"

"Yeah."

"Wasn't that a fake rumor?"

Salco stroked his beard in puzzlement. Gainando spoke triumphantly.

"No. Lee Han seemed to have some idea of what it might be. He told me to gather more information."

"Hmm..."

Salco whispered to Ratford beside him.

"You don't think that bastard is selling Wardanaz's name, do you?"

"It's entirely possible."

"I can hear everything, you bastards!"

Gainando cursed in irritation.

In the past, they had at least gone behind his back to whisper. Now they had gotten too lazy and simply whispered right in front of him.

"We sell things diligently on the black market ourselves, so we know all kinds of strange junk rolls out of Einroguard's underground, but most things like that turn out to be false rumors. Prince. There's also a chance it's an item possessed by a demon or spirit."

"Hmph. If you're not going to help, fine. I'll go alone."

"I didn't say I wouldn't help. I just finished my exams too, so should we go take a look?"

"!"

Gainando shouted in great delight.

"I knew I could trust you! Tutanta!"

"It's Tutanta. You half-wit prince bastard. Huh? Ratford, didn't you still have an exam left?"

"It's fine."

At Ratford's confident declaration, the two looked at him with newfound respect.

Wasn't that the kind of thing only someone like Wardanaz could say, meaning, 'I'm confident even if I just take it the way I normally do'?!

"I gave up on that lecture because it's too difficult anyway."

"......"

"Cool!"

"What's cool about that, you blockhead prince bastard!"

Salco shouted angrily.

Just because he was from another tower did not mean he could say anything he wanted.

At that moment, a message came through the paper artifacts distributed among the top-ranking students of each tower.

Salco, Gainando will probably head your way. Please take care of him.

"......"

Without realizing it, Salco looked around.

Is this bastard really in the punishment area??