Chapter 1292

‘He’s my friend, but he really is shameless.’

Lee Han might not have reached Professor Verdus’s level, but his own shamelessness had already reached extraordinary heights.

Watching the two of them clash so fiercely suddenly filled Gainando with a strange sense of emotion.

The other friends should have been here to witness this incredible sight too...

“Really? Wait a second.”

Professor Verdus sent out a paper bird to check again.

“It says you really have started seriously attempting microcosm magic. Look. Professor Garcia wrote it right here.”

“......”

Seeing his friend’s face stiffen in displeasure, Gainando sighed inwardly.

It seemed his friend was still not quite capable of defeating the professor.

***

“So what is it? What are you going to make me do?”

“I’m not going to make you do anything. I’m going to show you microcosm magic.”

“Ah. I see. So what is it? What are you going to make me do?”

“I said I’m not making you do anything! I’m going to show you microcosm magic!”

‘Have I come to hell?’

Gainando covered both ears as he followed the two of them.

Even a fairly vicious dark-magic curse would probably be too ashamed to show its face before this conversation.

Just listening to it felt like it was making him mentally ill!

When they arrived in front of the Enchantment Hall, Professor Verdus waddled up the stairs. Lee Han watched the professor’s back, then whispered to Gainando in a grave voice.

“Gainando.”

“Yeah?”

“When I give you the signal, stay downstairs and set the place on fire. We can use that as an excuse to get out.”

“......”

Gainando froze in disbelief for a moment, and Lee Han apparently took that as acceptance.

“Got it? I’m counting on you.”

“N-no, Lee Han...! I don’t think that’s right! I really don’t think that’s right!!”

But his friend had already gone upstairs. Gainando hurried after him, nearly in tears.

Unaware of the conversation that had taken place behind him, Professor Verdus took out the glass cube necklace they normally wore and placed it on a display stand in the workshop.

“Can you see this?”

“Repair? Improvement? Inspection? Making a replica or replacement parts?”

“I asked if you can see it!”

As the disciple kept giving irrelevant answers, Professor Verdus became irritated, an unusually rare occurrence.

If it were some other stupid mage, that would be one thing, but Wardanaz was supposed to be on the intelligent side. The professor could not understand why he was failing to grasp such simple words.

Perhaps even the disciple had finally reached his limit.

Professor Verdus did not understand it very well, but ordinary mages sometimes broke down after practicing magic twenty-five hours a day.

“Yes. I can see it.”

“You can see the magic too, right?”

“Isn’t this the... magnum opus? The one you used, Professor?”

Lee Han almost added, ‘And then the Principal’s duplicate completely crushed you,’ but stopped himself.

No matter how irritating Professor Verdus was, Lee Han could not completely trample on the other person’s dignity.

Of course, whenever the students gathered together, conversations like, ‘Hey, remember when the Principal’s duplicate beat Professor Verdus like a dog? Wasn’t that incredible?’ tended to blossom naturally...

“Ah! This is the thing you used and still got completely wrecked!”

“......”

“......”

If Lee Han had made one mistake, it was forgetting that Gainando was standing behind him.

Simply remembering that incident put a blissful expression on Gainando’s face.

“I was so disappointed that I didn’t get to see it myself! I was so disappointed that my friends and I even made a book that recreates what happened that day with illusion magic!”

“...You were doing that kind of nonsense?”

Lee Han was left speechless by the horrifying waste of time.

He intended to remember the names of every single person, Gainando included, who had wasted their time making that thing.

“N-no. We didn’t spend that much time on it. We just collected witness accounts, drew the pictures, prepared the illusion-magic reagents...”

“......”

The more Gainando spoke, the stronger his certainty became that he was digging his own grave.

Wouldn’t it be better to go downstairs and start the fire right now?

Fortunately, Professor Verdus saved Gainando.

“I wasn’t completely wrecked!”

“What? What are you talking about? If that wasn’t getting completely wrecked, what was?”

Lee Han stared at the shrieking Professor Verdus as if wondering what kind of nonsense the professor was spouting.

Professor Verdus, however, stated their opinion with absolute firmness and conviction.

“That magical duel was close! The difference was really tiny.”

“If that counts as close, then a duel between the Principal and me would be close too... Are you seriously saying that? Your microcosm was canceled with a single word of power.”

Lee Han, who had witnessed the incident firsthand—to be precise, Lee Han had brought the insane duplicate into the classroom—was merciless.

No matter how Professor Verdus tried to rewrite history, Lee Han immediately pointed out what was wrong.

“If I’d known Gonadaltes’s duplicate was going to use a word of power for countermagic, I would have unfolded my microcosm differently. So the difference really was tiny.”

“You didn’t even get to use Liberum Veto before it was taken from you. If you keep forcing this ridiculous argument, I’m going to bring the Principal here and tell the two of you to duel.”

“L-Lee Han. Are you angry?”

Gainando cautiously asked.

It was a perfectly natural question. Anyone who talked to Professor Verdus would eventually become angry.

But his friend’s answer was unexpected.

“I’m not angry. I’m just pointing out what’s wrong.”

“C-couldn’t we just say the professor is right to some extent and move on?”

Gainando felt as though his and his friend’s positions had somehow been reversed.

Usually Lee Han was the one stopping him from saying things like that. Why had it become the opposite?

But Gainando had not yet realized something.

Lee Han was extremely strict when it came to the achievements of the insane duplicate.

He could never tolerate someone like Professor Verdus diminishing or falsifying those achievements.

“No. That’s nonsense. I’ll bring the Principal here, so go ahead and prove it.”

“N-no! No... I... I was wrong.”

“!!!!!”

Gainando nearly fainted from shock.

He thought this might be the first time since entering Einroguard that he had ever heard Professor Verdus admit, ‘I was wrong.’

Maybe even the older students had never heard it in their entire lives.

‘W-what did I just hear? What kind of words did I just hear? Shouldn’t I be recording this?!’

Gainando panicked at the thought of letting an event worthy of being preserved forever in Einroguard’s history slip away like this.

But his merciless friend did not so much as twitch even before such a monumental event.

“Say it louder and more clearly. Otherwise, I’m calling the Principal.”

“Ugh... sniff. I... was wrong... The difference between me... and Gonadaltes’s duplicate... is... significantly...”

“Significantly?”

“...Quite... very... large, I think...”

“In exactly what field of magic?”

“Enchantment magic... enchantment magic...”

“Hmph. I’ll let it go this once. Watch what you say from now on.”

Professor Verdus nodded tearfully.

Professor Verdus was normally completely immune to any amount of verbal abuse, but being forced by the threat of summoning the Skull Principal to declare inferiority in enchantment magic truly seemed humiliating.

The professor knew it too.

No matter how unreasonable they tried to be, they had lost to the Principal’s insane duplicate in the field of enchantment magic.

‘I want to run away.’

Gainando broke into a cold sweat between the sniffling Professor Verdus and his friend, who was nodding in satisfaction.

Could all of this perhaps be a nightmare?

“So why did you want me to look at this magnum opus?”

“Because I heard... sniff... that you used the form of Hwidore to unfold another microcosm... and the magnum opus uses a similar method, so I wanted to show you...”

Professor Verdus loudly blew their nose.

Gainando was startled by how unexpectedly reasonable the explanation was.

“Lee Han! I think the professor really did call you here to help!”

“Gainando. Stop making it so obvious you’re not from the enchantment magic school. That’s a disguise.”

“...B-but there are tears in the professor’s eyes?”

“Your eyes water when you yawn too. Don’t fall for disguises. If you keep doing that, you’ll never become an outstanding mage.”

Lee Han sternly lectured his friend.

Ignoring them, Professor Verdus pointed at the microcosm magic trapped inside the glass cube.

“As you can see, I sealed the microcosm inside this cask. Unlike other microcosm magic, it can be cast simply by opening it.”

At the professor’s words, Lee Han carefully examined the glass.

When the insane duplicate had defeated Professor Verdus, Lee Han had been enjoying himself too much to observe it properly, but this glass cask was truly fascinating.

To trap an already-cast microcosm inside while preserving it exactly as it was—that was not easy [N O V E L I G H T] with ordinary magic.

Having used the form of Hwidore to cast another microcosm himself, Lee Han could appreciate even more clearly just how difficult this was.

‘I cast mine on the spot and shaped it into a droplet, but Professor Verdus trapped an already-cast microcosm inside? How is that even possible?’

“I see. Impressive.”

“Of course it is.”

“But what’s even more impressive is how the Principal’s duplicate nullified all of this with a single word of power—”

“This magic! This magic works because the glass on each face of the cask is an artifact made from a separate spell!”

Professor Verdus squeaked as they cut him off. It was a level of desperation that could almost never be seen from the professor.

“Nigredo, Albedo, Citrinitas, Viriditas, Rubedo, Cauda Pavonis. Six high-level spells in total are linked and combined with one another, allowing the microcosm inside to be stored in a fixed state!”

“!”

Lee Han, who had been about to praise the insane duplicate again, was so startled that he forgot all about it.

So that was why the glass had seemed extraordinary. Each piece of it was itself material formed from a spell?

“Professor. This is...”

“Amazing, right? More amazing than Gonadaltes’s duplicate?”

“No. I was going to say, isn’t this incredibly wasteful? And even if it is impressive, it’s not impressive to that extent, so stop talking nonsense. If you do it one more time, I’ll call the Principal and make you duel.”

Professor Verdus became dejected.

Lee Han fell into thought beside them.

‘In theory, once this artifact is completed, it could store microcosms other than the magnum opus as well. It’s expensive and wasteful, but... it really is an incredible idea.’

What was truly astonishing was that despite all this preparation, the insane duplicate had immediately countered it with a word of power.

No matter how quickly a microcosm could be cast, speed meant little if the opponent had already seen through the microcosm itself.

“Did you call me here to teach me this magic?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

A sudden curiosity occurred to Lee Han.

“Did Senior Yukbeltire learn this too?”

“No. She said it didn’t suit her preferences, so she didn’t learn it.”

‘That really is just like Senior Yukbeltire.’

Then again, needing to deploy a microcosm at a moment’s notice was something relevant to combat mages like Lee Han or Imperial wanted criminals like Professor Verdus.

Someone like Yukbeltire, who had firmly chosen the path of a pure enchantment mage, had little need for such a method.

‘Even if I can’t master all of these spells, they’re valuable enough. Learning even one would have enormous applications in other magic...’

Having finished organizing his thoughts, Lee Han spoke.

“Professor. Thank you. This time, I admit that I misunderstood you—”

BANG!

The door of the Enchantment Hall flew open, and dark mages came upstairs from below.

They were the Descendants of Ahrak, carrying on the tradition established by the great dark mage Ahrak.

Lee Han shouted furiously.

“—not! Good thing I didn’t! I knew this would happen!”

“Huh? Wh-what? I didn’t call them!”

“To think a teacher would sell out his own disciple! Gainando! Now!”