Chapter 1346

“There's... something underground.”

“!”

At Lee Han's words, his friends looked down in surprise.

They had definitely checked it several times already, hadn't they?

“Wardanaz. Checking underground is one of the absolute basics at Einroguard. Of course we checked.”

If the Valdrogard students later dug a tunnel and escaped, it would be humiliating enough to make them change their affiliation from Blue Dragon Tower to White Tiger Tower.

Knowing that, the students had searched underground thoroughly.

And yet there was something down there?

“It's not your fault. I didn't notice it at first either.”

Lee Han himself had not sensed anything strange until additional magic had been cast here, so the mage who had hidden something underground was undoubtedly a highly skilled one.

'At least on the level of an Einroguard fifth-year.'

Only a professor or someone just below that level could pull off something like this.

His friends protested even more fiercely at those words.

“That's impossible!”

“I know you don't like Valdrogard, but Valdrogard is still protected by powerful magic in its own...”

“To think Wardanaz didn't notice it. Valdrogard's evil atmosphere must be weakening Wardanaz!”

“......”

Lee Han ignored his friends' nonsense and continued examining the space.

<Microcosm, Terminalia> pierced through the magical veil surrounding the underground chamber and accurately observed the area within.

Outer walls engraved layer upon layer with enchantments in preparation for accidents, shelves filled with various grimoires, several special plants that were easy to cultivate and could be used as simple reagents, a sturdy magical workbench made from a mixture of salt iron and black shadow sand, one chair for a large-bodied race and another of average size...

'A mage's workshop?'

From the looks of it, this seemed to be an underground workshop. Its neat, orderly condition gave Lee Han a sense of its owner's personality.

A workshop managed by a mage was like a kind of fingerprint. You could tell what sort of person the mage was from it.

In Professor Garcia's case, warm air and a faint fragrance always drifted through the room, putting students at ease.

In Professor Verdus's case, all kinds of junk and equipment were scattered everywhere, so anyone who wasn't an expert would catch their foot on something and stumble about once every ten seconds.

'Judging by how practical and well organized it is, this wasn't an especially dangerous mage.'

“We'll have to open the basement door. Everyone, stand back.”

“How are you going to open it? With that new microcosm magic you learned?”

Asan asked in a voice full of curiosity.

It was not yet time for him to learn microcosms himself, but since his friend was learning one, he was naturally curious.

Just what kind of microcosm was Wardanaz going to use to open that door?

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!

Lee Han poured mana like a madman into the floor above the basement entrance. It was an outrageously brute-force hammer of mana.

“......”

“......”

Even the students who knew their friend's mana well looked slightly appalled.

'I thought he'd solve it with the microcosm.'

Wardanaz was already entering third year and had even taken a professor's position (at Valdrogard, admittedly), yet he was still going to solve it like that...

Creeeak-

“Got it.”

Once the magic had been smashed apart, the others could also sense the space underground.

Lee Han opened the door and carefully descended the stairs. At the bottom of the staircase leading underground hung a nameplate.

Ipheldrem's Laboratory

“!”

“Who's Ipheldrem?”

His friends murmured at the unfamiliar name. Lee Han explained instead.

“Ipheldrem was a mage who used to be at Valdrogard. They've graduated now, but they were skilled enough in magic to conduct research together with a friend from Einroguard.”

“......”

“......”

His friends stared at Lee Han in bewilderment, wondering if he had gone insane.

Even Lee Han slightly regretted it after saying it aloud.

'Damn. Even to me, that sounds strange.'

It sounded like the sort of character who would only appear in a novel written by a Valdrogard student.

“...It sounds strange, but it's true. Here, even the bag I use is an artifact made by this Valdrogard upper-year... Yonair. You heard about this before. You know, right? Yonair?”

“I did hear about it last time, but I'm still a little suspicious that this person actually existed...”

If even Yonair reacted like that, there was no need to ask how it sounded to the other students.

Lee Han gave up and pointed inside the workshop.

“You'll know once you go in and see for yourselves. Let's go in first.”

The Einroguard students followed Lee Han into the underground workshop.

Unlike Lee Han, who had already observed it from outside with his microcosm, the students who had not yet seen the interior were startled.

“It really is a workshop?! And it's even intact!”

“There are books too!”

“......”

Lee Han stared at his friends in disbelief.

Wasn't the bar for surprising them a little too low?

Regardless, his friends exchanged opinions among themselves.

“Maybe a mage really did use it.”

“Couldn't it have been an outsider who secretly broke in instead of a Valdrogard student? Maybe they couldn't find a workshop, so they settled down underground here.”

'There's no point explaining.'

Having already given up, Lee Han did not try to convince his friends.

If Lee Han himself had merely heard a story about Ipheldrem, he probably would have reacted the same way.

“Lee Han. Judging by this chair, it looks like it was for a guest. They must have been from a fairly large-bodied race.”

“Indeed.”

The Empire had races with naturally large builds, like Professor Garcia. Looking around further, they found clear traces of such a visitor.

An oversized cup, an oversized plate, an oversized fist mark...?

“...What's this?”

“Maybe they... got stuck while doing magic and punched the wall?”

Students and mages alike tended to do all sorts of strange things when their magic hit a dead end.

Rolling around on the floor, bawling their eyes out, tearing up grimoires and eating them, and so on.

Punching a wall would hardly be strange among such behavior. Lee Han shook his head at Yonair's words.

“The strange part isn't that they punched the wall. It's that their fist sank into the wall like this. There are several layers of defensive magic on the workshop walls, too.”

Unlike Yonair, Lee Han was a combat mage who also trained as a knight.

He could tell just how extraordinary the fist mark left in the wall was.

'To leave nothing but a clean fist mark like that without even cracking the surrounding area... this was someone who knew how to control their strength!'

When his friend did not believe him, Lee Han called over the White Tiger Tower students. They were startled.

“Who the hell was this person?”

“Wardanaz didn't make this himself to trick us, did he? There's no way someone like this existed at Valdrogard!”

“Isn't the hand size different?”

“That can be changed as much as you want with magic.”

As the White Tiger Tower students whispered among themselves, Lee Han spoke from behind them.

“More precisely, this probably wasn't left by a Valdrogard mage, but by an Einroguard upper-year who was close to the Valdrogard mage. There are a lot of guest items in the workshop.”

“...Gasp, was it a White Tiger Tower upper-year?!”

“Was there ever a White Tiger Tower upper-year with fists this big? I've never heard of anyone like that...”

Leaving his friends to themselves, Lee Han continued searching through the shelves. He was curious what kind of research this mage called Ipheldrem had been doing.

'Oh. There are even some research notes on <Backpack of the Six Directions>.'

Lee Han happily began reading the records. The notes made him even more certain that this workshop had belonged to a Valdrogard mage.

...If one expects a semi-permanent magical effect, it would be best to give numerological significance to the number of spaces as well... My large Einroguard friend insisted on four. They said it was a number symbolizing Einroguard, but to me it seemed a little ominous...

'Hmm. I have no choice but to side with the Valdrogard mage on this one.'

Lee Han agreed with the Valdrogard mage.

Even setting aside its numerological meaning, six compartments were simply more convenient than four.

After finishing that entry, Lee Han opened the next journal.

...My large Einroguard friend became extremely angry. It seems the Principal was tormenting the students again. To be honest, I wondered whether my friend really needed to go so far as to look after the other students as well, but I didn't say anything. I was scared. How did they leave such a clean fist mark in that wall? I tried to reproduce it with magic afterward, but every attempt failed...

'Damn. I don't know who they were, but if they were acting like that at Einroguard, they must've had a hard time.'

Once again, Lee Han had no choice but to agree with the Valdrogard mage.

“If you're doing your own magic properly, there's no need to go through all that trouble looking after other students too. Don't you think?”

“...Are you seriously saying that?”

Yonair stared at her friend in disbelief.

Did he really have no idea what he himself was saying right now?

“I am saying it seriously.”

“R-right.”

For her friend's sake, Yonair looked around to see whether there was a mirror nearby.

Instead of giving him a long explanation, she simply wanted to tell him to look into one.

'This is more substantial and interesting than I expected. There isn't much about magic, though.'

...Today we discussed what we planned to do after graduation. My large Einroguard friend seems to have many concerns. I tried to stop them, but in the end, my friend wouldn't listen. What a pity. They could live comfortably and peacefully, so why choose such a path? I intend to aim for the Imperial government post with the least work and the most free time...

...I became interested after hearing my friend's story, so I tried it too. But perhaps I didn't have enough mana, because I failed. Did I choose the wrong rice...?

The Valdrogard mage truly was wise.

There was a reason they had been able to become friends with an Einroguard mage.

'Even their judgment when choosing a career is excellent. Valdrogard... Perhaps I've been too prejudiced against Valdrogard.'

They even made Lee Han reflect on himself.

If someone this talented had once attended Valdrogard, couldn't another talented person emerge there in the future?

“What does this mean, saying they failed? Was it alchemy?”

“Could've been summoning magic.”

Lee Han had been admiring the mage's judgment, but his friends seemed more interested in the magic mentioned below it.

“If it says rice, couldn't it mean this? Wardanaz. Did you see this?”

“!”

On top of a flowerpot sat a small doll with a very unusual appearance, molded out of rice.

The doll, made from various parts of different animals combined together, gave off a strangely familiar impression.

'Where have I seen this before?'

“There's a magic circle here. Looks like they really tried pouring mana into it and failed. I've never seen summoning magic like this before... What kind of summoned creature were they trying to call?”

“Wardanaz. Can you check what kind of summoned creature it is?”

Lee Han nodded. He could sense no particular danger from the doll.

It was not some being from an evil dimension, and judging from its small size, even if he summoned it, it should not be difficult to control.

'A spirit?'

Sometimes weak and fragile spirits needed a vessel like this to serve as a substitute body.

With their original power alone, they could not withstand the flow of the material realm and needed armor of some kind.

Thinking that, Lee Han slowly poured mana into it.

As vitality filled the small animal doll molded from rice and it began to move, the students unconsciously exclaimed.

“It's cute!”

“What kind of spirit is it? I've never seen a spirit like this before.”

“......”

Lee Han froze.

Once it gained a living body rather than merely an outer form molded from rice, he recognized what it was.

It was a baby Bulgassari.