Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

—Who are you asking—

Creeeak.

With the sound of a sliding door opening inside the workshop, a dryad half-blood upperclassman appeared.

Ilendil walked out, dropping leaves onto the oakwood floor, and upon spotting Lee Han, looked genuinely delighted.

“House Wardanaz… Lee Han!”

“Yes.”

Pointing at the underclassman as if retrieving the memory, Ilendil continued in a slow cadence.

“Right! The one who helped and took care of that dark spirit last time…”

‘That’s… pretty far from what actually happened.’

To be precise, it was closer to attacking and subduing a rampaging dark spirit, then forcing a contract.

And that contract hadn’t been because Lee Han wanted it—it felt more like Ilendil had pressured him into it…

“Ah. Yes. That’s right.”

“And the person next to you is… ugh.”

Ilendil saw Diret’s face and immediately backed away.

“H-hello… Upperclassman…”

“Y-yeah. Hi.”

Diret waved with an awkward expression.

Ilendil, also wearing an awkward expression, lowered the head while hiding behind the workshop’s bellows.

As the air suddenly became suffocating—like Adenart and the followers’ tea party—Lee Han looked around.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone junior to Lee Han here.

‘Maybe I should hurry up and make second-year already.’

Lee Han let out a deep sigh. If there was no junior, Lee Han had no choice but to handle it.

“Diret. What happened between you two?”

At the underclassman’s whispered question, Diret stared at Ilendil and answered in a whisper as well.

“I told you before. The dark magic group kids went into the forest to gather reagents and got attacked by Ilendil.”

“Ah.”

Only then did Lee Han remember the past between the dark magic group and Ilendil.

Truthfully, it wasn’t something limited only to the dark magic group.

Among Einroguard’s schools, there wasn’t a single one that didn’t need forest reagents.

It was common for students who entered the forest to get greedy and injure it, and it was almost inevitable that Ilendil, who protected the forest, would clash with them.

“Uh, but Upperclassman. I can understand other upperclassmen being awkward, but why are you awkward with Ilendil?”

“I went to rescue them because we’re the same school…”

Diret brought up the backstory of the incident that Diret hadn’t told Lee Han before.

When the dark magic group students who’d been attacked by Ilendil got captured, Diret, of course, went to rescue them as their upperclassman.

When Diret arrived, the dark magic group students were being held by forest golems…

…And Diret had no choice but to smash all the forest golems and rescue the students.

“Golem-type summons take quite a bit of work to make, don’t they? You broke them all?”

“I told you, I didn’t have a choice! The golems were pretty violent.”

‘You’re pretty violent too, Upperclassman.’

Nodding while thinking that if Diret heard it, Diret would grab him by the collar and say “you have any right to talk,” Lee Han nodded.

Ilendil, who’d been staring at them from behind the workshop bellows, asked quietly,

“You seem… close with the dark magic group…”

“I take dark magic too.”

“W-what…?! Why…?!”

“You can take it. What’s so shocking about that.”

Diret flared up slightly.

What was so shocking about taking dark magic?

…Of course it was shocking, but still…

At that reaction, Ilendil shrank down in alarm.

“Eek.”

“…N-no. I’m not angry. Underclassman. Look. I’m not angry, right?”

“Isn’t that something angry people say a lot?”

“Whose side are you on?”

“…Upperclassman! Diret isn’t angry! Look! You can come out!”

Ilendil hesitated, then slowly rose.

But Ilendil’s eyes still looked full of wariness toward Diret.

“How did you even break forest golems…”

“Hey. Underclassman. You didn’t see it back then, that’s why! I didn’t say anything, but that kid is a crazy underclassman too!”

Diret burst out.

Diret had held back because Diret didn’t want to badmouth an underclassman from another school, but Ilendil definitely belonged in the category of crazy underclassmen too.

Without a single word, Ilendil had tried to have the forest golems smash Diret’s undead army.

Diret wanted to resolve it peacefully too, but because Diret was ambushed, Diret had no choice but to explode the undead army and blow the whole surrounding area apart.

“What brings you here…?”

“Ah. About that.”

Lee Han pointed out the workshop window, toward the grim crowd of mages swarming around.

They still hadn’t given up and were wandering around searching for Lee Han, and the sight reminded him of a cult mob.

Ilendil seemed to think so too, and asked in alarm,

“A cult?!”

“No, not that.”

Lee Han explained only the less-weird parts of what had happened today.

He’d done well at the exchange gathering, and all kinds of mages were chasing him…

“Ah. That happened to me too.”

Ilendil nodded slowly, agreeing with Lee Han.

Ilendil had once attended an alchemists’ conference and been thoroughly annoyed by endless scout offers.

“That must’ve been hard… wait.”

Ilendil’s brow creased as if Ilendil had spotted someone outside the window.

It was Princess Yukbeltire.

With a blazing hostility that didn’t match Ilendil’s usual calm, slow demeanor, Ilendil asked,

“That wicked mage came too?”

“……”

“……”

Lee Han and Diret exchanged looks.

‘We should probably hide that you’re close, right?’

‘Yeah…’

Ilendil said firmly,

“Good. You came to the right place. Rest comfortably and go.”

“Thank you, Upperclassman.”

After finishing the conversation with Lee Han, Ilendil looked at Diret.

Unlike the earlier wariness, respect could be seen in Ilendil’s eyes.

To come all the way into another school’s workshop to protect an underclassman against someone like Princess Yukbeltire…

“I didn’t know you were such a warm person.”

“Uh.”

Diret felt awkward.

The truth was, Diret was also close with the wicked mage outside, but if Diret said that, Diret felt like Diret would never be able to become close with this alchemy school underclassman.

“I… just did what I had to.”

“That’s what makes it impressive.”

Feeling like Direkt wouldn’t be able to endure the guilt if he heard any more praise, Diret changed the subject.

“I’ll keep watch over there and see if that wicked mage shows up.”

“……”

Lee Han stared at Diret slipping away, dumbfounded.

Even if it was that… what kind of excuse was that?

“What were you doing?”

“Making potions… I need to secure this year’s research funding.”

Regardless of alchemical skill, Ilendil prioritized the forest, so the kinds of requests Ilendil could accept were limited.

That was why Ilendil had no choice but to focus even more on requests like making potions.

“I want to research which species trolls prefer as prey…”

“……”

Lee Han was more horrified than he’d been when he met the Pride Duke today.

So it was Ilendil who’d proposed that insane research!?

“Th… why?”

Ilendil’s face brightened when the admirable underclassman showed interest in the research.

“Are you interested?”

“N-no. I was just curious what kind of research it was.”

Lee Han hurriedly changed the subject in fear, but Ilendil had already interpreted it however Ilendil pleased.

“Forest trolls are powerful monsters, but… at the same time, they’re monsters that maintain the forest’s ecosystem. They also handle enemies that come in from outside…”

“…So you’re researching which species they prefer as prey in order to raise forest trolls?”

At Lee Han’s words, Ilendil paused. It was a surprisingly interesting idea.

“I’ve never thought of it, but… maybe you could think about it that way too.”

“Ah, no. I think I misunderstood.”

“Really? That sounds like a good idea too…”

Ilendil slowly unfolded the research notes Ilendil had written.

Since forest trolls were such threatening monsters, there was a lot of damage caused by them.

In the middle of that, Ilendil had noticed that the damage to certain species was especially high.

Maybe forest trolls had species they preferred as prey.

If Ilendil could identify that, adventurers or forest keepers entering places where forest trolls appeared could approach a little more safely.

If the party didn’t include a prey-preferred species, the forest trolls wouldn’t react.

‘It’s a pretty normal research topic, isn’t it?’

It was a reasonable research—analyzing forest trolls more deeply to reduce the damage they caused.

The title was just weird…

“Sounds like interesting research.”

“Really?!”

Ilendil was overjoyed.

It didn’t show much because Ilendil moved slowly, but still.

“Then do you want to join the research? It’ll definitely be fun.”

From far away by the window, Diret panicked and frantically waved a hand.

It was a signal to refuse no matter what.

In the first place, there was nothing good about a second-year Einroguard student joining upperclassmen’s research.

Of course, it wasn’t like you got nothing.

By helping an upperclassman’s magic that was better than yours, you could grow too.

But in Diret’s eyes, Lee Han already had far too many opportunities to “grow” by helping mages better than him.

Starting with professors…

‘If he helps upperclassmen too, he’ll never survive!’

“I’ll… think about it.”

“I knew you’d be interested…!”

“I didn’t agree. I said I’d think about it.”

Lee Han suddenly noticed Princess Yukbeltire walking along the main street in the distance.

Then Lee Han looked at Ilendil in front of him.

‘…Wait. Aren’t these two not that different?’

*****

Since talking more about research felt like he’d just be digging his own grave, Lee Han changed the subject.

“By the way, what kind of potion is the one you were commissioned to make?”

“Ah. This is… a potion I developed. It’s called <Liberation From the Skull>.”

“That’s a peculiar name. What effect does it have?”

“It has the effect of briefly paralyzing the magic the Principal put on you.”

“……”

Lee Han froze at the unexpected effect.

Come to think of it, Ilendil had a history of showing up in front of underclassmen in that forest last time too.

Without a potion Ilendil made, it couldn’t have happened.

“Wait—who buys this?”

“Other Einroguard students will.”

Diret answered in Ilendil’s place, arms crossed.

Ilendil’s potion was already famous among a few students who knew about it.

“Is it that useful? I’ve never seen any upperclassmen using it…”

“You don’t use it to meet an underclassman. You use it to avoid the Principal’s minions. Among the Principal’s minions, there are ones that sniff out the scent of the magic the Principal put on you and chase you.”

‘This place is unbelievable!’

Lee Han regretted ever thinking after finishing first year, ‘I feel like I know Einroguard a little now.’

Einroguard felt like a place you could never fully know. Even after graduating.

‘Still, it’s good I learned about it now.’

“Could you teach me too?”

This was the kind of thing you needed to learn in advance, so that later you’d have even one chance to escape the Skull Principal’s clutches.

Lee Han asked politely. Fortunately, Ilendil readily agreed.

“Yeah… it’s not difficult.”

‘It’s going to be very difficult…’

Diret thought to himself at Ilendil’s words.

If it truly wasn’t difficult, Einroguard students wouldn’t need to pay Ilendil a lot of money to buy it.

Alchemical potions looked simple on the surface, but once they got hard, they got endlessly hard—Diret had some knowledge, but when things got difficult, Diret handed it off to experts rather than trying to make it himself.

“Like this?”

“Not bad…”

“And then here like this?”

“Good… keep going.”

“Is it finished?”

“Hold on. Let me check… yeah. It’s finished.”

“!?”

Diret sprang to the feet while listening to their conversation.

Who just finished what?!