Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

“What was that just now?!”

At Diret’s shout, Lee Han and Ilendil both startled.

“Has that crazy sunb— no, has Senior Yukbeltire found this place?”

“Has that bastard— no, has Senior Yukbeltire found this place?”

“…Yukbeltire left earlier. More importantly, didn’t you just say you made the <Liberation From the Skull> potion?”

Lee Han answered, baffled by the question.

“Not yet.”

“T-That’s right, yeah?”

At the junior’s reply, Diret wondered if Diret had misunderstood something and started to sit back down.

“I only finished the concentrate, so I still have to dilute it.”

“……”

At the absurd answer, Diret ran out of things to say.

If the concentrate was finished right before dilution, wasn’t that basically the whole thing?

“How did you make it? <Liberation From the Skull> should be a pretty difficult potion.”

“Thanks to my love for spirits—”

Ilendil tried to speak warmly with a pleased expression, but Lee Han answered first.

“It has some steps similar to <Dobruk’s Soul-Return Potion> that I helped make before, and there are a lot of processes that can be substituted with mana, so it was possible. And Ilendil did the complicated prep work in advance.”

Ilendil slowly waved a hand as if it were nothing.

“More importantly, <Dobruk’s Soul-Return Potion>… where did you ever make that?”

<Dobruk’s Soul-Return Potion> was no joke either—a high-difficulty potion that was finicky to make. It wasn’t something a first-year student would be making.

“I made it while helping with the work of Yoanen of House Meikin.”

CLANG!

Ilendil dropped the enameled bowl being held.

Then Ilendil stared at Lee Han with eyes full of shock.

“Un…der Meikin… you worked under Meikin…?”

‘Does Ilendil have a grudge against Yoanen too, by any chance?’

Lee Han was a little flustered by the senior’s reaction.

Lee Han hadn’t expected such an intense response.

“Yes. I worked there before.”

“How did you survive…?”

“……”

At Ilendil’s muttered question, Lee Han couldn’t answer right away.

It was true that Yoanen’s workshop worked people brutally hard.

“I-It wasn’t as hard as you might think.”

“That place’s nickname is the place where they grind up alchemists instead of reagents…”

“Now that I think about it, Yoanen was kind of terrifying. I was scared too.”

Lee Han tossed Yoanen away at once.

If Lee Han defended Yoanen for no reason, Lee Han felt like Lee Han would get lumped in as a weirdo too.

Ilendil comforted Lee Han as if feeling sorry.

“It must have been really rough. Making potions in a workshop like that…”

“Th-That much probably isn’t a big problem for this junior, actually. You don’t need to worry that much.”

Diret added from the side.

Given what Lee Han had done up to now, making potions in a workshop probably fell on the easy side.

Of course, Ilendil—who didn’t know that backstory—was repulsed inwardly.

‘As expected, a scary person…!’

You didn’t lead the dark magic group with iron blood and no mercy for nothing.

*****

The mages who had been roaming around like cultists eventually gave up and vanished, and dawn began to brighten in the distance.

Lee Han, who had been working hard with Ilendil making potions (and # Nоvеlight # stuffing every finished one neatly into the backpack without missing a single one), looked outside and said,

“I think we can go out now.”

“Yeah. Thanks again. We dropped by your workshop like this, and you welcomed us.”

At Diret’s words, Ilendil looked shy as if it were nothing.

“Well, you’re a junior from the same school, and…”

‘Hmm.’

Diret looked at Lee Han with complicated eyes.

It was normal to look after someone from the same school, but strictly speaking, Lee Han was a “same-school junior” to almost every senior.

‘Let’s not say anything for no reason.’

Diret held back for Ilendil’s sake.

No matter how eccentric someone was, everyone needed at least one capable junior.

“…And you’ve been taking care of the dark spirit.”

“!”

Lee Han froze.

‘Oh, right.’

Thinking back, the promise Lee Han had made when parting with Ilendil last time was to take good care of the dark spirit (that Lee Han had forced into a contract).

‘But I haven’t summoned it since then…’

Usually, if you summoned a spirit, it was because there was a situation that required it.

The problem was, there hadn’t been any situation where the dark spirit was particularly needed.

Darkness was one of the most difficult and tricky elements to handle, so there were plenty of cases where you needed a spirit’s help while wielding it—but Lee Han had just used it personally and succeeded.

With fire spirits or frost spirits, you could at least make them do small errands, but a dark spirit wasn’t good for that either…

From Lee Han’s perspective, not summoning it couldn’t really be helped.

“Could I meet it once?”

Ilendil asked, eyes glittering.

At that, Lee Han felt a heavy burden.

‘It already seemed like it hated me. If I summon it, won’t it attack me on the spot?’

Preparing to fight back if it attacked, Lee Han cautiously summoned the low-rank dark spirit.

A dark elemental spirit, gathered into a round orb-like form, revealed itself.

“Y-You… you’ve been doing well…?”

When Ilendil called, the dark elemental spirit slowly spun around.

Last time it had been in a rampage state, but it must have remembered the one who created it to some extent—it had a fairly friendly attitude.

And since Ilendil was a dryad half-blood, spirits tended to start out with a baseline fondness.

“Is there anything uncomfortable… or any problems in the spirit realm? Your elemental power?”

Watching the two converse, Lee Han grew slightly tense.

Lee Han had no idea when the dark spirit might report Lee Han.

“Is the contract okay?”

At the question, the dark spirit spun once, then made a motion of flopping down prostrate toward Lee Han.

It was clearly a display of loyalty.

“Looks like it’s okay!”

“It’s rare for a spirit to show loyalty like that. It must mean you’ve been together a long time?”

Ilendil wasn’t the only one amazed—Diret was too.

And Lee Han was amazed as well.

“???”

Lee Han couldn’t understand why the dark spirit was acting like that when it hadn’t been summoned even once.

Even though the last time they met, it had been brimming with hostility!

“Senior.”

“?”

When Lee Han whispered to call out, Diret turned.

“That dark spirit.”

“Wow. That’s impressive. It’s hard to get that kind of loyalty from a spirit, and it’s a dark spirit at that. How did you meet it?”

If Lee Han explained what Ilendil had done, it would probably make things even more awkward between them, so Lee Han lightly steered the topic aside and answered.

“After contracting it for the first time, I haven’t summoned it even once. Why is it like that?”

“…What?”

Diret doubted Diret’s ears.

Normally, time was essential if you wanted to get close to a spirit.

The time a mage and spirit built together.

That time bound two beings from different dimensions tightly together and completed their friendship.

But Lee Han had never summoned it even once.

“Why didn’t you summon it?”

“Because there was no reason to summon it…?”

“You didn’t need the dark element? You’ve summoned skeletons with dark element fused in before.”

“I just cast that myself.”

“……”

Diret realized that having too much talent could be a problem too.

To do everything that should have required a spirit’s help.

Maybe this junior not being close to spirits wasn’t only because of mana.

“Even without building time and getting close, when it shows obedience like that, usually…”

“Usually?”

“It’s because it’s scared.”

“…I didn’t do anything.”

“You don’t have to do something directly to a spirit. Depending on the mage’s life and what the mage’s done, spirits pick up on it sharply. Let’s see—junior, you recently…”

Diret traced back the things Lee Han had done lately.

Starting in the Bitong Mountains, and everything at the exchange gathering venue.

…There were too many things that came to mind.

“That’s why it got scared.”

“N-No. You said earlier it was loyalty.”

“Loyalty from fear and loyalty from affection are pretty similar, aren’t they?”

As expected of a dark magic group student, Diret had no qualms about subduing summons with fear.

Undead-dimension summons tended to be violent, so dark mages had to wield fear like a whip to keep them in line.

Of course, Lee Han pursued a slightly different direction from those seniors, so Lee Han couldn’t help feeling displeased.

“Maybe it was happy I didn’t summon it because that was kind—”

“I don’t think spirits think like humans. Junior. Just accept it. Some people get close to spirits. Some people have no choice but to make spirits submit.”

Lee Han shot a slight glare at the dark magic group senior who only ever picked the least helpful things to say.

It was irritating in a way that made it obvious Diret was Yukbeltire’s friend.

Unaware of the conversation between them, Ilendil finished talking with the dark spirit and even said goodbye.

“H-Hic. Seeing it so healthy makes me so happy…”

Seeing Ilendil’s eyes grow wet with tears while Ilendil rejoiced, Lee Han and Diret wore complicated expressions.

To change the subject, Diret quickly spoke up.

“Junior. When are you going to Granden City? It’s about time, isn’t it?”

“Huh? There’s still quite a bit of time left.”

As winter break ended and the new semester approached, students usually gathered in Granden City, the large city closest to Einroguard.

Lee Han and friends had planned to go to Granden City too, of course—but not now, with nearly two weeks still left.

Why bother staying somewhere close to Einroguard?

“Ah. Right. This is your first time, so you wouldn’t know.”

At Lee Han’s reaction, Diret realized it late and started explaining.

“Usually, staying in Granden City during winter break is a bad idea. Since it’s close to Einroguard, there’s a higher chance you’ll run into professors.”

“I ran into them even after coming all the way to Plaher City.”

“That’s because you were born with the fate of dragging professors in, junior.”

Diret replied coldly. Lee Han looked up at the senior with a wounded expression.

How could Diret say that?

“If you delay as much as possible and then arrive in Granden City, that’s not a bad idea, but once you get past second year, everyone starts arriving early.”

“Why?”

“To prepare the items you’ll bring into the school.”

“!”

Lee Han was shocked by Diret’s words.

“W-Wait, from second year on, you can do that?”

Einroguard wasn’t a school that really required supplies.

All the necessary books and equipment were provided by the school—no, they weren’t, and students had to get them themselves.

But from second year on, they bought what they needed and brought it in?

Was it because the required level of magic got higher?

“That’s interesting. The Principal allows that from second year on. I thought the Principal would forbid it.”

“……”

“……”

Diret and Ilendil stared at Lee Han.

From that gaze, Lee Han realized Lee Han had misjudged something.

“Wait, don’t tell me…”

“Of course the Principal doesn’t allow it. What I just said was about smuggling.”

What Diret had been talking about wasn’t bringing things in officially, but smuggling.

The Skull Principal, of course, banned students from bringing outside items in. That didn’t change whether you were a first year or a sixth year.

But any student who had spent more than a year in Einroguard felt the need for outside goods.

Where there was need, there was magic.

Einroguard students did everything they could to cram as many supplies as possible into the school at the start of the new semester, without caring about methods or means.

“Can’t you just leave during the semester and bring supplies back in?”

“…Junior. You know it’s not common for students to go in and out like you do, right?”

Diret looked at the junior with contempt for casually rattling off something even more difficult.