Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

“My arms hurt, guys.”

“You keep trying to stand up!”

“Wardanaz. I think it would be best if you stayed seated.”

Not just Giselle—even Nigisor from Phoenix Tower, who was sitting in front of him, told him to sit down.

In the end, Lee Han gave up and sat.

“Fine. Fine. But don’t fight. Last time I sat between you two, my ears hurt.”

“If that Tutanta bastard didn’t keep spewing nonsense, there wouldn’t be anything to fight about.”

At Giselle’s sarcastic jab, Salco fired right back.

“If your vulgar tower rabble hadn’t stolen our prey, we wouldn’t have had any reason to speak to you either.”

“Ha! What a shameless distortion. We found that deer first.”

“Just because you found it doesn’t make it your prey. Are you knights unfamiliar with Imperial law, by any chance? That prey stepped into the trap we laid.”

“It stepped into the trap after getting hit by our arrow! The way you twist things, were you trained by the Lawyers’ Guild instead of the Stonemason Guild?”

Lee Han closed his eyes and pretended not to hear the noise coming from both sides.

Meanwhile, Giselle and Salco’s quarrel spread into a shouting match between the students of the two towers.

“It stepped in the trap first! Are you blind?!”

“You must’ve drunk some strange potion over winter break. Unlike you, deer have eyes. There’s no way they’d just step into some sloppy trap you laid! It got hit by our arrow, staggered, and then stepped into it!”

As they snarled at one another, a Black Turtle Tower student called out to Lee Han, who still had his eyes shut.

“Wardanaz! What do you think?! Those deer that show up on the northern Frost Path—they get caught in traps all the time! We even set traps together! You remember, right?!”

When the Black Turtle Tower student shamelessly dragged Lee Han into it, Anglago ground his teeth.

Calling Wardanaz first was bad enough, but trying to lure him in with shared memories too?

“Wardanaz! Don’t listen to those bastards! You, uh… right! You were invited to Moradi territory this winter break too!”

Anglago had tried to persuade Lee Han with shared memories, but when nothing came to mind, blurted out the first thing that did.

“……”

“……”

“……”

And then silence fell between the Black Turtle Tower students and the White Tiger Tower students.

Giselle covered his face with a hand and sank into anguish.

Should I just kill that idiot…

He had clearly explained it already—Lee Han had only come along because he was helping the Skull Principal—yet the fool had gone and flapped his mouth like that anyway.

Realizing belatedly that he had misspoken, Anglago hurriedly added:

“I mean, technically it wasn’t House Moradi that invited him. He just wound up visiting while following the Headmaster around and helping with work!”

“What kind of absurd bullshit is that?”

A Black Turtle Tower student muttered from the side.

Even if you were going to lie, you needed to tell a lie that at least sounded plausible if you wanted anyone to pretend to believe it. That was just too lazy.

Tiltiling tilted his head and said:

“Isn’t it a good thing to invite one another to family territories and visit them?”

“Oh dear. Priest Tiltiling. It is not that simple. The delicate hostility between Black Turtle Tower and White Tiger Tower was being kept in balance by Wardanaz’s neutral attitude, but if Wardanaz starts taking White Tiger Tower’s side from now on…”

BANG!

“!?”

“Hey. Just take the deer, you sons of bitches.”

Giselle declared it while radiating the kind of killing intent that said the next person to bring up this topic was dead.

Salco was the sort who would speak his mind even in front of the Skull Principal, but today, of all days, even he just nodded and accepted it.

If he pried any further and Wardanaz ended up getting closer to White Tiger Tower, that would be a problem.

“Fine. Let’s pretend we didn’t hear it.”

“But, Salco. The part about following the Headmaster around and helping with work was true.”

“Wardanaz. The more you take Moradi’s side, the more weight Priest Nigisor’s prediction from a moment ago gains.”

“……”

*****

It took about thirty minutes for Lee Han to convince his friends about what had happened over the break.

Tiltiling raised a hand and asked:

“Priest Tiltiling. What are you curious about?”

“I can’t help but feel that we ought to send an anonymous letter denouncing the Headmaster to His Majesty.”

“A fair point. But astonishingly enough, it was a journey carried out under His Majesty the Emperor’s tacit approval.”

“……”

“……”

Lee Han thought he heard one of the students mutter, Is the Empire doomed?, but figured he had probably misheard and let it pass.

“That figures. Wardanaz would go anywhere as long as there was work to be done.”

Now that he was finally reassured, Salco nodded.

“Exactly. Exactly. If not for the Headmaster’s vicious threats and harassment, there’s no way you would have gone to House Moradi’s territory.”

“No, it wasn’t quite that bad. The territory was nice, actually. Moradi. Tell us about your territory.”

“Don’t call on me…”

Giselle leaned back in the chair with eyes closed, looking thoroughly fed up with the entire conversation.

If he added to Lee Han’s story, people would misunderstand and think they were close. If he refused to add to it, it would look like he was admitting his territory was unimpressive.

And whose fault is all this? Alpha? No. If you really think about it, maybe it’s the Headmaster’s fault. If you think about it even more, maybe it’s Wardanaz’s fault…

While Giselle fled from reality, the students from each tower began chattering about what had happened over the last few days.

“Has anyone taken the lecture <How to Live in Luxury with Spirits>? I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it.”

“I think that lecture doesn’t exist. No matter how much I looked, I couldn’t find the classroom.”

“Wardanaz, which do you think suits me better: <Elemental Form Transformation—Fire Element> or <Enhanced Elemental Control—Fire Element>?”

“I’m not sure why you’re asking me, but I think the enhanced-control lecture would suit you better. You were a little shaky last time you used that burning-hand spell.”

“That’s what I thought too. I’ll take the enhanced-control lecture.”

“Wardanaz. Me too. Me too. I’m trying to decide on a club right now…”

The inside turned noisy in an instant.

There was so much piled up between them that the talking never stopped, questions and answers bouncing back and forth without pause. In Lee Han’s case in particular, there were so many students with questions that they practically formed a line.

“Everybody line up. Right, stand at the back here. If you give me a snack, I’ll let you move to the front.”

“Wardanaz! That prince bastard is scamming people!”

“N-no, I was joking!”

Only after finishing lecture consultations for thirteen students and club consultations for nine did the cluster of friends around Lee Han finally disappear.

Thinking that now they could finally talk seriously, Salco opened his mouth.

“Wardanaz. Sorry to keep burdening you when you’ve already been through a lot, but there’s something we need to discuss. This is important.”

Giselle also shook off the earlier shock and pulled his chair closer. He had a rough idea of what Salco was about to bring up.

“What is it?”

“Originally, I thought once we became second-years, we’d be able to trade with the seniors. I thought things would be much better than first year, when we had to scrape together supplies among ourselves. But…”

“The seniors seemed insane.”

“I was so startled I nearly set something on fire.”

Giselle was not the only one horrified by Einroguard’s insane prices. Nigisor had been just as appalled.

There was even a black market in the seventh-floor district, but there was nothing there that students who had only just become second-years could actually afford.

Salco took out a single copper nail.

“Some kind of magic nail?”

“No. I mean this is all I could afford, Wardanaz. The seniors absolutely refuse to do business on credit.”

“……”

“At this rate, we’ll be tighter for money than we were last year. And since you joined the Kitchen Club, food will probably be scarce too.”

“?”

Listening ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) to this, Lee Han tilted his head.

He genuinely could not understand what Salco meant.

“What does me joining the Kitchen Club have to do with food being scarce?”

“Wardanaz… you haven’t actually gone to the Kitchen Club, have you?”

Giselle stared at Lee Han, suddenly suspicious. Faced with his elf friend glaring at him, Lee Han answered in puzzlement.

“I haven’t gone yet.”

“What? Why? You joined.”

“To be precise, I got joined. There are too many clubs and lectures. I haven’t even had time to visit yet.”

“……”

An awkward silence drifted through the room for a moment.

Tiltiling carefully made the suggestion again.

“The anonymous letter, seriously…”

“No. I don’t think joining too many clubs would be the problem. I’m already taking too many schools anyway.”

Tiltiling almost said, Then why did you take so many in the first place, but swallowed it because it seemed too cruel.

“More importantly, Salco—what does the Kitchen Club have to do with food being scarce?”

“Wardanaz. All Kitchen Club members make a sacred oath.”

“An oath to make delicious and safe food, something like that?”

“No. An oath not to sell food cheaper than the other club members out of pointless sympathy.”

“……”

For a moment, Lee Han thought Salco was joking.

But the faces of the other friends were all deadly serious.

“What kind of insane oath is that?”

“It’s not completely unreasonable. Look at the other clubs. They’d ask for dozens of gold coins even for the job of bringing you a glass of water. The Kitchen Club couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.”

Giselle said it in a sarcastic tone, but it was still true.

Even if the Kitchen Club alone sold things cheaply, the other clubs and students were not going to feel remorse and rethink themselves.

In the end, only the Kitchen Club students would take the loss.

“So even the food I secure has to be sold at high prices?”

“That’s right. Think about what happened last year.”

Just as one would expect from a prodigy who even participated in the management of House Moradi, Giselle analyzed the matter coldly.

If you considered what had happened last year, then letting Wardanaz run free would pose a very real risk of crashing the Kitchen Club’s revenue.

The amount of food Wardanaz secured was not at the level of one person gathering a little here and there.

“So even my food, the food I brought in, has to be sold for gold coins…”

“Wardanaz. Are you happy right now?”

Salco was confused. He honestly could not tell whether Lee Han was shocked or delighted.

“I’m shocked. The club’s rules are truly harsh. Don’t worry too much. I’ll sell to you at last year’s prices.”

Snapping out of his shock—and delight—Lee Han regained his composure.

Since he would be able to strip the seniors of a huge amount of gold coins, he could afford to be relatively generous with his friends.

“Hey. What exactly did I just hear? You said there’s an oath. Of course there’ll be a geas attached too.”

Giselle was dumbfounded.

The rules of a mages’ organization were not something so lax.

“And stop feeding those other idiots too. It’s about time they learned to earn their own meals.”

“The geas probably won’t take.”

Lee Han, having already experienced the Skull Principal’s geas several times, was not especially worried no matter what sort of geas the club used.

“Besides, unlike last year, even if I wanted to feed them, there won’t be many chances. Between the club rules and the seniors watching, I can’t exactly do it openly… Wait. What about this? From now on, we gather here in secret. Regularly. We help each other among ourselves.”

As he spoke, Lee Han urged the friends from each tower to take out the paper-bundle artifacts they had divided among themselves.

“I haven’t had a chance to use this even once until now, but now it finally has a purpose. I’ll teach you how to recharge it. It’s the kind of artifact that quietly devours mana, so it can get annoying if you don’t prepare in advance.”

“Wardanaz. We talked with this during the Saint Iactus festival.”

Salco stared at Lee Han with a face that said, What nonsense are you talking about?

Lee Han answered calmly.

“You must have forgotten because while you all insisted on participating in the festival, I was so busy treating the injured that I didn’t have a moment to breathe. Thank you for reminding me, Salco.”

From the back, Anglago grumbled.

“Tutanta. You bastard. Wardanaz had forgotten, so why’d you remind him?”