Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

Diret wondered what had suddenly gotten into the junior.

To begin with, hadn’t the Skull Principal always been at least a little insane?

In fact, it was slightly strange that a junior who was practically the Skull Principal’s personal disciple was only realizing that now.

“I saw this illusion.”

Lee Han hurriedly explained the illusion he had just seen.

Since Diret knew very well that an illusion seen by a mage—especially a mage who had studied divination magic—was not something to dismiss lightly, Diret listened with a serious expression.

“How tall were the trees?”

“…What?”

“In the illusion. How tall were the trees here?”

“There was almost no difference, but I think they were slightly smaller. Don’t tell me…”

After carefully confirming the height of the trees, the length of the shadows, and the other details of the scenery from the illusion the junior had seen, Diret sank into thought.

Diret had been watching the Dark Forest ever since entering the academy, so even small differences were enough to tell how much time had passed.

“It happened recently. No matter how long ago, not more than two or three months…”

“…!”

At the words that the illusion he had seen was from only a short while ago, Lee Han’s face stiffened.

“Two or three months ago? This is bad, Senior. We need to go back immediately.”

“And do what once we’re back?”

“Send an anonymous report to His Majesty the Emperor, contact the head of my house, and prepare to subjugate the Skull Principal.”

Since such a strangely specific plan came flying out at once, Diret briefly wondered whether the junior regularly thought about things like this.

“First, calm down. Junior. There are several strange points here.”

“You mean why the Skull Principal is plotting something like this? The Skull Principal normally enjoys plotting things like this.”

“That’s not what I meant… It’s a little odd that you saw this illusion in the first place. This wasn’t a prophecy of the future. You saw an illusion left behind by a mage.”

Diret already knew from last year that the junior had strong resistance to poison and illusions.

That meant this was not hostile magical interference, but something much closer to an afterimage of memory deliberately left behind by a mage.

As if it had been left for someone qualified to arrive here and see it.

If the Skull Principal really were carrying out some evil scheme, why would he deliberately leave evidence like this behind?

“I think I understand.”

“What?”

“The Skull Principal enjoys that kind of thrill.”

“…Junior…”

Diret looked troubled, but Lee Han only sounded more frustrated.

“The Skull Principal is full of madness. It wouldn’t be strange at all if the Skull Principal were plotting a conspiracy while deliberately telling other people about it!”

“Couldn’t it have been something that merely resembles the Skull Principal?”

Even while feeling it was unlikely, Diret threw the idea out anyway, just to calm the junior down.

At that, Lee Han paused.

“Wait. Come to think of it, I have heard there’s some story about the Skull Principal having an insane duplicate.”

“What? Really?”

“But that itself might be one of the Skull Principal’s evil schemes. A lie spread in advance to use as an excuse later, when the Skull Principal causes some kind of disaster…”

“Junior. I think it’s the insane duplicate.”

“I see.”

When the senior spoke so firmly, Lee Han couldn’t keep insisting and reluctantly backed down. If Diret said so, maybe it really was the insane duplicate.

It could still be a false rumor the Skull Principal created.

“Why would an insane duplicate like that be together with a mage criminal? And why would a mage criminal serve a duplicate like that as a master?”

“Junior. That’s definitely urgent too, but aren’t you really curious why the Skull Principal has an insane duplicate in the first place?”

Of course, figuring out why the mage criminal and insane duplicate had come here took priority.

Even so, Diret found it fascinating that the junior, as a mage, wasn’t curious about that question at all.

Didn’t curiosity arise even a little?

“Probably from breathing wrong or sneezing wrong.”

“…It’s only my guess, but I think it most likely came into being when the Skull Principal was raising the Skull Principal’s realm.”

Since Diret had inherited part of Gonadaltes’s magic through Professor Mortum, Diret knew a little about the magic the Skull Principal used as well.

The Skull Principal’s magic was rooted in secret arts developed in the age of the kingdoms, a time that belonged to a far older era even within what people called “ancient.”

The Skull Principal, once a prince from one of the small kingdoms, had been one of the most outstanding mages of that era, and had pursued every kind of magic mercilessly in order to rise to a higher realm.

Diret did not know what powerful and extraordinary magics had been involved in that process. No matter how gifted a student Diret was, understanding that was impossible.

But Diret had heard that among them had been a great spell that severed one’s Seven Emotions and Six Desires.

“It’s not as if there are no liches in the Empire. There are a few dark mages who legally obtained permission and became liches.”

“I’ve read about that in the papers too.”

It was hardly any secret that dark mages who reached a certain realm sometimes transformed their own bodies into undead in pursuit of an even higher realm.

And yet, surprisingly, not many people made that choice, because becoming a lich carried far heavier penalties than people expected.

A mage needed an adjustment period even after simply changing wands. Then how much adjustment would be needed after changing one’s own body?

There were more than a few liches who had changed their bodies in hope, only to despair in the end and rampage out of control.

“Wasn’t there a mad lich recently that contaminated the southern grain belt?”

“Let’s not get sidetracked, Junior. As you’ve probably guessed, a lich is not originally such a perfect existence. But the Skull Principal, though a lich, is an existence close to perfection.”

The Skull Principal often bragged about the golden-ratio beauty of the curvature of the Skull Principal’s own skull, but the perfection Diret was talking about now was not that sort of thing.

To survive from the distant ancient age all the way up to the present, it would have been impossible to remain a defective existence like an ordinary lich.

“So you mean there must have been great spells on a completely different level from ordinary lichification, and if an insane duplicate appeared in that process, it wouldn’t be surprising.”

“That’s right. I suspect the great spell that severed the Seven Emotions and Six Desires was the direct cause. I’ve never seen a spell like that in any book. Judging by the result alone, it wouldn’t be strange if it produced side effects like an uncontrollable duplicate.”

That sounds plausible.

Lee Han deeply agreed with Diret’s hypothesis.

The Skull Principal was always proudly talking about having severed the Seven Emotions and Six Desires, so it had never seemed like an ordinary spell to begin with.

If even the Skull Principal took pride in it, then it had to be a truly extraordinary spell even among ancient spells, and it {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} wouldn’t be strange if side effects the Skull Principal had never anticipated had occurred in the process.

“I’d like to support your hypothesis, Senior. But Senior, if that duplicate was born through a process like that, then for what purpose did it come to Einroguard?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Diret lightly furrowed a brow.

There did not seem to be only one insane duplicate, and not only was it impossible to know which duplicate this was, the purpose was even harder to predict.

The ordinary Skull Principal was already hard enough to predict. An insane Skull Principal would be even worse.

“But I can guess the mage criminal’s purpose. Probably to learn magic.”

“To disguise as a student at Einroguard?!”

Lee Han was startled. For a freshman, wasn’t that far too old?

“Not that. From the Skull Principal’s duplicate.”

“Ah. Right. The relationship did seem different from an ordinary master-disciple relationship.”

Usually, masters chased disciples around and hounded them to study. They did not coldly ignore disciples like that.

The master-disciple relationships you imagine are a little strange too, Junior…

Diret kept that thought to the inside.

The junior was already pitiful enough.

“If it’s the Skull Principal’s duplicate, then it would be a master more than capable of teaching magic. It makes sense that the mage criminal became infamous.”

“If it’s the Skull Principal’s duplicate, then it also makes sense that it would teach and then behave capriciously. If it got fickle just because it was bored, that wouldn’t even be strange.”

“Junior… you haven’t fought with the Skull Principal recently, have you?”

“What? No.”

Lee Han looked puzzled when Diret stared over in concern.

He was only giving a rational analysis, so why?

“N-No, I was just asking.”

“I have no idea what that duplicate of the Skull Principal was thinking when it brought a mage criminal into Einroguard. Maybe it was trying to assassinate the Skull Principal.”

“That’s definitely possible.”

Diret’s expression hardened.

The moment Diret got back, Diret would have to tell the Skull Principal what had happened here.

“But Senior.”

“What?”

“Shouldn’t we be catching the dark snail? Since you were chasing it like that, it seemed pretty useful…”

“It is useful, but not important enough to start chasing again right now. It’s just for dark-element mana recovery, general dark-magic amplification, strengthening undead summons, or reinforcing reagents…”

“……”

Lee Han squeezed his eyes shut in self-reproach.

He should never have brought up the Skull Principal’s duplicate.

The dark snail had been far more important!

Damn it. I let it get away over something this pointless.

As Lee Han was blaming himself, a strange sensation brushed across his senses.

At the same time, the bracelet Diret was wearing jingled and rang out a warning. Both mages’ expressions changed.

“Senior!”

“Hold on tight!”

Like a fifth-year student who had seen all kinds of trouble, Diret reacted instantly.

If an enemy could trigger a warning artifact even though Diret’s own senses had failed to catch it, then that was no weak opponent.

Diret bit down on the left thumb, drew blood, and scattered it into the air.

At once, bone fragments storing magic burst out from Diret’s robes and activated spells all at once.

—What is that? It looks thoroughly ominous!

What appeared was a powerful summon on an entirely different level from the temporary shadow summon Diret had called earlier.

It was a giant monstrous bird, and perhaps because it possessed intelligence, it spoke human words as it pointed behind them.

But Diret’s magic still wasn’t finished.

Each time another bone fragment ignited one by one in midair, powerful dark spells were cast.

Golems shedding green light seized hold of a massive wall of bone and drove it forward as though trying to smash the enemy flat.

“!”

Lee Han’s expression changed too when he finally saw the enemy with his own eyes.

A huge mass of black, sticky, vicious mana was racing through the forest like a wave.

That was absolutely not some naturally occurring monster of the forest.

The Skull Principal’s insane duplicate? The mage criminal?

He didn’t know which one had left it behind, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

Lee Han immediately cast several spells and finished preparing to pin the enemy down.

CRACK! BZZZT!

Third-circle frost and lightning spells shot out like bullets in a storm of suppressive fire.

Seeing that, Diret hurriedly prepared more magic, but still smiled without meaning to. It was rare to have such a dependable junior.

“The hits aren’t…”

As the enemy immediately restored its form after taking the blows, Lee Han frowned.

An opponent with recovery power like that was difficult to deal with by attacking the body. It would just turn into an endless battle of attrition.

He would either need the firepower to burn it down in one strike, or he would need to hit the weakness…

“Blood that dwells in my bones, turn to poison and become a vicious curse!”

In that interval, Diret completed a spell.

A curse spell?!

If it was a curse spell that damaged the target’s very existence, then yes, it would be effective.

But curse magic was the sort of thing that could easily be blocked by even minor defensive measures. Honestly, among mages, it was more often used for harassment than anything else.

Seeing Diret reinforce it to such a vicious degree like that, Lee Han could only admire it as a fellow member of the dark magic group.

“…Too weak!”

But Diret clicked the tongue after sensing that the curse had failed to deal a fatal blow.

—Dangerous! Diret! Dangerous!

The monstrous bird carrying the two of them cried a warning.

Even with the golems and bone barrier binding the enemy, the speed of pursuit was still steadily increasing.

…Then I’ll strike first!

With a sinister incantation, Diret pulled a sphere of black flickering energy out from the chest.

The mana inside was compressed so densely that the moment the sphere appeared, the surrounding space distorted and screamed.

Lesser World!

Lee Han realized what spell the senior was trying to use.

After all, the Skull Principal had forced him to study it, so he had learned a fair bit in the meantime.

He didn’t know what that sphere itself was, but it was clearly something that helped trigger a Lesser World temporarily.

Even so, despite how compressed the mana already was, it still seemed insufficient, and Diret grabbed the sphere and began pouring even more mana into it.

In an instant, Diret’s face turned pale, and blood began to run from the nose.

Growing desperate, Lee Han seized the sphere as well to help the senior.

“I’ll help too!”

“…!!!”

Unlike Diret, who was gathering and pouring in all the mana from the surrounding domain, the junior was shoving mana in directly with brute force from the body alone.

At that sight, Diret’s eyes went wide in shock.

“…You crazy little bas—!”

Lee Han averted his gaze and pretended not to hear.