Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

“Haha. Then I’ll draw first, Senior!”

The students gathered for Music Magic lined up amicably and began drawing lots.

“Oh.”

“What is it?”

“I got lucky. It’s a pan flute piece. No lyrics either, so it should be easier.”

The senior who had drawn a piece tied to an instrument they were confident with lit up in delight.

The next senior drew a trumpet piece they had wanted and looked just as satisfied.

Huh?

Watching, Lee Han found himself puzzled.

Once might have been coincidence, but for them to keep drawing pieces that suited them so well felt strange.

And when he sharpened his senses and checked the lottery box, he could feel a complicated current of mana inside it.

“Senior Ileg. Could it be that this box…”

“Shh.”

Ileg raised a thick finger and motioned for silence. Lee Han found himself instantly shutting his mouth without even meaning to.

The spectacled-bear beastkin senior gave him a wink.

“So you really do have talent? To think you noticed. That’s right. This isn’t an ordinary drawing.”

The principle inside this box came from Princess Yukbeltire’s Calendarium.

As a fellow fifth-year, Ileg had borrowed magic from Princess Yukbeltire and built a simple drawing box with it.

It could not calculate countless lectures the way the Calendarium could, but for something like a lottery box, this was more than enough.

“Wouldn’t it be better to tell the others?”

“No. They’ll feel much better if they think they drew their pieces by their own luck.”

“!”

Lee Han was impressed by his senior’s thoughtfulness.

He had even prepared this kind of lie just so the other students could enjoy a sense of accomplishment.

No. Wait. Why does Phoenix Tower have fifth-years like this?

Now that he thought about it, the fifth-years in Black Turtle Tower and Phoenix Tower were all the sort of people worthy of more respect than most professors.

Compared to that, the fifth-year in his tower was basically Professor Verdus’s handpicked disciple…

…I hope the fifth-year in White Tiger Tower has a complete trash personality.

Entertaining that malicious thought, Lee Han stepped in front of the box.

—Retreat to the Shadow Fortress, violin

Dark element again?

Lee Han looked at Ipadur. As if he had been waiting, Ipadur immediately explained the piece.

“<Retreat to the Shadow Fortress> is a fairly famous piece. Student Wardanaz, you drew a good one.”

“Is it a dark-element amplification piece?”

“I do not believe so… The shadow fortress here is metaphorical, not an actual fortress belonging to mages who used shadow magic.”

Ipadur slowly explained the origin of the piece.

<Retreat to the Shadow Fortress> was a piece based on an old fable, describing a gifted young prince fleeing to a fortress to escape death as it chased him.

The young prince used all sorts of tricks to alter the fortress, and in the end death did not dare enter and withdrew…

“…Why does that suit me?”

“W-well? Because it’s a violin piece?”

Lee Han took the score with a dubious expression.

Of course, anything he could perform was good, but he had wanted a somewhat more practical score.

I was hoping for something like luck or intelligence.

In truth, Lee Han had no idea why this score had been drawn for him either.

Was it telling him to prepare for the dangerous life of a second-year?

“Everyone. Read over the score you picked carefully. Starting next week, we’ll meet during lecture time.”

“Yes!”

The students who had gathered for Music Magic nodded and rose from their seats.

In truth, they had only gathered separately today because Music Magic was so unusual. Normally, there would have been no reason to gather like this on a weekend.

“See you next week.”

“Wait. Wardanaz.”

Ileg stopped Lee Han just as he was about to leave last.

Even though he had done nothing wrong, Lee Han instinctively tensed anyway.

“What is it?”

“Don’t come to Music Magic lecture next week. Get a proper rest instead. You worked hard enough by yourself today.”

“…Senior…!”

*****

Even though the night was dark, Lee Han walked on with a warm heart thanks to Ileg’s parting words.

There are really people like that in this world.

He felt almost guilty for the complaints he had been harboring while preparing for Music Magic.

Lee Han vowed that from now on, he would devote himself to Senior Ileg.

“…Glory of kingship…”

“!”

A humming voice drifted in from somewhere.

At Einroguard, screams, shouting, and spell incantations were all common enough. Unlike last year, Lee Han no longer stopped in his tracks over every strange noise.

But the sound reaching him now was fundamentally different from the usual noise of Einroguard.

This was…

Word-of-command magic!

The presence packed into the voice itself was shaking reality.

As far as Lee Han knew, only word-of-command magic could do something like that.

And in this school, there should have been only one person who would be strolling around at this hour, idly humming with word-of-command magic.

No—there had to be only one.

“…Skull Principal?”

No answer came back.

Lee Han immediately pulled out his wand, cast the spells he had stored with <Low-Grade Magic Storage>, and began layering every enhancement spell he could use.

But despite those flawless motions, his instincts began to scream.

The extraordinary sensitivity he had been born with, his ability to sense mana, was telling him just how powerful the being before him was.

Flash!

As casually as if out for a walk, a human-shaped Skull Principal stepped out of the bushes beside the path.

But Lee Han could tell at once that this Skull Principal was someone else.

The Skull Principal normally was already unpredictable, already quite mad in plenty of ways…

But the Skull Principal standing before him now radiated a coldness that did not feel human at all.

“Was it you?”

“Who are you?”

Instead of answering, the other lightly flicked a hand.

The thick mist around Lee Han and the heavy ice shield he had raised were ripped apart in a single blow, and an invisible, formless force smashed into the place where Lee Han had been standing.

Boom!

Lee Han barely escaped the attack’s range by hurling himself aside after seeing it one second ahead with divination magic.

This is…!

To think even a casual attack from the other side would have this much force.

Cold sweat ran down his back.

Relying on the divination magic he had cast, Lee Han struggled to predict even one of the other side’s attacks.

But unlike Lee Han, whose every nerve was strung tight, the Skull Principal’s insane duplicate continued to regard him with the same inorganic stare.

“I heard Music Magic and came, only to have my ears defiled. How do you intend to repay royalty for such trouble?”

Is this bastard insane?

Lee Han instantly understood why this was called an insane duplicate.

It had heard Music Magic and come over thinking, Oh, Music Magic? Then after hearing it, it started making a scene over This is all it amounts to?

Even the original Skull Principal was not that shameless and brazen.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

For the moment, Lee Han played dumb.

If he denied using Music Magic, what exactly could the other do about it?

But this time his prediction was wrong. Madness was, by nature, impossible to predict.

Boom!

Another telekinetic strike came flying in, just like before.

Even though <Bagreg’s Momentary Foresight> was active, this time Lee Han saw nothing at all. He realized that in that brief instant, the other had noticed his divination magic and started using it as well.

Once both mages began using divination magic, prediction entered the realm of the nearly incomprehensible.

If he had not drawn on all the mana in his body the instant the blow hit and blocked it, he would have been incapacitated on the spot.

“Khk…!”

Lee Han found himself thankful for the swordsmanship training he had received last year.

If he had trusted only in magic and never hardened his body, he would have been completely helpless against a surprise attack like this.

I need to extend the foresight window…!

Even sprawled on the ground, Lee Han’s mind spun furiously.

He did not know whether the other was letting a guard down or not, but somehow he had to find a single opening and at least get away.

To do that, he needed to extend the current foresight window of about one second and knock the other’s foresight off balance, even briefly.

Divination magic burns through mana. The other side probably only used it for a moment to stop me, not for long-term maintenance. Just one gap…

“Your foresight is decent.”

With those words, the Skull Principal’s insane duplicate cut off Lee Han’s foresight.

Lee Han realized his divination magic had been blocked.

The other had read the future first and sealed off the various possibilities with certainty, so Lee Han’s later foresight had ground to a halt.

…So this is how you’ll answer.

And then Lee Han moved again.

A vast amount of mana was offered up as sacrifice, and the time glimpsed by <Bagreg’s Momentary Foresight> abruptly lengthened.

The Skull Principal’s insane duplicate realized its opponent had slipped out of the palm of its hand, and its gaze turned cold.

“Darkness, sweep through!”

Lee Han desperately scattered dark elements everywhere, then cast a frost-element duplicate and widened the distance.

Rumble—

The surrounding earth suddenly rose all at once and transformed into stone walls. Trusting in his mana reserves, Lee Han cast <Tutanta Family’s Rock Disassembly>.

By the time he blasted his way through, the far side of the stone wall had already turned into quicksand. Before he could even set foot down, the sand rose up and tried to bind him.

Fortunately, Lee Han had already cast <Gonadaltes’s Quickening Agility>.

Combining it with enhancement magic, he explosively fired mana through the tips of his feet and leapt, kicking off the air itself.

At last he escaped the encirclement—only to stare in horror at the insane duplicate standing right in front of him.

It had relocated through space before he could even notice.

“I was ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) enraged by that base Music Magic, but your other magic is serviceable. Good. I shall take you as my disciple.”

“What?”

Boom!

The insane duplicate lashed out again, irritated by this disciple who kept committing irreverence.

Answering a question with another question, telling lies, forgetting to show awe…

Whatever house he came from, this was barbaric conduct beyond belief.

“…!”

But this time Lee Han did not go flying. He somehow endured it.

For the first time, the insane duplicate looked at him with surprise.

“That spell just now—did you use it instinctively?”

“……”

Lee Han himself had no idea what he had just done.

He had only predicted the power and trajectory of the incoming attack and thought desperately that he had to block it, and somehow, he had.

“An acceptable shield spell. Do not forget to study it.”

“Th-thank you?”

Even in the middle of this, the other had just advised him to analyze what he had done and turn it back into a proper spell, and Lee Han answered before he even realized it.

Slash!

The insane duplicate tore open a dimensional rift in midair. Then, with a single gesture, it hurled Lee Han through it.

Thud!

When the duplicate itself vanished through the rift right after him, nothing remained on the forest path of Einroguard.

Enough to make the fierce life-and-death struggle that had just taken place there feel like a lie.

*****

“Sit.”

“……”

Lee Han tried as hard as he could to stay calm.

He did not know exactly where they were, but it did seem to still be within Einroguard territory.

A mountain range? All I can see around me are cliffs and peaks, and there aren’t any giants or sheep anywhere.

Lee Han glanced at the emergency signal ring, thinking he needed to call the Skull Principal.

But the insane duplicate gave him no chance.

He had no idea how far ahead the other was reading, but he knew instinctively that the moment he tried to use the ring, he would be stopped.

“You must be wondering why royalty brought along someone as trivial as you as a disciple.”

“…Yes!”

“It is simple. A successor is needed to carry glory onward.”

“May I ask a question?”

“So long as it is not a useless one.”

The insane duplicate made it clear that if Lee Han asked a pointless question, he would be punished.

Cursing inwardly, Lee Han asked,

“Um… does Your Highness not already have many glorious disciples?”

“What nonsense are you talking about? I have none.”

“……”

At that answer, Lee Han realized that this opponent did not count the Skull Principal’s disciples as disciples at all.