Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

The giants hoisted the Kitchen Club members onto their shoulders one by one, then let the mountain-range-destroying sheep loose.

As if it meant to tear the world apart, the mountain-range-destroying sheep began moving with terrifying intensity, tracking the traces of magic.

—Find the places that feel stifling and foul!

Ikurusha shouted to the giants.

They were not mages, but their instincts were as keen and sharp as any mage’s.

If the place where the boy Wardanaz had disappeared was real, then wicked magic would surely be bubbling there. They needed to find the places even giants found hard to approach.

Rumble!

“What was that sound?”

Meanwhile, the Library Club members approaching from another direction froze at the distant roar.

The vast mountain range of Einroguard was packed with every kind of danger imaginable. If you did not pay attention even to small sounds, you did not survive.

“Sound, reveal your source.”

Sebius cast a spell.

It was magic that exposed the identity of whatever was making the noise.

“Senior Sebius. What is it?”

“……”

Instead of answering, Sebius broke out in a cold sweat. At that reaction, the Library Club members panicked.

What was wrong?

“What is it? A mammoth?”

“That sound’s way too loud. Is it a mountain-range-destroying sheep?”

“Don’t be insane. A mountain-range-destroying sheep would never come this far down. If it did, it’d be the end of the world.”

The moment the others finished speaking, a giant’s head rose over the hill below.

Then a mountain-range-destroying sheep leaped up and landed right in front of the students.

—You lot help too! A student has gone missing!

“……”

“……”

The Library Club members struggled to process the situation.

A giant, a mountain-range-destroying sheep, and…

mages from another club who had apparently already been kidnapped?

“Why are you all there??”

“We were looking for our junior. …What about you?”

“We were looking for our junior too…”

—Move!

—Is this really the time to stand around chatting? How rude!

The giants flew into a rage.

Even hurrying would not have been enough, and yet these mages were standing around talking leisurely.

“S-sorry.”

The students apologized under the giants’ scolding.

It somehow made them feel like they were the uncultured, rude ones.

They still had no idea why the giants were helping with the search, but…

Whoosh—

“!”

Sebius’s eyes widened when a massive book flew overhead.

That was Senior Ileg’s flying artifact.

And riding along with Ileg were…

Other fifth-years?!

It made sense that club members would come out. The new junior was too valuable a talent not to. But why were fifth-year students, who ought to have been buried in their own research, getting involved?

Just how many people came into these mountains?

*****

“Diret. Are you listening?”

“I said I got it! I said I’d help with the research! Say it one more time and I’ll make it an even hundred!”

“It’s only been seven times. One more would make eight, not a hundred.”

“The two of you, please stop fighting.”

Ileg intervened between Princess Yukbeltire and Diret.

There was too much they needed to do. If the two of them started fighting, even the possible would become impossible.

“Still, this is impressive. You actually managed to persuade Lady Yukbeltire.”

“It wasn’t persuasion. It was negotiation.”

Ileg had joined in first because Ileg was a fellow Library Club member, and because someone conducting Music Magic research had been kidnapped.

Princess Yukbeltire, on the other hand, had proved worthy of being Professor Verdus’s disciple. Belonging to the same magical group was not enough, by itself, to make Princess Yukbeltire help with a rescue.

In the end, Diret had only managed to bring Princess Yukbeltire in by promising to help with the research.

Maybe I should just shove this one straight off.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to bring Caten too?”

“I was going to, but when I asked around, I heard Caten had gone missing too. Probably somewhere out in the desert…”

If their fifth-year friend from White Tiger Tower had been here, that would have been a big help in a situation like this. But there was no dragging in someone who was not there.

Diret sighed and looked down below.

The gray-white mountains sprawled there, utterly unconcerned with what Diret was feeling inside…

“…????”

Diret’s eyes went round at the sight of giants and students ransacking the area together.

“Yukbeltire. Look down there.”

At the call, Princess Yukbeltire sighed as well.

Right now, the artifact was focused on searching the surrounding area, and yet Diret was calling over something pointless.

For all the brilliance of Diret’s talent, Diret was far too distractible.

“Diret. If you’re about to start telling me to look at the scenery and calm down again, spare me. I’m not a child who feels better just from looking at a view.”

“Hey. Just look.”

Diret had absolutely no intention of calling over because the scenery was pretty. A few too many previous attempts at that had only earned, How is this supposed to help with magic?

“…!”

“The giants!”

Princess Yukbeltire and Ileg both stared downward in shock.

The giants were very clearly searching for someone.

A few Library Club members had even been kidnapped by the giants in the process.

“Everyone. Our club juniors have been captured. We need to help them!”

“Chagla.”

Princess Yukbeltire called to Ileg in a serious voice.

“Stop wasting effort looking after juniors beneath your level. It will not help your magic in the slightest.”

Ileg ignored that naturally.

“Diret. Can you assist if we have to deal with the giants?”

“I can help, but those giants are… friends of our junior.”

“?”

“??”

The two fifth-years looked at Diret as if to ask what kind of nonsense that was, and Diret’s face reddened slightly.

“They really are friends! They’re probably searching for Wardanaz.”

“How is that even…?”

“I see.”

Unlike Ileg, who was interested «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» in the junior and curious about the situation, Princess Yukbeltire coolly took stock of reality.

Whether the junior was friends with giants or not was, to Princess Yukbeltire personally, not all that important.

Unless the giants were conducting some research Princess Yukbeltire needed, there was no reason to waste time asking useless questions.

“Then we should make use of the giants’ instincts.”

No matter how great a mage’s spellcraft was, perfect magic did not exist.

There had to be a flaw somewhere, and if they could exploit that flaw cleverly enough, they might be able to rescue the junior without the great mage noticing.

Princess Yukbeltire intended to follow the giants’ sixth sense.

“Yukbeltire. If those giants and juniors find a flaw in the magic, how long do you think it will take before we can get in?”

“At least one—”

“One day??”

“One month. What are you talking about?”

“No. We have to solve this within a day.”

“Diret. Magic does not work just because you insist—”

“Make it work!”

*****

“Ghk!”

Lee Han flew backward.

This time it was not because the insane duplicate had attacked. It was because the spell had failed.

When he failed to maintain the form, the telekinetic force scattered in all directions and hurled Lee Han away.

…I think I understand why people stick to spells like <Low-Grade Control>.

With the output firmly capped, a spell like <Low-Grade Control> was not especially dangerous even when it failed.

But the moment someone, like Lee Han now, tried to drag the output upward and wield it freely, the danger of failure rose sharply too.

Firing it out in the form of a shockwave works more or less, but keeping it in the shape of a whip and swinging it around is awful…

Still, it was not all failure.

What surprised even Lee Han himself was that, quite unexpectedly, telekinesis really suited him.

The casting speed in particular was almost complete already.

“Strike!”

Boom!

With that abbreviated incantation, compressed telekinetic force lashed into the wall.

Not only had the speed of drawing up mana and converting it into telekinetic force exceeded expectations, but even the incantation-shortening had succeeded this quickly.

At this rate, incantationless casting might actually be possible.

Lee Han himself had not realized it, but the ordeals of the past year had only pushed his inborn talent further into bloom.

And in his case, the peculiar nature of telekinesis—which had to be cast entirely through the mage’s own mind, without borrowing the power of any other element—actually lowered the difficulty.

Instant casting born of overwhelming mana and concentration.

If he could clear incantationless casting, one of the hardest hurdles in this spell…

“Who are you?”

“!”

At the sound of an unfamiliar voice behind him, Lee Han spun around in alarm.

The speaker was a mage wearing a mask of true silver and archaic clothing of a style no longer seen anywhere in the Empire.

Faced with someone whose thoughts he could not guess at all, Lee Han raised his guard.

“My newly taken disciple.”

The insane duplicate answered in Lee Han’s place.

Though the figure itself was nowhere in sight, the voice echoed throughout the workshop. That was enough to confirm, once again, that the insane duplicate was still watching to make sure Lee Han did not escape.

Good thing I didn’t try anything rash.

“Master, if I may dare to speak one word. The students of Einroguard are certainly gifted, but most of them are still uncut stones. Whether this one can truly accomplish what you desire—”

Thunk!

A burning blade of darkness formed in midair and pierced the mage’s body.

Coughing in pain, Antagondals still forced out words of apology.

“…My apologies, Master.”

“You’re a servant, nothing more. I let you drop the formal address out of generosity, and now you think you can climb over me? Open that mouth one more time.”

The blade spun and ripped through Antagondals’s body a second time.

Lee Han was horrified as he realized that, by comparison, the insane duplicate had actually been rather kind to him so far.

To think it would simply stab someone for one displeasing sentence.

Even for a disciple—no, a servant—that’s too much!

Antagondals, however, did not seem particularly bothered.

After pulling the dark blade out personally, Antagondals flicked a hand and drove out the sinister energy before sealing the wound. Silver threads wove through the air and stitched the injury tightly shut.

Once the wound had been treated roughly, Antagondals stared at Lee Han through the mask.

“Are you all right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your wound.”

“Ah. That? Once you know what kind of magic it was, treating it isn’t that difficult.”

Antagondals’s voice sounded young at times and old at others.

Sometimes it sounded masculine, but there was femininity in it too, and even the race was impossible to tell.

“Judging by that expression, perhaps this was a little too stimulating for an Einroguard student. Why? Does it surprise you that someone might get stabbed by a master to learn magic?”

“To be honest, yes.”

The great mage let out a low chuckle from behind the mask, then cast a soundproofing barrier so the conversation would not leak out.

“If even offering up the soul would not be too great a price, why would being stabbed matter? It’s a transaction. That monster likes having a servant to flatter it, and I like being able to pry fragments of ancient magic out of that monster.”

At that, Lee Han realized that Antagondals did not truly regard the insane duplicate as a master.

This was closer to a deal between parties whose interests happened to align.

The way old mages think really is impossible to keep up with.

“I saw the illusion left in the forest.”

“The illusion?”

Lee Han explained the illusion he had seen—Antagondals begging and raging at the insane duplicate.

After hearing that, Antagondals laughed again.

“So you saw that? No wonder. If that monster brought you here, your sensitivity must be exceptional.”

“It was an illusion somewhat different from what I’m seeing now…”

“Of course it was. You saw the moment that monster went insane.”

“??”

Lee Han could not make sense of that.

The thing was already an insane duplicate. How could it have gone insane on top of that?

“Sometimes that monster grows lenient. I aimed for that moment, went to all the trouble of putting on a human face, and tried appealing to its emotions.”

Basically, the insane duplicate focused only on the honor it recognized for itself, but every so often it became unusually lenient.

Antagondals had tried to take advantage of one of those moments and appeal to its emotions, but had gained very little for the effort.

“Why does it become lenient sometimes?”

“Haha! If there’s a moment when the monster grows weak, then you exploit it. Why would anyone care why?”

The magical criminal was satisfied so long as enough fragments of ancient magic could be scraped together by indulging the insane duplicate’s whims.

Lee Han, however, could not help being interested when he heard that the Skull Principal’s insane duplicate sometimes became lenient.

Maybe some trace of sanity is still left.

For someone who had to escape somehow, that was too important a hope to ignore.

“So what task did that monster give you?”

Lee Han explained the assignment the insane duplicate had forced on him.

When Antagondals heard that, the loudest laughter of the day burst out.

“You’re as good as dead!”