Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

“Phew. Forget it. Let’s just set up camp.”

Unaware that Raphaedel was horrified inside, Gainando spoke with a sullen expression.

Because of the reverse-summoned summon, no matter what he did, the whole world felt gray.

“Y-you bastard. Are you suddenly trying to act dignified all by yourself…! How cowardly!”

“What are you talking about? I said let’s set up camp. Do you want to see Lee Han get angry?”

Gainando was dumbfounded when Raphaedel started saying nonsense.

He was already upset because one of his summons had been reverse-summoned, so what kind of garbage was this?

“G-grr. Don’t think this is over.”

Did this one drink something wrong?

Gainando wondered if his friend had inhaled some hallucinogenic powder while passing through the forest region.

Why keep spouting nonsense…

“Call a summon and dig around here a little.”

By the time one reached Einroguard’s second year, whether noble-born or slave-born, one had the skill to camp anywhere.

Gainando checked the surrounding terrain, pointed with his finger, and asked. It was convenient in many ways to # Nоvеlight # dig a small moat near the camp.

“Your summon would be more convenient, wouldn’t it? It’s bigger…”

“Did I have something like that?”

Gainando feigned ignorance. Of course, it did not work on Raphaedel.

Since Gainando had bragged about it 131 times a day after contracting it, it was not easy to forget.

“The big one with spiked armor. That one would be perfect for work like this.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s right! Thorn Revenant. That was the name.”

“…It got reverse-summoned! Happy now?!”

Gainando snapped and threw a bone.

Even after getting hit in the face with a bone, Raphaedel looked flustered instead of getting angry.

For an undead summon to be completely destroyed and reverse-summoned.

This was a fairly serious matter for a dark mage.

It would take quite some time to recover, and even after it recovered, there was no telling whether the contract would be maintained properly.

Undead summons were vile and violent, so they did not understand mages’ circumstances very well.

“Was… was it that fierce? Sorry.”

“…Forget it. Do the work instead.”

“I-I can’t either.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Gainando was puzzled when Raphaedel hesitated.

Raphaedel belonged to the dark magic school too, so Raphaedel had a contracted summon.

“Did yours get reverse-summoned too?”

“No… not that.”

“Then what?”

“…It looked tired today, so I want to let it rest.”

“……”

Gainando doubted his ears.

An undead summon looked tired, so Raphaedel wanted to let it rest.

…What in the world was that…?

“What… what are you talking about? Is it part of the contract?”

“No… I did not make that kind of contract.”

“Then make it work.”

“I-it’s pitiful…”

…How much does this one cherish an undead summon??

Gainando was appalled.

Raphaedel was the most protective of a summon out of all the dark mages he had ever seen!

“You said dark magic was just a means! When you contracted an undead summon, you said you were just hiring it to understand the enemy!”

“That was the intention!”

“Then call it! What do you mean, let it rest!”

“Th-this is… yes. I am trying to make it lower its guard and deceive it. If I treat it well, it will lower its guard…”

“…You’re lying!! You expect me to believe that?”

Gainando and Raphaedel fought for nearly ten minutes over “Admit you like undead” and “No, I hate undead.”

Then they acknowledged that they were running on parallel tracks.

“Hah, haah… Fine. Neither of us will use summons…”

“Y-yes. I am glad you understand. …Then how are we going to dig around here?”

“Are you good at earth magic?”

“No… you?”

“I’m not good at earth magic either…”

The two stared at each other.

There was only one method left.

*****

“??”

“Why are you two doing that with shovels?”

The friends working on the other side looked at Gainando and Raphaedel in puzzlement.

Why was a mage holding a shovel and doing that?

“It’s a s-secret of dark magic.”

“Is… is that so?”

The friends wondered whether dark magic did not have summons, but they let it pass for the moment.

They still had their own share of work left, and they did not know much about dark magic.

“…Why are you two doing that with shovels?”

Of course, they could not fool Lee Han. Lee Han looked at Raphaedel with bewildered eyes.

Gainando did not have a summon, so that much was one thing, but why that one too?

“…My summon was actually reverse-summoned too…”

“Lee Han! This bastard says the summon looks tired, so no work for it today!”

“Hey!”

Raphaedel was horrified, but Lee Han had already heard everything.

Lee Han looked at Raphaedel with shock.

“I-I see. Raphaedel. I understand you. Well, it’s good to cherish your summon.”

—Wow! What a kind dark mage!

“No! That’s not it! It’s not!”

It would have been better to be mocked. Because Lee Han spoke so warmly, Raphaedel felt even more humiliated.

To think a descendant of House Gral would be mistaken for an undead lover!

“I’m really doing this to use it later!”

“Yes… I understand…”

Lee Han left Raphaedel wailing behind him and finished checking the camp.

Come to think of it, the quality seems to rise every time we do this.

Unlike other years, where each tower played separately, the current Einroguard second-years had a great deal of experience being together in crisis situations, even if forced.

Perhaps that was why their level seemed to rise more and more when they built a camp like this together.

In the past, their level had been digging pits in front, scattering powder to block poisonous insects or snakes, using a large rock as a windbreak, and huddling together near a campfire…

But now, the camp had water mixed with repelling potion flowing through a moat dug at a neat angle. The tightly erected camp walls had warning magic placed on them, and inside, a tall watchtower had been built to send signals that students who had not arrived yet could see…

“Isn’t the camp wall too crude?”

“Should we change the color with magic?”

Perhaps because everyone had gained some leeway, students now appeared who wanted to color and decorate the camp walls, starting with the barrier, and even students who wanted to place a monument at the entrance.

…Though I’m not sure we really need to draw the Skull Principal.

Lee Han shook his head while looking at the friends painting a mural on the wall surrounding the camp, a mural of them subjugating an evil skull.

It was a waste of stamina and mana, but they seemed to like it so much that he could not stop them.

“Wardanaz. Over here! Over here!”

Friends who had finished working on their own section called Lee Han from inside the camp while boiling tea. A pot placed over a small campfire was bubbling away.

“We were talking about tents. It would be convenient if we had one tent with spatial magic cast on it.”

The current camp was much better than before, but the friends were still setting their sights high.

How comfortable would it be if they could place tents with space-expansion magic inside the camp?

At that point, they would no longer have to do such large-scale work. It would be enough to simply block off the surroundings and stay inside the tents.

At that sight, Lee Han was slightly impressed.

I wasn’t thinking that far. Everyone is so proactive.

“That would be true. But spatial magic artifacts are really difficult to make, aren’t they? Do you have a plan?”

Making a large artifact itself was highly difficult, and since spatial magic was also difficult on top of that, even Einroguard students would have a hard time acquiring such an item easily.

“Heh heh. We do! Wardanaz!”

“Oh. What is it? Are we cooperating with upperclassmen to make one together?”

Lee Han, for once, felt rewarded for listening to multiple schools of magic.

For this kind of work, he wanted to participate too, and felt he could also be useful.

I definitely want one tent with space-expansion magic.

“If we work on it, I would like to use the workshop in the Hall of Sacred Engravings. The facilities there are good. Among them, Professor Verdus’s workshop area is the best, but we can use it secretly when the professor isn’t there. Which school are the upperclassmen from?”

The friends looked awkwardly at Lee Han, who was speaking passionately.

“Actually, we were talking about stealing one from the upperclassmen…”

“……”

Since making one seemed impossible even by graduation, stealing from an upperclassman who had one seemed to have at least some possibility.

“…I-I see. I see.”

“We were going to ask you to lead us, Wardanaz…”

Lee Han’s group was silent for a while and sipped black tea.

Asan, who had been watching the mood, opened his mouth to change the atmosphere.

“Actually, I heard about one artifact with space-expansion magic.”

“Oh, really?!”

“What is it, Dalcard??”

“It’s an ancient relic. It’s a tent about the size of this sleeping bag, but once you go inside, it’s about half the size of this camp…”

“!!”

“Where did you read about it?! Which dungeon is it in?!”

The students shouted, each and every one of them ready to enter that dungeon immediately and find the ancient relic.

“…An upperclassman has it.”

“……”

“……”

The friends fell silent again. Lee Han finished his tea and said,

“Well… there’s no rule that says we must not steal an upperclassman’s belongings.”

“Wardanaz!!”

“Right?! I knew I could trust you!!”

Shouldn’t people like this be the ones entering the <Teleportation> Club?

Lee Han pondered slightly inside.

*****

While they set up camp and waited, the students of the summoning school arrived one by one.

Once everyone had gathered, Asan gave a dry cough and took out the map.

“Now, everyone. While we were waiting, I measured the height and length around here, and roughly…”

Scratch scratch scratch—

“……”

“……”

When the students saw the newly drawn map and the wide blank space occupying it, they let out deep sighs.

To check and fill in a map this wide, they would probably have to spend the entire semester roaming around this dimension and surveying it.

“For now, let’s climb to the summit of this central region. Everyone, gather your strength.”

“Professor Milei is disappointing too. How can we be told to do this over one semester?”

“Maybe all professors are originally like that. We just didn’t realize it.”

What admirable words.

Lee Han very much agreed with what someone had just said.

Professors were racially evil. There were occasionally professors who looked kind, but that was usually a student’s delusion…

“Hah, haah. Wardanaz.”

Among the group that had departed to check the summit of the central region, Lee Han was at the very front.

For this kind of exploration, it was easier to respond to emergencies if mages with excellent abilities were placed at both the front and back.

As Lee Han walked at the head like that, Asan came over, breathing hard, and spoke to him.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, not that. It’s just.”

Asan tried to speak but hesitated, seeming slightly embarrassed.

“House Wardanaz is a famous family of dimensional experts in the Empire, is it not?”

“Something… like that?”

“And… among the stories I heard before, there was one about House Wardanaz leaving marks in various places while exploring dimensions…”

For the sake of other mages who might arrive later, leaving marks containing surrounding information was one of the things mages exploring dimensions often did.

As expected of someone from a family that had served as Imperial treasurers for generations, Asan was quite knowledgeable about rumors like these as well.

“Yes. They probably do.”

“…There would be no chance of finding a mark like that here, would there?”

“…Asan…”

“I-I know! I do know!”

Asan flushed and made an excuse.

Even by his own thoughts, it was far too absurd an expectation.

The chance of finding a mark left by House Wardanaz in one of the infinite dimensions would be lower than finding a needle in a haystack…

“Even so. How would we find a mark like that? You might as well hope to meet someone from the family.”

“But there are far more marks left behind, so probabilistically, the chance is higher…”

Asan spoke, unable to let go of his lingering hope.

That was how dreadful the map they had to fill in felt.

“Give up, Asan. I sometimes calculated the probability of a meteorite falling on Einroguard too, but it didn’t mean much. …Huh, Brother?”

At the summit of the central region in the distance, Lee Han was startled to see his second brother, Arsil Wardanaz, writing a book with the help of spirits.