Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

The message Lee Han had sent with wicked intentions arrived before long.

On the seventh floor, at the café <The Sword-Bearing Mage>, where White Tiger Tower students often gathered, Giselle was resting while sipping acorn coffee when the message arrived, and she looked puzzled.

“Wardanaz persuaded Caten?”

“Yeah! Moradi. Congratulations!”

“You bastard. Were you bribed?”

The friends beside them glared with deep suspicion.

No matter how they thought about it, there was no reason for Wardanaz to show goodwill without getting anything in return.

“Wh… what?! Bribed?! You said bribed?! How dare you…! Draw your sword! This is a duel!”

The White Tiger Tower student, insulted by the friends, jumped up in fury.

At that attitude, the other friends flinched slightly. They could feel the other party’s sincerity.

“Mm. Maybe not? We might have thought wrong.”

“Take back what you just said… Wait. Why do you smell like meat? There’s still a long time before the Wardanaz ration.”

Wardanaz had secured plenty of food through smuggling at the start of the semester, but Einroguard’s coldhearted rules prevented them from buying that food however they pleased.

The cruel and brutal upperclassmen would not sit by and let them buy generously at low prices.

They had to secretly pay and buy it on a fixed day, at a fixed time, and the other tower students called this the Wardanaz ration.

Thanks to that, they were not starving to death, but they could not eat luxuriously as they would outside. Even more so if they counted what had to be stockpiled in case of emergencies.

Then what was this smell of meat?

“Traces, reveal yourselves… Y-you bastard! What is this?! It looks like meat juice!”

“W-Wardanaz was working at the Kitchen Club, so I secretly got one choripán.”

“…You were bribed!! One hundred percent bribed!!”

“I said I wasn’t! Choi was invited too!”

The White Tiger Tower students, who had been about to hang their friend on the spot, paused.

If Dergeu had been invited too, that made the story a little different.

“If it’s Choi, then…”

“Come to think of it, didn’t that Wardanaz bastard go to Moradi territory during winter break?”

“Shh. Quiet. If you mention that, Moradi tries to kill you.”

“Why, exactly?”

“Probably because if rumors spread of a political alliance between the northern House Moradi and House Wardanaz, it could unite political enemies within the Empire’s current political structure, which is made up of loyalists, aristocrats, and neutrals.”

“I see. The western noble houses in particular would react even more sensitively. They’re already furious that the knight order was deployed to the north first.”

“That’s right. We are from knight houses, but at the same time, as Einroguard students, we must behave honorably.”

“……”

Giselle almost swung her sword behind her, but stopped.

It was good that the intelligence of her friends, who had adapted to magic school, had risen, but they kept using that intelligence on things other than magic.

“If Choi was called too, then it probably isn’t a trap. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Surely it can’t be some childish idea of making us attend a difficult lecture together…”

“Wahaha! Moradi, I know you hate Wardanaz, but do you really think someone like Wardanaz would have such a childish idea?!”

When all the White Tiger Tower students laughed, Giselle blushed slightly too.

Even she thought it was too ridiculous a reason.

“I just said it.”

“Kahahahahaha!”

“What do you all think?”

“Wahahahahaha!”

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK!

“I asked what you thought.”

“W-well. Maybe Caten wanted to teach you too after Wardanaz invited Choi?”

“……”

Giselle furrowed her brows, then nodded.

In any case, she would know once she went.

*****

“Heh heh. How is it, everyone?”

“I-it’s hard, but worthwhile. Thank you, Lee Han.”

“…It is an honor if I can learn like this in my spare time. Wardanaz.”

“?”

Lee Han was baffled as he looked at the two friends collapsed on the floor, panting.

Huh?

“Isn’t it painful and agonizing to come out in your spare time and learn like this? You won’t have any rest time.”

“Mm. I have the next period free, so I’m fine.”

“I have the next period free too, so it doesn’t matter.”

“……”

Lee Han felt something was off when his friends’ reactions differed from what he expected.

Normally, it should have been, “So this was the kind of teaching it was? Urgh, I was tricked!”

…But these two friends were accepting it better than expected.

“Aren’t you angry that I called you for this kind of teaching?”

“It is harsh and painful, but isn’t one lecture like this bearable?”

“I agree with Choi.”

“Other people don’t only take lectures like this the way Master does?”

The baby basilisk tilted its head and asked.

From listening inside his sleeve, other students’ lecture schedules felt quite different from its master’s lecture schedule.

It had thought lectures were supposed to be much harsher and more painful…?

“…I see. One is bearable.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m going to attend my next lecture now. Are either of you thinking of auditing it with me?”

“No?”

Giselle answered immediately, as if asking what nonsense he was talking about.

Not only was Giselle not a student of every school like Lee Han, she was not foolish enough to be greedy for a field she was not currently learning.

Doing her best in the lectures she was already ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) taking was plenty.

“It might be a good experience if you audit it.”

“…Wardanaz. You’re not saying this because I’m not suffering, are you?”

Giselle asked, wondering if it could be true.

Unlike Wardanaz, the two of them had room in their lecture schedule and enough rest, so she wondered whether he was doing this because they had accepted Caten’s teaching too easily.

“Moradi. That is rude. What do you take Lee Han for, saying something like that? Lee Han persuaded Caten for our sake.”

Dergeu challenged her in a stern voice.

Persuading Caten so their friends could learn together was not something just anyone could do.

Giselle seemed to think so too, because she apologized in a rare show of honesty.

“That’s… true. I apologize, Wardanaz. I received a favor and said something rude.”

“No, it’s fine. Haha. …By any chance, are any of you interested in magical combat?”

*****

Lee Han headed toward the classroom with a bitter expression.

This is unfair. Why do my friends take fewer difficult lectures?

No matter how much he tried to think it could not be helped, it was difficult to accept.

Lee Han checked the lecture title.

<From Caterpillar to Dragon>

At least it’s easy to understand.

Anyone could tell it was a transformation magic lecture.

The problem was which year’s lecture it was!

It would be nice if it were second year, but it probably isn’t.

None of his friends were taking <From Caterpillar to Dragon>. It was possible he had missed someone, but for now, he had to assume it was not a second-year lecture.

Most likely third year. With a chance about as low as a meteor falling from a clear sky, fourth year…

Even Lee Han did not think the Calendarium would recommend a fourth-year lecture, but at Einroguard, one could never let down one’s guard.

TAP TAP TAP!

“?”

Lee Han paused when he saw the familiar upperclassman running toward him from ahead.

“Hormasi?”

“Oh, junior. What brings you here?”

The third-year upperclassman from the Jousting Club had been running like the wind, then stopped upon discovering Lee Han.

“I’m going to attend a lecture.”

“There should only be one classroom in this alley. You can’t be taking <From Caterpillar to Dragon>.”

“I came to take that.”

“What? That’s a third-year lecture…”

Karnella looked Lee Han up and down, then exclaimed, “Ah.”

“Right, you’re that one.”

“……”

“Fine. Welcome. There’s nothing bad about learning transformation magic.”

Spinning the riding crop in hand, Karnella welcomed the junior.

There was nothing bad about having an outstanding junior enter the same school.

Of course, that junior had one foot in every other school too…

“Master. I’m scared of that person!”

“?”

“Wait!”

Before Lee Han could answer, Karnella stretched a hand forward and made a “shh!” sound, signaling for silence.

“What is it?”

“Didn’t you just hear a basilisk cry?”

“……”

The baby basilisk went cold and wrapped itself even more tightly around Lee Han’s arm.

The moment it was dragged out of his sleeve, it felt like that merciless dark elf would capture it.

“Maybe you heard wrong? Some other snake-type monster…”

“No, junior. What nonsense are you saying? A basilisk’s cry has a different pitch from a snake-type monster’s cry. You can’t raise a basilisk and not know that!”

Karnella scolded the junior for saying something strange. Lee Han felt like he understood why the baby basilisk was afraid of this upperclassman.

“Wasn’t it your basilisk speaking?”

“My basilisk is asleep right now.”

“Hmmm… If it had woken up and spoken, I would have liked to talk to it once.”

Karnella stared intently into Lee Han’s sleeve. Lee Han could feel the baby basilisk’s tail trembling so pitifully it was almost tragic.

“What were you going to talk about?”

“Nothing much.”

The tall dark elf upperclassman crossed arms and shrugged.

“What kind of food it likes, when it sleeps and wakes up…”

Relatively normal.

“When and how it defecates, when its breeding season comes…”

This person is insane.

Lee Han realized the baby basilisk’s intuition had been correct.

“Just minor small talk like that? I do want to use the basilisk language I studied, too.”

“You know basilisk language?!”

“I can’t use it well. I only studied it. More importantly, junior. If you’re taking <From Caterpillar to Dragon>, you’ll have to help this Hormasi a little. I was on my way to catch an upperclassman.”

“An upperclassman?”

“Yeah. This lecture alternates between the professor and an upperclassman. But that upperclassman keeps running away.”

“……”

For Lee Han, who had only known of professors who ran away, a running-away upperclassman was somewhat fresh.

“Is that allowed?”

“It usually isn’t. You go to the punishment cells.”

In truth, going to the punishment cells was the problem; if one was prepared for the punishment cells, there were surprisingly many things one could do at Einroguard.

Taking charge of a lecture and running away, looting the principal’s office, escaping the school, and so on.

Lee Han had not even met this upperclassman yet, but he had an intuition that the person would be quite mad.

“Oh, right. Junior, I heard you’re fairly sociable?”

“What? Me?”

“I heard you dealt with the guests last year when the transformation mages gathered.”

“…Ah. I did.”

When he recalled last year, Lee Han’s face hardened.

The transformation school mages who had come from outside had all been lively, talkative socialites.

Compared to them, Einroguard’s transformation school mages were relatively introverted people, so they wanted their junior to handle the troublesome matters.

And the only junior there had been Lee Han.

It’s absurd even thinking about it now.

“It really is a relief that a sociable junior came in. Our school doesn’t have any sociable people.”

“But aren’t you fairly sociable, Hormasi?”

“Uh… Mm.”

Karnella scratched a cheek awkwardly.

The junior’s words were right in one very small part and wrong in the rest.

“I usually… only know how to talk to people who like jousting or animals. When I talk to people with other hobbies, they all run away?”

“……”

Only then did Lee Han remember that “talkative” and “sociable” were not the same thing.

Come to think of it, Professor Verdus talked a lot too…

“What about the upperclassman we’re going to find now?”

“Ah. This upperclassman is the most…”

“The most?”

Lee Han hoped the word that followed would be “sociable.”

“…unsociable and eccentric.”

“Yes…”

Lee Han grew depressed.

Why was it that at Einroguard, he could not find an ordinary, decent upperclassman?

Karnella struck Lee Han’s back hard and encouraged him as he sank into gloom.

“Still, this upperclassman has strengths!”

“What kind of strengths…? Like the strength of running away from lectures?”

“Mm. This upperclassman is the best at saving money in all of Einroguard.”

At those words, Lee Han’s heart, which had been frozen like ice, began beating quickly again.