Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

“Huh? Wardanaz. What are you doing?”

While Lee Han was tormenting his junior, his friends who had finished their exams began trickling in one by one.

Even from their perspective, Eandurde did not look good right now.

With that gloomy face and those pained groans, surely whatever mistake he had made could be forgiven—

“I’m explaining the mistakes on his exam.”

“Aha!”

His friends immediately threw their bags onto the floor and fled upstairs to their private rooms.

They had realized that if they lingered too long, the arrows would start flying at them too.

Eandurde glared at the cowardly upperclassmen’s backs with contempt.

What vile deserters!

“Hik.”

“What?”

When his junior suddenly let out a strangled noise, Lee Han turned around in confusion.

Yonair was coming in behind him with the others.

“Ubububu!”

“I understand.”

Lee Han immediately understood the meaning behind his junior’s desperate gaze and muffled sounds.

The thick stack of exam papers on the table vanished beneath the floor in an instant.

It was 【Wardanaz’s Telekinetic Force】.

Eandurde looked at his senior with eyes full of awe and respect.

As expected, the magic of Einroguard upperclassmen was nothing short of extraordinary.

“Ah. Eandurde, you’re here?”

“Yes, yep.”

“How was the exam?”

“…”

Even though the exam papers had been hidden, Yonair’s immediate question about the exam made Eandurde’s complexion darken again.

“Well… um… uh…”

“He did his best. He didn’t even fail.”

Before he realized it, Lee Han was making excuses for his junior.

Gainando was impressed.

“Not failing? That’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“…Hey. You ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ go away.”

“Right. Go away.”

“Wait, why…”

When his friends scolded him out of concern that he might be a bad influence on the junior, Gainando drooped and backed away.

Wasn’t praise important too?

“Can you show me your exam paper?”

“Yes yes yep.”

“Why is the exam paper in here?”

Yonair looked puzzled as the exam paper emerged from the hidden space beneath the common room floor.

Lee Han shrugged and made an excuse.

“Maybe he was worried it would blow away in the wind.”

“Really…?”

Yonair didn’t quite understand, but didn’t press further and checked the grade first.

“Wow. You did well?”

Eandurde’s face brightened.

“But this alchemy exam here is a little disappointing.”

Eandurde’s face darkened.

“Of course, choosing Snowfall Herb was very good.”

Eandurde’s face brightened again.

“But if you had used Frozen Cold Powder with it here, the effect would have been even better.”

“Yonair.”

“Hm?”

“Actually, I already told him that earlier.”

“Ah. Really?”

Watching from behind, the others thought to themselves.

This must be why first-years are protected separately.

When they were freshmen, they had complained about being kept apart from upperclassmen, but now they understood.

If this happened every exam season…!

“Now, Eandurde.”

Once the painful review finally ended, Lee Han packed far more food baskets for his junior than usual.

Gainando, who was seeing him off as well, noticed and asked,

“Huh? Isn’t that more than usual?”

“He might not come by for a while.”

Students who got scolded over exams tended to avoid visiting for some time.

Gainando alone was proof enough of that.

“I was fine, but Yonair is strict.”

“…”

Gainando’s jaw dropped at his friend’s shamelessness.

From Gainando’s perspective, both of them had been equally strict in tormenting the junior.

How can he say something so ridiculous with such a straight face…?!

“What’s wrong?”

“I-I’m impressed! You’re taking such good care of a junior! Lee Han, you’re the best!”

“Hehe. It’s nothing.”

Pleased by his friend’s praise, Lee Han turned away.

Gainando was filled with deep guilt.

To tell such an outrageous lie to his friend because of snacks!

***

By the weekend of midterm exam week, every second-year student had turned into a lump of laziness and stuck themselves to the common room.

“C4…”

“Then dxc4… the pawn…”

“Then I… transform the queen into a dragon… and use breath…”

“Did you eat hallucinogenic mushrooms… no… fine, use breath… then I summon the Principal…”

Even students who normally tried to play whenever they had even the slightest free time were now too exhausted to move and only talked with their mouths.

Everyone was half-dead from midterms that had grown much harder than last year’s.

Teapots floated through the air.

Lee Han lightly moved his fingers, filling his friends’ cups with hot cocoa and coffee.

Honestly, moments like this were when he felt most strongly that he had trained as a mage.

When he could be lazy using magic.

If his masters heard that, they would clutch the backs of their necks.

Beside him, Gainando was also lying on the floor with a blank expression, staring vaguely at Mage Cards.

“Come to think of it, Wardanaz.”

“?”

“I heard clubs are going to start outside activities in earnest after exams. Have you heard anything?”

Einroguard students were, by default, busy and unhappy regardless of their year.

Even clubs formed for social purposes couldn’t escape that fate.

When exams or research made everyone too busy, club schedules were postponed, then everything was crammed in at once when there was finally time.

That was definitely how it worked.

Lee Han recalled what he had heard from upperclassmen.

Once exams ended…

-Puhuh. Wardanaz. Just hold out a little longer! Once exams are over, we can go outside and share meals with poor people!

-…It’s certainly a good deed, but is it really something to be that excited about?

-Ah, of course! When we go out for activities, we receive mountains of ingredients as gifts!

Hmm. Other clubs…

-Ah, junior. Once exams are over, it’ll be time for real jousting.

-Yes. I see.

-By the way, could we possibly have Prince Jowrin participate? Would that be too much after all?

Lee Han shook his head.

For some reason, only strange clubs kept coming to mind.

“I’ve heard about the Kitchen Club and the Jousting Club.”

“Oh. Then what about the hunter club?”

“No. I’m not sure about that one.”

“What about the Adventurers Club? The Mage Card Club?”

“The Outing Club? The Statue-Making Club?”

As questions rained down on him, Lee Han corrected his slouched posture and sat upright.

“Wait. Why are you asking me? I’m not even a member of those clubs.”

“Huh? You didn’t join?!”

“…”

Lee Han stared at his friends in disbelief.

His friends awkwardly cleared their throats and avoided his gaze.

“No, well. We thought you had joined all of them…”

“Come to think of it, you didn’t join every unofficial club. Ahem.”

The Blue Dragon Tower students, who had naturally assumed their friend from House Wardanaz had joined those clubs, grew embarrassed.

“How did you even get the idea that I joined clubs I’ve never visited?”

“Well, we thought you were just too busy to be seen…”

“…”

Lee Han couldn’t refute that.

Even in the clubs he had actually joined, he had only appeared sporadically because he was so busy.

Yonair, who had been sitting nearby, spoke up.

“Our club is going out to watch a play.”

Yonair had received invitations from various clubs, just like Nillia.

After visiting the Kitchen Club and several others while thinking it over, Yonair had ultimately joined the unofficial Einroguard Theater Club along with Nillia.

Lee Han was certain Nillia, not wanting to join alone, had clung to Yonair’s ankle and begged desperately.

The Einroguard Theater Club was unofficial, but as its name suggested, it was simply a club for enjoying various cultured activities.

By Lee Han’s standards, it made no money at all, so he had never even bothered to remember its name.

Perhaps because of that, the atmosphere within the club was calm and friendly.

“No way. That’s actually normal?!”

“Well, of course it’s normal…”

Yonair looked baffled by Lee Han’s shock.

Was it really that surprising for an outside activity to be normal?

“Sorry. I naturally assumed club activities were supposed to involve notable achievements and piles of gold coins.”

He’s my friend, but sometimes he sounds insane.

“That makes sense too. Unofficial clubs have a hard time going out in the first place.”

Yonair’s words reminded Lee Han of a rule he had forgotten.

Come to think of it, outing privileges belonged to official clubs.

How could the unofficial Theater Club go out so easily?

“I get it. You convinced the professors with a plan to reenact Einroguard’s miserable reality through theater and earn gold coins.”

“…No, that’s not it. We were simply invited.”

Students sometimes forgot, but Einroguard was the Empire’s premier magic school.

There were plenty of distinguished people in the Empire who wanted to invite students from such a place and show them art.

No matter how spiteful the Skull Principal was, he couldn’t reject every single invitation.

Lee Han was shocked.

He had ignored cultural and artistic clubs, but there was actually such a loophole?

“Such…! I should join right now and smuggle—”

“…Calm down! It’s not that extreme.”

Yonair calmed his friend.

The Skull Principal was not kind enough to tolerate idle enjoyment so easily.

When the Theater Club went out, unprecedented surveillance followed.

It was on a completely different level from the usual “try breaking through if you can” type of monitoring.

“What level are we talking about?”

Still unable to let go, Lee Han asked.

“Under the pretext of protecting Einroguard’s mages, they block off the city’s main roads and alleys, clear out all pedestrians, and empty every shop and store. Death Knights surround the students as escorts.”

“…I’ll cancel joining, then.”

Lee Han gave up immediately.

It seemed the Theater Club was definitely one of the clubs the Skull Principal hated most.

Well, since all its members were happy and enjoying themselves, how could he not hate it?

“Hmph. Still, the Theater Club is lucky.”

Gainando muttered gloomily.

“What’s wrong?”

“The club I belong to is having trouble even going out, so they’re scheming.”

The Mage Card Club—no, the Mage Card Collectors Club, since the two were strictly different clubs—was also unofficial.

Since they had no clear way to go out immediately, they couldn’t help envying the Theater Club, which received outside invitations just by existing.

“An official club would be better…”

There really is no perfect club.

Lee Han felt that anew.

Official clubs had easy access to outings, but the work they had to do was harsh.

Unofficial clubs had freedom in their activities, but going outside was difficult.

There were mutants like the Theater Club, but those were exceptions.

Wait. Then…

Lee Han quickly calculated.

Among the clubs he had joined, the official ones would likely each go outside.

But what about the unofficial ones?

First, <Einroguard Social Club> was a ghost club created by Princess Yukbeltire, the person furthest removed from socializing, so it would not be active.

And the <Teleportation> Club was…

…That one should be impossible, right?

No matter how plausible a plan they submitted, the most unofficial of unofficial clubs would have difficulty going outside.

What insane professor would approve an outing for a club like that?

The <Teleportation> Club would definitely be active inside the school.

Lee Han resolved to patrol the outer warehouses thoroughly for a while.

***

“No. We’re going outside too.”

“…What?! Are you talking about the Library Club?!”

Lee Han was startled by the words of Sebius, the fourth-year hamster beastkin senior.

“…No. I mean the <Teleportation> Club.”

“Ah. You mean escaping.”

Lee Han nodded in understanding.

Naturally, Lee Han also called escaping “going outside.”

Who would say it literally?

“We’re really going outside. We submitted a plan and received special permission.”

“…Wh-what kind of plan did you submit?”

“Retrieving magical items the professors want.”

“…”

At this point, wasn’t that basically an official club?