Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy Chapter 757

Chapter 757

Fortunately, Direth wasn't cruel enough to scold a junior who had rushed over innocently with good intentions.

"You just die!"

"Why???"

But she was certainly someone who would scold a senior who tried to take advantage of that junior.

Direth attacked Yukbeltire, taking advantage of her weakened state from doing magic research.

Yukbeltire, who had been tied up tightly, reproached her friend for committing such an act of betrayal after she had kindly excluded her from the workshop's defensive magic targets.

"Direth. Such a dishonorable surprise attack. You've fallen to the level of White Tiger Tower."

Direth gagged her friend's mouth too. She really had nothing good to say.

"So what were you doing?"

"We were improving this magic circle, but..."

Direth found the newly drawn magic circle and structure diagram among the pile of over hundreds of pages of papers and read through it, letting out small exclamations.

She could certainly get a sense of how her friend was trying to improve it.

"Clever."

Yukbeltire nodded as if it was obvious.

"But this isn't something you should ask a junior for help with after all. It's too difficult and too vast. This is just something you should do alone. Why are you asking a junior for this?"

"Mmph."

"...I'll untie you, so don't say useless things. Dishonor, insult, White Tiger Tower, waste of time, all of that is forbidden."

When the magic gag disappeared, Yukbeltire could open her mouth again.

"I seek the junior's assistance, and the junior learns magic. What's the problem?"

"What magic is he learning? Do you think a 2nd year junior can learn anything while helping with your magic? They need to be at least somewhat on the same level to be able to learn, right?"

"Professor Verduus said the Wardanaz family junior was at that level."

"..."

Direth was at a loss for words, caught off guard.

Yi-Han sent an encouraging look to his senior, telling her not to lose to the other senior.

-Hang in there, Senior. You can do it.-

Direth inwardly cursed Professor Verduus for answering so thoughtlessly, cursed Yukbeltire, and finally cursed her junior.

He should have been just a moderately good student, but by helping with professors' magic and causing trouble, this situation had come about!

"Professor Verduus must have been talking nonsense."

"Verduus is usually accurate about magic, Direth."

"Be quiet. Anyway, we can't have the junior participate in your difficult research based on just Professor Verduus's opinion. He's only a 2nd year."

"The principal also said he was at that level."

"..."

Direth was shocked at her friend's answer.

What in the...?

"D-don't lie. With your personality, there's no way you would have gone to ask those two."

Yukbeltire shrugged her shoulders and answered coolly.

"The principal came while Professor Verduus was checking my research."

"Why?"

"I don't know the reason. He attacked the professor right away. After the attack ended, I had a chance to talk about my research, so I asked the two of them. They both agreed it was a good opportunity."

'...Should I really have sent an anonymous letter?'

Direth gritted her teeth at the two who were no help at all.

To give such answers when they should have been discouraging it.

Of course, purely from a magical perspective, that answer might be correct.

Objectively speaking, the junior might have had the ability to help, and the ability to learn while helping.

But shouldn't someone with a conscience recognize what situation the junior was in now, and predict how things would go if they gave Yukbeltire a positive answer?

"Forget it. I'll help, so pretend this never happened for the junior. Understand?"

"Your help and the junior's help are completely separate areas..."

Direth ignored her friend's words and gestured to Yi-Han. It meant to go back quickly.

"Junior. Never come to this workshop again from now on. Understand?"

"You seem to be interfering and directing the junior too much..."

The princess's mouth was gagged with magic again. Direth gestured to her junior once more.

Get out quickly!

  *

'...I feel uncomfortable.'

Although he had been released, Yi-Han felt slightly uncomfortable in a corner of his heart.

He felt like his senior had been caught because of him.

Of course, Direth herself had said 'I'm just helping because we're close, so don't think strange things', but...

"Professor Verduus. Are you here?"

Yi-Han knocked on Professor Verduus's workshop door.

When no answer came, Yi-Han belatedly realized.

'Ah. He must have gone to the punishment room.'

Come to think of it, Professor Bagrak had borrowed relics from the principal's room.

As Professor Bagrak was a smart person, he would have sent Professor Verduus to the punishment room instead of himself.

'I'll have to come back later.'

He had planned to ask each professor about the lecture content he had missed while resting until the weekend and study alone, but it seemed he would have to ask about Professor Verduus's lecture next time.

And thinking about it more, there was nothing to ask about Professor Verduus's lecture.

It was self-study from the start...

"What's the matter?"

"!!!"

Yi-Han was startled when Professor Verduus opened the workshop door and came out.

"P-professor!"

"Why did you call?"

"Didn't you go to the punishment room?"

"I didn't?"

"...Did Professor Garcia or Professor Bagrak go to the punishment room by any chance??"

"They didn't?"

"?!"

Yi-Han was even more surprised.

To think none of the three had gone.

'Does that mean they weren't caught?!'

It was something the Change Location club members would marvel at as a miracle if he told them.

Resolving to ask Professor Bagrak how he had returned it when he met him later, Yi-Han asked his original question.

"Professor. I came to ask about the lecture content I missed last time, but."

"Rather than that, how about helping with my work?"

"I don't want to."

Professor Verduus grumbled at his disciple's refusal.

Helping with his work would be a much better learning opportunity than asking about lecture content!

"I'm curious if the seniors came up with any ideas related to staffs."

Professor Verduus's lecture, <Staff Materials and Magic Amplification>, was an attractive lecture taken by talented and outstanding students.

There was a minor problem that usually 3rd years took it, but that wasn't much of an issue for Yi-Han.

A bigger problem was that Yi-Han's staff, or more precisely, the spirit dwelling in the staff, was slightly upset with Yi-Han.

Yi-Han himself thought he had used the staff diligently, but that wasn't the case for the spirit.

To satisfy the spirit and make it feel 'I'm being active', he needed to add more magic to the staff.

But to add more magic, he needed to replace and upgrade the staff's material and structure itself again...

'Come to think of it, isn't the hurdle too high for the first staff creation lecture?'

As he had a much longer way to go than others, Yi-Han wanted to see the seniors' staffs.

As they had started earlier and thought about it a lot, there would be much to learn.

"I don't remember."

"..."

Although Yi-Han glared, Professor Verduus was serious.

"Professor. I'll send an anonymous letter to the principal about neglecting lectures."

"That's absurd! They were really trash opinions!"

Professor Verduus cried out indignantly.

If there had really been valuable opinions, Professor Verduus would have remembered them.

But most of the opinions students had given in the last lecture were trash.

It was the beginning of the semester after all.

It was a time when students threw out ideas that were especially trashy among trash.

-What if we make the body out of true silver and put Behemoth bone fragments inside?-

-How are you going to get both of those?-

-We'll have to think about that from now.-

-I'm taming a steel staff now, but no matter what I do, the spirit won't go in saying the smell is terrible. Does anyone know beings that like to go into steel staffs?-

-Hmm. It seems adding too much magnetite to the staff makes it explode...!-

Thinking about it again, there were only trashy opinions. Professor Verduus shook his head to erase the remaining dregs passing hazily through his memory.

"Just ask now instead! What are you curious about?"

"I need to choose a staff body material that can accommodate a disgruntled spirit and a jewel given by an other-realm being, but I'm really troubled. Wood is stable but has limitations, metal is hit or miss, and as for jewels or rare metals, I don't know when I'll be able to gather them..."

Professor Verduus yawned at the boring topic.

Although it might be a fresh and troubling topic for a 2nd year disciple, it was a topic Professor Verduus had dealt with thousands or tens of thousands of times, so it wasn't interesting at all.

Yi-Han glared again.

"Professor. I'm serious."

"Huh? Oh. Alright. How about this? I'll assign another student to you, so you can ask them."

"Hmm."

Yi-Han was intrigued by those words.

Honestly, Yi-Han thought learning from a senior would be better than learning from Professor Verduus.

"If it's someone who knows staffs well, that would be good. Which senior is it?"

"Hm? Yukbeltire."

"...Professor. I'll just study alone if you recommend some books."

  *

Yi-Han moved to the Irrational Number Hall of Professor Parsellet Krair, the divination magic professor, carrying his backpack that had become heavier than before.

The death knights saw Yi-Han and raised their visors to greet him.

-Mr. Wardanaz, nice to see you!-

"Hello. By the way, where is the principal now?"

Yi-Han, having met the death knights by chance, was going to confront the skull principal about what had happened.

Look!

Although the skull principal had boasted so confidently that it would be fine, Yi-Han had been kidnapped and almost stayed in Einroguard forever. It was really a terrible thing even thinking about it again.

And Yi-Han was also slightly suspicious about the part where the skull principal didn't step in and just stayed still.

'Could he have neglected it on purpose to make me learn magic forcibly?'

It was a scheme quite possible with the skull principal's personality. Yi-Han planned to confront the skull principal directly and denounce this scheme.

-The master seems quite busy. We haven't seen him either.-

"..."

Yi-Han sent a suspicious look.

He wondered if these knights had coordinated their stories for their master.

"Is that so?"

-Yes. There were times in the past when the master wasn't seen like this occasionally.-

"When he was plotting evil plans?"

-Hahaha... Rather than that, wouldn't it be for some greater plan?-

"When he was plotting greater and more evil plans?"

The death knights pretended not to hear the disciple's irreverent question.

They all knew he had just escaped from the master's mad doppelganger not long ago.

"Anyway, please tell me if you see the principal."

-Understood!-

As there was no point in detaining him further, Yi-Han exchanged farewells with the death knights.

But it was after his inner suspicion had become even more solid.

'Even more suspicious.'

In Yi-Han's mind now, conspiracy theories at almost the level of 'Collusion between the skull principal and the mad doppelganger! Was the mad doppelganger actually the skull principal's underling?!' were unfolding.

Thud thud thud-

"Professor, are you here?"

"The professor is sleeping."

A senior Yi-Han had never seen before opened the door of the Irrational Number Hall and gestured for him to come in.

"Because of a prophetic dream?"

Dreams rippling with uncertainty and madness were always good buffers that elastically blocked the shock from divination magic.

"No. She just slept late playing card games with another professor. You're that guy, right? The all-schools student from the Wardanaz family?"

"...Yes."

"The professor told me to read this to you... Found it. The student can sufficiently keep up with the progress without needing to ask about what he missed."

"But I can't be so overconfident when I didn't attend the lecture..."

The senior gestured for him to be quiet, then flipped over a card and read the content on the back.

"That's not overconfidence but self-objectification..."

"..."

Yi-Han grumbled inwardly that divination mages were really eccentric people.