Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 342

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 342

‘What a shameless bastard!’

Lee Han was inwardly furious.

He had treated him as politely as possible since he was a duke, yet he pulled such a stunt.

Who was the target that the summoned toxic contaminated entity was aiming for?

It wasn’t Lee Han or Lee Han’s friends, but Duke Ikalderen.

Then after blocking the toxic contaminated entity, shouldn’t he naturally say ‘Thank you, the spirit of Einroguard students is truly noble’ and offer a reward first?

Of course, this was after Lee Han realized it was the Skeleton Principal’s doing, but that wasn’t important. What mattered was the result.

But suddenly spouting nonsense about thinking positively and trying to leave.

No matter how he thought about it, there was only one answer.

He was trying to save on the reward money.

‘Unforgivable.’

If he were poor, it would be understandable, but this guy who generously scattered gold coins to Adenart under the pretext of some useless riddles was being stingy with gold coins for saving his own life.

“There probably isn’t a more shameless and despicable noble in the entire Empire. Disgusting.”

“…No, no. Lord Wardanaz. Duke Ikalderen is rude, but… well…?”

Rowena was initially happy that Lee Han was cursing along with her, but gradually became bewildered.

Duke Ikalderen wasn’t that bad.

He was rude, but he was still one of the Imperial Princess’s supporters and hadn’t crossed the line…?

“Rowena. I think I understand a bit why you consider Duke Ikalderen a lifelong enemy.”

“Huh? I, I didn’t say it to that extent.”

Ignoring Rowena’s explanation, Lee Han started walking.

The duke had already gone far away, but several of the duke’s guards remained to clean up the area.

From how they thoroughly removed the burned toxic contaminated entity, checked for any contamination in the surroundings, and carefully gathered traces and evidence of the toxic contaminated entity’s summoning, he could sense the familiarity of having done this more than once or twice.

Seeing this made Lee Han even more certain.

‘They were definitely targeting the duke.’

It left a bitter taste.

He should have just watched instead of interfering and ruining his clothes…

“Did His Grace the Duke perhaps leave any message?”

Lee Han asked the guards just in case. The guards stopped their cleanup and straightened their appearance.

It wasn’t simply because Lee Han was from the Wardanaz family.

Just from what he had shown, Lee Han was worthy of the guards’ respect.

For a mere first-year to have that level of combat ability, it was certain he would become a renowned great mage in the Empire as time passed.

Moreover, their master Duke Ikalderen also seemed to evaluate Lee Han very highly.

Hadn’t he just said he would think positively about the proposal?

The duke never spoke empty words.

“Lord Wardanaz.”

“Yes. Did he leave…”

“There was no such message.”

“…”

Lee Han’s expression hardened.

Unaware of his true feelings, the guards sent subtle glances and said:

“There would be no need for that.”

“That’s right. You’ll be speaking separately soon enough.”

“…?”

Lee Han wondered if the guards had gone mad.

Why were they suddenly acting so fawning?

‘Have they all gone crazy starting with their master?’

* * *

“You really worked hard. Wardanaz.”

After the guards came to finish cleaning up and the duke’s bodyguards left, Clteran praised Lee Han.

Though he wasn’t as experienced as the duke’s guards, Clteran could vaguely sense how well Lee Han had fought.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Lee Han extended his hand. Clteran grasped that hand.

Then Lee Han withdrew his hand and took Clteran’s cloak.

“I meant lend me your cloak.”

“…Uh, okay.”

Lee Han’s shirt and cloak were in tatters from fighting the toxic contaminated entity. Lee Han put on Clteran’s cloak and said:

“Clteran. Since you’re from White Tiger Tower, you’ll probably receive requests often during vacation.”

“I suppose so?”

“Don’t accept requests from Duke Ikalderen. He’s a very petty person.”

“Is… that so? But Wardanaz. The riddle…”

“What riddle. Even if you solve it, you might get nothing.”

Lee Han grumbled like that, but inwardly knew it wasn’t true.

Even if Duke Ikalderen ran off without giving Lee Han a reward, he was definitely giving proper rewards to the Imperial Princess.

Gold coins came out last time, so they would come out this time too.

‘Thinking about it that way makes me even angrier.’

“If we solve it together, do I get a share too?”

“That’s true, but gold coins aren’t particularly important to you, are they? Unlike someone like me.”

At Clteran’s words, Lee Han was about to scold him like he would Gainando, but held back.

Since he lent him the cloak, he’d let it slide once.

“Very well. Your Highness. Let’s solve it together.”

“I knew you’d say that. Wardanaz.”

Clteran grinned.

He was gradually understanding what kind of person Wardanaz was.

Wardanaz often spoke coldly on the surface but his actions were warm.

‘Durgyu didn’t say that for nothing.’

He naturally thought he would participate in this matter too.

Even if he grumbled on the surface, there was no way Wardanaz would just let something involving a friend slide.

As expected…

“What do you mean you knew, you bastard. I’m already pissed off because of the duke, do you want to irritate me more?”

“S-sorry.”

Clteran flinched for a moment.

Even though he knew it intellectually, he couldn’t help being scared.

Clatter-

Lee Han and his friends entered a nearby cafe and sat down.

Rowena ordered juice made from five ground vegetables, Clteran ordered eggnog with extra rum, Lee Han ordered coffee, and the Imperial Princess hesitated between chocolate and vanilla before ordering chocolate cake. Lee Han ordered one more vanilla cake and quietly pushed it in front of the Imperial Princess.

“So the riddle is… hmm…”

To the honorable Princess Adenart, may this riddle relieve Your Highness’s boredom.

Here is a staff. When a mage held that staff and walked, a stream opened a path. After crossing the stream, wind removed a wall blocking the way ahead. When the wall disappeared, night fell. Then a flashing light illuminated the path. I wonder what kind of staff this is.

“????”

Lee Han looked up after reading it all.

“Are we supposed to guess what artifact it is?”

Lee Han thought that just as the duke was petty, he had no talent for riddles either.

Guessing what artifact it was wasn’t really a good riddle.

If that was a riddle, Lee Han could make riddles too.

‘What is the 3rd card from the top of Gainando’s card deck’ or something like that…

“Ah. That’s not it. It’s more like asking you to actually make this kind of staff.”

“…No, why is that a riddle… Fine. That’s not important.”

Lee Han newly realized how decent the riddle from the talking oak tree he met in the mountain range had been.

This wasn’t a riddle but just ‘Can you make this kind of staff?’

“Water element, wind element, light element. You want me to make an artifact staff with at least 3 enchantments? Not only is the difficulty high, but the required power is too extreme?”

“Ah. That’s not it. That’s more of a metaphor, and in reality it’s fine if the power is much weaker.”

“…”

Lee Han felt the urge to point things out rising within him despite this not being his business.

‘If you wrote that the stream opened the path, it should at least be able to part the stream, what kind of nonsense…’

Lee Han, who had been grumbling internally, paused when he realized he was making the same sounds as Einroguard’s professors.

Both the riddle giver and solver were satisfied, so there was no reason for Lee Han to spoil things.

‘Right. If they’re ending things on good terms with each other, that’s not bad. Let’s just take the gold coins.’

“If weak power is fine, then I just need to complete a staff with 3 enchantment magics… Huh. Isn’t this easy?”

Lee Han looked puzzled as he considered the conditions.

If weak power was acceptable, the difficulty dropped considerably.

Of course, applying enchantment magic, and 3 different elemental magics at that, wasn’t exactly easy work.

Each layer of enchantment magic increased the casting difficulty, and if they were different elemental types, it increased even more.

But for Lee Han, who had already experienced the hellish Vurdus course in the first semester, this level seemed quite manageable.

Wasn’t it much better than making a shield that floated, moved, and attacked and defended on its own?

“…”

“…”

At Lee Han’s words, Rowena and Clteran became dejected.

The calm madness of the year’s top student had made them gloomy.

“Ah, no. Now that I think about it, it’s difficult.”

Lee Han noticed their reaction and changed his words, but it was already too late.

“No, Wardanaz sir. You don’t need to consider us.”

“Right… Wardanaz. You don’t need to consider us too. It wouldn’t be strange if we looked like monkeys to you.”

“That’s a misunderstanding, Clteran. I’ve never thought of you as monkeys. I have thought of you as worse than Gainando… No. No. Anyway, it doesn’t look that difficult.”

At Lee Han’s words, the Imperial Princess, who had finished her second cake, raised her hand and spoke.

“Even overlapping just two increases casting difficulty as they clash with each other, but three seems absolutely impossible.”

“You can use magic circles as auxiliary devices.”

“Magic circles on artifacts like staffs?”

The Imperial Princess asked, raising the tip of her eyebrow slightly.

The smaller and more compact an artifact became, the harder it was to inscribe magic on it.

Staffs weren’t good tools for imprinting enchantment magic from that perspective either.

Of course, truly excellent enchantment mages would skillfully compress magic circles and use techniques to inscribe them on staffs, but such techniques were absolutely not at a level new students could manage.

Then Clteran answered instead.

“Wardanaz could definitely do it. Right?”

“No?”

“…No?”

“Of course I have to skip unnecessary parts. I’ll remove all the maintenance and duration-related parts.”

“???”

The Imperial Princess tilted her head.

Rowena and Clteran also tilted their heads, but that was just because they couldn’t follow the conversation, while the Imperial Princess tilted hers because there was something she couldn’t understand.

If you removed all the maintenance and spell duration-related parts, wouldn’t the magic disappear a few seconds after casting it on the staff?

“Then the time…”

“I can make up for it with mana quantity. If you pour in mana, maintenance and duration will naturally extend.”

“…”

The Imperial Princess was confused about whether she should agree with this crude method or not.

Logically it was certainly correct, but was it okay to use such a workaround?

The Imperial Princess became curious about the other two’s opinions and turned her gaze.

“What do you two think…”

“I think Wardanaz sir’s opinion is correct.”

“Me too.”

“…”

Seeing the two immediately agree because they didn’t want to be caught not keeping up, the Imperial Princess let out an inaudible sigh.

Lee Han saw this and shook his head.

‘It’s bound to be troublesome when you only have Gainandos around.’

The despair of being the only one who understood the assignment in a group project.

This despair could only be known by those who had experienced it directly.

A situation where you couldn’t convince others to participate by any method, and had to solve everything by yourself!

Lee Han nodded as if he understood. Adenart met his gaze with eyes that were slightly emotional and nodded back.

Lee Han, who had been sipping coffee, suddenly became curious and asked Rowena.

“But staffs would be quite expensive even for practice, so how are you planning to get them? If they’re hard to obtain, I could ask the professor to get some broken staffs for recycling…”

“Ah. I can get them by asking my sponsors.”

“…”

Lee Han quietly pulled his chair back at the sight of the Imperial Princess’s group, whose way of thinking was different from his.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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