Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy - Chapter 927

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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 927

“Hmm. The professor was in the wrong.”

At Diret’s words, Professor Mortum made an expression full of shock and betrayal.

However, Diret didn’t care. According to Einroguard student law, basically a disciple betraying and attacking their master was considered self-defense.

And if one of the junior or the professor had to get hurt, shouldn’t it be the latter?

“That’s right. You should have told us in advance.”

“Right, right. I think so too.”

“Cough. Such ungrateful brats. I went out of my way to give you a chance to learn on your own…”

Professor Mortum grumbled along with his coughing, but Diret ignored him, pretending not to hear.

“Professor. Can’t we negotiate with the main body?”

“With the main body?”

Professor Mortum, who was about to sip the warm lemon honey tea (Lee Han periodically brewed it and placed it on the first floor of the Dark Tower), frowned.

Attempting direct negotiation with the main body was an entirely different story.

Using a projection, especially a fragment-level projection without self-awareness, as an undead monster wasn’t particularly dangerous.

Especially since they had obtained the other party’s permission.

But directly negotiating with a powerful undead main body…

“Cough. Do we really need to go that far?”

Beings from other dimensions were fundamentally unpredictable and eccentric. Especially beings from the undead realm were even more so.

If it were in a weakened state it might be different, but if their current guess was correct and it had almost fully recovered its power, attempting negotiation might only invite anger.

“Of course we’d need to be careful. But we’re not without grounds either.”

Diret expressed her thoughts with an unwavering attitude.

If it were ordinary theft, no, negotiation, Diret wouldn’t have suggested negotiating either.

There would be little point in asking an unidentified powerful undead being to return a projection.

But the current situation was a bit different.

Her junior hadn’t simply used the projection, but had consistently built friendship and helped it grow.

Not only that, but by additionally gifting massive amounts of mana, he had helped the main body recover its power.

Contracts and laws of other dimensions had stricter aspects than the Empire’s written laws. Even mighty beings couldn’t easily forget favors and grudges at will.

“If we point out these aspects, there’s a possibility the other party will acknowledge them and offer appropriate compensation.”

“Indeed…”

Professor Mortum sipped his tea and gave his disciple’s opinion high marks.

Certainly befitting the next professor of Einroguard’s dark magic school, she had keenly identified the opening even in this situation.

A true dark mage should be able to thoroughly ransack even a demon’s storage before escaping when captured by demons.

‘Excellent.’

Professor Mortum, impressed by his disciple’s growth, thought he should send Diret to the next dark mage society meeting in his place.

Originally he had postponed it worried his disciple might be nervous since only big-shot dark mages attended, but seeing her now, his disciple was sufficiently qualified.

Professor Mortum felt intoxicated by himself for continuously throwing challenges at his trustworthy disciple. Unlike the Skeleton Principal, Professor Mortum himself was truly a decent master.

“I’ll personally go negotiate together with my junior. I too…”

“That won’t do.”

“?!”

Both were greatly surprised by the unexpected refusal from their 2nd year disciple.

“Huh? Why?”

“Senior, you’re busy. I’ll go with the professor.”

“…”

“…”

So you’re saying I’m not busy?

* * *

“Junior. You shouldn’t say things like that in front of the professor.”

“Pardon?”

Diret carefully advised as she walked up to the upper floors of the Dark Tower with Lee Han.

Professor Mortum had acted like it was nothing, but he seemed to have been slightly hurt.

Of course, it was appreciated that he respected his senior, but he needed to occasionally express respect to the professor too.

Professors were also surprisingly tender-hearted beings.

“What do you mean?”

“That… saying you’d go with the professor. You didn’t intend it, but from the professor’s perspective, it could sound like you’re saying he’s not busy…”

“Ah. You mean that.”

“!?”

When her junior showed a reaction indicating he knew, Diret was startled and raised her wing feathers.

Wait, he said it knowing that!?

“You said it knowing that?!”

“Huh? Of course I thought it might feel that way.”

“But why did you say such a thing?”

“Well… Senior, you’re busy.”

Between bothering a busy senior vs. a mean professor getting his feelings hurt, Lee Han chose the latter without hesitation.

What was so important about a professor who entrusted a new student with a projection of an evil and powerful undead without saying anything getting his feelings hurt?

Compared to that, the hardest-working senior at Einroguard having an even harder time would be a terrible tragedy.

‘The hardest-working senior at Einroguard, who is he talking about… Oh.’

Diret, who had been wondering inwardly, realized belatedly and was horrified.

‘Do, do I look that way…?!’

Diret resolved to stop complaining in front of her junior from now on.

How pitiful and miserable must she have looked for her junior to think such things?

“But Senior, are you really okay? Even now if we ask the professor…”

“No no no no. Stop it. The professor is busy too! Of course he might not look it on the surface!”

“Hmm.”

Lee Han thought ‘no matter how busy a professor is, would he be busier than his disciple? If so, why be a professor? Just stay a disciple forever,’ but out of respect for his senior, he said nothing.

“And I stepped forward because there’s overlap with the mission I’m currently handling. Junior.”

“A mission?”

“Yeah.”

Diret readily explained the work she was currently handling.

The Wardanaz family junior would probably learn this eventually, but Einroguard students basically took on various requests and missions in addition to their basic educational curriculum.

And Diret, a 5th year student of the dark magic school, handled a wide range from personal requests to missions that came to Einroguard’s dark magic school.

‘Ugh. How pitiful.’

Diret had no idea that her junior was feeling even more sorry for her because of the explanation she had just given.

“The mission I received now is assisting in tracking evil god worshippers. Dark mages are involved.”

“How unfortunate. For mages to fall into evil god worship.”

Even mages positioned at the forefront of wisdom found it difficult to break away from faith.

People like the Skeleton Principal or the Wardanaz Family Head were unusual; among mages, those who relied on faith were quite numerous.

And illegal faiths in the Empire promised more powerful and destructive power than legal ones.

Thinking about it that way, it was natural for evil god worshippers to appear among mages.

“…I didn’t mean the dark mages are evil god worshippers, but that dark mages are tracking evil god worshippers. Junior…”

“…”

Lee Han remained silent without saying anything. Diret was also silent.

“Haha! I was mistaken!”

“It happens!”

The two didn’t have a conversation about ‘why did you think dark mages were evil god worshippers.’ They knew it would only make both of them sad.

“But isn’t it dangerous? Evil god worshippers are…”

“It’s only assistance after all.”

Divine magic had unpredictable aspects like psychic powers, wild magic, and primitive magic.

At least the Empire’s legitimate orders had theories built up over long periods of research, but evil god worshipper cults had no such thing.

However, this instability actually made dealing with evil god worshippers more troublesome.

They were enemies who boldly scattered strange and unique powers different from existing Imperial magic.

But Diret wasn’t too worried. He wasn’t doing the tracking himself, but rather playing a supporting role analyzing and interpreting received information.

This week’s commission was to track beings from the Undead Realm that evil god worshippers had contracted with.

Dark mages who had seen the evil power they used realized they had contracted with powerful undead and contacted him.

“What kind of undead?”

“They use the power of corruption and decay, but I don’t know more than that. I’ll have to investigate further. It’ll take some time though.”

Diret hesitated while speaking.

Come to think of it, if this work didn’t finish by the weekend, it would affect next week’s lectures too.

“By any chance, junior. Should I postpone the lecture… no. Forget wha…”

“I’m fine!”

Lee Han shouted before his senior could finish speaking.

“If you’re busy, it’s fine to postpone the lecture. The pace is already fast enough anyway.”

‘That’s true.’

His junior was definitely right.

The current 【Poison, Bone, Blood】 lecture was progressing much faster than expected.

It was because of his junior’s enthusiasm, persistently completing everything even without being told to do so.

But Diret felt pangs of conscience.

Was it right to arbitrarily postpone his junior’s learning opportunity because of his own commission?

If it had been his friend Yukveltire, he would have said ‘let’s meet the week after next’ without a second’s hesitation, but Diret still had a human heart.

“Still, that’s a bit…”

“Next week is club activity week anyway. There will be several students going out.”

“Ah. Has time already passed like that?”

At Lee Han’s words, Diret’s eyes widened.

Even in his fourth year he was busy, but he could still feel time passing to some degree. Now in his fifth year, he really acted separately from the Einroguard students’ time.

Diret spoke with slight bitterness.

“I see. If that’s the case… alright. If you need to go out for club activities, it would be fine to postpone the lecture. Which club…”

Diret, who was about to ask which club, canceled his question.

Come to think of it, such questions didn’t have much meaning with this junior.

“Do you have any advice?”

“Hmm. Well… first, don’t cause too big an incident outside.”

“And?”

“Don’t get your club shut down.”

“…”

At his senior’s answer mixed with regret, Lee Han gradually became afraid to ask more.

* * *

“We’ll explore the Undead Realm with this.”

After dusting off and entering a secluded room in the Dark Tower, Diret pointed to a purple door.

The old wooden door creaked as if it would break at any moment, but Lee Han felt powerful mana waves from it.

That wasn’t all. With his broadened vision after learning necromancy, he could catch the dimensional flow connected to the door.

“Is it an artifact connected to the Undead Realm?”

“Wow. How did you know? That’s right.”

Diret was surprised that his junior figured it out without even hearing an explanation.

Usually it wasn’t easy to recognize this artifact’s ability just by looking at its appearance.

“This is 【Mortum’s Wooden Door】. It enables exploration and negotiation as a substitute without entering the Undead Realm.”

“!”

Even for mages, directly visiting dimensions for exploration or negotiation wasn’t easy.

This was especially true for the dangerous Undead Realm.

This door was a powerful artifact that reduced such dangers and enabled exploration as a substitute.

‘Amazing…!’

Seeing his junior’s amazement, Diret was satisfied.

“Amazing, right?”

“But Professor, have you been hiding and using this artifact alone? I’m sure there were opportunities to use this before…”

“It, it’s not like that. There are some tricky conditions when using artifacts.”

Diret hastily changed the subject.

It wasn’t completely wrong. These artifacts required considerable reagents each time they were operated, so they couldn’t be used carelessly.

“That makes sense too. There are costs, so not just anyone can use them… But you can use it freely, right senior?”

“Now. Let me show you how to use this.”

“…You can use it freely, right??”

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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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