Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

As a dignified upperclassman, Diret held back the urge to shout and guided Lee Han inside.

Just as expected, the shabby old mansion revealed a completely different scene the moment they passed through the door.

A wide, dome-shaped space painted white was filled with an academic atmosphere.

Mages in all sorts of strange outfits gathered in small groups, talking with serious faces.

“Are you saying the research funding got cut off?”

“That’s right! Sobbing— Of course, I did siphon off some of the gold, but that was solely for the sake of even greater magic!”

“I know. I know! Cutting off research funding just because you siphoned a little gold. Rude bastards. What do they think magic is? Because of people like that, the progress of magic stops, I’m telling you!”

“What do you think about the staff styles that are popular in the capital?”

“Building such an unstable structure just for one fire element? It’s nothing but vulgar. The trend will die down soon enough!”

If mages were talking up front in the dome, then in the back of the dome, the mages who would be presenting at today’s exchange gathering were making preparations.

Spotting Gawon preparing among them, Lee Han silently wished things would go well.

Diret wrote a name in the guestbook, then called to Lee Han.

“Underclassman. Here. You need to look from here.”

“What is it?”

“Snacks. The refreshments at this exchange gathering are decent.”

Diret personally lifted a plate and piled on several fruit slices and tea cookies.

“Remember it. The apricot fruit slices and the chestnut tea cookies are good here.”

“Ah, yes.”

Lee Han was slightly flustered by how seriously Diret was speaking.

For a moment, Lee Han thought it was Gainando.

“U-Upperclassman Diret. If it’s an exchange gathering, shouldn’t you be preparing more magic and things like that?”

“Hm?”

Diret sipped tea, then gave a small laugh at the underclassman’s words.

“More than half the stuff presented at exchange gatherings is trash, so what’s the point. If you don’t at least pick good snacks, it’s a waste of time.”

Honestly, even “half” was being generous.

Diret said Diret came to find inspiration, but there probably wouldn’t even be one or two spells today that could inspire a mage like Diret.

And that would only be if luck was good.

“Fortunately, Princess Yukbeltire is attending today’s exchange gathering. That one’s work should be worth seeing.”

“Who is that?”

“Ah. You wouldn’t know. A friend of mine. Also your upperclassman. That one’s going up to fifth year too…”

Diret tried not to show it in front of the underclassman, but the last words carried an anxiety and gloom that couldn’t be hidden.

Lee Han encouraged.

“Hang in there. You’ll do well.”

“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Diret realized Diret had embarrassed Diret in front of the underclassman and cleared the throat, pretending not to know.

“So, what was that Skull Principal story from earlier?”

“Well. If I tell it, it’ll get long.”

“All we’ve got is time. It’ll take longer before the preparations start anyway.”

Diret answered with a shrug.

“So the reason we ended up going to the Bitong Mountains was…”

Lee Han started from why Lee Han ended up going to the Bitong Mountains, all the way through why the Skull Principal ended up taking the unicorns.

At first, Diret leisurely crunched snacks while listening, but before long, Diret even set the teacup down and focused on the story.

“And then? Then what happened?”

“The unicorns! Those poor unicorns!”

Even other mages nearby—

Lee Han and Diret looked at the mages, startled.

“Um, this is an internal matter for Einroguard, so outsiders listening is a bit…”

“P-please! I’ll keep it secret!”

“Tell us! Aaaagh! What happened?!”

The mages begged and pleaded, but Lee Han and Diret coldly stood up and moved to another spot.

“…So that’s why the Skull Principal took the unicorns.”

Only after hearing it all could Diret finally take a deep breath.

“Underclassman, you’re… really…”

“?”

“…There’s so much to criticize I don’t even know where to start. How do you keep surviving by some miracle?!”

“I was lucky.”

‘Isn’t that ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) bad luck?’

Diret thought that to Diret alone, then spoke.

“Even if everything else aside, I’m a little worried you seem to be getting too close to the Skull Principal.”

“Because my friends might mistake me for a spy?”

“…No… I meant magic. Magic. The Skull Principal’s magic isn’t something easy.”

Diret stared at the underclassman like Lee Han was unbelievable.

‘Fair enough.’

Lee Han deeply agreed. Considering Lee Han had been given an absurd assignment the last time they parted ways in the Bitong Mountains, it was hard not to.

“So Professor Bendozol is coming back starting this year?”

“Yes.”

“…Right. Hang in there, underclassman.”

At Diret’s words, packed with many meanings, Lee Han suddenly felt uneasy.

“…Was it that bad?”

“A little? I still can’t forget the time I had to pull a friend out after that friend accidentally ended up inside a kraken’s stomach.”

Diret gazed into the air with eyes soaked in nostalgia.

Of course, Lee Han couldn’t be nostalgic about that. Lee Han stared at the upperclassman in horror.

“Don’t worry too much, underclassman. Everyone’s walked that road. Of course, second-year classes do get harder, but you’ve already heard plenty hard. It won’t change that much.”

“Thank you for the warm comfort…”

Lee Han answered with complicated feelings, unable to tell whether to be happy or sad.

“By the way. Upperclassman Diret. Do you know what Lesser World magic is?”

Lee Han asked because Lee Han remembered hearing it from the Skull Principal, and Diret looked at Lee Han with a puzzled expression.

“I know, but why? It’s not magic you should be interested in yet.”

Even while puzzled, Diret pulled out a sheet of paper and explained while sketching a simple drawing.

There was time anyway, and from Diret’s point of view, the underclassman in front of Diret was a person utterly insane about magic, so it wasn’t strange for Lee Han to take interest.

“For you, underclassman, you know what it means for a mage to use magic, right?”

“Changing reality according to a mage’s will…”

It was such a famous line that Lee Han answered without even thinking. Diret nodded and continued.

“Right. But strictly speaking, most magic doesn’t truly change reality. It’s closer to cleverly deceiving reality.”

Diret pointed at a mage passing by, wrapped in a dazzling cloak of light magic.

The cloak of light shifted through seven colors, producing a distinctive mana wavelength.

“That spell is probably <Asen’s Seven-Color Illusion Cloak>. The proper way to cast it uses two magic circles and five kinds of reagents. And an incantation of at least four words. But why can’t it be cast with just an incantation, will, and movement? That would be much simpler.”

“Because there isn’t enough mana.”

Lee Han answered instantly.

“……”

At the unexpected answer, Diret looked at the underclassman with a slightly stunned expression.

“Th-that’s also true, but that’s not what I was about to say, underclassman. What I wanted to say was that changing reality isn’t as easy as people think.”

Magic wasn’t a discipline that created something from nothing, with no price.

If you wanted any phenomenon to happen, you needed a cost.

Mana, reagents, incantations…

“The reason all those complicated methods get dragged in is because, fundamentally, it’s not really changing reality—it’s closer to deceiving it. You use all kinds of methods to deceive it skillfully. To truly change reality, low-level magic won’t cut it. You need much higher-level magic, and all kinds of secrets… and one of those is the realm of Lesser World.”

After saying that much, Diret got stuck, wondering how best to explain it.

“Do you know Personal World magic? You probably don’t…”

“I do. I’ve seen it.”

“Oh. You know that? …What? Where did you see it?!”

Diret jumped in surprise.

Did Lee Han see it at House Wardanaz?!

“We can talk about that later… Personal World magic is the pinnacle of magic, an ultimate realm. It changes the world itself according to a mage’s intent. But it’s that difficult and demanding of a spell… and not many people even aim for it.”

Not every mage dreamed of a Personal World like the Skull Principal.

Since a mage’s goal was fundamentally the pursuit of knowledge, only the magic relevant to that mage’s purpose really mattered.

Magic that was hard to reach even if you ground up an entire lifetime was inefficient as a means.

Compared to that, Lesser World magic was far more local and limited, but it changed reality through principles similar to Personal World magic.

‘So it’s like a mass-market Personal World magic.’

Listening to Diret’s explanation, Lee Han understood it that way.

After all, even the Skull Principal had at least a shred of conscience—(even if the Skull Principal did tell Lee Han to learn word of command magic right away)—so the Skull Principal couldn’t just tell Lee Han to master a Personal World immediately.

Instead, the Skull Principal clearly recommended starting with Lesser World, which more people had learned.

Personal World magic was a mage’s own ultimate realm, something no one could teach.

By contrast, Lesser World magic had been theorized to some extent, and it was a realm you could learn if you burned enough time and talent.

“If you can unfold a Lesser World, from then on you can truly say you’re changing reality. And the magic you can unfold inside it becomes more diverse too.”

“Can you use it too, Upperclassman Diret?”

“If I prepare, and prepare, and prepare a lot—only for a moment, and only in a limited situation.”

Diret briefly explained the Lesser World Diret had learned, Pentagramaton.

It was a type of Lesser World that removed the limits of dark magic within the mage and at close range.

“But usually there’s no reason to use it. If I’m going to use this, it’s much easier to prepare some other way.”

If Diret needed to prepare magic beyond normal limits, Diret would rather just cast all kinds of spells over a workshop to seize the territory strongly, then amplify Diret’s own abilities with an elixir.

If you seized an area strongly with magic and amplified your own abilities, you got something roughly similar to a Lesser World anyway.

A mage was always a being that pursued efficiency.

“That’s amazing!”

Lee Han looked at Diret with eyes full of respect.

“I said I can only use it for a moment.”

“Even so, amazing is amazing. I respect you.”

At the underclassman’s words, Diret awkwardly looked away. Hearing praise didn’t feel bad, but it was also a little embarrassing.

Diret cleared the throat and changed the topic.

“Anyway, why Lesser World? Who told you to learn it?”

“Yes.”

“…Which crazy bastard did?!”

Diret had thrown the question out as a joke, but when a positive answer came back, Diret was horrified.

“The Skull Principal told me to learn fifth-circle spells so I can enter it by the end of this year.”

“That crazy bastard has lost it!”

Diret exploded in fury.

Seeing that, Lee Han was even more moved than before.

How many people would rage at the Skull Principal for an underclassman’s sake?

Loyalty surged up on its own.

“This won’t do. Underclassman. I’m writing a denunciation.”

“N-no. It’s fine.”

“What do you mean it’s fine?!”

“I was planning to make some excuses and get by.”

“How?”

“I was going to focus on easy spells, then insist I did what I was told.”

“……”

Diret was angry, then got so dumbfounded it shut down speech.

So right now…

Was Lee Han saying Lee Han was confident about learning easy fifth-circle spells?

Feeling anew that the underclassman in front of Diret was a genius beyond comparison, Diret shook the head back and forth.

“…All right. Underclassman. It’s your business, so I have to respect your will. Still, if later you feel like you really can’t do it, don’t just swallow it. Say something.”

“Yes. If it feels hard, I’ll just tell His Majesty directly.”

“…Yeah… Hm?”

In the middle of speaking, Diret tilted the head in confusion.

Did Lee Han just say “directly,” not “denunciation”?