Episode 515
by Cristae“Yes, understood.”
At Lee Han’s answer, Koholti looked at his junior as if he were the loveliest thing on earth.
Where else would you find such a considerate junior? No other school or discipline would have someone like this.
“It’s not just that I’m afraid of Direte… Well, actually, I am scared, but this is just… Sorry. I’ll definitely pay you back somehow.”
“Haha, not at all. Isn’t this just something a junior should do?”
Lee Han replied without missing a beat.
As Koholti’s eyes sparkled with gratitude, a student brushed past them.
‘Who was that?’
There was only one reason for someone to head toward the tent of healing mages where Lee Han and Koholti had just come from.
An injury from the crazy festival.
But the student walking over looked perfectly fine. In fact, he was even humming to himself.
‘Where have I seen him before? I haven’t met that many seniors.’
Lee Han soon recognized who it was.
“Wasn’t that senior who just passed us from the Enchantment Magic School?”
It was Anpagon, the senior who had prepared their midterms instead of Professor Verdus.
“Oh? I guess so. Why?”
“I was just wondering why he was going to the healers’ tent even though he seemed completely fine.”
“Probably internal injuries. Maybe his stomach, liver, or even his spleen has turned to stone.”
Seeing the senior talk about such things so casually, Lee Han began edging away.
Unaware, Koholti kept chattering to impress his junior.
“…And that’s how you could steal the bones. Funny, right?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Right? I knew you’d like it. Actually, bones aren’t just for bone-element magic—they’re needed for curses too. Curse magic is still under-researched even in black magic, but that makes it fascinating… Your mention of organs reminded me—do you know about the parasite that eats hearts?”
After arriving at the tent, Anpagon—famed as the most sociable in the Enchantment Magic School—was recognized immediately by the healing magic students.
“Oh, you’re… um… Enchantment Magic… who was it?”
“Ah, and you’re… um… Enchantment Magic… what was your name?”
Anpagon replied calmly, unbothered.
“Anpagon.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to be. We came to school to learn magic, not to memorize each other’s names. Aren’t we mages who immerse ourselves in our studies rather than waste time pointlessly socializing?”
At Anpagon’s words, the healing mages sent him looks of respect…
…or rather, looks of displeasure.
‘Who do these guys think they’re lumping us in with?’
‘Do we look the same as those Enchantment Magic freaks?’
There was no comparison between the healing mages who showed up for every dirty job at school and the Enchantment Magic students who would keep crafting even if the school collapsed.
“So, uh… why are you here?”
“Did your insides get hurt? You look fine.”
“I heard there’s a Wardanaz junior here? A first-year, right?”
“……”
The healers were baffled.
How had their reclusive school’s fame reached even the Enchantment Magic kids?
“Why are you looking for him?”
“If possible, I wanted to ask for his help.”
“Don’t tell me… you want to borrow his mana?”
“What? Are you insulting me?”
Anpagon frowned, repeating the words.
He might be unsociable, but he wasn’t dumb enough to tolerate being insulted.
The tent felt awkward as the healing magic students apologized.
“Sorry.”
“Our apologies. Someone just tried to borrow mana from a junior.”
‘What a ridiculous excuse,’ Anpagon thought to himself, but didn’t bother pointing it out. It would be a waste of time.
“I wanted to ask for help with making a composite artifact. But I guess he’s not here.”
“Oh, he went out because another senior called him over.”
“Really? I was a little late, then. Which school?”
“Black Magic.”
“Black Magic…? Oh, right, he’s in Black Magic too. Why’d he get called over there, then?”
Anpagon rated Lee Han’s artifact creation skills extremely highly.
No matter what artifact it was, he could refine its abilities far beyond the norm and even leave out some mechanisms entirely. Any artifact craftsman would covet such talent.
Especially in making composite artifacts—his abilities would shine brighter still.
It was possible thanks to a combination of a gifted brain, sensitivity to mana, and a large magic reservoir.
So impressed was Anpagon that he didn’t even tell the rest of his school about Lee Han.
……
……
“?”
As the healing mages looked at one another in silence, Anpagon wondered.
“Is it some kind of secret you can’t talk about? Fine, I get it.”
“Ah, no… um.”
“Yeah, it’s a secret.”
Upon reaching the site of the special artifact, Koholti suddenly started to regret it.
‘Even if it’s urgent, is it really right to borrow a junior’s mana to activate an artifact…??’
“Is this it, Senior?”
“Uh? Uh, yeah.”
“Should I inject the mana here?”
“That’s right, but wai-…”
Wooooooooooong!
No matter how much mana and how many potions he’d poured in before, the artifact hadn’t budged—yet now it lit up and started humming.
Seeing that, Koholti’s guilt faded and his instincts as a sorcerer took over his brain again.
“Yeah! Just like that! You’re doing great!”
“This artifact looks odd.”
“Huh? Ancient artifacts were often like this.”
The artifact looked like a chest for storing clothes.
It was oddly domestic for a black-magic-related relic.
“Using everyday items like this makes them less likely to be stolen or lost, and causes fewer problems in emergencies. The outside doesn’t matter.”
“I see.”
Lee Han continued, pouring in mana without pause.
Compared to other magic, charging artifacts was so simple and dull he nearly yawned.
In fact, even before Koholti finished talking, the chest flashed and trembled, as if it might open at any moment.
“Isn’t that done?”
“It can’t be done already—wait, it is!”
Koholti was appalled.
He didn’t really expect it to work so fast!
“Thank you so much, junior. I’ll repay this favor for sure! You gotta see what I’m summoning!”
Koholti began chanting a spell as he opened the chest lid.
As the trembling chest opened, the light vanished and silence fell for a moment.
Then, with an eerie whistling sound, a ghostly army began to emerge from inside.
“There! We did it! See?”
“Senior.”
“Want to give commanding a try? Wait! I’ll teach you the commands—”
“Ah, no, I just need to get back to healing—the only reason I came was to help recharge, so may I go back?”
“…Can’t you stay and watch a little longer? It’s still not completely deployed, but if you…”
Feeling a bit ashamed, Koholti hesitated to send him away so quickly.
“What the? Are the black magic kids nuts? How did they summon something that powerful?”
“Do they have money to burn? Shit, if I’d known they had that kind of funding, I would’ve raided them myself.”
The students gathered on-site at Einrogard all noticed the disturbance, of course.
The summoning from the black-magic artifact, bursting with powerful magic.
No one could figure out where all that mana came from.
They couldn’t have just filled it with a mage’s mana by brute force. Surely they’d used up a fortune in top-end reagents…
How’d they pull it off?
With countless summoned ghosts lined up behind him, Koholti sat there in triumph, making the other students shiver.
‘Not easy to be awed by black magic…’
‘Aren’t those guys pushing too hard?’
‘Impressive, it leaves a real impression.’
You might say there was nothing to gain but empty pride in this kind of festival.
But that wasn’t true.
For one, even hollow pride was quite important (especially for students of each tower)…
And for students of the various schools, this was a chance to advertise their school and show off their superiority to other schools.
That ghostly army would leave a strong mark for the Black Magic School.
‘Well, even if it left a strong impression, no one’s going to start learning black magic just because.’
‘They’ll just think it looks cool.’
The others weren’t too worried.
Black magic, no matter how flashy, wasn’t something they needed to pay much heed to.
KUUOOOOOO—
“?!”
“What the hell?”
But things were a bit different when it came to other schools.
Enchantment Magic—and the third-year Anpagon—hauled out a composite artifact straight out of a ballista, and everyone was shocked.
How did he finish something like that so quickly?
“What is this? Did everyone but me spend ages preparing festival showpieces? All this stone-flinging time…”
“How many things did he combine for that? Looks like dozens at least?”
“Did he have it prebuilt and just brought it out?”
“No, that’s impossible. At that scale, it’d have to be assembled on the spot… but how?”
Even Koholti was surprised at the outcome from Enchantment Magic.
‘What? How was that made?’
He had borrowed nearly rule-breaking power, but this guy had built that on his own.
Must be there’s a genius in the Enchantment Magic School that not even Koholti had heard of.
‘…Well, whatever, our school’s got a genius just as good, anyway,’
Koholti resolved not to be jealous of another school.
…Of course, that “junior” belonged to every school, but oh well…
“So it’s finally starting.”
Returning, Lee Han sat inside the tent with the healing magic students, watching the dimensional rift.
The mood was tense, but thanks to the break in stone-throwing, there was actually less work for them.
‘Honestly, if every time this happens something gets summoned, that’d be great.’
Lee Han was having deeply disturbing thoughts as he watched the rift.
The seniors might suffer, but that wasn’t Lee Han’s concern.
Just like when the frost giant showed up, or when the spirit drain incident happened, the seniors had done nothing to help him.
-The heat of war awakens me.
Lee Han suddenly heard a voice and looked around.
The healing magic seniors were eating honey-glutinous rice cakes fried in oil and chatting about which side the next summon would favor.
‘What was that? The principal?’
-The heat of war awakens me!
!!
Only then did Lee Han realize the source of the voice.
Astonishingly, it was coming from within the Bracelet of Ten Thousand Demons.
-The heat of war awakens me!! Place a weapon in my hand, so I can behead the enemy and drink their blood!
Lee Han unconsciously glanced at the seniors gathering to throw stones.
Could that mean he subconsciously wanted to behead those seniors?
‘Surely not.’
-Give me a weapon… Wait…
The voice seemed to get a hold of itself.
The Bracelet of Ten Thousand Demons was the place where the demons defeated by the King of Ghouls were sealed.
It wasn’t surprising the demons sealed there for eons were sometimes confused about their sense of self and memory.
The demon, regaining its senses, peppered Lee Han with questions.
Where is this, what are you, how did you get me, is a war about to start.
“…It’s not war, it’s a festival.”
-War is just another name for festival!
“No, it’s really just a festival…”
-Blood, agony, and screams call to me! Fear me, I am Anphursas!
Suddenly the bracelet flared and carved a new mark onto Lee Han’s wrist.
It was a seal allowing Anphursas, the demon, to move in and out of the bracelet.
Realizing what it was, Lee Han hurried to close the seal in alarm.
If left open, the demon could slip out of the bracelet without permission.
But it was too late.
Anphursas, having escaped through the passage, latched onto a corner of Lee Han’s body and began to bellow.
-Until you give me a chance at combat, I will not return inside!