Episode 792

“Next week is club week…”

“Ah. One moment, Professor. It feels like time just slowed down a little.”

“It doesn’t work that quickly, I told you.”

“Hmmm!”

‘Maybe I really should hit him.’

Of course, the wrong hit could cause a serious injury, but left alone, the boy from the Wardanaz family might burn up in pursuit of knowledge like a wizard flying toward the sun on waxen wings.

Better to break a few bones now and learn a lesson, than have his soul consumed by the flames of knowledge.

“That’s it, Professor! I think I did it!”

“?!!!!”

Professor Garcia accidentally crushed the pocket watch he used for checking the time, that’s how startled he was.

“Oh, Professor, are you upset?”

“I was just surprised, so don’t worry about it, Lee Han.”

“Do you have trouble controlling your strength when you’re surprised, Professor?”

Lee Han asked seriously.

Since he would be learning under Professor Garcia for some time, this was a matter of survival.

Maybe on stormy days or in areas rife with ethereal monsters, he’d better keep his distance from Professor Garcia…

“Stop with the pointless questions and just cast the spell.”

“Yes. From instant to moment, from moment to blink!”

With the incantation, Lee Han could clearly feel his subjective time stretching.

In truth, this spell was not that effective by itself.

After all, it didn’t stretch the actual time a mage had, just their sense of time.

When a person was in crisis, they sometimes felt like time slowed to a crawl.

This spell simulated that feeling.

Naturally, a magician’s hands and staff lagged behind accelerated thoughts, moving sluggishly.

‘It’s hard to adapt.’

Pop!

Professor Garcia quickly floated a problem up in the air.

Even if the body couldn’t keep up with time, the conscious mind’s acceleration still gave a big advantage.

A magician arrives at a village and is measuring the breadth of a field. In the following illustration, what is the minimum sum of the areas surrounded by curves and lines…

‘Did I make this too hard?’

He considered whether just checking Lee Han’s sense of time was enough, but the ability to use accelerated thinking was more important than expected.

This spell would get more use as a foundation and combo for advanced time spells than on its own.

To train students to swiftly accelerate their thoughts, a tough problem was better.

It needed to be too hard to solve in the allotted time to keep the mind moving.

But as Lee Han just sat there still, Professor Garcia became slightly uncertain.

If it was too hard to even approach, he might have picked the wrong level…

“Professor.”

While the spell was ending, Lee Han spoke.

“Was the problem too difficult?”

“No. Actually, Professor Nighten gave us this question last year.”

“Huh? Why would Professor Nighten give this last year?”

Professor Garcia tilted his head in confusion.

This wasn’t a first-year problem.

“She gave it just to me, so I could solve harder problems.”

“……”

Shock and horror.

At this shocking revelation, Professor Garcia was speechless.

Not Verdus, not Baegrek, even Professor Nighten!

‘I trusted her because she was from a bureaucratic background…!’

The air at Einrogard could clearly drive even normal outsiders mad.

• * *

“Professor. By the way, what did you say earlier?”

After working through another new problem (this one about calculating the position of a charging troll battalion), Lee Han recalled and inquired about Professor Garcia’s previous comment.

“It’ll be club week next week. A lot of outsiders will come, and since you’re in a lot of clubs, Lee Han, you’ll probably be called to many places.”

“Wh-why does such a week exist?”

Lee Han looked at Professor Garcia with despair and betrayal in his eyes.

His expression was so heart-wrenching that for an instant Professor Garcia felt like he himself had invented club week.

“…I’m not the one who started it, Lee Han!”

“Why don’t seniors do research instead of wasting a magician’s precious life on these events?”

‘Pri—Principal?!’

Professor Garcia was startled to see a familiar attitude in Lee Han.

It was the very image of the Skull Principal back in his school days.

“Lee Han. Of course you might not like having outsiders in Einrogard, but these events are really necessary. Remember, last year there were festivals too. There are things we can only learn when outsiders are present.”

While the Skull Principal didn’t like outsiders visiting, objectively, outsiders were necessary at Einrogard.

How do you extract gold coins from people with fat purses?

The answer: give the school a proper excuse, invite them in, then show off some glittering research.

Invited by clubs, imperial visitors to Einrogard were easily convinced, excited, or even occasionally coerced and frightened into investing in research.

“And Einrogard’s students really need to interact more with outsiders. When they’re just left alone together, they always start going mad.”

“……”

Although biting, Professor Garcia’s words were hard to argue with.

Even by Lee Han’s standards, letting Einrogard students huddle together never ended well.

It was no wonder that the necromancy school, when crafting “Jadu” of curses, tossed a jar full of poisonous insects inside.

The last survivor after all the mutual carnage would be the most venomous and tenacious…

‘Wait. Don’t tell me the Principal got Einrogard’s idea from “Jadu.”’

“I understand, Professor. But I can’t help being worried, having joined so many clubs.”

“Hm. Maybe you could reconsider.”

“Since I’m in a lot of clubs, I could get lots of sponsorship and investment?”

“…No, I meant you could talk to your seniors and say, ‘I’d like to cut back on some work.’”

“Professor, I say that every time.”

Lee Han replied with frustration.

He didn’t want to look like someone digging his own grave.

He really did turn down almost all the ridiculous requests from his seniors.

Of course, he’d accepted some jobs, but only ones as a junior that he’d have felt guilty declining, or when the work genuinely benefited him.

“…Isn’t it because you keep making excuses that these become exceptions? Just now, you could have learned the magic at a slow and steady pace, but you forced yourself to master it fast.”

“Huh? Did I really?”

Professor Garcia clenched his fist.

Fortunately, Lee Han didn’t notice. If he had, he’d have widened the distance to the classroom door.

“You can forget, haha. Lee Han, shall we learn the next spell?”

“Professor, you seem a bit angry…”

“Of course not. Now!”

• * *

Next, Lee Han learned the third-circle spells -Lesser Time Deceleration- and -Lesser Time Acceleration-.

Both were spells cast not on the mage, but on objects, speeding up or slowing down their time.

Even though cast on objects, these spells required multiple complex formulas and processes, and Lee Han needed to have already mastered -Lesser Internal Time Extension- for the day.

You could only complete it by extending your thinking time: there really was that much calculation.

‘Maybe it’s because I’m a sophomore now, but Professor Garcia seems to be pushing me a bit harder.’

Lee Han thought as he walked.

Professor Garcia kept asking, “Do you think you could finish this one today too?” “You’re honestly trying to finish this today, right?”—and it felt a bit strange.

Was this his way of applying pressure?

-Kyeng!

‘What was that?’

Descending to the first basement level, Lee Han was surprised by a scream that sounded like someone getting hit.

It was a familiar voice.

-Kyeng!!

“……”

Lee Han’s face stiffened as he walked on.

From inside Professor Baegrek’s -Intermediate Combat Magic Understanding- classroom, he heard the scream.

-Master. Why must we attend lectures?

“Exactly.”

Lee Han couldn’t deny that the baby basilisk’s question got to the heart of the matter.

Why must a student go to class and suffer?

Perhaps it was a riddle to which he would never have the answer.

‘Maybe magicians need to research that before any higher-dimensional truth.’

-I don’t want to go in. Waaah…

The baby basilisk really was terrified of Professor Voladi, and as Lee Han put his hand on the door, it whimpered and whined.

True, Lee Han had given it a home and shelter, but surely Voladi had done too many things to lose points.

“Want to go back to the dorm?”

But the baby basilisk shook its head.

Being away from its master was scarier than any crazy professor.

To comfort it, Lee Han spoke gently.

“Hm. Professor Baegrek isn’t that bad. He’s a lot kinder than Professor Verdus or the Principal.”

-Isn’t there anyone else?

The baby basilisk was sharp. It immediately realized those weren’t exactly great comparisons.

But Lee Han couldn’t afford to delay any longer. He opened the door for the lecture.

“Cloak, devour me.”

He chanted the spell and entered; sure enough, inside was a junior groaning as they tried to handle a sphere.

Professor Voladi didn’t even look in his direction as he spoke up.

“Now that you have permission, you can drop the invisibility.”

“Oh, really?”

Lee Han was pleasantly surprised and dropped his invisibility spell.

Usually, underclassmen at Einrogard couldn’t mingle with upperclassmen, but there were exceptions.

If professors needed help with their teaching, they could get permission to bring in juniors.

And since Professor Voladi’s other disciples simply… didn’t exist, there was no one else to do the job.

Of course, only Lee Han could step up…

‘I can’t believe he actually got permission. The Principal is surprisingly indulgent with Professor Baegrek.’

If Professor Verdus tried to use Lee Han for extra work, the Skull Principal would almost certainly have sent him to the punishment room.

How shameless, to make even second-years work!

But as for Professor Voladi…

‘I’d have granted permission too, if I were him…’

“Eandurde.”

“!”

The gorgon-blooded junior looked up with a start at Lee Han, then lost control of the spirit-stone orb and got hit by it.

Eandurde let out another forlorn “kyeng” as he tumbled away.

“I think it may be a little soon for the Professor to be attacking him.”

Lee Han cautiously commented.

Normally, he’d never question Professor Voladi’s methods, but he felt a bit different seeing a junior get physically assaulted.

Professor Voladi answered, stone-faced.

“I wasn’t attacking him.”

“…?!”

Only then did Lee Han realize Eandurde was practicing telekinesis spells himself.

He’d been tracing set shapes with the spirit-stone orbs until he lost control and the sphere went haywire and hit him.

“Ah. Sorry. He was still at that stage. Junior, class is over.”

Even as Lee Han called, Eandurde shook his head and tried to regain control of the orb.

Watching this, Professor Voladi’s otherwise expressionless face showed the faintest hint of concern.

“I worry he’s pushing himself.”