Episode 923

Episode 923

“Huh? Wardanaz, what are you doing?”

As Lee Han was harassing the junior, his friends, having finished their exams, came in one by one.

To the others, Eandurde didn’t look so good at the moment.

Groaning with a gloomy face, regardless of what mistake he’d made, it seemed better to forgive and move on…

“I was explaining the mistakes on the exam.”

“Aha!”

The friends quickly tossed their backpacks on the floor and fled upstairs to their private rooms.

They realized that if they lingered, arrows might fly their way too.

Eandurde glared after the backs of the cowardly seniors with a look of contempt.

Such despicable escape artists!

“Hik.”

“What?”

When the junior suddenly let out a death throe scream, Lee Han turned his head curiously.

Yoner was coming in with friends.

“Uvbvbvb!”

“I get it.”

Lee Han understood the desperate look and groans in his junior’s eyes.

The hefty exam papers that had been on the desk quickly vanished beneath, swept away by -Wardanaz Telekinesis-.

Eandurde stared at his senior with eyes full of emotion and respect.

Truly, the magic of Einrogard’s seniors was extraordinary.

“Oh. Eandurde, you’re here?”

“Y-yes.”

“How was the exam?”

“……”

Even after hiding the papers, Eandurde’s face darkened at Yoner’s immediate question about the exam.

“Well… um… uh…”

“He did his best. Didn’t fail, either.”

Lee Han inadvertently made excuses for his junior. Gainando was impressed.

“He didn’t fail? That’s pretty good?”

“…Hey. Move along.”

“Yeah, you go on.”

“Wha—why…”

The others worried that Gainando’s praise might have a bad influence on the junior and shooed him away, causing Gainando to retreat sullenly.

A bit of praise wouldn’t hurt, would it?

“Let me see your test papers?”

“Y-yes, yes.”

“Why are they in here?”

Yoner looked puzzled at the tests popping up from the hidden space under the break room floor.

Lee Han shrugged, making excuses.

“I guess… in case the wind blew them away.”

“Is that so…?”

Not convinced but not pressing further, Yoner checked the scores first.

“Whoa. You did well?”

Eandurde’s face brightened.

“But the alchemy section here is a bit lacking.”

Eandurde’s face darkened.

“But your choice to use Serlach grass here was very good.”

Eandurde’s face brightened again.

“But you would’ve done even better if you mixed Binghansan here.”

“Yoner.”

“Yeah?”

“Actually, I already mentioned that earlier.”

“Oh, really?”

The friends watched the scene from behind and thought to themselves.

‘This must be why first-years are kept separate.’

They used to complain about why freshmen were kept apart from the seniors, but now they understood.

If this happened on every test…!

“Here. Eandurde.”

When the painful review ended, Lee Han gave his junior a much bigger food basket than usual.

Gainando, who was also seeing him off, noticed and asked,

“Huh? Isn’t that more than usual?”

“Might not see him for a while.”

Usually, a student who got scolded over a test avoided coming by for a while.

You could see that with Gainando himself.

“I was fine, but Yoner’s strict standards…”

“……”

Gainando’s shameless comment left his friend gaping in shock.

To Gainando, both were equally strict in tormenting their juniors.

‘How can he say something so outrageous without even changing expression…!’

“What is it?”

“I—I respect you! Taking such care of your junior! Lee Han, you’re the best!”

“Heh. It’s nothing.”

Lee Han smiled happily at his friend’s praise and turned away. Gainando felt deep guilt.

Lying through his teeth to his friend just for snacks!

• * *

When the weekend of midterms arrived, all second-year students turned into lazy slobs glued to the break room.

“c4…”

“Then dxc4… pawn…”

“Then I’ll… turn the queen into a dragon… use breath…”

“Are you high on hallucination mushrooms or something… never mind, go ahead and use breath… Then I’ll summon the Headmaster…”

Even students who would normally scramble to play whenever they had a little free time just chatted idly.

Because midterms had gotten so much harder than last year, everyone was half-exhausted.

Teapots floated through the air. Lee Han moved his fingertips lightly, filling his friends’ mugs with hot cocoa and coffee.

In truth, the times Lee Han most keenly felt himself growing as a mage were moments like this—

When using magic out of laziness.

If his masters heard, they’d clutch their necks in despair…

Looking over, Gainando was lying slackly on the floor, absently shuffling through magician cards.

“By the way, Wardanaz.”

“?”

“Clubs are going to start doing real outside activities after exams—did you hear anything about that?”

Einrogard students were basically busy and unfortunate, regardless of year.

Even clubs formed for social purposes couldn’t escape that fate.

When busy with exams or research, club schedules got postponed, so activities were crammed into the rare free times.

‘That’s true.’

Lee Han recalled things he’d heard from a few seniors.

After the exams…

-Pfh. Wardanaz. Hang in there! After the exams, you’ll get to go out and serve meals to the poor!

-…That’s undoubtedly a good thing, but is it really that exciting?

-Of course! During outside activities, we get showered with free ingredients!

‘Hmm. What about the other clubs…’

-Oh, junior. When exams are over, polo time is back in full force.

-Yes, understood.

-By the way, there’s no way you can field Prince Joulin for the games, can you? That’s probably too much, right?

Lee Han shook his head.

For some reason, only the weird clubs came to mind.

“I’ve heard about the Kitchen Club and the Polo Club.”

“Oh, what about the Hunter Club?”

“No, I don’t know much about that.”

“The Adventurer Club? The Magician Card Club?”

“The Outing Club? Sculpture Club?”

Faced with a barrage of questions, Lee Han sat up straight from his slouched position.

“Wait. Why are you asking me? I’m not even in those clubs.”

“Huh? You’re not?!”

“……”

Lee Han glared at his friends as if to say, ‘are you serious?’ They coughed awkwardly and avoided his gaze.

“Oh, well, I thought everyone joined…”

“Now that I think about it, I guess you didn’t join any unofficial clubs. Hmm…”

The Blue Dragon Tower students were embarrassed—they’d just assumed a Wardanaz would have joined as well.

“How did you even get the mistaken idea I joined when I never showed up?”

“We just… figured you were too busy to be seen…”

“……”

Lee Han couldn’t refute that.

He’d barely managed to make even occasional appearances in the clubs he really did join.

Yoner, sitting next to him, said,

“Our club’s going out to see a play.”

Yoner had been invited to many clubs, just like Nillia.

He’d shown up at the kitchen club and others, but after some thought, Yoner finally joined the unofficial Einrogard Theater Club along with Nillia (in Lee Han’s view, Nillia had clearly begged and dragged him along because she didn’t want to join alone).

The Einrogard Theater Club, while unofficial, as its name suggested, simply enjoyed various cultural pursuits.

According to Lee Han, since there wasn’t any money to be made, he didn’t even remember the name, but this did make for a calm, friendly club atmosphere.

“Huh? That actually seems normal!”

“Well, of course…”

Yoner looked at Lee Han incredulously.

Was it really so surprising for a club outing to be so ordinary?

“Sorry. I just assumed clubs meant high-profile activities and lots of gold coins…”

‘He’s my friend, but sometimes I think he’s crazy.’

“That’s not wrong, honestly. Unofficial clubs usually don’t even get permission to go out.”

Hearing Yoner’s words, Lee Han remembered a rule he’d forgotten.

Come to think of it, only official clubs had permission to go outside.

How were unofficial clubs like the Theater Club able to get out so easily?

“Got it. You convinced the professors that you’d recreate Einrogard’s miserable reality in theatrical form and turn a profit.”

“…No, not at all. We were just invited.”

Students sometimes forgot, but Einrogard was the empire’s top magic school.

There were plenty of notables who wanted to invite the students there and show off their art.

No matter how much the skeletal headmaster was mean-spirited, he couldn’t reject every invitation.

Lee Han was thunderstruck.

He’d overlooked this loophole in clubs he’d never cared about, like those focused on culture and the arts.

“What the…! I should join right away so I can smuggle goods!”

“…Calm down! It’s really not like that.”

Yoner tried to soothe his friend.

No way would the Headmaster be kind to such loafing. When the Theater Club went outside, it was under unprecedented surveillance.

This wasn’t the usual ‘just try it if you can’ level of monitoring—it was a whole different caliber.

“How strict are we talking?”

Despite himself, Lee Han asked.

“They block off city streets and alleys to ‘protect Einrogard’s mages,’ clear out shops and businesses, and line the route with Death Knights.”

“…Guess I’ll cancel my application.”

Lee Han quit instantly.

It seemed the Headmaster disliked the Theater Club more than any other at Einrogard.

Of course! He wouldn’t like it when all the club members were happy and having fun.

“Hmph. Still, the Theater Club is the lucky one.”

Gainando muttered gloomily.

“What’s wrong?”

“The club I’m in can barely even get approval to go out.”

The Magician Card Club—no, the Magician Card Collection Club (they were distinctly different)—was unofficial.

Since plans to go out were so uncertain, it was only natural to envy clubs like Theater that got external invitations.

“Official clubs really are better…”

‘There’s no such thing as a perfect club.’

Lee Han realized again.

Official clubs made outings easier, but the obligations were harsh. Unofficial clubs had more freedom, but outings were even rarer.

…Though the Theater Club was a weird exception…

‘Wait. Then.’

Lee Han did a quick tally.

Among the clubs he’d joined, the official ones all seemed likely to get to go out, but the unofficial ones?

The Einrogard Social Club was an unofficial club created by Yukveltire, the most anti-social person imaginable, so it wouldn’t be active.

And the Teleportation Club…

‘…No way, right?’

No matter how elaborate a plan, unofficial of unofficial clubs weren’t likely to get outings approved.

What professor would ever let such a club go out?

So the Teleportation Club would certainly only be active within the school. Lee Han decided to keep a close watch on the outside storage rooms for a while.

• * *

“No, we’re going out too.”

“…Excuse me?! Are you talking about the Library Club?!”

Lee Han was surprised by the words of hamster beastfolk fourth-year, Senior Sevius.

“…No. I mean the Teleportation Club.”

“Oh. You mean escape, right?”

Lee Han nodded knowingly.

He, too, referred to it as ‘going out’ when escaping. Who would speak plainly about something like that?

“No, I mean actual going out. We submitted a plan and got special approval.”

“…Wh-what kind of plan did you submit??”

“Retrieving the magical items the professors wanted.”

“……”

At this point, isn’t this basically an official club?