Episode 1150

“……”

“……”

The guild members fell silent upon arriving at the site.

All of them, as if by agreement, kept their mouths shut.

After a moment, one guild member, regaining composure first, muttered,

“Giants… for real.”

“…And sirens…”

Having received letters and wondered what on earth those words could mean, the guild members now realized that Lee Han hadn’t skipped a single detail in his reports.

There really were giants and sirens at the scene!

Catching sight of the guild members, Lee Han, who was playing music for them, stopped with a start.

“Oh. What brings you here?”

-Ugh! The music stopped! We’re losing strength!

-Then we’ll sing instead!

At the giants’ shout, the sirens frantically flapped their fins. Water splashed up to Lee Han’s face, making him quickly dodge.

“I’ll keep playing, so no need for anyone to worry! Sorry, please wait just a moment. Let me finish up this task first!”

“Please, take your time. We’ll have a look around.”

The guild members felt guilty about interrupting since Lee Han was working so hard.

So, instead of talking to Lee Han, the stonemason guild members decided to directly inspect the finished parts of the lighthouse.

“Greetings.”

“…Hey! Enchanter School! The clients are here!”

As they approached the lighthouse, Einrogard students looked up in surprise and called out.

Sigunting, who was plastering inside, hastily called for a senior.

“Senior, looks like the stonemason guild members are here. What should we do? Should we throw up a smokescreen first?”

“Sigunting, this isn’t a job led by Professor Verdus. There’s no need to hide anything.”

Einrogard students, by habit, always started with concealment when a client showed up.

Not because they were guilty, but because there was nothing to lose by hiding a bit.

Especially if they did mess up, those habits were even more helpful.

For jobs run by the Enchanter School, especially ones with Professor Verdus, ignoring the client’s requests and running wild was so common that Sigunting’s urge to smokescreen first was only natural.

“R-Really?”

“Yeah. If anything, we finished a bit faster than planned, not slower.”

“What if there are durability problems or bits we missed?”

“I checked everything at dawn, comparing each detail. There aren’t any.”

Sigunting breathed a sigh of relief at Anpagone’s firm answer.

As an experienced senior also affiliated with the Stonemason Club, Anpagone was reliable for such things.

“Wait, so you stayed up all night checking?”

“No. Wardanaz did. He went out at dawn, checked everything, and came back.”

“……”

‘Isn’t this guy ever going to collapse?’

Sigunting wondered.

Sure, just taking all the courses in every discipline meant you were hardier than normal wizards, but even so, this guy was really…

“Anyone there?”

“We’ll head down now!”

While they chatted, the capital stonemason guild members had arrived right in front of the lighthouse.

Sigunting quickly slid down on a rope. He saw one cross-disciplinary friend gesturing silently, “Should I bring some knockout or hallucination potion?” and replied back, “Still all right.”

“What brings you here? Progress is good and there’s time left on the schedule…”

No one likes clients dropping by too often. Sigunting subtly pointed that out.

The guild members were very aware of that but—

“We just wanted to see for ourselves, since we heard giants and sirens had joined the project.”

“…Ah!”

Sigunting had no choice but to accept that.

Honestly, he would have forced a visit for reasons like that, too.

‘With a reason like that, can’t blame them.’

“Wardanaz is pretty sociable for our school. He’s unusual—gets along with giants, sirens, Professor Verdus, Senior Yukveltire, even dragons.”

‘Is that “a little sociable”?’

‘And wasn’t there something even weirder than those…?’

The stonemason guild members looked at each other in disbelief. There were more than one or two things worth noting.

“R-right… In any case, amazing work.”

“Since you’re here, would you like to check for yourselves?”

Sigunting indicated the lighthouse building behind him.

Receiving confirmation from Anpagone, Sigunting was brimming with confidence.

The stonemason guild members sensed that confidence and smiled.

“Looks like the work is going very well.”

“Heh heh. That’s right.”

“Only a confident wizard would invite us to check this way. Professor Verdus, on the other hand…”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

The others stopped their colleague.

No need to bring up old incidents and kill the good mood.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s take a look… Seems the exterior wall by the entrance is already enchanted. Doesn’t budge when you press it.”

The stonemasons marveled at how quickly the students were working.

The exterior wall by the entrance was tricky, as it required lots of spells and remedies—usually one of the last things finished.

But they were already done!

“?”

Sigunting paused.

Wait a minute…

“…What? Did someone already do this part?”

“We decided to do it all at the end, remember?”

He asked a passing friend, but was only met with confusion.

Worried, Sigunting called over a senior to check.

“Anpagone, did you work on this section yourself?”

“Can’t you see I’m working on the ceiling? How would I have done both at once?”

“…Did you sneak out at dawn like Wardanaz or something?”

Sigunting regretted the question as soon as he asked.

Anpagone wasn’t stupid—why would he bother with that?

Indeed, a sharp answer came from above.

“Do I look like Wardanaz to you?”

“Right… sorry. Then did Wardanaz do it at dawn?”

“No. Judging from the other stuff he did at dawn, that’s impossible.”

This puzzled the stonemason guild members.

Why did no one question the idea of Wardanaz sneaking out at dawn to do work?

Sigunting questioned all the other seniors. But no one claimed responsibility.

“Puhu. The work’s done, yet nobody did it?”

In the end, the question reached even Falkrius and Jarun, working in the basement.

Falkrius replied immediately.

“Wasn’t it Wardanaz at dawn?”

“They say no.”

“Shame. I thought for sure it was Wardanaz!”

“……”

The guild members’ looks grew increasingly flabbergasted, but the students didn’t notice.

“Puhu. Maybe it was Senior Yukveltire?”

“Huh?”

Even Sigunting and Jarun were baffled by Falkrius’s joke.

What on earth was he talking about?

“Ahaha! Just joking! No way it’s her!”

Everyone laughed—except the stonemasons, who found nothing funny about it at all.

‘What are they saying?’

The quiet Jarun finally spoke.

“Could it be some sort of primal-magic phenomenon?”

“Primal magic?”

Magic not cast by the imperial system, but by other means.

This included ancient magic, among others. The specifics changed case by case, but most were hard to measure or theorize about.

“With giants, sirens, dragons here, and then…”

“Mmm. It used to be wild forest territory, too.”

Jarun nodded at Falkrius’s words.

With so many rare races gathered in one place and colliding, it wouldn’t be odd for some “primal-magic phenomenon” they couldn’t yet identify to happen.

“Wardanaz even subdued the giants with music magic.”

There were plenty of possible suspects for the primal-magic event.

Giants, sirens, an angry Professor Verdus, Senior Yukveltire forced to work, a dragon, the junior’s musical performance…

Jarun nodded, then said,

“There’s only one way to verify it. Falkrius.”

“Puhu. I was thinking the same. We break down the entrance wall and recreate the conditions exactly.”

“Yes. Only then can we find the cause.”

“…Wardanaz! Wardanaz! You’d best come here for a moment!”

The stonemason guild members were deeply grateful they had visited today.

If not, these lunatic Einrogard students might have sabotaged the results just to test some theory!

---

The rest of the work was finished before the weekend was over.

With all obstacles removed and all kinds of races pitching in together, the speed was even more remarkable.

With a pace worthy of Einrogard history, Lee Han completed a flawless structure and thanked his seniors.

“Thank you, everyone.”

“We enjoyed it too, Wardanaz. If jobs could always go this quickly, we’d never accept them again.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ah—sorry, that slipped out. It was just really tough.”

“……”

Some seniors grumbled about the harsh schedule, but more of them didn’t mind.

If you worried about quality of life in Einrogard, you’d never get anything done.

As long as there were plenty of rewards and a compressed schedule, it was something to be grateful for.

“That guy’s in third year but less mature than most second-years.”

“Let him be. Puhu. He’ll get it once he hits fourth year.”

-We had fun, too!

The giants shouted cheerfully.

They’d eaten well and sung to their hearts’ content—nothing for a giant to complain about.

With even the giants expressing their feelings, everyone’s eyes turned to the river.

Only the sirens were left.

-……

Parthenope, hating every moment of it, etched that they’d had a good time onto her writing slate.

Some of the sirens behind her whimpered from sheer frustration.

“Are the sirens crying?”

“Must be sad to say goodbye! I’ve never seen a siren do that before. Must be really close…”

As seniors whispered to each other, the sirens clenched their teeth.

If they didn’t leave now, they’d have to keep hearing the foul prattle of these wizards.

Seeing the teary-eyed sirens, Lee Han felt sorry and said,

“Next time I get a request like this, I’ll be sure to call you…”

Splash!

The sirens made a hasty exit. The seniors advised Lee Han,

“They look so sad to part, you definitely should invite them next time, Wardanaz.”

“Yeah. Sirens are a temperamental, ill-natured species. If you build up a grudge, who knows what they’ll do.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Sirens were certainly as tricky as giants.

Even if you were on good terms now, get careless and it might cool off in the future.

With the work finished, the seniors cheerfully bid farewell and returned to the main building. Some went back via the river, some turned into giant birds and flew off.

And Jarun dug for soft ground—he didn’t want solid bedrock if he wanted to tunnel straight underground.

“Senior.”

“!”

Jarun jumped at the sinister voice of his junior.

He was already wary of this dangerous junior, and being bombarded by so many paper cranes had tripled his guard.

“Wh-what is it? What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to thank you for coming this time. Please accept this.”

Lee Han spoke with sincerity.

Jarun, an outstanding transmutation wizard and Stonemason Club member, had contributed greatly.

And his best trait was that he had no friends.

With none of the idle chatter and time-wasting of other seniors, he’d done about twice as much work.

Still wary, Jarun accepted the junior’s gift. He opened it and found an elongated dimensional astrolabe.

He didn’t know who made it, but it was an extremely well-crafted artifact—even Jarun was impressed.

“Your research is on Dimensional Conversion Gold Harvesting, right? I thought this would be helpful.”

“…Where’d you get this? They don’t sell items like these easily.”

“I took it from Professor Verdus’ storeroom, but that’s not important.”

To Jarun’s surprise, he nodded. Indeed, that wasn’t important.