Episode 1178
by Cristae“Ah…”
Lee Han tried, flustered, to stop her, but the Most Cantankerous Hag was already gone.
“Be quiet! Boy!”
“Kruruk (Making noise while discussing magic, have you no manners)!”
“……”
Seeing black magicians sitting and occupying someone else’s desk as if it were their own and acting up, Lee Han wondered why he’d bothered trying to stop her.
‘I’d better remember to tell them later.’
Lee Han’s scheme was wicked, but in truth, the black magicians were no less so.
While Lee Han was plotting his sly plans in the background, the black magicians were plotting their own underhanded tricks against him.
“Fine. Then I’ll take out -Eye of Ahrak- and add -Ovinnik’s Howl-.”
“Kruruk (That’s outright changing the spell)!”
“When you do magic, sometimes you change things. Do you always finish spells exactly as you first drew them?”
“Isn’t changing already completed spells just to make it harder against the rules?”
“Rules? Get out of here. If you’re resentful, try it yourself! I’ll bet you, the kid will never learn -Ovinnik’s Howl-!”
“Kruruk (You’re already crawling on all fours and still acting superior).”
‘Wait. Wasn’t the real goal to explain the magic in an easy way?’
The Obsidian Tower magician suddenly felt puzzled.
The reason behind this lesson was to teach Wardanaz so they could proceed with the commission using their own work…
…When did it turn into everyone competing to challenge each other with hard spells?
“Boy, why are you so quiet? Ah. I get it. You don’t plan to change! Look. Even the boy accepts it!”
“Kruruk (Is that true)?!”
In the blink of an eye, while lost in thought, the fire lit on him. The Obsidian Tower magician blurted out without even time to think.
“We’ll change ours too. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Hmph. Perfect, then. Let’s see who wins!”
Catten, who had been watching the magicians’ conversation with interest, saw the junior quietly slip out the window and waved him off with a gesture.
‘Living as an exceptional magician must be quite a headache!’
“Hey. If the black magicians come looking for me, tell them I’m not here.”
Lee Han, now taking refuge in the White Tiger Tower students’ dorm, borrowed an unused desk.
Angrago quickly threw a magazine titled “Trends in Polo Tactics This Year? The Contest to Decide the Empire’s Best Polo Club!” out the window.
Lee Han used teleportation magic to retrieve the magazine and tossed it back to Angrago.
“I can see everything. You should have hidden it before I arrived.”
“…Don’t use hard magic for things like that!”
Deorgyu, being a friend, helped change the subject.
“Lee Han. Why should we say you’re not here if black magicians ask?”
“They keep trying to force me to learn hard spells.”
“?”
“?”
Angrago and Deorgyu exchanged looks.
Deorgyu gave Angrago a ‘don’t say it’ glance, but Angrago couldn’t hold back and spoke.
“But isn’t that what you want, Wardanaz?”
“…Angrago. Have you been upset with me lately?”
“N-no! I was just honestly curious!”
When Lee Han stood up, Angrago flinched in fear.
He really was just asking out of genuine curiosity!
“…You White Tiger Tower guys often get weird ideas about me. It’s not like I deliberately enjoy learning difficult spells.”
‘That’s what the Blue Dragon Tower guys used to say too…’
Angrago felt wronged.
He was sure that Student Ga, Student A, and even the student from the royal family said the same thing.
“It just happens that way. Isn’t that right, Deorgyu?”
“Huh? Uh, y-yeah. O-of course I think so. Haha.”
The muscular orc friend quickly said it, feeling a pang of conscience. Sometimes, friendship outweighed honesty.
“See? Deorgyu doesn’t misunderstand. Why are White Tiger Tower students so vulnerable to fake rumors?”
“……”
“…Is the commission all finished?!”
Deorgyu changed the subject again.
He felt Angrago would likely fixate on him otherwise.
“The commission? Oh. The first draft is done, but the black magicians keep rejecting it and demanding we make it harder… Want to take a look?”
At Lee Han’s words, they nodded and accepted the drawings.
The arrangement of the complex magic circle and spells was indeed fiendishly difficult.
“These black magicians are too much. If there’s an easier way, just take it. Why go out of their way to make things hard? They should consider the builder too.”
“Too difficult. Lee Han, I understand why you don’t accept it.”
“…I wrote this, not the black magicians. Is it that hard?”
Lee Han’s face darkened a little.
He thought he’d made it quite intuitive and efficient, but hadn’t expected this reaction.
“Ah, no! It’s not that bad!”
“Angrago is right, Lee Han! This is good enough!”
The friends hurriedly tried to comfort him, but it was too late. Lee Han muttered sadly.
“Maybe I really do need to simplify it more. Honestly, it won’t be easy to make it more basic from here… Might be quicker to start over.”
Angrago shot Deorgyu a look, urging him with his eyes to do something. But even Deorgyu couldn’t do much in a situation like this.
“Do something, Choi! Wardanaz is about to redo the whole thing!”
“C-can you really redo or fix it at this point?”
“How would I know! I barely understood even 30% of it! I just know that if knights try to escape, they’ll get trapped in a spatial labyrinth!”
Angrago and Deorgyu whispered urgently.
They hadn’t fully understood the drawings they received, but they had a sense that a lot of effort had gone into them.
Now he wanted to redo everything.
And make it even simpler?
Creeaak—
“Hey, stop messing around and come out…”
Giselle, who was coming in to call his friends who were clearly just fooling around, froze.
One friend who wasn’t supposed to be there at all was gloomily examining the drawings.
“…Guess you weren’t fooling around. Good. Keep at it.”
Giselle tried to slink out, but the others wouldn’t let her go.
“Moradi! Do something! Wardanaz is about to start over!”
“What? Teach you?”
“The commission! The commission!”
“Start over? Did you even finish meanwhile? You can’t have…”
“I did, but I was going to do it again.”
At Lee Han’s words, Giselle whipped her head around.
Already finished?!
She knew her Blue Dragon Tower friend was a genius, but she hadn’t expected him to finish so quickly.
“Wait. Why do it over?”
“The black magicians…”
“They helped you? Ah. So that’s why it was faster than expected?”
That made sense.
While the black magicians were useless in this situation (to be fair, the Einrogard magician was just exceptionally capable), even so, their magic abilities weren’t lacking.
If those black magicians helped, then finishing the design quickly was understandable…
“No. The other black magicians kept suggesting we make it more complicated, so we thought the proposal was from them. But it turns out Wardanaz made the proposal himself…”
“????”
Giselle was utterly confused. Angrago’s words made no sense to her.
Eventually Deorgyu had to explain instead.
“…Hang on, let me read that.”
Giselle snatched the drawing and read through it with a frown.
Then she declared:
“This is good enough.”
“…Don’t lie! How can you just understand this so quickly! For the honor of White Tiger Tower, that’s impossible!”
Angrago objected before Lee Han could.
No matter how close they were, there were things even friends couldn’t let go. Magic was one of those things.
He himself hadn’t understood it, but somehow Moradi from the same Tower finished reading and understanding right away!?
“You don’t need to understand all the magic parts, just the outcome. Why try to understand it all?”
Giselle, if anything, gave Angrago a look of disbelief.
When constructing a magic building with these designs, you didn’t need to understand every bit.
You just followed the diagrams, placed the materials, cast the spell, and that was that.
If you could understand everything, why hire someone for the commission? You’d just do it yourself.
“……”
“……”
Right?
Angrago and Deorgyu wondered if they’d been bewitched. Maybe because of how Wardanaz looked at them, they felt like they had to understand everything.
“But Moradi, what if I made a mistake and there’s a problem during construction?”
“Did the black magicians say there was a mistake?”
“No, but…”
“Then there won’t be.”
“…But what if I have to repair it later when I’m not around?”
“Just leave the design and compare when repairing. As long as they follow it, it’ll be fine.”
Defeated by logic, Lee Han looked to Angrago and Deorgyu. They smiled awkwardly in their nervousness.
Please don’t redo it!
“Y-yeah, we think Moradi is right too.”
“Yeah. Lee Han, think it through. Starting over is…”
“…Yeah. You guys are right.”
‘Phew!’
When Lee Han finally relented, his friends sighed in relief.
But his next words dashed their hopes completely.
“But I just thought of a fix while we were talking, so I’ll have to adjust that.”
“Hey!”
Direte was riding the Black Magic School’s fastest steed, the rim-paxi that Professor Mortum prized above his life, and raced quickly through the imperial sky.
When he drew near enough to see the northern Moradi family fortress, someone called up from below.
“Cough, Direte! Looks like there’s been a mistake. You can go back!”
Direte ignored the figure disguised as Professor Mortum and flew right past. If he stopped to check, he’d fall for their trick.
“I’m from Einrogard!”
The knights managing the sky stables on top of the cliff recognized the flag and let him through.
Direte jumped off the rim-paxi. The beast shook its pitch-black mane and whinnied in irritation.
“Sorry! Evil enemies are trying to kidnap my junior right now!”
After promising to bring it a snack later, Direte immediately moved using flight magic.
“Stop! Flight is prohibited within the territory!”
A knight shouted, but Direte ignored him. When you couldn’t be sure if someone was really a knight or a disguised black magician, ignoring them was the right move.
‘This way!’
Having heard where Wardanaz and Catten were staying, Direte kicked open the door and rushed in.
“Junior! You haven’t suffered at the hands of any lunatics, right?!”
“?”
“……”
The Heir of Ahrak, the Legion of Oondorgu, and the black magician from the Obsidian Tower all looked up from their noisy huddle in the tiny room.
In the meantime, Catten, still sitting calmly, happily waved his hand.
“Lunatics? Who do you mean?”
The gathered black magicians asked curiously.