Episode 1231
by Cristae‘W-what is this feeling?’
Uman was bewildered as an unfamiliar emotion boiled within him.
It felt strangely similar to when the Skull Headmaster had mocked him.
Was this… anger?
‘Impossible! There’s no way I, Uman, would feel anger… My sister must have had her reasons.’
Just like long ago, when Joulin took his toy—surely, there was some deeper meaning this time too.
He just wasn’t wise enough to grasp it yet.
“…Then I, Uman, will step out alone…”
“What are you talking about? You’re both leaving together.”
Of course, Lee Han wasn’t going to let that happen.
Just abruptly reducing the pair to one without explanation? No way.
In the end, Joulin was forced out into the corridor, looking on the verge of tears. Yoanen gazed after them with a wistful, longing look.
If only she could bring those dragons into her own lab!
“Lady Meikin?”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything!”
“……”
“……”
Lee Han and Yoner gave the alchemist a cold look.
They both noticed the gaze Yoanen was sending after the dragons.
‘Is she trying to kidnap them?’
‘Not even I’ve gotten that look from my own sister…’
Feeling cornered, Yoanen tried to change the subject with grace.
“Ahem. Gainando.”
“Why me all of a sudden… And why the sudden formality…”
Having gotten sharper from recent events, Gainando answered warily, sensing something off.
She hadn’t addressed him like that back at the mansion.
“Have you, perhaps, been spreading weird rumors about our workshop recently? Saying it’s not a good place to sell reagents, or that we make you work 25 hours a day…”
“!!!!”
Lee Han and Yoner gawked at each other in horror.
This was bad!!
‘What do we do?’
They knew exactly why Yoanen was asking such questions.
Back during one of their outings, disguised as Stedal Nago, it had come back to haunt them.
Once club duties and the evil god cultists were dealt with, Lee Han and friends decided to make and sell some reagents with their spare time, hoping to earn some gold.
The problem was, thanks to Lee Han’s mana, the quality of these reagents turned out far better than expected.
As a result, workshops throughout the city scrambled to get the Nago family’s reagents…
…and in the meantime, Yoner had been caught suggesting, ‘My sister’s workshop is too smart to fall for it, better sell it elsewhere.’
With no good alternatives, they’d made a last-ditch choice.
-…Actually, Gainando said it.
At the time, they thought it wouldn’t matter. What were the chances Yoanen and Gainando would ever meet?
But life always finds a way. Lee Han reflected deeply.
‘Ugh.’
Yoner shot him a look from the side.
‘At this point, there’s only one option.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We throw Gainando under the bus.’
‘…Let’s consider something else…’
Lee Han shivered at his cousin’s cold-hearted resolve.
Meanwhile, sweating bullets, Gainando responded.
“H-how did you know?”
“?!!”
“A reliable anonymous tip. Such a pity, Gainando. Our workshop’s alchemists do not work 26 hours a day.”
“You just said 25…”
“That only happens in very rare, special cases. Understand?”
“Yes…”
Gainando hung his head, utterly dejected.
How did Yoner’s sister figure out what he’d been saying?
‘Was it Yoner? But I never told her!’
“Now, you’ll be writing letters correcting the rumor to everyone who heard it over vacation…”
“Gasp.”
Finishing the conversation, Yoanen turned her attention elsewhere.
The pair watching in dumbfounded confusion tensed up when Yoanen’s gaze landed on them.
“By the way, are you still taking orders from the Nago family?”
“Uh, yes. I mean—yes, that’s right. Things have been a bit hectic lately… you see.”
“Like hunting evil gods?”
‘That really does sound odd when you put it like that,’ Lee Han thought, but nodded anyway.
It wasn’t wrong—evil god business had indeed made things hectic.
“Have any new reagents come out recently?”
“I’ll check.”
“If possible, I’d like to commission some work at our workshop.”
“I’ll pass the message along.”
“Can I look forward to a positive answer?”
“Probably, yes? Haha.”
Lee Han didn’t notice the shrewd glint in Yoanen’s eyes behind her amethyst glasses.
‘Highly suspicious…’
Yoanen was by no means a fool.
This wild magician of the upside-down skull monogram family was highly suspicious.
They said he’d once escaped from pirates in the southern empire, or amassed his fortune stealing their treasure maps…
Yet when Yoanen asked southern nobles, they turned the question around, asking if he was really from the capital.
He could certainly be a new noble—but what caught her curiosity was the unusually close relationship with Einrogard students.
…Could he be an Einrogard professor or graduate in disguise?
That would explain so much about this magician.
Subjugating evil god worshippers, attacking greedy villains in Granden City, even his attacks on Professor Verdus!
His few words and rough demeanor might be either to avoid blowing his cover… or just the result of a typical Einrogard graduate’s sharpened character.
“Understood, Master Wardanaz. I’ll await your reply. And by the way, this evil god expedition… as an imperial wizard, I truly respect—”
Yoanen paused.
An inspiration like the ones she got while working with alchemy flashed through her mind.
His connection to evil god worshippers.
His antagonism toward Professor Verdus.
‘Stedal Nago… Stedal Nago… Gonadaltes!??!’
Yoanen stared at the Wardanaz magician before her, her eyes trembling.
A disciple of the Skull Headmaster!
‘Not a graduate after all!’
“Thank you?”
“…Then, since -Purification of Kinis- is finished, shall we take a short break?”
Yoanen said this, then calmly walked out into the corridor to fetch more reagents.
Yoner scowled at the scene.
“That’s weird.”
“What?”
“My sister never gives breaks for no reason.”
“…Yoner, Lady Meikin is still human. She wouldn’t act like that after coming all this way, and the professor’s here too.”
“She’s not the type to change her attitude on a whim.”
Yoner replied in an unwavering voice.
“She’s not the type to…”
“All right, I get it, you don’t need to repeat it.”
“Maybe she wants to recruit you for her workshop after seeing you’re friendly with dragons?”
“Didn’t you say it was fine last time?”
Lee Han responded, perplexed.
Of course, to a skilled alchemist like Yoanen, someone like Lee Han with limitless mana was a prize.
But Yoanen wasn’t stupid.
With so many imperial towers actively vying for him, the odds of her recruiting him as a workshop apprentice were slim.
“Right. Besides, she thinks you’ll become a professor at Einrogard.”
“What? I never heard that before?”
Lee Han paused at his friend’s new revelation.
A job as an Einrogard professor? That was news!
Professor Voladi, listening nearby, spoke up.
“That’s a good idea.”
“Ah, no! I haven’t decided on anything! I never even brought it up!”
Ever since learning from the Mad Clone, Lee Han’s dream had shifted from ‘the empire’s greatest entrepreneur’ to ‘find out what more I can do with magic.’
That hardly meant he was fated to be an Einrogard professor.
Sure, he’d thought about it a little but…
…just a little!
“Professor, even you didn’t head straight to a professorship; you wandered the empire, exploring jobs, too!”
“That’s true.”
Voladi nodded.
He’d certainly roamed and honed his magic before becoming a professor.
“But continuing your studies at Einrogard is a good plan as well.”
Advancing to fifth year and honing your magic, then moving straight to a faculty appointment.
At Einrogard, that was the elite track.
“Why so?”
“Because it would ease Professor Garcia’s anger.”
“……”
For a second, Lee Han thought Professor Voladi was joking.
But Voladi looked serious. Lee Han braced himself to reply calmly.
“…I don’t want to become a professor just to appease him…”
“I just assumed you’d stay at Einrogard.”
Even Gainando sounded confused.
Lee Han had thought about asking for his help when graduation approached.
“Nothing’s set in stone, so don’t go spreading rumors. Especially not in front of the Headmaster!”
Hearing his friends make such ominous suggestions made Lee Han shiver.
Words had weight.
What if some idle gossip led to him getting dragged into fifth year automatically?
‘Anyway. I shouldn’t waste more time.’
Suddenly realizing, Lee Han remembered the basement he could access through the cell’s backpack-summoning. Now that the magic restriction was gone, it made sense to check it now—he didn’t want to risk it later.
“I’m going to the basement for a bit, so no funny business while I’m gone. If Prince Joulin shows up, give him a lecture.”
“Wait, Lee Han! I’m telling you, something’s weird with my sister!”
Yoner reached out to consult her friend, but Lee Han had already disappeared.
Gainando asked seriously,
“What if Lady Meikin uses all the family’s gold to buy Lee Han off the Headmaster???”
“…Lee Han’s not a commodity, and the Headmaster would never make such a deal… probably.”
“Master?”
Stepping into the basement, Lee Han felt a sense of dread.
At first, he didn’t realize why, but soon he identified it.
‘No magic!’
No sign of magic depicted in circle patterns.
The unique mana pattern generated by those spells was entirely absent from the basement.
All he could hear was a pitiful squeaking.
-Ugh. Help. My head…
“You!”
Lee Han, furious, picked up the hamster.
Still groaning alone in the basement, suffering the aftereffects of being seduced by the evil god, the hamster howled.
-Aah! Don’t shake me! I told you not to shake me!
“You vile hamster! After all the treats I gave you, you attack Master!?”
-D-don’t be absurd…! How could I ever have attacked that monster!
“Calling my master a monster, huh? Showing your true colors!”
As Lee Han shook it roughly up and down, the hamster whimpered helplessly.
It couldn’t fathom where its fate had gone so wrong.