Episode 125

Episode 125

When he saw the fallen mouse, Ihan reflexively blurted out an excuse.

“I am not a dragon, a lich, or the headmaster.”

The friends near Ihan looked at him as if wondering what he was talking about. The red fox stretched its front paw forward, as if telling him to look ahead.

The mouse jumped to its feet and started to run away.

“…Wait! You wanted a duel! Have some honor as a noble…”

Ihan habitually started to mention honor, but then hesitated.

Come to think of it, this was a trick that only worked on his friends from the Blue Dragon’s Tower.

-Be noble and clean up the dishes you used.

-Be noble and look up information on the reagents in the book.

-Be noble and try walking over that trap.

There was no way talking about a noble’s honor would work on a mouse. Ihan quickly changed his words.

“…Uphold your honor as a mouse!”

Of course, the mouse didn’t listen and bolted into the forest. The red fox looked at Ihan with an exasperated face. Maybe because he’d turned into an animal, that gaze stung even more.

“There’s no helping it. Let’s chase him.”

Looking at the situation, that mouse was clearly the owner of this forest.

He didn’t know why the mouse learned magic and played the role of the forest’s ruler, but Ihan simply accepted it now.

…At a magic school, that was possible.

“Stop right there! I’m challenging you to a duel!”

As he chased after the mouse and shouted about dueling, Ihan felt a sense of shame, but that wasn’t what was important right now.

Sharkan clattered along, tracking the mouse’s trail.

Perhaps knowing it was being chased, the mouse started to retaliate.

“!”

A vine by the roadside, laden with fruit, suddenly changed form and transformed into a fierce white-headed eagle.

Ihan responded instantly.

“Space, be perceived. And… arise!”

As soon as he chanted the spatial perception spell, the details of the situation around him entered his mind in a rush. Off in the distance, he could almost see the path the escaping mouse took.

A large mass of water quickly formed, and under Ihan’s will, the water transformed into orbs that began to swirl around him.

It started from the simple 1st-circle spell, but in a flash, it progressed to shape transformation and sustained motion.

Yoner, the red fox beside him, raised his tail in surprise.

‘!?’

While his friend wasn’t looking, Ihan’s self-study in water magic kept jumping ahead by several steps; there was no way not to be surprised.

Of course, Ihan had been skilled in water magic for a long time…

But wasn’t that spell even faster, more complex, and more elaborate than what he saw last time?

Was that really okay?

“Don’t worry. I can catch that thing just fine!”

Maybe misunderstanding his friends’ startled reactions, Ihan immediately attacked the white-headed eagle.

Struck by the heavy, swiftly coursing orbs of water, the eagle burst with a pop and turned back into a bush.

“Sharkan. Catch it! Don’t let it escape!”

With a splashing sound, the spring next to them began to bubble violently.

The water pooled in the spring began to take shape, like a giant slime, ready to lunge at them.

“Spark!”

Ihan swung his staff and cast .

Though it was a 1st-circle spell, it manipulated the most destructive and fastest element, lightning, making it suitable for this kind of situation.

Crackle!

A bolt of lightning struck the spring slime, but it was unscathed. Perhaps due to its size, the spring slime tried to move again.

Ihan focused his mana and used the next measure.

“Strike! The lightning of Perkunttra!”

It was a 2nd-circle spell, but since it was developed by the powerful lightning spirit Perkunttra himself, its power was in no way inferior to spells of higher circles…

…but only Perkunttra knew that, and Ihan still doubted this magic.

Curiously, every time he used this spell, its effectiveness was lackluster.

‘If it doesn’t work this time, I’ll seal it away for a while.’

Honestly, all the enemies Ihan had faced so far were way too strong for a freshman.

Still, Ihan had made up his mind.

Perkunttra really seemed like a boastful spirit!

BZZZZT!

With a rapid charge, the intensified bolt of lightning struck the spring slime.

The spring slime thrashed wildly with a tremendous vibration. Part of its body vaporized and shrank in size.

But still, the spring slime stubbornly stood its ground.

“Perkunttra!”

Ihan cursed the absent spirit and immediately drew Dawnstar.

Nillia, flustered, tried to stop Ihan with a whimper.

‘It’s already down!’

The powerful magic had in fact already taken the spring slime down. Given that it wasn’t moving at all, it was certain.

What looked like it was standing was just water pooled in the spring, held together by residual mana.

Still, Nillia’s cry didn’t reach Ihan.

He slashed the collapsed spring slime with Dawnstar. Only then did the pooled water lose form and scatter.

“I really have been conned by a spirit.”

“……”

• * *

The mouse scampered away, frantically casting transformation spells on its surroundings.

Yet the intruder—who looked like a freshman, but could be a headmaster or dragon—easily handled everything and chased after it.

That made it even more suspicious.

If it really was just a student, there was no way it could chase this well.

Never mind the white-headed eagle; even after turning the spring’s cold iron water into a slime, it was defeated without so much as a pause…

No matter how he thought about it, it had to be the skeleton headmaster in disguise.

The mouse trembled with fear.

Whether monster, demon, angel, or spirit, professors at this magic school generally paid little mind to whatever nest they built in a corner.

But on rare occasions, if you really annoyed a professor, they’d show up personally to tear your lair down.

That must have been what was happening now.

The mouse simply couldn’t understand.

What on earth had he done to provoke the skeleton headmaster?

He thought he’d just made a little forest in a hallway corner to play with the freshmen…

Surely that wasn’t such a big mistake.

Clatter!

With the sound of clashing bones, Sharkan sprang out and blocked the mouse’s path.

The mouse freaked out and tried to cast the next spell, but Ihan was a step ahead.

“Move!”

Ihan immediately cast a lower-level control spell and floated the mouse in the air so it couldn’t escape.

Finding itself lifted with such an amateurish 1st-circle spell, the mouse responded in disbelief.

It immediately tried to transform its body…

Squeak?!

The mouse was startled.

Its body felt as if seized by overwhelming mana—he couldn’t move a muscle.

Even when he tried to cast a spell, nothing happened.

The opponent was saturating the area around the mouse with so much mana that no other magic could get through.

Such unnecessary control with just a 1st-circle spell, which would normally only float a quill.

There was only one reason.

The skeleton headmaster’s signature method of intimidation!

Squeak…

The mouse drooped its head to the side, as if resigning itself to its fate.

Ihan was startled.

‘Did… Did I kill it?’

He thought for a moment that maybe he’d cast too strongly.

But when he thought about it, had no such effect. All it did was float and control the target.

Looking closely, he was relieved to see the mouse was not dead—just given up.

“Hey. Really, I…”

Ihan tried to explain to the mouse, “I’m not a dragon, or a lich, or the skeleton headmaster,” but stopped himself.

…Did he really have to clear things up?

Judging by the way the mouse had just used magic, though he was flustered, he was a far better mage than Ihan.

If the mouse stopped running and used all sorts of transformation magic to attack Ihan, Ihan could very well lose.

Not to mention, once the misunderstanding was cleared up, the mouse might turn on him with even more venom for having just been chased.

But what if the mouse continued to mistake him for the skeleton headmaster?

‘Then I could just walk right out of the forest!’

It wasn’t even the first time. Hadn’t he avoided the storeroom keeper’s eye in the basement by imitating the headmaster back then?

His friends tilted their heads, wondering what he would do.

‘Is he figuring out how to persuade the mouse?’

“That’s right. I am the headmaster.”

Squeak!

The mouse, which had seemed ready to peek at Ihan through one eye, squeezed both eyes shut and flopped onto its back.

That was clearly what it had expected.

“……”

“……”

Ihan felt the stares of his animal-transformed friends but ignored them as if he hadn’t noticed.

“But if you show mercy and let me and my companions out, I’ll overlook turning you into one of my undead minions.”

Ihan tried to make his voice as ominous as possible.

He didn’t know what an undead minion was, but he simply said what came to mind.

Then the mouse nodded so vigorously it created a breeze.

Squeaksqueaksqueak!

Desperate to get the skeleton headmaster out of here, the mouse frantically pointed the way.

Ihan and his friends walked down the forest path. Soon, the familiar hallways of the school came into view.

“Ah. Wait.”

As Ihan and his friends were about to leave, they stopped.

The mouse looked at Ihan with eyes wide in shock.

N-no way?

“No. There’s one more person. Hold on.”

He had forgotten about Gainando.

• * *

Ihan went back in and found Gainando.

The white mouse burst into tears and clung to Ihan the moment it saw him.

“Gainando.”

The other friends, apparently sure, nodded their heads. Ihan placed the white mouse atop his staff.

Gainando, moved nearly to tears at seeing his friends again, was startled into fright when he saw Nillia.

Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak!

“Huh?”

Ihan looked at Gainando, then at Nillia.

“It’s okay. She doesn’t bite.”

Of course, those words meant nothing to Gainando. He dove into the inside pocket of a coat to hide.

Rather than forcibly pull him out, Ihan just took the beer candy inside and relocated it somewhere else.

“Well, farewell then, forest mouse. If I have to come this way again, I’ll see you.”

Yoner, listening beside him, tilted his head.

…Isn’t that a threat?

Apparently, the mouse thought so too, because it started trembling all over.

In the end, the mouse dug up its treasure, buried in the forest floor, with squeaks.

It was a mysterious bone brimful of magic power.

Squeaksqueak…

The mouse glanced at Ihan with pitiful eyes, as if saying, “Take this, just let me go.”

Of course, Ihan wasn’t very interested in the bone. Maybe Professor Mortum would be…

Clatter!

At that moment, Sharkan lunged forward. Bones tangled together in confusion, and the empty parts of Sharkan were filled.

“…!”

The once gaunt summon was now flawlessly complete, prompting gasps of awe at the mystery of summoning magic from his friends.

But Ihan’s thoughts were elsewhere.

‘…How dangerous did she say Sharkan was?’

According to the Boltstep Professor, Sharkan was very proud and wild.

He’d been docile before because he was incomplete, but now that he was whole, his personality from life might return!

‘Should I bet on the slim chance Professor Mortum accounted for freshmen, or the obvious possibility she forgot the safety protocol?’

Naturally, the latter.

Ihan immediately grabbed his staff and stared at Sharkan.

“…Sharkan?”

At his master’s call, Sharkan didn’t kneel by running over.

But he also didn’t rush at Ihan, baring his bony fangs with a fierce roar threatening his throat.

Sharkan just…

Pretended not to hear.

When called again, he lay down and pressed his head to the ground.

“???”

His friends were bewildered, not understanding why the bone summon was behaving like that.

Nillia, the hunter, was the first to realize.

That was…

‘Is he going through a rebellious phase…?’

Even the most faithful dog or wolf raised by a hunter would stop obeying as it grew.

It was because the soul matured and developed a rebellious spirit.

‘…But even an undead bone summon has a rebellious phase?’

Nillia could hardly believe it and just blinked her eyes.