Episode 341

Episode 341

‘This is strange.’

The skeleton principal was ill-tempered, but he wasn’t stupid.

He surely knew the banquet hall was located in the very center of Granden City—would he torment the students and ignore the possibility of bystanders getting caught up in it?

‘…Maybe it’s not my enemy, but the duke’s?’

Lee Han glanced at Duke Ikaldoren.

The duke waited with his arms crossed, showing no change in his expression. From his attitude, one could sense an arrogance that said he didn’t care what came out from the alley.

If the target was the students, he should have shown more surprise or some other reaction.

‘So it is the duke’s enemy!’

Lee Han regretted it internally.

He should have just left it to the duke’s guards, but he had unnecessarily gotten involved.

‘That skeleton principal is no help, as always.’

Lee Han thought to at least call the guards and cooperate from now on.

But before that, the enemy in the alley attacked. The increasingly intense energy sharpened like a blade and burst forth with murderous intent.

• * *

Just as Lee Han suspected, Duke Ikaldoren was not surprised.

It wasn’t that he knew who the opponent was, but that Duke Ikaldoren was already overly accustomed to such ambushes.

A duke of the empire couldn’t possibly have no enemies, and Duke Ikaldoren, who had been especially aggressive, had enemies ranging from great noble families to criminal guilds.

Most of his enemies would never dare to challenge him and had long since backed down, but with so many of them, encountering such attacks two or three times a year had become routine.

Of course, true to his arrogance, Duke Ikaldoren was neither afraid nor cautious in his conduct.

Instead, he had raised his guard to the maximum.

The defense artifacts Duke Ikaldoren wore were worth far more than a dozen castles, and his nearby guards possessed enough power to wipe out an entire guild.

He was basically a walking fortress, so there was no reason to fear pitiful assassins. The ones who should be afraid were those carrying out the attack.

That’s why Duke Ikaldoren was truly, not even a little, surprised.

By the attack, that is.

‘What’s truly surprising!’

Duke Ikaldoren went through countless suppositions in that short span, wondering at the meaning behind Lee Han’s actions.

Why was he stepping forward in this situation?

Maybe it was to raise his value in front of Princess Adenart, or perhaps even to raise his value in front of Duke Ikaldoren himself.

‘Or maybe both.’

The duke leaned towards the latter.

The actions of this boy from the Wardanaz family were unusually proactive for a freshman. Many geniuses entered Einrogard, but it was rare for students to establish such a reputation for themselves from the first year.

‘I respect your ambition, boy of the Wardanaz family. But there’s one thing you’re overlooking.’

Duke Ikaldoren, having grasped the situation, noticed a flaw within Lee Han’s plan.

‘That is, you’ll have to deal with the attack alone.’

Having declared he would handle it, Lee Han couldn’t get help from the duke’s guards.

And those who sought to attack Duke Ikaldoren were always formidable and thoroughly prepared.

‘He won’t know just how strong the ones attacking me are. No matter how much of a genius he is, he’s still a freshman. It will be hard for him to take them on.’

Because wizard magic tended to be so earth-shakingly powerful, people often forgot that wizards were usually lacking in actual combat ability.

Magic was powerful after being cast, but before that, it was nothing.

Those who knew this well toyed with wizards easily. From interrupting spells to breaking concentration, there were endless tricks to disrupt magic.

Duke Ikaldoren figured Lee Han would have trouble against these attackers.

If, after making such a declaration, he received help, the ambitious boy’s reputation would take a major hit, but the duke was ready to intervene if Lee Han appeared to be struggling.

If Lee Han got seriously hurt, it would trouble him as well.

‘If I help, don’t blame me. It was your own choice.’

“My lord. Be careful. Poison!”

“Stop whining. If you’re genuinely shouting that, then either your eyes or brain must be broken.”

The duke replied with a bored tone to his guard. The guard’s face reddened.

With the antidote performance of the artifacts the duke carried, he wouldn’t be harmed even if the whole area melted from poison.

In fact, even as his guard shouted, the duke didn’t so much as move a step.

“What kind of monster is this? Doesn’t look like a slime. Looks like it was summoned using a spirit or a dimensional beast.”

The duke and his guard guessed the attacker’s identity the moment it crawled out of the alley.

Having gone through so many ambushes, estimating by appearance alone was now possible.

Wriggling along, oozing poison in an amorphous form—it could be a slime, spirit, or dimensional beast, but it was moving too quickly for a slime…

Most likely, a spirit or dimensional beast was corrupted or fused using deadly poison to summon it.

The attacker must have learned when the duke would be passing through and timed the summoning of this noxious abomination.

The culprit could be traced later by wizards after things were wrapped up. For now…

‘No way.’

Duke Ikaldoren decided.

The opponent was simply too bad a match.

If the assassin used complex magic or skill, that was one thing, but with such a rough, brute-force attack, there was no way for clever defense.

It would take strength to subdue it, but the poisonous emissions from the abomination could easily melt nearby walls, even if not powerful enough to kill the duke. For a freshman, the poison was far too strong to resist.

Not only was it quick and strong, but the fight would likely be decided in a single clash.

“If you go down, step in at onc—…”

Bang!

“?!”

For the first time in a while, Duke Ikaldoren’s eyes trembled.

Amazingly, the boy from the Wardanaz family launched the attack first!

‘He’s insane!!’

No matter how young and arrogant, this was pure madness.

The reason the poisonous abomination had held back was that there were plenty of others nearby besides Lee Han. But by charging in first, Lee Han had declared himself the sole target.

It wasn’t just digging his own grave—he’d hammered down his own coffin as well.

• * *

‘Thank goodness!’

Lee Han let out a sigh of relief inside.

It looked like he could avoid the embarrassing situation of having to ask the duke’s guards for help.

Fortunately, the opponent’s compatibility was excellent.

Fwoooosh—

The poisoned abomination, enraged by Lee Han’s sudden strike, exuded a thick poisonous mist.

A different wizard might have tried to dispel its control using magic, but Lee Han just let it be.

As expected, the poison had little effect on him. Even when breathing it in, the vast mana inside him diluted the poison like a great ocean.

“Fog, spread out.”

The time he gained through his resistance to poison, Lee Han used to cast his newly learned -Ogonin’s Fog-.

Lee Han’s form lost focus and began to ripple. The poisonous abomination was greatly flustered by these successive, inexplicable events.

If the opponent had been cold-blooded and seasoned, it might have been different, but as a summoned creature like this, even if it had superior physical abilities, it was weak in such unexpected situations. Lee Han immediately cast the next spell.

“Bone, seize the enemy.”

It wasn’t a powerful binding, but it was enough to hamper the poisonous abomination’s movements.

At a speed several times faster than an ordinary wizard, the bone shackles appeared around the abomination’s ankles.

“Bones, fire!”

Sharp bone shards shot like bullets into the creature’s flesh.

Though not a typical body, so it wasn’t fatal, the pain was still there. The poisonous abomination howled and fired poison at its surroundings.

Ssssss!

‘Ugh.’

Lee Han clicked his tongue, looking at his melting cloak and clothes. Thankfully, they were bought with his family’s money, not his own.

‘I’ll need to be more careful.’

If Duke Ikaldoren could read Lee Han’s mind, he would have been appalled.

Even in the heat of such a deadly fight, Lee Han was worrying about his clothes, not his life.

‘It’s not like the King of Ghouls, with special defense or evasion. The physical body’s still there, so I just need to deal damage.’

Finishing his calculation, Lee Han sprang into action.

Summon illusion clones, cast invisibility, circle behind, cast five layers of reinforcement spells on a ball bearing, then fire!

Thud!

His movement was so quick and decisive that the duke’s guards were half a beat late in responding.

The guards were stunned at Lee Han, who was casting spells consecutively at a speed far beyond their expectations.

For a freshman, to cast consecutive spells at that speed in a close-quarters battle?

It was humiliating for guards whose job it was to prepare for and handle every situation.

“You’ve downed it. Finish it off for good!”

Though he wanted to finish it with fire himself, Lee Han refrained, worried the flames might spread or interact with the creature and cause an unexpected disaster, so he called the guards.

The guards, as if waiting, drew their swords and swung.

As the flaming swords struck, the poisonous abomination, which was already immobilized by a strike to its core, was engulfed in blue flames.

The magic flames instantly incinerated the poison and consumed the abomination as well. Seeing the guards’ swords, Lee Han cursed inwardly.

‘With artifacts like those, you just stood there watching?’

Lee Han had insisted on taking it on himself, but couldn’t they have helped a little?

Lee Han wasn’t even the kind to nitpick over such things!

“Splendid… Splendid.”

Duke Ikaldoren collected his expression belatedly, having been caught off guard.

Rowena felt a thrill at the sight. It was the first time she had seen the eternally stone-faced, arrogant duke react like this.

“I never expected you’d yield the credit to my guards.”

‘Ah.’

Lee Han belatedly grasped the duke’s meaning.

Normally there was a big difference between ‘Lee Han took it down alone’ and ‘Lee Han and the duke’s guards took it down together.’ And everyone liked hogging the credit.

But Lee Han didn’t care much.

‘It’s not like there’s a bounty on it. Who cares?’

It wasn’t like they were sharing bounty money—splitting credit changed nothing.

Besides, the gratitude would come from the duke anyway. If the duke withheld thanks just because he shared the credit with his own guards, he wouldn’t be a duke but a petty thug.

“The credit doesn’t matter. I thought it was more important to subdue the enemy quickly and ensure the safety of the surroundings.”

His friends applauded in admiration, but Duke Ikaldoren wasn’t fooled.

Such an ambitious lad wouldn’t yield the credit for that kind of reason.

This was a signal to the duke.

-As much as you are ambitious, so am I. We ambitious ones can strike a deal.

Duke Ikaldoren felt as though he could hear Lee Han saying those very words.

He had no reason to show goodwill otherwise.

Ambitious men recognize each other.

Age was irrelevant.

Duke Ikaldoren no longer saw Lee Han as just a talented freshman, but as a young ambitious man deserving to sit across from him at the table.

“…Understood. I’ll consider your proposal positively.”

Not bad.

Duke Ikaldoren also needed information from within the magic school.

Whatever ambition the boy from the Wardanaz family had, mutual benefit was possible.

“…No way. Your Grace! Your Gra— What’s with this guy??”

Mumbling at the sight of the duke’s retreating figure, Lee Han grumbled, but Rowena pretended not to hear Lee Han badmouthing the duke.