Episode 342

‘He’s shameless!’

Lee Han seethed inside.

He had treated the duke with the utmost respect, yet the man dared to do such a thing.

Who do you think the summoned poisonous abomination had targeted?

It had been Duke Ikaldoren, not Lee Han or his friends.

So having stopped the poisonous abomination, shouldn’t the duke have at least started with, “Thank you. As expected of an Einrogard student; your courage is admirable,” and rewarded him?

Of course, Lee Han had intervened thinking it was the skeleton principal’s doing, but that wasn’t the point. The outcome was what mattered.

Yet, the duke suddenly mumbled something about thinking positively and tried to leave.

No matter how he thought about it, there was only one answer.

He was trying to save on the reward.

‘Unforgivable.’

It would be one thing if he were a poor man, but he freely showered Adenart with gold coins under the pretense of riddles, yet tried to scrimp gold coins when his own life had been saved.

“There can’t possibly be a more shameless and brazen noble in the Empire. Despicable.”

“…Uh, no. Sir Wardanaz, Duke Ikaldoren is rude, but…that’s…?”

Rowena had been happy at first to have Lee Han complain alongside her, but she was starting to feel embarrassed.

Duke Ikaldoren wasn’t quite that bad.

He was rude, sure, but only as one of the princess’s supporters, and he hadn’t crossed any lines…

“Rowena. I think I understand a bit why you consider Duke Ikaldoren a lifelong enemy.”

“Eh? I-I never said it was that bad.”

Ignoring Rowena’s explanation, Lee Han started to walk away.

The duke was already long gone, but a few of his guards remained, tidying up the area.

Burning away the remains of the poisonous abomination, checking for any contamination nearby, and calmly gathering evidence and traces of the summoning—all of it was done with an air of practiced routine.

Watching them, Lee Han felt all the more convinced.

‘It really was aimed at the duke.’

He tasted bitterness.

He’d unnecessarily gotten involved instead of just watching, and now only his clothes were ruined…

“Did His Grace leave any messages by chance?”

Just in case, Lee Han asked the guards. The guards paused in their cleanup to tidy their uniforms.

It wasn’t simply because Lee Han was from the Wardanaz family.

The display he’d just shown was enough for him to earn the respect of the guards.

For a mere first-year student to have such combat ability—it was certain that, with time, he’d become a great mage known across the Empire.

Moreover, their master, Duke Ikaldoren, had also rated Lee Han very highly.

Hadn’t the duke just said he would consider his proposal positively?

The duke never wasted words.

“Sir Wardanaz.”

“Yes. Did he leave…”

“There were no such instructions.”

“……”

Lee Han’s face hardened.

Oblivious to his real thoughts, the guards gave him meaningful looks as they spoke.

“There’s no need for that.”

“That’s right. You’ll be speaking again with him soon anyway.”

“…?”

Lee Han wondered if the guards had gone mad.

Why were they suddenly acting so obsequious?

‘Is their master a madman—and are they all mad as well?’

• * *

“Well done, Wardanaz. You really worked hard.”

After the city guards came and finished organizing, and the duke’s guards left, Cltran praised Lee Han.

Cltran wasn’t as experienced as the duke’s guards, but he could vaguely sense just how well Lee Han had fought.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Lee Han held out his hand. Cltran took it.

Then Lee Han pulled his hand back and took Cltran’s cloak.

“I meant, let me borrow your cloak.”

“…O-oh, sure.”

Lee Han’s shirt and cloak were tattered from the fight with the poisonous abomination. He put on Cltran’s cloak and said,

“Cltran. You’re from White Tiger Tower, so you’ll probably get lots of requests over break, right?”

“Probably, yeah?”

“Don’t take Duke Ikaldoren’s requests. He’s a really stingy guy.”

“I…s-suppose? By the way, Wardanaz. The riddle…”

“What riddle? Even if you solve it, you might not get anything.”

Lee Han complained, but inside he knew it wasn’t true.

Even if Duke Ikaldoren didn’t give Lee Han a reward, he was definitely giving one to the princess.

Last time it was gold coins, and it would probably be the same this time.

‘Somehow, that makes me even angrier.’

“If we solve it together, do I get a share too?”

“That’s true, but do gold coins really matter much to you? Maybe to someone like me, but…”

Lee Han almost reproached Cltran like he would Gainando, but held back.

He lent him his cloak, after all, so he’d let it pass this once.

“Alright. Your Highness. Let’s give it a try together.”

“I thought you’d say that, Wardanaz.”

Cltran grinned.

He thought he was starting to understand what kind of person Wardanaz was.

Even if he spoke coldly, Wardanaz’s actions were often warm.

‘No wonder Deorgyu says that about him.’

He assumed, of course, that Wardanaz would participate in this, too.

Even when he grumbled, there was no way Wardanaz would just ignore anything involving his friends.

As expected…

“How could you assume that, you punk? I’m already pissed off thanks to the duke—are you trying to make it worse?”

“S-sorry.”

Cltran flinched.

He understood logically, but it was still scary.

Clatter—

Lee Han and his friends entered a nearby café and sat down.

Rowena ordered a juice made from five different vegetables, Cltran got an eggnog with extra rum, Lee Han got coffee, and the princess, wavering between chocolate and vanilla, settled on chocolate cake. Lee Han ordered a vanilla cake, too, and casually pushed it toward the princess.

“So, about the riddle… hmm…”

To the Honorable Princess Adenart, may this riddle relieve your boredom.

Here is a staff. When a wizard walked carrying the staff, a stream opened a path for him. After crossing the stream, the wind swept away the wall blocking the way. When the wall disappeared, night came. Then, a flash of light lit up the road. I am curious what kind of staff this is.

“????”

Lee Han looked up after reading.

“Are we supposed to guess what kind of artifact it is?”

Lee Han figured, as stingy as the duke was, he’d be no good at coming up with riddles either.

A riddle that just asks you to name an artifact isn’t a good riddle.

If that’s a riddle, Lee Han could make up riddles too.

‘What’s the third card from the top of Gainando’s deck?’ something like that…

“Ah, that’s not it. It’s more like asking you to create such a staff yourself.”

“…How is that a riddle… Never mind, it’s not important.”

Lee Han suddenly realized how good the talking oak’s riddles in the mountains had been.

This wasn’t so much a riddle as simply, ‘Can you make this kind of staff?’

“Water element, wind element, light element. So I have to make a staff artifact with at least three enchanments? The difficulty is one thing, but the power he expects is way too much, isn’t it?”

“Ah, that’s not it. It’s more like a metaphor, and in practice, it’s fine even if the power is much weaker.”

“……”

Even though it wasn’t his problem, Lee Han felt a strong urge to comment.

‘If you write that the stream opens a path, then it should at least be able to split a stream—what is this…’

Lee Han, grumbling inwardly, realized he was saying exactly what the Einrogard professors always said and pulled up short.

Both the puzzle-giver and the solver were satisfied, so Lee Han had no reason to ruin the mood.

‘Yeah. If everyone’s happy with the outcome, there’s nothing wrong with it. Let’s just take the gold coins.’

“If the power can be weak, then you just need to make a staff with three enchantments… Huh. Isn’t that easy?”

Thinking it over, Lee Han raised an eyebrow.

If it didn’t need to be powerful, the difficulty dropped significantly.

Of course, applying enchantments—especially three of different element types—wasn’t easy.

Each layer of enchantment increased the spellcasting difficulty, and if they were of different elements, it went up further.

But Lee Han, after enduring Professor Verdus’s hellish course in the first semester, felt like this was nothing.

It had to be easier than making a floating, moving, auto-attacking and defending shield.

“……”

“……”

Rowena and Cltran grew sullen at Lee Han’s words.

The subtle madness of the top student was making them glum.

“N-no. On second thought, this is hard.”

Lee Han realized how they felt and changed his tune, but it was too late.

“No, Sir Wardanaz. There’s no need for you to make concessions for us.”

“Yeah… Wardanaz. There’s no need for you to hold back for us. Even if we look like monkeys to you, we wouldn’t be surprised.”

“You misunderstand, Cltran. I never thought of you as a monkey. I may have thought of you as worse than Gainando, but… no. Anyway, it doesn’t seem that hard.”

At Lee Han’s words, having just finished her second piece of cake, the princess raised her hand.

“Even stacking two enchantments can cause interference and make it much more difficult, but three seems impossible.”

“You can use a magic circle as an auxiliary device.”

“On an artifact as small as a staff… a magic circle?”

The princess raised her eyebrows slightly as she asked.

The smaller and thinner an artifact was, the harder it became to inscribe magic on it.

So a staff wasn’t particularly a great item to apply enchantments to.

Of course, a truly skilled enchanter could compress the magic circle and use tricks to inscribe it even on a staff, but that level of skill was simply beyond any freshman.

Cltran answered instead.

“If it’s Wardanaz, he’ll be able to do it. Right?”

“No.”

“…No?”

“Of course, unnecessary parts should be omitted. I’ll cut out all the maintenance and duration aspects.”

“???”

The princess tilted her head.

Rowena and Cltran also tilted their heads, but in their case, it was just because they couldn’t follow the explanation. The princess, on the other hand, didn’t understand one specific point.

If he cut out all maintenance and duration related parts, wouldn’t the magic disappear after just a few seconds when imbued in the staff?

“Then the time…”

“You can make up for it with magical power. The more magic you pour in, the longer the duration will be.”

“……”

The princess became confused about whether she should agree with this brute-force method.

Logically, it was correct, but was it really okay to use a trick like this?

She glanced at the others out of curiosity.

“What do you two think…”

“I think Sir Wardanaz’s idea is correct.”

“Me too.”

“……”

Not wanting to reveal they couldn’t follow, the other two instantly agreed, making the princess let out a silent sigh.

Lee Han shook his head as he watched.

‘If all you have around you is Gainando, this is inevitable.’

The despair of being the only one to understand a group project.

That sort of despair could only be truly understood by those who’d experienced it firsthand.

No matter how you tried, you couldn’t convince others to help; you had to solve everything yourself!

Lee Han nodded in understanding, and Adenart looked back at him with faintly emotional eyes and nodded as well.

Sipping his coffee, Lee Han suddenly grew curious and asked Rowena,

“But trying to practice with a staff must be expensive. How are you going to get one? If it’s too hard, maybe you could ask a professor for broken staffs and recycle…”

“Ah. I can just ask the sponsors.”

“……”

Lee Han subtly slid his chair backward at the sight of the princess and her group, whose thinking was clearly on a different plane.