Episode 361

“You shameless bastard. Now that you’re out of danger, you won’t pay up?”

Lee Han looked at Raphadael as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Incredible, such a conscienceless guy… Are you really a knight?”

Gainando also looked at Raphadael in disbelief. Raphadael exploded and shouted.

“Who said I wouldn’t pay you back! I will! I said I will!”

“The more you deny it that strongly, the more suspicious it sounds, though.”

“Shut up!”

Raphadael snapped at Gainando and spun away.

“As expected, students from the White Tiger Tower have terrible tempers…”

“They even beat up seniors if you cross them.”

At the dark magic seniors’ mutterings, Lee Han paused.

He remembered when he’d gone with Yumidihus to the other side of the mountain range to learn water element magic, where third-year seniors had been ambushed and had their belongings taken.

“…White Tiger Tower students aren’t so bad.”

“Are you covering for your friend? You’re so nice.”

“But Wardanaz, how do you, a Blue Dragon Tower guy, get along so well with White Tiger Tower?”

Lee Han replied with a feigned smile.

“We’re all here to learn magic, so there’s no reason for towers to quarrel.”

“…Is he really an Einrogard student?”

“Strange. Did the rules change this year?”

Lee Han had given the textbook-perfect answer, but it didn’t work on his seniors.

Unfortunately, the seniors had grown too cynical from life at Einrogard.

‘How sad. Everyone’s become so twisted.’

Lee Han genuinely pitied his seniors for not being as perfectly normal as he himself was.

• * *

Once Professor Mortum’s long speech (which began with the tearful tales of dark wizards’ lives and ended with the tragedy of the cemetery fortress soaked in their tears) finished, the dark magic students started sharing their own stories.

“I’m trying to summon a Hroekal this time, but it’s hard. It’s an undead that lives in water.”

“Underwater undead are tougher. Their poison is strong and hard to defend against. What are you using as bait?”

“I’m tossing it rotten meat, but the thing just eats it and refuses to make a pact with me. Maybe I should look for another undead realm…”

“Direte-senior, are you going to fifth year?”

“I’m considering it. It seems better to stay at Einrogard if I want to continue my research.”

Direte answered, then turned his gaze to Lee Han.

He’d been curious for a while but hadn’t had a chance to ask.

“But junior… what’s that about professors fighting in the street…”

“Direte-senior! I have a concern. Should I stay at Einrogard next year, too?”

“…Should we discuss this privately later?”

“My original goal was to take over as the town’s gravekeeper. But now I think I’m skilled enough already, and my parents want me to return and settle there… I could do research there too, but… Ah. It’s tough.”

Direte swallowed his regret and comforted his junior who was agonizing over his future.

“Think again about the magic research you want to do now…”

“Senior, I got a shady offer recently. They’re looking for a dark wizard good at curse magic, but won’t say who the target is. Should I accept?”

“No. Never accept offers that don’t give the specifics. Especially as a dark wizard…”

“Senior, I really need silver because I’m buying a new staff and some Langyen adventurers are looking for a dark wizard. Would it be all right to take this job?”

‘Interesting.’

Lee Han listened closely to the conversations among the seniors.

Next to him, Gainando was being thrashed by Imirg at wizard cards, turning paler by the minute.

“This… This isn’t cheating!? Are you cheating!?”

“If I were cheating you’d be even worse off than this…”

“Lee Han! Lee Han! Judge for me! Isn’t this cheating?”

“No. You lost because you’re bad at it.”

“You weren’t even watching!”

Lee Han ignored Gainando and worked his quill.

At Lee Han’s diligent note-taking, Professor Mortum asked with curiosity.

“Cough. Wardanaz. You’re not planning to do any jobs over the break, so why write all that down?”

“I am going to work, actually.”

“……”

Professor Mortum looked at Lee Han as if to say, ‘what an utterly bizarre guy.’

“I think I see why the headmaster likes you… Cough. You two are alike.”

“Hey, that’s a bit much…!”

Lee Han, uncharacteristically, burst out angrily.

Even for someone skilled at controlling emotions, it was a hard insult to bear.

“Too much?”

“…You flatter me!”

“Is that so? Cough. I thought you might take offense… Well, Master Gonadaltes is a mighty archmage even so.”

Professor Mortum clearly knew all too well about the bone headmaster’s eccentricities.

‘Anyone who’d been around him would know, even without eyes.’

“Cough. If you like working in the holidays… there’s going to be a superposition event soon, care to join?”

“Professor?!”

The dark magic seniors were more shocked than Lee Han.

“Professor! He’s a first-year!”

“If he survived facing the King of the Frost Giants… Cough. It’s fine for him to join.”

“The King of the Frost Giants?!”

“Why would a first-year fight that—how—has Einrogard gone insane…? I mean, I guess it was always insane, but…”

As the juniors buzzed in shock, Direte hung his head in embarrassment and covered his face with his wings.

Resolving to bury Koholti and Kumandas upside down in the cemetery once he got back to school!

“By superposition, you mean the overlapping of realms?”

“Correct. Wow, you’re really something.”

One of the seniors, impressed, started explaining.

Originally, mages needed very complicated magic to visit other realms.

The summoning magic circles set up by Professor Millei, who taught summoning, looked simple but actually contained advanced wisdom.

Even after visiting, there were a lot of restrictions. You were forcibly visiting a world different from your own, after all.

But there did exist moments where such limitations no longer applied.

When the other dimension overlapped and merged with this one.

Lee Han realized something.

‘Is this like when it changed during the King of the Frost Giants?’

At that time, the upper hallway of Einrogard was the school and yet not the school.

Because the frost giants’ realm was overlapped, even the knife-edged cold spilled out everywhere.

The same thing could happen with the undead realm.

“We recently found a location that’s about to overlap with the undead realm. The mana is pooling there.”

“Shouldn’t you disperse it if it’s pooling?”

Lee Han recalled his previous gravekeeper commission and asked.

A buildup of mana meant anomalies were more likely to happen.

“In principle, yes, but if it’s gotten that bad, it’d be a waste to just disperse it. Events like this are an opportunity.”

“……”

Lee Han looked at the seniors with suspicion.

Noticing his gaze, they hurriedly explained.

“We’re doing it all with imperial permits!”

“Oh, so that’s fine…”

Professor Mortum, coughing, took over the explanation.

“For dark wizards, moments when the undead realm overlaps are a great opportunity.”

“Is it a shot to make a pact with a powerful summon?”

“Hmm?”

The gathered dark wizards reacted in unexpected ways to Lee Han’s suggestion.

“Haha. When it comes to powerful summons, it’s not a matter of just barging in and making a pact. You have to do research first.”

For lesser summons you could go in blind and sweep the area, but named, powerful undead could not be approached so roughly.

First, you needed to gather information and determine how to contact them and what kind of pact was possible.

‘So Perkuntra is really that strong?’

“Other things are more important than making a pact.”

“Such as…?”

“Everything.”

Professor Mortum took a drink of juice and spoke.

“Soil, bones embedded in soil, mushrooms growing on those bones, bugs feeding on those mushrooms, trees where those bugs breed… Everything in the undead realm is a fine material or reagent. Cough. Ordinarily, there are a lot of restrictions and it’s hard to harvest anything, but during an overlap, it’s a different story.”

“Of course, you can’t just grab anything. You need an eye for quality.”

“If you get really lucky, a single item might last you a whole year.”

“!”

Lee Han’s eyes shone with sudden interest.

“Is it really that valuable?”

“Yep. Many of the items are reagents only dark wizards use, but sometimes you find an ingredient other mages want, or something nobles desire. Then the price jumps. Direte here is a legend. In second year, he found the Summerless Herb…”

Lee Han looked at Direte with several times his usual respect.

Of course, Direte found it more flabbergasting than flattering.

‘That’s what gets me that look…?’

“…Anyway, even if it seems like a great thing, entering an overlapped undead realm is dangerous. If you don’t know how to deal with undead, it’s tough. Normally it’d be too much for a first-year…”

“As Professor said, if I have the chance, I’ll give it my all.”

The seniors nodded at Lee Han’s words.

Especially with Professor Mortum’s assurance, they had no reason to object.

“Will it really be okay…?”

“But what actually happened with the King of the Frost Giants? That blizzard before—wasn’t that it?”

“I thought Koholti-senior solved it—and got thoroughly cursed out for it.”

Lee Han, listening, suddenly grew curious and asked,

“By the way, seniors, have you ever heard of anything like… basilisk, a mage from the Doin family, a ghoul… or things like that?”

“Huh? I just got here three days ago.”

“I never go out in the city.”

“I just read books in my room—did something happen?”

Lee Han was moved.

Nowhere else would you find such humble, easygoing folk as fellow dark wizards!

• * *

“…I don’t normally say things like this. Please don’t get the wrong idea.”

Yoanen began, cautiously.

“Aren’t you doing too much right now?”

“Pardon? Am I?”

Next to him, Lee Han, who was carefully melting a milky-white metal with a green flame, looked up in surprise.

“If anything, I thought the last few weeks have been more relaxed since the professors stopped coming by…”

“…I s-see. Let’s just keep extracting, then.”

People usually feel normal only when they meet someone crazier than themselves.

Usually, when an assistant spoke up, Yoanen would say “Let’s focus on work,” but…

‘Honestly, I’m curious myself…!’

Just the things Lee Han had mentioned directly included studying magic, helping with Puyo’s staff workshop, visiting the undead realm, plus all the rumors—professors’ brawls at noon, even hunting the King of Ghouls.

Although when working, Yoanen never usually let himself get distracted, this time, he couldn’t help being intrigued.

“Should we stop here for today and have the alchemists join for a meal…”

“Ah. There are impurities in the extract. We’ll need to redo it.”

“…This is probably fine as is?”

If Yoner were here, she’d faint to hear that, but Lee Han shook his head.

“No.”

“Can’t we just do it after lunch—”

“No. Otherwise we’d only waste materials.”

Yoanen glared for a moment at his past self, who had so strictly drilled all this into Lee Han.

Then he went to the back to fetch a servant.

“Hey?”

“Yes, Lord Yoanen.”

“Go fetch Yoner.”