Episode 43

Ihan carefully tucked the outpass away in his bosom. His actions gave the sense that he was being cautious, as if afraid someone might snatch it from him.
Professor Garcia and the skull headmaster thought the same thing to themselves.
‘No one’s going to take it away …’
Are you feeling alright?
“Yes.”
Good. In that case, now that you’ve received your rewards, you must receive your punishment as well.
“……”
Ihan looked at the headmaster in disbelief.
The skull headmaster spoke as if it pained him.
Don’t look at me like that. It hurts my feelings too. But rules are rules.
‘A hundred percent a lie.’
To Ihan, no matter how he looked at it, the headmaster was clearly enjoying himself.
For reference, just to clear up any misconceptions, you’re not being punished for trying to go out without permission.
“Then what for?”
You’re being punished because you got caught.
“……”
So, should I have just stood by and watched Professor Garcia get stabbed?
That retort rose all the way up Ihan’s throat, but he held it back.
Ever since olden times, nothing good ever came from talking back to a professor.
‘Endure. Endure it.’
The sun is just about to rise. Until the next sunrise, spend time in the punishment room and consider how not to get caught next time.
With those words, the skull headmaster threw a book to Ihan.
A book bound in black leather, completely unadorned. It gave off an oddly eerie feeling.
“What is this?”
It’s a book I’m giving you so you won’t get bored in the punishment room. Try reading it.
A look flitted across Ihan’s face, as if to say, ‘Can I really believe this?’
The headmaster was pleased to see his student’s reflexive skepticism.
Move the student to the punishment room.
The skull headmaster’s summons approached and lifted Ihan up.
From this morning until the next morning.
Ihan would be staying in the school’s punishment room.

• * *
  He went down a basement staircase, walked down a corridor, then down another staircase, then along another corridor…
  It felt like he’d repeated this dozens of times. He was blindfolded, but even without it, he doubted he’d ever learn the way.
  Thunk!
  “Hm.”
  Once the door closed and he was alone, Ihan looked around the punishment room.
  It didn’t seem all that different from a dormitory single room.
  Instead of sunlight from outside, flickering artificial light dimly lit the place, giving it a bit of a gloomy feel.
  ‘This is the punishment room? It’s nothing special, really.’
  Ihan thought he could easily last weeks in here.
  As a graduate student, he’d once lived crowded in rooms much smaller than this with several others.
  Compared to that, it was positively comfortable.
  He resolved to tell Nilia, the next time he saw her, that ‘the punishment room wasn’t as bad as I thought.’
  Though whether Nilia would agree, he couldn’t say.
  -Ihan of the Wardanaz family.
  “?”
  From outside, an undead summon’s stiff voice called out.
  -Take this.
  The space beneath the door opened, and a large basket was pushed through.
  Freshly baked bread, roasted whole lamb seasoned with salt, pepper, and sauce in a deep bowl, apples baked with sugar and butter, freshly cooked fried eggs, slightly hard, still-warm biscuits steaming and mixed with almonds and chocolate…
  ‘Huh?’
  For a punishment room, the meal was so nice that Ihan was flustered.
  What’s up with this?
  -This is a gift from Professor Garcia.
  “Ah… Please tell him thank you.”
  -It’s not over yet. Take more.
  “No. Wai—”
  More baskets kept coming in, flustering Ihan.
  How is he supposed to eat all this in one day?
  Fortunately, from the next basket on, most of the food was preserved.
  Chocolate wrapped neatly in foil, candies, salted peanuts, round, flat cookies in boxes, tea leaves, apple and orange juice in glass bottles…
  ‘He must have just put everything in, not knowing what I’d like.’
  Ihan gratefully set Professor Garcia’s gift beside him.
  He probably wouldn’t go hungry while in the punishment room.
  Slurp—
  Ihan made some black tea, added milk and sugar, and sipped as he fell into contemplation.
  Looking back, the fight with the imperial anti-magic group had been harrowing. Enough for him to think, ‘It’s a wonder I managed to fight like that.’
  The reason he’d been able to stay so calm in battle was…
  ‘It must have been thanks to Allarolong’s teachings.’
  If Allarolong were here, he’d be surprised and say, ‘No, I never taught you any resourcefulness for magic combat or real-life battles,’ but Allarolong wasn’t next to him.
  Though Ihan himself didn’t know it, he did truly have a natural talent for combat. It was something that every professor acknowledged.
  ‘Thank you, Allarolong.’
  Ihan cast the spell.
  “Move.”
  The quill floated smoothly in the air and began to move naturally.
  When he first began learning magic, he’d never imagined such smooth motion was possible.
  Ihan set the quill down and cast a spell on an iron sphere.
  A nearly perfect circle was drawn in the air.
  ‘What Professor Voladi said being true kind of gets to me.’
  Some professors, by always being right rather than wrong, had a way of annoying their students.
  For Professor Voladi’s claim that ‘actual combat will improve your skills’ to be proven like this…
  He’d sensed it when fighting the anti-magic faction, but his skills had really improved sharply.
  ‘A few more real fights and I’ll become an archmage. Or die trying.’
  Ihan set the iron sphere down. It hadn’t happened by design, but he wasn’t displeased by it.
  ‘But that swordsmanship just now…’
  He slowly recalled the swordsmanship he’d used in the fight against the enemy leader.
  As Allarolong had taught him, reviewing both winning and losing bouts instead of just moving on would greatly aid his improvement.
  ‘…No matter how I look at it, that wasn’t normal swordsmanship, was it?’
  Back then, his opponent had been so strong that he just swung without thinking, but now, in hindsight, nothing about that was good swordsmanship.
  Who on earth pours magic into their strikes like a lunatic and slams it down like that?
  Only because Ihan had ample magical power did nothing disastrous happen.
  He even broke his sword in the end.
  Allarolong had said that skilled swordsmen could condense their internal magic into their blades to make aura, but to Ihan, what he did seemed less aura and more…
  ‘…I don’t know what to call it, but I’ll have to be careful going forward.’
  Ihan resolved that he would not become one of those featured in the empire’s newspaper article “People Who Died Stupidly This Year” by doing something reckless.
  Having finished his tea, his gaze fell to the one remaining thing.
  …That was the black book the headmaster had given him.
  ‘Should I open this?’
  Ihan pondered seriously.
  Was this really a gift from the headmaster, or a trap?
  It’s a gift from the headmaster → The headmaster is a person, after all, and he must have recognized Ihan’s efforts to save the professor. He put Ihan in the punishment room according to the rules, but must feel sorry about it. This is a gift out of that regret.
  It’s a trap from the headmaster → But technically, the headmaster isn’t really a person, he’s an undead. He has no human feelings. Also, the headmaster clearly looked like he was having fun putting Ihan in the punishment room. In that case…
  ‘…It feels much more like a trap.’
  Any way he looked at it, it seemed like a trap.
  Ihan decided to deal with it later and tried to push the book away for now.
  That was when—
  Ssshrkk!
  “!?”
  As soon as Ihan touched it, the black-bound book forcibly opened.
  The letters of the open page suddenly jumped to life and started wrapping around and burrowing into Ihan’s hand.
  “!!!!”
  Ihan felt an impact as if someone was forcefully ramming knowledge into his brain.
  ‘What the hell…!’
  It was confusing and agonizing, but he could tell what the book was trying to do.
  The book was attempting to transmit a spell to him.
  Ihan’s mouth opened instinctively. He chanted the name of the spell.
  “Gonadalthes’s… Nimble Footsteps…!”
  Fwoosh!
  Once the transmission finished, the book firmly snapped shut with a flutter. Even when Ihan tried to open it with a mystified look, it wouldn’t budge, as if nailed shut.
  ‘What kind of book is this?’
  Holding his aching head, Ihan reviewed the magical knowledge he’d just received.
  As if he’d read and memorized it before, knowledge of the spell was vividly clear in his mind.
  From the incantation to the gestures.
  Of course, that didn’t mean he could cast the spell right away. It was his job to master it based on that knowledge.
  ‘So, basically, it’s a book that forces you to learn a spell…’
  With a name like that, it was easy to see it was a spell created by the skull headmaster.
  If so, he could have called Ihan and taught it to him one-on-one—so why go about it in such a twisted way?
  ‘Probably because the headmaster’s crazy. Long years as a professor will make anyone mad, I suppose.’
  Ihan accepted it as just the way things were.
  Of course, the real reason the headmaster didn’t teach him directly was that if he tried to instruct a student one-on-one, the other professors or outsiders would inevitably say, “That crazy archmage is ruining yet another young talent!”
  But Ihan had no way of knowing that.
• * *
  “Feet, grasp the earth. Feet, grasp the earth. Feet…”
  With nothing else to do, Ihan diligently practiced the new spell.
  Ihan himself often said “I’m not that obsessed with magic,” but objectively, he was definitely crazy about magic.
  Most freshmen would play when bored—no one really thought, “With nothing to do, I’ll just study,” like Ihan did.
  Thump thump thump—
  “…?”
  Ihan paused at the sound of someone knocking on a wall, somewhere nearby.
  What was that?
  “Feet, grasp the…”
  Thump thump thump—
  He hadn’t misheard. Ihan cautiously put his ear to the punishment room wall.
  Thump thump thump—
  The sound was a little clearer.
  Ihan knocked as well. Hearing the noise, the person on the other side paused briefly.
  A rough, husky low voice came through.
  “…Can you hear me?”
  “I can hear you.”
  “What year are you?”
  “I just entered this year.”
  “You’re an Iron, huh. Tough break.”
  “And you…?”
  “Gold.”
  Gold.
  That was a title signifying a fourth-year at the school.
  Ihan was surprised to learn there was an upperclassman locked up in the adjacent room.
  ‘What does it take for a fourth-year… Actually, I’m one to talk.’
  After a quick bit of introspection, Ihan realized he was in no position to judge anyone, having been caught trying to escape.
  “What did you do to land in the punishment room? Start a fight between dorms or something?”
  “No.”
  “No? Then did you steal something from another tower friend?”
  “No. I got caught trying to escape.”
  He heard the other student in the next room chuckling.
  “The new freshmen are something else. Trying to escape barely a week in. Let me guess, you went for the mountain, right? Most get caught sneaking to the mountain. They don’t know there’s a fortress wall there.”
  “I didn’t go to the mountain, actually.”
  At Ihan’s words, the student beyond the wall sounded surprised and fell silent for a bit.
  “Wait, did you go underground?”
  “Yes.”
  “Impressive! You figured out the underground. But that place is a trap. Touch one thing and the alarm goes off, and the storeroom keeper is a monster specialized in tracking. What got you?”
  “I wasn’t caught.”
  “…You weren’t caught?”
  “Yes. I used the underground passage, got outside, then got caught on my way out.”
  “……”
  The fourth year on the far side of the wall was stunned.
  It was shocking enough that he’d discovered the underground passage after just one week, but then to dodge both the storeroom traps and the keeper and actually pass through the underground outside???
  ‘What the hell is with this kid? Is he really a freshman??’
  “Wait a minute. Then why did you get caught?”
  “The imperial anti-magic faction attacked while I was leaving by carriage, so we fought, and the headmaster caught us.”
  “……”