Episode 488

Lee Han held out the cotton candy he was carrying.

A student from the White Tiger Tower screamed and threw himself to the side. It was truly lamentable how hard it was to dodge in a narrow alley.

‘Damn it! That Wardanaz guy. How cunning!’

No wonder he was considered one of the top fighters among the first-years.

A perfect tactic that targeted them at their weakest moment!

…However, no magic flew at them. Lee Han and his friends looked down at the White Tiger Tower students as if they were crazy.

“What are you doing?”

“……”

Bartrek, who had rolled across the muddy alley, quietly closed his mouth and stood up.

Dusting the dirt off his coat as dignifiedly as possible, he said,

“…We were playing polo.”

“Here?”

“We usually play in alleys.”

The White Tiger Tower students behind him hesitated, then nodded.

Lee Han accepted it with a bewildered expression.

“O-okay. So you like playing polo in alleys… Here, take this.”

“???”

Bartrek looked puzzled as he accepted the cotton candy Lee Han handed him.

“What’s this?”

“A snack I bought for you guys?”

“Where did you get the money…? Gasp. Did you steal it?”

“Why is your first thought that I stole it? I got it from Professor Thunderstep.”

“!?”

The students were more surprised than if he’d said he stole it.

How?

“Gasp. Did you blackmail him…!”

“No. You idiots.”

Lee Han briefly explained what had happened.

Hearing the story, the students…

…did not understand, and were inwardly aghast.

‘What the heck did he do to persuade them…’

‘How did he manage to persuade them?’

Because Lee Han summarized everything in a single line, the students could only let their imaginations run wild.

“Oh? Wait. Then why did we sneak out?”

“Yeah, why did we?”

“……”

“……”

The students were swept with self-reproach.

Especially those with mud on their clothes felt a self-loathing even deeper than the mud.

“Well. No problem—we can have fun now anyway. I saved some silver coins for you.”

Tap tap—

Adenart, who’d been quietly listening, pointed at the cotton candy Bartrek received.

Since he was zoning out, the cotton candy had started to melt.

Lee Han asked in some surprise, softly,

“…Are you telling Bartrek to give back the cotton candy?”

“H-here you go.”

Bartrek, still dazed, handed the cotton candy back to the princess.

Adenart felt fury boiling up.

“No!”

“But, who is that person over there?”

“Ah. A really amazing fortune-telling mage.”

Bartrek explained while watching the princess’s reaction.

The princess was glaring at them both fiercely.

‘There are rumors of power struggles between Wardanaz and the princess inside the tower—could they be true?’

“…That’s how he guessed my family, too.”

“Wasn’t it just a lucky guess?”

Lee Han was skeptical.

As far as Lee Han knew, that type of fortune-telling magic was extremely advanced and costly.

Of course, there were primitive and ancient magics outside the imperial system Lee Han didn’t know, but even so, there were still rules all such magics followed.

Basically, using fortune magic to guess someone’s lineage on the spot in a back alley just didn’t add up.

“I’m telling you, it was amazing.”

“Hoo… Hoohoo. If you don’t believe, why not try for yourself? I won’t even ask for payment.”

Ianop thought this was perfect.

That talentless dwarf brat had been clinging annoyingly, so it was a chance to change the subject.

Besides, if what Ianop had just heard was correct, that boy was…

‘Wardanaz family!’

If it was the Wardanaz family, there was a high chance that they could find the talent Antagondals was seeking.

Ianop calmed his excited heart and called out,

“Wardanaz. Try it too. If I’m wrong, you’ll get a silver coin.”

“What? Is that true?”

Lee Han was genuinely startled.

Was this person suffering from some illness where they couldn’t help but give away silver coins for nothing?

“Try to guess this friend’s family!”

“That’s the Wardanaz family, isn’t it?”

“Oh my…!”

Bartrek was shocked all over again.

“…You’ve been calling him Wardanaz the whole time…”

“Are you an idiot?”

Yoner and Priest Siana asked, dead serious. Bartrek finally came to his senses.

“Ah, right. Sorry, I got carried away.”

“Hmm.”

But Lee Han was distracted by his own thoughts and couldn’t pay attention.

‘I was going to claim I’m from the Moradi family and collect the silver coin…’

He’d thought about claiming to be from the Moradi family, since Wardanaz was his given name—and seeing if he could get the silver coin, but his friends reacted too quickly and ruined the chance.

With the free money opportunity gone, Lee Han’s interest quickly faded.

“I’m good. Let’s all go look around the shops. Bartrek, you need to buy some clothes.”

“I have clothes I brought from school.”

“Those aren’t clothes, they’re stitched rags. I’ll buy you some, so go change.”

The straightforward way Lee Han spoke moved the White Tiger Tower friends just a little.

‘Thanks, Wardanaz.’

‘Thanks for getting rid of Bartrek’s scraps…!’

Of course, Ianop was flustered.

“Wait…! Aren’t you curious about your future?”

“I already know my future well.”

Lee Han was cool.

He would graduate Einrogard with a little more difficulty than others, then multiply his assets dozens of times with personal connections and excellent business sense after graduation and become a celebrated new entrepreneur in the empire, living the good life forever.

Whenever bored, he’d even throw gold coins at the lich headmaster’s face.

It was such a clear-cut future.

“By the way, you should take better care of that table. If the corner breaks, the magic circle inside will be destabilized.”

“Huh? It was a magic table?”

“Yeah.”

“I had no idea…!? Really?!”

“It’s a useless artifact with no effect at all. Must have been made by someone bored.”

Lee Han took his friends and left the alley.

Ianop was so overwhelmed by shock that he couldn’t reply and just watched their backs in a daze.

‘Just now…?’

He realized the hidden secret from a distance without even touching the table?

That alone was unbelievable—what stunned him more was the reaction after.

What was that cynical reaction?

When Ianop first learned from Antagondals the secret of the table’s magic circle, he had stared in awe at the beautiful, perfect manifestation of magic, unable to even close his eyes.

He had spent over half a year skipping meals and sleep researching the table obsessively.

But this boy, who immediately grasped the structure from a distance, showed that kind of reaction—

‘Why? Isn’t he curious? Why isn’t he curious about this?!’

Ianop felt as though he’d found the talent Antagondals sought, but at the same time, was instinctively chilled by the incomprehensible attitude the talent showed.

It was the same chill he’d felt long ago seeing mages whose level he could never reach.

“Master mage. Master mage. We’ve found what you asked for.”

Hired mercenaries approached Ianop.

“We heard that among the students, there’s a famous one. From one of the empire’s great families, already showing frightening talent…”

“From the Wardanaz family?”

“Yes! As expected, master mage, you really see through everything!”

The mercenaries oozed a savage and vicious atmosphere, but before the mage, they kept polite out of fear of being singled out.

They shivered at Ianop’s air of seeing worlds from a thousand miles away as he sat.

“This book… Make sure—no matter what—to deliver this book to that boy.”

“……”

The mercenaries stayed silent.

They did all kinds of rough jobs around the harbor, but even they had things they were afraid of.

They didn’t want to get involved with mages.

Even more so if it was an Einrogard mage.

Ianop considered intimidating them by draining one to a husk, but soon changed his mind.

Now wasn’t the time for the whip.

‘If I scare them, they might run.’

“Look. There is no magic cast on this book. It’s a pure magic tome.”

“We’re illiterate, even if we see that…”

“What if we get caught passing it to a mage?”

“Ask a merchant posted nearby or hand it off to a servant. Surely the imperial mages wouldn’t torture them?”

Ianop’s voice carried a low, subtle threat.

Sensing the threat, the mercenaries hurriedly nodded, shoving the magic tome into a rough leather coat.

“Y-yes, understood.”

“We’ll do whatever we can to deliver it.”

“I’ll give gold to whoever succeeds.”

“…!”

“We’ll do our very best!”

Finally, greed lit up in the eyes of the mercenaries.

Ianop found that unsatisfactory, but decided for now he needed their help.

‘They can still be used a little more.’

The tome he gave the mercenaries was written by Antagondals.

It was thin and not packed with content. It was solely about a single spell.

But that single spell was one of Antagondals’s own inventions. The book, too, had shocked Ianop tremendously.

If such wisdom existed in a slim book, how great must Antagondals’s own wisdom be?

Ianop would do anything for just a drop of such wisdom.

‘If he reads it… he won’t be able to resist!’

Magic that was savage and domineering, different from that of Einrogard.

If he was an arrogant genius, he’d definitely be intrigued.

• * *

While the students sat on the brick café’s second-floor terrace enjoying chocolate cake and coffee, Lee Han’s curiosity led him to ask Nillia a question.

“Nillia. About Shadow Patrol hunters…”

“Huh?! Why?! What’s up?! Did I mess up?! I messed up, didn’t I?!”

“…No… I was just curious. Are there any rules when tracking prey? Like you absolutely can’t lose it, or something.”

“There aren’t exactly rules, but Shadow Patrol members almost never let their own prey get away.”

Nillia took a bite of cake and winced.

Used to the rough and bitter foods from the mountains, to Nillia this cake was far too sweet.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”

“Wh-what? I can totally eat sweet things! I’m a refined imperial citizen!”

“……”

While Bartrek was distracted by another snack, Lee Han quietly snatched away the tiramisu Bartrek had ordered and placed it in front of Nillia.

Still oblivious, Nillia continued speaking.

“You do get looks if you lose one. Pride as a hunter, you know…”

“I see.”

People often said ferocious monsters were so prideful they never let their prey escape, but the Shadow Patrol would have sneered at that.

By that logic, the most prideful and persistent in the mountains were the Shadow Patrol!

Once they declared a hunt, hunters wouldn’t let their target escape, even for twenty years—some never returned to base, staying in the mountains endlessly seeking their prey.

‘Is that why their eyes go wild whenever they see a monster?’

Lee Han decided he should be a bit nicer if he met Shadow Patrol hunters in the future.

If he made an enemy of them, it sounded like a lifelong hassle.

“Master mage!”

“Cough.”

Lee Han almost spat out his coffee.

Rather than up the café steps, a Shadow Patrol hunter jumped up straight from below the terrace.

Nillia was so embarrassed she dove under the table, wrapping herself in her cloak.

“Wh-what is it?”

“We’re trying to catch the sea serpent and need help. Could you assist us?”

“…Did Professor Thunderstep mention it, by any chance?”