Episode 68

At the very moment the headmaster skeleton was rendered speechless, Lee Han and the Blue Dragon Tower friends were dashing up the stairs.

‘The mana is gathering again!’

Lee Han could feel it.
The dispersed tower mana was quickly realigning and regathering.
Though the shock had scattered it for a moment, the magics of the mage school were indeed powerful.
They were designed to recover even in situations like this.
And once all this was back in place…
‘The plan could get tangled.’
Lee Han didn’t know how many spells were cast in the tower, nor what all their effects were.
But he could guess that if those magics came back, it would spell trouble for intruders like him and his friends.

Swish!
“Waaaah!”
“Gainando! Gainando!!”
During the mana regathering, it seemed one magic completed itself. It flared up like a flickering light.
Gainando, unlucky enough to be hit, was yanked backwards, flying down the stairs as if an invisible hook grabbed his collar and pulled.
“Krak!”
Gainando tumbled out of the White Tiger Tower’s main entrance, rolling over and over.
It was clearly a spell to expel intruders.

“Hurry! If other spells finish activating, things will get complicated!”
“O-okay!”
The Blue Dragon Tower students nodded.
They almost panicked, but they had a leader more reliable than anyone else.
At the sight of Lee Han giving calm, sculpted-face orders, their fright vanished and they regained composure, chasing behind.
Bang!
The lounge door flew open.
Lee Han and Ratford quickly searched for anything that looked valuable—no, like a flag.
“Wh-what’s the meaning of this?!”
Dergew, who’d come down from his private room at the faint commotion, blinked in confusion.
Students from the Blue Dragon Tower—who shouldn’t be here at all—had burst into the first-year lounge.
Recognizing a familiar face, Dergew asked in a hoarse voice,
“Lee Han! What’s going on…”
“Dergew!”
“Huh?”
“Back there!”
“Huh?”
Dergew looked back absentmindedly. Lee Han immediately shot a marble, catching the off-guard Dergew on the jaw.
The poor, sleepy orc who had trusted Lee Han collapsed once again.
“…Hah! You White Tiger Tower punk! That’s what you get for acting cocky with Wodanaz!”
As one Blue Dragon Tower student cheered, Yonere looked at Lee Han with a troubled expression.
‘Is this really okay?’ was written all over his face.
Lee Han shook his head and said,
“This is better for Dergew too.”
The reason he hadn’t told Dergew about the raid was simple.
Dergew was still a White Tiger Tower student.
It wasn’t fear of betrayal.
He worried that, since Dergew was already somewhat isolated in the tower, if he got involved in this plan, he might end up completely ostracized.
Yonere understood and agreed…
‘But even taking that into account, didn’t you hit his jaw way too hard!’
“Seeing him knocked out like this, the other White Tiger Tower students hopefully won’t get the wrong idea. Dergew doesn’t need to end up a loner in the tower like Nilia.”
“Yeah. …But did you have to use Nilia as a comparison…?”
“Found it!”
True to his professional thief title, Ratford quickly found the flag.
The problem was there wasn’t just one flag.
“Here’s another one!”
“There’s one here too…?!”
Flags the White Tiger Tower students had used for practice and failed attempts at making fakes popped up everywhere.
The emblems were rough, but it was too dark to distinguish them easily.
Lee Han quickly decided.
“Grab them all.”
“…!”
Ah, that’s right!
Just grab them all!
Blue Dragon Tower students started snatching every flag they could see or reach.

“…Wh-what’s going on??”
A second White Tiger Tower student appeared.
It was Rowena, the black-haired elf Lee Han knew.
Rowena’s expression was blank, but as she locked eyes with the princess tucking flags into her robe, she gasped.
“What is going on?!”
“Be quiet and don’t move! If you move, I won’t guarantee the princess’s safety!”
“?!”
The princess, who’d just followed along to help and suddenly became a hostage, looked slightly shaken.
Rowena, startled, raised both her arms.
“N-no! I’ll stay put!”
“Good! Stay still!”
With a single sentence, Lee Han pinned Rowena in place.
Ratford called out urgently,
“Checked them all! No more left!”
“Okay. Let’s run!”
Swish!
As the spells that had lost form gained strength again, they started showing signs of activation.
Two Blue Dragon Tower students got tossed outside, just like Gainando earlier.

“Anyone knocked out, go to Blue Dragon Tower! Ratford, run!”
“Yes!”
“The Blue Dragon Tower brats broke into the lounge!!!!”
As the commotion continued, more White Tiger Tower students woke up from sleep.
Students coming down to check the lounge saw the catastrophe and started yelling to wake their friends.
“Rowena! Why are you just standing there?!”
“T-they said they’d hurt the princess if I moved…”
“What are you talking about?! They’re allies from our own tower!”
“…!”
“Chase them!! Don’t let them get away!!”

• * *

Some by force, some on their own feet.
Lee Han and friends successfully escaped the White Tiger Tower.
Lee Han made it out at the last second, shivering as he felt the anti-intruder spells in the tower brush the back of his head.

“Ugh… ughhh.”
Students expelled by the magic staggered and collapsed, struggling to balance as if suffering from severe motion sickness. Gainando couldn’t even stand and floundered on the ground.
“Pick up any downed friends and run! The White Tiger Tower kids are coming!”
“O-okay!”
Lee Han threw Gainando over his shoulder. Gainando screamed.
“Coachman! Go easy!! Drive gently!!”
“I’m not a carriage, Gainando! Get a grip!”
Tatadadak—
“Hey, you dirty thieves!!!”
Fires lit up behind them and the White Tiger Tower students’ shouts erupted.
It was bad enough being raided at night, but the flag had disappeared too.
Blue Dragon Tower’s Asan shouted back just as loudly.
“That’s our line! You cowardly cheats! Making fake flags! You guys are 100% swindlers!”
“Save the taunts for later and just run, Asan!”
Lee Han ran, carrying Gainando, and still managed to be faster than the others. But he stopped in his tracks.
The White Tiger Tower students were faster than expected.
‘At this rate, some of us’ll get caught!’
Ratford panted and asked,
“Are you going to use the prince as bait?”
“…No!”
Lee Han was flustered.
He really hadn’t meant that.

“Wodanaz, you bastard! I get that you threatened Rowena by using the princess as a hostage! But Dergew—Dergew trusted your honor! To knock out Dergew like that?!”
The goat beast-person, Angrago, shouted angrily.
Lee Han calmly replied, relieved by the timing,
“Dergew? He was just an easy pawn. Only an idiot would fall for it.”
“…Wodanaz, you…!!!”
Angrago exploded and charged. But Angrago alone was no match for Lee Han.
Leaving swordsmanship aside, Lee Han had already been rigorously trained by Professor Voladi.
Lee Han immediately called upon a water orb.
“Emerge!”
A compressed sphere of water appeared. Without a moment’s rest, Lee Han cast the next spell.
“Move!”
With dull, popping sounds, Angrago was tossed aside. The heavy water orb had enough force to sap the strength from his limbs.
Angrago, lying on the ground, glared at Lee Han, his expression burning with anger.
With the flickering torchlight from the distant tower, Lee Han’s cold, sculpted face looked even more chilling.
Thinking of Dergew felled in the lounge, Angrago’s heart filled with more rage and sorrow.
“Kh…! Wodanaz! You monster who only knows magic…!!”
“Angrago!!”
Other White Tiger Tower students arrived belatedly and lifted Angrago, crying out in grief.
Seeing their fallen friend, their hearts ached as if they’d watched a righteous knight struck down by an evil black magician.
“Kh… Kkhkhk! You’ll never defeat Wodanaz… Ugh.”
“Stop provoking and stay still.”
Regaining his senses, Gainando tried to provoke them from Lee Han’s shoulder, but Lee Han smacked his mouth. Gainando fell silent again.

“This was just for our course assignment, so let’s not bear any needless grudges.”
“You call that talking?!”
‘Yeah, even I admit that’s pretty shameless.’
Lee Han thought so too.
Telling the White Tiger Tower students who’d just been slapped down that “the real culprit is the headmaster who divided us into four towers and made this hellish curriculum, so don’t fight among ourselves” would fall on deaf ears.
He’d probably get an answer like, “I’ll beat you up first and then think about it.”
Lee Han sighed. In the end, only brute force worked.
Of course, to the White Tiger Tower students, Lee Han’s sigh looked like a sneer in the darkness.

“Y-you!”
“Don’t follow. I can use that magic again anytime. Maybe in daylight, sure, but in this darkness, you’ll never keep up.”
Lee Han planned to flee before more White Tiger Tower students could come down.
He could threaten and handle five or six, maybe, but if more came, there was no knowing how it might unravel.

“…I don’t care! Hey, friends! Avenge Dergew! Avenge Dergew, who was just used by Wodanaz!”
Angrago shouted in grief. Lee Han slightly regretted not knocking him out.
The White Tiger Tower students’ eyes suddenly changed.
‘Damn.’
Whether they got hurt or not, they were all determined to avenge Dergew.
They really were from knightly families. In situations like this, they’d choose their friend’s pride over their own limbs.
Gainando whispered in a terrified voice,
“…Aren’t we screwed?”
Instead of answering, Lee Han smacked Gainando’s mouth again.

‘I’ll block the left side with water orbs, swing my sword at anyone coming from the right, throw off their vision, then circle around and run…’
Unexpected as it was, Lee Han calculated the situation quickly.
But that calculation became meaningless.
Suddenly, Gainando, from his perch on Lee Han’s shoulder, pointed behind the White Tiger Tower students and screamed.

“…Behind you! Behind you!!”
“Wodanaz, do you take us for that stupid!? Like we’d fall for the prince’s trick?!”
“Look behind you!!!”
“As if we’d ever be… Waaaagh!”
Whiiiiish!
A giant vine shot out, grabbing a White Tiger Tower student and lifting them into the air.
At the sight of the gigantic, monstrous vine appearing from the darkness, Lee Han thought for a moment he’d triggered the tower’s defensive magic and summoned a familiar.
Luckily, that wasn’t it.

– A familiar escaped from the greenhouse! A familiar escaped from the greenhouse!
– It’s headed for the freshmen! …I know nothing! This punk’s going to the detention room, not me!
– Shut up and help take care of this!?

From afar came a faintly familiar string of shouts.
It was the kind of warm conversation only the failed experiment assistants of professors could have.

Tap!
Professor Garcia landed gently in midair.
With a wave of her staff, she drove the vine monster back, then turned to Lee Han.
“Familiars breaking out again like this? This week will be especially tough on freshmen. Lee Han.”
“…Wait, did you just say ‘again’ and ‘familiars’ with an ‘s’?”
She’d said, again, familiars had escaped?
“Lee Han, why are you here?”
“Professor! That vine monster took a friend! Please save him!”
“Oh, alright. Hang on.”