Episode 76

Episode 76

“Thank you all for welcoming me like this.”

Professor of Summoning Magic, Millay, came inside with a puzzled look at the heated atmosphere in the classroom.

Despite her old age, Professor Millay maintained a straight posture, and anyone could tell she was a noble from a prestigious imperial family.

Nobles from old families were recognizable just by the way they walked and spoke.

‘Except for those Blue Dragon Tower brats, I guess.’

Of course, the students who had been locked in the tower and starved were exceptions. When a person, noble or not, became starved, they lost their dignity.

Professor Millay slightly adjusted the monocle she wore on one eye. That appearance made her look like a very strict perfectionist.

But Ihaan was not intimidated.

‘No matter who it is, they’ll be better than Professor Voladi.’

Professor Garcia began a brief explanation beside them.

“As with black magic, formal studies of summoning magic are taught starting in the second year. But the reason we invited Professor Millay today is that it’s a good opportunity to learn what summoning magic is, and also…”

-■■■■■

Right on cue, a summoned beast that had escaped from the school grounds outside the classroom wailed. The windows quivered.

“…given the current situation at the school, I thought this might be helpful for you all.”

“Professor Garcia…!”

“You’re all we have, Professor!”

Some students pulled out handkerchiefs and wiped their tears.

Professor Millay watched this without a hint of change in expression. Then, she spoke in a stiff voice.

“Professor Garcia. May I begin?”

“Yes. Please begin.”

“Now, which students here are interested in summoning magic?”

All the students raised their hands. Ihaan raised his hand as well. He didn’t know why Professor Mortum’s sad face flashed before his eyes.

‘But summoning magic really is a good school of magic.’

Just as black magic is divided into various fields like curses, elements, undead summoning, or life energy, summoning magic, despite the name, included countless fields of its own.

Elemental summoning, demon summoning, monster summoning, artifact summoning, magical object summoning, and so on.

As the magic covered a wide range of both living and non-living things (even overlapping with black magic in some ways), its utility was endless.

In old fairy tales, there were stories where a wizard suffered all his life, but after contracting with an outstanding summoned being, lived happily ever after (and lazily at that).

It was a fairy tale so you couldn’t believe it all, but it went to show that if you made it in summoning magic, you could live well.

“Thank you. But among you, I’d doubt there’s even one student qualified to learn summoning magic.”

“……”

“……”

It was always a professor’s talent to spoil things. Professor Millay was no exception. She spoke sternly.

“I won’t hide it. Summoning magic is a difficult field. If you don’t have the ability but attend the second-year lectures anyway, it’ll only be hard for you.”

‘Now that’s a professor.’

Ihaan was impressed.

If a student lacked the ability to learn, the professor should stop them or wait―not say, “Why can’t you learn? Let’s see if you still can’t even on your deathbed,”―that would make them a thug, not a professor.

“Summoning magic cannot be learned simply with knowledge from one field of magic. Elemental summoning requires deep understanding of elementalism, demon summoning requires deep knowledge of demonology, and monster summoning, monsterology. Even the relatively easy non-living summoning isn’t easy. So let me say again: if you’re not confident, it’s best not to bother with summoning magic.”

Instead, the students seemed even more intrigued.

At their young age, how many would shrink away just because it sounded hard? All of them looked even more eager.

It was the complete opposite of how they’d been lukewarm toward black magic, which was supposedly easier.

Professor Garcia whispered quietly.

“They’re all talented students. Could you give them a chance?”

Professor Millay nodded.

Pop!

With a wave of her wand, mysterious magic circle scrolls appeared before the students.

Instead of the usual disposable scrolls that activated when torn, these were stationary scrolls with magic circles drawn on them, rolled out before them.

“You’re all taking , right?”

“Yes.”

The students’ expressions turned sour when they heard the course name.

There were few students who could endure the torturous numbers, which were neither magic nor culture.

‘Honestly, that’s on the easy side, though.’

Ihaan kept that thought to himself—it would’ve earned him thrown stones had his friends heard it.

“It’s too hard!”

“In that case, you’ll never have a chance to learn summoning magic.”

“……”

Having spoken out only to be excluded from summoning magic, Gainando shut his mouth.

“Make sure to pay attention to . Drawing and calculating magic circles in summoning magic is essential.”

Ihaan read the magic circle.

Unlike Gainando, whose pupils already spun in confusion, Ihaan could tell what the drawn magic circle was for.

‘I see. The mana flows like this…’

A magic circle was a type of circuit.

Whereas an electric circuit flowed with current, a magic circle flowed with mana—that was the difference.

Anyone who’d cast magic themselves knew how truly difficult it was.

The higher a spell’s difficulty, the more so this was the case.

The amount of mana needed rose, and the structure of the spell to be maintained by that mana also became more complex.

That’s why, at a certain level, people say, “This isn’t something a human can do.”

It was the magic circle that helped such wizards.

In some parts it amplified, in others reduced, some parts bypassed, others cut off; by circulating mana in various ways, magic circles reduced the magician’s burden—an auxiliary tool.

As he mentally traced the mana cycling through the circle, Ihaan suddenly saw the image of a quill pen.

‘…What’s this?’

There were no coincidences in the magical world.

Ihaan realized the quill pen he’d just seen was connected to this magic circle.

“This magic circle is a summoning circle for a quill pen.”

“A quill pen?”

“A quill pen…?”

The students were flustered.

Even if it was a dagger, but to summon a mere quill pen, their expressions seemed to say: ‘Why bother?’

Ihaan shook his head.

‘These kids don’t know how to be grateful.’

If Professor Millay cleared their desks and threw down a demon summoning circle next, saying, ‘Summon it successfully or die’ like Professor Voladi, would they take responsibility then?

Fortunately, Professor Millay was not like Professor Voladi. She replied in her same hard, unchanged voice.

“It’s a magical quill pen formed out of mana. What you summon won’t last long, so just focus on the act of summoning.”

No sooner had the professor finished speaking than the students waved their wands and activated their magic circles.

“Quill pen, come forth!”

“Quill pen of magic, please appear!”

With the incantations, magic circles flared up everywhere, or scrolls tore.

Even though the magic circles were made to withstand mana, they could be broken or destroyed by the magicians’ errors.

This was expected, so Professor Millay waved her wand.

The broken circles disappeared, and new ones appeared.

About thirty minutes passed.

Students began appearing here and there who succeeded in summoning something like a quill pen.

The Blue Dragon Tower—Yoner, Adenart, and Asan—had the most successes, and the Black Tortoise Tower and Phoenix Tower had quite a few as well.

While the White Tiger Tower had the fewest, a few talented students also managed to summon something like a quill pen.

Seeing the students grinning from ear to ear, Professor Garcia forced a bitter smile.

‘They shouldn’t be so pleased with that.’

Indeed, Professor Millay’s expression remained rigid, like a statue.

That was the difficulty of summoning magic.

‘Something summoned that’s ‘similar’—is basically a failure!’

With elemental magic, as long as you managed something, even if size or shape was off, it was still a success, but summoning magic was the opposite.

If it wasn’t perfect, it was meaningless.

That couldn’t be helped. Since summoning bestows will upon the conjured object, if you made even a small mistake, the summoned creature could attack the mage.

At least it was just a quill, thank goodness…

“Dal… Dalkard, you bastard, you attacked me with a magic quill pen!!”

“It’s a misunderstanding, Gainando! The quill pen moved on its own! And besides, it’s just a quill!”

“It’s an assassination attempt against royalty! An assassination! Ihaan, help!”

“I’m telling you, it’s just a quill! What are the odds you’d die to a quill pen?”

Of course, even just the quill pen was enough to cause a commotion.

• * *

Affiliated with the White Tiger Tower, Angrago of the Alpha family felt proud seeing the sleek quill pen appear.

Though he often fell behind in various magics given his social standing, summoning magic was different.

He might have even outperformed Giselle.

“!”

Angrago sneered at Ihaan, seated in front of him.

Ihaan had nothing in front of him—not even a quill pen.

For the first time, Angrago thought he might cut the arrogant nose of that demon archmage boy from the Wardanaz family, and called out.

“Wardanaz. Did you actually fail to summon it?”

“……”

“Wardanaz! Don’t ignore me! Look at my quill pen!”

Yoner beside them responded instead.

“Didn’t have a quill pen at home? Are you going to brag with a quill pen?”

“Saying ‘look at my quill pen’ here…”

Bang!!!

There was a deafening boom. For a moment, Angrago was so scared he dove under his desk, thinking Ihaan had cast black magic.

On Ihaan’s magic circle, magic quill pens began materializing in heaps.

“……”

Ihaan stared gloomily at the floating quills.

‘I failed.’

Angrago was babbling behind him, but Ihaan didn’t hear. He’d been that focused.

Channeling mana through a fragile magic circle to complete a summoning spell—

For other students, it was simply difficult. For Ihaan, it was extremely difficult.

If you lost control even slightly, a wave of mana would tear the circle apart.

So as soon as the others began, Ihaan had already half given up.

‘Maybe summoning magic really doesn’t suit my aptitude.’

Perhaps his fate was to be a battle mage like Professor Voladi.

…However, unexpectedly, the magic circle did not break.

Even Ihaan himself was surprised.

‘Was I really this good?’

A perfect understanding of the magic circle.

And recently (by force) improved mana control.

Once these two factors came together, Ihaan managed not to destroy the circle.

It was a surprising result.

‘Oh. The assignment was to summon, wasn’t it.’

Being so moved by the fact that he hadn’t destroyed the magic circle, Ihaan kept pouring mana into it until he came to his senses.

The assignment wasn’t just not breaking the circle—it was summoning a magic quill pen.

“Come forth, quill pen.”

Ihaan murmured simply and waved his wand.

Bang!!!

At that moment, with a loud boom, magic quill pens materialized in heaps over the magic circle.

Professor Garcia, amazed by this unusual type of failure she’d never seen before, turned her eyes to the side.

It seemed this was the first time she had seen Professor Millay raise her eyebrows so high.

“Normally, it’s because Ihaan has too much mana that he fails like that…”

As Professor Garcia excused him in her stead, Professor Millay returned her expression to normal and calmly stated,

“That is not a failure, Professor Garcia.”